THE ETHICS OFLIBERTY THEETHICS OF LIBERTY Murray N. Rothbard witha new introduction by Hans-Hermann Hoppe 111 NEW YORKUNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London Th e Center for Libertarian Studies and the Ludwig von Mises Institute thank all of their donors for making possible the republication of this classic of liberty, and in particular the following Patrons: Athena Tech, John H. Bolstad, William T. Brown, Willard Fischer, Douglas E. French, Frank W. Heemstra, Franklin Lee Johnson, Richard J. Kossmann, M.D., William W. Massey, Jr., Sam Medrano, Joseph Edward Paul Melville, Mason P. Pearsall, Conrad Schneiker, Eward Schoppe, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Th omas W. Singleton, Mary Lou Stiebling, Loronzo H. Th omson, the L.H. Th omson Co., and Mr. and Mrs. Donald F. Warmbier. For editorial assistance, thanks to Mark Brandly, Williamson Evers, Tony Flood, Jonnie Gilman, Scott Kjar, Judy Th ommesen, and Jeff rey Tucker. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London ©1998 by New York University Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Rothbard, Murray Newton, 1926–199 5 Th e ethicst of liber y / Murray N. Rothbard. p. cm. Originally published: Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982. With new introd. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-81 47-7506-3 (alk. paper) 1. Liberty. 2. Natural law. 3. Ethics. I. Title. JC585 .R69 1998 323.44’01--dc21 98—10058 CIP Printed 2016 by the Mises Institute Mises Institute 518 West Magnolia Ave. Auburn, Ala. 36832 mises.org ISBN: 978-1-61016-664-5 TO THE MEMORY OF FRANK CHODOROV F.A. "BALDY" HARPER and my father DAVID ROTHBARD ! $ "--+)- & !--,*- !-- ! $ #- !$ - '- p/<\cX<Pp,<gp<SAp4C<[USp pp p/<\cX<Pp,<gp<[p8?LCS?Cp pp p/<\cX<Pp,<gpfDY[a[p2U[L\LfCp,<hp pp p/<\cX<Pp,<gp<SAp/<\bX<Pp4LGH\[p pp p9HCp9<[OpUFp2UPL\L?<Pp2HLPU[UWHlp pp !-- (-- !(- p"p%Xa[UCp8U?L<Pp2ILPU[UWHlp pp p*S\DXWCX[US<Pp4CP<\LUS[ p;UPdS\<Zmp'k?H<SGCp pp p*S\DXWCX[US<Pp5CP<\LUS[ p1jSCX[HLWp<SAp"GGXC[[LUSp pp p2XUWDZ\mp<SAp%XLRMS<PM\np pp p9HCp2XU>PCQpUFp,<SBp9HDF\p pp p,<SAp-USUWUPop3<[\p<SAp2XC[DS\p pp p2bSM[KQCS\p<SAp2XUWUX^US<PL\np pp p%HLPAXEp<SAp7GH\[p pp p)aQ=Sp4LGH`p#[p2XUWCZ\lp4LGH\[p pp p+UiPCBGDp9XaCp<SAp(<P[Cp p!p pp p9JCp$Um@U\\p pp p2XUWDX\mp4LGH\[p<SAp]Cp:CUXmpUFp%US\X<?\[p pp p,LFC>U<\p8L\b<_US[p pp p9JCp6LGH`pUFp"TQ<P[p pp !-- -! !-%$- !(- p9JCp0=\cXCpUFp]Cp8\<\Dp pp p9JCp*SSCXp&US\X<AL?_US[pUFp]Cp8\<\Cp pp p9JDp.VX<Pp8\<\epUFp4DP<\LUS[p\Up]Cp8\<\Dp pp p1Sp4CP<\NUS[p$D\gCCSp8\<\C[p pp PARTIV: MODERN ALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF LIBERTY 26. Utilitarian Free-Market Economics .......................................... 201 h A. Introduction: Utilitarian Social Pilosophy ........................ 201 B. The Unanimity and Compensation Principles .................... 203 C. Ludwig von Mises and "Value-Free" Laissez Faire ........... 206 27. Isaiah Berlin on Negative Freedom .......................................... 215 · 28. F.A. Hayek and The Concept of Coercion ............................... 219 29. Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State . 231 PARTV: TOWARD A THEORY OF STRATEGYFOR LIBERTY 30. Toward a Theory of Strategy for Llberty ................................. 257 BIBLIOCRAPHY .............................................................................. 275 INDEX ······.. ·············· ....................................................................... 295 viii "As reason teils us, all are born thus naturally equal, i.e., with an equal right to their persons, so also with an equal right to their preservation ... and every man having a property in his own person, the labour of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby rnakesit his property.... Thus every man having a natural right to (or being proprietor of) his own person and his own actions and labour, which we call property, it certainly follows, that no man can have a right to the person or property of another: And if every man has a right to his person and property; he has also a right to defend them ... and so has a right of punishing all insults upon his person and property." Rev. Elisha Williams (1744) INTRODUCTION by Hans-HermannHoppe n an age of intellectual hyperspecialization, Murray N. Rothbard was a grand system builder. An economist by profession, Rothbard was I the creator of a system of social and political philosophy based on economics and ethics as its cornerstones. For centuries, economics and ethics (political philosophy) had diverged from their common origin into seemingly unrelated intellectual enterprises. Economics was a value-free "positive"science, and ethics(if it was a science at all) was a "normative"science. As a result of this separation, the concept of property had increasingly disappeared from both disciplines. For economists, property sounded too normative, and for political philosophers property smacked of mun­ dane economics. Rothbard's unique contribution is the rediscovery of propertyand