I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

70 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
to glare at me and, despite our generally congenial acquaintanceship, Murray Rothbard
once wrote me a scathing letter in response to an early paper on Mises. From Hamilton I
moved to Western Maryland College, then to Pace University and, finally, to the University
of Dallas in 1981, where I remain. My own research has not followed a consistent line over
the past twenty years, although I’ve recently returned to Austrian topics. Seven years ago,
a by-pass operation reminded me of the fragility of life and reawakened my desire to make
positive contributions to the advancement of Austrian School thought. I intend to devote
the next twenty years to doing so.
Sam Bostaph is professor of economics and chairman, department of economics, University of Dallas.
13
HARDY BOUILLON
BECOMING A LIBERTARIAN
Until 1983, I was almost untouched by political philosophy. Growing up in a small
town in the geographical triangle of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, I hated borders,
because the customs officers always gave us children a hard time when we had forgotten
our passports or had smuggled two packages of coffee from Luxembourg back home to
Germany. My family had relatives in France and Luxembourg. As a consequence, I did not
develop strong nationalist feelings, but grew up with that down-to-earth approach of tolerance
and diversity that was typical of the Saarland. As my grandmother used to say:
“Everybody wants to live.” This was her personal way of expressing the axiom of selfownership,
I guess.
During the summer term of 1983, I stepped for the first time into one of Professor
Gerard Radnitzky’s classes. Among students, he had a reputation of talking in almost
incomprehensible methodological jargon and being extremely conservative. In other words:
the average student avoided his classes. (By the way, students at Trier University felt obliged
to cultivate at least a soft Marxist attitude, because this most disastrous of all political
philosophers was born in Trier.) However, I became interested in the subject of Radnitzky’s
class: social justice. At that time, I could not believe that anyone, however conservative,
would question that social justice exists and has to exist. But this tremendously charming
professor with his slight Southern Moravian/Viennese accent, who constantly switched