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Executive Vice President of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Leonard Liggio

Leonard P. Liggio (5 July 1933 – 14 October 2014) was a classical liberal author, research professor of law at George Mason University and executive vice president of the Atlas Network in Fairfax, Virginia.

Born

5 Jul 1933, in The Bronx, New York City

Died

14 Oct 2014, in Washington, D.C.

Associations

Atlas Network, Vice President of Academics, 1994-2014
Competitive Enterprise Institute, Board of Directors
Institute for Humane Studies, President, 1980-1989
Institute for Humane Studies, Distinguished Senior Scholar
Circle Bastiat
Mont Pelerin Society, President, 2002-2004

Websites

Liggio Legacy Project
Includes biography, bibliography, the Liggio Lecture Series, blog, video archive, tributes and obituaries
To ensure that the new freedom champions of today (and tomorrow) appreciate Leonard’s many contributions, Atlas Network established the Liggio Lecture Series as a central part of its annual Atlas Network's Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, one of the freedom movement's must-attend international events. ... This website, developed by Leonard's colleagues at Atlas Network, serves as an online portfolio of his work, and a location where well-wishers can post tributes to Leonard in the spirit of those collected 15 years ago in the collection, Born on the 5th of July ..., on the occasion of Leonard’s 65th birthday.

Web Pages

Leonard P. Liggio - Online Library of Liberty
Includes short profile and links to an interview and to issues of Literature of Liberty which Liggio edited from 1978 to 1982
Leonard Liggio is a professor of history and law at George Mason Uiversity, Fairfax, Virginia. The journal Literature of Liberty was edited by Leonard P. Liggio and John V. Cody between 1978 and 1982.

Articles

Farewell to Our Friend, Leonard Liggio, by Lawson Bader, 14 Oct 2014
Memorial essay by then CEI president, with additional comments from Fred Smith, CEI founder and chairman
Leonard knew just about everything about classical liberalism—and just about everyone who helped build the movement. That is true. It is also true there are many more yet to come who will be worth knowing, and there will always be more to discover about the power of classical liberalism. But they, alas, will only read him, and of him. To know Leonard was to absorb the richness of his ideas and breadth of his insights. It was also a pleasure. Classical liberals are often typecast as a cantankerous lot. Leonard was certainly not. He was friends with all. Such is the power of legacy as generations move on.
In Memoriam: Leonard Liggio, 14 Oct 2014
Extensive biographical essay covering Liggio's activities in various institutions, awards and the Liggio Legacy Program
Leonard's lifelong work for liberty won him acclaim among diverse audiences. In 2007, he was recognized with the Adam Smith Award ... In 2011, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. That same year, the then-nascent organization Students for Liberty published an interview with Leonard that called him "The Original Student for Liberty." ... Perhaps the most thorough overview of his life is provided in "A Conversation with Leonard Liggio," led by John Blundell, as part of Liberty Fund's Intellectual Portraits video series ...
Leonard Liggio, R.I.P., by Brian Doherty, 14 Oct 2014
Memorial essay reviewing Liggio's work in the libertarian movement
Liggio was quite literally one of the first mere handfuls of youngsters that arose in the 1950s to advocate and spread modern American libertarian ideas ... As part of his personal libertarian education, Liggio attended Ludwig von Mises's New York University seminars and was briefly part of Ayn Rand's circle. ... Liggio served during his over six decades of libertarian scholarship and educational activism as president of the Mont Pelerin Society, the Philadelphia Society, and the Institute for Humane Studies, and more recently executive vice president of academics at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
Related Topic: Murray N. Rothbard
Leonard P. Liggio (1933–2014), by Sheldon Richman, The Goal Is Freedom, 17 Oct 2014
A memorial tribute to Richman's "favorite teacher"
Leonard was not my teacher in the formal sense. I never got to take any of his classes. But like many libertarians of my generation and beyond, I learned so much from him through occasional lectures and especially conversations ... Leonard had the remarkable ability to find common ground with diverse people. He was a radical libertarian devoted to individualism, free markets, and peace. He was a sworn enemy of tyranny, imperialism, and war ... The key to his success was his ability to show the connections among the mercantilism, imperialism, regulation of business, welfarism, and government spending, inflation, and debt.
The Movement Grows, by Murray N. Rothbard, The Libertarian, 1 Jun 1969
Recounts the first three meetings of the Libertarian Forum, the student libertarian organizations at Fordham, Wesleyan, SUNY Buffalo and Stanford, and the formation of the Radical Libertarian Alliance
Speaking of repression, a little whiff of it was felt at the third meeting of the Libertarian Forum at the Jager House in New York, when the libertarian scholar and activist Leonard P. Liggio spoke on the libertarian nature of the New Left. Less than [24] hours after the end of this harmless meeting, we heard from unimpeachable sources of ... the report in sextuplicate of a cop spy at the meeting ... And yet, countless libertarian-conservatives still revere and identify with the polizei! It seems that there were SDS members—horrors!—at the Forum meeting, and that many SDS people are tailed wherever they go ...
Non-Marxist Theories of Imperialism, by Alan Fairgate, Reason, Feb 1976
Examines writings of critics of imperialism that are not based on Marxist analysis
In addition, a penetrating analysis of the origins and development of the isolationist movement is provided in Leonard Liggio's essays in Left and Right ... Liggio's model of 'Paleface'–'Redskin' tensions within American society (Autumn 1966) offers an original and valuable framework for analysis of the isolationist movement. The Redskin category encompasses the mass of American people who fled statist oppression in Old World feudal systems ... The 'Palefaces,' on the other hand, are those who seek to implant the feudal structures of the Old World in American society ...

