Memo
To: Friends and Colleagues
From: Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Date: October 2003
Are you ever embarrassed by TV programming and what it implies about the American mind? The leading academic journals are even worse: warped by pro-government bias; obsessed by race, sex, and group inequality; and scheming to "solve" all problems by putting the right experts (them) in charge of government.
Yet the scholarly journal, properly conceived, serves an essential purpose in allowing new research to be published and made known, and in building a community of scholars who can think independently.
The journals of the 18th and 19th centuries seem fearless by comparison to the current crop. Far from currying favor with power, the best of them took it on, and dealt with fundamental questions, regardless of official displeasure. "Social science" didn't mean the science of how to control others through government. It mean to see truth through the fog.
Where today can scholars consider such questions as the meaning of property rights, the correct relationship between the individual and the state, the violent nature of economic planning, and how history is scarred by wars, taxes, and other government programs? Where are the articles that can completely overturn conventional wisdom, and expose received opinion as false?
Thank goodness for the Journal of Libertarian Studies. When Murray Rothbard founded it more than 25 years ago, the mainstream journals were closed to libertarian scholars, even brilliant thinkers like Rothbard himself. (They still are!) Yet there was vast work to be done, and minds to be changed and inspired.
Murray hoped that his journal would stimulate research, recruit new young people, and intensify communication and cooperation. He wanted his journal to expand libertarian scholarship, and, in the end, liberty itself.
A quarter century later, we can see what a huge difference this journal has made! Its ideas have made their way into libraries and classrooms, and recruited a new generation of students.
This was the one journal to explore how and whether the state can be limited, and whether society needs such an institution at all. It looked at historical cases of private property-based social organization, from Iceland to Ireland, and showed them to be viable. It critiqued all the rationales for the state, including the "social contract" and the alleged inability of the market to provide security. It examined the origins of government control of medicine, the failings of mass democracy, and whether Adam Smith was really all he is cracked up to be.
JLS brought new attention to forgotten movements for liberty throughout history, such as the opponents of the New Deal. It showed that the "wild, wild West," with independent-minded people making a new life for themselves on the frontier, wasn’t wild at all, but rather peaceful and productive – thanks to a lack of politicians and bureaucrats, and an armed population.
JLS battled relativism, exposed those who profit from war and the corporate state, and defended "insider trading" as often nothing more than the free association of ideas. Yes, it was (and is) radical, and often tests the limits. But isn’t this precisely what we need when the state is so dominant in public life and academic opinion?
Yet gradually, through the years, back issues of the Journal became harder and harder to find. So, in 1999, the Mises Institute put the entire set online to make them available to the whole world. Every bit of the research and writing that had gone on for more than two decades was suddenly accessible again, as fresh and brilliant as ever.
After Murray Rothbard's untimely death, his student and colleague Hans-Hermann Hoppe assumed the position of editor. Then the Mises Institute took over from the Center for Libertarian Studies, as publisher. Today, with its fabulous legacy and international reputation, it is still the standard bearer for libertarian scholarship.
Under Hans, of course, the JLS is still dedicated to hot topics. It skewers the welfare state of the elderly. It defends economic law against its enemies. It exposes the failings of the Chicago School. It reminds us of the horrors of the post-Civil War Reconstruction. It makes the case for political secession.
JLS has published articles on the disaster of the European Union and the merit of jury nullification, and run a symposium on mass immigration vs. private property. It was first to call into question the "intellectual property rights" government bestows on favored producers, and upheld the right to discriminate essential to freedom. It published the first new look at the origins of National Socialism in decades, something all too relevant today.
Yes, JLS takes risks. But this is necessary to break the stranglehold that the state exercises over academic opinion, and to attract the young. It provides a rare zone of freedom where outstanding scholars can publish real research and new ideas. No wonder its audience is so broad and dedicated.
We are dedicated to making sure there is a scholarly journal to hold high the flame of liberty in dark times. Would you help us keep it alight?
Like everything at the Mises Institute, we publish The Journal of Libertarian Studies on a shoestring. Mainstream journals of the opposite persuasion can cost half a million dollars and more per year, and the government is happy to subsidize that. We bring out JLS for about 10% of that. But we still need your help.
To get the ideas out to the world, Mises.org does not charge for online access to the JLS. At the same time, server space to keep the issues online, and bandwidth to keep all these issues accessible to as many people who want to download them, to say nothing of putting up new ones, can be very expensive.
Your tax-deductible donation of $25, $50, $100, $500, $1000, or any amount would really help. Please contribute to the genuine scholarship of freedom. We have never needed it more.
Please support this journal with a donation through our secure site. Add "JLS" to the description box to designate your contribution.
Authors Who Have Been Published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies
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James C.W. Ahiakpor |
Patrick Grim |
Patrick M. O’Neil |
