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March 1995 ,. Inside Liberty Volume 8, Number 4

R W. Bradford editor & publisher 4 letters Liberty's readers talk back. John A. Baden Stephen Cox 7 Reflections Liberty's editors on masturbation, marijuana, adultery, ! . JaneS. Shaw , school prayer, and other taboo topics. SQIior edilors 1._' Features Dl>uglas Casey Brian Doherty 17 Uberty Triumphant? Will the new Congress create a libertarian David Friedman revolution? R. W. Bradford explains why it is possible - and why it is not J. Orlin Grabbe - likely. . 20 Rothbard Remembered Nineteen friends, colleagues, and admirers Bart Kosko remember a giant - . Richard Kostelanetz Pierre Lemieux 29 Back In the States The health-eare juggernaut that sunk in Washing- Ronald F. Lipp ton, D.C., has surfaced in America's hinterlands. Mark Rembert reports from Loren E. Lomasl:y Wendy McElroy Tennessee, Tom Loughran from Washington state, and David and M1lry - William P. Moulton Lemke from Oregon. Randal O'Toole Ross Overbeek 32 Stealth Health Ifsocialized medicine does come to America, don't .. Ralph Raico expect to see Hillary Clinton or Ira Magaziner waiting in line. E.K. Gregory ScottJ. Reid Sheldon Richman tells where they will get their medical care. i c' James s. Robbins Sandy Shaw 34 A Globe of Villages Bill Ko.uffman offers an old, local, and disorderly Thomas S. Szasz alternative to the New World Order. Leland B. Yeager -amlrilMing editbrs 38 The Engraved Invitation Has Arrived Durk Pearson and Sandy 1, -- , John Bergstrom Shaw espy a millennium. Are you coming? RexF.May """'-'ists 43 InsIde Kyrgyzstan Douglas CAsey looks for gold in Central Asia, where ,- - Tunothy VlrkkaIa the government and the Mafia are the same thing. • < _ging editor Jesse Walker 46 Harry, Don't Runl fohn Pugsley implores his friend Harry Browne to lISSis/im1 ed/lor quit his quest for the presidency. -- James Gill - staffartist 54 Run, Harry, Runl Robert Prechter explains what's wrong with fohn Kathleen Bradford Pugsley'S criticism of politics. copy editor 55 Go For It, Harryl Douglas Casq confesses to the evil soul that makes Michael Levine cireulolion _gtT him support Harry Browne. T()m Loughran 57 Sinful Taxes Is there any good excuse for excises on vices? Roy Cordato ed/lmilll ossis14nt Clark Stooksbury says no. IlSSisI4nt l"'b1isher Ubaty (lSSN 0894--1408) is a libertari- Reviews an and classical liberal review of though!. culture, and politics, published 59 American Spleen Brian Doherty contrasts the journalism ofold rivals bimonthly by the Invisible Hand William Buckley and . Foundation. 1619 Lina:>\n Street, First Floor, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Sec- 63 Out of the Asylum R. W. Bradford searches for a spot for the madmen. ond.Qass Postage Paid at Port Town- send, WA 98368, and at additional mail- 64 Praise for the Packaging Phil Leggiere discusses a young writer, a ing offices. Address all correspondence pretty good novel, and a case study in literary politics. to: Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Town- &end, WA 98368. POSTMASTER: Send 66 Pretty Great Privacy Gary McGath offers a few tips to cypherpunks in address changes to liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. the making. Subscriptions are $19.50 for six issues. Foreign subscriptions are $24..50 f()r six 67 Booknotes on , , the Wlwle Earth Catalog, issues. Manusaipts are welcome, but Michael Oakeshott, and other Tory favorites. wiD be returned only if acrompanied by SIISE. A Writer'.lntroduction is availa- ble: send request and SASE. Opinions -expressed in Libtrty are those of the au- thors and not necessarily those of the In- 68 Classified Advertisements The market in miniature. visible Hand Poundation. 69 Notes on Contributors A glimpse at our souls - or at least our CV's. Copyright Q 1995 Liberty Publishing. 70 Terra Incognita Weird, wild stuff. All rights reserved. ..

Volume 8. Number 4 March 1995 Encomia

Murray N. Rothbard 1926 -1995

Murray Newton Rothbard was born in New York 0/1 March 2, increasingly revolutionary position. In 1969, Ire and Hess launc/led 1926. As a child, he rejected the that dominated his The Libertarian (later ), a biweekly environment. At Columbia University in 1948, Ire lrelped organize newsletter, and organized the Radical Libertarian Alliance. Students for Thurmond. (Strom Thurmond ran that year in RotiWard's circle now numbered in tile hundreds. At the 1969 protest against the racial integrationist policies ofHarry convention ofYoung Americans for Freedom, a conservative Truman.) Rothbard became a libertarian shortly thereafter, largely student group, RLA members precipitated a walkout of through contact with the Foundation for Economic Education. libertarians, an event that some consider to be the birth of tire During the 1950s, while pursuing his doctorate at Columbia modern libertarian movement. University, he attended ' famous seminars on But RotlWard and Hess differed over strategy, and in 1970 they Austrian economics at New York University, where Rothbard ended their alliance. When the Libertarian Party was organized in organized like-minded students into an informal group he called 1971, Rothbard was at first hostile. But in 1973 he changed his the Circle Bastiat. In 1957, he joined 's circle, along mind, joined the party, and quickly became its ideological leader with other members oftire Circle Bastiat. Within a year he broke and most celebrated member. He wrote for its newspaper, was a with Rand, along with some other members ofhis group. member ofits National Committee, and attended its conventions. Rothbard's libertarian thinking was grounded in a theory of He remained the single greatest influence on the Libertarian Party absolute rights virtually identical to Ayn Rand's. But for the next 16 years, always taking pains to see that it adopted Ilis Rand, Rothbard was convinced that this rights theory led to strategy, that its platform reflected Rothbardian views. anarchism. He also differed from Rand - and from most It was at this time that his influence on tire libertarian libertarians - in his radical and principled anti-interventionism movement peaked. In addition to his role in the LP, he wrote a in international affairs, and his belief that tire was regular column, 'The Plumb Line," for ; he the aggressor in tile . also wrote a column for Reason. He helped organize the first As a result ofthese beliefs, Rothbard and his circle were libertarian , the Center for Libertarian Studies, in 1976, isolated from the nascent libertarian movemmf oftire early 1960s, and edited its lively scholarly Journal of Libertarian Studies. which generally sympathized with America's anti-Communist When the betterjunded eclipsed CLS in 1977, he foreign policy. In 1964, in afamous letter to Liberal Innovator, took a position there as resident scholar, and CLS became relatively the /najor libertarian publication ofthat period, Rothbard inactive. denounced both (whose candidacy was generally Late in 1980, he split with , CDto's founder and the supported by libertarians) and the conservative movement as "the architect oftire LP's growth during the late 1970s. Crane moved pre-eminent enemies ofliberty ofour time," concluding that Cato from to Washington, where it repositioned "those libertarians who believe in taking part in the political itselffrom academic think tank