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It is difficult to discuss the American libertarian movement without considering the late economist Murray Rothbard. On this date, which would have been his 96th birthday, we present and discuss the radical ideas of Rothbard.

Born in the Bronx in 1926 to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland and Russia, Rothbard grew up as a self-described right-winger, influenced greatly by his father who, in Rothbards own words, believed in devotion to the Basic American way: minimal government, belief in and respect for free enterprise and private property, and a determination to rise by ones own merits and not via government privilege or handout.

In the 1940s and on, Rothbard became exposed to the libertarian ideas of economists like Ludwig von Mises as he pursued and received degrees in mathematics and economics, including a doctorate in the latter.

Beginning in the 1950s, he began working on a book aimed at explaining Mises work that resulted in Rothbards signature economic treatise Man, Economy and State, which was published in 1962. Like Mises work, Rothbards economic approach was predicated on the idea that economics could be explained from first principles, which center on human action.

In Rothbards view, individuals ought to be free to make their own choices and associate with each other voluntarily as they see fit.

Radically, Rothbard believed that there were no functions currently undertaken by governments that couldnt be done by the private sector. He viewed governments and those advocating expansive government skeptically, as institutions and individuals incenticized to leverage the force of government on increasing spheres of life for the sake of power. This radicalism led him to view the direction of the United States critically.

In rhetoric, America is the land of the free and the generous, enjoying the. .. blessings of a free market, he wrote in 1967. In actual practice, the free economy is virtually gone, replaced by an imperial corporate state Leviathan that organizes, commands, exploits the rest of society and, indeed, the rest of the world, for its own power and pelf.

One can only imagine what hed say about matters today.

In 1969, Rothbard explained to Young Americans for Freedom that, as a libertarian, he no longer considered himself a part of the American right and cautioned libertarians against going along with conservative-libertarian fusionism, which came to dominate the Republican Party over the next few decades.

I got out of the right wing not because I ceased believing in liberty, but because being a libertarian above all, I came to see that the right wing specialized in cloaking its authoritarian and neo-fascist policies in the honeyed words of libertarian rhetoric, he wrote.

Though Rothbard would, toward the end of his life, himself veer off into being politically allied with right-wing populists, his 1969 warning to those who value liberty is instructive. It highlights why theres been an ongoing struggle between libertarians and conservatives, who, despite having much in common, fundamentally disagree on key matters, like the value of liberty versus state-enforced commitment to tradition.

Rothbard certainly wasnt perfect, holding and promoting self-evidently ridiculous views that persist in some factions of the libertarian movement particularly a preoccupation with engaging in apologia for the Confederacy. But, his overall body of work and life was focused on promoting individual liberty, free markets and peace. For that, we remember him.

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Remembering the ideas of Murray Rothbard - The Whittier Daily News