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Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, Auburn, Alabama

The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) is a paleolibertarian academic institution, based in Auburn, Alabama, dedicated to research and scholarship in economics, philosophy, and political economy. It generally advances a view of government and economics inspired by the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Its founding President is Lew Rockwell.

History

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was established in 1982 under the direction of Margit von Mises, widow of Ludwig von Mises, who chaired the Institute's board until her death in 1993. The Institute's founder and current president is Llewellyn Rockwell Jr. Murray Rothbard was a major influence on the Institute's activities, and he served as its vice president until his death in 1995.

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Beliefs

The Institute's stated goal is to "undermine statism in all its forms." It opposes both communism and the American System school of economics. The Institute runs various seminars and a comprehensive Web site aimed at teaching about the Austrian School of Economics. In addition, it funds scholarly research in the area of Austrian Economics all over the world through various endowments and fellowships.

In addition to its commentary on Austrian economics, the Institute takes a critical view of all U.S. government activities, foreign and domestic, in American history. Unlike some neoconservative organizations, the paleolibertarian Institute takes an antiwar, anti-interventionist stand on American foreign policy, and considers war to be an ultimate violation of rights to life, liberty, and property, for Americans and foreigners, with destructive effects on the market economy and empowering effects for the government. The Mises Institute's website offers a large number of writings in support of individualism, and explicitly critical of collectivism, fascism, socialism, and communism. An upcoming seminar, for example, explicitly condemns fascism.

The Institute's web site frequently criticizes Abraham Lincoln's handling of the American Civil War and supports a right of secession.

Controversies over Paleoconservative Themes

The LVMI holds a critical view of President Abraham Lincoln, who Institute scholars believe to have contributed to the growth of authoritarianism in the United States. LVMI senior faculty member Thomas DiLorenzo authored a well known critical biography of Lincoln which included his description of the 16th President as "a paragon of wickedness, a man secretly intent on destroying states' rights and building a massive federal government." Adjunct faculty member Donald Livingston shares a similar view of Lincoln, who he attributes with the creation of "a French Revolutionary style unitary state" and "centralizing totalitarianism."

The Institute's published works include an essay by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State" that claims that democracy is inferior to the voluntary rule of "natural elites," and deprecates the rule of the "people" as wrongly based on "the presumed decency of the 'common man.'" Hoppe also condemns meddling by the state through such programs "affirmative action and forced integration," which he claims is "responsible for the almost complete destruction of private property rights, and the erosion of freedom of contract, association, and disassociation."

Essays by the late Murray Rothbard are archived on the LvMI website, including one where Rothbard writes that "Egalitarian measures do not 'work' because they violate the basic nature of man, of what it means for the individual man to be truly human. The call of 'equality' is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human." Rothbard argues that "It is in the name of equality that the Left seeks all manner of measures, from progressive taxation to the ultimate stage of communism."

Critics also see a thread of sexism in the work of Rothbard, who argued that meddling Yankee women "imposed" a woman's right to vote on the rest of society:

Of all the Yankee activists in behalf of statist "reform," perhaps the most formidable force was the legion of Yankee women, in particular those of middle- or upper-class background, and especially spinsters whose busybody inclinations were not fettered by the responsibilities of home and hearth. (Cite: Murray N. Rothbard, "Origins of the Welfare State," Journal of Libertarian Studies 12:2 (Fall 1996), pp.193-232, Center for Libertarian Studies. Based on an address delivered by the author at the Mises Institute's "Evils of the Welfare State" conference in Lake Bluff, Illinois, April 30-May 2, 1993. Online at .)

The Southern Poverty Law Center makes claims of other bigotry in the article, noting that Rothbard claimed it was primarily "Jewish women, after raising funds from 'top Jewish financiers,' agitated for child labor laws," and that the "dominant tradition" of these women activsts was lesbianism.

The Mises Review carried a favorable review of anti-immigration activist Peter Brimelow's book Alien Nation, warning libertarians to take Brimelow's arguments seriously. The review highlighted Brimelow's argument that "past immigrants came mainly from Europe; in 1950, the U.S. population was about 90% white. If whites from Southern and Eastern Europe did manage, with substantial difficulty, to become absorbed into the majority culture by the 1960s, does it follow that vast numbers from Asia, Latin America, and Africa can do so as well? Brimelow thinks not: he fears that the growth of racial enclaves will polarize the United States."

Critics argue that this review is an example of the tendency of some LvMI scholars to overlook or dismiss the issue of racism. A London newspaper said Brimelow's book was "blatantly racist" while the conservative National Review said the book was an "old-fashioned, blood-and-soil, racial" interpretation of America. .

However, the Mises Institute itself does not have an official position on immigration. In fact, some of its scholars are pro-immigration, such as Walter Block . See, e.g., vol. 13, no. 2, of the Institute's publication Journal of Libertarian Studies, containing a symposium on the immigration issue.

Criticism & Response

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The liberal Southern Poverty Law Center has criticzed the LvMI. Citing some mutual affiliations between the Institute's faculty, such as editorial vice president Jeffrey Tucker, and the League of the South, an organization the SPLC alleges is racist, the Center called the Mises Institute a "Neo-confederate organization." . The SPLC also criticizes the LvMI for taking a position highly critical of Abraham Lincoln . Defending the Ludwig von Mises Institute, several affiliates have denounced the organization for making allegations that they deem irresponsible. Myles Kantor, for example, has denounced the SPLC, stating that it engages in fear mongering and the smearing of legitimate, non-racist groups in pursuit of profitable financial contributions and ideological goals .

Within the political right, LvMI has had disputes with other libertarian and conservative organizations. The neo-conservative Claremont Institute has sharply different views from the LvMI on certain issues, such as Declarationism and Lincoln, who it strongly supports. The Claremont Institute's Harry V. Jaffa has debated LVMI's Thomas DiLorenzo on the subject of Lincoln and several writers for each organization have sparred in editorial publications over this subject aimed at each other .

Faculty and administration

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