I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

52 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
philosophy. I went to grade school, high school, and then college, always pretty secure in
these beliefs. In 1963, when I was a senior at Brooklyn College, Ayn Rand came there to
give a lecture. I attended, along with about 3,000 of my fellow, mainly leftish students, in
order to boo and hiss her, since she was evil incarnate. Afterward, the president of the group
that had invited her to campus announced there was to be a luncheon in her honor, and
anyone was welcome to take part, whether or not they agreed with her ideas. Not having
had enough booing and hissing at Ayn in her formal lecture, I decided to avail myself of
this opportunity to further express my displeasure with her and her views.
When I arrived at the luncheon, I found that the group was sitting in “pecking order:”
Ayn Rand at the head of the table, Nathaniel Branden and Leonard Peikoff, first along the
two sides of the table, and the lesser lights ranged alongside. I was of course relegated to
the foot of this august assembly, whereupon I turned to my neighbor, a neophyte as it turned
out, and tried to argue the socialist side of a debate against capitalism. He replied that he
really wasn’t very knowledgeable about this issue, but that the people located at the other
end of the table certainly were. At this point, I betook myself there, stuck my head between
Ayn’s and Nathan’s, and announced that there was a socialist here who wanted to debate
someone on economic issues pertaining to capitalism. (I was a bit of a chutzpanick in those
days.) They politely asked, Who was this socialist, and I replied that it was me.
Nathan very graciously offered to come to the other end of the table with me for this
purpose, but he imposed two preconditions: first, I would be honor-bound not to allow
this conversation to lapse with this one meeting, but would continue with it until we had
achieved a resolution: either he would convince me of the error of my ways, or I would
convince him of his. Second, I would read two books he would later recommend to me
(Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt). I agreed, and
we spoke for an hour or so upon that occasion, followed up four or five times more for a
similar duration at his apartment, where some of the other Randians took part, including
Ayn, Leonard Piekoff, Barbara Branden, and Alan Greenspan.
At the end of this process, I was converted to libertarianism. I devoured both books
and became a strong adherent of what I now know as the limited-government libertarian
position, or minarchism. I began attending Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) courses,
first at various hotels, and then in the basement of the Empire State Building.
I was a philosophy major, but when I graduated, I couldn’t decide whether a master’s
degree in economics or philosophy would better enable me to learn more about, and eventually
be able to professionally contribute to, my new love and passion. Not knowing which
was better, I pursued both: a masters degree in philosophy at Brooklyn College, and a
masters in economics at City College of New York. I would take five courses each semester,
sometimes 3/2 favoring the one, sometimes the other. Finally, just when I was on the verge
of almost completing both courses of study, I decided upon economics, and applied to and
was accepted by the Ph.D. program at Columbia University. (As a philosophy major undergraduate,
I had had only two economics courses; my part-time graduate study in economics,
I think, was the equivalent of an undergraduate major in the dismal science.)
During this time, I continued to attend NBI courses, but was quickly becoming disaffected.
The economics and political philosophy (laissez-faire capitalism) was good, but there