Murray N. Rothbard
Library and
Resources

Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was the dean of the Austrian School of economics, the founder of libertarianism, and an exemplar of the Old Right. The author of thousands of articles and 25 books, he was also Lew Rockwell's great teacher and mentor. LewRockwell.com is dedicated to Murray's memory, and seeks to follow his fearless example.

Rothbard Resources from the Ludwig von Mises Institute
Rothbard Bibliography
Some Books By Murray N. Rothbard
Archives of the Journal of Libertarian Studies
Archives of Left and Right
Archives of the Review of Austrian Economics
Archives of the Libertarian Forum
Rothbard Speaks
Betrayal of the American Right

Past articles by Murray Rothbard on LewRockwell.com

Rothbard on Keynes
When Murray was 21.

The Man Who Made America Independent
Murray N. Rothbard on Tom Paine.

On Resisting Evil
Murray N. Rothbard on our job always and everywhere.

The George W. Bush of 1929
Murray N. Rothbard on Herbert Hoover's Republican attack on the free market.

Power and the Intellectuals
Murray N. Rothbard on WWI as fulfillment.

The 'Great Society'
Murray N. Rothbard on a previous installment of the regime.

How Not To Write History
Murray N. Rothbard on textbook idiocy.

Slavery and Civil War
Murray N. Rothbard on the great American disasters.

Liberty vs. Power
Murray N. Rothbard on setting the stage for American history.

Did Capitalism Cause the Great Depression?
Murray N. Rothbard on the real culprit.

Who Is Frank Chodorov?
Murray N. Rothbard on the great individualist.

Laissez-Faire Radical
Murray N. Rothbard on the quest for the historical Mises.

The Trouble With George Washington
Not such a great guy after all.

Conspiracy Theories
Of course they make sense, says Murray N. Rothbard. Sometimes.

Myth and Truth About Libertarianism
Murray N. Rothbard explains.

Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?
A classic, newly discovered article from Murray N. Rothbard.

Bifurcated Conservatives
The real enemy is not terrorism (or communism), but statism. A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Remembering Harry Elmer Barnes
Murray N. Rothbard on a revisionist historian.

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy
Murray N. Rothbard on DC and its friends.

Remembering a Libertarian Giant
Murray N. Rothbard on F.A. "Baldy" Harper.

How Warmongers Took Over the Right
An important new book by Murray N. Rothbard on the whole sordid history.

Anatomy of a Bank Run
A timely classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Ethnic Politics in New York City
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

A Band of Thieves Writ Large
Murray N. Rothbard on the state.

The Greatness of Lysander Spooner
Murray N. Rothbard on the man who got vices as versus crimes.

Telling the Truth About War
Murray N. Rothbard on revisionism for our time.

Who Owns the Water?
Not the state.

The First Christian Right
Also for war and against freedom. Article by Murray N. Rothbard.

Understanding the Republican Party
A classic confidential memo from Murray N. Rothbard on the other big-government faction.

A Pain in the Neck to Politicians
Murray N. Rothbard on the history of economic thought.

Getting the American Revolution Wrong
Murray N. Rothbard on modern historians.

The Kissinger Connection
To the first criminal war on Iraq.

Rolling Back the State
Murray N. Rothbard on how – and how not – to desocialize.

Can There Be a 'Just Tax'?
Surely you jest.

Tax Day
Murray N. Rothbard on what it means.

Who Murdered JFK?
Murray N. Rothbard on the federal mystery.

No More Military Socialism
Murray N. Rothbard on how legitimate defense can be done far better and cheaper on the market.

How To Punish
In a free society.

The Right to Self-Defense
Murray N. Rothbard on libertarian law.

Remembering Frank Chodorov
Murray N. Rothbard on the great individualist.

Saint Hillary
A Murray N. Rothbard classic on the religious left.

The Menace of the Religious Left
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

America's Most Persecuted Minority
And no, it's not big business.

The Noblest Cause of All
The old American cause: individual liberty.