to public policy institute. During process should bend their every effort to defeat Barry Goldwater the following three years, Rothbard and Crane feuded within the and all Goldwaterite candidates in November." LP; Rothbard triumplred at the particularly fractious LP During the late 1960s, as the escalated, most convention in 1983, and Crane left the party, never to retuTll. libertarians moved toward Rothbard's opposition to foreign During the next few years, Rothbard resumed his role as the intervention, tlwugh Rothbard's views on the U.S. as universal party's leading celebrity and guru. (Rothbard gave his account of aggressor remained unpopular. During this period, Rothbard and his feud with Crane in great detail in the pages of Libertarian his friend refined their position in their magazine Vanguard and Libertarian Forum.) Left and Right. In 1968,fomrer Goldwater speechwriter Karl By 1987, Rothbard was telling friends that he planned to resign Hess embraced Rothbard's views, and the two led many from the LP, but his interest was temporarily rekindled when libertarians toward alliance with the political Left and toward an former Congressman decided to seek the LP's presidential 20 Liberty •

Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995

nomination. In 1989, he did resign from the Libertarian Party and a fellow member with Murray of the Columbia University fa- moved to the Right, to a position he dubbed "paleolibmarianism." culty seminar on the History of Legal and Political Thought. He ended his relationship with all libertarian organizations and Among Murray's historian friends were Ralph Raico,Joseph R. publications except for the Ludwig von and the Peden, Leonard Leib, Justus Doenecke, and myself. An impor- CLS, both ofwhich he controlled, and began to write occasionally tant role in Murray's interest in history, philosophy, and theol- for conservative publications. ogy was played by his wife, Joey. -Leonard P. Liggio Throughout his career Rothbard maintained a steady flow of scholarly writing. He also was an active journalist, editing and am a scribbler by profession and preference, and 1 have writing extensivelyfor libertarian magazines and newsletters and cranked out more than my fair share of forgettable occasionally in the popular press. He continued editing The I words. But compared to Murray Rothbard's output, I am Libertarian Forum unti/1985, though in its later years it a piker. Murray's throw-away essays in obscure ideological appeared only irregularly. Between 1979 and 1982 he wrote journals with a life expectancy of three years or less were of frequently for Libertarian Vanguard; in the late '805 he wrote greater value than most articles published in pres- movement material for the American Libertarian. He was an tigious scholarly journals. This may be why he never both- editor ofLiberty from its launch in 1987 until he disengaged ered to publish much in scholarly journals - "incompetence himselffrom the libertarian movement. Since 1990, he and his by association" - and why his essays would have been friend Llewellyn Rockwell (of the Mises Institute) published The returned promptly if he had tried. The visibly less competent Rothbard-Rockwell Report, a paleolibertarian newsletter. do not want to be shown up by comparison. On January 7, Murray Rothbard died ofa cardiac arrest in the As a stylist, he was a master. The gray sludge rhetoric of city ofhis birth. He was 68. academic discourse never intruded into his pages except when he was quoting some scholar verbatim, which he rarely t is a mark of Murray's greatness that he has left us did. Rare is the occasion when a reader with with so many good memories of his personali- an IQ above Forrest Gump's says to him- I ty and intellect. At Cornell University in self, "This just isn't clear" when reading 1973 he and Forrest McDonald lectured at an something by Rothbard. He wrote to be DiS seminar on American economic history. In understood, and he was understood, addition to his late night singing of C.ole Port- which is why he was academically er and hymns, Murray and Joey joined some unemployable for most of his career. of us going swimming at Buttermilk With the exception of Isaac Newton, Falls Park. One of the students was in those who have reshaped Western cul- the water pestering Murray about bond ture's thinking have been recognized rate forecasts. In frustration at this thick- only posthumously by the academic headedness, Murray sank into the water guild. Marx never got a university teach- over his head even though he hated to be ing position. Neither did Darwin. Neither underwater. Murray was subjected to much did Freud. Ifyou are recognized as a giantby more than his fair share of pesterers. the academic guild when you are alive, you Murray's distinctive quality was his open- will probably be superseded and forgotten ness to people with clear thinking and good within a generation: a defender of one more lost ideas. Many scholars benefited from Murray's cause in a profession dedicated to lost causes. thoughtful discussions regarding economics, Think of Mises. His main academic post, at New York philosophy, history, legal theory, etc. Although University, was as an untenured visiting professor: Larry there has been a harvest of his economic and Fertig put up the money to pay his salary. He got this job philosophical writings, his contributions in history have when he was about 63 years old. Rothbard's posts at only partly made themselves felt. We are lucky that his histo- Brooklyn Polytechnic and at the University of Nevada, Las ry of economic thought - Economic Thought Before Adam Vegas were not granted for the magnitude of his academic ac- Smith and - now has been published. It is complishments. His ideas will penetrate the academic commu- a long-awaited magnum opus. nity only when college professors are no longer on the public Murray's intellectual life has been a preparation to write payroll. This will take a while. this multi-volume history of economic thought. Murray's con- He achieved more lasting scholarly output in approxi- tact with Ludwig von Mises was a major intellectual and per- matelyone year of publishing than most scholars achieve in a sonal milestone. Mises not only had a major impact on Mur- lifetime: (1962), Man, Economy, and State ray's understanding ofeconomic science, butMises' interest in (1962), and America's Great Depression (1963). He threw in four history and philosophy had an influence on Murray. Murray volumes of colonial American history, trained himself to be a great historian and a greatphilosopher. (1975-79), almost as an afterthought. He never got around to Murray studied contemporary rational philosophy, and writing the fifth. It was a spare time project. Astounding. then studied the history of rational philosophy, leading to his In response, the academic community shrugged its collec- expertise on Scholastic philosophers. This permitted him to tive shoulders. (My apologies to his memory: I have invoked understand and describe their contributions to economics. In a collective.) It took two decades for any historian to pick up this he had the model of Raymond de Roover. A similar histo- the trail of America's Great Depression: Paul Johnson, in Modern rian friend was Howard Adelson ofCity College ofNew York, Times. Johnson is also a near-outcast among academic Liberty 21 ..

Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 historians, but he is one of the great historians of this century, microscopically small, he helped to shape its development, which is why he is not employed by any university and why and he continued to be politically active at a time when the he was smart enough and professionally immune enough to movement had grown astonishingly large. He knew every- give Rothbard his due. So those of us who recognized thing about , and he prOVided a vital link be- Rothbard's greatness during his lifetime, and who shameless- tween its future and its past. But his most personal contribu- ly tapped into his fertile mind in our quest to make sense of tion was his special gift for ensuring that the movement to the world, have been fringe people. But it is better to be an aca- preserve American freedom would preserve America's own demically unemployable fringe scholar footnoting Rothbard free style and spirit. -Stephen Cox as a reliable source than to be a tenured professor footnoting Paul Samuelson orArthurSchlesinger, Jr. -Gary North here probably never will be alternative "schools" inter- preting what Murray Rothbard "meant" when he used to identify Murray Rothbard with his ideas. Mur- T advocated free markets and extremely limited govern- ray challenged everyone to think the unthinkable about ment. This despite the fact that Rothbard's preferred means I I all the things that we can do for ourselves, without for limiting government was the controversial "anarchic" one I depending on government. He pushed that idea to the edge; of prohibiting compulsory citizenship - that is, of forcing the on occasion, perhaps, he pushed it over the edge. But he was institutions of police, courts, militias, etc. to acquire clients no wild-ilyed eccentric. He was a scholar who expounded only by contract, thereby placing government in the (invisible) Mises' economics more clearly than the master, and whose hands of market competition. own economics and politics derived their persuasive force There will always be disagreement, of course, on the merits from his remarkable knowledge of history. Murray's intellec- of his ideas. And I suppose that as long as people care about tual systems - anarcho-capitalism, - what he wrote there will be disagreement about'why he developed a substance and precision that few modem isms believed as he did. But as we mark his passing, let us remem- can boast. ber that he was always very clear about what he was saying. At some point, however, I stopped associating Murray He was no obscurantist. .Unlike Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, primarily with those isms or worrying about the extent to Dewey, Hayek, or many another eminent writer or thinker, which I agreed or disagreed with them. I saw that Murray Rothbard did not leave himself open to the kind of predatory was much more than the protagonist in a certain kind of scholarship that plagues our intellectual and academic life. On intellectual debate. I began to see him in his broader and this level, at least, Rothbard was not only honest, but dedicat- more important role, as an American. ed to clarity as a way of life. I'm not talking about where he was born, of course; I'm I knew him chiefly as a reader, and most often think of talking about who he was. Murray was not the kind of liber- him as a consummate stylist, a great explainer, and a marve- tarian who just expresses the classic American belief in free- lous entertainer. How will future generations judge him? dom and the open society. He was a free and open person. I Probably as a synthesizer of several diverse, but surprisingly know that this is an astonishing thing to say about a college complementary, intellectual traditions. Two are worth men- professor, but I am a college professor myself, and I know tioning: the of economics and the earlier what I'm talking about. French liberal (or "harmony") school of Bastiat and Molinari, Our academic traditions and systems of authority are This can be seen best in his classic 1956 essay "Toward a derived from European models of subservience to a suppos- Reconstruction of Utility ana Welfare Economics," wherein he edly elite intellectual leadership. This subservience is ren- brilliantly explicated the version of the marginal utility con- dered even drearier by a supposedly scientific reluctance to cept developed by his mentor, LudWig von Mises, defending discuss any issues outside one's narrowest specialization. But it against trendier alternatives, and took on modem welfare Murray had another way of being. He was subservient to economics by expanding the characteristically laissez-faire na- nothing, and he was interested in everything. Anyone could tions of the French classical liberal economists. It may be that become part of the endlessly expanding conversation that he mostly echoed others' ideas, but somehow these ideas Murray carried on in person and in writing. If you had some- seem and clearer in the echo. thing to say, Murray would respond. You might not like his Rothbard was the kind of teacher that the world needs response, but what he handed you would never be the pom- more of. If, on his death, we feel that social utility has some- pous oracles of an academic priest. It would be fresh, forth- how taken a nosedive, we can be confident that things will right, and often hilariously entertaining. improve - in part, no doubt, because of the enduring influ- Like every other great conversationalist, Murray knew ence of his best work. -Timothy Virkkala that no topiC has any inherent interest. He always knew that it was up to him to make his topics interesting, and he always lthough I knew Murray Rothbard for over 40 years, did. Libertarianism, like every other political movement, is our contacts, mostly at occasional conferences, were ordinarily a mighty dull topic, and doubly dull when it is A fewer than I would have liked. I first met him in New treated, as political topics are normally treated by their parti- York around 1950 on some occasion unconnected with our sans, with canting solemnity. That wasn't Murray's style. He both being graduate students at Columbia University. (We was a libertarian, but he was never a pious libertarian. Al- did not fully overlap in time; and anyway, students numbered though he occupied an important place in the movement, he in the hundreds in some graduate economics courses in those wasn't pious about himself, either. early postwar years. ) Murray joined the libertarian movement when it was Murray and Joey invited me to dinner once or twice, prob- 22 Liberty .. :" Volume 8. Number 4 March 1995

