Oh, by the way, Rothbard was a big fan of Ron Paul and was active politically. He spoke about Paul’s good work, and also pushed for Pat Buchanan at various points. He also ran for office once or twice. So, it would seem that Rothbard might fall short of Rothbard on your scale…
In the austrian economist family, Ron Paul is the good-hearted neighbor you can always count on to help you fix up the house.
If you have a grounded understanding in the NAP (non-aggression principle) and natural law (natural rights of liberty, life [person], and property) that is an effective way to gain your own moral compass.
Here’s a good journal essay.
How the Catholic Church built the Western Civilization
Looks kind of interesting I guess, and I’ve been needing some new reading material that’s not online.
Haven’t heard anything about that one. I’ve heard of his church and market book which is interesting. Give him a read though, he is a humorous author with witty intelleigence.
I started reading How the Catholic Church built the Western Civilization on Google Books and I found it very interesting. It showed me how little I know about european history (quite pitiful in fact, im australian), and revealed just how much the catholic church influenced europe…quite mind boggling actually. I would definitely read all of it, if I could find it in a library somewhere…
You would probably enjoy SEK3. His primary focus in his works is the application of rothbardian libertarianism.
SEK 3?
Samuel Edward Konkin the 3rd.
Author of the NLM (New Libertarian Manifesto). Father of Agorism. Patron saint of Science Fiction.
So what if you are not hardcore? I think Rothbard was wrong against Mises on most things.
I don’t think so, but I definately think Rothbard is overrated by a lot of Austrians.
As for the OP, I don’t really understand what you mean by “internalizing” Rothbard, if you’re going to learn Austrians economics you’d better be interested in learning it for the science it is, not because you want to learn to “debate socialists”. Austrian economics is just part of the rest of economic science, and if you want to learn it, it’d be best to do so with an open mind. Rothbard was by no means infallible, I can name plenty of economists (Austrian and otherwise) that are far more capable of him. You’d do better to read as many economists as you can, especially those within the Austrian tradition, and make up your mind, as opposed to dogmatically adhering to what Rothbard said.
Hoppe, Mises, Hayek, Reisman, Garrison, Horwitz, Friedman (Milton), Huerta de Soto, Buchanan, Salerno and others are all far better economists than Rothbard. Don’t take this as me bashing Rothbard, he’s had a huge influence on me and I think Man, Economy and State as a great treatise on economics, I just think that by are large he’s standing on the shoulders of Mises. I think even less of Rothbard’s ethics and political philosophy (they’re far too simplistic). TEOL is a good book that lays out the Rothbardian position, that is consitent and somewhat complete, even if it lacks nuance. If you want good political philosophy, I’m probably not the person to ask but I’ll recommend Nozick.
If you want to learn economic science, dogmatic adherence to Rothbard (or even Austrianism) is not the best way to go.
If you want to understand natural law/natural rights, I recommend you read Aristotle, Locke and then Henry Veatch, Douglas den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen. Rothbard recommended Veatch. They’re not anarchists (certainly not Aristotle, nor Locke who was closer to minarchism; I don’t know about Rasmussen or den Uyl, but they take anarchism seriously), yet they do provide the intellectual basis for natural rights. And it wouldn’t hurt you to read Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia and David Schmidtz’s Elements of Justice.
I’ll second what Giles said with regard to Rothbard (it’s also my view on Rand.) He was a system builder, but not necessarily the most brilliant or original of the Austrians. Hayek, for instance, is in my view a more competent economist in spite of his failings.
Read this if you want to see a good criticism of Den Uyl’s and Rasmussen’s position.
I think they responded to him in their works already. Can’t recall.
@JA lantKatz: To me, liberty is an absolute idealogy. There is only one way to get there: abolition of the state. Yes, Rothbard accepted all gradual steps reluctantly, but he constantly reminded of the absolute importance of holding the pure ideal highest. And, yes, Rothbard himself destroyed Mises on multiple accounts. He loved him, and learned much from him, and proceeded to expose his flaws against the bright light of purity. I haven’t read anything where he supported Ron Paul, but I suspect it was his actions to limit the state which Rothbard supported, not his goal of limited government. Same with Pat Buchanan. Perhaps you misunderstand him.
@scinearm: So what if you’re not hardcore? I’m only interested in heroes. Rothbard is a heroe, but I’m hoping there are more somewhere.
@GilesStratton: Don’t take this the wrong way, but your list of economists is worthless. Maybe Rothbard isn’t perfect, but I have yet to see someone prove him wrong, and he absolutely crushed many of those authors with much of his time. I’m actually hesitant to read Hoppe just because you mentioned him with those other idiots (NOZICK?!?! FRIEDMAN?!?!). BETTER THAN ROTHBARD?! vomits projectile puke violently Yes he learned from Mises, but he learned from the whole tradition and proceeded to improved their flaws. Mises himself said, concerning MES, that people should from then on learn from Rothbard. Almost all of his work is axiomatically derived, meaning if you don’t accept the first priniciple, then you probably won’t accept the rest of the work. If you accept the first principle, but not the second, then you probably won’t accept the rest of the work. As far as I’m concerned, he is an underrated genius, so far infallible and I’d like to read from other authors as hardcore as he was (i.e. Lysander Spooner).
Dogmatism at its finest.
Rothbard is dogmatic? Or I am dogmatic for believing Rothbard’s proofs? Either way, I started this thread hoping to get leads on Rothbard-like authors, so you don’t need to tell me I’m dogmatic, and you certainly don’t need to recommend authors in direct opposition to Rothbard.
In any variety it is dangerous Giles [;)]
Perhaps I was a little strong, I thought like you after being introduced to economics and libertarianism, take it from me, you’ll want to read authors who disagree with Rothbard, Austrian or otherwise. In any case I’ll give you some authors who you should read to get some knowledge of economics, they won’t all necessarily agree with him, but they’re worth reading anyway. Some are a little more advanced than others, so I’ll list them in order.
- Gene Callahan: Economics for Real People
- Carl Menger: Principles of Economics
- Joerg Guido Huelsmann: Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism
- Ludwig von Mises: Human Action
- Ludwig von Mises: Socialism
- Ludwig von Mises: Interventionism
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Democracy: The God That Failed
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe: A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe: The Economics and Ethics of Private Property
- Jesus Huerta de Soto : Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles
- Friedrich von Hayek: Individualism and Economic Order
- Friedrich von Hayek: Prices and Production
- Lawrence White: Competition and Currency
- Roger Garrison: Time and Money
- Steve Horwitz: Microfoundations and Macroeconomics
- Hoff: Economic Calculation in the Socialist Society
- Milton Friedman: Milton Friedman on Economics
- Greg Mankiw: Principles of Economics
- Robert Ekelund and Robert Tollison: Public Markets and Private Choice
- W.H. Hutt: A Rehabilitation of Say’s Law
- Mark Skousen: The Structure of Production
- Israel Kirzner: The Driving Force of the Market
- Kevin Carson: Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
- James Buchanan: Cost and Choice