 So welcome everyone. This panel has been titled Murray's Children and you can see from Look some of us have enough gray hair that we don't look like children though We may act like children a lot of the time But all of us have been influenced by Murray and in such a way that we consider ourselves intellectually and spiritually to be Murray's children and We're gonna speak briefly about some of our experiences With Murray. My name is Peter Klein. I'm a professor of business at Baylor University I'm gonna moderate the panel. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce the other panelists now to save time each of the panelists will have five minutes to offer some prepared remarks and I don't follow Walter Block's philosophy in all areas, but I do follow his philosophy of timekeeping Which means strict and pushy So in alphabetical order, we have Joanne Cavallo She's a professor of Italian and chair of the Italian department at Columbia University here in New York Tom Di Lorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Baltimore and a senior fellow of the Mises Institute Jeff Herbner is professor of economics at Grove City College and a senior fellow of the Mises Institute Yuri Maltsev is professor of economics at Carthage College and also senior fellow of the Mises Institute Roberta Madongo is associate professor of history and political thought at the University of Roma 3 Sandy Klein is adjunct professor of economics at Baylor University and director of the Mises Academy's online learning platform and Mark Thornton is a senior fellow at the Mises Institute. So Joanne, you are first Okay, so thank you Peter. Hi everyone. I'm really thrilled and honored to be here I probably don't merit inclusion in this illustrious group, but I'm happy to share the story of my encounter with Rothbard's work. It all started with watching the 2012 Republican primary debates with my son on TV and yes Oh sure Okay Should I start again? It all so it all started with watching the 2012 Republican primary Debates on TV with my son and being blown away by Ron Paul. So at the time I was completing a work on the Italian Renaissance romance epic and which I couldn't concentrate I was very distracted. I kept going to The internet to see anything that was Ron Paul related and it came upon this piece and it was called I Hate Ron Paul by a fellow named Walter Block I didn't know who he was and I thought this must be a hit piece. So I clicked on it all in Dignan I was ready to be enraged and then it started out Before the Paul campaign of 2012. I was a reasonably productive researcher and writer nowadays all that has changed I have become a Ron Paul junkie Okay there's There's a kindred spirit and I suppressed the urge to contact him right away But soon after I came across another article of his on libertarianism and the environment So I gave in and I sent him an email. He responded immediately Inviting me to join him in a panel called literature and liberty at the upcoming Austrian scholars conference at the Mises Institute and he wanted an answer right away Right, so I asked my two kids if they thought I should go to this conference in Alabama and they said no We should all go and in fact I we were heading then to Auburn for their spring break a 15 hour drive from our New Jersey home And I wanted something that would keep us occupied on the trip but also could be a jumpstart into Austrian economics and Joe Salerno had mentioned in an email that 2012 was the Semicentennial of Rothbard's man economy in state So I bought the audio book and there's the culprit Walter block just walked in. I've already talked about you So you can't assume me Okay And so it turned out the trip turned out to be a Rothbard Marathon with time preference value scales the emergence of money the love marginal utility all with such Brilliance and clarity that non-specialists like us could understand so miles flew by as we were first stranded on a desert island with Robertson Caruso picking berries and then exchanging with Jackson and then moving on to a more complex economy at work And there was just one point when Jeff Rickenbach was reading a very long chart with many many horses and many many barrels of fish that my daughter fell asleep So I thought the thing about counting sheep really does work But it was a it was it was a short nap and for most of the ride We were my children were listening along with me and stopping the CD every once in a while to to ask questions or to comment So I guess you could say Rothbard accompanied us on our first trip to the Austrian scholars Conference where we heard many of the speakers this weekend also presenting papers and so after a very stimulating And in 10s three days. It was time for the ride home And my kids wanted to take turns driving and I thought maybe I would give them a break from Rickenbach reading Rothbard and read something to them myself So I started reading a book I had bought at the conference Lou Rockwell's the left the right and the state and it was so compelling that I just kept reading until I was horse and Nevertheless, I couldn't resist jumping ahead to the final chapter. We need an angel like Clarence and Rockwell starts off by saying Mary Rothbard used to wonder why people who believe that liberty is unachievable Or that activism of any sort is futile become libertarian in the first place And