Walter Block

Walter Edward Block (born August 21, 1941) is an American Austrian school economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans and a former senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

Walter Block was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, both of whom Block has said were liberals. He attended James Madison High School, where Bernie Sanders was on his track team. Block earned his PhD degree in economics from Columbia University and wrote his dissertation on rent control in the United States under Gary Becker. Block identifies himself as a "devout atheist". He is also a Canadian citizen.

In an interview, Block stated, "In the fifties and sixties, I was just another commie living in Brooklyn." Block credits his shift to libertarianism to his having attended a lecture by Ayn Rand while he was an undergraduate student. Block later attended a luncheon with Rand, Nathaniel Branden, and Leonard Peikoff at which Branden suggested that Block read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. He says that the final push to his conversion came from having met Austrian School and anarcho-capitalist theorist Murray Rothbard. While Block is an anarcho-capitalist and, unlike the Objectivist followers of Ayn Rand, ultimately opposed to limited or minimal government, and even while criticizing her movement as "cultish", Block still describes himself as "a big fan" of Rand and considers Atlas Shrugged to be "the best novel ever written."

Walter Block received a B.A. in philosophy from Brooklyn College in 1964 and a PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1972. He taught at the University of Central Arkansas, Holy Cross College, Baruch College and Rutgers University. He now holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the Butt College of Business, Loyola University, in New Orleans.

From 1979 to 1991, Block was the senior economist with the Fraser Institute. He was also a senior fellow at the think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute from 2000 to 2024, where he published various blog posts, papers, and books.

In the years since 1971, his work has been published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, the Review of Austrian Economics, the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, the Journal of Labor Economics and Public Choice and in Psychology Today and other popular media. In 2017, he hit the milestone of publishing over 500 peer-reviewed articles.

Block has written two dozen books. He is best known for his 1976 book Defending the Undefendable. The book has been translated into ten foreign languages. Fox Business Channel pundit John Stossel wrote that Block's "eye-opening" book inspired him to see that economics "illuminates what common sense overlooks."

Block believes that people should have the legal right to sell themselves into slavery, or to buy and keep slaves who have sold themselves into slavery, in a libertarian legal order.

A January 2014 article in the New York Times said Block "suggested in an interview that the daily life of the enslaved was 'not so bad – you pick cotton and sing songs.'" The piece also reported that Block said Woolworth's had the right to exclude black people from its lunch counters, asserting that "no one is compelled to associate with people against their will." Block responded to the article by accusing the Times of libel for taking quotes out of context and claiming the latter quote was not accurate. In his response, he called slavery "depraved and monstrous" while arguing that it is not the nature of the work slaves perform that makes slavery monstrous, but rather it is the fact that they are forced to perform it and are not free to leave. According to Block's argument, forcing a slave to perform pleasant tasks would be no less monstrous because it equally violates the libertarian non-aggression principle. An Inside Higher Ed piece noted that, in response to the story, seventeen faculty members at Block's university publicly called for him to be censured for his "recurring public attacks ... on the civil rights of all." The piece also reported that Reverend Kevin Wildes, the President of Block's university, took the "unusual step" of publicly critiquing his arguments as fallacious. As part of a settlement to the lawsuit, The New York Times agreed to add the following Editor's Note to the article: "An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the views of Walter Block on slavery. While Mr. Block has said that the daily life of slaves was "not so bad," he opposes slavery because it is involuntary, and he believes reparations should be paid."

In a 2008 lecture Block called "Injustices in the Politics and Economics of Social Justice" presented at the invitation of the Adam Smith Society of the economics department of Loyola College, Baltimore Block said "blacks and women" were paid less than whites because they are "less productive".

In the lecture, Block defended his views on women saying among younger and unmarried women, there is virtually no income disparity. When asked by an attendee to explain the difference in productivity between blacks and whites, he said that as an economist he was not qualified to explain the disparity. Block offered two thoughts that might account for the disparity: first, what he called the "politically correct" explanation, or socioeconomic disparities and historical injustices towards blacks; for the second thought, which he calls the "political incorrect", he refers to R. Herrnstein and C. Murray's book "The Bell Curve".

James Gill wrote in the Times-Picayune that the lecture "ignited a furor", resulting in the president of the university, Brian F. Linnane, apologizing for what was taken as a "sexist and racist outburst", with Gill opining that, "ideas contrary to fashionable preconceptions are always likely to throw academia into a fit".

Defending the Undefendable (1976; translated into ten foreign languages.) ISBN 0930073053

A Response to the Framework Document for Amending the Combines Investigation Act (1982)

Focus on Economics and the Canadian Bishops (1983)

Focus on Employment Equity: A Critique of the Abella Royal Commission on Equality in Employment (with Michael A. Walker; 1985)

The U.S. Bishops and Their Critics: An Economic and Ethical Perspective (1986). ISBN 978-0889750852. OCLC 15348791