Who’sWho?

Most recent edit August 26, 2011,

Gustave de Molinari added to the alphabetical listing.

Dr. Katherine Albrecht: Consumer privacy advocate, head of media relations for Ixquick, co-author of Spychips. Invited to address the Federal Trade Commission, The Federal Reserve Bank, many state and international commissions. Launched a worldwide movement against RFID tracking and implant technology; radio talk show host.

William L. Anderson: Author of commentaries on current issues from an Austrian, free market perspective, and associate professor of economics at Frostburg State University, and adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von mises Institute.

Frederick Bastiat: 19th Century French classical liberal theorist, political economist and member of the French assemby.  His Economic Sophisms advised the French Republic on pitfalls of state policy and contains the satirical parable, the “Candlemakers’ Petition.” His most famous work is The Law which demonstrates how just laws facilitate a free society.  He criticizes the use of “legalized plunder” by both state-corporatists and state-socialists.  He is considered a forerunner of the Austrian School of economics.

Walter Block: Professor Block teaches economics, in the tradition of Mises and Rothbard, at Loyola University in New Orleans.  His newest book, Building Blocks for Liberty, applies the logic of the libertarian Nonaggression Principle to a series of practical issues, to solve everyday problems.  His most famous work is Defending the Undefendable, which challenges conventional assumptions of what is assumed to be evil, while showing the beauty and benefits of freedom.

David Boaz: Author of The Libertarian Reader and The Politics of Freedom, Boaz is Vice President of the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank representative of the Constitutionalist libertarian view that the State must be limited in its power to ensure individual liberty.

Peter Boettke: Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and past visiting professor at Stanford University, Russian Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, Central European University of Prague, and Charles University, Prague.  His economic work continues in the tradition of Mises, Hayek, and Kirzner.

Randolph Bourne: Of Bourne, John Dos Passos wrote: “This little sparrow-like man, tiny twisted bit of flesh in a black cape, always in pain and ailing, put a pebble in his sling and hit Goliath square in the forehead it it.  ’War,’ he wrote, ‘is the health of the state.’”  Indeed, Bourne was a giant in the antiwar movement of his day, pitted against John Dewey’s pro-war faction which unfortunately veered liberalism toward support for WWI and authoritarian government.  Today, the Randolph Bourne Institute, publisher of Antiwar.com, honors his memory by promoting a U.S. non-interventionist foreign policy and freedom world wide.

Tyler Cowen: Economist, prolific author, including his recent  NYT e-book bestseller The Great Stagnation, and co-author of an influential and wide-ranging blog, Marginal Revolution.

Paul-Emile de Puydt: Belgian botanist and economist, coined the word Panarchy in 1860,  to describe peaceful coexistence of voluntarily-chosen governments in overlapping territories: see LibertarianSavvy’s GovernanceDebates page and this website.

Patri Friedman: Patri works to build practical paths from our present world to future societies competing to offer optimal incentives (ecological, medical, judicial, etc.)  to attract residents free to move elsewhere.  Seasteading is his major project to date.  A 3rd-generation libertarian, Patri is an outstanding example of the benefits of growing up in a libertarian culture.  He is a highly original thinker, motivated, logically consistent yet open to new ideas.

David Friedman: Polymath David Friedman is a physicist, economist, author, law professor, and anarcho-capitalist theorist.  His The Machinery of Freedom sketches a free society where all goods and services including law, can be produced by the free market which he hopes to see achieved incrementally as private services are proven most efficient and beneficial.

Milton Friedman:  In 1976 Friedman won the Nobel prize in economics.  As a professor at the Chicago School of Economics, Friedman promoted a macroeconomic policy know as “monetarism” (not accepted by most libertarians,) and wrote the influential Capitalism and Freedom in which he argued for such libertarian ideas as: no military draft, free floating exchange rates, abolition of government licensing of doctors, a negative income tax, and education vouchers for school choice.

Eric Garris: Co-founder with Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com, Garris is a long-time libertarian and antiwar activist and webmaster of antiwar.com and lewrockwell.com

Anthony Gregory: Editor in Chief for the Campaign for Liberty, author of articles in numerous publications, online and print.  Chief  concerns: peace, civil liberties, and free markets. He also plays bass guitar for a Bay Area rock group.

William Norman Grigg:  Describes himself as a “Christian Individualist;” he transitioned from earlier Conservative roots to become a libertarian investigative reporter vitally concerned with peace, justice, and freedom.  He blogs at ProLibertate on his website,  freedominourtime.blogspot.com,  and is published on many liberty websites.