ably in the summer of1981, atthe house they were then renting t is impossible to communicate how exciting Murray made in Palo Alto, . There, as on other occasions, he was a ideas seem to those of us who crowded into his book-laden delightful host, full of humor and exuberance. He told a rio- I New York apartment. Everyone who walked out his door tously funny story about himself, Joey, and Ayn Rand, a story rushed horne to look up references, to write up an idea, or to repeated inJerome Tucille'sIt Usually Begins With Ayn Rand. phone a friend to share a fresh insight. His many kindnesses Once when he and Joey were spending a night at my were often unseen. They consisted of a word in the correct ear house in Charlottesville, I asked him to autograph the several on someone's behalf, a letter of encouragement to an impover- of his books that I had at hand. Only afterwards did I discov- ished scholar who was "on the right track," or just a phone call er, to my horror, that I had written candid assessments in the in which he bubbled over about the importance of "our strug- fronts of the books. Yet, so far as I could tell, Murray never gle." One such phone call reached me when I was particularly held these rather mixed judgments against me. discouraged about an index of Tucker's Liberty I was compil- Nor did he bristle at knowing that I found his position on ing. "It's key! It's key!" Murray assured me. And when Murray particular issues, notably the Cold War, highly idiosyncratic. stated something, you tended to believe ... He showed similar kindness when I wrote him about his pur- . .. partly because of the gusto with which he stated it. ported derivations (as in ) of all sorts of Murray was crazy about being alive. He sometimes despaired specific policy positions from a couple of axioms about natu- over those of the younger generation who were stiff-backed, ral rights. Several times he went to the trouble of composing stiff-minded Randians. I remember one conversation in which multi-page letters to answer my concerns. he exhorted me to eat red meat, drink gin, and make love as Unlike some libertarian professors, Murray was no mere often as possible. On discovering I was on a diet, he waved a ideologue or propagandist. He was a dedicated scholar. The piece of pastry under my nose and exclaimed, "Every calorie self-importantly scientific types in academic economics gave says yes!! to life!" him less recognition than he deserved, however; and if he Two generations of the best libertarians became Rothbard- were starting his career nowadays, he would fare even less ians. Many of us came from the black-and-white world of well among these methodologically arrogant workers on the Rand. As in the movie The Wizard ofOz, when we left Kansas supposed frontiers of the discipline. What Ayn Rand called and walked through Murray's front door, life and ideas second-handism has infected these circles: the quest for pres- became technicolor. -Wendy McElroy tige - the anxiety to look good by the standards of persons who are aping still other persons - has gained ground over urray Rothbard really was what are the goal of learning and teaching how the real world actually supposed to be, but hardly ever are in fact: open- f works and might even be improved. M minded, curious about a thousand things, only too Murray Rothbard was different, thank God. He has given happy to encounter dissent, always a model of sweet reason, ? the rest of us a sorely needed example of intellectual and steadfast in his support of liberty. y independence. -Leland B. Yeager I suppose I am biased because the first time I met him he t- mentioned a book I had written about New Orleans jazz - riests in training are not prepared to deal with an in- one of those odd subjects he unexpectedly knew a lot about. ternationally renowned libertarian theoretician who Not only had he read the book,but he quoted a couple of P says, "You know, Father, I can't quite bring myself to things I had said that I had completely myself. believe in God, but I do believe Mary was His mother." I met him only a few times but he was always the same; The remark was made at the conclusion to what had been cheerful, original, filled with optimism and youthful enthu- a fine meal coupled with scintillating conversation. My siasm for new ideas. All who knew him must now be thinking response was to turn the water glass that remained on the with regret about the things they meant to say to him, the con- table into an impromptu baptismal font and, holding it aloft versations they meant to hold. I meant to go to Las Vegas and it his head, entreating, "Murray, just give the word." spend a couple of days with him - we even discussed it. I rel- IS Murray never gave that word. ished the incongruity of Murray Rothbard in such garish Yet here was a traditional iconoclast; an unbeliever who surroundings. is knew more about and Thomist thought (and He lived through an age that tried to abolish economic rea- e- held to quite a bit of it) than many theologians I know; an soning, and substitute socialism for it. He resolutely opposed ill individual who, while not subscribing to a religious faith, that Zeitgeist. I imagine that some time in the next century, u- nevertheless energetically defended the positive role that when our reigning dogmas are long forgotten, he will be rec- la religion played in formulating classical liberal ideas. So ognized as one of the most original economists of his day. strong were these defenses that Murray actually had to refute People will surely marvel that it was only in the last few years :s, the rumors that he had become a Catholic. of his life that he was allowed to teach at a major university. re If the southern writer Flannery O'Connor could be called -Torn Bethell w the Hill Billy Thomist, then Murray Rothbard has earned the ur title of the Agnostic Thomist. met Murray Rothbard 40 years ago, at Ludwig von Mises' 'Ie This priest feels a spiritual loss on Murray's passing, New York University seminar. We became friends and I ed which is eased only by the hope that the God whom Murray I joined the "Circle Bastiat," a group of his young admirers, couldn't quite grasp may now embrace Murray with His ten- most of whom later became academics. der understanding, and introduce him, at last, to His mother. In October 1957, when Ayn Rand's novel Requiescant in pace. -Robert Sirico was published, Murray arranged for our group to meet with Liberty 23 ..