Rothbard vs. the Crazies
Murray on the enemies of liberty.

Real Law
It's not a product of the state. Article by Murray N. Rothbard.

The State Is Not the Nation
Murray N. Rothbard on national self-determination.

Milton Friedman Unraveled
Murray N. Rothbard on the real meaning of the Chicago School.

How Anarchism Can Work
Murray N. Rothbard on society without a state.

Why Socialism Died
Murray N. Rothbard on its fundamental opposition to the structure of reality.

The Evil of Government Ownership
And the blessing of private ownership.

Commie Pilgrims
Murray N. Rothbard on what really happened at Plymouth.

Money and the Individual
Murray N. Rothbard on The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises.

Destructivism
Murray N. Rothbard on the deconstructionist invasion of philosophy and economics.

The Trouble With Shrinks
They seek to repress dissidents, says Murray N. Rothbard.

Scholar, Creator, Hero
Murray N. Rothbard on Ludwig von Mises.

The Sickness of Public Schools
"Free" and compulsory.

Ball and Chain
Murray Rothbard on the origins of the US "welfare" state.

The Moral Imperative of Peace
Murray N. Rothbard on war and foreign policy.

Ignore the Sellouts
Crack a book by Rothbard.

Protectionism vs. Prosperity
Murray N. Rothbard on government trade barriers.

Should You Be Able To Burn Your Copy of the US Flag?
Of course, says Murray N. Rothbard.

Outlawing Jobs
Murray N. Rothbard on the minimum wage.

Bush's Invasion of Somalia
The first Bush, that is.

Unnatural Elites
Murray N. Rothbard on the real history of 'civil servants.'

Private Property Is the Basis of Civilization
But some anarchists don't get it, says Murray N. Rothbard.

The War System and Its Intellectual Myths
Murray N. Rothbard on Harry Elmer Barnes and the Cold War.

For a New Liberty
Murray N. Rothbard's Libertarian Manifesto.

Understanding the State
Murray N. Rothbard on "a band of thieves writ large."

Our Libertarian Heritage
Murray N. Rothbard on the American revolution and classical liberalism.

Libertarianism (the Real Thing) Reborn
Rothbard's Libertarian Forum is back.

On Resisting Evil
Murray N. Rothbard on our compelling moral obligation.

Real Freedom and Justice
Murray N. Rothbard on law, property rights, and air pollution.

'Date Rape' on Campus
What do the feminists want?

Rape or 'Rape'?
Murray N. Rothbard on the Kennedy case.

Sudden Deaths in Office
Murray N. Rothbard on presidents.

Private Defense
Can the market do better? Murray N. Rothbard on the work of anarcho-capitalist pioneer Gustave de Molinari.

Good Movies
Murray N. Rothbard on Cinema Paradiso and Metropolitan.

The Mantle of Science
Murray N. Rothbard on how to understand economics.

Boo, Hiss
Murray N. Rothbard on Schindler's List, Philadelphia, and The Piano.

Mafia Movies
Murray N. Rothbard on the thrilling, and the malign.

Myths of the Cold War
Murray N. Rothbard on the first "war on terror."

Who Are the 'Terrorists'?
The prescient Murray N. Rothbard 20 years ago.

It All Began, as Usual, With the Greeks
Murray N. Rothbard on the beginning of economics.

The Original Bush Conservative
Murray N. Rothbard on Herbert Hoover.

Real American History
Murray N. Rothbard on the Christian origins of individualist anarchism in America.

Rothbard on World Affairs
A lost 1989 video.

What Is the Free Market?
Murray N. Rothbard explains.

Calvinists vs. Catholics
And more revisionism in the history of economic thought from Murray N. Rothbard. (Get both volumes for $45!)

The Adam Smith Myth
Murray N. Rothbard on clay feet.

The Joyous Libertarian
Murray N. Rothbard on H.L. Mencken.

It All Began With Lao-tzu
Murray N. Rothbard on the Chinese libertarian tradition.

