Did Rothbard improve upon Mises' theories?

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Lilburne replied on Thu, Nov 5 2009 6:05 PM

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baxter:

Regarding economics, Rothbard made no fundamental changes to Mises' praxeology.

I believe Rothbard's monopoly theory is considered more sound by many Austrians today than Mises'.  But I don't know if he originated it.

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Merlin replied on Mon, Nov 23 2009 5:41 AM

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Lilburne:

I believe Rothbard's monopoly theory is considered more sound by many Austrians today than Mises'.  But I don't know if he originated it.

That and Rothbard's "toleration" of copyrights, while Mises soundly denounced those.

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AdrianHealey replied on Mon, Nov 23 2009 7:23 AM

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baxter:

I know much about Mises, but very little about Rothbard. I mean no offense, but my crude understanding is:

-Mises focused on value-free economic theory.

-Rothbard was more interested in issues like libertarianism, natural rights, the non-agression principle, and anarchism. Regarding economics, Rothbard made no fundamental changes to Mises' praxeology.

Did I get that correctly?

It's a bit difficult to 'know' if Rothbard was more interested in those issues then in economic theory - how could we know? We do know that Mises wrote more on economic theory as such then Rothbard; but I don't think that nessarily proves that Rothbard wasn't interested. Just that he was also interested in other stuff; like history, philosophy of law/rights and the like.

I would also say that Rothbard made no 'fundamental change' - but why should it? Changing praxeology 'fundamentally' would undermine the program - and there is no reason to do that: it's a valueable scientific program. He did - imho - improve a bit on certain aspects on monopoly, he made some fundamental stuff clear on the structure of production and he has some contributions in monetary theory. But al within a very strond Misesian line of thinking. I do consider Mises to be a better economists overall - but that's not to denounce Rothbard. Mises truly was a giant where as I think Rothbard - qua economist - is on equal footing as, say, Hoppe, Hulsmann, Boettke and Horwitz; none who can compare to Mises imo. Qua libertarian; he truly is a giant. (Not to say that I don't disagree with him on certain aspects.)

I sometimes get the feeling that Rothbard shifted (compared to Mises) his focus because he (might have) thought that there are diminishing marginal returns in economic theory and that he could be more valuable in other stuff. And there is nothing really wrong with that.

I hope this sort of answers your question.