The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in 1982 by Lew Rockwell. Rockwell, who had previously served as editor for Arlington House Publishers, received the blessing of Margit von Mises during a meeting at the Russian Tea Room in New York City, and she was named the first chairman of the board.[4][5][self-published source?] Early supporters of the institute included F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Ron Paul, and Burt Blumert.[6][non-primary source needed] According to Rockwell, the motivation of the institute was to promote the specific contributions of Ludwig von Mises, who he feared was being ignored by libertarian institutions financed by Charles Koch and David Koch. As recounted by Justin Raimondo, Rockwell said he received a phone call from George Pearson, of the Koch Foundation, who had said that Mises was too radical to name an organization after or promote.[7]
Rothbard served as the original academic vice president of the institute. Paul agreed to become distinguished counselor and assisted with early fundraising.[6][non-primary source needed]
Judge John V. Denson assisted in the Mises Institute becoming established at the campus of Auburn University.[8] Auburn was already home to some Austrian economists, including Roger Garrison. The Mises Institute was affiliated with the Auburn University Business School until 1998 when the institute established its own building across the street from campus.[9][non-primary source needed]
Kyle Wingfield wrote a 2006 commentary in The Wall Street Journal that the Southern United States was a "natural home" for the institute, as "Southerners have always been distrustful of government," with the institute making the "Heart of Dixie a wellspring of sensible economic thinking."[10]
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."[11]
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.[12] It has led to the creation of spin-off organizations around the world, including Brazil,[13][better source needed] Germany,[14] South Korea,[15][better source needed] and Turkey.[16][non-primary source needed]
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".[citation needed] Von Finck was active in economic policy and criticized the EU.[17] 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.[18] The institute is scientifically supported by economists and philosophers, most of whom are organized in the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society and/or the Mont Pelerin Society. German Mises Institute has strong ties to the so-called Neue Rechte and AfD.[17][18][19] The German Mises Institute works closely with the US-Mises Institute and with many other Mises Institutes around the world. It is not noticed in the EU Transparency Register.[18]
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rockwell and Rothbard embraced racial and class resentments to build a coalition with populist paleoconservatives.[22] This rhetoric appeared at the time in newsletters for Ron Paul that Rockwell was later identified as writing, including statements against black people and gay people that later became controversies in Paul's congressional and presidential campaigns.[22][3] Separately, Rothbard's writing opposed "multiculturalists" and "the entire panoply of feminism, egalitarianism."[3]
A 2000 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) categorized the Mises Institute as Neo-Confederate, "devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics."[26] In 2003, Chip Berlet of the SPLC described the institute as "a major center promoting libertarian political theory and the Austrian School of free market economics," noted Rothbard's disgust with child labor laws, and wrote that other institute scholars held anti-immigrant views.[27] Fundraising emails sent by the Mises Institute told followers that "elections aren't working anymore", arguing that the system is irreformable, captured by "parasites such as the Deep State, the political class, and the Federal Reserve", and claiming that "the Founding Fathers would demand revolution."[28][better source needed]Austrian economistSteve Horwitz called the Mises Institute "a fascist fist in a libertarian glove."[29]
When a New York Times reporter requested a tour of the institute in 2014, Rockwell asked him to leave, saying he was "part of the regime."[3]
Joseph T. Salerno – academic vice president of the Mises Institute, Professor of Economics at Pace University, and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
Thomas Woods – historian, political commentator, and author
^Lee, Frederic S.; Cronin, Bruce C.; McConnell, Scott; Dean, Erik (2010). "Research Quality Rankings of Heterodox Economic Journals in a Contested Discipline". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 69 (5): 1409–1452. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00751.x.