Writings

Editorial: Turgot and the Battle Against Physiocracy, Literature of Liberty, 1979
Editorial essay for volume II, number 1; discusses those who influenced Turgot and those influenced by him
The continuing significance of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) is both as a founder of modern economic science and as a powerful shaper of the Enlightenment idea of progress. The youthful Turgot was deeply moved by the liberal temper of Montesquieu's L'Esprit des Lois (1748). Turgot, however, found Montesquieu's determinism uncongenial; he was deeply impressed by the role of the human mind in molding history. ... Turgot's greatest impact, arguably, was being the teacher of Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de Condorcet (1743–1794). Especially after the fall of Turgot, Condorcet became the hope of the liberal cause.
Felix Morley – Washington Post & his Career
Review of Morley's autobiographical For the Record (1979)
Felix Morley (1894-1982) a leading libertarian scholar, editor and a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society was made editor of the Washington Post after it was acquired in 1933 by Eugene Meyer (1975-1959) in a bankruptcy auction. Meyer's grandfather had been the Grand Rabbi of France ... Morley annually lectured in the William Volker Fund summer seminars which usually featured three faculty ... In the early 1980s Ken Templeton arranged two Liberty Fund colloquia at Gibson Island on freedom of the press and on civil liberties. Morley died on March 13, 1982 immediately previous to the last one.
The State of the Movement [PDF], The Libertarian Forum, 15 May 1970
Examines the history and status of the (New Left) Movement, in particular of the Students for a Democratic Society and the involvement of libertarians and socialists in SDS
The Movement has been facing the disintegration of the primary centers of the New Left, especially SDS, with confusion and dismay. What is really necessary is rational, cool-headed and realistic analysis. First, the general reaction of confusion and dismay reflects both emotionalism and conservatism (the same thing ultimately) ... It is the attitudes of the 'forerunners' that will become dominant in America; "this particular young generation is by all odds the most interesting to come along in all of U. S. history," Fortune editorialized, "it will shortly preside over the revolutionary changes that await us."

Interviews

The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Leonard Liggio [2006], by Leonard Liggio, John Blundell, Ed Feulner, 2006
Lengthy audio interview by Blundell, with commentary by Feulner, covering Liggio's life and his views on various topics

Publications

The Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, by Cato Institute (publisher, 1978-1979), Institute for Humane Studies (publisher, 1980-1982), Leonard Liggio (editor)
Scholarly journal published quarterly from 1978 to 1982; the Cato Institute published it from Vol. 1 No. 1 (Jan-Mar 1978) to Vol. 2 No. 4 (Oct-Dec 1979), the IHS published it from Vol. 3 No. 1 (Spring 1980) to Vol. 5 No. 4 (Winter 1982)

Videos


Video in honor of Leonard Liggio, 23 Dec 2009
Collection of short video statements honoring Liggio on occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Institute for Economic Studies Europe

Videos


Leonard Liggio: A History of Foreign Policy from a Libertarian Perspective, 1981
Lecture at the Laissez-Faire Supper Club, New York City, about the history of foreign intervention from Enlightment England to the Cold War
Related Topic: Foreign entanglements

Leonard Liggio on the Rise of the Modern American Libertarian Movement, by Jacob G. Hornberger, Leonard Liggio, 9 Mar 1995
Talk given at Vienna Coffee Club (Future of Freedom Foundation). Liggio starts off with the New Deal and covers many events and individuals both at the core and the periphery of the modern libertarian movement

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Leonard Liggio" as of 15 Mar 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.