From being a 11 term congressman he has also been a Libertarian and Republican presidentail candidate, best selling author with his book "revolution: a manifesto", and played a role in the founding of the Mises Institute aiding in studying economics and it's intrinsic link to liberty.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com

Murray Rothbard, a student of Mises, attempted to meld Austrian economics with classical liberalism and individualist anarchism, and is credited with coining the term "anarcho-capitalism". He was probably the first to use "libertarian" in its current (U.S.) pro-capitalist sense. He was a trained economist, but also knowledgeable in history and political philosophy. When young, he considered himself part of the Old Right, an anti-statist and anti-interventionist branch of the U.S. Republican party. When interventionist cold warriors of the National Review, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., gained influence in the Republican party in the 1950s, Rothbard quit that group and formed an alliance with left-wing antiwar groups. Later, Rothbard was an early supporter of the U.S. Libertarian Party, despite initially opposing it on grounds that it was premature.
http://www.mises.org

Mises wrote and lectured extensively on behalf of classical liberalism and is seen as one of the leaders of the Austrian School of economics.[citation needed] In his treatise on economics, Human Action, Mises introduced praxeology as the conceptual foundation of the science of human action, establishing economic laws of apodictic certainty rejecting positivism and material causality.
http://www.mises.org

Writing the pivotal book on Libertarian Philosophy, "Anarchy, The State... Utopia". The late Robert Nozwick has played a pivotal role in the forming of Libertarian Philosophy.
http://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-Utopia-Robert-Nozick/dp/0465097200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215...

Friedrich August von Hayek, CH (May 8, 1899 – March 23, 1992) was an Austrian-British economist and political philosopher known for his defence of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th century. He is considered to be one of the most important economists and political philosophers of the twentieth century.[1] One of the most influential members of the Austrian School of economics, he also made significant contributions in the fields of jurisprudence and cognitive science. He shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics with ideological rival Gunnar Myrdal "for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena."[2] He also received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991.
http://www.mises.org

Lew Rockwell is a paleolibertarian political commentator and economist in the United States. Rockwell is the founder and President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama and Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies.
http://www.lewrockwell.com