Percy L. Greaves Jr.

Percy L. Greaves Jr. (August 24, 1906 – August 13, 1984) was an American free-market economist, historian, and presidential candidate.

Percy Graves
Personal details
Born	August 24, 1906 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	August 13, 1984 (aged 77) Irvington, New York, U.S.
Political party	Republican (Before 1976) Libertarian (1976–1980) American (1980–1984)
Spouse(s)	Bettina Bien Greaves
Alma mater	Syracuse University Columbia University New York University

Biography

Greaves was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 24, 1906. He received a B.S. degree, magna cum laude, from the Syracuse University School of Business Administration. He was a graduate student studying economics at Columbia University and New York University. He was financial editor and research economist for the United States News from 1934 to 1936. He resigned to take an executive job in Paris; he traveled widely in Europe until he returned to the US in 1938. He directed research and survey activities for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and did extensive political research.

From 1943 to 1945, Greaves was Research Director for the Republican National Committee. Greaves later served as Chief of Minority Staff for the 1945–1946 "Joint Congressional Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack".[1]

He authored several books on economics, including Understanding the Dollar Crisis (1973) and Mises Made Easier (1974). Greaves was a longtime associate and friend of Ludwig von Mises, regularly attending his seminars. Greaves and his wife attended Mises’ graduate seminar at the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration each year from 1950 to 1969.[2] He was also a seminar speaker for the Foundation for Economic Education. Greaves served on the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) Editorial Advisory Committee and frequently wrote for IHR's The Journal of Historical Review, generally about Pearl Harbor revisionism.

In the 1974 elections, Greaves was an unsuccessful US Senate candidate in New York for the Free Libertarian Party. Murray Rothbard had commented the same year that Greaves "believes in taxation, and ... favors the draft."[3]

Greaves was nominated as the 1980 presidential candidate for the American Party, with Frank L. Varnum as his running mate. They received 6,648 votes.[4] The state parties of Kansas and Minnesota were unhappy with Greaves's moderate stance on abortion and put anti-Greaves tickets on their ballot lines, winning 1,555 and 6,136 votes respectively. Greaves had also sought the nomination of the American Independent Party but was defeated.

Greaves died due to cancer in 1984. He was survived by his wife, three children, and seven grandchildren.

In 2010, Percy’s wife completed an unfinished manuscript left behind after his death and it was published posthumously by the Ludwig von Mises Institute as Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy.

Bibliography

Articles

• "Does Government Spending Bring Prosperity?". The Freeman, February 1955. Archived from the original.

Books

• Understanding the Dollar Crisis. Foreword by Ludwig von Mises. Belmont, MA: Western Islands, 1973.[5]
• Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy. Edited by Bettina B. Greaves. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010.
• On the Manipulation of Money and Credit: Three Treatises on Trade-Cycle Theory. Translated and with a foreword by Bettina Bien Greaves. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011.

Book contributions

• "The Pearl Harbor Investigations" (Chapter 7). Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, by Harry Elmer Barnes. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, 1953. OCLC 457149. Archived from the original.
• "Is Further Intervention a Cure for Prior Intervention?" (Chapter 9). pp. 285-307. On Freedom and Free Enterprise: Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises. Edited by Mary Sennholz. D. Van Nostrand, 1956. LCCN 56-8218.

See also

• American Party (1969)
• Austrian School

References

1. Greaves, Percy (2010). Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruit of Infamy. USA: Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 9781610162616.
2. Greaves, Bettina Bien (1993). Mises: An Annotated Bibliography (PDF) (1st ed.). New York: The Foundation for Economic Education. pp. xv. ISBN 0-910614-79-2.
3. "Purity And The Libertarian Party". The Libertarian Forum: 3, 7. May 1974.
4. Our Campaigns: American Party 1980
5. Hazlitt, Henry. Review of Understanding the Dollar Crisis, by Percy L. Greaves, Jr. Books for Libertarians, Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1974, p. 4. Full issue available.