The Future of Institutions for the Defense of Liberty

A commentary on the publication by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Mises Institute: Quo Vadis?," Property and Freedom Journal (March 25, 2026).

Martín Cabrera

The freedom movement finds itself at a breaking point. We are living in an era in which the ideas of the Austrian School and anarcho-capitalism are attracting unprecedented attention. For this very reason, the institutions dedicated to defending these ideas face their toughest test: resisting the temptation of political power.

The State, by its very nature and definition, is an aggressive institution that exists on the basis of the systematic and massive violation of property rights. It has always benefited from a symbiotic relationship with intellectuals. Indeed, the State benefits from the propaganda carried out by the intellectuals it employs, who influence public opinion in its favor. Meanwhile, many intellectuals benefit from permanent employment as State propagandists— employment they could not sustain in a free market, since the demand for intellectuals’ essays

in the market is not exactly high.

For this reason, intellectuals have played a fundamental role in the legitimization of the State, as well as in the growth of its power. It is for this that Hans-Hermann Hoppe developed the concept of “anti-intellectual intellectuals”—those intellectuals who choose to confront the power of the State in defense of truth, justice, and liberty.¹

Every institution committed to the defense of Austro-libertarian ideas must be composed of “anti-intellectual intellectuals.” If an institution defending these ideas subordinates itself to any government whatsoever, justifying it for reasons of “pragmatism,” “the lesser evil,” or any other, it is signing its own death sentence. This means that every institution dedicated to the defense of Austro-libertarian ideas must always be rigorous and remain intransigent regarding theoretical purity and its principles.

Faced with this demand for intransigence, a criticism often arises: Shouldn’t we be open to debating all ideas? Don’t we become dogmatic by not giving space to opposing visions?

It is here that we must draw a fundamental line for the future of any institution that wishes to defend the ideas of liberty. There is an abysmal difference between dogmatism and the maintenance of intellectual standards, integrity, and firmness in principles.

Rigorous debate is the engine of academia and is essential in the search for truth. Within the Austro-libertarian tradition, there are very interesting and intense debates. There are debates about the possible forms a hard money could take, about the deshomogenization of Mises and Hayek regarding the impossibility of socialism, about whether the foundation of praxeology is Kantian or Aristotelian, about whether the demand for money affects the interest rate, or about whether the correct justification of property rights is the Rothbardian natural rights approach or the Hoppean argumentation ethics. These are healthy debates because they remain within a rigorous logical framework. But we do not debate whether 2+2 equals 4, nor do we give space to those who want to debate that—just as a mathematics department would not. They would not accept someone claiming that 2+2 equals 5. This does not make them “dogmatic”; it makes them serious and rigorous professionals.

In the same way, the fundamental ethical principles—such as the axiom of self-ownership and private property rights based on original appropriation, production, and voluntary exchange, with their direct implications (the non-aggression axiom, respect for voluntary contracts that do not contradict these fundamental principles)—are demonstrated truths. In institutions dedicated to the defense of the ideas of liberty, there is no room to debate against these principles.

Refusing to cede our platforms to apologists of statism and to politicians who violate these principles (even if they rhetorically defend them) is not a dogmatic position. It is, quite simply, having standards and being firm in one’s principles. This does not mean not acting; it means always acting guided by those principles without contradicting them, with the ultimate goal of achieving the objective.

The purpose of think tanks is not to seek the applause of the political class. Political victories are, at best, temporary and fragile.

The true objective is much deeper: to form minds with the ultimate goal of achieving a free society. We need to build open and rigorous centers where the next generation of thinkers can study economics, epistemology, revisionist history, and political philosophy without the concessions demanded by the system.

The legacy of Murray Rothbard—the founder of the modern anarcho-capitalist movement and what we know as “Austro-libertarianism”—continues more than three decades after his death (and we are confident it will persist as long as society persists) not because he compromised or decided to collaborate with political power to gain fame. Rothbard’s legacy endures (as does that of his mentor, Ludwig von Mises) because Rothbard never yielded. He never succumbed to the temptation of fame and power, even though his brilliant mind would have allowed it. Rothbard always remained firm in his principles and in his defense of truth, even when that meant going against the current, and even against former allies who allowed themselves to be corrupted by the temptation of power.²

This path —the one Rothbard followed— is the one that all those who wish to defend liberty must follow, and the one that must set the course for every institution with this same purpose. Liberty will not prevail because a politician grants it to us from a podium, but because we will have educated enough free individuals with unbreakable foundations, capable of building and sustaining a true society based on private law and absolute respect for property.

The defense of liberty admits no shortcuts or compromises.

As Lew Rockwell, founder of the Mises Institute, said:

At some point in all our lives, we will all come to realize that all the money and all the power and goods we can accumulate will be useless to us after we die. Even large fortunes can dissipate after a generation or two. The legacy we will leave on this earth comes down to the principles by which we lived. It is the ideas we hold and the way we pursued them that is the source of our immortality.³

1 Cf. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Role of Intellectuals and Anti-Intellectual Intellectuals”, reprinted as chapter 1 in idem, The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline, Second Expanded Edition (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2021), pp. 3-8.

2 On this, cf. Lewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Fascism vs. Capitalism, (Aubrun, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2013), chapters 8, 11 and 14, pp. 65-76, 95-98 and 125-134.

3 Ibid, p. 134.