Rothbard-Rockwell Report
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ROTHBARD-ROCKWELL REPORT A Strategy for the Right by Murray N. Rothbard Presidential Address to the John Randolph Club, Herndon, Virginia, January 18, 1992 This is a triple celebration. Patrick J. Buchanan. As Sidney the individualists and liber- First, we celebrate the death Blumenthal puts it in the tarians, like H.L. Mencken, and disintegration in 1991 of January 6-13 issue of the New Albert Jay Nock, Rose Wilder one of the most monstrous Republic-he speaks of the Lane, and Garet Garrett; 2) despotisms of all time, the magazine Chronicles but this Right-wing Democrats, hark- Union of Soviet Socialist applies equally well to the Ran- ing back to the laissez-faire Republics. Typically, the only dolph Club-: "Chronicles, views of the 19th-century people mourning the death are which was on the periphery of Democratic party, men such as not in the old Soviet Union, but conservatism under Reagan, Governor Albert Ritchie of George Bush, the New York has become suddenly engaged Maryland or Senator James A. Times, and the Establishment in at its center as the Bush- Reed of Missouri; and 3) the United States, including Buchanan race looms." moderate New Dealers, who our Sovietologists. No longer What has happened is that thought that the Roosevelt will George Bush be able to what I call the Old Right is New Deal went too far, for pick up the phone, call Gorby suddenly back! example Herbert on the hot line, and settle the The terms old Hoover. Inter- problems of the world. Now, and new in- estingly, even isn't that a crying shame? evitably get con- though the liber- The second celebration is fusing, with a tarian intellec- mine personally: my own new "new" every tuals were in the return home to the Right-wing, few years, so let's minority, they after 35 years in the political call it the "Orig- necessarily set wilderness. Like a 19th-century inal" Right, the the terms and the Romantic hero, I am confident Right-wing as it rhetoric of the that I am returning home at a existed from 1933 debate, since higher level than when I to approximately theirs was the departed. 1955. This Old only thought-out And third, this, only the sec- Right was form- contrasting ideo- ond annual meeting of the John ed in reaction logy to the New Randolph Club, celebrates the against the New Deal. fact that we have suddenly Deal, and against The most rad- vaulted from the periphery to a the Great Leap ical view of the central role in the American Forward into the 'New Deal was Right. The occasion of this Leviathan state that was the that of libertarian essayist and dramatic change, of course, has essence of that New Deal. novelist Garet Garrett, an been the entry into the presi- This anti-New Deal move- editor of the Saturday Evening dential race of our esteemed ment was a coalition of three Post. His brilliant little pam- Randolph Club member, groups: 1) the "extremists," phlet The Revolution Was, ~~ -published in 1938, began with a “‘war to end all wars,” both of existing government would these penetrating words- which would amount, in the you repeal? How far would you words that would never be p:rophetic words of Charles A. roll government back? fully absorbed by the Right: Beard, to waging ”perpetual The minimum demand which There are those who war for perpetual peace.” almost all Old Rightists agreed still think they are And so the oripal Right was on, which virtually defined the holding the pass against completed, combating- the Old Right, was total abolition of a revolution that may be Leviathan state in I the New Deal, coming up the road. But domestic affairs. the whole kit and they are gazing in the It said ”no!” to kaboodle of the wrong direction. The the welfare-war- welfare state, the revolution is behind ftare state. The Wagner Act, the them. It went by in the result of adding Social Security night of depression, foreign affairs to Act, going off singing songs to the list was some gold in 1933, and freedom. reshuffling of all the rest. The revolution was, said members: former Beyond that, Garrett, and therefore nothing Rightists such as there were char- less than a counter-revolution Lewis W. Doug- ming disagree- is needed to take the country las, who had ments. Some back. Behold, then, not a ”con- opposed the do- would stop at servative,” but a radical Right. mestic New Deal, repealing the In the late 1930s, there was ‘nowrejoined it as New Deal. Others added to this reaction against internationalists; would press on, the domestic New Deal, a reac- while veteran to abolition of tion against the foreign policy isolationists, Woodrow Wil- of the New Deal: the insistent which as Sena- son’s New Free- drive toward war in Europe tors Borah and dom, including and Asia. Hence, the Right