If you want to understand Murray Rothbard, you need to keep one principle
in mind. If you remember this, you will have the key to grasping his thought.
And you should want to understand Murray Rothbard, because he
was the greatest American defender of liberty in the twentieth century.
The principle in question is that Murray Rothbard had a consistent vision
of the good society that he upheld throughout his long career. He described
this vision in a vast number of books and articles, including Man,
Economy, and State, Power
and Market, The
Ethics of Liberty, and Egalitarianism
as a Revolt Against Nature. That vision was always the
same.
Some people, even among those who knew and admired Murray, fail to realize
this because they view him through a political lens. They point to shifts in
his political alliances, seeing him as shifting from Old Right to Left and
finally to Paleolibertarian. They miss the essential point.
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Of
course, Murray wanted to put his vision into practice. But for him the vision
was primary. If you concentrate on Murray’s political tactics you will miss
the real Murray.
What was this vision? As everybody knows, Murray believed in a complete
free market. The State , which Nietzsche called “that coldest of all cold
monsters” was the enemy.
In order to maintain a free society, people needed to hold certain values.
Murray was a traditionalist who believed in natural law and the family. He
deplored assaults on tradition such as the modern feminist movement. In
cultural matters, Murray started out on the Right, and he always remained
there.
Here are a few samples of what he said: “In our century, we have been
inundated by a flood of evil, in the form of collectivism, socialism,
egalitarianism, and nihilism. It has always been crystal clear to me that we
have a compelling moral obligation, for the sake of ourselves, our loved
ones, our posterity, our friends, our neighbors, to do battle against that
evil.”
To do so, we must stick with the wisdom of the perennial philosophy: “In
contrast to other specific sciences or to history, there can be little
genuine innovation in philosophy from one decade, or even century, to the
next. Philosophy deals with eternal problems through rational discourse.
Moreover, genuine philosophy is only refined common sense, which is in no
greater supply now than in ancient Greece. So there is nothing much new that
philosophers can legitimately say.”
He had no use for modern feminism: “At the root of the women’s liberation
movement is resentment against the very existence of women as a distinctive
entity.”
Power and Market (LvMI) Murray N. Rothbard Check Amazon
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saw leftist elites as enemies of the values he upheld: He said that “We live
in a statist country and a statist world dominated by a ruling elite,
consisting of a coalition of Big Government, Big Business, and various
influential special interest groups. More specifically, the old America of
individual liberty, private property, and minimal government has been
replaced by a coalition of politicians and bureaucrats allied with, and even
dominated by, powerful corporate and Old Money financial elites.” As he
summed up, “The big danger is the elite, not the masses.”
During the 1960s, it became evident to Murray that the CIA agent Bill
Buckley had thrust aside the non-interventionist Old Right. “Conservatives”
in that period like the ex-Communist Frank Meyer and the ex-Trotskyite James
Burnham wanted a preventive war to annihilate the Soviet Union.
For Murray, the struggle against war was always the primary political
goal. “War is the health of the state,” in Randolph Bourne’s famous phrase,
and the battle against the State is a battle against war. The Left during the
60s and 70s opposed the Vietnam War and the Cold War generally. Because of
this, he formed a temporary political alliance with them.
One
fact must always be borne in mind about this alliance. It was strictly
confined to foreign policy. Murray never changed his mind about conservative
social values or, of course, the free market.
When Murray saw how leftwing values had taken over much of the Libertarian
Party, he helped start the famous “Paleoalliance.” He joined forces
with traditionalists who also opposed war. In doing so, he remained true to
his consistent vision. In that vision, he never wavered.
If you want to know what Rothbard’s vision applied to contemporary America
would be like in practice, you should look to Ron Paul. Dr. Paul’s career in
Congress, marked by his opposition to war and the Fed, is the best example of
the anti-elitist free market values that Murray supported.
Those too much enamored of the “zigzag of politics” miss what is most real
and most vital in Murray Rothbard’s work.
The Ethics of Liberty Murray N. Rothbard Check Amazon for
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Egalitarianism as a Re... Murray N. Rothbard Check Amazon
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Against the State: An ... Llewellyn Rockwell Check Amazon
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Fascism versus Capitalism Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. Check
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