On some frightening future day, I may treat you to the meandering chronicle of how I came to adopt liberty, individual rights, and non-aggression as my guiding political principles. In anticipation of that action-packed tale, let us first explore more consequential subject matter: the work of the men and women whose material I regularly consult in my education “in the scholarship of liberty”. One of these men, Llewellyn “Lew” Rockwell, bears particular mention as a contemporary crusader whose tireless critical analyses of the state and its machinations continue to set him apart as a public intellectual of integrity and influence. If we are to praise the public intellectual’s social function as a vocal check against the many institutions and individuals seeking to meddle in our affairs, then we must certainly recognize the anti-state, anti-war, pro-market Mr. Rockwell for his academic work and institution-building in the pursuit of truth and liberty, a task to which he has devoted himself without regard for the fleeting fancies of establishment accreditation or popular validation.
As summarized in an article for Reaon magazine by Senior Editor Brian Doherty, today’s mass libertarian movement is synonymous with the so-called Ron Paul movement: “the largest popular movement motivated by distinctly libertarian ideas about war, money, and the role of government we’ve seen in the postwar period… [a] mass anti-war, anti-state, anti-fiat money agitation” that has emerged as a major oppositional voice within our nation’s institutionalized two-party system. As such, it reveals much to trace the origin of the Paul movement’s critiques and argumentation, and to understand how such a large assemblage of voices continues to stand so unified and ideologically consistent. Doherty offers an answer: “[A]s I learned from my reporting on the movement during Paul’s primary campaign, a majority of [Paulites] are pretty much learning their libertarianism directly from Paul himself, and the Internet communities surrounding Paul.” He furthermore cites the website of the Mises Institute and the personal site of the Mises Institute’s founder–one Lew Rockwell–as being centerpieces of the Paul Internet community.
Indeed, the line between the Ron Paul Revolution and Lew Rockwell is a blurry one. Paul, for example, has famously cited Rockwell’s site as being the first he reads every morning, making Paul himself one of the 606,571 unique visitors that lewrockwell.com receives monthly, and counting amongst the site’s 1.8 million total monthly visitors. Given these statistics, Rockwell’s anti-establishment arguments are certainly being read and re-reported, with the Paul movement being Rockwell’s most visible and organized–if not outrightly acknowledged–proponents.
Beyond the vast reach and output of his personal website and academic writings, Rockwell directs considerable energy into the maintenance of the academic organization known as the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Rockwell, its founder and current chairman, has imparted much of himself into the Institute, directing its anti-statist mission and the publication of thousands of mainstream papers, articles, and books attacking the state as a coercive entity and criticizing the U.S. government’s policies both historical and contemporary. In living up to the Institute’s namesake, Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises, the Institute champions as its motto Mises’ own lifelong principle: “Do not give in to evil but proceed more boldly against it”. Rockwell, himself confronted by a dearth of academic institutions favorable to his views, proceeded by boldly constructing the Institute as a way to produce research and scholarship within political and economic schools of thought whose precepts fundamentally oppose those policies and persons that seek to move the state toward wealth destruction and unjust coercion of the individual. Today, students of Austrian School economics can turn to the expansive online resources, real-life conferences, and scholarship awards provided by the Institute, and collaborate with kindred souls in the pursuit of truth.
An ideological revolution is afoot, and central figure Lew Rockwell is finally receiving the academic appraisal and approval he so richly deserves. In a recent article on his personal site, Rockwell compares the life’s work of his mentor and friend, the late Murray Rothbard, to the more-famous and less-ingenuous existence of Alan Greenspan; however, he might as well be speaking of himself when he says:
“Many have said that Rothbard was his own worst enemy. People said the same of Mises. The idea here is that they could have helped their career by going along to get along. That is true enough. But is getting along all we really want out of life? Or do we want to make a difference in a way that will outlast us?
“At some point in all our lives, we will all come to realize that all the money and all the power and goods we can accumulate will be useless to us after we die. Even large fortunes can dissipate after a generation or two. The legacy we will leave on this earth comes down to the principles by which we lived. It is the ideas we hold and the way we pursued them that is the source of our immortality.”
Don’t be evil, readers. And don’t let the evils of institutions go unchecked. As Lew Rockwell and the libertarians of yesteryear remind us (indeed, as do all public intellectuals), it is the citizens’ duty to confront such entities with frequent and passionate critique. Until next time, keep fighting the good fight.
Search for Solid Ground 