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Ludwig von Mises Institute

Motto	Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito Latin: Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it
Founder	Lew Rockwell, Jr.
Established	1982
Mission	To advance the Misesian tradition of thought through the defense of the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.
Focus	Economics, Libertarianism
President	Lew Rockwell, Jr.
Faculty	19 (Senior Fellows)
Adjunct faculty	64
Staff	21
Key people	Joseph Salerno, Peter G. Klein, Thomas Woods
Endowment	$17,862,528
Slogan	"Advancing the scholarship of liberty in the tradition of the Austrian School"
Location	Auburn, Alabama, United States
Coordinates	32°36′24″N 85°29′28″W / 32.60667°N 85.49111°W / 32.60667; -85.49111
Website	mises.org

The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), or simply "Mises Institute", located in Auburn, Alabama, is an American organization named for Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Its website states that it is dedicated to advancing "the Misesian tradition of thought through the defense of the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention."

The Mises Institute was founded in 1982 by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. It sponsors annual conferences, a physical library at its Alabama location, online study and research materials, various academic fellowships, and an active electronic and print publishing program. Although it has working relationships with individuals such as U.S. Representative Ron Paul and organizations like the Foundation for Economic Education, it does not seek to implement public policy and has no formal affiliation with any political party. The "Mises Institute is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from individuals, businesses, and foundations."

The official motto of the Ludwig von Mises Institute is Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito, which comes from Virgil's Aeneid, Book VI; the motto means "do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it." Early in his life, Mises chose this sentence to be his guiding principle in life. It is prominently displayed throughout the Institute's campus, on their website, and on memorabilia.

Background

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was established in 1982 with the assent of Margit von Mises, widow of Ludwig von Mises, who chaired the Institute's board until her death in 1993. The Founder was Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr who had become acquainted with Mises' work while working as an editorial assistant at Arlington House Publishers. Rockwell is the former president, and since 2009 has been Chairman, of the Institute. Economist Murray Rothbard was head of academic programs and vice president until his death in 1995. Friedrich von Hayek, Lawrence Fertig, and Henry Hazlitt are among others who assisted in its development.

Lew Rockwell has stated that the Institute met strong opposition from parties affiliated with the Koch family in the wake of a dispute which occurred between Murray Rothbard and the Cato Institute, another libertarian organization, in the early 1980s. Rothbard had been a founder of the Cato Institute, and although the members of the two Institutes had been staunch allies throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, a rift subsequently developed between the two organizations and their affiliated individuals.

Mission and activities

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The Institute is critical of democracy, which authors in Mises Institute publications have called coercive, incompatible with wealth creation, replete with inner contradictions, and a system of legalized graft.

Institute scholars typically take a critical view of most U.S. government activities, foreign and domestic, throughout American history. The Institute characterizes itself as libertarian and expresses antiwar and non-interventionist positions on American foreign policy, asserting that war is a violation of rights to life, liberty, and property, with destructive effects on the market economy, and tends to increase the power of government. The Institute's website offers content which expresses support of individualism and is explicitly critical of democracy, collectivism, fascism, socialism, and communism.

The Institute's website was launched in 1995 videos produced by the Institute are listed there. The website also offers online articles and books by many scholars who cite the Austrian school in their writings. The Institute's campus in Auburn, AL was built in 1998. Before that, its office was located in the business department at Auburn University. A 2006 article in The Wall Street Journal discussed the strategy behind its placement in rural Alabama. The author suggests that "a charming downtown, low prices for room and board, easy access to Atlanta's international airport, and good ol' Southern hospitality" were among the reasons for locating in Alabama. In addition, it suggests that "Southerners have always been distrustful of government," making the South a natural home for the organization's paleolibertarian outlook. The institute is not affiliated with Auburn University.

Publications

The Mises Institute has published nearly 50 books and pamphlets and publishes various periodicals and weblogs. Its Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics is dedicated to the promotion of Austrian economics. Its Journal of Libertarian Studies claims to be the preeminent platform for historical revisionism and the reconstruction of the history of ideas from an Austrian point of view.

Other resources

• The "Are You An Austrian?" quiz is designed to test an individual's economic reasoning. Its questions include topics covering many fundamental tenets in economic thought (e.g., property rights, the role of state intervention, value of money). It has been criticized by economists such as Arnold Kling, who wrote, "the "Are you an Austrian?" quiz does not distinguish between knowledge of doctrine and belief in doctrine. To me, this is symptomatic of a sect, which focuses on doctrinal purity above all else. For a sect, to know is to believe, and to believe is to know."
• The Austrian Literature Guide is a freely-accessible comprehensive selection of Austrian-oriented literature comprising videos, audio lectures, books, papers and more. As of May 2008, it comprises approximately 3,000 unique items and the entire contents of 239 books and seven academic journals.
• The Mises Academy, started in March 2010, is a fee-based Moodle e-learning initiative of the Institute which provides access to material sourced from past Mises Academy conferences and other works created by fellows of the Institute. Mises Academy instructors include Thomas DiLorenzo, David Gordon, Stephan Kinsella, Robert P. Murphy, Thomas Woods, and Peter G. Klein.
• The Ward and Massey libraries are an on-site archive of nearly 35,000 volumes.