Radical Candor
And radical fun. A lost interview with Murray N. Rothbard on Ayn, Tricky Dick, Friedman, Vietnam, the New Left, price controls, and 101 other fascinating things.

Mailer for Mayor
Murray N. Rothbard on Norman's campaign.

Red Dawn
Murray N. Rothbard on a movie about military occupation and guerrilla resistance.

The Student Revolution
It helped end the war on Vietnam. Article by Murray N. Rothbard (with ideas for ending the war on Iraq).

Requiem for the Old Right
Murray N. Rothbard on our forebears.

Wilson's Secret Police
Murray N. Rothbard on the chilling suppression of freedom under Woodrow during WWI.

The Government-Business Alliance
Murray N. Rothbard on the presidency and big business.

The Roosevelt Myth
Murray N. Rothbard on conservative love for the evil Franklin.

The Corporate Statist
Murray N. Rothbard on Felix Rohatyn.

Reliving the Crash of '29
Murray N. Rothbard on how Hoover's policies blazed the trail for FDR and wrecked the US economy.

Where the Left Goes Wrong on Foreign Policy
And where the Old Right got it right. Article by Murray N. Rothbard.

Libertarian Cover for the Corporate State
A classic that is all too contemporary: Murray N. Rothbard on Nixon's libertarian pal.

The Troubling Role of National Review
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard on the Old Right vs. the New Right. (The antiwar libertarian resurgence was yet to come.)

Investigate the Vice President First
If the president dies unexpectedly.

See and Hear Murray Rothbard
And here are some of his books.

When the Feds First Attacked the Americans
Murray N. Rothbard on the Whiskey Rebellion.

When the Right Wasn't Bloodthirsty
Murray N. Rothbard on The Foreign Policy of the Old Right (PDF).

War, Peace, and the State
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard on why we are not conservatives.

The American Corporate State
Murray N. Rothbard on how the current regime developed during WWI.

Understanding Left and Right
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard on the prospects for liberty.

Painless Economics
Ten fascinating hours of talks by the master, Murray N. Rothbard.

The Real Conservative Movement
Fronting for despots. A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Government and Hurricane
Murray N. Rothbard on a deadly combination.

How the Fed Wreaks Disaster
Murray N. Rothbard on the first Great Depression.

Trading With the Enemy
Murray N. Rothbard on a great American tradition.

Patriotic Schlock
Murray N. Rothbard on the endless summer.

The Moral Imperative of 'Isolationism'
Murray N. Rothbard on war and foreign policy.

Who Is Murray Rothbard?
David Gordon on Mr. Libertarian, and so much more.

The 'Little Old Ladies in Tennis Shoes' Were Right
Murray N. Rothbard on fluoridation. And see Donald Miller, MD, too.

The Transformation of the American Right
Murray N. Rothbard on how it became an enemy of peace and freedom.

Republican Socialism
Murray N. Rothbard shows, at the time, where Nixonism will lead.

Sell Out and Die
Murray N. Rothbard on regime libertarians.

Jazz Needs a Melody
Murray N. Rothbard on the old culture vs. bebop.

No Government in Pennsylvania
Murray N. Rothbard on a 17th-century anarchist experiment, from his magisterial Conceived in Liberty.

'Doing God's Work' With a Bayonet
Murray N. Rothbard on the social gospel of the religious right.

Should You Be Able To Burn the Flag?
Of course, if it's your property.

Lessons From the War
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard on the first war on Iraq.

End Tyranny Non-Violently
Murray N. Rothbard on the political thought of 16th-century libertarian Étienne de la Boétie.

Revolt Against the Right
The first popular statement on modern libertarianism, from Murray N. Rothbard, of course.

A Permanent Revolution for Liberty
Against the conservative-socialist amalgam.

The Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar
Private mintage, 100 percent reserve banking, circulating coins, full convertibility. A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

What Your Rulers Don't Want You To Know
Murray N. Rothbard on the nature of the state.

Why We Are Not Conservatives
Murray N. Rothbard on war, peace, and the state.

