The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has led to instability around the world. It is only too fitting that such a crisis should emerge when this year’s FMRS theme is Disruptive Innovation, when an established company is blindsided by an unexpected challenger. The challenge we face this time is a virus. It has forced countries, companies, and institutions alike to think quickly, adapt, and draw up contingency plans in the face of enormous uncertainty and complexity. The temptation to command this complexity from the top must be great indeed. But as F. A. Hayek observed in his Nobel Prize Speech, “If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.”

The FMRS has always operated in this spirit and appreciated that knowledge and solutions can never be effectively centralized; they are rather dispersed among millions and millions of individuals scattered throughout the countless cities we visit on the roadshow.

Even in a time of crisis – especially in a time of crisis – we must look to the state to provide us with the appropriate environment, one that protects economic freedom and encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. The rest we as free individuals will manage ourselves. We are confronted with threats to our livelihood, but we are not without options. Constraints reveal opportunities formerly concealed. And I have the greatest confidence that as free individuals and entrepreneurs we will find the creative solutions that have brought us wealth and prosperity for years.