One suspects that TIME devotes four pages in its latest issue to a neutral-to-favorable profile of Texas congressman Ron Paul — titled “The Prophet” — not because of Paul’s ideas, but instead because Paul’s support muddies the water for other top-tier Republican presidential candidates.

Still, there’s no denying the value in exposing general news magazine readers to the names Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises:

As he built an obstetrics practice in Brazoria County, Texas, he spent his free time studying the theories of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, giants of the Austrian school of economics, which champions unfettered free markets, individual rights and money backed by scarce commodities like gold and silver. “When I discovered people like Mises, to me they were geniuses,” Paul says. “They could explain this stuff. It helped me feel comfortable that it wasn’t only me in the world.”