then he goes on to make the point that no state is liberal by nature said Mises Every state wants to control all if it does not do so the major reason is that freedom-minded Intellectuals are making the difference so at that point I Decided that I wanted to be in that group even in my own small way as it turned out the book I was finishing The world be on Europe in the romance epics of Boyardo and Ariosto was already anti-status in its perspective It just lacked the theoretical apparatus of austral libertarianism. So I made it in time to Insert a couple small additions in that Direction including a reflection by Rothbard on the medieval wars of Germany and Italy based on his economic thought before Adam Smith and since then in my research my State article on Machiavelli on Marco Polo on Renaissance fiction in a co-edited volume with Carlo Lotieri entitled the speaking truth to power from medieval to modern Italy Austro libertarian has been front and center of my work. So to conclude I see it's time for me to conclude What seemed in the beginning to be a distraction from my research ended up being an integral part of it So if any point at any point I do merit inclusion as Rothbard's air It will be really thanks to Ron Paul Walter block and Lou Rockwell. So thank you This thing work in work my first communication with Murray Rothbard was a letter but when not when he and Lou founded the Amici's Institute I was an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University and I got a postcard to mail announcing the creation of the me see this too and by then You know, I've been through graduate school at VPI this Virginia polytechnic Institute Which is was the name of the school before they got a good football team that became Virginia Tech after that Back when there was still an engineering school and they have the team you can and Gordon Tullock and the public choice people were in the economics department It was a scholarship was at least a little bit of focus there But anyway, I've read human action in graduate school And so I was already familiar with the Austrians and even as an undergraduate I had discovered the Freeman magazine from the Foundation for economic education and for pretty much the four years of my undergraduate I had read every issue of the Freeman and So I'd run across on me sees and the other all of everybody and in the movement at the time But anyway, I did this postcard announcing the Amici's Institute being created. And so I Immediately since I was a wealthy assistant professor of economics Sent them a check for 50 bucks and to buy some pencils and pens or something like that And I got a thank you. Nice. Thank you note handwritten as I remember and I was from Murray and And so I wrote back and I and they sent me a Misi's tie on Misi's time not wearing it today but It's kind of lost in the shuffle over the years And and I said in my letter that I will wear it proudly in the halls of academe And it will have the same effect as flashing a Christian cross in front of Dracula Lou tells me that Murray laughed his head off He didn't those of us who knew Murray could imagine him cackling over a silly joke like that So that was sort of my first communication with Murray Rothbard But my when I went to graduate school. Yeah, I've already known about the Austrians I read some Austrian economics as an undergraduate and My first semester in microeconomics in graduate school the textbooks were human action by Ludwig von Misi's and Milton Friedman's price theory and Richard Wagner was the professor. He's an Austrian he's now George Mason been there for many years and In his syllabus the very top of the syllabus was a lengthy quotation by Ludwig von Misi's on what it means to be an economist And and I was so impressed by that. This was my favorite course in the whole curriculum I think even though Wagner was a kind of a boring lecture or monotone And I just ate it up it but if the substance of what he was saying was so great I couldn't wait to get to his class every other class was pure torture, you know Mathematical economics, econometrics, all this stuff But but but his class I couldn't wait to get there to the class But anyway this I don't have the quote in front of me But it said essentially to be it to be an economist in the opinion of Misi's you had to not only just master Economic theory, but you should also be educated in philosophy and history political philosophy Sociology and and so forth to be a real economist and that that impressed me a lot because because I was already becoming very jaundiced about the mainstream and how How it operated One quick example I can remember a seminar in graduate school They had a weekly seminar in the economics department and some big shot mathematical economists from Princeton came and They had a mathematical model of the hamburger market on the on the blackboard With the big blur of equation after equation after equation and Gordon Tullock asked him But this said but this is nothing at all like the real hamburger market and his response was I don't care about the real hamburger market I care about my model I've already been kind of sick of this thing And so it was so refreshing to see and then once you start reading human action after this quote at the beginning of the syllabus I hadn't I hadn't read a page of it yet. It was a first day of class I understood