Edmund Burke, Anarchist
Murray N. Rothbard on the founding father of conservatism.

The Most Exciting Event of My Life
A 1990 talk by Murray N. Rothbard at the Mises University (MP3) on the collapse of communism and the future of Austrian economics.

Do You Hate the State?
That is always and everywhere the key question, says Murray N. Rothbard.

Hutus vs. Tutsis
Murray N. Rothbard explains what happened.

Outlawing Jobs
Murray N. Rothbard on the minimum wage.

The Whiskey Rebellion
A model for our times?

Rothbard vs. Greenspan
On a consumption tax.

Feminism and Football
Murray N. Rothbard on sports, politics, and the Constitution.

In Defense of Diversity
Inequality, that is.

Copying the Nazis
Murray N. Rothbard on collective guilt.

On Resisting Evil
Murray N. Rothbard to anti-state libertarians, and non-neo conservatives.

Max Lerner: Again?!
Murray N. Rothbard on the ur-neocon.

I Hate Max Lerner
Murray N. Rothbard on an ur-neocon.

It's Always the 'Lone Nut'
Murray N. Rothbard on political assassinations.

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy
Murray N. Rothbard on the state-establishment axis for intervention and war.

Compromising With Tyranny
Murray N. Rothbard on how even the best National Review conservative went wrong.

Red Dawn
Murray N. Rothbard on guerrilla resistance to the occupier.

Living in a State-Run World
Murray N. Rothbard on how to proceed.

The Unstoppable Rothbard
His influence increases, his detractors are confounded.

Making the Best the Enemy of the Worst
Murray N. Rothbard on the case for radical idealism.

The Anatomy of the State
Murray N. Rothbard on what it isn't, and what it is.

Left and Right: the Prospects for Liberty
Classic Rothbard with a particular resonance these days (PDF).

A Future of Peace and Capitalism
Murray N. Rothbard on why we will win.

Libertarian Thought in Colonial America
Murray N. Rothbard on how it all began.

Down With Primitivism
Murray N. Rothbard on the noble savage and one of his apologists.

Lifeboat Situations
Murray N. Rothbard on ethics.

Down With Primitivism
Murray N. Rothbard on the noble savage and one of his apologists.

The Ethics of Liberty
The great Rothbard classic online in two formats, thanks to the Mises Institute.

A Farrago of Evil and Error
Murray N. Rothbard on protectionism.

The Incoherence of Conservatism
Murray Rothbard writes to Frank Meyer.

The Odious Legacy of Reagan
Murray N. Rothbard on neocons, libertarians, Ronnie, and the state.

How To Think Like an Economist
A real economist, that is.

Taxation Must Destroy Wealth
It can never be "neutral" to the market economy.

Go and Do Thou Likewise
Gary North on the example set by Murray Rothbard.

The Central Crime of the Central Bank
Murray N. Rothbard on the artificial cycle of booms and busts.

A Future of Peace and Capitalism
All we have to worry about are the socialists of left and right.

How To Do Economics
Murray N. Rothbard on praxeology, the method of the Austrian School.

The Real Reaganomics
Even at its best it was bad.

A Recurring Establishment Trick
Murray N. Rothbard on neocons, Buckleyites, and the alleged end of ideology.

Capitalism and Catholicism
Murray N. Rothbard on the economics and politics of Leo XIII and Pius XI.

Catholicism, Protestantism, and Capitalism
A clarifying memo from Murray N. Rothbard.

Are We Being Beastly to the Gipper?
Of course not!

Ronald Reagan, Warmonger
Murray N. Rothbard on the early years of the California Camelot.

To De-Bamboozle
Murray N. Rothbard on the noble task of revisionism.

Ayn Rand, the Movie
A video of Murray N. Rothbard's one-act play, Mozart Was a Red.

The Evil of Banality
Murray N. Rothbard on Norman Podhoretz.

Bill & Irving & Ken & Patrick
Murray N. Rothbard on the neocons.

