I quote, with her kind permission, Mikayla Novak‘s e-mail to me of this morning; Mikayla is a Senior Fellow with Australia’s excellent Institute of Public Affairs (links added):
Your piece reminded me of my time at MPS [Mont Pelerin Society meetings in] Prague 2012, when I asked the taxi driver taking me to the hotel about life under communism and the benefits of the post-communism economy.
I asked the driver what has been the most advantageous thing about the end of communism in former Czechoslovakia. His reply, “I can buy any brand of yoghurt I want!”
This struck me as a most profound answer, not only because it lent great weight to the importance of economic freedom in people’s lives but because it gave even greater power to what we often refer to as “the mystery of the mundane.”
