Ralph Raico
| Ralph Raico | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 23, 1936 New York City |
| Died | (aged 80) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Influences | Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | Libertarianism |
Ralph Raico (/ˈreɪkoʊ/; October 23, 1936 – December 13, 2016) was an American libertarian historian of European liberalism. He was formerly a professor of history at Buffalo State College.
Raico was from New York City, where he attended The Bronx High School of Science. Through the Foundation for Economic Education, Raico and his classmate George Reisman arranged to meet with economist Ludwig von Mises, who subsequently invited them to attend his graduate seminar on Austrian economics at New York University. There he met fellow seminar attendee Murray Rothbard, who befriended him. Rothbard and his friends Raico, Reisman, Ronald Hamowy, and Robert Hessen formed a "self-conscious intellectual and activist salon" they named the "Circle Bastiat".
In the mid-1950s, the Circle Bastiat also brought Raico into contact with novelist Ayn Rand and her followers, informally known at the time as "The Collective". Raico attended the first lectures about Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Eventually relations between the two groups soured, leading to an incident in which the Circle parodied the Collective, performing a skit in which Raico played the part of Rand's protege Nathaniel Branden. By the summer of 1958 Rand and Rothbard had broken off all ties, and the groups stopped associating.
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