Conferences

Academic awards

In maintaining a tradition of recognizing scholarly achievement, each year the Institute awards several individuals for their accomplishments. The annual Schlarbaum Prize for lifetime defense of liberty, awards $10,000 to a public intellectual or distinguished scholar. The Kurzweg Family Prize awards $5,000 for the defense of liberty, property, and personal responsibility. The Elgin Groseclose Award, a $20 Liberty Head Double Eagle, goes to the best piece of money writing in the previous year. The Lawrence W. Fertig Prize in Austrian Economics awards $1,000 to the author of a paper that best advances economic science in the Austrian tradition. The O.P. Alford III Prize in Libertarian Scholarship awards $1,000 to the author of the paper best advances libertarian scholarship.

Individuals such as Congressman Ron Paul and philosopher Antony Flew are among past laureates.

Views espoused by founder and organization scholars

Institute scholars have been highly critical of Abraham Lincoln's conduct of the American Civil War (e.g. suspending habeas corpus), asserting that his policies contributed to the growth of statism in the United States. Senior faculty member Thomas DiLorenzo, in his critical biographies The Real Lincoln and Lincoln: Unmasked, argues that the sixteenth president substantially expanded the size and powers of the federal government at the expense of individual liberty. Adjunct faculty member Donald Livingston shares a similar view, blaming Lincoln for the creation of "a French Revolutionary style unitary state" and "centralizing totalitarianism." Institute scholars have also taken a more general anti-war stance. Many works espousing a general anti-war view such as John Denson's A Century of War and H.C. Engelbrecht's The Merchants of Death can be found on the institute’s website and purchased through its bookstore.

The Institute's publications argue that fascism and National Socialism (Nazism) are branches of socialist political philosophy. They assert that these ideologies are based on collectivist rejections of the individual in favor of some "greater good", and that they incorporate central control over the economy and often also society. This line of argument is discussed in more detail at Fascism and ideology.

Institute scholars are often opposed to democracy, described by Institute Fellow Hans-Hermann Hoppe as Democracy: The God That Failed. James Ostrowski describes the system as follows:

Not to be confused with a republic, a democracy is a system in which, theoretically, what the majority says goes. The reality, however, is more complex and much uglier. In a democracy, various political elites struggle for control of the state apparatus by appealing to the material interests of large voting blocks with promises of legalized graft.

Institute scholars disagree on the subject of immigration. Walter Block argues in favor of open borders. Hans-Hermann Hoppe argues that in a stateless society individuals would only be able to travel with permission of individual land owners.

Faculty and administration

The Institute has a staff of 16 senior scholars and about 200 adjunct scholars from the United States and other countries. There are several other Institutes with the same name throughout the world, including those in Belgium, Poland, Argentina, the Netherlands, Brazil, Romania, Ecuador, Czech Republic & Slovakia, and Portugal.

Criticisms

The Institute has been characterized by some writers as "right-wing," a label which Lew Rockwell and others affiliated with the Institute deny. This claim is also disputed by sources published in the Mises Institute working papers, which cite Institute faculty member Roderick Long and others who self-describe as "left libertarians."

Views on the Confederacy

The Claremont Institute's Harry V. Jaffa has debated on Lincoln with LvMI's Thomas DiLorenzo and writers from both organizations have sparred in editorial publications. DiLorenzo's references to the American Civil War as the "War to prevent Southern Independence" and Mises faculty member Thomas Woods's presence at the founding of the League of the South were cited by James Kirchick, writing for the New Republic, as suggesting a "disturbing attachment to the Confederacy." Woods has stated that he was present at the meeting at which the organization was founded, and later contributed to its newsletter, but that his involvement was limited.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has criticized the Institute for its "interest in neo-Confederate themes." The SPLC also criticized alleged connections with the League of the South. Lew Rockwell responded to these criticisms by writing "We have published revisionist accounts of the origins of the Civil War that demonstrate that the tariff bred more conflict between the South and the feds than slavery. For that, we were decried as a dangerous institutional proponent of “neoconfederate” ideology. Why not just plain old Confederate ideology."

Characterization as a cult

Former Institute scholar Gene Callahan has implied that the Institute is a cult and compared it to Scientology. In response to Institute Senior Fellow Thomas Woods's complaint about an "anti-Rothbard cult", Callahan acerbically described the Institute as comprised of people "who worship Rothbard, who have built a shrine to him in Alabama, and who adhere to his doctrine like it was scripture."

