Murray Newton Rothbard
Austrian School |
Rothbard c. 1994 |
Born |
(1926-03-02)March 2, 1926
Bronx, New York, United States |
Died |
January 7, 1995(1995-01-07) (aged 68)
New York City, New York, U.S. |
Nationality |
American |
Institution |
New York University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, |
Field |
Economics, Political economy, Natural law, Anarchism, Praxeology, Numismatics, Philosophy of law, Ethics, Economic history |
Alma mater |
Columbia University, New York University |
Influences |
Aristotle, Aquinas, Böhm-Bawerk, La Boétie, Burke, Chodorov, Hayek, Wilder Lane, Laozi, Locke, Mencken, Menger, Mises, Molinari, Nock, Oppenheimer, Rand, Say, Schumpeter, Spencer, Spooner, Tucker, Turgot, Harper[1] |
Influenced |
Hoppe, Rockwell, Konkin, Narveson, Heath, Callahan, Raico, Salerno, Sobran, Stringham, McElroy, Tucker, Bylund, Long, Caplan, Murphy, Woods, Kinsella, Nozick, Molyneux, Thornton, Horton, Raimondo, DiLorenzo, Block, von NotHaus, the Tannehills, Paul, Higgs |
Contributions |
Founder of Anarcho-capitalism, contributions to natural law theory, praxeology and economic history |
Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist, historian, and political theorist. He was a prominent exponent of the Austrian School of economics who helped to define libertarianism by theorising a form of free-market anarchism which he termed "anarcho-capitalism."[2][3][4] Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the American libertarian movement.[5]
Building on the Austrian School's concept of spontaneous order, support for a free market in money production and condemnation of central planning,[6] Rothbard advocated abolition of coercive government control of society and the economy. He considered the monopoly force of government the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the populace, labeling the state as nothing but a "gang of thieves writ large"—the locus of the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.[7][8][9][10]
Rothbard concluded that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He viewed many regulations and laws ostensibly promulgated for the "public interest" as self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats engaging in dangerously unfettered self-aggrandizement, as they were not subject to market disciplines. Rothbard held that there were inefficiencies involved with government services and asserted that market disciplines would eliminate them, if the services could be provided by competition in the private sector.[11][12][13]
Rothbard was equally condemning of state corporatism, criticizing many instances where business elites co-opted government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals.[14]
He argued that taxation represents coercive theft on a grand scale, and "a compulsory monopoly of force" prohibiting the more efficient voluntary procurement of defense and judicial services from competing suppliers.[8][15] He also considered central banking and fractional reserve banking under a monopoly fiat money system a form of state-sponsored, legalized financial fraud, antithetical to libertarian principles and ethics.[16][17][18][19] Rothbard opposed military, political, and economic interventionism in the affairs of other nations.[20][21]
Rothbard with his wife, JoAnn Schumacher
Rothbard was born to David and Rae Rothbard, who raised their Jewish family in the Bronx. His father, a chemist, "emigrated to the United States from a Polish shtetl in 1910, impoverished and knowing not a word of English,"[22] while his mother came from Russia.[23] "I grew up in a Communist culture," he recalled.[22] He attended Columbia University, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and economics in 1945 and a Master of Arts degree in 1946. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics in 1956 at Columbia under Joseph Dorfman.[24][25]
During the early 1950s, he studied under the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises at his seminars at New York University and was greatly influenced by Mises' book Human Action. Rothbard attracted the attention of the William Volker Fund, the main group that supported classical liberal scholars in the 1950s and early 1960s. He began a project to write a textbook to explain Human Action in a fashion suitable for college students; a sample chapter he wrote on money and credit won Mises’s approval. As Rothbard continued his work, he transformed the project. The result, Man, Economy, and State, was a central work of Austrian economics.
