Center for Libertarian Studies

Background

The Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS) was a libertarian, “anarcho-capitalist” educational non-profit founded in 1976 by the late Murray N. Rothbard and the late Burton S. Blumert. The center developed out of the Libertarian Scholars Conferences and was originally headquartered in New York, before moving to Bulingame, California.¹

According to an archived version of the CLS website from 1999, “CLS is dedicated to the work and vision of Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), philosopher of liberty, dean of the Austrian School of economics, historian of American freedom, and enemy of the welfare-warfare state.” According to this archived web site, CLS published two periodicals: the biannual Journal of Libertarian Studies and the monthly Rothbard-Rockwell Report.²

According to another website archive, CLS “administered” two websites: Antiwar.com and Lewrockwell.com.³

In a 2013 article published on LewRockwell.com, author David Gordon, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute reported that Charles Koch was an early funder of the CLS. ⁴ In her 2016 book Dark Money, Jane Mayer reported that CLS was launched with a donation of around $65,000 from Charles Koch.⁵

CLS conferences, seminars, and meetings featured libertarian scholars, including co-founder Murray Rothbard, Llewellyn Rockwell, Dom Armentano, Earl Ravenal, Henry Mark Holzer, Wendy McElroy, Randy Barnett, and Richard Epstein. ⁶

Ludwig von Mises Institute

In 1982, Rothbard, Blumert and Rockwell founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute, named after the “Austrian School” economist, to “further libertarian research and study in Austrian economics, freedom, and peace.”⁷

The Mises Institute has described itself as “heir to the Center for Libertarian Studies.”⁸

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., founder of the Mises Institute, the institute’s chairman, and editor of LewRockwell.com, was accused in 2008 of ghostwriting racist, homophobic newsletters for libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul in the 1980s and 1990s, but denied responsibility for them.⁹ ¹⁰

Lewrockwell.com

According to an archived “About” page, LewRockwell.com “was founded in 1999 by anarcho-capitalists Lew Rockwell and Burt Blumert to help carry on the anti-war, anti-state, pro-market work of Murray N. Rothbard.” ¹¹

Justin Raimondo and Antiwar.com

Justin Raimondo (d. 2019) was the editorial director of Antiwar.com, which he cofounded with Eric Garris in 1995.¹²

Justin Raimondo was best known for advocating Libertarian Party support for gay rights. “He was very strongly part of the gay community in San Francisco and yet he broke the mold,” Eric Garris told The Associated Press in 2019. “He was somebody who believed that gay liberation had to be more than just joining the Democratic Party.”¹³

In a 1999 article on Antiwar.com, Raimondo identified himself as a senior fellow at the Center for Libertarian Studies, as well as an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute.¹⁴

Raimondo authored Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, published by ISI Books in 2008.¹⁵

Stance on Climate Change

The Center for Libertarian Studies apparently did not take a public stance regarding climate change.

Funding

In a 2013 article published on LewRockwell.com, author David Gordon, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, reported that Charles Koch was an early funder of the CLS.¹⁶ In her 2016 book Dark Money, Jane Mayer reported that CLS was launched with a donation of around $65,000 from Charles Koch.¹⁷

IRS Form 990 Filings

Key People

Murray N. Rothbard (d. 1995), a co-founder of the Center for Libertarian Studies, was an economist and “social philosopher who fiercely defended individual freedom against government intervention.” From 1986 until his death, Rothbard was an economics professor at the Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At the time of his death, he was also vice president of academic affairs for the Ludwig von Mises Institute at Auburn University in Alabama.¹⁸ ¹⁹

According to a profile on Investopedia, Rothbard is considered the “father of anarcho-capitalism,” which is described as “an economic and philosophical belief that individual responsibility and self-ownership is preferable to state control.” Rothbard “opposed taxation, considering it a form of slavery; espoused self-ownership; and supported the idea of an anarcho-capitalist system that would end the government monopoly on force.”²⁰

The Alabama-based Mises Institute, which calls itself the “heir” to the CLS,²¹ describes Rothbard as someone who “defended land-rights groups against environmentalists, citizen militias against gun grabbers, isolationists against imperialists, paleoconservatives against neoconservatives, populists against party regulars, anti–New World Order conspiracy theorists against the establishment, nationalists against internationalist planners, states’ righters against libertarian centralists, the Christian Right against its own leadership, and much more.”²²

Burton S. Blumert (1929-2009) co-founded the CLS and served as president of the center for a time, during which he published the Journal of Libertarian Studies and the Austrian Economics Newsletter. Blumert later cofounded and became chairman of the Mises Institute.²³ ²⁴

Walter Grinder (1938-2022)²⁵ was an executive director of the CLS for a period of time. Grinder organized Libertarian Scholars’ Conferences at the Williams College Club, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and Princeton University. Grinder previously studied alongside Ludwig von Mises at New York University, where he was in close contact with Murray Rothbard. After teaching economics at Ireland’s University College, Cork, Grinder returned to the U.S., where he advised the Cato Institute on Austrian economics and became vice president of the Institute for Humane Studies.²⁶

Actions

The Center for Libertarian Studies published two periodicals: the twice-yearly Journal of Libertarian Studies and the monthly Rothbard-Rockwell Report. It passed on its Journal of Libertarian Studies publication to the Mises Institute.²⁷ ²⁸

