The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States. It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973).

It was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. Its creation was funded by Ron Paul.

History

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. Rockwell, who had previously served as editor for Arlington House Publishers, received the blessing of Margit von Mises during a meeting at the Russian Tea Room in New York City, and she was named the first chairman of the board. Early supporters of the institute included F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul, and Burt Blumert. According to Rockwell, the motivation of the institute was to promote the specific contributions of Ludwig von Mises, who he feared was being ignored by libertarian institutions financed by Charles Koch and David Koch. As recounted by Justin Raimondo, Rockwell said he received a phone call from George Pearson, of the Koch Foundation, who had said that Mises was too radical to name an organization after or promote.

Rothbard served as the original academic vice president of the institute. Paul agreed to become distinguished counselor and assisted with early fundraising.

Judge John V. Denson assisted in the Mises Institute becoming established at the campus of Auburn University. Auburn was already home to some Austrian economists, including Roger Garrison. The Mises Institute was affiliated with the Auburn University Business School until 1998 when the institute established its own building across the street from campus.

Kyle Wingfield wrote a 2006 commentary in ''The Wall Street Journal'' that the Southern United States was a "natural home" for the institute, as "Southerners have always been distrustful of government," with the institute making the "Heart of Dixie a wellspring of sensible economic thinking."

The institute describes its mission as to "promote teaching and research in the Austrian school of economics, and individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard."

Its academic programs include Mises University (non-accredited), Rothbard Graduate Seminar, the Austrian Economics Research Conference, and a summer research fellowship program. In 2020, the Mises Institute began offering a graduate program. It has led to the creation of spin-off organizations around the world, including Brazil, Germany, South Korea, and Turkey.

The German Mises Institute (Ludwig von Mises Institut Deutschland e.V.) is an 2012 founded interest group and think tank of libertarian gold traders and investment advisors, which were associated with Swiss-based German billionaire August von Finck (1930 – 2021). Many gold dealers from the von Finck company Degussa Goldhandel are active on the board of the institute; they reject intergovernmental fiscal policy and promote gold as a "safe currency". Von Finck was active in economic policy and criticized the EU. He assumed the costs for expert opinions from prominent professors, such as Hans-Werner Sinn, with whose help the lawyer and politician Peter Gauweiler (CSU) took action at the German Federal Constitutional Court against the rescue packages for Greece and the Euro. The institute is scientifically supported by economists and philosophers, most of whom are organized in the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society and/or the Mont Pelerin Society. German Mises Institute has strong ties to the so-called Neue Rechte and AfD. The German Mises Institute works closely with the US-Mises Institute and with many other ''Mises Institutes'' around the world. It is not noticed in the EU Transparency Register.

Views

Economic

A defining philosophy of the institute is Misesian praxeology ('the logic of human action'), which holds that economic science is deductive rather than empirical. Developed by Ludwig von Mises, following the ''Methodenstreit'' opined by Carl Menger, it opposes the mathematical modeling and hypothesis-testing used to justify knowledge in neoclassical economics. Misesian economics is a form of heterodox economics. It is distinct from that of other Austrian economists, including Hayek and those associated with George Mason University.

Political

The Mises Institute has been criticized by some libertarians for the paleolibertarian and right-wing cultural views of some of its leading figures, on topics such as race, immigration, and the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rockwell and Rothbard embraced racial and class resentments to build a coalition with populist paleoconservatives. This rhetoric appeared at the time in newsletters for Ron Paul that Rockwell was later identified as writing, including statements against black people and gay people that later became controversies in Paul's congressional and presidential campaigns. Separately, Rothbard's writing opposed " multiculturalists" and "the entire panoply of feminism, egalitarianism."

A 2000 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) categorized the Mises Institute as Neo-Confederate, "devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics." In 2003, Chip Berlet of the SPLC described the institute as "a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics," noted Rothbard's disgust with child labor laws, and wrote that other institute scholars held anti-immigrant views. Fundraising emails sent by the Mises Institute told followers that "elections aren't working anymore", arguing that the system is irreformable, captured by "parasites such as the Deep State, the political class, and the Federal Reserve", and claiming that "the Founding Fathers would demand revolution." Austrian economist Steve Horwitz called the Mises Institute "a fascist fist in a libertarian glove."

When a ''New York Times'' reporter requested a tour of the institute in 2014, Rockwell asked him to leave, saying he was "part of the regime."

Candice Jackson, who served as acting head of the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights during the Trump Administration, was previously a summer fellow at the Mises Institute.

Notable faculty

Notable figures affiliated with the Mises Institute include:

* Walter Block – Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist; economics professor at Loyola University New Orleans
* Godfrey Bloom – British politician, former Member of the European Parliament
* Thomas DiLorenzo – economics professor at Loyola University Maryland
* Paul Gottfried – paleoconservative author, former Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College
* Hans-Hermann Hoppe – philosopher, paleolibertarian, business professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and founder of Property and Freedom Society
* Jesús Huerta de Soto – Professor of Applied Economics at King Juan Carlos University
* Peter Klein – Professor of Entrepreneurship and Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Entrepreneurship & Free Enterprise at Baylor University
* Robert P. Murphy – economist, Institute for Energy Research
* Andrew Napolitano – Fox News pundit and former judge
* Gary North – co-founder of Christian reconstructionism and founder of Institute for Christian Economics
* Ron Paul – physician, author, and former congressman
* Ralph Raico (1926–1995) – heterodox economist, paleolibertarian theorist, polemicist, revisionist historian, and founder of anarcho-capitalism
* Joseph Sobran (1946–2010) – journalist, contributor to ''American Renaissance'' and lecturer at the Institute for Historical Review
* Mark Thornton – Austrian School economist
* Jeffrey A. Tucker – economics writer
* Joseph T. Salerno – academic vice president of the Mises Institute, Professor of Economics at Pace University, and editor of the ''Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics''
* Thomas Woods – historian, political commentator, and author

See also

* Libertarian Party Mises Caucus
* Old Right (United States)

References

External links

*

EDIRC listing
(provided by RePEc)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mises, Institute

1982 establishments in Alabama
Auburn, Alabama
Austrian School
Book publishing companies of the United States
Educational charities based in the United States
Libertarian organizations based in the United States
Non-profit organizations based in Alabama
Think tanks established in 1982
Political and economic think tanks in the United States