Wikipedia

Mises Institute

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Tejano (talk | contribs) at 20:55, 5 August 2006 (added image). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), based in Auburn, Alabama, is a libertarian academic organisation engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy. It generally advances a view of government and economics expressed by Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. The Institute is funded entirely through private donations.

Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, Auburn, Alabama

Background

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was established in 1982 under the direction of Margit von Mises, widow of Ludwig von Mises, who chaired its board until her death in 1993. The founder and current president is Llewellyn Rockwell Jr. Murray Rothbard was a major influence on the institute's activities and served as its vice president until his death in 1995.[1]

Mission and activities

The Mises Institute's stated goal is to undermine statism in all its forms. Its methodology is based on praxeology, a description of individual human action which seeks to avoid errors in scientific behavioral observation that could be induced by human self-consciousness and complexity. The institute's economic theories depict any government intervention as destructive, whether through welfare, inflation, taxation, regulation, or war. LvMI disparages both communism and the American System school of economics (more broadly the American School).

File:Lvmi-hulsmannlecture.jpg
Jörg Guido Hülsmann speaking to a group of students at the Mises Institute.

With 250 academic faculty members and thousands of donors (throughout all 50 states and in more than 60 countries), the Mises Institute has sponsored hundreds of teaching and scholars' conferences and seminars treating subjects ranging from monetary policy to the history of war. The institute has published dozens of books, hundreds of scholarly papers and thousands of mainstream articles covering economic and historical issues.

The Mises Institute website went online in 1995 and is offered as an open-access research tool. The institute has also produced several documentary films, including Liberty and Economics: The Ludwig von Mises Legacy, The Future of Austrian Economics and Money, Banking, and the Federal Reserve.

File:Lvmi-amphitheater.gif
The Hogan Amphitheater at the Mises Institute

LvMI takes a critical view of most US government activities, foreign and domestic, throughout American history. The institute characterizes itself as libertarian and expresses antiwar and anti-interventionist positions on American foreign policy, asserting that war is a violation of any rights to life, liberty and property with destructive effects on the market economy and empowering aspects for government. The Mises Institute website offers content which expresses support of individualism and is explicitly critical of collectivism, fascism, socialism, and communism.

An example of an essay published by the Mises Institute is Natural Elites, Intellectuals, and the State by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, which claims democracy is inferior to the voluntary rule of "natural elites" and questions any notion of rule by the "people" as based on flawed assumptions of "the presumed decency of the 'common man.'" Hoppe condemns state intervention through "affirmative action" and "forced integration" initiatives, which he claims have been "responsible for the almost complete destruction of private property rights, and the erosion of freedom of contract, association, and disassociation." [2]

File:Lvmi-front.gif
Photograph of the Mises Institute façade.

The website offers a section of articles by the late Murray N. Rothbard, who wrote, "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 argued "It is in the name of equality that the Left seeks all manner of measures, from progressive taxation to the ultimate stage of communism."[3]

The Mises Review commented favorably on anti-immigration activist Peter Brimelow's book Alien Nation, citing his 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."[4] However some LvMI scholars are pro-immigration (including Walter Block [5] [6]) and vol. 13, no. 2, of the institute's Journal of Libertarian Studies contained a symposium presenting diverse views on the immigration issue.[7]

Historical views

LvMI's publications have, like abolitionist Lysander Spooner, been supportive of the Confederacy's attempted secession (or more accurately, the right to secede), which precipitated the American Civil War. They have also been highly critical of Abraham Lincoln's conduct of the war (e.g. suspending Habeas Corpus, jailing those who dissented against the war and against the draft), asserting that his policies contributed to the growth of authoritarianism in the United States. Senior faculty member Thomas DiLorenzo, in his critical biography The Real Lincoln, argues that the 16th 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." [8]

LvMI's publications have also maintained that fascism and nazism are branches of socialist political philosophy. They cite the fact 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.

