American economist (1926–1995)
Murray Newton Rothbard (; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist[1] of the Austrian School ,[2] [3] [4] [5] economic historian ,[6] [7] political theorist ,[8] and activist . Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement , particularly its right-wing strands, and was a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism .[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] He wrote over twenty books on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.[9]
Rothbard argued that all services provided by the "monopoly system of the corporate state"[15] could be provided more efficiently by the private sector and wrote that the state is "the organization of robbery systematized and writ large".[16] [17] [18] He called fractional-reserve banking a form of fraud and opposed central banking .[19] He categorically opposed all military , political, and economic interventionism in the affairs of other nations.[20] [21]
Rothbard led a "fringe existence" in academia, as described by his protégé Hans-Hermann Hoppe .[22] Rothbard rejected mainstream economic methodologies and instead embraced the praxeology of Ludwig von Mises . Rothbard taught economics at a Wall Street division of New York University , later at Brooklyn Polytechnic , and after 1986 in an endowed position at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas .[8] [23] Partnering with the oil billionaire Charles Koch , Rothbard was a founder of the Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies in the 1970s.[9] He broke with Koch and joined Lew Rockwell and Burton Blumert in 1982 to establish the Mises Institute in Alabama .
Rothbard opposed egalitarianism and the civil rights movement , and blamed women's voting and activism for the growth of the welfare state .[24] [25] [10] [11] He promoted historical revisionism and befriended the Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes .[26] [27] [28] Later in his career, Rothbard advocated a libertarian alliance with paleoconservatism (which he called paleolibertarianism ), favoring right-wing populism and describing David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for political strategy.[29] [30] [24] [31] In the 2010s, he received renewed attention as an influence on the alt-right .[32] [10] [33] [34]
^ Stout, David (January 11, 1995). "Murray N. Rothbard, Economist and Free-Market Exponent, 68" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on September 5, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2017 .
^ Lewis, David Charles (2006). "Rothbard, Murray Newton (1926–1995)". In Ross Emmett (ed.). Biographical Dictionary of American Economists . Thoemmes. ISBN 978-1-84371112-4 .
^ David Boaz , April 25, 2007, Libertarianism – The Struggle Ahead Archived November 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine , Encyclopædia Britannica blog; reprinted at the Cato Institute : "a professional economist and also a movement builder".
^ F. Eugene Heathe, 2007. Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society , Sage, 89 : "an economist of the Austrian school".
^ Ronald Hamowy , ed., 2008, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism , Cato Institute , Sage, ISBN 1-41296580-2 , p. 62: "a leading economist of the Austrian school"; pp. 11, 365, 458: "Austrian economist".
^ Bessner, Daniel (December 8, 2014). "Murray Rothbard, political strategy, and the making of modern libertarianism". Intellectual History Review . 24 (4): 441–456. doi :10.1080/17496977.2014.970371 . S2CID 143391240 .
^ Matthews, Peter Hans; Ortmann, Andreas (July 2002). "An Austrian (Mis)Reads Adam Smith: A critique of Rothbard as intellectual historian". Review of Political Economy . 14 (3): 379–392. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.535.510 . doi :10.1080/09538250220147895 . S2CID 39872371 .
^ a b Raimondo, Justin (2000). An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard . Amherst, NY : Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61592-239-0 . OCLC 43541222 .
^ a b c Doherty, Brian (2008). "Rothbard, Murray (1926–1995)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism . Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. pp. 10, 441–443. ISBN 978-1412965804 . OCLC 233969448 .
^ a b c Cite error: The named reference :11
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^ a b Cite error: The named reference :14
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^ Newman, Saul (March 24, 2010), The Politics of Postanarchism , Edinburgh University Press, p. 43, doi :10.3366/edinburgh/9780748634958.003.0006 , retrieved September 4, 2023
^ Goodway, David (October 1, 2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow . Liverpool University Press. doi :10.5949/upo9781846312557 . ISBN 978-1-84631-025-6 .
^ Kinna, Ruth (October 29, 2013), "Anarchism" , Sociology , Oxford University Press, doi :10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0059 , ISBN 978-0-19-975638-4 , retrieved September 4, 2023
^ Rothbard, Murray. The Great Society: A Libertarian Critique Archived June 18, 2015, at the Wayback Machine , Lew Rockwell.
^ Rothbard, Murray (1997). "The Myth of Neutral Taxation". The Logic of Action Two: Applications and Criticism from the Austrian School . Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. p. 67. ISBN 978-1858985701 . First published in The Cato Journal , Fall 1981.
^ Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (1998). "Introduction" . The Ethics of Liberty . Ludwig von Mises Institute . Archived from the original on September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014 .
^ Rothbard, Murray (2002) [1982]. "The Nature of the State" . The Ethics of Liberty . New York: New York University Press . pp. 167–68. ISBN 978-0814775066 . Archived from the original on September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014 .
^ Rothbard, Murray (2008) [1983]. The Mystery of Banking (2nd ed.). Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute . pp. 111–113. ISBN 978-1933550282 . Archived from the original on September 14, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2014 .
^ Casey, Gerard (2010). Meadowcroft, John (ed.). Murray Rothbard . Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers. Vol. 15. London: Continuum. pp. 4–5, 129. ISBN 978-1441142092 .
^ Klausner, Manuel S. (Feb. 1973). "The New Isolationism." An Interview with Murray Rothbard and Leonard Liggio . Reason . Full issue. Archived September 13, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
^ Cite error: The named reference :9
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
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^ a b Hawley, George (2016). Right-wing critics of American conservatism . Lawrence. pp. 159–167. ISBN 978-0-7006-2193-4 . OCLC 925410917 . {{cite book }}
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^ Cite error: The named reference :5
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ Bertrand Badie, Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino, Editors, International Encyclopedia of Political Science, Volume 1, "Revisionism" entry, Sage, 2011 p. 2310 , ISBN 1412959632
^ Cite error: The named reference :7
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ Cite error: The named reference :17
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^ Sanchez, Julian; Weigel, David (January 16, 2008). "Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?" . Reason . Archived from the original on October 2, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013 .
^ Zwolinski, Matt; Tomasi, John (2023). The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism . United Kingdom: Princeton University Press. p. 244. ISBN 978-0691155548 .
^ Cite error: The named reference :15
was invoked but never defined (see the help page ).
^ Slobodian, Quinn (November 2019). "Anti-'68ers and the Racist-Libertarian Alliance: How a Schism among Austrian School Neoliberals Helped Spawn the Alt Right". Cultural Politics . 15 (3): 372–386. doi :10.1215/17432197-7725521 . S2CID 213717695 .
^ Cooper, Melinda (November 2021). "The Alt-Right: Neoliberalism, Libertarianism and the Fascist Temptation". Theory, Culture & Society . 38 (6): 29–50. doi :10.1177/0263276421999446 . S2CID 233528701 .
^ Ganz, John (September 19, 2017). "Libertarians Have More in Common with the Alt-right than They Want You to Think" . The Washington Post . Archived from the original on August 7, 2019. Retrieved October 29, 2022 .