Adam Smith was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as "The Father of Economics" or "The Father of Capitalism", he wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and as an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors and the interactions among them. Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage.
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech. Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, particularly its right-wing strands, and was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism. He wrote over twenty books on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
James McGill Buchanan Jr. was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work, The Calculus of Consent, co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962. He continued to develop the theory, eventually receiving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986. Buchanan's work initiated research on how politicians' and bureaucrats' self-interest, utility maximization, and other non-wealth-maximizing considerations affect their decision-making. He was a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute as well as of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) and MPS president from 1984 to 1986, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute, and professor at George Mason University.
Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphletist, political philosopher, Unitarian and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition.
Laissez-faire is a type of economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism. As a system of thought, laissez-faire rests on the following axioms: "the individual is the basic unit in society, i.e., the standard of measurement in social calculus; the individual has a natural right to freedom; and the physical order of nature is a harmonious and self-regulating system." The original phrase was laissez faire, laissez passer, with the second part meaning "let (things) pass". It is generally attributed to Vincent de Gournay.
Voluntaryism is used to describe the philosophy of Auberon Herbert, and later that of the authors and supporters of The Voluntaryist magazine, which supports a voluntary-funded state, meaning a lack of coercion and force in matters such as taxation.
The iron law of wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. The theory was first named by Ferdinand Lassalle in the mid-nineteenth century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attribute the doctrine to Lassalle, the idea to Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population, and the terminology to Goethe's "great, eternal iron laws" in Das Göttliche.
George Joseph Stigler was an American economist. He was the 1982 laureate in Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is considered a key leader of the Chicago school of economics.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank. Founded in 1946 in New York City, FEE is now headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a member of the State Policy Network.
Armen Albert Alchian was an American economist. He spent almost his entire career at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). A major microeconomic theorist, he is known as one of the founders of new institutional economics and widely acknowledged for his work on property rights.
Lectures on Jurisprudence, also called Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1763) is a collection of Adam Smith's lectures, comprising notes taken from his early lectures. It contains the formative ideas behind The Wealth of Nations.
James R. Otteson is an American philosopher and political economist. He is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. Formerly, he was the Thomas W. Smith Presidential Chair in Business Ethics, Professor of Economics, and executive director of the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University. He is also a Senior Scholar at The Fund for American Studies in Washington, D.C., a Research Professor in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom and in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona, a Visitor of Ralston College, a Research Fellow for the Independent Institute in California, a director of Ethics and Economics Education of New England, and a Senior Scholar at the Fraser Institute. He has taught previously at Yeshiva University, New York University, Georgetown University, and the University of Alabama.
Bruno Leoni was an Italian classical-liberal political philosopher and lawyer. Whilst the war kept Leoni away from teaching, in 1945 he became Full professor of Philosophy of Law. Leoni was also appointed Dean of the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pavia from 1948 to 1960.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to libertarianism:
David Gordon is an American libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian influenced by Murray Rothbard's views of economics. He is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, and is editor of The Mises Review.
Ronald Hamowy was a Canadian academic, known primarily for his contributions to political and social academic fields. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus of intellectual history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Hamowy was closely associated with the political ideology of libertarianism and his writings and scholarship place particular emphasis on individual liberty and the limits of state action in a free society. He is associated with a number of prominent American libertarian organizations.
Benjamin A. Rogge was an American economist, college administrator, and libertarian writer, speaker and foundation advisor. Rogge received an A.B. degree from Hastings College and an M.A. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Rogge received his PhD in economics from Northwestern. At Wabash College, Rogge taught in the summer Institute for Professional Development, in addition to his usual teaching in economics. Rogge co-authored an economics principles textbook with John Van Sickle. One strength of the text is the account that it gives of Joseph Schumpeter's process of creative destruction. Rogge helped organize a series of lectures by Milton Friedman at Wabash that were eventually developed into Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom book. Much later, Rogge participated in a brainstorming session for Friedman's Free to Choose television series. Liberty Fund was founded with money from Pierre Goodrich, who sought advice from Rogge during the Fund's early years. Rogge served for many years as a Liberty Fund trustee. Thomas Sowell gives Rogge credit for encouraging him to write a book on economics and race. Rogge also was a frequent presenter at the seminars of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). FEE's founder, Leonard Read, thought of Rogge as Read's eventual successor, an outcome prevented by Read outliving Rogge. An extended video clip of a Rogge FEE lecture on "Competition and Monopoly" on YouTube illustrates the dry wit that made him a popular speaker. Rogge attended 13 meetings of the influential international Mont Pelerin Society. Rogge helped produce, and narrated, a documentary on Adam Smith that was funded by Liberty Fund. Rogge wrote the introduction to a collection of quotations from Adam Smith. A collection of Rogge's speeches, often on topics in economics or education, was published under the title Can Capitalism Survive? Wabash College, where he taught for many years, named a lounge on the first floor of their academic building housing the economics department the Rogge Lounge in his honor. In addition, Wabash established and named a speaker series after Rogge to pay homage to his many contributions to university students and free market economics. Rogge's archives are mainly housed at the Hoover Institute on the campus of Stanford University. A posthumous collection of Rogge's speeches and essays has appeared under the title A Maverick's Defense of Freedom.
David Daiches Raphael was a British philosopher.