The Ethics of Liberty
Murray N. Rothbard's libertarian masterpiece is now online, with a new introduction by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Gippering California
As preparation for Gippering America. Murray N. Rothbard on Reagan.

The Real Reaganomics
Murray N. Rothbard on military Keynesianism.

The Reagan Phenomenon
Murray N. Rothbard on the shrewdest manipulator of public opinion since FDR.

Reagan Revisionism
Murray N. Rothbard on the myths of Reaganomics.

The Failure Called Fusionism
Libertarianism and conservatism, despite Frank S. Meyer, are different, antagonistic positions.

How To Study Man
And how not to study him. A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

The Capitalist Entrepreneur
Quite simply, the man who makes the world go round.

The State vs. Innovation
Murray N. Rothbard on government and science.

Hoppephobia
Murray N. Rothbard on why Hans-Hermann Hoppe drives some libertarians crazy.

The Old Right
Murray N. Rothbard on our heritage, now revived thanks to him.

The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Voluntary Servitude
Murray N. Rothbard on The Politics of Obedience.

Austrian Economics in One Lesson
There's no better place to start than this classic audio of Murray N. Rothbard.

1¢ Rothbard
Making Economic Sense, as only he could, for 1¢ (plus shipping) with another purchase.

Government Can't Deliver the Goods
Murray N. Rothbard – author of Man, Economy, and State – on the myth of government "services."

Ten Ethical Objections to the Free Market
Exploded by Murray N. Rothbard in his astounding treatise, Man, Economy, and State.

Brimelow on Rothbard
After Peter wrote this article for Forbes, a DC libertarian thinktank blacklisted him for more than a decade.

Protectionism vs. Prosperity
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Repudiate the National Debt
Nothing else makes moral or economic sense. A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Life in the Old Right
Murray N. Rothbard lived it.

The Kondratieff Fraud
Murray N. Rothbard on the most famed financial chart of them all.

The Trouble With Milton Friedman
Murray N. Rothbard unravels one of the state's favorite economists.

Rockefelleronomics
A classic from the young Murray N. Rothbard.

For a New Isolationism
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Rothbard on the Great Society
A libertarian critique.

Two Just Wars
Murray N. Rothbard on 1776 and 1861 (MP3 speech file).

National Liberation
Murray N. Rothbard on opposing the oppressor.

War, Peace, and the State
Murray N. Rothbard vs. Bill Buckley and the Buckleyites.

Against Women's Lib
Murray N. Rothbard on feminism.

The Fallacy of the 'Public Sector'
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

The Supposed Case for Taxation
A devastating scholarly refutation from Murray N. Rothbard (PDF).

Rothbard on Protectionism
Refuting ancient errors.

The Dangerous Nonsense Called Protectionism
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Understanding Left and Right
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard on the prospects for liberty.

Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature
Murray N. Rothbard on the ideology of the modern state.

Why Obey the Parasites?
Murray N. Rothbard on why we do, and why we don't have to.

Orwell vs. Podhoretz
Murray N. Rothbard on 1984, the Cold War, and the neocons.

1984 in 1949
The young Rothbard on Orwell.

Memories of Rothbard and Hayek
Ronald Hamowy on his two great teachers.

Cold War Myths
Murray N. Rothbard on the official propaganda myths of war and the warfare state, a tribute to historian Harry Elmer Barnes.

Bush's Ancestors
Murray N. Rothbard on the crazed and evil Progressives.

War, Peace, and the State
Murray N. Rothbard explains it all.

Life and Death of the Old Right
Lessons for libertarians from Murray N. Rothbard.

Ayn Rand in One Act
Murray N. Rothbard's Mozart Was a Red, with an introduction by Justin Raimondo.

Tax Day
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

Murray Rothbard on 'National Review'
A classic report. And see also this.

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult
A classic from Murray N. Rothbard.

A Fable For Our Time
By one of the unreconstructed. An unpublished manuscript from the Murray N. Rothbard Archives.

A Blaze of Radiant Light
Rothbard on Chodorov.

