Walter Block

Block believes that the libertarian non-aggression principle does not apply to animals and that the right of human owners to kill, torture, or otherwise abuse animals may be an unavoidable corollary of libertarian premises. He articulated this position in a 2017 debate on animal rights, maintaining that groups must be able to petition for rights and respect the rights of others in order to qualify for rights themselves.

A January 2014 article in the New York Times stated that 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," 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 Education 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.

In a 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 in November 2008, Block asserted that "blacks and women" were paid less than whites because they are "less productive".

Despite the criticism showing evidence questioning the veracity of his statements, Block said he "regards sensitivity as the enemy of intellectual inquiry and truth." In a December 2008 article, Block wrote that the lessons he had learned from the incident were regarding the need for tenure if one wants to speak out, the wisdom of Murray Rothbard's words that "it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects" while remaining ignorant of economics, and the importance of Ludwig von Mises' motto: "Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it."

From 1979 to 1991, Block was the senior economist with the Fraser Institute. He is currently a senior fellow at the think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute, which has published various blog posts of his since 2000.

Walter 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."

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.

Walter Block received a B.A. in philosophy from Brooklyn College in 1964 and a Ph.D. 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.

Walter Edward Block (born August 21, 1941) is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He currently holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans, and is a senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He is best known for his 1976 book Defending the Undefendable, which takes contrarian positions in defending acts which are illegal or disreputable but Block argues are actually victimless crimes or benefit the public.