Murray Rothbard

Lore & Background

Rothbard was born to Jewish immigrant parents David and Rae Rothbard in New York City. He attended Birch Wathen Lenox School, a private school, and later Columbia University, where he earned a BA in mathematics in 1945 and a PhD in economics in 1956. His first political activism was in 1948 on behalf of segregationist Strom Thurmond's presidential campaign. Rothbard was greatly influenced by reading Ludwig von Mises's book Human Action in 1949 and attended Mises's unofficial seminar at New York University in the 1950s. He helped form the Circle Bastiat, a libertarian and anarchist social group, and joined the Mont Pelerin Society. The William Volker Fund paid him to write a textbook explaining Mises's views, which became his book Man, Economy, and State (1962). Rothbard married JoAnn Beatrice Schumacher in 1953; she was his personal editor and close adviser. He taught economics part-time at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1966 until 1986, then moved to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he held an endowed chair until his death.

Reader's Guide

Rothbard's significance lies in his role as a founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism, arguing that all state functions could be privatized. He rejected mainstream economic methodologies, embracing Mises's praxeology, and opposed fractional-reserve banking, central banking, and all military, political, and economic interventionism. He was a co-founder of the Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies in the 1970s, but later broke with those organizations and helped establish the Mises Institute in 1982. Rothbard was a critic of Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Adam Smith, and opposed egalitarianism and the civil rights movement, blaming women's voting and activism for the growth of the welfare state. He promoted historical revisionism and befriended Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes. Later in his career, he advocated a libertarian alliance with paleoconservatism (paleolibertarianism), favoring right-wing populism and describing David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for political strategy. In the 2010s, he received renewed attention as an influence on the alt-right.

Did You Know?

• Rothbard's first political activism was organizing a Students for Strom Thurmond chapter at Columbia University in 1948.
• He called fractional-reserve banking a form of fraud and opposed central banking.
• Rothbard was a co-founder of the Cato Institute and the Center for Libertarian Studies in the 1970s.
• He befriended Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes and promoted historical revisionism.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Edmund Burke, Anarchist", first published as "A Note on Burke’s Vindication of Natural Society" in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 19, 1 (January 1958), p. 114." — Murray Rothbard "As quoted in an interview in Reason magazine (February 1973)." — Murray Rothbard "The natural tendency of the state is inflation." — Murray Rothbard "The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (1974)." — Murray Rothbard