During the late 1950s, Rothbard was also an associate of Ayn Rand and her philosophy, Objectivism, along with several other students of Ludwig von Mises, such as George Reisman. At that time, Rothbard described Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, as "an infinite treasure house," and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, it is one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction."[26] However, in mid-1958 he broke with Rand over various differences including his defense of anarchism. Later, Rothbard lampooned Rand's circle in his play Mozart Was a Red and essay, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult."[27] Nonetheless, according to Rand biographer Jennifer Burns, Rothbard was introduced to both Aristotelian epistemology and the "whole field" of natural rights through his discussions with Rand.[28]
From 1963 to 1985, he taught at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, later to become part of New York University in Brooklyn, New York. From 1986 until his death he was a distinguished professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Rothbard founded the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1976 and the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1977. He was associated with the 1982 creation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and later was its academic vice president. In 1987, he started the scholarly Review of Austrian Economics, now called the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.[24]
In 1953, in New York City, he married JoAnn Schumacher (1928-1999), whom he called the "indispensable framework" for his life and work.[24] He died in 1995 in Manhattan of a heart attack. The New York Times obituary called Rothbard "an economist and social philosopher who fiercely defended individual freedom against government intervention."[29]JoAnn died four years later from the aftereffects of a stroke.[30]
Cover of the 2004 edition of Man, Economy, and State.
The Austrian School attempts to discover axioms of human action (called "praxeology" in the Austrian tradition). It supports free market economics and criticizes command economies. Influential advocates were Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises. Rothbard argued that the entire Austrian economic theory is the working out of the logical implications of the fact that humans engage in purposeful action.[31] In working out these axioms he came to the position that a monopoly price could not exist on the free market. He also anticipated much of the “rational expectations” viewpoint in economics.
In accordance with his free-market views, Rothbard argued that individual protection and national defense also should be offered on the market, rather than supplied by government’s coercive monopoly.[24] Rothbard was an ardent critic of Keynesian economic thought[32] as well as the utilitarian theory of philosopher Jeremy Bentham.[33]
In Man, Economy, and State Rothbard divides the various kinds of state intervention in three categories: "autistic intervention", which is interference with private non-exchange activities; "binary intervention", which is forced exchange between individuals and the state; and "triangular intervention", which is state-mandated exchange between individuals. According to Sanford Ikeda, Rothbard's typology "eliminates the gaps and inconsistencies that appear in Mises's original formulation."[34][35]
Rothbard also was knowledgeable in history and political philosophy. Rothbard's books, such as Man, Economy, and State, Power and Market, The Ethics of Liberty, and For a New Liberty, are considered by some to be classics of natural law and libertarian thought, combining libertarian natural rights philosophy, anti-government anarchism and a free market perspective in analyzing a range of contemporary social and economic issues. He also possessed extensive knowledge of the history of economic thought, studying the pre-Adam Smith free market economic schools, such as the Scholastics and the Physiocrats and discussed them in his unfinished, multi-volume work, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought.
Rothbard writes in Power and Market that the role of the economist in a free market is limited but the role and power of the economist in a government that continually intervenes in the market expands, as the interventions trigger problems which require further diagnosis and the need for further policy recommendations. Rothbard argues that this simple self-interest prejudices the views of many economists in favor of increased government intervention.[36][37]
Rothbard also created "Rothbard's law" that "people tend to specialize in what they are worst at. Henry George, for example, is great on everything but land, so therefore he writes about land 90% of the time. Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on money."[38]
Rothbard at the 1983
Libertarian presidential convention in New York City.
Rothbard "was the leading theorist of radical Lockean libertarianism combined with Austrian economics, which demonstrates that free markets produce widespread prosperity, social cooperation, and economic coordination without monopoly, depression, or inflation—evils whose roots are to be found in government intervention."[39] He "combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher Ludwig von Mises with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the nineteenth century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker."[40] He connected these to more modern views, writing: "There is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics', a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung."[41]
Rothbard opposed what he considered the overspecialization of the academy and sought to fuse the disciplines of economics, history, ethics, and political science to create a "science of liberty." Rothbard described the moral basis for his anarcho-capitalist position in two of his books: For a New Liberty, published in 1972, and The Ethics of Liberty, published in 1982. In his Power and Market (1970), Rothbard describes how a stateless economy might function.[42]
In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard asserts the right of absolute self-ownership, as the only principle compatible with a moral code that applies to every person—a "universal ethic"—and that it is a natural law by being what is naturally best for man.[43] He argued that, as a result, individuals owned the fruits of their labor. Accordingly, each person had the right to exchange his property with others. He also advocated for Lockean homesteading, arguing that if an individual mixes his labor with unowned land then he is the proper owner, and from that point on it is private property that may only exchange hands by trade or gift.[44] Rothbard later accepted and advocated for Hans Hermann Hoppe's argumentation ethics, calling it a "dazzling breakthrough" in libertarian ethics.[45][46]