Friedrick von Hayek: Originally a socialist, Hayek was converted by von Mises to the free market ideas of the Austrian School of Economics.  In 1974 Hayek won the Nobel Prize (with Gunnar Myrdal) for his “pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and his penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social, and institutional factors.  His idea of spontaneous order is a key concept of the Austrian School of Economics.  Author of many scholarly works, Hayek became a prime opponent of Keynesian economics.  His Road to Serfdom won popular acclaim as a defense of economic and political freedom.

Jacob Heubert: Author of the excellent book, Libertarianism Today, a survey of the foremost ideas and advocates of libertarian ideas.  Huebert is also an attorney and adjunct professor of law whose work frequently appears in academic and professional journals.

Robert Higgs: Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute; received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague; visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.  Author of Crisis and Leviathan and many more scholarly books and articles.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Internationally prominent economist and libertarian philosopher, author of eight books. His Democracy: The God That Failed explores the systemic failure of democracies, especially in the light of time-preference; because democratic regimes are temporary, policies are based on short-term expediency without responsibility for long-term consequences.  He shows this in numerous examples through history, including the present. He lectures all over the world and has authored more than 150 articles in books, and in scholarly and opinion journals.

Jacob Hornberger: Economist, attorney, and founder of The Future of Freedom Foundation which publishes essays, books, audio and video on the ideas of freedom, and offer seminars on the principles of liberty.

Steven Horowitz: St. Lawrence University Economics Department Chair, writer in popular and numerous academic economics forums, and is an active conference speaker.  Professor Horowitz also writes, analyses, and reviews a blog for the musical group, Rush.

Scott Horton: Host of Antiwar Radio.com and foreign policy expert, Horton interviews knowledgeable guests and is himself a frequent guest expert on TV and radio, and his articles are published widely.

W. H. Hutt: Classical liberal economist and a courageous voice for free-market economics at a time when Keynesian and interventionist policies were the popular wave among academic and public policy economists.

Penn Jillette: Writer, TV host, and half of the Emmy Award-winning Penn and Teller magic duo.  His recent book is “God No! Signs You May Already Be An Atheist And Other Magical Tales.”

Stephan Kinsella: Intellectual Property lawyer, and libertarian legal theorist, creator of Libertarian Papers peer reviewed online journal, author and lecturer on patent, contract, e-commerce, international law and libertarian theory.

Israel Kirzner: A leading economist in the Austrian School, emeritus professor economics at New York University.  His major work is in the economics of knowledge and entrepreneurship and the ethics  of markets.

Adam Kokesh: A former marine, Kokesh learned in Iraq that the U.S. foreign policy is morally unjustified.  He became an activist for peace and freedom, and now hosts an online TV show titled, Adam vs The Man.

Samuel Konkin: Beginning his youth as a Canadian socialist, he evolved into a theorist in the first generation of modern libertarianism, which he viewed as a movement of the libertarian Left.  Though he died quite young, he coined many libertarian words and clarified and popularized concepts such as agorism and counter-economics, in newsletters and his famous New Libertarian Manifesto.

Alan Charles Kors: Professor of European intellectual history at the University of Pennsylvania.  Award-winning defender of academic freedom, and co-founder of the Foundation For Individual Rights In Education (FIRE.)  He publishes extensively on the conceptual revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, and was taped for a 3-part series on that period by The Teaching Company.  He served as editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (four volumes, 20002.)

Karen Kwiatkowski: Noted insider critic of U.S. wars of aggression from Iraq to the present, Kwiatkowski is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and past Pentagon and National Security Agency official.  She authored 2 books critical of U.S. policy towards Africa, and many journal articles on the corrupting influence of the Pentagon on intelligence analysis.  She is active in libertarian journals and organizations.

Rose Wilder Lane: Born on the Dakota Territory frontier, Rose Wilder Lane is the real-life “baby Rose” whose childhood is recorded in her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House On the Prairie series.  Rose grew up to become a prolific author of short stories, novels, and articles.  Disillusioned from early socialism by the reality of Soviet repression and bureaucratic central planning in European, she wrote in Give Me Liberty, “the slightly restrained anarchy of capitalism offers the best opportunities for the development of the human spirit.” Lane was a columnist for a black-owned newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier which promoted laissez-faire antiracism.  She compared the bias of judging by skin color as similar to the bias of Communists who assigned guilt or virtue on the basis of class.    She resigned from her editorial job with the National Economic Council so as not to pay Social Security which she described as a “Ponzi fraud.”  Her seminal work on individualism is The Discovery of Freedom.”

Mario Vargas Llosa: Awarded the 2010 Nobel Literature Prize for his novels dramatizing state power and individual resistance; Vargas Llosa was a supporter of Marxism, but saw its failures and became a strong champion of individual freedom in his native Peru, and globally.  His own favorite of his novels is The War of the End of the World, an exploration of humanity’s propensity toward fanatical violence in support of ideals.  He’s also a prolific essayist and frequent speaker at conferences and universities.

