Why should we think that government officials are better at acting “rationally” than those they regulate? Even if we were to concede that smoking deserves to be restricted, why should we think the government can do it in a reasonable way?
The Murray Rothbard Memorial Lecture, delivered at the 2019 Austrian Economics Research Conference, discusses anarchistic arguments against the classical liberal and social democratic conceptions of the state.
Untangling the libertarian concepts of interpersonal liberty, this article proposes a new paradigm of libertarianism to solve the old one's problems.
Bob Murphy reviews the scandalous and corrupt activities of recent US presidents.
Bob Murphy and David Gordon discuss his personal story, Austrian economics, philosophy, and libertarianism
Economic history is possible only because there is an economic theory capable of throwing light upon economic actions. If there were no economic theory, reports concerning economic facts would be nothing more than a collection of unconnected data open to any arbitrary interpretation.
Statistical data is merely history, but a competent historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them according to the ideas underlying the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts.
Karl Marx agreed with Rothbard that individual rights lead to inequality. For Marx, though, this was an argument against rights.
Only Spooner realized that it would be compounding crime and error to try to use government to right the wrongs committed by another government.