Rothbard began to consider himself a private property anarchist in the 1950s and later began to use "anarcho-capitalist".[47][48] He wrote: "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism."[49] In his anarcho-capitalist model, a system of protection agencies compete in a free market and are voluntarily supported by consumers who choose to use their protective and judicial services. Anarcho-capitalism would mean the end of the state monopoly on force.[47]
Rothbard was equally condemning of relationships he perceived between big business and big government. He cited many instances where business elites co-opted government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals. According to Rothbard, one example of such cronyism included grants of monopolistic privilege the railroads derived from sponsoring so-called conservation laws.[50]
- See also Free banking, Gold standard and Monetary reform
Rothbard believed the monopoly power of government over the issuance and distribution of money was inherently destructive and unethical. The belief derived from Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek's Austrian theory of the business cycle, which holds that undue credit expansion inevitably leads to a gross misallocation of capital resources, triggering unsustainable credit bubbles and, eventually, economic depressions. He, therefore, strongly opposed central banking and fractional reserve banking under a fiat money system, labeling it as "legalized counterfeiting"[51] or a form of institutionalized embezzlement and therefore inherently fraudulent.[52][53] He characterized the government-enforced prohibition on citizens using commodity currencies as legal tender a compulsory Ponzi scheme, one from which no citizen could escape.[53][54]
He strongly advocated full reserve banking ("100 percent banking")[55] and a voluntary, nongovernmental gold standard[24][56] or, as a second best solution, free banking (which he also called "free market money").[57]
In relation to the current central bank-managed fractional reserve fiat currency system, he stated the following:[58]
Given this dismal monetary and banking situation, given a 39:1 pyramiding of checkable deposits and currency on top of gold, given a Fed unchecked and out of control, given a world of fiat moneys, how can we possibly return to a sound noninflationary market money? The objectives, after the discussion in this work, should be clear: (a) to return to a gold standard, a commodity standard unhampered by government intervention; (b) to abolish the Federal Reserve System and return to a system of free and competitive banking; (c) to separate the government from money; and (d) either to enforce 100 percent reserve banking on the commercial banks, or at least to arrive at a system where any bank, at the slightest hint of nonpayment of its demand liabilities, is forced quickly into bankruptcy and liquidation. While the outlawing of fractional reserve as fraud would be preferable if it could be enforced, the problems of enforcement, especially where banks can continually innovate in forms of credit, make free banking an attractive alternative.
Believing like Randolph Bourne that "war is the health of the state," Rothbard opposed aggressive foreign policy.[24] He criticized imperialism and the rise of the American empire which needed war to sustain itself and to expand its global control. His dislike of US imperialism even led him to eulogize and lament the CIA-assisted execution of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in 1967, proclaiming that "his enemy was our enemy".[59] Rothbard believed that stopping new wars was necessary and knowledge of how government had seduced citizens into earlier wars was important. Two essays expanded on these views "War, Peace, and the State" and "The Anatomy of the State." Rothbard used insights of the elitism theorists Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels to build a model of state personnel, goals, and ideology.[60][61] In an obituary for historian Harry Elmer Barnes, Rothbard explained why historical knowledge is important:[62]
Our entry into World War II was the crucial act in foisting a permanent militarization upon the economy and society, in bringing to the country a permanent garrison state, an overweening military-industrial complex, a permanent system of conscription. It was the crucial act in creating a mixed economy run by Big Government, a system of state-monopoly capitalism run by the central government in collaboration with Big Business and Big Unionism.
Rothbard discussed his views on the principles of a libertarian foreign policy in a 1973 interview: "The libertarian position, generally, is minimize State power as much as possible, down to zero, and isolationism is the full expression in foreign affairs of the domestic objective of whittling down State power." He further called for "abstinence from any kind of American military intervention and political and economic intervention."[20] In For a New Liberty he writes: "In a purely libertarian world, therefore, there would be no 'foreign policy' because there would be no States, no governments with a monopoly of coercion over particular territorial areas."[21]
In "War Guilt in the Middle East," Rothbard details Israel's "aggression against Middle East Arabs," confiscatory policies, and its "refusal to let these refugees return and reclaim the property taken from them."[63] Rothbard also criticized the “organized Anti-Anti-Semitism” that critics of the state of Israel have to suffer.[64]
Rothbard criticized as state terrorism the actions of the United States, Israel, and any nation that "retaliates" against innocents because they cannot pinpoint actual perpetrators. He held that no retaliation that injures or kills innocent people is justified, writing "Anything else is an apologia for unremitting and unending mass murder."[65]
In the Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard explores in terms of self-ownership and contract several contentious issues regarding children's rights. These include women's right to abortion, proscriptions on parents aggressing against children once they are born, and the issue of the state forcing parents to care for children, including those with severe health problems. He also holds children have the right to "run away" from parents and seek new guardians as soon as they are able to choose to do so. He suggested parents have the right to put a child out for adoption or even sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract, which he feels is more humane than artificial governmental restriction of the number of children available to willing and often superior parents.
