on what would have been his 80th birthday by Murray Sabrin:
Murray N. Rothbard, economist, historian, social commentator and the world's preeminent libertarian philosopher, would have been 80 years old today. Murray died on January 7th, 1995 in New York City, his home for decades, until he moved to Las Vegas in the 1980s, where he occupied an endowed chair of economics until his death at UNLV.
I first became aware of Murray Rothbard in September 1971, 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean flying home form Italy, a few weeks after President Nixon imposed wage and price controls and closed the gold window-in effect declaring the United States Government bankrupt. As I was walking down the aisle of the 747 I saw a passenger reading the New York Times. On the op-ed page was an article, "The President's Economic Betrayal." I was curious. I borrowed the paper and read an article by Murray Rothbard, an economics professor at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Rothbard explained in his essay that on August 15, 1971 President Nixon imposed economic fascism on America. Fast forward to January 1974, when I visited the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Irvington-on-Hudson and bought several economic books, including Rothbard's economic treatise, Man, Economy and State, and books by Ludwig von Mises, who had passed away in October 1973 in New York.
Professor Mises was the head of the Austrian School of Economics, ( www.mises.org). His output of books, articles, monographs, essays, spanned six decades. Rothbard participated in Mises's private seminar with other economists and social scientists in the 1950s and 1960s. Mises retired from teaching at NYU in 1969 at the age of 88.
I finally met Rothbard at his college office in April 1974. When I told him I was investigating the geography of inflation using the insights of the Austrian School, he was delighted to learn that there is an "Austrian" economic geographer and a libertarian to boot in America. I invited him to be an external member of my dissertation committee at Rutgers; he enthusiastically accepted. A few weeks later I received an invitation to attend the first American Austrian Economics scholars' conference in South Royalton, Vermont. At the conference I roomed with Joe Salerno, who was working on his dissertation at Rutgers in the Economics department. Joe has been at Pace University since the mid 1980s and is chair of the Economics graduate program.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Murray Rothbard. His influence on my intellectual journey cannot be overstated. He was a kind, wonderful, gentle, human being, whose writings will be read by generations well into this millennium. We owe Lew Rockwell, founder of the Mises Institute, a huge thank you for keeping alive the works of Mises and Rothbard, and providing young scholars the opportunity to study and build upon the works of these two intellectual giants. And for commentary on the issues of the day, my home page is www.lewrockwell.com.
To learn more about the incredible productive career of Murray Rothbard and immerse yourself in his works, see, http://www.mises.org/content/mnr.asp.
Rest in peace, Murray N. Rothbard.
