Murray Rothbard

**Murray Newton Rothbard** (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist and writer.  He helped make the Austrian School of economics popular in the United States.

Rothbard helped to create modern libertarianism, a political belief in less government and more personal freedom. He founded a form of free-market anarchism which he called "anarcho-capitalism". Rothbard believed society should organise itself, and he didn't like central planning.

Rothbard wrote over twenty books and was an important central figure in the American libertarian movement.

## His ideas

Rothbard supported the abolition of government. He considered the government having a monopoly on force the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the people. He called the state a "gang of thieves writ large — the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society".

Rothbard thought that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. According to him, many regulations and laws passed "for the public interest" were self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats to make themselves look important. These schemes were not subject to market disciplines.

Government services were not efficient, and would get eliminated, if the services could be provided by competition in the private sector.

Rothbard was equally condemning of big business working with government. Business elites, he thought, used government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy to help themselves at the expense of their competitive rivals.

He argued that taxation was theft on a grand scale, backed by law. It was "a compulsory monopoly of force" which prevented the more efficient voluntary procurement of defense and judicial services from competing suppliers. He also argued against central banking and fractional reserve banking. A monopoly system where the government decides how much money to print is, to him, a form of state-sponsored, legalized financial fraud. It is against libertarian principles and ethics. Rothbard opposed military, political, and economic interferences in the affairs of other nations.

## Books

- _Man, economy, and state_ Full text ;  (1962)
- _The panic of 1819_. 1962, 2006 edition:
- _America's great depression_. Full text . (1963, 1972, 1975, 1983, 2000)
- _What has government done to our money?_ Full text / Audio Book   (1963)
- _Economic depressions: causes and cures_ (1969)
- _Power and market_. . (1970) restored to _Man, economy, and state_ , 2004
- _Education: free and compulsory_.  (1972)
- _Left and Right, selected essays 1954-65_ (1972)
- _For a new liberty: the libertarian manifesto_ Full text / Audio book  (1973, 1978)
- _The essential von Mises_ (1973)
- _The case for the 100 percent gold dollar_.  Full text / Audio Book  (1974)
- _Egalitarianism as a revolt against nature and other essays_  (1974)
- _Conceived in liberty_ 4 vols  (1975-79)
- _Individualism and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences_.  (1979)
- _The ethics of liberty_ Full text / Audio Book   (1982)
- _The mystery of banking_   (1983)
- _Ludwig von Mises: scholar, creator, hero_.  (1988)
- _Freedom, inequality, primitivism, and the division of labor_. Full text included as Chapter 16 in _Egalitarianism_ above (1991)
- _The case against the Fed_.  (1994)
- _An Austrian perspective on the history of economic thought_ 2 vols  (1995)
- _Wall Street, banks, and American foreign policy_. Full text with an introduction by Justin Raimondo. (1995)
- _Making economic sense_.  (1995, 2006)
- _Logic of action_ 2 vols  and  (1997)
- _The Austrian theory of the trade cycle and other essays_.  (also by Mises, Hayek, & Haberler)
- _Irrepressible Rothbard: the Rothbard-Rockwell report: essays of Murray N. Rothbard_. Full Text  (2000)
- _A history of money and banking in the United States_.  (2005)
- _The complete Libertarian Forum_ 2 vols Full text  (2006)
- _The betrayal of the American Right_.  (2007)

## Related pages

- List of anarchists
- anarcho-capitalism

## Other websites

- Murray N. Rothbard Library and Resources
- Murray N. Rothbard Media Archive at Mises.org
- BlackCrayon.com: People: Murray Rothbard
- Chronological Bibliography of Murray Rothbard
- The Complete Archives of _The Libertarian Forum_, written about twice a month between 1969 and 1984.
- _Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult_ (pamphlet published by the Center for Libertarian Studies)
- A 1972 _New Banner_ interview with Murray Rothbard
- A 1990 interview with Murray Rothbard
- Murray Rothbard Institute , Belgium

## Infobox (philosopher)

- **region**: Western Economists
- **era**: 20th-century Economists
(Austrian School, Austrian Economics)
- **color**: #B0C4DE
- **image**: MurrayBW.jpg
- **caption**: Murray Rothbard
- **name**: Murray Rothbard
- **birth**: (Bronx, New York)
- **death**: (New York City, New York, USA)
- **school tradition**: Austrian economics
- **main interests**: Economics, Political economy, Anarchism, Natural law, Praxeology, Numismatics, Philosophy of law, Ethics, Economic history
- **influences**: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Ludwig von Mises, Mises, Carl Menger, Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Böhm-Bawerk, Gustave de Molinari, Molinari, F.A. Hayek, Hayek, Jean-Baptiste Say, Say, Lysander Spooner, Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Tucker, Frédéric Bastiat, Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Spencer, Albert J. Nock, Nock, Franz Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer, John Locke, Locke, Laozi, H. L. Mencken, Mencken, Edmund Burke, Burke
- **influenced**: Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Hoppe, David D. Friedman, Friedman, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Rockwell, Samuel Edward Konkin III, Konkin, Jan Narveson, Narveson, Spencer Heath, Heath, Gene Callahan (economist), Callahan, Ralph Raico, Raico, Joseph Salerno, Salerno, Joseph Sobran, Sobran, Wendy McElroy, McElroy, Jeffrey Tucker, Tucker, Bylund, Roderick Long, Long, Bryan Caplan, Caplan, Robert P. Murphy, Murphy, Carlo Lottieri, Lottieri, Thomas Woods, Woods, Stephan Kinsella, Kinsella, Robert Nozick, Nozick, Stefan Molyneux, Molyneux, Mark Thornton, Thornton, Scott Horton (editor), Horton, Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Hülsmann, Justin Raimondo, Raimondo, Thomas DiLorenzo, DiLorenzo, Walter Block, Block, Linda & Morris Tannehill,  Ron Paul, Paul, Robert Higgs
- **notable ideas**: Founder of Anarcho-capitalism, Rothbard's law, largely influenced Agorism