what what he meant to be to be a real economist and then of course and I'd known about Rothbard I've read for new liberty and And so I started reading more and more of him And in graduate school and I and I came to conclusion that no one Fifth the bill in terms of that definition of what it takes to be an economist Aside from Mises himself than Murray Rothbard and in those of you who have read Rothbard's words and just You know one of my my favorite Rothbard economic Journal article is his a critique of utility and welfare economics where he just totally destroys the mainstream View of welfare economics and when I read that I said this is a Nobel Prize caliber Thinking here that went into this and then you read his history book You know the history of colonial America and even the panic of 1819 and history of money and banking in the United States It's it's almost a perfect description of what Mises was talking about and so and that has influenced my career and my writing in my books and And I'm just like an ant compared to the elephant of Murray Rothbard in that regard But it did give me a path to follow and I've tried to do that Well growing up in the frontier areas of civilization I didn't have the advantages that Tom DeLorenzo did you know the long arms of even the mail Back in those days didn't deliver human action to you know perspective Economists and so when I was doing my undergraduate work in fact the very first class I had in economics I Did have the I was exposed to the kind of what you might consider the central Insight that Mises I would learn that Mises had expounded on Years before in human action and this was the the natural order of The market economy that's brought about by the economic calculation the system of economic calculation and entrepreneurship So I had a professor who is at least Sufficiently aware that they could present this idea to me this this idea captured my mind completely So as soon as I heard that I was an economist. I committed myself to economics This was a class in microeconomics. I must admit It was more or less downhill from there in my you know training in the mainstream So the next semester was macro and it was a total mess where none of that You know that insight didn't exist and then so I graduated without hearing any mention of the Austrians or any furthering of this insight and Went to grad school or the same thing happened It got worse of course in grad schools. Dr. D. Lorenzo has already pointed out to the you get down into the minutia the models and You know, you're not talking about any of the sort of social theory that Drew me into economics as a as a life in intellectual life And so I went through all my graduate studies never heard Any mention of the Austrian economists except in a monetary theory class of all places I had another very well-read and insightful professor who talked about boom bob works theory of roundabout production That was the first time I'd ever heard the name of an Austrian economist and monetary theory go figure that he's talking about that but So afterwards After I finished my graduate study, of course, I had my You know particular interests and areas that I had specialized in grad school monetary theory being one of them So I knew I was going to do some intellectual work in that field, but I really wanted to rekindle this This exciting insight that I had I had been exposed to in undergraduate and so I began to read On my own and I started through the Austrian literature a friend of mine introduced me to laser for books and by that time I was Not on the frontier anymore and they could mail things to me and so you know I got so I started with I started with hi, you know flip through the book and I'd already been introduced to Friedman, right? but and so I got introduced to Hayek and then I Found that not what I was looking for Hayek didn't really Have like this this He didn't build on this basic social insight he his project was a little bit different than that but through Hayek I got introduced finally to Mises and I found out of course after reading human action that There's a long tradition of economists who've written what we might call grand social theory, right that have You know been it had a basic insight about the natural working of society and how it Functions how the social order functions and so this this was great, but I still there were certain things in Mises that didn't I didn't warm up to a certain other aspects of his thought But when I but for Mises, I of course got Rothbard's Man economy in state was next and then and then you know someone Ron Paul I think mentioned earlier today, you know the depth and the clarity of his writing is so Convincing right So I became a Rothbardian Just just like that because he built on he built a social theory And then I found out of course of reading further in Rothbard that he not only had a social theory that was Sprung from his economics, but he extended his foundation of this praxeological foundation of Mises to include other important Social sciences right the political philosophy and and so on so here here it went beyond my expectations that I could just be satisfied in my intellectual life by Economics to proceed into political philosophy and the praxeological foundation of all of these social sciences so that was really the important thing about about For my intellectual