Just wondering… was he at the top of his class?
What about his undergrad days - did he write an honours thesis? What was the topic? I know the PhD was on the Panic of 1819, but what about when he was a young lad?
He must have attained relatively high grades to have made it into the Phd. Program at Columbia, aside from this, idk.
Is Rothbard our Chuck Norris?
And he wrote Nineteen Eighty Four and The Great Gatsby as a ghost writer. Not to mention, he translated the Bible into Zulu and numerous dialects of Russian.
Rothbard was also involved in the making of the first nuclear bomb.
Murray Newton Rothbard is known in libertarian circles for his voluminous writings. He is somewhat less well-known as a scholar of popular culture: Rothbard is responsible for compiling and validating every single one of the “Chuck Norris Facts.”
As a child, Rothbard developed telekentic abilities and created what we now know as the X-Men.
He also played the role of Junior on the hit HBO series, The Sopranos.
The Rev
Not to mention, before his amazing career as a political economist, he earned his place among the great dramatists of the modern age with his masterpiece, Mozart Was A Red.
No. Giles is back and desperate for attention again.
It took Rothbard 20 minutes to watch 60 minutes.
I take it no-one actually knows the answer to my question. However I’m enjoying the hilarious comments, keep up the good work [:D]
Oh wow, Rothbard attacks his own work. Rothbard on Orwell: Two Essays
He made a nuclear bomb? Ummmm… that is strange..
“It has often been maintained, and especially by conservatives, that the development of the horrendous modern weapons of mass murder (nuclear weapons, rockets, germ warfare, etc.) is only a difference of degree rather than kind from the simpler weapons of an earlier era. Of course, one answer to this is that when the degree is the number of human lives, the difference is a very big one.4 But another answer that the libertarian is particularly equipped to give is that while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. Here is a crucial difference in kind. Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. Nuclear weapons, even “conventional” aerial bombs, cannot be. These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction. (The only exception would be the extremely rare case where a mass of people who were all criminals inhabited a vast geographical area.) We must, therefore, conclude that the use of nuclear or similar weapons, or the threat thereof, is a sin and a crime against humanity for which there can be no justification.”
I’ve never understood why people hold rothbard in such high esteem, but i dont think he warrants all the hate people are giving him.
poor old rothbard
Maybe because the Liberty movement wouldn’t be what it is today, without him? You know.. the guy who is called “Mr Libertarian”.
I believe he earned a double major in math and economics. Apparently, he scored very high marks in all of his classes. It did take him awhile, however, to finish his doctorate.
i don’t think it would have been that hard to link liberty and austrian economics. all you’d need is an AE to read the private production of security OR take mises premises to their obvious conclusions. i am still perplexed as to why mises didn’t come to them himself.
you have to agree rothbard wasn’t the most original of thinkers.
it’s funny when your own argument is trying to state a perplexity about “mises didn’t come to them himself”
Rothbard was a pimp. His version of libertarianism was always the best.
Minarchism is for old people. And it’s boring.
Mutualism is ridiculous. Proudhon wasn’t really all that brilliant when you think about it.
Thus, Rothbard was needed to give both philosophies the ultimate PWN. (This has been, like, one of my most intellectual posts ever.)
Lest we forget, I should point out that Rothbard wrote his dissertation in a single night, without any coffee. In fact, he didn’t read numerous sources that he cited, rather, if he stared at the cover for long enough he would grasp all the relevant insights and even more impressive, quotations.
It’s also been rumoured that Murray Newton Rothbard fathered any number of the following: Lew Rockwell, Walter Block, Ralph Raico, Stephan Kinsella, Hans Hoppe, Guido Huelsmann, Jeffrey Herbener, Tom Woods, Joe Salerno, Jeffrey Tucker, Bob Murphy, David Friedman, Bryan Caplan, Roderick Long and others. So when one speaks about Rothbard starting the new libertarian revival, it should be taken in a literal sense.
Other notable acheivments include stopping the Vietnam War with nothing but a pleasant letter, drinking vast quantaties of whiskey only to write a few chapters of Man, Economy and State afterwards, beating Milton Friedman in an arm wrestle, writing the last few chapters of Human Action, creating the proud nation of Liechtenstein, overthrowing the world champion of a steak eating competition only to run off and beat Pete Sampras in a game of tennis immediately after.
Murray Rothbard was such a successful ghost writer that it’s been suggested that he wrote The Idiot which is widely, but incorrectly, believed to have been published in 1868.
A bit of light humour never hurt anybody. Although, it’s true that Murray Rothbard sent numerous people to hospital from laughing pains induced by his stand up comedy.
(Fun fact: there was to be an attempt to preserve Murray Rothbard’s brain in a vat, only, once he began to think the vat exploded).