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'''Murray Newton Rothbard''' ([[March 2]], [[1926]] – [[January 7]], [[1995]]) was a highly influential [[United States|American]] [[economics|economist]], [[historian]] and [[natural law]] theorist belonging to the [[Austrian School|Austrian School of Economics]] who helped define modern [[libertarianism]] and [[anarcho-capitalism]].<ref>{{cite book | editor= [[David Miller (political theorist)|Miller, David]] | title = Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought | year = 1991 | publisher = [[Blackwell Publishing]] |id= ISBN 0-631-17944-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.zetetics.com/mac/rockwell/mcelroy000706.html| title = Murray N. Rothbard: Mr. Libertarian | author = [[Wendy McElroy]] | publisher = [[Lew Rockwell]]. July 6, 2000.}}</ref> He was son of David and Rae Rothbard. On [[January 16]] [[1953]], he was married to JoAnn Schumacher in [[New York City]].
'''Murray Newton Rothbard''' ([[March 2]], [[1926]] – [[January 7]], [[1995]]) was a highly influential [[United States|American]] [[economics|economist]], [[historian]] and [[natural law]] theorist belonging to the [[Austrian School|Austrian School of Economics]] who helped define modern [[libertarianism]].<ref>{{cite book | editor= [[David Miller (political theorist)|Miller, David]] | title = Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought | year = 1991 | publisher = [[Blackwell Publishing]] |id= ISBN 0-631-17944-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.zetetics.com/mac/rockwell/mcelroy000706.html| title = Murray N. Rothbard: Mr. Libertarian | author = [[Wendy McElroy]] | publisher = [[Lew Rockwell]]. July 6, 2000.}}</ref> Rothbard took the Austrian School's emphasis on [[spontaneous order]] and condemnation of [[central planning]] to an [[individualist anarchist]] conclusion<ref>Noce, Jaime E. & Miskelly Matthew (2002). Anarchism. Political Theories for Students. The Gale Group, Inc.</ref>, which he termed "[[anarcho-capitalism]]."<ref> He was son of David and Rae Rothbard. On [[January 16]] [[1953]], he was married to JoAnn Schumacher in [[New York City]].


== Life ==
== Life ==

Revision as of 17:31, 10 May 2007

Murray Newton Rothbard
Era20th-century Economists
(Austrian Economics)
RegionWestern Economists
SchoolAustrian economics
Main interests
Economics, Political economy, Anarchism, Natural law, Praxeology, Numismatics, Philosophy of law, Ethics, Economic history
Notable ideas
Founder of Anarcho-capitalism, Rothbard's law, largely influenced Agorism

Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was a highly influential American economist, historian and natural law theorist belonging to the Austrian School of Economics who helped define modern libertarianism.[1][2] Rothbard took the Austrian School's emphasis on spontaneous order and condemnation of central planning to an individualist anarchist conclusion[3], which he termed "anarcho-capitalism."Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

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.[4]

Anarcho-capitalism

Main article: anarcho-capitalism

"Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism." -Murray Rothbard

— [5]

Rothbard was "a student and disciple of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, [who] combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher 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."[6] Rothbard said:

Lysander Spooner and Benjamin T. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy they left to political philosophy...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.[7]

Like the nineteenth century individualists, he believed that security should be provided by multiple competing businesses rather than by a tax-funded central agency.[8] However, he rejected their labor theory of value in favor of the modern neo-classical marginalist view. Thus, like most modern economists, he did not believe that prices in a free market would, or should be, proportional to labor (nor that "usury" or "exploitation" necessarily occurs where they are disproportionate). Instead, he believed that different prices of goods and services in a market, whether completely free or not, are ultimately the result of goods and services having different marginal utilities rather than the fact they contain differing amounts of labor - and that there is nothing unjust about this. Rothbard also disagreed with Tucker that interest would disappear with unregulated banking and money issuance. Rothbard believed that people in general do not wish to lend their money to others without compensation, so there is no reason why this would change where banking is unregulated. Nor, did he agree that unregulated banking would increase the supply of money because he believed the supply of money in a truly free market is self-regulating. And, he believed that it is good that it would not increase the supply or inflation would result.[9] Rothbard said he was "strongly tempted to call [himself] an “individualist anarchist," except he believed that "Spooner and Tucker have in a sense preempted that name for their doctrine and that from that doctrine I have certain differences." So, he chose to call his philosophy "anarcho-capitalism." However, today, the term "individualist anarchism" has in fact not been preempted by the nineteenth century individualists, because a wide range of scholars do say that anarcho-capitalism is a capitalist form of individualist anarchism.[10] According to mutualist, Kevin Carson who subscribes to the old theories, few individualist anarchists still agree with the labor theory of value of the nineteenth century individualists or their theories on money, and as a result, "most people who call themselves 'individualist anarchists' today are followers of Murray Rothbard's Austrian economics."[11] For example, anarcho-capitalist Wendy McElroy refers to herself as a "Rothbardian and an individualist anarchist."[12]

File:Rothbard-MES.jpg
Cover of the 2004 edition of "Man, Economy, and State".

