Thomas James DiLorenzo (; born August 8, 1954) identifies 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, and an associate of the Abbeville Institute. He holds a PhD in Economics from Virginia Tech. Life and work 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 not at an age to be concerned 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 BA in Economics from Westminster College in Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD in Economics from Virginia Tech. DiLorenzo has taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, George Mason University, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is a former adjunct fellow of the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1992 to 2020, he was a professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland Sellinger School of Business. As of 2020, DiLorenzo was no longer listed as active faculty at Loyola university, and instead as a professor emeritus and is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. DiLorenzo is a frequent speaker at Mises Institute events and offers several online courses on political subjects on the Mises Academy platform. He also writes for the blog, LewRockwell.com. Views DiLorenzo writes about what he calls "the myth of Lincoln" in American history and politics. He has said, "[President] Lincoln is on record time after time rejecting the idea of racial equality. But whenever anyone brings this up, the Lincoln partisans go