He also discusses how the current juvenile justice system punishes children for making "adult" choices, such as underage drinking or sex, removing children unnecessarily and against their will from parents, often putting them in uncaring and even brutal foster care or juvenile facilities, while at the same time denying to them those legal rights adults enjoy, such as trial by jury, a written transcript of their court proceedings, etc.[66][67]
In a 1963 article, Rothbard wrote that "the Negro Revolution has some elements that a libertarian must favor, others that he must oppose. Thus, the libertarian opposes compulsory segregation and police brutality, but also opposes compulsory integration and such absurdities as ethnic quota systems in jobs."[68] According to Rothbard biographer Justin Raimondo, Rothbard considered Malcolm X to be a "great black leader” and Martin Luther King to be favored by whites because he “was the major restraining force on the developing Negro revolution." Rothbard also compared Lyndon B. Johnson's use of troops to crush urban rioters in 1968 after King's assassination to Johnson's use of American troops in the Vietnam War.[69]
The title essay of Rothbard's 1974 book Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays held, "Equality is not in the natural order of things, and the crusade to make everyone equal in every respect (except before the law) is certain to have disastrous consequences."[70] In it, Rothbard wrote, "At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality; that all the world is a tabula rasa that can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will."[71] Rothbard also expressed his views that statists suppressed academic research on race in order to support their goal of using the state to enforce egalitarian goals.[72]
A 2003 Southern Poverty Law Center report[73] criticized Rothbard writings on the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website. Author Chip Berlet quoted Rothbard’s sentence "The call of 'equality' is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human."[74] Berlet also wrote:
In the mid-1800s, a "legion of Yankee women" who were "not fettered by the responsibilities" of household work "imposed" voting rights for women on the nation. Later, Jewish women, after raising funds from "top Jewish financiers", agitated for child labor laws, Rothbard adds with evident disgust. The "dominant tradition" of all these activist women, he suggests, is lesbianism.
[75]
As a young man, Rothbard considered himself part of the Old Right, an anti-statist and anti-interventionist branch of the U.S. Republican party. In the 1948 presidential election, Rothbard, "as a Jewish student at Columbia, horrified his peers by organizing a Students for Strom Thurmond chapter, so staunchly did he believe in states’ rights."[76] Years later, he would look back on his support for Thurmond as "naïve":
I actually believed that the
States' Rights Party would continue to become a major party and destroy what was then a one-party Democratic monopoly in the South. In that way, an
Old Right, Midwestern
Republican coalition with States' Rights Democrats could become the majority party!
[22]
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 the party, walking out for good when moderate Dwight Eisenhower defeated Old Right stalwart Robert A. Taft for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination.[77] He would go on to support Democrat Adlai Stevenson in that year's election, "largely as the only way to get the Wall Street incubus off the back of the Republican Party."[77] After Rothbard died, Buckley wrote a bitter obituary in the National Review criticizing Rothbard's "defective judgment" and views on the Cold War.[78]
By the late 1960s, Rothbard's "long and winding yet somehow consistent road had taken him from anti-New Deal and anti-interventionist Robert Taft supporter into friendship with the quasi-pacifist Nebraska Republican Congressman Howard Buffett (father of Warren Buffett) then over to the League of (Adlai) Stevensonian Democrats and, by 1968, into tentative comradeship with the anarchist factions of the New Left."[79] Rothbard advocated an alliance with the New Left anti-war movement, on the grounds that the conservative movement had been completely subsumed by the statist establishment. However, Rothbard later criticized the New Left for supporting a "People's Republic" style draft. It was during this phase that he associated with Karl Hess and founded Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought with Leonard Liggio and George Resch, which existed from 1965 to 1968. From 1969 to 1984 he edited The Libertarian Forum, also initially with Hess (although Hess's involvement ended in 1971).