Volume 8. Number 4 March 1995 her. We started at 8 p.m. and left at 8 a.m., everyone exhaust- me he enjoyed meeting a congressman who not only read his ed except Ayn and Murray. He repeatedly defended Atlas books but used them as a guide in his votes and legislation. A against hostile critics, including Whittaker Chambers' hate- close and lasting friendship was the result, which wasn't ful tirade in . (I recall a reply he wrote to a hard. Murray was the sweetest, funniest, most generous of reviewer who charged that Dagny Taggart was sexually pro- men. miscuous. Wrong, he explained, Dagny had practiced "serial He was also a great help with the Minority Report of the monogamy.") U.S. Gold Commission, published as The Case for Gold. But Murray soured on Ayn and dismissed as who could be surprised? He was our greatest academic expert "derivative" after he and clashed over a on the history and economics of the . charge that Murray was guilty of plagiarism. He had not cit- When I last talked to Murray, a few days before his un- ed Atlas Shrugged in a scholarly article he had written, timely death, he urged me to run for office again. Recent elec- though he did footnote unpublished master's theses by two tions or not, he said, our side needs an uncompromising anti- young Objectivists. When George Reisman and I found Mur- statist voice in Washington, D.C. ray's explanation - that one does not cite novels in an aca- The founder of modem libertarianism and an economist, demic essay - lame, he ordered us to leave his apartment historian, and political philosopher of extravagant accom- and sent us each a tattered dollar-bill, signifying our expul- plishments, Murray also loved - and was an expert in - sion from the "Circle Bastiat." Dixieland jazz, the religious paintings of the Renaissance, bas- I did not see or speak to him for almost 30 years, yet I ketball, baroque church architecture, and the nitty-gritty of remained a faithful reader of his books and articles, especial- politics. With tremendous zest for life and for the battle, he ly enjoying his movie reviews under the byline "Mr. First defended our freedom and our property, and built the ideas Nighter" in his monthly, The Libertarian Forum. He preferred that are their foundation. older movies to newer ones. His favorites included Groucho Murray N. Rothbard is now for the ages. My heart goes Marx and Cary Grant comedies, sentimental romances, and out to Joey, his wife of 41 years, and to all who knew him. We the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, reflecting the have lost a matchless champion of freedom. -Ron Paul warm, bourgeois side of his personality, which was seldom seen in his hot-tempered polemical writings. hat can be said, in so short a space, about Murray Six or seven years ago, when he was lecturing at Stanford Rothbard the libertarian? Only that without Mur- University, I approached him to ask about the status of his W ray Rothbard, there may well have never been a book about the Progressives, whom he detested. We chatted libertarian movement - certainly not the movement we amiably and he told me that he had switched to writing a know. No Liberty. No Reason. No Cato Institute. No Laissez history of economic thought, in which he would demolish Faire Books. Virtually every libertarian from the 19608 on- 's reputation as a champion of liberty. (The first wards was influenced directly and profoundly by the work of two volumes have just been published.) Murray Rothbard. Among the rest, most were influenced by Murray's personality was dominated by his need to be some Rothbardian. waging battle. 1£ his viewpoint ever became widely accepted, Before Murray Rothbard's influence was felt, there were I suspect he would have defected and expounded a new isolated pockets of liberals, individualist anarchists, and Ob- minority position. I never will accept his views on the Cold jectivists. There were a few organizations doing important War, or understand his admiration for or his work. There were thousands of people inspired by the novels alliance with the "paleoconservatives." Nonetheless, I will of Ayn Rand. But there was no Libertarian Movement. Before miss his lucid writings and his incredible erudition. It is a movement could be born, there had to be a systematizer, a impOSSible to imagine anyone filling the intellectual void radicalizer, a popularizer; for only by first systematizing, radi- created by his untimely death. -Robert Hessen calizing, and popularizing the inchoate body of thought called liberal could enough people, particularly young peo- merica has lost one of her greatest men, and the free- ple, be galvanized into what could be called a movement. dom movement one of its greatest heroes: Murray N. Luckily, a man came along with the intelligence, the A Rothbard. In his 25 books and thousands of articles breadth of knowledge, the originality, the inexhaustible ener- - not to speak of his personal example - Murray was an gy, and, not least of all, the charisma to do the herculean job: inspiration. With his death, all who cherish individual rights Murray Rothbard. That's why we called him Mr. Libertarian. and oppose the welfare-warfare state are the poorer. That's why that honorific has never been, and could never be, Murray was a world-dass Austrian economist, and he conferred on anyone else. -Sheldon Richman influenced thousands of students. [ was one of them, for he taught me about economics and liberty, and encouraged my urray was one of the twentieth century's greatest in- political work against war, inflation, and big government. tellectual champions of liberty, so it is hardly sur- Although I had read Murray for years, [ didn't meet him M prising that many members of the academic main- until 1979. I wrote him, he wrote back, and [ invited him to stream viewed him, if they viewed him at all, as a fanatic the "belly of the beast" - the U.s. Congress. [ knew he had a preaching a dogma. But how could a mere zealot have great mind, but instead of a pompous professor, I discovered acquired such immense erudition? a joyous libertarian, and one of the most fascinating human When Murray wrote me early in 1987 inviting me to join beings I've ever met. the editorial board of the Review of Austrian Economics, I re- I loved talking to this down-to-earth genius. And he told sponded that I would be honored but, to allay possible misun- 24 Liberty •

Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 is derstanding, I explained why I did not consider myself a CIA at the time (1974). When I was interviewed by Robert Ke- "card-carrying" Austrian economist. phart, the publisher of the newsletter, I mentioned my contact 't Murray replied, "No 'loyalty oath' is required or desired. with Rothbard. Kephart called Rothbard, who apparently )f More broadly, I think that the discipline, particularly in phi- gave me a positive recommendation. The rest is history. losophy and the social sciences, advances by the develop- Since my first meeting with Murray, our relationship ment of different schools of thought, who almost always con- flourished, and I became a major financial supporter of It sist of 'card-carriers: sympathizers, etc., and who interact Austrian free-market think tanks (the Mises Institute, the Cato with each other and various degrees of eclectics. Not only is Institute, and the Foundation for Economic Education, among there nothing wrong with this, but this is precisely how others) and was a contributor to The Review of Austrian Eco- l- these sciences or disciplines