Walter Block

Walter Block (born 1941) is a leading free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School. A free market is an idealized market, where all economic decisions and actions by individuals regarding transfer of money, goods, and services are voluntary, and are therefore devoid of coercion and theft (some definitions of coercion are inclusive of theft). Colloquially and loosely, a free market economy is an economy... Anarcho-capitalism is a view that regards all forms of the state as unnecessary and harmful, particularly in matters of justice and self-defense, while being highly supportive of private property. ... The Austrian School, also known as “the Vienna School” and as “the Psychological School”, is a school of economic thought that advocates the adherence to strict methodological individualism. ...

Family history and education

Block was born in Brooklyn, New York to Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, both of whom Block has described as "liberals."^[1] He earned his undergraduate degree in Philosophy (with honors) from Brooklyn College where he was a member of the varsity swimming team. Block earned his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University and wrote his dissertation on rent control. He lives with his wife in his homes in New Orleans, Louisiana and Vancouver, British Columbia and has two adult children. Brooklyn (named for the Dutch city Breukelen) is one of the five boroughs of New York City. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA. In most U.S. states, only CPAs who are licensed are able to provide to the... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Face-to-face trading interactions among on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor Economics, as a social science, studies the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities. ... Columbia University is a private university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... Rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on residential housing. ... Nickname: The Crescent City, The Big Easy, The City That Care Forgot, NOLA (acronym for New Orleans, LA) Location in the State of Louisiana and the United States Coordinates: Country United States State Louisiana Parish Orleans Founded 1718 Mayor Ray Nagin (D) Area    - City 350. ... This article refers to the city in British Columbia, Canada. ...

Professional career

Block now holds the Harold E. Wirth Endowed Chair in Economics at Loyola University in New Orleans. From 1979-1991, he was the Senior Economist with the Fraser Institute, and, from 1998–2002, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute. In addition to his faculty position at Loyola, Block is also a Senior Faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics. His most famous work is Defending the Undefendable. Block is considered to be one of the principal economists and thinkers of the Austrian School and anarcho-capitalism in general. Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute said this about Walter Block's active role in modern libertarianism: Logo of Loyola University New Orleans Loyola University New Orleans is a private, co-educational Jesuit university in the United States with 5,000 students (3,000 undergraduates). ... The Fraser Institute is a fiscally conservative Canadian think tank. ... The Aspen Institute is a U.S. nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1950 dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. ... Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, Auburn, Alabama The Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), based in Auburn, Alabama, is a libertarian academic organisation engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy. ... Anarcho-capitalism refers to an anti-statist philosophy that embraces capitalism as one of its foundational principles. ... Lew Rockwell Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. ...

Murray Rothbard, in his life, was known as Mr. Libertarian. We can make a solid case that the title now belongs to Walter Block, a student of Rothbard's whose own vita is as thick as a big-city phonebook, and as diverse as Wikipedia. Whether he is writing on economic theory, ethics, political secession, drugs, roads, education, monetary policy, social theory, unions, political language, or anything else, his prose burns with a passion for this single idea: if human problems are to be solved, the solution is to be found by permitting greater liberty.^[2]

Prior to entering graduate school, Block worked as a columnist for Business Week before becoming a real estate investor in New York. In 1983, Block was part of a group of investors who led the development of 2nd Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Block is listed as a distinguished alumnus of Columbia University.^[3] BusinessWeek is a business magazine published by McGraw-Hill. ... Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... Columbia University is a private university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ...

Introduction to Libertarianism

Block's early thinking life was characterized by egalitarian thought. In an interview by the Austrian Economics Newsletter, Block stated, "In the fifties and sixties, I was just another commie living in Brooklyn."^[4] Block credits his "conversion" to libertarianism to personal meetings with Ayn Rand while he was an undergraduate student. Alan Greenspan was in attendance at some of these meetings.^[1] As Block describes it, Libertarianism is a political philosophy advocating that individuals should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they do not infringe on the same liberty of others. ... It has been suggested that The Ayn Rand Collective be merged into this article or section. ... Alan Greenspan, the thirteenth Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist and was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. ...

In 1963, when I was a senior at Brooklyn College, Ayn Rand came there to give a lecture. I attended, along with about 3,000 of my fellow mainly leftish students, in order to boo and hiss her, since she was evil incarnate.... Not having had enough booing and hissing at Ayn in her formal lecture, I decided to... to further express my displeasure with her and her views.^[1]

Block thereafter attended a luncheon with Rand, Nathaniel Branden, and Leonard Peikoff. After Block's challenging of several luncheon attendees to demonstrate capitalism's superiority, Branden forged an agreement with Block: Nathaniel Branden is a psychotherapist and author of psychology books and multiple articles on ethical and political philosophy. ... Leonard Peikoff circa 1970 Leonard Peikoff (born 1933) is an Objectivist philosopher and author. ...