life about Mises Do I have like a minute or 30 seconds? So let me because I did want to throw in just a something about the career advancement associating with Murray Murray I'm not sure exactly how it works out for the rest of the panel But Murray only helped me in my career on a personal level and I don't have time to go into the full story but one time he it was it was with a phone call that was Timed at just the right moment when someone was in the room with me and I took the call and this person was very impressed a Person a person to whom I reported as a as an assistant professor and the other was the importance of the Mises Institute in Securing my position at Grove City College. This too was the work of Lou Rockwell and and Murray Rothbard and then the final thing that I Want to point out is the inspiration that Murray has given me just as a person I think Murray's Murray was more committed than anybody. I know To the life and flourishing of the human race He he loved life He loved to be among people as we've seen like a Joe Salerno was talking about real people All right, you let the live life real with real people in society is very inspiring things So we're very grateful to Murray, you know, we all remember the people who have influenced Us the most in in our personal development in our intellectual development I've been privileged to know a lot of really smart people in my day My father was a professional historian who like Murray got a PhD at Columbia in the 1950s He went on to write several articles and books and was well regarded in his Professional field of colonial American history my PhD Supervisor Oliver Williamson is an expert in business economics and industrial Organization and was regarded when I studied with him as sort of a Nobel worthy contributor And indeed he did go on to win the Nobel Prize in 2009 I took a course from George Akerlof another eventual Nobel laureate I worked as an assistant to Christina Romer who became one of Obama's chief economists I even know David Gordon But you know, I've never met anybody like Murray Rothbard not just in terms of his intellectual capacity But his energy his endofatic, you know, his undefeatable spirit The sheer breadth and depth of his interest He heard so much in the last day or two about the huge range of topics on which he had interests and expertise Not just intellectual topics, but soap operas and gossip and so forth Murray seemed to know, you know, not every not only every one but everything One of his talents that I think is not as appreciated as it could be is his talent as an editor Murray was the founding editor not only of the review of Austrian economics But also of the Journal of Libertarian Studies Which he edited until his death and in the last few years in the early 90s I was fortunate to be his assistant editor Which means I handled manuscripts and helped assign reviewers and so forth Now the JLS was at that time and a peer reviewed academic journal And most of the articles were peer reviewed, but it turns out often the peer reviewer was Murray Right because I could never find anybody to do a peer review who knew more about the subject No matter what the subject then Murray and he would write these incredible letters back to the reviewers Those of you have been through Submitted articles for publication know what this process is like But you would submit an article to the JLS on almost any subject not just technical economic theory not just philosophy not just libertarianism, but Everything from church history to contemporary politics and the reviewers sorry the authors would get these you know 10-page single space letters back You know with with all sorts of suggestions for things they could read and arguments that they had gotten wrong and Ways that they can improve their papers. I mean just absolutely incredible I Never went through that process myself, but I can imagine being very depressed There's a great there's a great story You can find if you Google it by Robert Higgs the eminent Economic historian who received something like a 20-page single space letter from Murray after he sent Murray a manuscript for his book Crisis and Leviathan and Bob said he was an utter despair that he could live You know a hundred lifetimes and never be able to do all of the things that Murray thought should be done to make that a better book One of my most formative personal experiences was having a telephone interview with Murray Rothbard Before I started my graduate work at Berkeley, and I had sent off an application for a Mises Institute fellowship By mail of course as you did it back in those days, and I got a nice letter back from the fellowship committee You know, thank you for your application. Your grades are satisfactory. We're interested in pursuing this further The next step will be to have an interview with our academic director, you know, I keep reading the letter Murray Rothbard I had read Murray's Books I had read some of his books as an undergraduate student and but I couldn't imagine You know speaking to him in person sort of like Walter Block said about you know, trying to talk to Mozart So she was extremely nervous for this telephone interview, but it actually went really well Even though I didn't know much and I probably thought I knew a lot more than I actually did know But Murray was very kind and he was warm. He