DALLAS, TX – A couple of days ago Pete Leeson, BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at George Mason University (GMU; currently doing a one-year stint as a visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago), spoke at Loyola University. We decided to stick around Nola to catch his speech – which was quite good – and to interview him. And we’re glad we did.

In this video Pete gives a quick overview about his personal journey to self-describing as an anarcho-capitalist, differentiates between the standard of living between best/worst governments and best/worst anarchistic societies and his findings about the arrangements that spontaneously emerged among pirates due to the combination of incentives that existed at the time.

A couple of years ago when I was working at the Institute for Humane Studies I had the pleasure of meeting Leeson who was then transferring from West Virginia University, an Austrian economic-friendly environment in its own right, to GMU (of which IHS is affiliated), which is THE hotbed of Austrian Economics. (I’m only half-joking when I tell people that if I could do it all over again I would have gone to Mason for econ in undergrad.) After becoming fully aware of Leeson’s prolific work I was all the more impressed to learn that he was only a year older than I. And he’s at the forefront of the growing number of Austrian economists that’s been able to do exhaustive original research and bridge the gap to the mainstream. To use both the vehicles of academia and the MSM to communicate the ideas of liberty.

Thanks to Dan D’Amico for helping to coordinate this and to Jennifer Moreale, head of Loyola’s Econ Society, which invited Leeson to campus. For more with Pete, check out his personal blog and the Austrian Economists – a stellar group blog of which Leeson is a part.