Nye, or intel- the Federal wing added a reaction against lectuals such as Beard, Harry Reserve System and especially big government abroad to the Elmer Barnes, or John T. Flynn, that mighty instrument of attack on big government at gradually but surely became tyranny, the income tax and the home. The one fed on the domestic Right wingers in the Internal Revenue Service. Still other. The Right wing called for course of their determined op- others, extremists such as non-intervention in foreign as position to the foreign New myself, would not stop until we well as domestic affairs, and Deal. repealed the Federal Judiciary denounced FDR’s adoption of If we know what the Old Act of 1789, and maybe even Woodrow Wilson’s Global Right was against, what were think the unthinkable and Crusading which had proved they for? In general terms, they restore the good old Articles of so disastrous in World War I. were for a restoration of the Confederation. To Wilson-Roosevelt global- liberty of the Old Republic, of a Here I should stop and say ism, the Old Right countered government strictly limited to that, contrary to accepted with a policy of America First. the defense of the rights of myth, the original Right did not American foreign policy must private property. In the con- disappear with, and was not neither be based on the in- crete, as in the case of any discredited by, our entry into terests of a foreign power- broad coalition, there were dif- World War 11. On the contrary, such as Great Britain-nor be in ferences of opinion within this the congressional elections of the service of such abstract overall framework. But we can 1942-an election neglected by ideals as “making the world boil down those differences to scholars--was a significant vic- safe for democracy,” or waging this question: how much of tory not only for conservative 2 March 1992 Republicans, but for isolationist ical: should we be Lockians, question in a minute. Republicans as well. Even Hobbesians, or Burkeans: On the differences of opi- though intellectual Rightist natural rightsers, or tradi- nion, of the question of diver- opinion, in books and especial- tionalists, or utilitarians? On sity in the Old Right, I was ly in the journals, was virtually political frameworks, should struck by a remark that Tom blotted out during World War we be monarchists, check-and- Fleming made. Tom noted that 11, the Right was still healthy in balance federalists, or radical he was struck, in reading about politics and in the press, such decentralists? Hamiltonians or that period, that there was no as the Hearst press, the New Jeffersonians? party line, that there was no York Daily News, and especially One difference, which person or magazine excom- the Chicago Tribune. After agitated the Right-wing before municating heretics, that there World War 11, there was an in- the Buckleyite monolith was admirable diversity and tellectual revival of the Right, managed to stifle all debate, is freedom of discussion on the and the Old Right stayed particularly relevant to Right- Old Right. Amen! In other healthy until the mid-1950s. wing strategy, my main topic words, there was no National Within the overall consen- for tonight. The Marxists, who Review. sus, then, on the Old Right, have spent a great deal of time What was the Old Right posi- there were many differences thinking about strategy for tion on culture? There was no within the framework, but their movement, always pose particular position, because differences that remained the question: who is the agen- everyone was imbued with, remarkably friendly and har- cy of social change? Which and loved the old culture. monious. Oddly group may be ex- Culture was not an object of enough, these pected to bring debate, either on the Old Right are precisely the about the desired or, for that matter, anywhere friendly differ- change in socie- else. Of course, they would ences within the ty? Classical have been horrified and in- current paleo Marxism found credulous at the accredited movement: free the answer easy: victimology that has rapidly trade or protec- the proletariat. taken over our culture. Anyone tive tariff, immigra- Then things got a who would have suggested to tion policy, and, lot more compli- an Old Rightist of 1950, for within the policy cated: the peas- example, that in forty years, the of “isolation- antry, oppressed federal courts would be ism,” whether it womanhood, mi- redrawing election districts all should be “doc- norities, etc. over the country so that tr inaire ’ ’ is ola- The relevant Hispanics would be elected tionism, such question for the according to their quota in the as my own, or Right-wing is the population, would have been whether the other side of the considered a fit candidate for United States coin: who can we the loony-bin.