Mises Institute
The Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, that is a center for Austrian economics, radical right-wing libertarian thought and the paleolibertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements in the United States.[3][4][5][2][6] It is named after the economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) and promotes his version of heterodox Misesian Austrian economics.[7][8][9]
Not to be confused with the Mises Caucus.Founder(s)
Lew Rockwell
1982
350+[1]
21
Lew Rockwell (Chairman)
Thomas DiLorenzo (President)
Joseph Salerno (Editor
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics)
It was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell, chief of staff to Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul. Early supporters of the institute included economist F. A. Hayek, writer Henry Hazlitt, economist Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul,[10] and libertarian coin dealer Burt Blumert.[10][11]
Current activities[edit]
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."[30]
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.[31] It has led to the creation of spin-off organizations around the world, including Brazil,[32] Germany,[33] South Korea,[34] and Turkey.[35] It publishes the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which it took over in 2000 from the Center for Libertarian Studies.[36]
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.[37] 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.
Political and economic views[edit]
The Mises Institute describes itself as libertarian, and as promoting the Austrian School of economics.[38] In 2003, Chip Berlet of the SPLC described it as "a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics", while also assessing that it favors a "Darwinian view of society in which elites are seen as natural and any intervention by the government on behalf of social justice is destructive".[39]
The Mises Institute favors the methodology of Misesian praxeology ("the logic of human action"),[30] 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.[7][8][9] It is distinct from that of other Austrian economists, including Hayek and those associated with George Mason University.[40][41][42]
Influence on campaigns and government[edit]
The paleolibertarian economic and cultural views of some of the Mises Institute's leading figures have been influential in the presidential campaigns of Ron Paul, the presidential campaign of Rand Paul, the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, and the candidacy of Joshua Smith for chair of the Libertarian Party.[5][43][6][44][45][18]
A 2014 New York Times piece described the Mises Institute as part of Rand Paul's intellectual inheritance.[6]
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 and had collaborated on articles for Rockwell's website.[46]