Rothbard criticized the "frenzied nihilism" of left-wing libertarians, but also criticized right-wing libertarians who were content to rely only on education to bring down the state; he believed that libertarians should adopt any non-immoral tactic available to them in order to bring about liberty.[80]
During the 1970s and 1980s, Rothbard was active in the Libertarian Party. He was frequently involved in the party's internal politics. He was one of the founders of the Cato Institute, and "came up with the idea of naming this libertarian think tank after Cato’s Letters, a powerful series of British newspaper essays by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon which played a decisive influence upon America's Founding Fathers in fomenting the Revolution."[81]
From 1978 to 1983, he was associated with the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus, allying himself with Justin Raimondo, Eric Garris and Williamson Evers. He opposed the "low tax liberalism" espoused by 1980 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ed Clark and Cato Institute president Edward H Crane III. According to Charles Burris, "Rothbard and Crane became bitter rivals after disputes emerging from the 1980 LP presidential campaign of Ed Clark carried over to strategic direction and management of Cato."[81]
Rothbard split with the Radical Caucus at the 1983 national convention over cultural issues and aligned himself with what he called the "right-wing populist" wing of the party, notably Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, who ran for President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988 and in the 2008 Republican Party Primaries. "Rothbard worked closely with Lew Rockwell (joined later by his long time friend Burt Blumert) in nurturing the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the publication, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report; which after Rothbard’s 1995 death evolved into the popular website, LewRockwell.com."[81]
In 1989, Rothbard left the Libertarian Party and began building bridges to the post-Cold War anti-interventionist right, calling himself a paleolibertarian.[82] [83] He was the founding president of the conservative-libertarian John Randolph Club and supported the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan in 1992, saying that "with Pat Buchanan as our leader, we shall break the clock of social democracy."[84]
Like Buchanan, Rothbard opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).[85] However, later he became disillusioned with Buchanan, believing that the latter's "commitment to protectionism was mutating into an all-round faith in economic planning and the nation state."[86] Rothbard then shifted his interest and support to Ross Perot[87], and there was active talk of the two meeting to discuss electoral strategy. Rothbard ultimately supported George Bush over Bill Clinton in the 1992 election[88].
According to Lew Rockwell, Rothbard is considered the "dean of the Austrian School of economics, the founder of libertarianism, and an exemplar of the Old Right".[89]
In addition to economics, history, and philosophy, Rothbard took an intense personal interest in chess, German Baroque church architecture, and early jazz, among other subjects.[90] Rothbard criticized the "degeneration" of jazz and popular song into bebop and rock music.[91]
In his film reviews (printed under the pen name "Mr. First Nighter"), Rothbard criticized "slow, ponderous, boring" films which "reek of pretension and deliberate boredom," such as Juliet of the Spirits and The Piano.[92] He generally praised films that represented "Old Culture" values which he felt were exemplified by the James Bond franchise: "marvelous plot, exciting action, hero vs. villains, spy plots, crisp dialogue and the frank enjoyment of bourgeois luxury and fascinating technological gadgets."[93]
Rothbard enjoyed action movies such as The Fugitive and Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s,[92] and praised Woody Allen's wit.[94] He disliked Star Wars, "such a silly, cartoony, comic-strip movie that no one can possibly take it seriously," and 2001: A Space Odyssey, a "pretentious, mystical, boring, plotless piece of claptrap," calling for a return to science fiction films like It Came from Outer Space and "the incomparable Invasion of the Body Snatchers."[95]
Cover of the first volume of the 2006
Ludwig Von Mises Institute edition of
An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought
- Man, Economy, and State (Full Text; ISBN 0-945466-30-7) (1962)
- The Panic of 1819 (Full Text). 1962, 2006 edition: ISBN 1-933550-08-2.
