Thomas di Lorenzo

Thomas DiLorenzo
Thomas DiLorenzo at CPAC in February 2010.
Born	(1954-08-08) August 8, 1954 (age 62)
Nationality	United States
Field	Economic history, American history, Abraham Lincoln
School or tradition	Austrian School
Influences	Henry Hazlitt, John T. Flynn

Thomas James DiLorenzo (born August 8, 1954) is an American economics professor at Loyola University Maryland Sellinger School of Business. He identifies himself as an adherent of the Austrian School of economics. He is a research fellow at The Independent Institute, a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Board of Advisors member at CFACT, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, and an associate of the Abbeville Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Virginia Tech.

Thomas James DiLorenzo grew up in western Pennsylvania, descended from Italian immigrants. In an autobiographical essay he attributes his early commitment to individualism to "playing competitive sports." His view of politicians in the small western cities of the state was that they were in it for personal aggrandizement. He thought his family and neighbors worked hard and perceived other people getting advantages from the government. As a youth in the 1960s, he began to think that the "government was busy destroying the work ethic, the family, and the criminal justice system." Although too young to worry about the Vietnam War draft, he concluded that other young men turned themselves inside out to avoid it, or came back silenced by what they had done and seen. These conclusions led him to the opinion that politics were “evil”.

DiLorenzo began to study libertarianism in college, which he says helped him gain perspective on his developing ideas. He has a B.A. in economics from Westminster College in Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Virginia Tech.