Anarchists who are not individualist anarchists oppose the idea that private defense could be compatible with anarchism.[citation needed] It was in 1949 that Rothbard first concluded that the free market could provide all services, including police, courts, and defense services better than could the State. Prior to this it was advocated by nineteen century individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, whose writings were an influence on Rothard[13] Prior to this it was advocated by Gustave de Molinari who Rothbard calls the first anarcho-capitalist. 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. He described how a stateless economy would function in his book Power and Market. According to Rothbard, the difference between a state and voluntary defense is that a state taxes and it enforces a territorial monopoly, over property that it does not own (private property), on the use of defense and punitive force. Private defense relies on voluntary payments and it does not forcefully prevent other private defenders from competing for business. For example, if someone subscribed to private police agency, and someone had broken into that person's home, then that individual could call the private police to come to the home and arrest the intruder and take him to a private jail and private court. A state claims a monopoly over such force on property that anarcho-capitalists do not believe that the state owns (e.g. the person's home); it does not permit this kind of competition, by definition.

In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard asserted the right of 100 percent 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.[14] He believed that, as a result, individuals owned the fruits of their labor. Accordingly, each person had the right to exchange his property with others. He believed 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. He also argued that such land would tend not to remain unused unless it makes economic sense to not put it to use.[15] Rothbard defined the libertarian position through what is called the non-aggression principle, that "No person may aggress against anybody else." Rothbard attacked taxation as theft, because it was taking someone else's property without his consent. Further, conscription was slavery, and war was murder. Rothbard also opposed compulsory jury service and involuntary mental hospitalization.

It must be noted that there are other versions of anarcho-capitalism besides Rothard's version. For example David D. Friedman's anarcho-capitalism advocates that law itself be bought and sold in the market, rather than just defense services. In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, there would first be the implementation of a mutually agreed-upon libertarian "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow."[16] This legal code would recognize sovereignty of the individual and the principle of non-aggression.

Rothbard's law

Rothbard's law is a self-attributed adage. In essence, Rothbard suggested that an otherwise talented individual would specialize and focus in an area at which they were weaker—or simply flat out wrong. Or as he often put it: "everyone specializes in what he is worst at."

File:Rothbard-EconThought.jpg
Cover from the first volume of the 2006 Mises Institute edition of An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought

In one example, he discusses his time spent with Ludwig von Mises,

In all the years I attended his seminar and was with him, he never talked about foreign policy. If he was an interventionist on foreign affairs, I never knew it. This is a violation of Rothbard's law, which is 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. Mises, however, and Kirzner too, always did what they were best at.

Continuing on this point,

There was another group coming up in the sixties, students of Robert LeFevre's Freedom School and later Rampart College. At one meeting, Friedman and Tullock were brought in for a week, I had planned to have them lecture on occupational licensing and on ocean privatization, respectively. Unfortunately, they spoke on these subjects for 30 minutes and then rode their hobby horses, monetary theory and public choice, the rest of the time. I immediately clashed with Friedman. He had read my America's Great Depression and was furious that he was suddenly meeting all these Rothbardians. He didn't know such things existed.

Criticism of Keynes and Bentham

Rothbard was an ardent critic of the influential economist John Maynard Keynes and Keynesian economic thought. His essay Keynes, the Man[3], is a scathing attack upon Keynes' economic ideas and personage.

Rothbard, among others, was also severely critical of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in his essay, Jeremy Bentham: The Utilitarian as Big Brother published in his work, Classical Economics.

Economists and the free market

  • Murray Rothbard devotes an interesting chapter of Man, Economy, and State, to the traditional role of the economist in public life. Rothbard notes that the functions of the economist on the free market differ strongly from those of the economist on the hampered market. "What can the economist do on the purely free market?" Rothbard asks. "He can explain the workings of the market economy (a vital task, especially since the untutored person tends to regard the market economy as sheer chaos), but he can do little else." [4]

Books

File:Rothbard-agd.jpg
Cover of the Mises Institute's 2000 edition of America's Great Depression.
  • Man, Economy, and State (Full Text; ISBN 0-945466-30-7) (1962)
  • The Panic of 1819. 1962, 2006 edition: ISBN 1-933550-08-2.
  • America's Great Depression. 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 (1969)
  • Power and Market. ISBN 1-933550-05-8. (1970) (restored to Man, Economy, and State ISBN 0-945466-30-7, 2004)
  • Education: Free and Compulsory. 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)
  • 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.) ISBN 1-883959-02-0. (2000)
  • History of Money and Banking in the United States. ISBN 0-945466-33-1. (2005)
  • The Complete Libertarian Forum (2 vol.) (Full Text) ISBN 1-933550-02-3. (2006)
  • Economic Controversies (to be published 2007)
  • The Betrayal of the American Right (to be published 2007)