piropertyrights as the common foundation of both economics and political philosophy,and the systematic reconstructionand concep­ 'tual integration of modern,marginalist economics and natural-law polit­ ical philosophy into a uni.fied moral science: libertarianism. Following his revered teacher and mentor, Ludwig von Mises, Mises's teachers Eugen von J3öhm-Bawerkand Carl Menger, and an intellectual tradition reachingback to the Spanish late-Scholastics and beyond, Roth­ bardian economics sets out from a simple and undeniable fact and exper­ ience (a single indisputable axiom): that man acts,i.e., that humans always and invariably pursue their most highly valued ends (goals) with scarce means (goods). Combined with a few empirical assumptions (such as that labor implliesdisutility), all of economic theory can be deduced from this incontestable starting point, thereby elevating its propositions to the status of apodictic, exact, or a priori true empirical laws and establishing economics as a logic of action(praxeology). Rothbard modeled his first magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State1 on Mises's monumental Human Action.2 In it, Rothbard developed the entirebody of economic theory-fromutility theory and the law of marginal utility to monetary theory and the theory of the business cycle-alongpraxeological lines,subje cting all variants of quantitative--empirical and mathematical economics to critique and logical 1. Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy and State (Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nos�and, 1962). 2. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1949). xii THE ETHICS OF LIBERTY refutation, and repairing the few remaining inconsistencies in the Mises­ ian system (such as his theory of monopoly prices and of govemment and governmental security production). Rothbard was the first to present the complete case fora pure-market economy or private-property anarchism as always and necessarily optimizing social utility. In the sequel, Power and Market,3 Rothbardfurther developed a typology and analyzed the econom­ ic effectsof every conceivablef orm of governmentinterference in markets. In the meantime, Man, Economy, and State (induding Power and Market as its third volume) has become a modernclassic and ranks with Mises's Human Action as one of the towering achievement:s of the Austrian Schoolof eco­ nomics. Ethics, or more specifically political philosophy, is the second pillar of the Rothbardian system, strictlyseparated from economics,but equally grounded in the acting nature of man and complementing it to form a unified system of rationalist social philosophy. The Ethics of Liberty, originallypublished in 1982, is Rothbard's second magnum opus. In it, he explains the integration of economics and ethics via the joint concept of property; and based on the concept of property, and in conjunction with a few general empirical (biological and physical) observations or assump­ tions, Rothbard ded uces the corp us of libertarian law, from the law of ap­ propriation to that of contracts and punishment. Even in the finest works of economics, including Mises's Human Action, the concept of property had attractedlittle attention before Roth­ bard burst onto the intellectual scene with Man, Economy, and State. Yet, as Rothbard pointed out, such common economic terms as direct and in­ direct exchange, markets and market· prices, as weil as aggression, inva­ sion, crime, and fra ud, cannot be defined or understood without a prior theory of property. Nor is it possible to establish the familiar economic theorems relatingto these phenomena without an implied notionof prop­ erty and property rights. A definition and theory of property must precede the definition and establishmentof all other economic terms and theo­ rems.4 At the time when Rothbard had restored the concept of property to its central position within economics, other economists-most notably Ronald Coase, Harold Demsetz, and ArmenAlchian-also began to redirect professional attention to the subject of property and property rights. However, the response and the lessons drawn from the simultaneous 3. Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market, 2nd ed. (Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel, 1977). 4. See Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, eh. 2, esp. pp. 78-80. INTRODUCTION xiii rediscovery of the centrality of the idea of property by Rothbard on the one hand, and Coase, Demsetz, and Alchian on the other, were ca tegorically different. The latter, as well as other members of the influenti.alChicago School of law and economics, were generally uninterestedand unfamiliar with philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular. They unswervinglyaccepted the reigning positivisticdogma that no such thing as rational ethics is possible. Ethics was not and could not be a science, and economics was and could be a science only if and insofar as it was "positive" economics.