See also

• Economic liberalism
• Loyola University New Orleans
• Mont Pelerin Society

References

1. ^ About The Mises Institute. Accessed November 23, 2012
2. "Ludwig von Mises Institute (search)". Melissa data. Retrieved May 9, 2011.
3. "Frequently Asked Questions." Accessed February 2, 2013.
4. "About the Mises Institute." Mises.org
5. Rockwell, Lew. "Libertarianism and the Old Right." Mises.org. August 5, 2006.
6. ^ Gordon, David (April 22, 2008). "The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard". LewRockwell.com. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
7. Stromberg, Joseph (August 2, 2000). "Raimondo on Rothbard and Rothbard on Everything". Retrieved January 10, 2010.
8. ^ Christopher Mayer. "Democracy is Coercive". Cite error: The named reference "url" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
9. "Does Democracy Threaten the Free Market? – N. Joseph Potts – Mises Institute".
10. "Chapter 5 – Binary Intervention: Government Expenditures (continued)".
11. Audio and Video resources on the Mises.org website http://mises.org/media
12. "The Mises Campus". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
13. Wingfield, Kyle. "Auburnomics: Von Mises finds a sweet home in Alabama." Wall Street Journal. August 11, 2006.
14. "Mises Institute Books".
15. "mises.org periodicals".
16. "Are you an Austrian?". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
17. Kling, Arnold. "The Sect of Austrian Economics" TechCentralStation Daily. November 11, 2003.
18. "Mises Academy Faculty". Academy.mises.org. July 29, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
19. "Ward & Massey Libraries". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
20. "Austrian Scholars Conference" Mises.org
21. "Mises University 2006." Mises.org
22. "Mises University Student Comments". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
23. "Upcoming events". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
24. "Mises Institute Awards". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
25. Beirich, Heidi and Mark Potok. "The Ideologues." Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Winter 2004.
26. James Ostrowski (April 26, 2001). "Does Democracy Promote Peace?". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
27. "Immigration Symposium" (PDF). Retrieved November 13, 2011.
28. "A Libertarian Case for Free Immigration" (PDF). Retrieved November 13, 2011.
29. "The Case for Free Trade and Limited Immigration" (PDF). Retrieved November 13, 2011.
30. "Faculty Members". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
31. "Ludwig von Mises Institute Europe". Vonmisesinstitute-europe.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
32. Mises Institute Poland
33. "Fundacion Von Mises Argentina". Fundacionvonmises.org.ar. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
34. Mises Institute Nederland
35. "Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil". Mises.org.br. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
36. "Institutul Ludwig von Mises Romania". Mises.ro. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
37. http://www.misesecuador.drupalgardens.com
38. "Ludwig von Mises Institut Česko & Slovensko". Mises.cz. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
39. "Instituto Ludwig von Mises Portugal". Mises.org.pt. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
40. Hardisty, Jean V. 1999. Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 166–172
41. Heider, Ulrike. (1994). Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green. Translated by Danny Lewis and Ulrike Bode. San Francisco: City Lights Books. Original edition in German, 1992.
42. Rockwell, Lew. "What is Left? What is Right?" The American Conservative. August 28, 2006.
43. "Working Papers of the Mises Institute". Mises.org. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
44. Block, Walter. "Libertarianism is unique; it belongs neither to the right nor the left: a critique of the views of Long, Holcombe, and Baden on the left, Hoppe, Feser and Paul on the right." Mises.org.
45. "The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate." Transcript of May 7, 2002 debate between Thomas J. DiLorenzo and Harry V. Jaffa. Independent Institute.
46. Kirchick, James. "Angry White Man." The New Republic. January 8, 2008.
47. LewRockwell.com Blog: In Case You Were Wondering
48. Cathy Young from the June 2005 issue. "Reason Magazine – Behind the Jeffersonian Veneer". Reason.com. Retrieved November 13, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
49. Hague, Euan. "The Neo-Confederate Movement". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved July 12, 2010.
50. "The Neo-Confederates". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Summer 2000.
51. Rockwell, Lew (2003). "Speaking of Liberty". Ludwig von Mises Institute.
52. Callahan, Gene (January 2, 2012). "Murphy on LvMI". Gene-callahan.blogspot.com
53. Callahan, Gene (August 4, 2012). "The Anti-Rothbard Cult." gene-callahan.blogspot.com

External links

• The Ludwig von Mises Institute
• The Circle Bastiat (blog) (since March 2012)
• Mises Economics Blog (archive) (up to March 2012)

• Auburn, Alabama
• Austrian School
• Organizations established in 1982
• Political and economic think tanks in the United States
• Libertarian think tanks
• Libertarian organizations based in the United States
• Libertarian publications
• Paleolibertarianism
• Distance education in the United States