This interview with Mises Institute President Jeff Deist is    reprinted from the October 2014 issue of the Lara-Murphy    Report.  
    Lara-Murphy Report: How did you become    interested in Austrian economics?  
    Jeff Deist: I definitely discovered    libertarianism first, which then led me to Austrian economics.    I was a hardcore libertarian fairly early in life, going to see    Ron Paul at a 1988 Libertarian Party campaign event when I was    in college. A few years later my close friend Joe Becker    enrolled at UNLV for the express purpose of studying under    Professor Murray Rothbard in the graduate economics department,    and I was able to sit in on a few of Murrays classes. I knew    nothing about the Austrian School at the time, but it became    clear I needed a more comprehensive intellectual foundation     antipathy for the state and a belief that free markets worked    better was not enough. Reading Rothbard was my start. This is    how most young people today first hear about Mises, Rothbard,    or Hayek  they already have an interest in libertarian    political theory.  
    They hear references to these great names from their friends,    from libertarian think tanks or organizations, from a huge    variety of libertarian websites, and from social media, and    they begin the process of educating themselves.  
    The Ron Paul 2012 campaign was a great example of this: people    instinctively knew they favored property rights, markets, and    peace. They knew they opposed cronyism and the banking cartel.    But when Ron mentioned Murray or Mises or Austrian economics or    the Fed in a speech, people wanted to go out and find the    original sources for themselves. Of course those of us from    Generation X remember when vast amounts of free Austrian    literature were not just a click away, to put it mildly. If you    were lucky your local mall bookstore might have Milton    Friedmans Free to Choose and maybe Hayeks    Road to Serfdom  right next to John Kenneth    Galbraiths The Affluent Society. Mises and Rothbard    certainly werent available at local libraries or university    libraries. All that has changed today.  
    But obviously the Austrian School predates the modern    libertarian movement. Thats why for much of the twentieth    century many people read Austrian economics before    arriving at philosophical or political libertarianism. The    direction was reversed. Smart individuals were absorbing giants    like Leonard Read, Henry Hazlitt, and Mises, but they saw    themselves as liberals in the classical European tradition of    the word. Murray Rothbard deserves much of the credit for    building a modern libertarian framework using Austrian    economics as the foundation, and creating a bridge for true    liberals after the term was hijacked.  
    LMR: You worked for Ron Paul in his    congressional office for several years. I suppose unlike most    people in that type of a job, you didnt have to lie every day    at work! Is there any story you can share to illustrate the    culture of DC and how you were the oddballs?  
    JD: My favorite anecdote involves other    members of Congress asking us to have Ron sign books, photos,    etc., for their constituents. This no doubt galled them,    because Ron was a celebrity of sorts while they were unknown.    But trust me, the average member of Congress deserves to be    forgotten. They are a venal, mean, petty, and self-important    bunch, despite the fact that maybe 1 in 20 of their    constituents knows their names.  
    Working for Dr. Paul was a great experience. We (as a staff)    never had to worry about Ron being tempted to sell out or cast    a safe vote due to political pressure. Rons office was far and    away the most intellectual and philosophical office on Capitol    Hill; the other members of Congress were purely political    animals focused either on consolidation of power or    self-preservation, depending.  
    By contrast, we were busy quoting Mises, Rothbard, Bastiat, Tom    Woods, Lew Rockwell, Lysander Spooner, you name it, in Rons    speeches, statements, press releases, and weekly columns.    Virtually everyone on staff was at least familiar with Austrian    thought, and we used mises.org as a frequent resource.  
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Antipathy for the State Is Not Enough