This summary of Lew Rockwell’s contributions to the liberty movement will show that Lew has done more to spread libertarian ideas than anyone else not named Ron Paul. Lew was born in Boston in 1944. His father was an “Old Right” Republican who gave Lew a copy of Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson for for his twelfth birthday! Lew would later edit Hazlitt while working as an editor for the conservative publisher Arlington House. Lew also edited Ludwig von Mises.
In 1979, Lew went to Capitol Hill to work as Ron Paul’s Chief of Staff. Dr. Paul and Lew have been close friends and collaborators ever since. In 1981, Lew left Dr. Paul’s office to start the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, which he named after the great Austrian economist. Lew started the Institute at his kitchen table and grew it into the leading center for scholarship in Austrian Economics and libertarian thought. Lew had help from great libertarian leaders like Burt Blumert, a longtime coin dealer, close friend, and patron of Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Mises’s widow Margaret, and, of course, Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard.
Rothbard, Mises’s heir and the dean of Austrian economics and founder of the modern libertarian movement, served as the Institute’s Vice-President for Academic Affairs from the Institute’s founding until his passing in 1995.
Thanks to Lew’s vision and hard work in building the Mises Institute, Rothbard’s influence is greater than ever and growing. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Joesph Salerno, Tom DiLorenzo, and Tom Woods are among other scholars who were able to reach larger audiences thanks to Lew Rockwell’s Institute.
In 1986 the Institute launched Mises University. For almost forty years, Mises University has provided an opportunity for students to listen to and interact with top Austrian-libertarian scholars. Mises also offers yearly Rothbard Seminars for graduate students. The Mises Institute also provides financial assistance to students—which has helped more than 10,000 students with grants ranging from one year book projects to multi-year PHD fellowships. Mises also has a summer fellowship program where graduate and post-doc students can conduct research using the Institute’s resources under the direction of the Institutes faculty.