I do it for fun. Does that make a difference? 
Actually Jon Irenicus in another topic said he thought Reisman to be the better economist. He’s certainly the more original and I’ll reserve judgement in regards to who is better once I’ve read Capitalism. In any case Hoppe has already expanded upon Rothbardian economics significantly. As for political philosophy the same applies in regards to Hoppe and others. In fact the only significant economic contribution of Rothbard was his theory of competition. I’m not saying Rothbard was a bad economist, but he was mainly standing on the shoulders of Mises. His most important contributions were in political philosophy and in his role as a system builder (integrating AE and individualist anarchism).
Dragging up this old thread, I was suprised at the dishonesty of Reisman in taking those Rothbard quotes out of context. In fact, Reisman says that Rothbard became a ‘supporter of the Soviet Union’ !!
Like a lot of Objectivists, Reisman has philosophical statist leanings and is weak on foreign policy, so perhaps Rothbard’s point about US military aggression was too much, or it could be the jealousy of Rothbard being regarded as Mises greatest student.
‘Capitalism’ is actually a great book, and I agree that Reisman is probably a better economist than Rothbard. His writing and economic examples seem to gel as good as anything in MES.
But the cheap shot against Rothbard shows intellectual dishonesty and makes me wonder about the rest of his work. Perhaps I am being unfair, as Rothbard also makes some cheap shots, but never so deliberate as this.
Reisman addressed this in a lecture that’s actually on the site. He and Rothbard were friends, Ayn Rand ended up speaking at one of their circle meetings. Rothbard’s wife was religious enough to not like Rand, Rothbard had his own poblems with Rand, and at one meeting their diverging ideologies lead Rothbard to kick Reisman out of his apartment. For some real or imagined slight to Rothbard’s wife I believe.
Reisman definitely didn’t sound bitter about it when he was speaking, but then again by the time of that lecture Rothbard had croaked so who knows what he was feeling when Murray was still alive.
Apart from Reisman’s comments on the political situation between the USSR and the USA, his comments on anarchism are also subpar. I guess they may apply towards a certain anarchist framework, but they certainly do not apply towards the Rothbardian anarchist framework (and this would be the most relevant to his book, I would think).
Not to open another can of worms, but regarding who is the better economist, I don’t think there is conclusive evidence suggesting that Reisman is a better economist than Rothbard. What are Reisman’s unique contributions to economics as laid out in “Capitalism”, other than his rate of interest theory? I’ve expressed my disagreements with his interpretation of Böhm-Bawerk’s cost theory of production (which was not really a cost theory of production, and was not necessarily Böhm-Bawerk’s theory – you can read something similar in Menger’s “Principles of Economics”). I’m not saying that Rothbard was a better economist or even a great economist (I, honestly, have not read Rothbard closely enough to comment), but I don’t see why Reisman is necessarily better either.
That being said, I actually think that Reisman’s economics have been heavily influenced by Rothbard. I’m not sure Reisman would be such a critic of fractional reserve banking if it wasn’t for Rothbard, because Mises certainly doesn’t take such a hard line stance (even if you agree that Mises’ economics imply it [which I don’t, but I guess you can make a case in the affirmative]).
P.S. Also, now that I remember, I do agree with Reisman’s critique of Rothbard’s formulation of the marginal productivity theory of wages, and I think I agree with Reisman’s own theory of wages. It’s been a while since I’ve explored the topic, but basically I think both of their postulations contain elements of truth (I think what I came to conclude was Rothbard’s theory explained relative wages while Reisman’s theory explains the general nature of a rise or fall in wages).
Sorry for the lack of formatting, I’m using Firefox and there’s been problems with Firefox’s compatibility with this forum’s formatting code.