- America's Great Depression. (Full Text) ISBN 0-945466-05-6. (1963, 1972, 1975, 1983, 2000)
- What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Full Text / Audio Book) ISBN 0-945466-44-7. (1963)
- Economic Depressions: Causes and Cures (Full Text) (1969)
- Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Full Text). ISBN 1-933550-05-8. (1970) (restored to Man, Economy, and State ISBN 0-945466-30-7, 2004)
- Education: Free and Compulsory (Full Text). ISBN 0-945466-22-6. (1972)
- Left and Right, Selected Essays 1954–65 (1972)
- For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Full text / Audio book) ISBN 0-945466-47-1. (1973, 1978)
- The Essential von Mises (1973)
- The Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar. ISBN 0-945466-34-X. (Full Text / Audio Book) (1974)
- Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays ISBN 0-945466-23-4. (1974)
- Conceived in Liberty (4 vol.) ISBN 0-945466-26-9. (1975–79)
- Individualism and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. ISBN 0-932790-03-8. (1979)
- The Ethics of Liberty (Full Text / Audio Book) ISBN 0-8147-7559-4. (1982)
- The Mystery of Banking ISBN 0-943940-04-4. (1983)
- Ludwig von Mises: Scholar, Creator, Hero. OCLC 20856420. (1988)
- Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor. Full text (included as Chapter 16 in Egalitarianism above) (1991)
- The Case Against the Fed ISBN 0-945466-17-X. (1994)
- An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (2 vol.) ISBN 0-945466-48-X. (1995)
- Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. (Full Text) with an introduction by Justin Raimondo. (1995)
- Making Economic Sense. ISBN 0-945466-18-8. (1995, 2006)
- Logic of Action (2 vol.) ISBN 1-85898-015-1 and ISBN 1-85898-570-6. (1997, reprinted as Economic Controversies in 2011)
- The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays. ISBN 0-945466-21-8. (also by Mises, Hayek, & Haberler)
- Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard. (Full Text.) (Preface by JoAnn Rothbard) (Introduction by Lew Rockwell.) ISBN 1-883959-02-0. (2000)
- A History of Money and Banking in the United States. ISBN 0-945466-33-1. (2002)
- The Complete Libertarian Forum (2 vol.) (Full Text) ISBN 1-933550-02-3. (1969–84; 2006)
- The Betrayal of the American Right ISBN 978-1-933550-13-8 (2007)
- Rothbard vs. the Philosophers edited with an introduction by Roberta Modugno ISBN 978-1-933550-46-6 (2009)
- Strictly Confidential edited by David Gordon (2010)
- ^ Rothbard,Murray N (August 17, 2007). "Floyd Arthur 'Baldy' Harper, RIP". Mises Daily (Auburn, Alabama). http://mises.org/daily/2634. Retrieved January 01, 2012.
- ^ Miller, David, ed. (1991). Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-17944-5.
- ^ Wendy McElroy. "Murray N. Rothbard: Mr. Libertarian". Lew Rockwell. July 6, 2000.. http://www.wendymcelroy.com/rockwell/mcelroy000706.html.
- ^ F. Eugene Heathe. Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. SAGE. 2007. p. 89
- ^ Ronald Hamowy, Editor, The encyclopedia of libertarianism, p 441.
- ^ Free Market Money System by F.A. Hayek
- ^ The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard
- ^ a b Hans-Hermann Hoppe. "The Ethics of Liberty". Ludwig von Mises Institute. http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/hoppeintro.asp.
- ^ Repudiating the National Debt, Murray Rothbard
- ^ To Save Our Economy From Destruction, Murray Rothbard
- ^ The Great Society: A Libertarian Critique, Murray Rothbard
- ^ The Noble Task of Revisionism, Murray Rothbard
- ^ The Fallacy of the 'Public Sector', Murray Rothbard
- ^ For a New Liberty, Chapter 3
- ^ Tax Day, Murray Rothbard
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Mystery of Banking Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2008. p. 111
- ^ "Has fractional-reserve banking really passed the market test? (Controversy)". Independent Review. January 2003. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-2737288_ITM.
- ^ The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar, Murray Rothbard
- ^ See also Murray Rothbard articles: Private Coinage; Repudiate the National Debt; and Taking Money Back
- ^ a b Rothbard on War, excerpts from a 1973 Reason Magazine article and other materials, published at Antiwar.com, undated.
- ^ a b Murray N. Rothbard For a New Liberty, p. 265.
- ^ a b c Rothbard, Murray. Life in the Old Right, LewRockwell.com, first published in Chronicles, August 1994
- ^ Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (1999). "Murray N. Rothbard: Economics, Science, and Liberty". The Ludwig von Mises Institute. http://mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.asp. Reprinted from 15 Great Austrian Economists, edited by Randall G. Holcombe.
- ^ a b c d e f David Gordon, Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) biography, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
- ^ Gary North, Ron Paul on Greenspan’s Fed, Lew Rockwell.com, February 28, 2004.
