I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

122 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
I had always parroted the standard liberal line to my teachers and was rewarded with statements
about how smart I was; but not only was I not smart, I came to realize quite quickly
that I knew little about little, and absolutely nothing about most things. And this was after
16 years of “schooling.”
Over a weekend in Atlanta, I picked up Atlas Shrugged at a store there, returning to
Fort Gordon in Augusta, and reading practically non-stop for a week until I finished it. It
was a revelation, which is not saying anything at all, I know, because other people feel the
same way upon completing it, usually. Naturally, relations within my family and circle of
friends were reshaped by my own philosophical conversion, and that is always a painful
thing because, while political conversion is not a solo trip, there never seems to be any
traveling companions close by when you most need them!
That experience led me to the public library and a host of books on economics, one of
which was a book whose table of contents I could not understand and which had never
before even been checked out: Mises’s Human Action. Coming so soon after Rand, Mises
was the final converter. I became an Objectivist, not understanding then the many differences
in approach and philosophy between Rand and Mises and, frankly, not caring if there
were any! (Later, I came to see many things quite differently.)
Returning to civilian life, I taught in public schools, seeing first hand the destruction
the establishment’s educational initiatives, especially busing and forced integration, created
in what had been a year before a “good” high school. I resigned because I couldn’t stand
to watch, and because I probably would have ended up killed by some “student” had I not.
I entered graduate work in economics at VCU which was, at that time, dominated by the
beliefs that Marshallian micro–markets work fine, most of the time, and Keynesian macro–
markets are dysfunctional and require constant vigilance by public-spirited, brilliant,
government planners. Men such as Keynes himself, no doubt.
Needless to say, I ran afoul of some professors. But while I received a political “B” or
two, it was a micro professor who went to the dean and demanded that I not be allowed to
continue in economics. My sin? I had written a paper critical of indifference curves, citing
an article by Rothbard, “Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics.” That
was such a rebuke to this gentleman and the “perfection” of his mathematical, micro analyses
that he wanted me kept out of the profession altogether. The dean, a former federal bureaucrat,
for some reason overrode the teacher and commuted my failing “C” (graduate work,
remember) to a “B-.” I learned the valuable lesson that methodological disputes can be every
bit as damaging and vicious as ideological ones.
I don’t know why the dean helped me, but it wasn’t the last time that someone aided me
when I really needed help. After I received my Masters in economics, I applied to the law school
that I wanted to attend and was accepted, but also accepted for doctoral work in economics. I
decided to pursue economics and that, as Robert Frost wrote, “had made all the difference.”
I began doctoral work at Virginia and met Roger Garrison, who was a fellow student,
although certainly a better one than myself. I also met several famous and influential
professors at Virginia, but none of them really influenced my own thinking much, although
I did admire William Breit, Leland Yeager, and G. Warren Nutter immensely. I had read
by that point every major work in the Austrian tradition that was in print, and had begun