develop, and, one hopes, nomics, which was edited by Murray. I spoke at many confer- advance more than they retreat. I think all sciences would be ences along with Rothbard and other Austrian economist>, i- the poorer if there were no schools of thought, or if there sponsoring a conference in Vienna in 1988 and an anti-Keynes were no moderates or eclectics. As in every other walk of conference at Harvard in 1989. .t, life, there is a division of labor here as well." The tragedy of Murray Rothbard's premature death is that l- In the years that followed, Murray never failed to support he was a scholar with unfinished work - in particular, his gi- me and my scholarship. I was honored to work with him in a gantic multi-volume history of economic thought. I commis- number of programs and conferences, and I relished the long, sioned him to write it back in 1981; it was supposed to be a warm, wise, and witty letters he sent me. He went far beyond 3OO-page, one-volume review of the major economists, a vast- just tolerating me, and 1shall miss him terribly. ly improved alternative to Heilbroner's popular yet misguid- - ed The Worldly Philosophers. True to Murray's burgeoning style, the book soon developed into a Schumpeterian tome, or me, Murray Rothbard was the Newton of economic going from 300 pages to 3,000. There were far too many inter- thinking. I was first introduced to his cogent, convinc- ruptions in writing the history, and so only two volumes were F ing prose in reading his little eight-page article, "The published - just this month. Great Society: A Libertarian Critique." Out of small things I don't know how far along Murray was in the third vol- y come great things, and I soon discovered Austrian econom- ume, but his analysis of twentieth-century economics will be r- ics and the grand traditions of ; Eugen von sorely missed. - a Bohm-Bawerk, LudWig von Mises, and F.A. Hayek. But it 'e was Rothbard's Americanization of Austrian economics that he only time Murray Rothbard became visibly upset 'z excited me. Rothbard's pamphlet, What Has Government Done with me -Icould tell by a slight gritting of the teeth l- to Our Money? (1964), hit me like a bolt of lightning, reveal- T that contrasted with his usual joyous demeanor - was lf ing the mysteries of money and banking. His account of the when I was pushing pessimism in the form of Y origin and evolution of the dollar was like a revelation from economics at a summer conference of the Mises Institute. on high. (This is especially ironic, given what I learned about Liberty has no chance in a , 1 told one and all, economics at Brigham Young University from Paul Samuel- because the game is permanently fixed against us. l- son's statist textbook). Many leaders in the hard-money Dr. Rothbard balked. He explained that we should be It movement (Gary North, Jack Pugsley, Jerome Smith, James "short-term pessimists" because events necessitate it, and s U. Blanchard ill, and Harry Browne, among others) felt the "long-term optimists," because truth will out in the end. e same way. In fact, Murray Rothbard is the intellectual Moreover, he thought it would constitute a performative coh- a founder of the hard-money movement. As Larry Abraham tradiction to be gloomy about the long run. Why devote one- i- has stated, "Murray Rothbard is the best popularizer of the self to the scholarship and cause of liberty if we are destined It 'Austrian' school of economics who has ever lived." to live under state tyranny forever? Thus pessimism becomes My enlightenment continued with Rothbard's America's a self-fulfilling prophecy, just as optimism, if you believe in Great Depression, which offered of the first scholarly the power of ideas, increases the likelihood of a quicker e proofs that the 1930s debacle was caused by government, victory. not free-market capitalism. (The other was Friedman and 1 can't remember if I was convinced at the time, but look- Schwartz's Monetary History of the United States). Then, as a ing back, he was clearly correct, not only logically but empiri-

I. graduate student, 1 read his magnum opus, Man, Economy, cally. He told me that in 1989, long before the public ground- and State. In fact, as my wife will attest, 1read this thousand- swell against the central state was obvious to one and all. He n page tome on our honeymoon - well, some of it, anyway' was nearly always correct - about theory, events, and people Reading it reminded me of the words of Wordsworth: "Bliss - and always ahead of his time. If he enjoyed saying "1 told was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very you so:' he could have done it, and rightly, ad infinitum. He heaven." didn't have time and he didn't really care; he was on to the I went on to obtain a Ph.D. in economics, doing my dis- next project and the next battle. - c sertation in 1977 at George Washington University on the Rothbard-inspired topic, "The 100% Gold Standard." 1 could urray struck people who didn't know him as a even say that my job as a financial writer was due to Murray wild, eccentric thinker. That is how I thought of Rothbard. A few months before applying to become manag- M him for many years. When I finally got to know ing editor of The Inflation Survival Letter, 1met with Rothbard him, I found him exhilaratingly reasonable in even his most at his apartment in . I was working for the unconventional views. This is such a rare quality that I have Liberty 25 •

Volume 8, Number 4 March 1995 tried to analyze it. ty of scientific Wertfreiheit, and banking policy (Rothbard Murray's earliest memory of a political conversation was would require 100% gold backing for banknotes). Yet Mises of a family gathering in the '305 at which his relatives, most respected Rothbard, and Rothbard's many profound theoreti- of them Communists, were denouncing Franco. The prepu- cal works, books, papers, and articles reflect sincere and pro- bescent Murray Rothbard shocked them by asking, "What's found respect for Mises and his teachings, and make real con- so bad about Franco, anyway?" In that setting, the question tributions to economic understanding. was heretical. Murray started young. With his restless mind and his intellectual curiosity, That incident was typical of Murray. He wasn't perverse; Murray must have led his parents a merry chase as he was just the opposite. Most people are herd thinkers; he wasn't. growing up. Always an independent thinker, he was a loyal He distrusted herd thinking, which causes whole societies to spokesman for his beliefs and a relentless critic of ideas with err without knowing it, and he instinctively sought to restore which he disagreed. Through his many writings, the world equilibrium by questioning and, if necessary, correcting will long reap the benefit of his great mind. The intellectual what the mass of people were repeating like parrots. world is richer for his having lived. -Bettina Bien Greaves He was a spokesman for the underrepresented truth - not a heretic, but a seeker of lost orthodoxy. Against the eople can argue over whether Murray Rothbard was huge forces of modem propaganda that try to drown out dis- the greatest libertarian thinker of his generation or sidence (making suppression superfluous), he had supreme P whether he merited the title "Mr. Libertarian." But no confidence not only in his own reasoning power but in the one can argue that anyone had a greater impact on the liber- power of truth itself. Unlike most denizens of mass society, tarian movement between 1970 and 1990. His influence