Author: Murray N. Rothbard

[This article is taken from chapter 18 of The Ethics of Liberty.] A boycott is an attempt to persuade other people to have nothing to do with some particular person or firm — either socially or in agreeing not to purchase the firm’s product. Morally a boycott may be used for absurd, reprehensible, laudatory, or neutral goals. It may be used, for example, to attempt to persuade people not to buy non-union grapes or not to buy union grapes. From our point of view, the important thing about the boycott is that it is purely voluntary, an act of attempted persuasion, … Continue reading →

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[Excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith.] The turmoil of the English Civil War in the 1640s and 1650s generated political and institutional upheaval, and stimulated radical thinking about politics. Since the Civil War was fought over religion and politics, much of the new thinking was grounded in, or inspired by, religious principles and visions. Thus, as we shall see further in the chapter on the roots of Marxism, millennial communist sects popped up again, for the first time since the Anabaptist frenzy of the early 16th century in Germany and Holland. Particularly … Continue reading →

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One of the fatal flaws in the concept of “limited” government is the judiciary. Endowed with the compulsory monopoly of the vital power of deciding disputes, of ultimately deciding who can wield force and how much can be wielded, the government judiciary sits as an unchecked and unlimited tyrant. Pledged to preside over the rule of law, law that is supposed to apply to everyman, the judges themselves are yet above the law and free from its sanctions and limitations. When clothed in the robes of his office, the judge can do no legal wrong and is therefore immune from … Continue reading →

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The recent rioting and virtual civil war in Northern Ireland points out, both for libertarians and for the world at large, the vital importance of pushing for and attaining the goal of national liberation for all oppressed people. Aside from being a necessary condition to the achievement of justice, national liberation is the only solution to the great world problems of territorial disputes and oppressive national rule. Yet, all too many anarchists and libertarians mistakenly scorn the idea of national liberation and independence as simply setting up more nation–states; they tragically do not realize that, taking this stand, they become … Continue reading →

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[Excerpted from What Has Government Done to Our Money?] To understand the current monetary chaos, it is necessary to trace briefly the international monetary developments of the 20th century, and to see how each set of unsound inflationist interventions has collapsed of its own inherent problems, only to set the stage for another round of interventions. The 20th-century history of the world monetary order can be divided into nine phases. Let us examine each in turn. Phase I: The Classical Gold Standard, 1815–1914 We can look back upon the “classical” gold standard, the Western world of the 19th and early 20th … Continue reading →

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In the 20th century, the advocates of free-market economics almost invariably pin the blame for government intervention solely on erroneous ideas — that is, on incorrect ideas about which policies will advance the public weal. To most of these writers, any such concept as “ruling class” sounds impossibly Marxist. In short, what they are really saying is that there are no irreconcilable conflicts of class or group interest in human history, that everyone’s interests are always compatible, and that therefore any political clashes can only stem from misapprehensions of this common interest. In “The Clash of Group Interests,” Ludwig von … Continue reading →

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For well over a century, the Left has generally been conceded to have morality, justice, and “idealism” on its side; the Conservative opposition to the Left has largely been confined to the “impracticality” of its ideals. A common view, for example, is that socialism is splendid “in theory,” but that it cannot “work” in practical life. What the Conservatives failed to see is that while short-run gains can indeed be made by appealing to the impracticality of radical departures from the status quo, that by conceding the ethical and the “ideal” to the Left they were doomed to long-run defeat. For … Continue reading →

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That Ludwig von Mises was the outstanding champion of laissez-faireand the free-market economy in this century is well known and needs no documentation. But in the course of refining and codifying his political views, Mises’s followers have unwittingly distorted them and made them seem at one with the modern conservative movement in the United States. Mises is made to appear a sort of National Review intellectual concentrating on the free-market aspects of conservatism. While the image of Mises as an essential conservative is scarcely made up of the whole cloth, it totally overlooks rich strains of Misesian thought that can be described only … Continue reading →

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[This article is excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith.] Communist Zealots: the Anabaptists Sometimes Martin Luther must have felt that he had loosed the whirlwind, even opened the gates of Hell. Shortly after Luther launched the Reformation, various Anabaptist sects appeared and spread throughout Germany. The Anabaptists believed in predestination of the elect, but they also believed, in contrast to Luther, that they knew infallibly who the elect were: i.e., themselves. The sign of that election was in an emotional, mystical conversion process, that of being “born again,” baptized in the Holy … Continue reading →

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[This is chapter 33 from Rothbard’s 4-volume history of colonial America, Conceived in Liberty. Listen to the audio version.] We have touched several times, especially in dealing with religious doctrines and institutions, upon the growth of libertarian views in eighteenth-century America. This extremely significant development was not a full-blown giant suddenly burst upon the European and American scenes. J. H. Hexter, in his brilliant Reappraisals in History, warns us of the dangerous temptation toward a linear view of history—a view adopted in different ways by “Whig” and Marxist alike. The linear view assumes a steady march from past to present; Hexter cites the … Continue reading →

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[This article is excerpted from An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith.] Communist Zealots: the Anabaptists Sometimes Martin Luther must have felt that he had loosed the whirlwind, even opened the gates of Hell. Shortly after Luther launched the Reformation, various Anabaptist sects appeared and spread throughout Germany. The Anabaptists believed in predestination of the elect, but they also believed, in contrast to Luther, that they knew infallibly who the elect were: i.e., themselves. The sign of that election was in an emotional, mystical conversion process, that of being “born again,” baptized in the Holy … Continue reading →

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[From Reflections on America, 1984: An Orwell Symposium. Ed. Robert Mulvihill. Athens and London, University of Georgia Press, 1986.] In a recent and well-known article, Norman Podhoretz has attempted to conscript George Orwell into the ranks of neoconservative enthusiasts for the newly revitalized cold war with the Soviet Union.1If Orwell were alive today, this truly “Orwellian” distortion would afford him considerable wry amusement. It is my contention that the cold war, as pursued by the three superpowers of Nineteen Eighty-Four, was the key to their successful imposition of a totalitarian regime upon their subjects. We all know that Nineteen Eighty-Four was a brilliant and mordant attack on totalitarian … Continue reading →

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[This article is excerpted from volume 2, chapter 11 of An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995).] Typically, determinist schema leave convenient implicit escape hatches for their creators and advocates, who are somehow able to rise above the iron determinism that afflicts the rest of us. Hegel was no different, except that his escape hatches were all too explicit. While God and the absolute refer to man as collective organism rather than to its puny and negligible individual members, every once in a while great individuals arise, “world-historical” men, who are able to embody attributes of the absolute more … Continue reading →

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The Free Market 7, no. 6 (June 1989) Quick: what do the following world-famous men have in common: John Kenneth Galbraith, Donald J. Trump, and David Rockefeller? What values could possibly be shared by the socialist economist who got rich by writing best-selling volumes denouncing affluence; the billionaire wheeler-dealer; and the fabulous head of the financially and politically powerful Rockefeller World Empire? Would you believe: hatred of making money and of “capitalist greed”? Yes, at least when it comes to making money by one particular man, the Wall Street bond specialist Michael R. Milken. In an article in which the … Continue reading →

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The key issue in the entire discussion is simply this: shall the parent or the State be the overseer of the child? An essential feature of human life is that, for many years, the child is relatively helpless, that his powers of providing for himself mature late. Until these powers are fully developed he cannot act completely for himself as a responsible individual. He must be under tutelage. This tutelage is a complex and difficult task. From an infancy of complete dependence and subjection to adults, the child must grow up gradually to the status of an independent adult. The … Continue reading →

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