put me at ease. I can remember Telling him about problems I had with my undergraduate economics professors who are all mainstream mathematical economists Keynesian macroeconomists and so forth in particular I had had a microeconomics course from this one professor and I'd gone to that professor and said well I need to take my macroeconomics course next semester Which course should I take or which professor should I sign up for could you give me some advice and that professor had said? Oh, I don't do any of that macro stuff I don't know anything about macro and I related this story to Murray on the phone You know Murray believed in the integration of all human knowledge and especially the integration of all fields of economics And Murray was horrified by this Not no macro and be an economist and he went on and on So I knew I was in this good, you know, I was in this good corner at that point and I Subsequently became one of the young people who clustered around Murray at conferences The means what became Mises University. We then called it. I think Conference on advanced Austrian economics in the summer and you know Murray loved to stay up late and talk to the students I tried not to be as annoying as some of the other students who would like literally follow Murray into the bathroom Asking questions about things. I won't mention any names Because you would recognize these names One time I gave Lou Rockwell and Pat Barnett a heart attack because I was tasked to go pick up Murray at his hotel at some event and bring him to the venue and I think it was in California. It wasn't a place where I was living at that time. I didn't know the roads very well I had some kind of a map but for you young people, this was the days before GPS And so of course I got lost on the way back, you know I'm in the car with Murray and he's talking the whole time and I'm fascinated by what he's saying But trying to pay attention to the roads and look at the map and of course I got lost and they were waiting at the venue You know, there's several hundred people there waiting to hear Murray Rothbard and there's no Rothbard And eventually we made it, you know, just sort of at the nick of time It's great melodrama You know like everybody else I was I was completely shocked by his passing in 1995 I can remember hearing about it when I was Sandy and I were in Washington DC I was interviewing for academic jobs at the American Economic Association meeting and right at the end of the meeting we found out and you know, I couldn't believe it but You know, someone said yesterday, you know that no person is indispensable to a great movement I mean if anyone is indispensable to the modern Austrian economics movement, it's Murray Rothbard, but yet You know all these years since 1995 the movement in many ways has grown Thanks to Lew, people who are here. It's a great honor for me to know Murray during the last few years of his life And I'll always be very proud to be considered one of his intellectual disciples One correction of something Peter said I was there at the early Mises University when he was a student And he did cluster around Murray, but he mostly clustered around Sandy who is now Well, it's actually gonna tell a story about that that in May 1992 Actually on Peter's birthday on May 1990 in May 1992 I was at a Mises Institute conference my first one at Jekyll Island and Ended up being a pretty important Weekend I met my husband there I met Joe Salerno and also I met Murray and the first time that I met Murray so I was 25 years old and Grew up in the South you can already tell I'm a southerner from accent already from just those little few words I've said I had not been exposed very much to people of this thick New York accent like Murray's and so our first conversation Neither one of us understood very much what the other said He thought my name was Sadie so But anyway, he was so sweet and a lot of people will Tell you that new Murray will say that he was so much fun Of course brilliant, but so much fun and incredibly sweet And I was just gonna tell One experience that I had with a tell about one love Interaction that I had with Murray that I have a letter from him I want to read a little excerpt of that. So when I was in graduate school. I was and I was a graduate school when I met him I Had expressed interest in studying regulation of capital markets and One of my professors said that wasn't real I was gonna start writing papers on that in my classes to get ready for my Writing my dissertation one of my professors said, you know, I don't remember which classes whether he suggested Why don't you look at kind of the origins of some of this? And so I mentioned that to Lou and Lou said oh you should definitely Contact Murray because Murray would know all about it. And so I I Typed out a little letter and this is before the internet. So we faxed this remember faxes we faxed this letter to From the Mesa Institute to Murray in Las Vegas and I remember thinking well, maybe you know I was asking him for telling this what I'm interested in regulation of capital markets and Could you give me maybe some sources where to start To read in this and he I thought well Maybe I'll hear back from him in the next month or so the very next day I walked in the Mesa Institute and Lou was so excited Came up to me and said look you just got this fax back from Murray