Tom Woods informs us that Jason Brennan attacked Murray Rothbard as a hack. Indeed, he did. Brennan may well withdraw that summary conclusion someday, once he has had sufficient time for his thinking and scholarship to mature, so that he can come to understand the major, unique and voluminous contributions of Rothbard. Rothbard was truly an amazingly productive intellectual with a great deal of insight, creativity, courage and clear-mindedness. His work is outstandingly original in many respects. Historians of intellectual history will eventually, I hope, accord him an extremely important place in turning the tide against statism and toward freedom. His original conceptions, boldness in stating them, creativity in originating them, not to mention the fertility of these ideas, mark him as one of the most important intellects of the twentieth century. I cannot imagine that there would even be the libertarian movement of today had Rothbard never been here to create and spread the ideas and analyses that he did.

Brennan’s blog was specifically on behavioral economics. I will mention for now that I addressed that in part in an earlier article. I intend to add some further comments later.

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff