Mao Yushi

Mao Yushi is founder and chairman of the Unirule Institute, based in Beijing, China. He is the author of several books and many scholarly and popular articles, has taught economics at a number of universities, established some of the very first non-​state charities and independent self-​help organizations in China, and is well known as a courageous champion of liberty. In the 1950s he was punished through forced labor, exile, “re-​education,” and near starvation for saying, “If we have nowhere to buy pork, then pork prices should rise,” and “If Chairman Mao wants to meet a scientist, who should visit whom?” And in 2011, at the age of 82, he wrote a public essay that was published in Caixin online called “Returning Mao Zedong to Human Form” (把毛泽东还原成人). That essay earned him numerous death threats and a greater reputation as a voice of honesty and justice. Mao Yushi is one of the great libertarian figures in the contemporary world and has worked tirelessly to bring libertarian ideas and the experience of freedom to the people of China and the wider world.