Walter E. Grinder, 1938–2022
John Hagel III
Walter Grinder passed away in December 2022 after fighting many illnesses. He lived a long and productive life, driven by his desire to help those around him and to drive change in the broader world.
Born in the Pittsburgh area in 1938, Walter graduated from Grove City College, where he had the good fortune to study under Hans Sennholz. He was then drawn to the New York City area, where he had an opportunity to study with Ludwig von Mises, Ludwig Lachmann, and Israel Kirzner at New York University and taught economics at Rutgers University–Newark. Walter and his wife, Mary Jane, lived in New Jersey, where they brought two wonderful children into this world. Walter remained a dedicated family man throughout his life.
During his time in the New York City area, he became a regular at Murray Rothbard’s living room gatherings in Manhattan and significantly grew his network of Austrian and libertarian friends and allies. His passion for driving change was also intensified by his active participation in the anti–Vietnam War movement.
Walter was a founder and executive director of the Center for Libertarian Studies in New York in the 1970s and delivered lectures on a variety of topics for the Cato Institute’s summer seminar programs during that period. However, he spent most of his career playing a leadership role in the Institute for Humane Studies, first in Menlo Park, California, and then in Fairfax, Virginia. He retired in 1995 and returned to Northern California to be near his children. After that, he continued to help younger scholars through his Institute for Civil Society.
Walter was an amazing man. He was so excited about the opportunity for change that would help all of us to achieve much more of our potential if we could create a freer society. His passion and commitment to the principles of liberty were deep and enduring.
This passion took many different forms. He was intensely curious and constantly reading books and articles that would help him to better understand how to address that opportunity for change. Even though he was an economist by training, he dove deeply into history, politics, and sociology throughout his life. He had a learning mindset—no matter how much he knew (and he knew far more than most people), he was determined to learn more about how humans interact with each other and the relationships that could create and support a free society.
But he wasn’t just focused on ideas. He understood that people are the foundation for driving change. He was constantly looking for younger people that he could help to inspire and develop so that they could play a more significant role in driving the change that the world needs. He was an extraordinary personal coach and he was always searching for ways to connect people so that they could achieve even more impact. Because he was so kind, caring, good‐natured, and supportive, Walter developed deep and enduring personal relationships with an extraordinary network of people around the world. He was certainly the most inspiring and supportive person that I had the good fortune to encounter in my life.
Walter unfortunately did not publish much work capturing the research and insights he generated, although he and I coauthored a number of papers that I am determined to publish as a collection in his honor. Our first essay, “Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision‐Making and Class Structure,” appeared as an article in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1977. Walter also edited and wrote an introduction to two books. The first was the 1973 edition of one of the libertarian classics—Our Enemy, the State by Albert Jay Nock. The second was the 1977 edition of Ludwig Lachmann’s essays, Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process. Walter also wrote a wonderful column called “Crosscurrents” for the Libertarian Review during the mid‐ to late 1970s.
Rather than publishing books and articles, Walter was consumed by the desire to share his reading and thoughts with his network of libertarian associates and protégés in more personal ways, so that they could see more clearly how it connected with their specific work and interests. It was all about connecting ideas with people so that they could grow. Walter was known for sending out many emails every day with references to key books and articles. While Walter’s emails were addressed to one individual, they would generally be copied to many others so that he could reach those who might also be interested in the topic being discussed. I am hoping to find someone with the time and interest who could plow through thousands of emails from Walter and compile all his book and article references and his descriptions of why they were all so relevant to our quest for freedom.
And it wasn’t just about ideas and people—for Walter, it was most importantly about action and impact. The people he admired the most were those who went beyond thinking and discussion. He was constantly seeking to learn what specific actions could drive change and yield the greatest impact in expanding our freedom. While he certainly recognized the importance of ideas and people, he was ultimately inspired by the opportunity for change that would provide all of us with the freedom to pursue more of our potential.
For Walter, the change that had the greatest potential was from the bottom up, driven by a growing number of people who were committed to expanding their freedom. One of his greatest interests was in studying and learning from movement leaders around the world and throughout history who had been successful in mobilizing large numbers of people to drive advances in human liberty. Walter was a fighter, but what inspired him was the opportunity to create a world where more people could thrive.
Walter had other sides as well. Perhaps most notable was his fascination with so many different genres of music, including classical, blues, rock, and jazz. His friends will fondly remember his emails recommending some extraordinary music that he had just enjoyed.
Walter was not very well known by those beyond his large personal network of friends and acquaintances, but his influence within that network was, and will continue to be, enormous. He will be sorely missed by those who knew him, but they will remain eternally grateful for the support and encouragement they received from him. He also touched them by the remarkable personal example he set in terms of how he led his life. Hopefully, many of them will be inspired to carry forward his quest to drive the change around the world that we all need.
John Hagel III has had a long career as a business entrepreneur and management consultant. The author of eight books, he is on the board of trustees of the Independent Institute and the Santa Fe Institute.