The following is an interview conducted in the Summer of 1990 with Murray Rothbard for the Austrian Economics Newsletter. AEN: Any recent thoughts on hermeneutics ? MNR: That’s a history-of-thought question, since hermeneutics has been crushed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe and David Gordon . Part of their critique is that the hermeneuticists were unable
In the conservative and libertarian movements there have been two major forms of surrender, of abandonment of the cause. The most common and most glaringly obvious form is one we are all too familiar with: the sellout. The young libertarian or conservative arrives in Washington, at some think-tank or in Congress or as an administrative aide, ready
[This article originally appeared in the publication New Libertarian in April 1985.] Since anarchists and other libertarians are, to say the least, an embattled minority, we have tended to be indulgent toward anyone and everyone in our ranks, even those who have been busily pecking away at the vitals of the libertarian position; Or, to change our
[ From Power and Market. ] Uniformity of treatment has been upheld as an ideal by almost all writers. This ideal is supposed to be implicit in the concept of “equality before the law,” which is best expressed in the phrase, “Like to be treated alike.” To most economists this ideal has seemed self-evident, and the only problems considered have been
In the 20th century, the advocates of free-market economics almost invariably pin the blame for government intervention solely on erroneous ideas — that is, on incorrect ideas about which policies will advance the public weal. To most of these writers, any such concept as “ruling class” sounds impossibly Marxist. In short, what they are really
The following points of desocialization must necessarily be written or read sequentially, but they need not be carried out in that manner: all the following points could, and should, be instituted immediately and all at once. Legalize the Black Market The first two planks are implicit in the previous part of this paper. One, is to legalize the
[Excerpted from Murray Rothbard, The Progressive Era , Patrick Newman, ed. (Auburn, Al.: Mises Institute, 2016), chap. 11.] The Rockefellers and their intellectual and technocratic entourage were, indeed, central to the New Deal. In a deep sense, in fact, the New Deal itself constituted a radical displacement of the Morgans, who had dominated the
There is one important area of American life where no effective freedom of speech or the press does or can exist under the present system. That is the entire field of radio and television. In this area, the federal government, in the crucially important Radio Act of 1927, nationalized the airwaves. In effect, the federal government took title to
The Free Market 25, no. 4 (April 2007) Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School. This article, which appeared in National Review in 1959, is the introduction to the new Mises Institute edition of Hazlitt’s Failure of the “New Economics.“ For most people, economics has ever been the “dismal science,” to be passed over
The Free Market 29, no. 2 (February 2011) Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School. He was an economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher. This essay is the introduction to a new edition of Mises’s The Clash of Group Interests , published by the Mises Institute, 2011. The advocates of free-market
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.