Libertarian Philosopher Robert LeFevre Dies

Robert LeFevre, one of the nation’s best-known proponents of libertarianism, who wrote books and taught that philosophy for many years, has died of an apparent emphysema attack, his wife said.

LeFevre, was 74, and died Tuesday in a Flagstaff, Ariz., motel room after an early morning emphysema attack, Lois LeFevre said. The couple had been driving back to their home in Santa Ana from a trip to South Carolina.

Since the early 1950s, LeFevre had been a leading exponent of libertarianism--which stresses the value of personal freedom and the free-enterprise system while advocating an end to government regulations.

He founded Freedom College in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1957, and used the institution as a base for his lectures on libertarian economics, history and philosophy.

Freedom College, which was renamed Rampart College, foundered in 1965 when heavy rains devastated the school. His beliefs precluded him from accepting tax dollars to help rebuild the facility.

In 1968 he re-established the school in Santa Ana but quit lecturing there in 1975.

“He changed a lot of lives,” said Roy Childs, a former editor of Libertarian Review who attended Rampart lectures in the late 1960s and later returned as an instructor.

“He taught the nature of truth, immorality, government, history, and our own possibilities as free men and women. He left us all with a wide-eyed enthusiasm.”

At the time of his death, LeFevre had just completed two books on libertarianism, “Fundamentals of Liberty” and “Cosmos.”