John Locke: The father of classical liberalism, Locke was one of the most influential theorists of the Enlightenment.  His ideas influenced America’s founding revolutionaries and are reflected in the Declaration of Independence.  While modern “liberalism” was captured by state-socialist ideas, libertarianism retained the classical liberal principles of individual freedom and peaceful, non-coercive human relations.

Roderick Long: Professor of Philosophy and anarcho-libertarian theorist.  Author, editor, president of the Molinari Institute, academic lecturer and speaker,  blogger.

John Mackey: Chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, Inc.  ”An active promoter of a new business paradigm he calls ‘Conscious Capitalism,’ Mackey is also co-founder of FLOW, non-profit think tank with the tagline, Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit for Good.”

Deirdre McCloskey: Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, University of Chicago. Author of 14 books and editor of 7 more, plus 360 articles, on economic theory, history, philosophy, rhetoric, feminism, ethics, and law.  Her latest book is Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain The Modern World.

Scot McNealy: Former CEO of Sun Microsystems for 22 years, now a Director of Curriki, an international education and learning community providing an open infrastructure for developing and distributing free and open source curricula for grades K-12, based on a common set of open (wiki) standards.

Carl Menger:  A classical liberal who viewed economics as the science of individual choice.  His Principles of Economics was published in 1871.  As a professor at the University of Vienna, he was a founding contributor to theories of the Austrian School of Economics, which is increasingly influential today, after the centralization theories of Keynes and Marx have failed throughout the world.

Jeffrey Miron: Economist, senior lecturer and director of Harvard University undergraduate studies, dept. of economics.  Author of Libertarianism A to Z, Miron describes himself as a libertarian consequentialist.  He derives economic principles empirically, finding the objective data generally corroborates libertarian philosophy.

Ludwign von Mises: One of the greatest economists of the 20th century.  He was ignored by much of the economic and political establishment, which favored centralized, top-down economic policies.  Mises’s timeless theories and predictions have been proven correct by the global disasters of centrally-managed economies.  He was a founder of the Austrian School of Economics, his greatest work is Human Action, available in book (newly available in paperback for only $10!) and CD from mises.com, along with his many other works.

Gustave de Molinari:  Belgium economist and essayist who, in 1849, first described how free market institutions could supply all legitimate legal and protective services in an advanced stateless society.  Today’s Molinari Society is a philosophical society dedicated to promoting critical discussion and innovative research in radical libertarian theory concerning the nature and foundations of human society.

Stefan Molyneaux: A Canadian philosopher who has gained a large audience for his online podcasts books, articles, videos, and call-in radio show, all shared on freedomainradio.com, funded entirely by voluntary donations.  His works cover a wide range of thoughtful and spirited musings and interviews on personal and political freedom.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Life-tenured Superior Court judge in New Jersey, adjunct professor of constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School, author of 5 books; the most recent is:  Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History.  Napolitano hosts the TV show Freedom Watch, which broadcasts 5 nights weekly, interviewing experts across the political spectrum on current government policies .

Tom G. Palmer: Globe-trotting polyglot libertarian theorist; Vice President for International Programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation; Director of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace, and Prosperity; Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.  Author of Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice and many articles; Dr. Palmer frequently speaks at international forums on the history of liberty, free trade and peace, and public choice economics.

Ron Paul: Congressman Ron Paul is the rare elected official who consistently supports the US Constitution.  His dedication to peace, liberty, and sound fiscal policy have earned respect across the political spectrum.  Although he first served in Congress in 1976, many people became aware of his career in the 2008 Republican Debates, in which he alone spoke for peace, reversing government excess, and fiscal responsibility.  He authored many books including Revolution: A Manifesto, A Foreign Policy of Freedom, and End The Fed.

Pierre Joseph Proudon: Opposed to both capitalism and communism, Proudon’s ideas influenced some left libertarians, though by today’s libertarian standards he was inconsistent, advocating peaceful anarchy but also a form of State-sponsored worker collectives.  Those influenced by him are mutualists, tasked with  resolving the contradiction while honoring the NonAggression Principle.

Justin Raimondo: Co-founder and editorial director of antiwar.com;   author, antiwar and libertarian activist since the 1980s.  Raimondo is a strong voice for peace and liberty, and antiwar.com is one of the most thorough chronicles of antiwar news and activities.

Ayn Rand: Rand dramatized her individualist philosophy in best-selling novels: Atlas Shrugged depicted the economic destructiveness of centralized economic planning now seen globally; she had fled Russia as a young girl and learned first-hand what the Bolshevik revolution had done to the people of her home country.  Another of her perennial bestsellers is The Fountainhead.  Rand’s school of philosophy is called Objectivism and emphasizes the crucial importance of reason in all human activities.

