Conceived in Liberty, Volume 1 (Mises Institute, 1999 [1975], pp. 174-181.

(Originally published as chapter 16 in An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Vol. I, Edward Elgar Press, 1995; Mises Institute, 2006)

The mystery of Adam Smith

Adam Smith (1723-90) is a mystery in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. The mystery is the enormous and unprecedented gap between Smith’s exalted reputation and the reality of his dubious contribution to economic thought.

Originally published in Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Summer 1966, pp. 65-76.

An observer for the past decade and more of the embattled “left and right,” and of official actions touted as mighty blows in the struggle to “defeat communism,” Dr. Murray N. Rothbard originally wrote the following article before overt military involvement of the United States in Viet Nam. Thus, it offers a vantage point of unheated analysis of the War-Hawk mentality which has led to political violence and war-induced emotions.

The Libertarian Forum, Preview Issue. March 1, 1969.

Review of Austrian Economics 3 (1989): 45–59

In recent years, economists have invaded other intellectual disciplines and, in the dubious name of “science,” have employed staggeringly oversimplified assumptions in order to make sweeping and provocative conclusions about fields they know very little about. This is a modern form of “economic imperialism” in the realm of the intellect.

Murray N. Rothbard Myth and Truth about Libertarianism Adobe PDF Library 4.0

“I can see a day when economics will be taught as human action—including every subject that those words imply—and not broken up into courses that produce mathematicians instead of economists.”

Margit von Mises died on June 25, just a week short of her 103rd birthday. While physically frail the last few years, Margit remained mentally alert until a few months before her death.

“To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorizing them to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community.”

One of the most notable economists and social philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig von Mises, in the course of a long and highly productive life, developed an integrated, deduct­ive science of economics based on the fundamental axiom that in­dividual human beings act purposively to achieve desired goals.