Mises Institute — Describes itself as “heir to the Center for Libertarian Studies.”²⁹
Freedom School — Murray Rothbard contributed to the Freedom School’s Rampart Journal.³⁰
The League of the South (LOS) — LOS was founded in 1994 by at least ten Mises Institute scholars, three of whom had formerly worked with CLS, including Mises Institute founder Lew Rockwell.³¹ The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified LOS as a hate group..³²
Antiwar.com — Website administered by CLS.³³
Lewrockwell.com — Website administered by CLS.³⁴

Contact & Address

According to a document retrieved from the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents library at the Library of the University of California, San Francisco, the Center for Libertarian Studies had the following address and phone number:³⁵

Center for Libertarian Studies
875 Mahler Road
Suite 150
Burlingame, CA 94011
(800) 325-7257

Another document in the collection, an “Encyclopedia of Associations” for 1989, listed another address for CLS:³⁶

851 Burlway Rd.
Burlingame, CA 94011
Phone: (415) 348-3000

An archived version of The Center for Libertarian Studies website, as of 1999, listed this contact information:³⁷

The Center for Libertarian Studies
851 Burlway, Suite 202
Burlingame, California 94010
Phone: 800-325-7257
Fax: 650-401-5530
E-Mail: [email protected]

Other Resources

“Center for Libertarian Studies,” WIkipedia.

Resources

1
“Center for Libertarian Studies records,” Hoover Institution Library and Archives via the Online Archive of California. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/d7g4p
2
“About The Center for Libertarian Studies,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived November 3, 1999. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/FUMs8
3
“About,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived February 4, 2002. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/5uzWi
4
David Gordon. “The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard, Part II,” LewRockwell.com, April 18, 2013. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/1zzsZ
5
Jane Mayer. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Doubleday (January 19, 2016).
6
“Center for Libertarian Studies records,” Hoover Institution Library and Archives via the Online Archive of California. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/d7g4p
7
“Center for Libertarian Studies records,” Hoover Institution Library and Archives via the Online Archive of California. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/d7g4p
8
“Libertarian Scholars Conference,” Mises Institute, October 20, 2018. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/JvPJK
9
“Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.” Mises Institute. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/y3r9I
10
Julian Sanches and David Weigel. “Who Wrote Ron Paul’s Newsletters?” Reason, January 16, 2008. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/UdprW
11
“About,” LewRockwell.com. Archived August 29, 2022. Archive URL: https://archive.li/F5yrz
12
“Gay rights, anti-war activist Justin Raimondo dies at 67,” The Associated Press. Archived July 27, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.li/wip/l7JNB
13
“Gay rights, anti-war activist Justin Raimondo dies at 67,” The Associated Press. Archived July 27, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.li/wip/l7JNB
14
Justin Raimondo. “China and the New Cold War,” Antiwar.com, June 18, 1999. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL:https://archive.fo/d3EeL
15
“Reclaiming the American Right,” book page, Simon & Schuster. Archived July 27, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.li/wip/EeEVb
16
David Gordon. “The Kochtopus vs. Murray N. Rothbard, Part II,” LewRockwell.com, April 18, 2013. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/1zzsZ
17
Jane Mayer. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Doubleday (January 19, 2016).
18
David Stout. “Murray N. Rothbard, Economist And Free-Market Exponent, 68,” The New York Times, January 11, 1995. Archived May 29, 2012. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/UN7F
19
Julia Kagan. “Murray N. Rothbard,” Investopedia, July 23, 2018. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/TNX23
20
Julia Kagan. “Murray N. Rothbard,” Investopedia, July 23, 2018. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/TNX23
21
“Libertarian Scholars Conference,” Mises Institute, October 20, 2018. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/JvPJK
22
“Irrepressible Rothbard,” Mises Bookstore. Archived July 10, 2020. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/cGcAw
23
Burton S. Blumert. “Bagels, Barry Bonds, & Rotten Politicians” (PDF), Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2008. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
24
Jon Basil Utley. “Freedom fighter,” The American Conservative, May 4, 2009. Archived September 16, 2013. Archive URL: http://archive.today/s1gje
25
John Hagel III. “Walter E. Grinder, 1938-2022,” Cato at Liberty/Cato Institute, January 12, 2023.Archived July 27, 2023. Archive URL: https://archive.li/wip/Y37FX
26
Leonard Liggio. “Walter Grinder Tribute: A Biography,” Alt-M. Archived July 25, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/icCHT
27
“About The Center for Libertarian Studies,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived November 3, 1999. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/FUMs8
28
“About,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived February 4, 2002. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/5uzWi
29
“Libertarian Scholars Conference,” Mises Institute, October 20, 2018. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/JvPJK
30
Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Spring 1966. Retrieved from Ludwig von Mises Institute. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
31
“Books,” The League of South Library. Archived September 22, 1999. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/WrsVm
32
“League of the South,” Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived July 26, 2019. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/XK5xj
33
“About,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived February 4, 2002. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/5uzWi
34
“About,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived February 4, 2002. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/5uzWi
35
“Title: Unknown,” 1997 April. Philip Morris Records; Master Settlement Agreement. Retrieved from the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library at the Library of the University of California, San Francisco. URL: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/docs/nxph0025
36
“Re: Americans for Democratic Action,” November 18, 1988. Tobacco Institute Records. Retrieved from Truth Industry Documents Library. Bates no. TI02031607-TI02031610
37
“About The Center for Libertarian Studies,” The Center for Libertarian Studies. Archived November 3, 1999. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/FUMs8

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