It's really great and it was was three page single space on his typewriter three page single space letter going through Giving me some really of course great sources that I asked for it was such a great letter because The first thing he said was He wanted to encourage me in my topic. He said I think it's a great topic. It's very important because There's if you look at cap if you look at IO industrial organization theory In economics today, that's really not in the hands of Austrians at all and even the best IO Economists like say maybe Chicago school is that there's zero capital theory in it They haven't they have no mention of Capital how the firms got the capital is just each firm is assumed to have this Homogeneous blob of K right that was their capital theory No, I know Mention of the important role the financial markets play in determining, you know, which lines of production get the capital Which ones don't so Anyway, he also gave me the advice he gives to all graduate students He said you're gonna get sick of your topic. It just happens. Don't be discouraged Do not change your topic if you if you get sick of it Then just keep working get finished get the PhD in your hand Then you can rest for a few weeks this then you can refocus But he said get the get your PhD get it in your hand. So Anyway, the rest of the letter He went on to give me a full rundown of the whole cast of characters Responsible for the creation of the sec security's exchange commission and the the letter It's it's funny because it's really typical Murray's style there's a lot of details on evil backroom deals and shadowy and sinister characters Conspirators and he said even these people he explains how they were Manipulated and backed up by you know higher ups there's even a Supreme Court justice involved in the all this and he gave me a lot of sources to read and With his own review and comments on how What he thought about the accuracy of their work the part I wanted the let the part of the letter I wanted to read was just kind of gives it a flavor for his attention to Contributing details of you know people's background their alliances their relationships that influence them and This is just one of my favorite little nuggets Murray from this letter It's at the end. He tells me about Ferdinand Pacora this guy was chief counsel to the Senate Committee on banking and currency when they were investigating Wall Street banking and he ended up authoring the Pacora report which led to Glass the Glass-Steagall Act so anyway, so this is I'm going to quote this Ferdinand Pacora himself was a nasty piece of work a Highly politically ambitious Italian American immigrant consumed with hatred and envy of lost Wall Streeters He resigned from the SEC to become a New York judge because he thought it was corporate He thought it's corporatism wasn't socialistic and anti-business enough He was also the strange anomaly that he was also the strange anomaly of being an Episcopalian from Sicily He says how many Sicilian Episcopalians can there be He says but even the feisty Pacora only went after Morgan Wall Streeters and one semi Rockefeller Bank So anyway, then he he said he concludes the letter was saying I hope this was helpful So good luck. So anyway Murray was I mean Murray was great. Just so sweet and helpful. So that's Right. Well meeting Murray. It definitely was one good very good reason to defect from anywhere to anywhere Especially from Russia and it's a good place to be from Besides that I not only I got kind of Had zeal by one get one of three. I met I met Murray I was extremely sweet and lovable person and I met all his children my brothers and sister at this table and beyond and And that was really kind of I would say intellectual holiday for me to come from this Soviet Union was not bleak and gray and just by visually it was but also Mentally, I mean that's in this is was such a festival of free thought of everything I met Murray on 1990 in Stanford University and the music institute with her and He was extremely extremely lovable. He was playing piano. He was singing He was he was he was one of the nicest persons for me to be introduced to to to American intellectual of great of the great quality and and then So good union began to unravel as Murray would say you probably was the last bucket that is the civil empire kind of turned over because I defected and Couldn't stand that anymore. And so it was definitely was something to be to fail It was Soviet Union was the biggest thing in the world 11 time zones and what not and I was thinking at that time as Soviet government introduced something called 500 day plan and I remember with Murray were discussing quite often How this transition from from socialist slavery how this transition to freedom can occur and And I remember was Murray and Alex Tabarok was the last also and and we kind of All came to the conclusion that it can happen only in what you know in one fell swoop that you cannot have you cannot as Murray said you cannot just cut the the the tail of a dog one inch at a time and It would be painful And so I I decided to write a to write a to write a response to this five hundred a plan which is With the title was self descriptive Maltsev one day plan one day plan and And Mary was helping me to intellectually to discuss this issues and he would say that Private eyes everything privatize