Editors and Contributors
The Editors
Walter Block is director of the Fraser Institute’s Center for the Study of Religion and Economics.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., is founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
The Contributors
Dominick T. Armentano is professor of economics at the University of Hartford, Hartford, Conneticut.
Roger A. Arnold is professor of economics and economics department head at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Backcover
I Chose Liberty
I Chose Liberty
I CHOSE LIBERTY
Title Page
I CHOSE LIBERTY
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF CONTEMPORARY LIBERTARIANS
COMPILED BY
WALTER BLOCK
LVMI
MISES INSTITUTE
Copyright Page
© 2010 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by/3.0/
Ludwig von Mises Institute
518 West Magnolia Avenue
Auburn, Alabama 36832
mises.org
ISBN: 978-1-61016-002-5
Foreword
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOOK PROJECT
SOME YEARS AGO, at the suggestion of Lew Rockwell, I wrote my own short autobiography, and began asking others in our Austro-libertarian movement to contribute their own stories to my collection.
1. On My Becoming an Advocate of Free Markets and Limited Government
MY INITIAL INCLINATION TOWARD Walter Block’s kind invitation to write the story of how I became a “Libertarian” was to decline it. I didn’t think I qualified to take on the label. But Walter explained that he defines “libertarianism very widely, synonymously with market advocate, limited government philosophy, free enterpriser, laissez-faire capitalist, Adam Smith fan, etc.,” all of which indeed fit me. So here is my story.
2. My Life as a Libertarian
I WAS BORN IN THE North End of Hartford, Conneticut, in 1940 and I’ve been a libertarian for as long as I can remember. I never went through any sort of messy political transformation like some others did. I was never a Marxist or a socialist or even a warm and fuzzy liberal. When I first became interested in political economy in my early teens, individual responsibility and mistrust of governmental authority just seemed natural and right to me. They still do. How did I get started down the libertarian path?
3. My Journey Toward Libertarianism
I DIDN’T KNOW IT AT the time, but my first step toward libertarianism was taken during a violent labor union strike, circa 1950, against the factory that employed my father. I grew up in a classic company town, Whitinsville, Massachusetts. Dad’s employer, Whitin Machine Works, employed something like 80 percent of the workers in the town, and we lived in a company-owned tenement. The union that, by force of law, represented both willing and unwilling factory workers, decided to call a strike.