was he refused to accept the fashionable as virtually true. As Mil- the product of the power of his ideas and his ability to express ton put it: "How few may sometimes know when thousands them, and his tremendous capacity to befriend and assist err!" those whom he perceived as sharing his strategic vision. Murray had one of the most original minds of his genera- As a thinker, he sought to establish a radical, anarchist tion, but he didn't highlight this. He delighted in rediscovery, libertarian political theory and to apply it everywhere in the in vindicating the discredited and forgotten - for example, social sciences. His writing was witty, bombastic, brilliant, the "isolationist" Old Right, who were really the last cham- and - above all - extraordinarily clear. As a human being, pions of constitutional government. Murray honored them he was consumed with a passion to create and expand a and tried to redeem them from obscurity and scorn. God movement around his ideas. bless his gallant soul. - Reared in the dreary years of the Great Depression and World War II, the period in which libertarian ideas were held n 1949, just as Mises' Human Action was coming out, in their lowest esteem by both intellectuals and ordinary peo- Murray Rothbard began attending the Mises seminar. It ple, he never wavered in his love of liberty. He hoisted the I was there that I met him. He was then a young graduate flag of freedom - pardon my cliche, but in this case it is as lit- student at Columbia University working on his doctorate. As erally true as a metaphor can be - in the face of hostile fire, a result of his study, he introduced Mises' explanation of in the popular press, among students and intellectuals, even business cycles into his thesis on The Panic of1819, thus de- among politicians. laying its acceptance by his board of advisors at Columbia. It Along with Ayn Rand, he was the most influential figure was only after Columbia professor Arthur F. Burns went. to in the rebirth of the libertarian movement that occurred in the Washington to become chairman of the Council of Economic 1%05 and 19705. He adopted the core of Rand's po1itical Advisors that Rothbard was able to get his thesis past the theory, applied it vigorously, and defended it brilliantly. Like remaining advisors. Rand, he attracted many fervent acolytes; unlike Rand, he Murray had a tremendous amount of energy and enthu- was a man of great wit and personal charm, warm and outgo- siasm for the pursuit of ideas. He was a night owe working, ing to his friends. He was the most delightful person wiih reading, and studying all night long when most of New York whom I ever spent an evening in a bar. was sleeping. Night after night, his Manhattan apartment In the end, his influence on libertarians waned, partly be- became a meeting place for young people with whom he cause of his apparent retreat 'toward his old nemesis, the politi- shared his enthusiasm, debating and discussing with them cal Right; partly because of his increasing relish for ideological until dawn. Murray would then go to bed, while his loyal infighting; and partly because a new generation of libertarian wife Joey stood guard over the telephone and protected his intellectuals found his brand of libertarianism too simplistic. sleep from disturbances. He was a founding editor of this magazine, contributing Murray had a tremendous amount of energy and joie de generously his enthusiasm, advice, and writing. He left vivre, which judging from his lifelong output never lagged. Liberty in 1990, as a part of his turn toward the Right. During He refused to be sheltered in the ivory tower of academia, the last few years of his life, when he devoted his intellectual but entered the realm of political debate, taking delight at at- energy to the support of such conservatives as Patrick tacking statists and statist programs. I can hear him now, Buchanan, Oliver North, and George Bush, his conservative cackling with delight as he "smashed" some or inter- friends embraced him as much as his libertarian friends ventionist program. missed him. Rothbard differed from Mises on several points - nota- Murray Rothbard was a great man, and a very engaging bly government (Rothbard was an outspoken anarchist), one. His passing leaves the world much poorer. (Rothbard believed in natural law), the possihili- -RW. Bradford 26 Liberty 1> 5 ......

Most libertarians discovered Murray Rothbard by read- ing The Ethics ofLiberty, , or one of his many other books or articles. My discovery started with the follow- ing entry in the University of Nevada Las Vegas 1990 fall course catalog: "History of Economic Thought, instructor - Rothbard," When I asked another graduate student about the History of Thought class, the student advised me not to take Murray, describing him as a "kook," Luckily, I didn't take this incred- ibly poor advice. Murray's classes had no sterile graphs or labyrinthine equations. Rather, it was like listening to your favorite uncle tell stories about the good old days, peppered with countless Mr. Something-or-Other - Murray Rothbard reading suggestions. Murray was a walking bibliography, (1926-1995) liked to be known as "Mr. Libertarian," and no reciting not only the title, but the author, the date published, one was more identified with the libertarian movement. It is and in some cases the publisher of the books he recom- therefore curious that not one of the over 600 words written mended. He was an awesome weapon to have on your side by his friend and intellectual heir, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., when researching and writing a thesis. in a memorial to Rothbard published in The New American Two evenings a week I listened as Murray told of good and , was "libertarian." What to make guys and bad guys, the theories they espoused, their influ- of this I do not know. Do the editors of The New American ences, and why these theories were put into practice. The vil- and the Times object to the L-word? Or is Rockwell rewriting lains of these economic dramas were always evil government history? -RWB bureaucrats and politicians, who lurked ominously in the shadows either silently stealing through inflation or openly Rothbard the isolationist - Alas, I was not robbing with taxation. strictly speaking a colleague of Murray Rothbard's, or a A Rothbard lecture was like being a passenger in a high- neighbor, but no other intellectual had nearly the impact on speed car chase. With facts and ideas streaming at us, Murray my own political evolution, or materialized in my life at a would suddenly change direction, heading down a path that more propitious moment. seemingly took us away from our destination, but never did. It was 1965. I had just left a secret-clearance supervisory He knew exactly where he was going. I hung on with the rest job in the defense industry to become president of 50s and of the class, furiously trying to take down every word. begin a long period of intense campaigning against the Because Murray's lectures were so good (and different Vietnam War. I was told that this made me a "New Leftist," from semester to semester), many of his students would but I was not so sure. Why should opposing a wrong-minded audit his History of Economic Thought and U.S. Economic military expedition make one a "leftist" at all, whether "new" History classes over and over. In one of his last History of or not? Thought classes, only 20% of the students were taking the Then someone - was it not Leonard Liggio? - noticed class for