everything bureaus to bureaucrats typewriters to bureaucrats Flags to communist park officials just privatize everything. And so we were kind of He also was was at that time here wrote quite a lot about privatization about transition in in many countries he we had a if you maybe remember we had eleven people from Lithuania Eleven people from it's it's very interesting story because I befriended in Washington DC when I lived and worked for federal government Well, it was overstatement of what I did Many people did that but But that I might be friended Godfried Haberler a great great Austrian economist He was part of Mrs. Seminar's in Vienna But then he became some kind of a sellout because it was teaching almost case in economics in Harvard and Murray was very I would say very critical of him But then I told him that I met Godfried and I am visiting him every Saturday He had this nice Viennese Viennese tea and parties what not and Mary was it's just what a sweet person He was he said let us bring him back Let us bring Godfried back to the Austrian school and and let's invite him and Do one of the conference? I said he probably would not be movable and he said okay Let's do a conference in DC. So we had a conference in Washington DC From all places on socialization or desocial is a how to desocialize and And Godfried came there with a walker and made a made a made a great speech About when Mrs. And and Murray was just so happy Then Murray was on the personal level. He was he was the sweetest person I almost I've ever met he would invite me to UNLV Where he was teaching three times as a visiting professor just to pay me money and I said what should I say? Say whatever you wish to and I said I had fantastic time in UNLV because Hans Hoppe he would drink beer with students every night and I happily joined that crowd and during the day we had a lot of discussions with Murray and Murray and Joey they brought me to to the at that time no strip There was just the downtown Let's let's be I guess and can imagine you walking downtown in there The light comes out of the sidewalk and people look very weird on all of us And and so that was just a fantastic thing I thought that this is this is a kind of the 23rd century thing And then very would put all the time would push me to do some academic work series academic work He didn't I was not as lucky as Bob Higgs. I didn't receive 20 letter 20 pages letter from him But I received 18 pages letter from him about history of economic thought in Russia Yes, and he knew so much about for example, Ukrainian economists of the 17th century Yorgis Kaburada, I just I never heard of him And well before I before I shut up I Want to tell you that when when Murray died I was really so saddened. I was missing him I was almost crying and I came for a memorial service here to New York and And Joey she invited me she invited Ralph Rico She invited Ron Humphrey and invited me for a for a dinner and and I was so sad and and she was However laughing like I don't know whom and she was laughing and laughing and laughing and saying can you imagine you go to Eye doctor you go to a that you sit in a waiting in the wait room. You know how he died Yeah, he he went to change his glass prescriptions and and she was saying what this is so be what was he showing him He got so excited and tight Tables tables and she said can you imagine you go to the eye doctor and corpses are coming out She said the only really sad thing that Mary I couldn't get you couldn't get the last great laugh about it That's that's true I'm going to tell you the story of my own experience My Italian road to Rothbard The story of how I met Rothbard's work for the first time In 1995 when I was a very young scholar, I received a fellowship by the Italian National Research Committee to make research at Princeton University The topic of my research was very politically correct because I had to make research on the American feminist movement of the 19th century At that time I was already familiar with Mises and the Austrian school and I knew that Mises migrated to the US So when I arrived at Princeton, I had an idea in mind I wanted to find the American scholars who attended the Mises seminar at New York University And I had a title the title of a book with me the book was Austrian economics in America the migration of an idea by Karen Boog So I found the book in the Firestone Library at Princeton University and I found the name of Miori Rothbard I was totally fascinated by his ideas and I spent all the summer of 1995 reading Rothbard's books in the Firestone Library When I came back to Rome instead of writing a book on the American feminist movement, I wrote a book on Rothbard Which was the first book on Rothbard in Italy My professor was really very very angry with me She was a feminist, she was a leftist and And so she was really very very angry with me. I was a young scholar So for a career reason I had to make research also from a gender perspective to write works from a gender perspective But I continued to write articles and book on Rothbard And she complained because I had a double life a secret life But I didn't give up She tried to hamper my career in every horrible way but I didn't give up and I was young and time was on my side so My professor retired most of the old-fashioned professor retired some of them even died and so I