Nathan very graciously offered to come to the other end of the table with me for this purpose, but he imposed two preconditions: first, I would be honor bound not to allow this conversation to lapse with this one meeting, but would continue with it until we had achieved a resolution: either he would convince me of the error of my ways, or I would convince him of his. Second, I would read two books he would later recommend to me (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt).^[1]

Although Block credits Ayn Rand, Branden, and other Objectivists with initially interesting him in laissez faire theory in general, he says of Murray Rothbard that, Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Russian-born writer and philosopher Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the USA. It was Rands last work of fiction before concentrating her writings exclusively on philosophy, politics and cultural criticism. ... Economics in One Lesson is an introduction to free-market economics written by Henry Hazlitt in 1946, based on Frederic Bastiats essay Ce quon voit et ce quon ne voit pas (What is Seen and What is Not Seen). ... Henry Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 - July 8, 1993) was a libertarian philosopher, economist and journalist for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek, among other publications. ... Laissez-faire (IPA: ) or laisser-faire is short for laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer, a French phrase meaning let do, let go, let pass. ... Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was a highly influential American economist, historian and natural law theorist belonging to the Austrian School of Economics who helped define modern libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism. ...

After I met Murray, it took him probably all of 15 minutes to convert me to the same anarcho-capitalist position I have held ever since.... In retrospect, before I had met Murray, I was nine tenths of the way toward embracing laissez faire capitalist anarchism; all I needed was a little push in the same direction I had already been going for some time.^[1]

The Libertatis Æquilibritas is symbolic of the concept that materialistic concepts like money can coexist in harmony with spirtual and philosophical concepts like the Yin-Yang. ...

Books

As author:

• Defending the Undefendable (1976; translated into Chinese, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian languages) ISBN 0-930073-05-3
• A Response to the Framework Document for Amending the Combines Investigation Act (1982)
• Focus on Economics and the Canadian Bishops (1983)
• Focus on Employment Equity: A Critique of the Abella Royal Commission on Equality in Employment (with Michael A. Walker; 1985)
• The U.S. Bishops and Their Critics: An Economic and Ethical Perspective (1986)
• Lexicon of Economic Thought (with Michael A. Walker; 1988)
• Economic Freedom of the World, 1975-1995 (with James Gwartney, Robert Lawson; 1996)
• The Privatization of Roads and Highways: Human and Economic Factors (2006)

The Combines Investigation Act was a Canadian Act of Parliament, passed in 1923 by MacKenzie King, which regulated certain corporate business practices that were anti-competitive. ... This is a disambiguation page for: Robert Lawson (architect) Robert Lawson (author) Robert Lawson (cricketer) Robert Lawson (politician) Robert Lawson (artiste) ...

As editor:

• Zoning: Its Costs and Relevance for the 1980s (Ed.; 1980)
• Rent Control: Myths & Realities (Ed. with Edgar Olsen; 1981)
• Discrimination, Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity (Ed. with Michael A. Walker; 1982)
• Taxation: An International Perspective (Ed. with Michael A. Walker; 1984)
• Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation (Ed.; 1985; translated into Portuguese 1992) ISBN 0-88975-067-X
• Morality of the Market: Religious and Economic Perspectives (Ed. with Geoffrey Brennan, Kenneth Elzinga; 1985)
• Theology, Third World Development and Economic Justice (Ed. with Donald Shaw; 1985)
• Reaction: The New Combines Investigation Act (Ed.; 1986)
• Religion, Economics & Social Thought (Ed. with Irving Hexham; 1986)
• Man, Economy and Liberty: Essays in Honor of Murray N. Rothbard (Ed. with Lew Rockwell; 1988)
• Breaking the Shackles; the Economics of Deregulation: A Comparison of U.S. and Canadian Experience (Ed. with George Lermer; 1991)
• Economic Freedom: Toward a Theory of Measurement (Ed.; 1991)
• Libertarian Autobiographies (Ed.; forthcoming)

Geoffrey Brennan is currently a professor of Philosophy at both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University in the Department of Philosophy. ... Donald Shaw is the co-author of the Agenda-Setting theory along with Maxwell McCombs. ... Irving Hexham (April 14, 1943) is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. ... Lew Rockwell Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. ...

See also

• Property and Freedom Society

The Property and Freedom Society is an international organization created for the global promotion of Austro-Libertarianism, or, to expand the term, the principles of the Austrian School and libertarianism. ...

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} [1] Walter Block. "On Autobiography." LewRockwell.com. 4 December 2002.
2. ^ [2] Lew Rockwell. "Putting Opponents on the Hot Seat." LewRockwell.com. 3 May 2006.
3. ^ [3]
4. ^ [4]"Radical Economics: An Interview with Walter Block." Austrian Economics Newsletter. Summer 1999.

External links

• WalterBlock.com
• Commentary by Walter Block for CNBC
• Biography and Article Archive at Mises.org.
• Media Archive at Mises.org.