Power & Market

A Modest Proposal from Dr. Walter Block

Power & Market Walter Block

If you're reading this, you should be supporting the Mises Institute every month!

I recently taught at the Mises University. This weekly experience is the highlight of my entire professional year, as it has been for lo these many decades. (When I started, I was an enfant terrible; now, I’m an old duffer. I don’t know what happened. Time goes by fast whey you’re having fun).  It is an honor to work with my colleagues on the academic staff. The students, as always, were superb. Presumably, in the next few years, more than just a few of them will become MU professors, as are about half of the present faculty ex students of MU.

Thanks go out to Lew Rockwell, Jeff  Deist, Joe Salerno, Pat Barnett and some dozen other members of the Mises Institute staff. Lew started off the entire institution, Jeff is the president of the MI, Joe put together the entire MU program, and Pat is the excellent administrator of the operation.

Who is the forgotten man? Who are they, such that without their support, the entire institution would fall to the ground? Have never been able to be started up in the first place? I’ll give you just one guess. Yes, it is the donors of course. I must take my hat off to them, for without these generous people, there, literally, would be no Mises Institute.

We had about 200 students at this year’s MU. Most of them are at the stages of their careers where all they have is brilliance and enthusiasm. Neither undergraduate students, nor those in graduate school have much money to donate to the MI.  I had occasion during that week, nevertheless, to ask each of them to contribute $5 on an annual basis (until they have more money) to the Mises Institute (by the way, I myself donate a bit more than that). Why did I make this plea? It is not really that the $1000 that would be raised in that manner if all attendees complied with my request would spell the difference between success and failure. Yes, every $1000 helps, and I would be grateful to anyone who can afford to donate that amount, or more. No, the reason I asked all students to contribute this relative small amount of money was quite different.

It was this. Wealthy people will be more likely to contribute funds to the MI, and more heavily so, if this institution has many donors. They do not like to be the only ones financially supporting an organization such as the MI. Moreover, the more people who contribute to the MI this $5 per year I am asking for, the smaller is the average donation. That, too, encourages potential large donors to contribute in the first place, and in greater amounts.

I am now extending my plea from the some 200 students who attended MU 2018, to all those who are reading these words. Please donate $5 to the MI (I’d lower this to $1 per year, but, thanks to the fed, that doesn’t amount to two cents, so to speak). If all readers of LewRockwell.com did so, it would not, to be fully honest, help all that much, directly. But it would be of immense aid indirectly, in encourage larger donations.

So, poverty stricken students and other impecunious folk, please reach deep down into your pockets, and cough up that $5. You can do so at this easy to reach link: mises.org/giving/now.

I will be the BFF of everyone who complies with this request of mine.

All Rights Reserved ©
Support Liberty

The Mises Institute exists solely on voluntary contributions from readers like you. Support our students and faculty in their work for Austrian economics, freedom, and peace.

Donate today
Group photo of Mises staff and fellows