Took my professor's position at the University of Rome And now I am a well respected well regarded Rothbardian scholar My office at the University of Rome once was the office of my professor And I replaced all her feminist decoration with libertarian and Rothbardian images Unfortunately, I couldn't I couldn't meet Rothbard personally because when I was in Princeton in 1995 I even went to New York University hoping to meet him but professor Mario Rizzo told me that unfortunately Muray has just Passed away during the winter. So I couldn't I couldn't meet him personally, but I Was lucky enough to correspond with Joy with Joy Rothbard Who was very very sweet to me and she encouraged my my work? And so I have a very sweet. I remember her in a very sweet way So I have to to to say I have to tell you that Rothbard influenced my life and totally changed my life and my career and my intellectual life and my My intellectual life. So I'm very grateful to Rothbard and to Joy I'm grateful to the Mises Institute for many things But the thing I'm most grateful for was the chance to meet to work with to learn from and to hear Lectures from Murray Rothbard In graduate school at Auburn, I was the assistant academic coordinator And of course Murray was the vice president for academic affairs. So I would sort of carry out at Auburn what Murray had decided with Lou we had student club and seminars and Brown bag lunches and all sorts of things And it's always great working with him As an administrator and of course he helped me with my dissertation. He helped me with other subsequent research and other topics So he really Was very formative for me and one of the things that I repeat to Students I'll say here today because I think it's important for Austrians and libertarians Murray always said that He was a pessimist in the short run and Then he would throw a couple jokes on to that part But he was an optimist in the long run and he said you'd go insane if you didn't have optimism For the future but being disgruntled In the present for the short run in College I learned that I was libertarian and I learned I had an interest in Austrian economics But this was in the Stone Age and it was very difficult to access anything and I was trying very hard And I managed to accumulate three books One of one was a used copy of Murray's power and market and I read that thing backwards and forwards Thinking that this is a great work. I had Kersner's Book on entrepreneurship and a couple of others. I had Roger Garrison's little pamphlet With the graphic graphical analysis And so I had seen Kersner. I'd melt met Ralph Raco I met Roger Garrison and so I figured I'd Already met half of all the Austrians at this point, but I hadn't met Murray But I maintained that interest in Austrian economics and I decided to go to graduate school and so I went to Auburn, which is where Roger Garrison was and There I quickly knew from the other professors that they weren't necessarily happy about Austrian economics one of them told me That Austria economics doesn't exist. It's just something from history, but there's none of it around anymore There's no PhD economist working at a PhD granting institution So the 12 Austrian economists that are still living are going to die out eventually So that was the night the thing I learned in my first year At Auburn in the economics department and then towards the end of the spring term Roger Garrison called me into his office and he said sit down and he said Lou Rockwell is Gonna bring the Mises Institute to Auburn University. You know Roger was kind of a prankster You know, he would tell people things. He would tell other people different things and He was always fond of putting the graduate students on and So he said Rockwell is bringing the Mises Institute to Auburn They're gonna bring all the great Austrian economists to come in to lecture. They're gonna publish books. They're gonna publish newsletters I said Roger that can't be right that just can't be right and So Somehow prove this He went over and there was this giant box and it had It was filled with copies of man economy and state and he gave me one. I said Rothbard. I've got one of his already and But that's the first I had ever known of man economy and state and little did I know that power and market was intended to be part of man economy and state and So he gave me the book and then he said and they're gonna pay for your education and at that point I was in complete disbelief that this could possibly be happening to someone from New York who went to Alabama and Then all of a sudden Lou Rockwell in the Mises Institute show up so it was it was amazing Transformation and I've worked under Lou and with Murray to a certain extent for more than 10 years as a graduate student and as a professor there at Auburn University and He was a inspiration because Not only was he optimistic, but he believed in having a good time He was just such a great source of knowledge and inspiration That his death really was very difficult to take I Was Afraid that we would the Austrian school all the progress we made Would be for want and and also I was I was physically ill and sick and Depressed as a result of that whole experience But what I've learned since then is that Rothbard spirit lives on that his children have done very well And we all look forward to the future with you. Thank you