Publications

Periodicals

As of 2006, the Institute publishes seven periodicals. The Free Market examines the economic and political scene from a classical-liberal viewpoint and is published monthly. The Austrian Economics Newsletter links their academic network with in-depth interviews. The Mises Review surveys new books in the social sciences. The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics (the successor journal to the Review of Austrian Economics), is the premier setting for new research and ideas in economics. The Journal of Libertarian Studies is the scholarly venue for political theory and applications. And The Mises Memo covers issues and legislation, plus conferences and publications of the Institute.

In addition, they also host Reason Papers, which is a peer-reviewed journal on inderdisciplinary normative studies appearing annually. It was founded in 1974, and was edited by Tibor R. Machan from issues 1 through 25. Beginning with Issue 26 (Summer 2003), it is now edited by Aeon J. Skoble.

The Libertarian Forum was a journal edited (and largely written by) Murray N. Rothbard from 1969 to 1984.[9] It contains substantive theoretical contributions, commentaries on politics, details of disputes and arguments within the libertarian movement, and forecasts on the future of liberty.

Left & Right was a journal on libertarian philosophy that was the precursor to the Journal of Libertarian Studies.[10] It was published from 1965-1968 and was edited by Murray Rothbard.

In addition, they host a continuously growing collection of academic working papers.[11] These papers are not in final form and are not available for publication. As of August 2006, there are more than 100 papers in draft form, with approximately 2-3 added each month.

Books

The institute has published nearly 50 books and pamphlets, most of which deal with topics covering political and economic theories and their interconnectedness. Others deal with history, from early American enterprise to chronicling the Great Depression.

Notable entries include[12]:

  • Human Action, The Scholars Edition, is the original, unaltered treatise (originally published in 1949) written by Ludwig von Mises. It is largely viewed as his magnum opus and is a rejection of positivism within economics. It defends an a priori epistemology and defines the science of praxeology.
  • Man, Economy, and State is an economic treatise covering both micro and macro thought and was written by Murray Rothbard. It was originally published in 1962, however the final eight chapters were removed due to political conflicts with the original publisher. These were finally published as Power and Market in 1970. The 2004 edition published by the Institute combines both books in a single volume.
  • [[The Myth of National Defense], edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and published in 2003. It is a collection of essays on the theory and history of security production.

File:Old-mes.jpg*Reassessing the Presidency, edited by John V. Denson and published in 2003. It is a critique of each American President through the lense of libertarianism.


Criticisms

Southern Poverty Law Center

The historical views of the Institute and of several people affiliated with it have been interpreted by some critics, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, as sympathetic to the Confederacy. The SPLC has criticized the Institute for its "interest in neo-Confederate themes", which SPLC considers to be a form of racism. SPLC has also criticized the Institute for its connections with the League of the South. [13], [14]

Another SPLC complaint[15] involves an essay[16] on the Mises Institute website by Murray Rothbard. According to an SPLC Intelligence Report article written by Chip Berlet:

Rothbard blamed much of what he disliked on meddling women. In the mid-1800s, a "legion of Yankee women" who were "not fettered by the responsibilities" of household work "imposed" voting rights for women on the nation. Later, Jewish women, after raising funds from "top Jewish financiers," agitated for child labor laws, Rothbard adds with evident disgust. The "dominant tradition" of all these activist women, he suggests, is lesbianism. [17]

Ludwig von Mises Institute affiliates have denounced the SPLC's allegations: LvMI's Tibor Machan argues that the SPLC's tactics are not aimed at "fighting poverty" as the its name suggests, but rather to create a "major threat against the First Amendment and the presumption of innocence in our criminal justice system" by unfairly labelling organizations with differing political viewpoints.[18] Myles Kantor, also affiliated with LvMI, has asserted the SPLC engages in fear-mongering and smearing of legitimate non-racist groups in pursuit of profitable financial contributions and ideological goals. According to Kantor, the SPLC's labelling tactics include "egregious" and "defamatory" implications that "the Center for the Study of Popular Culture and Mises Institute seek to restore Hitlerian policies."[19].

Claremont Institute

On the political right, the Mises Institute has clashed with other libertarian and conservative organizations. The neo-conservative Claremont Institute has sharply different views on issues such as Declarationism and strongly supports Lincoln. 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 [20].

Faculty and administration

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mises_Institute&oldid=67882979"