How Does a Libertarian Survive College or Grad School?

Answer: by doing good work.

A student writes:

I am writing this because you are one of the people I look up to the most who exist in the public sphere. I am currently a history student at [a southern university] and I am looking to get into their masters program with an objective of eventually obtaining a Ph.D.

Today I had a meeting with a professor who really laid things out for me and explained how the game is played, how much politics can be involved in such a pursuit. This brings me to the purpose of my comment. I know that you are a very successful historian and I would like to follow a similar path. My question is, can you give me any advice on where I could find a good Ph.D. program that contains like-minded (politically) people to yourself and I, because the professor told me that my politics would cause me problems in graduate school because I’m “so far out of the mainstream.” Any advice you could give would be much appreciated.

I replied:

Your politics should not even be an issue, since your professors should be unaware of your stances. [If you absolutely cannot help yourself, you must also be unusually courteous, friendly, and pleasant, so people in the program will like you even when they happen to discover some portion of your political outlook.]

In graduate school you should not be trying to write the Austro-libertarian revisionist history of the U.S. You should be learning, and doing original research that advances the field in some way. That’s what I did at Columbia. My dissertation had zero to do with libertarianism. But it made a contribution to my field. It was eventually published by Columbia University Press. My dissertation director was Alan Brinkley, an establishment left-liberal. We worked together well not because we agreed with each other, but because we both had scholarly standards.

So that is the secret. Just do your work. Do good work. It is still respected, even now.

I then linked him to my post “Advice to Budding Historians.”

G uest

Speaking as a current senior history major at a decent small liberal arts college, I have a really hard time believing that being a libertarian would be a problem. If anything, coming at the material with a different perspective from your peers is something that any professor worth taking a class with should appreciate, even if he or she happens to disagree with that stance. Take this with a grain of salt, as my class sizes are relatively small and are generally discussion based so I am often able to explain my positions when I say something a bit off-color; I’m not exactly sure how different my experiences would have been had I gone to a large research institution where the professors didn’t know my name.

Still, my current American History professor, who just happens to be my thesis advisor, really likes it when I discuss nullification and talk smack about Lincoln, and we disagree about almost everything politically. I think that it really depends on where you go to school, but I think this paranoia about being discriminated against for your political opinions is a bit overblown. Provided you have something intelligent to say, and refrain from saying it abrasively, your professors will like you.Additionally, there are times when this your perspective will allow you to make interesting observations that the typical left liberal would generally not make. One of the most interesting contemporary developments in historiography is looking at consumer culture and how consumption helped to cause historical changes often ascribed to various political movements (Lizabeth Cohen’s work, A Consumer’s Republic, is a decent example of this. I have a number of qualms with her work, but I think it generally gives one a good idea of the field as a whole). Anyone who has read Mises should find oneself in agreement with a great deal of implicit assumptions that the average consumer culture historian makes; after all, this viewpoint stresses the fact that the act of buying and selling goods and services is a decidedly political one.Nice to hear that there are other libertarian history major undergraduates. Good luck with future pursuits.
Greg

you (the student) should learn econometrics (historiometry/cliometrics). It will take you years to master all the mathematics and the thinking but in the end you will have a very powerful method of research.

i think Charles Murray and Robert Fogel (apart from some war historians like Antony Beevor) and historians like them have made by far the greatest contribution to the field of history in the recent decades, all other historians are just regurgitating material which has already been published and discussed a million times. econometrics is really adding not just a revolutionary perspective but is exposing information which is genuinely new.
Shawn W.

I’d take Dr. Woods advice to heart. I’m a grad student in history at a school in the southwest, and I make sure they do not know my political leanings. When and if I mention ANYTHING from the Austro-libertarian tradition it is as a critique of something, it is rare, and it is in the context of a paper. For example I wrote a paper on Jews in Argentina last fall and the fact they were stereotyped by nativists as prostitutes, bankers and radical revolutionaries. One of the things I found was the nativists were uninformed about economics (surprise surprise!) and used a bit of FA Hayek as the critique of what they said (in a footnote). No problem as the professor, who is certainly left wing, simply saw it as good work.
G uest

While I think New Economic History is certainly an important development in historiography, its ridiculous to say that “all other historians are just regurgitating material which has already been published and discussed a million times.” Come on, are you serious? You’re just going to dismiss almost the entirety of a discipline? I have serious doubts about the credentials of anyone who can make such sweeping generalizations about a discipline as vast as history. I can tell you that in my area of academic interest (early gay history pre-Stonewall), there’s a lot of really interesting scholarly work that 1) has almost nothing to do with New Economic History and 2) isn’t just regurgitated material that has been “published and discussed a million times.” I can possibly see your point if you’re talking about fields in which there already been a great deal written (the Civil War, World War II), but even then, there’s still a lot of important research that one could do here.
jaffi411

Where’d you get your grad degree from? What was your field of study?
http://twitter.com/jaimekidv Jaime Shizzle

You could always just attend FSU or GMU and be welcomed!
Billsweb

Florida State? Who knew?
http://www.facebook.com/michael.makovi Michael Makovi

“Your politics should not even be an issue, since your professors should be unaware of your stances.”

Hmm, what if I’m taking political science, LOL?

In one of my classes, the professor asked everyone what we thought of contracting the prisons out to private contractors, and having school vouchers. I answered that the value of privatization – whether authentic or faux – depends on the value of what is being privatized; we don’t want efficient gulags (h/t Rothbard contra Friedman – and I cited both by name, mind you), and in Arizona, the private prison contractor started lobbying for more criminalization! As for vouchers, I said, they still have the government write the curriculum as if it owns the children, and redistribute wealth, and furthermore, it would impose a price-floor and spark a credit bubble. Well, I’ll tell you what, my professor knew my views after that!!! (Luckily, he thought my arguments were excellent, and elaborated on them to the class.)
Zeesaga

The American education system is defunct and a waste of your time and money if you take it too seriously. History shouldn’t even be a major as everyone can now look up every subject on the planet via the internet and, in their own time at their own pace and free, be a historian who can write papers, essays, and books all day long. The system needs to lose it’s monopoly on accreditation and make it cheaper at the least if not scrap it and run society with unschooling as people are not fish.
Greg

i am at the university of Bonn right now, doing MSc in Economics.
Jimmy J

I’m a postgrad economics student. For me the issue is not how others feel about your views, but being able to stay motivated during one whole term of learning the Solow growth model only to look forward to the IS/LM model the next term (both very boring and limited).

Anyone else have any tips for me on how to stay motivated? I read Rothbard etc… in my spare time, although my spare time admittedly encroaches on my school time
Citizen Genet

In what ways is FSU particularly welcoming to libertarians? I am starting there next fall for my graduate work.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

Bruce Benson is there, for one thing.
http://www.TomWoods.com Tom Woods

And Randy Holcombe.
http://twitter.com/jaimekidv Jaime Shizzle

Our economics department is beautifully laced with super-Austrian economists. Mr. Woods knows what’s up as he has been here (and mentions Holocombe and Benson). Of course, not all of the professors are libertarian, but you can actually take classes where your textbooks are works by Mises, Rothbard and Rand. No joke.

Also, the student community is EXTREMELY libertarian friendly. Most of the students tend to be moderate to conservative with a chunk who either directly identifies as, or, by virtue of belief is, libertarian. (There was a recent campus event for residence halls and I heard that most students came by the college libertarians table and identified themselves as libertarian via the tiny political quiz).

The college libertarians (formerly YAL), C4L, and CRs are all VERY active and network heavily together. (If you you like legal issues, our Federalist Society is very libertarian and I with others have brought in guest speakers to talk about free market issues). There are also some active libertarian “issue groups” like SSDP/Normal and Students For Concealed Carry at FSU.

If you have any specific questions, I can put you into contact with the right people.
Jake_Nonphixion

This is one of the reasons I chose engineering over economics. What’s funny however is that the (vast) majority of engineers also happen to be interested in austro-libertarianism. In fact every single politically interested engineer I’ve ever had a conversation with has been a libertarian.
JFF

As an engineer as well, I’m not sure I agree with this statement. I found that, yes, the tendency is there and it’s definitely more common amongst engineers than say architects. My experience is that it’s highly dependent on their engineering discipline and even sub-discipline as well as where they are located and where they went to school.
Michael

Unless one is specifically dead-set on American history, the student could also explore other historical fields that are obviously less ridden with the frustrations of modern politics/leftism.
http://www.facebook.com/kovidog Kavita Singh

Speaking as a fellow undergraduate at a liberal arts college, this is definitely the place to be if you really have to get a Bachelor’s for whatever reason. I know that the current American educational system is in dire need of a revolution and I am a big proponent of alternatives, but unfortunately for the moment for many careers people definitely still need to go through the channels. I have no desire to be an academic but lots of people do.

I’m an Economics major and have had a great experience with my un-like-minded professors of all departments. Some people will present you with problems, but most people will have an fascination/interest and a few will even seek you out for some diversity of opinion. To me, it really feels like one of the best places to be an outspoken libertarian, because you really get to talk about the perspectives and people end up coming to you as a unique perspective. I’ve been able to have a big impact and even unknowingly “convert” some people around here, and I really see the future of education as dealing with perspectives like we do.

The final capstone paper I just presented was an argument to pay attention to entrepreneurship theory, and everyone in the room (albeit a small room with about ten people) had never really heard much about how entrepreneurs fit into the economy, and even arguably as the keystone of the economy. Although most of my professors disagree with me and the process is always a frustration, it’s also a great opportunity to treat college as a two-way street, and it’s always important to go in without the “us-versus-them” mentality.

One other thing is that liberal arts colleges are private. Not quite free of government intervention (far from!) but a step in the right direction. People are more flexible about graduation and tons of people, myself included, have the ability to graduate early and stop wasting money and get to unschooling and the career world. Instead of the big factory-style universities, I see the future of education as evolving from the truly individual-driven and holistic style of learning.
http://twitter.com/Anders_Elmgren Anders Elmgren

I’ve thought about pursuing further studies in Economics but when I checked the course literature at the university it was all Keynesianism. Why waste a ton of money learning something that is completely wrong?
Anonymous

I’m studying political science as well and it’s a bunch of leftist bullsh*t, but I guess whatever we study within the field of economics, history and political science we have to deal with collectivist teachings. The carrot is more job possibilities.
Jonathco

Well said Shawn W; I am in finishing my Masters in political science currently, and while I have used Mises, Rothbard, and other Austrian scholars in some of my work, it is never used alone, AND always is used to simply portray one side of an issue being discussed.
Jonathco

Dr. Woods makes a valuable suggestion here.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1122944164 Tom Trosko

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/portland-state-university-offering-revolutionary-marxism-course-and-wait-until-you-see-the-syllabus/
Here is were I got my Masters degree. We have a lot of work to do.
Matt

Thanks for this blog post. I am in grad school for a MA in Gerontology (aging) and hope go onto a doctorate. This post has made me think twice about a paper on how the Fed and my state government have distorted the nursing home market (among all markets) and other medical topics. My school is probably not keen on this idea right now.