Part 5: Autobiographical
25. The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative
To historians is granted a talent that even the gods are denied—to alter what has already happened! —David Irving
24. The Western State as a Paradigm: Learning from History
If one decides to write on what to learn from the history of Western states, one must be convinced that there is something to be learned; and if one holds this to be the case, then one must reject two alternative views: the so-called Whig theory of history and historicism.
23. Hayek on Government and Social Evolution
“As much market as possible, as much state as necessary.”
—Motto of the 1959 Godesberg-program of Germany’s Social Democratic Party
I. Thesis One
Friedrich A. Hayek is generally known as a champion of the free market economy and an outspoken anti-socialist; indeed, Hayek’s life was a noble, and mostly lonely struggle against a rising tide of statism and statist ideologies. These facts not withstanding, however:
This week is Murray Rothbard’s birthday. It’s an opportunity to marvel at what a remarkable theorist he was, and in my estimation The Ethics of Liberty was his greatest contribution to the world he left behind and to the countless generations that will follow. Just as most people in the world function in distorted markets, so do they live under a tangled mess of legal codes that obstructs justice, to use the US government’s ironic term, prohibiting retribution and restorative arrangements between trespassers and their victims.
22. Coming of Age with Murray
I first met Murray Rothbard in the summer of 1985. I was then 35 and Murray was 59. For the next ten years, until Murray’s premature death in 1995, I would be associated with Murray, first in New York City and then in Las Vegas, at UNLV, in closer, more immediate and direct contact than anyone else, except his wife Joey, of course.
Being almost as old now as Murray was at the time of his death I thought it appropriate to use this occasion to speak and reflect a bit on what I learned during my ten years with Murray.
It’s almost as if Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard read the February 11 Mises article “The Fed and ‘Maximum Employment’“ and then rebutted with a class lecture at Harvard two weeks later. Whereas the Mises article starts by cautioning that maximum employment is used to justify the state’s interventions in our lives, the governor starts her class saying:
Women’s History Month celebrates many who have made incredible contributions. But I have never seen a woman who “could literally save the world” by how she advanced liberty honored during it. It is time to rectify that omission and recognize Isabel Paterson.
Part Three: Economic Theory
Part Four: The Intellectuals and Intellectual History