credit. some latent libertarian conscience in my views and put Murray's office hour time was always in great demand. I Murray's work in my hands. To this day, three decades later, spent many hours outside his office door waiting in line to I remember the wooded hillside in New Hampshire where I talk to him. My waits were always rewarded. Murray did first opened up Murray's work. As I wrote in 1%7 after that not talk down to me or any of his other students. In fact, he experience, "The Old Right and the are morally often asked as many questions as he answered, and was and politically coordinate," genuinely interested in what I thought. And we always had Job well done, Murray: Rest in . -earl Oglesby plenty of laughs. It was worth driving across town just to hear Murray's spin on current events, punctuated with his unmistakable cackle. Rothbard the teacher - The first night of class, this little man with thick glasses perched on a Durantesque But Murray was anything but revered by most of the eco- nose, sporting a bow tie and a pocketful of pens, shuffled nomics faculty at UNLV. The rest of the department resented the "east end of the. hall," where Murray, Hans-Hermann into the room. He began talking the moment he stepped through the door, poking fun at the silly politicians who Hoppe, and a couple of free-market sympathizers had their were deriding the "evil" oil companies for supposedly using offices on Beam Hall's fifth floor. Although most of the Economics Department's publishing came from the "east the to gouge consumers. end," the department chairman and graduate coordinator It was a typical Rothbard tale, illuminating how.the free- continually made snide remarks to students and colleagues market price system efficiently distributes goods, while gov- . about the Austrians, and did all they could to discourage emment intervention mucks things up. He then launched students from studying under Rothbard and Hoppe. into his History of Economic Thought story, which during the fall 1990 semester had a monetary theme. There was no The initial draft of Murray's performance evaluation for 1991 illustrates the appalling treatment he received from the time to take roll or go over a syllabus; we had centuries to department's then-chairman (whose claim to fame was that cover. continued on page 69 14 Liberty

.": 995 Volume 8, Number5 hy. Reflections, from page 14 Illy by Jur he had coauthored a journal article con- cerning the various strengths of sun- for screen). "Student evaluations indicate "Baloo" and "Shiong" are the not-so- Wendy McElroy is the author of a book lch that Professor Rothbard's performance secret identities of master cartoonist on pornography, to be published by 1.5. is significantly above the department RexF. May. St. Martin's later this year. ers average," wrote the chairman - yet he Caroline Baum is an on-line columnist Robert Lee Mahon is professor of rated Murray's classroom performance for Dow Jones Telerate. English at East Central College in 'el- as only "satisfactory." John Bergstrom is the real name of an Union, Missouri. . is More unbelievable was the chair- all-too-real cartoonist liVing in Victor Niederhoffer is a trader in the man's claim that Murray's professional California. international money markets. 'he growth was "disappointing." That year, David Boaz is executive vice president is former president of :he Murray had published two books in of the Cato Institute. Students for a. Democratic Society and As France, two smaller books in the U.s., R. W. Bradford is editor and publisher author of The Yankee and Cowboy War. 'lic and two scholarly articles, and had con- :he sulted on the publishing of a colleague's of Liberty. Randal OToole is editor and publisher :he book. He was the editor of two schol- Michael Christian is an American of Differen t Drummer. arly journals and delivered papers at a attorney liVing in San Diego. Durk Pearson is coauthor of Freedom of on number of conferences. All of this while Stephen Cox is author of Love and Informed Choice: The FDA vs Nutrient ,H- teaching his classes, directing three Logic: The Evolution ofBlake's Thought, Supplements. 'he graduate students' professional papers, and other books and articles. Paul Piccone is editor of Telos, the lost 'rk and chairing one student's Masters Douglas French is a writer in Las bridge between the Frankfurt School essay and oral examination. Vegas, Nevada. and the . The chairman even had the nerve to au James Gill is Liberty's staff artist. Bruce Ramsey is a journalist liVing in ne write that he expected Murray "to teach J. Orlin Grabbe is author of a textbook, Seattle. Lre more students," despite the fact that he Sheldon Richman is author of Separating had been instrumental in abolishing the International Financial Markets, now in ,n- School and State and originator of the Masters program in Theory and Policy its third edition. is- "onion" theory of government. is that most of Murray's students, includ- Leon T. Hadar is a journalist liVing in to ing this writer, elected to pursue. As Washington, D.C., and author of Chris Sciabarra is the author of forth- he Murray wrote in his protest, the chair- Quagmire: America in the Middle East. coming books on Ayn Rand and F.A. ily man's "actions belie[d] his words." John Hospers is author of Human Hayek. he Murray Rothbard was a treasure that Conduct - a new edition forthcoming Jane S. Shaw is a journalist living in Ir- the UNLV economics department soon- and numerous other works Bozeman, Montana. A attempted to keep hidden from students. of philosophy. Sandy Shaw is coauthor of Freedom of :Ie Thus, there were very few of us fortunate Bill Kiluffman is author of America Informed Choice: The FDA vs Nutrient ne enough to have studied under him. I First! Its History, Culture, and Politics. Supplements. ld think about Murray every day, and how David Ramsay Steele is author of From lucky I am to be one of those few. Richard Kostelanetz has written and I edited several books about John Marx to Mises and numerous articles m The last time I saw Murray was in and reviews. mid-December of last year, prior to final Cage, as well as many other volumes rd Clark Stooksbury is assistant publisher exams. As usual, we talked and laughed about art literature. ne of Liberty. lal about many subjects, including my trip Val Lambson is associate professor of ed to Liberty's Tacoma conference. We economics at Brigham Young Timothy Virkkala is managing editor of Liberty. !S, were going to have great fun listening University. to R.W. Bradford's "Why Libertarians Michael Levine is circulation manager Jesse Walker is assistant editor of Love to Hate" tape from that conference of Liberty. Liberty. when Murray returned for the spring Tom Loughran is editorial intern at Martin Morse Wooster is an associate semester. Liberty. editor of The American Enterprise. At Murray's memorial, his UNLV e- colleague Clarence Ray related that of Murray Rothbard was, first and fore- er most, a nice man. There were many at Solving the Debt Crisis! Ln UNLV who disagreed with Murray's How the U.S. can balance the budget, payoff the entire national ,t- ideology, but no one disliked him. debt, and cut taxes on every American, while increasing spending on Murray Rothbard was a cheerful, ,d national defense and entitlements. A brilliant public policy innovation :e sweet, likeable man who didn't hate sure to take center stage in the American political drama. :J anyone, especially fellow libertarians. -Douglas French Coming in the next issue of Liberty!