- ^ Burns, Jennifer, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009, p.182. ISBN 0-19-532487-0, ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7
- ^ Burns, Jennifer, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009, p.184, ISBN 0-19-532487-0, ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7 [1]
- ^ Burns, Jennifer, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009, p.145. ISBN 0-19-532487-0, ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7
- ^ David Stout, Obituary: Murray N. Rothbard, Economist And Free-Market Exponent, 68, The New York Times, January 11, 1995.
- ^ http://mises.org/daily/323
- ^ Grimm, Curtis M.; Hunn, Lee; Smith, Ken G. Strategy as Action: Competitive Dynamics and Competitive Advantage. New York Oxford University Press (US). 2006. p. 43
- ^ See Robthbard's essay Keynes the Man, originally published in Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics, Edited by Mark Skousen. New York: Praeger, 1992, 171–198; Online edition at The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- ^ See Rothbard's essay, "Jeremy Bentham: The Utilitarian as Big Brother" published in his work, Classical Economics.
- ^ Ikeda, Sanford, Dyamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism, Routledge UK, 1997, 245.
- ^ Murray Rothbard, Chapter 2 "Fundamentals of Intervention" from Man, Economy and State, Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- ^ Peter G. Klein, Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism, Ludwig von Mises Institute, November 15, 2006
- ^ Man, Economy, and State, Chapter 7 – Conclusion: Economics and Public Policy, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
- ^ Interview with Murray N. Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Summer 1990.
- ^ Richman, Sheldon Libertarian Left, The American Conservative
- ^ Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 290
- ^ "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View"
- ^ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography, LewRockwell.com.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray Newton. The Ethics of Liberty. NYU Press. 2003. pp. 45–45
- ^ Kyriazi, Harold. Reckoning With Rothbard (2004). American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63 (2), 451
- ^ Rothbard, Murray N. (Article originally appeared in Liberty, Volume 3 Number 4 (March 1990), pp. 11–12.). "Hoppephobia". LewRockwell.com. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard47.html. Retrieved 6 February 2012. "In a dazzling breakthrough for political philosophy in general and for libertarianism in particular, he has managed to transcend the famous is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that has plagued philosophy since the days of the scholastics, and that had brought modern libertarianism into a tiresome deadlock. Not only that: Hans Hoppe has managed to establish the case for anarcho-capitalist-Lockean rights in an unprecedentedly hard-core manner, one that makes my own natural law/natural rights position seem almost wimpy in comparison."
- ^ Rothbard, Murray N. (Article originally appeared in Liberty, Volume 3 Number 4 (March 1990), pp. 11–12.). "Hoppephobia". LewRockwell.com. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard47.html. Retrieved 6 February 2012. "Hoppe's most important breakthrough has been to start from standard praxeological axioms (e.g., that every human being acts, that is, employs means to arrive at goals), and, remarkably, to arrive at a hard-nosed anarcho-Lockean political ethic. For over 30 years I have been preaching to the economics profession that this cannot be done: that economists cannot arrive at any policy conclusions (e.g., that government should do X or should not do Y) strictly from value-free economics....(and continues til says)...And yet, remarkably and extraordinarily, Hans Hoppe has proven me wrong. He has done it: he has deduced an anarcho-Lockean rights ethic from self-evident axioms."
- ^ a b Roberta Modugno Crocetta, Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism in the contemporary debate. A critical defense, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
- ^ Michael Oliver, 'Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard, originally published in "The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal", February 25, 1972.
- ^ "Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard" The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal (February 25, 1972)
- ^ For A New Liberty (1973), Power and Market ch. 3
- ^ The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar, Murray Rothbard
- ^ "It should be clear that modern fractional reserve banking is a shell game, a Ponzi scheme, a fraud in which fake warehouse receipts are issued and circulate as equivalent to the cash supposedly represented by the receipt." Rothbard, Murray. The Mystery of Banking, pp. 96–97, 89–94
- ^ a b What is Money?, Gary North
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Mystery of Banking, pp. 96–97, 89–94
- ^ The Case Against the Fed, Murray Rothbard: "A gold-coin standard, coupled with instant liquidation for any bank that fails to meet its contractual obligations, would bring about a free banking system so 'hard' and sound, that any problem of inflationary credit or counterfeiting would be minimal. It is perhaps a 'second-best' solution to the ideal of treating fractional-reserve bankers as embezzlers, but it would suffice at least as an excellent solution for the time being, that is, until people are ready to press on to full 100 percent banking."