Stewart Rhodes: Founders of Oath Keepers.  Rhodes graduated from Yale Law School and is active in defense and constitutional education of current and former military and law enforcers who pledge to uphold the US constitution, should they be ordered to violate it.  He was a staff attorney with Jefferson Legal Foundation assisting in constitutional litigation in state and federal courts.

Sheldon Richman: Journalist and editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education and a senior fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, author of three books including Separating School and State.

Mario Rizzo: Associated Professor of Economics at New York University.  ”My work is grounded on four fundamental premises: 1. the decentralization of knowledge in a complex society…2…both the individual and social context is needed to make sense of what people do and how they relate to one another; 3. these phenomena are, wherever possible, best viewed as processes in time; and 4. economic and social policies usually have important unintended consequences. Rizzo’s central interests are in the interfaces between philosophy and economics, law and economics, and ethics and economics, in the economic tradition of Hayek and Mises.  His website is  works.bepress.com

Lew Rockwell: Founder of the popular LewRockwell.com political news and commentary website, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Murray Rothbard: Historian, libertarian theorist, and leading Austrian economist who studied with Ludwig von Mises.  Rothbard’s major works include: Man, Economy, and State, America’s Great Depression, For a New Liberty, The Ethics of Liberty, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Econmic Thought, and many more works available from mises.com, some as free downloads.  Rothbard was a strong peace advocate, critical of the state as “legitimized force.”

Michael Rozeff: Professor Emeritus, Finance and Managerial Economics, University of Buffalo.  Author and speaker with special interest in economics, finance, political economy, and Panarchy the theory of voluntary individual choice among co-existing government systems, in his panarchy.org.

Rudolph J. Rummel: Political science professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, best known as a researcher on democide, detailed in his book Death by Government, and in his continuing research.

Mary Ruwart: Her book, Healing Our World in an Age of Aggression explains thge success of societies that valyue freedom, and the failures of societies that deny it.  She offers non-coercive solutions to the panoply of issues arising in society.  She was Libertarian Party candidate for president.

Joseph T. Salerno: Professor of economics at Pace University and chair of the economics graduate program.  Also a senior faculty member of the Mises Institute.  Author of Money, Sound and Unsound and many scholarly articles on banking, monetary theory, comparative economics, and the history of economic thought.

Bretigne Shaffer: Writer and film maker, internet tv show host.

L. Neil Smith: Libertarian science fiction author: his books include The Probability Broach, The Crystal Empire, comics and serial novels.

Lysander Spooner: 19th century American individualist anarchist, deist, abolitionist, natural law theorist, and supporter of the voluntary labor movement.  He challenged federal legal certification as a barrier to entry for the poor, and its post office monopoly, starting his own American Letter Mail Company which was forced out of business by the government.  Spooner actively campaigned against slavery; his book, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery argued that unjust laws should be held legally void by judges and by jury nullification. He advocated direct citizen action against slave owners including violence in defense of slaves; but  in his pamphlet No Treason, he denounced Union use of force and violence to prevent Southern states from seceding, and the consequent vengeful and abusive powers the federal government assumed and kept, to the lasting detriment of liberty of all citizens.  Spooner advocated compensated emancipation, a method tested and proven in nations that successfully orchestrated the peaceful abolition of slavery.

John Stossel: Libertarian host of weekly FOX Business Channel TV show since 2009.  In his long career an investigative reporter, author, and columnist, he won 19 Emmy Awards and was honored 5 times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club.  His book Give Me A Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media was a NYT bestseller for 11 weeks.

Thomas Szasz: Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York, author, named 1973 Humanist of the year by the American Humanist Association.  For decades Dr. Szacsz has opposed coercive psychiatry as behavior control  and an arm of the law.  He advocates a rigorous scientific approach to proven biological dysfunction rather “mental illnesses” diagnosed by behavior profiling, with drug medicalization of everyday diversity.  Author of The Myth of Mental Illness, The Manufacture of Madness, and many academic papers.   For current and past works:  www.szasz.com

Benjamin R. Tucker: American individualist anarchist, he opposed compulsion and centralized state socialism with its monopoly over services, land, tariff, patents, and money, but favored natural worker’s rights and property; his ideas have influenced the development of  some left libertarians.

Gordon Tullock: Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University School of Law. Tullock is known for his original work on public choice theory, and identification of concepts that came to be known as rent seeking theory.  He has published more than 150 academic papers and 23 books on law, economics, and political theory.

Thomas Woods Jr: Dr. Woods earned his history Ph.D. from Columbia University and is a New York Times bestselling author, eminent scholar and acclaimed speaker.  His most prominent books are: Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, plus We Who Dared Say No To War co-authored with Murray Polner.