Rothbard, in A History of Economic Thought, describes various forms of proto-anarchism, if you will, in the history of economic thought. This strain of thought came mostly from the Taoists according to Rothbard. I was wondering if there’s a good place to start to get a more comprehensive account of these ideas.
I think Rothbard may have been reaching. He was an economic historian, but he was not a historian.
I fear that he may have been reading too selectively in trying to find an anarcho-capitalist strain in ancient thought, which often too clearly contradicted the ideas of todays Mises Institute members.
I have read The Book of Tao firsthand, and the book is not exactly the collection of libertarian ideas you might expect.
Here is an article on Confucianism that also refers to Taoism: http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_3/17_3_3.pdf