- ^ See also these Rothbard articles: What Has Government Done to Our Money?, The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar; The Fed as Cartel, Private Coinage, Repudiate the National Debt; Taking Money Back, Anatomy of the Bank Run, Money and the Individual
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Mystery of Banking, Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2008. p. 111, 278
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Mystery of Banking, p. 261
- ^ Ernesto Che Guevara R.I.P. by Murray Rothbard, Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought, Volume 3, Number 3 (Spring-Autumn 1967)
- ^ Joseph R. Stromberg, Murray Rothbard on States, War, and Peace: Part I (also see Part II), Antiwar.com, originally published June 2000.
- ^ See both essays, Murray N. Rothbard, War, Peace, and the State, first published 1963; Anatomy of the State, first published 1974, both at LewRockwell.com.
- ^ Murray N. Rothbard, Harry Elmer Barnes, RIP, from "Left and Right" final issue, 1968, republished at LewRockwell.com.
- ^ Murray Rothbard, War Guilt in the Middle East, "Left and Right", Vol. 3 No. 3 (Autumn 1967) (cited here.)
- ^ Murray N. Rothbard, Pat Buchanan and the Menace of Anti-anti-semitism, December 1990, from The Irrepressible Rothbard, published at LewRockwell.com.
- ^ Murray N. Rothbard, Who Are the Terrorists?, first published in the Libertarian Party News, March/April 1986, reproduced at LewRockwell.com.
- ^ The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 14 "Children and Rights."
- ^ See also Ronald Hamowy, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, Cato Institute, SAGE, 2008, 59-61 ISBN 1-4129-6580-2, ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4
- ^ Murray N. Rothbard, The Negro Revolution, New Individualist Review, Volume 3, Number 1, Summer 1963.
- ^ Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State, p. 167–168, Prometheus Books, 2000.
- ^ George C. Leef, Book Review of Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays by Murray Rothbard, edited by David Gordon (2000 edition), The Freeman, July 2001.
- ^ Murray Rothbard, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, essay published in full at Lewrockwell.com, 2003. See also Rothbard's essay The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues, the 1991 introduction to republication of "Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor", Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2008.
- ^ Murray Rothbard, Race! That Murray Book, LewRockwell.com, December 1994.
- ^ Chip Berlet, [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=106 Into the Mainstream,Southern Poverty Law Center, Summer 2003.
- ^ This statement is found in Rothbard’s 1970 essay Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website.
- ^ These quotes are taken a 1993 Murray Rothbard speech presented as the article Origins of the Welfare State in America, at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website.
- ^ McCarthy, Daniel (2007-03-12) Enemies of the State, The American Conservative
- ^ a b Rothbard, Murray. Swan Song of the Old Right, LewRockwell.com
- ^ William F. Buckley, Murray Rothbard, RIP – professor and Libertarian Party founder, National Review, February 6, 1995.
- ^ Kauffman, Bill (2008-05-19) When the Left Was Right, The American Conservative
- ^ Lora, Ronald & Longton, Henry. 1999. The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America. Greenwood Press. p. 369
- ^ a b c Burris, Charles (2011-02-04) Kochs v. Soros: A Partial Backstory, LewRockwell.com
- ^ Murrary Rothbard, "Big Government Libertarianism", Lew Rockwell.com, November 1994.
- ^ Julian Sanchez & David Weigel, "Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?", Reason Magazine, January 16, 2008.
- ^ Murray Rothbard, Strategy for the Right, LewRockwell.com, 2002.
- ^ Reese, Charley (1993-10-14) The U.S. Standard Of Living Will Decline If Nafta Is Approved, Orlando Sentinel
- ^ Lew Rockwell, What I Learned From Paleoism, LewRockwell.com, 2002.
- ^ Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy, Mises Institute, 2005
- ^ Hold Back the Hordes for 4 More Years: Any sensible American has one real choice – George Bush., Los Angeles Times, 1992
- ^ Rothbard archives, Lew Rockwell.com
- ^ Introduction to The Irrepressible Rothbard
- ^ Rothbard, Murray. Jazz Needs a Melody!
- ^ a b Rothbard, Murray. "Those Awards".
- ^ Libertarian Forum, July 1973
- ^ Libertarian Forum, August 1977
- ^ Libertarian Forum, June 1977
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