Notes

  1. ^ Miller, David, ed. (1991). Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-17944-5.
  2. ^ Wendy McElroy. "Murray N. Rothbard: Mr. Libertarian". Lew Rockwell. July 6, 2000.
  3. ^ Noce, Jaime E. & Miskelly Matthew (2002). Anarchism. Political Theories for Students. The Gale Group, Inc.
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal (25 February 1972)
  6. ^ Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 290
  7. ^ "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View" [1]
  8. ^ William Outhwaite, ed. (2002). The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-22164-6.
  9. ^ Rothbard, Murray. The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View [2]
  10. ^ Such accounts specifying anarcho-capitalism as a form of individualist anarchism include:
    • Alan and Trombley, Stephen (Eds.) Bullock, The Norton Dictionary of Modern Thought, W. W. Norton & Company (1999), p. 30
    • Outhwaite, William. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought, Anarchism entry, p. 21, 2002.
    • Bottomore, Tom. Dictionary of Marxist Thought, Anarchism entry, 1991.
    • Barry, Norman. Modern Political Theory, 2000, Palgrave, p. 70
    • Adams, Ian. Political Ideology Today, Manchester University Press (2002) ISBN 0-7190-6020-6, p. 135
    • Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics, Nelson Thomas 2003 ISBN 0-7487-7096-8, p. 91
    • Heider, Ulrike. Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green, City Lights, 1994. p. 3.
    • Geoffrey Ostergaard. Resisting the Nation State - the anarchist and pacifist tradition, Anarchism As A Tradition of Political Thought. Peace Pledge Union Publications
    • Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Abridged Paperback Edition (1996), p. 282
    • Sheehan, Sean. Anarchism, Reaktion Books, 2004, p. 39
    • Tormey, Simon. Anti-Capitalism, One World, 2004. pp. 118-119
    • Levy, Carl. Anarchism, Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006 [4] MS Encarta (UK)
    • Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 11
    • Gabardi, Wayne of University of California, Santa Barbara. Review of Anarchism by David Miller (London: J. J. Dent and Sons, 1984. pp 216). American Political Science Review Vol. 80. p. 300
    • Review in Journal of Economic Literature (JEL 83-1167, p. 1620) of David Osterfeld's Freedom, Society, and the State, University Press of America, 1983
    • Sturgis, Amy. Presidents from Hayes Through McKinley: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primay Documents. Westport, Conn Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003, p.2
    • Love, Nancy Sue. Dogmas and Dreams: A Reader in Modern Political Ideologies Chatham House Studies in Political Thinking. Chatham, N.J. Chatham House, an imprint of Seven Bridges, 1998 p. 357
    • Raico, Ralph. Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th Century, Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee, Unité associée au CNRS, 2004.
    • Offer, John. Herbert Spencer: Critical Assessments, Routledge (UK) (2000), p. 243
  11. ^ Carson, Kevin. Mutualist Political Economy, Preface
  12. ^ McElroy, Wendy. The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics: The Case Against the Brandens (2005)
  13. ^ Tucker said, "[D]efense is a service like any other service; that it is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand; that in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production; that, competition prevailing, patronage would go to those who furnished the best article at the lowest price; that the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the State; and that the State, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices." Tucker, Benjamin. "Instead of a Book" (1893). Also, "Anarchism does not exclude prisons, officials, military, or other symbols of force. It merely demands that non-invasive men shall not be made the victims of such force. Anarchism is not the reign of love, but the reign of justice. It does not signify the abolition of force-symbols but the application of force to real invaders." Tucker, Benjamin. Liberty October 19, 1891
  14. ^ Rothbard, Murray Newton. The Ethics of Liberty. NYU Press. 2003. pp. 45 - 45
  15. ^ Kyriazi, Harold. Reckoning With Rothbard (2004). American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63 (2), p. 451
  16. ^ Rothbard, Murray. For A New Liberty. 12 The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts

Further reading

  • Gordon, David. The Essential Rothbard Ludwig von Mises Institute; 1st edition. February 26, 2007. ISBN 1933550104
  • Raimondo, Justin. An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard. Prometheus Books. July 2000. ISBN 1-57392-809-7
  • Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty Full text by Murray Rothbard. Spring 1965. (Included as Chapter 2 in Egalitarianism above.)

External links

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