The following story is part of Walter Block's Autobiography Archive.

Free-Marketeer at the Fed

I grew up in a JFK-democratic household and was a standard liberal through undergraduate work. While in the Army after being drafted in early 1969, I came to have a good deal of free time to pursue things that I had never before much enjoyed – things like reading. I had always parroted the standard liberal line to my teachers and was rewarded with statements about how smart I was; but not only was I not smart, I came to realize quite quickly that I knew little about little, and absolutely nothing about most things. And this was after 16 years of "schooling."

Over a weekend in Atlanta, I picked up Atlas Shrugged at a store there, returning to Fort Gordon in Augusta, and reading practically non-stop for a week until I finished it. It was a revelation, which is not saying anything at all I know, because other people feel the same way upon completing it – usually. Naturally, relations within my family and circle of friends were reshaped by my own philosophical conversion, and that is always a painful thing because, while political conversion is not a solo trip, there never seems to be any traveling companions close by when you most need them!

That experience led me to the public library and a host of books on

economics, one of which was a book whose table of contents I could not understand and which had never before even been checked out – Mises's Human Action. Coming so soon after Rand, Mises was the final converter. I became an Objectivist, not understanding then the many differences in approach and philosophy between Rand and Mises and, frankly, not caring if there were any! (Later, I came to see many things quite differently.)

Returning to civilian life, I taught in public schools, seeing first hand the destruction the establishment's educational initiatives, especially busing and forced integration, created in what had been a year before a "good" high school. I resigned because I couldn't stand to watch and because I probably would have ended up killed by some "student" had I not. I entered graduate work in economics at VCU which was, at that time, dominated by Marshallian micro – markets work fine, most of the time – and Keynesian macro – markets are dysfunctional and require constant vigilance by public-spirited, brilliant government planners. Men such as Keynes himself, no doubt.

Needless to say, I ran afoul of some professors. But while I received a political "B" or two, it was a micro professor who went to the dean and demanded that I not be allowed to continue in economics. My sin? I had written a paper critical of indifference curves, citing an article by Rothbard, "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics." That was such a rebuke to this gentleman and the "perfection" of his mathematical micro analyses, that he wanted me kept out of the profession altogether. The dean, a former federal bureaucrat, for some reason overrode the teacher and commuted my failing "C" (graduate work, remember) to a "B-." I learned the valuable lesson that methodological disputes can be every bit as damaging and vicious as ideological ones.

I don't know why the dean helped me, but it wasn't the last time that someone aided me when I really needed help. After I received my Masters in economics, I applied to the law school that I wanted to attend and was accepted, but also accepted for doctoral work in economics. I decided to pursue economics and that, as Robert Frost wrote, "had made all the difference."

I began doctoral work at Virginia and met Roger Garrison who was a fellow student, although certainly a better one than myself. I also met several famous and influential professors at Virginia, but none of them really influenced my own thinking much, although I did admire William Breit, Leland Yeager, and G. Warren Nutter immensely. I had read by that point every major work in the Austrian tradition that was in print, and had begun my personal library which has grown to be quite a collection in its own right over these many years and to which I make regular new contributions.

By 1977, I had withdrawn from school, sold the interest I had in my dinner theatre business in Richmond, quit my Richmond Symphony job as a bass trombonist, and was "hunkered down" and wasting time doing not much of anything except playing tourmement bridge. Then one day a letter arrived from San Francisco from the Cato Institute. They were looking for a conference director, and my friend Roger Garrison had recommended me to them. In less than a month, I drove to San Francisco to begin work at Cato.

It was at Cato that I met everyone, of course. Murray Rothbard was in residence. Leonard Liggio was there. Ralph Raico and Ron Hamowy were there at Inquiry magazine. Gawd, the wonderful dinners we used to have where I was by far the least smart of anyone at the table, but nonetheless allowed to listen and learn and even get in a word to two.

Splendid days – the creation of so many conferences and seminars, all the scholars that I got to meet, the creation of so many publications including the Cato Journal, something about which I am still quite proud. I rose from conference director to acting CEO in 1980, then left Cato in late 1981 to return to school to tie up a "loose end" – my doctorate.

I had met John Sommer at an environmental conference at Big Sky, Montana, in 1980 and we shared a flight back to Salt Lake, he to travel on to Dallas and I to SFO. He told me that he had put together a new political economy program at the University of Texas at Dallas, and suggested that I finish up there. It seemed far-fetched to me at that moment, but that's what happened, and Jack, a wonderful man and a true libertarian, was always there to help me while he was at UTD – which was until 1984.

Along the way, I did a brief stint as executive director of the Center for Libertarian Studies in NY, but their financial condition made it impossible for me to stay on board. In 1982-83, while working off and on at the University of Dallas, Dr. John Goodman and I founded the National Center for Policy Analysis – I was its first Executive Director – which is still operating quite successfully here in Dallas. I ultimately finished my PhD in political economy, and my dissertation was published by Transactions as The Myth of Scientific Public Policy, in 1990.

I taught full time at the University of Dallas, both undergraduate and graduate, and then moved to Atlanta to teach at Oxford College of Emory University for a year, then took another job suggested to me by Roger Garrison – the free enterprise chair at Reinhardt College. I founded its Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise, once again creating publications and seminars on policy topics. But Reinhardt's interest in national policy issues was not as enthusiastic as my own. I met Bob McTeer – president of the Dallas Fed and a fellow libertarian – at a meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education. In late 1995, I moved back to Dallas and, in early 1996, I started working at the Dallas Fed – the "free enterprise Fed" as we call it – where I remain today (2003). I'm still writing about free markets and speaking at conferences about the same, all the while teaching part time at my old alma mater, UTD. It's a very full life and, looking back, I have no regrets about becoming a libertarian and an economist.

January 8, 2003

Dr. Robert Formaini [send him mail] is Senior Economist and Public Policy Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and adjunct instructor of economics in the school of management at the University of Texas at Dallas.

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