Rothbard Writes the Dixiecrats
In 1949, when he was a 24-year-old graduate student.

What's a Just War?
1775 and 1861, for example, says Murray N. Rothbard.

The Joyous Libertarian
Murray N. Rothbard on H.L. Mencken.

Genius Mourns Genius
An obituary of Ludwig von Mises by Murray N. Rothbard.

Why Conservatives Love War and the State
Murray N. Rothbard had it all figured out.

Rothbard on Le Pen
Well, sort of.

Edmund Burke, Rothbardian
Well, not quite – but that's closer to the truth than the conservative distortions of the Cold War. Article by Joseph Stromberg.

The Republican Party and Steel
A long, rotten history. A classic by Murray N. Rothbard.

The Rothbardian Solution
To save our economy from the eventual holocaust of run-away inflation, we the people must take the money-supply function back from the government.

Fractional-Reserve Banking
Murray N. Rothbard on the moral fraudulence and economic disaster of this pervasive scam.

Taking Our Money Back
Abolish the Grand Counterfeiter, the Federal Reserve, says Murray N. Rothbard.

What's Wrong With Conservatism
And what's right with it. A classic statement of the libertarian position from Murray N. Rothbard.

Rothbard on Szasz
The libertarian psychiatrist's theories. Rothbard likes the libertarianism.

The Anti-War, Anti-State Right
Murray N. Rothbard on our true heritage, and how it was suppressed (temporarily!).

Six Myths About Libertarianism
Murray N. Rothbard refutes some conservative fictions.

Edmund Burke, Anarchist
Despite the conservatives, he was once a good guy. Murray N. Rothbard's revisionist classic.

The Trouble With Conservatives
They can't get the State right. Murray Rothbard's classic essay.

The Last Time the US Warred on Afghanistan
And Iran, Murray N. Rothbard had some comments that might have been written yesterday.

The Truth About Greenspan
Murray N. Rothbard had his number in 1987.

And Now Afghanistan
This is not the first US encounter with that impoverished country. Here's Murray N. Rothbard's take in 1980.

The Real Aggressor
More classic Rothbard, this time from 1954, on the State and war

Buckley Revealed
Murray N. Rothbard had this military socialist nailed in 1952.

The Anatomy of the State
What is the State? It is theft organized on a territorial basis. A classic Murray N. Rothbard essay from his Egalitarianism As a Revolt Against Nature.

Should It Be Legal To Burn the Federal Flag?
Of course!

'The Irrepressible Rothbard'
Click here if you'd like an autographed copy of Lew Rockwell's funny and important collection of hot Rothbard.

For President: Bill Smith, Beatnik
A 1960 classic from the great Murray N. Rothbard.

Rothbard Speaks!
Stunning audio clips from the late dean of the Austrian School of economics.

Women's Lib
Murray Rothbard saw where it was going, and why it had to be stopped.

Rothbard on the Elections
All his life, Murray N. Rothbard loved elections and interpreting them. Here. courtesy of Rothbard archivist Joseph R. Stromberg, is Murray's take on the November 1950 version. P.S. Read Justin Raimondo's biography of Rothbard, An Enemy of the State, and Lew Rockwell's collection, The Irrepressible Rothbard.

The Growth of Libertarian Thought in the Colonies
Murray N. Rothbard on the ideological foundations of our secession.

Anatomy of the State
Murray N. Rothbard's classic essay on the nature of government.

The Fraud and Danger of Equality
Murray N. Rothbard's powerful "Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor."

The Growth of Libertarian Thought
Murray N. Rothbard on our 18th century American predecessors.

Psychoanalysis as a Weapon
Shrinks are agents of the state, said Murray N. Rothbard.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?
The complete text of Murray N. Rothbard's classic is now on line.

War Revisionism
It's essential to tell the truth, as versus the state's version, about the state's quintessential activity, and Murray Rothbard's Journal of Libertarian Studies did exactly that.

Rothbard on Greenspan
The beloved con man of the central bank.

Rothbard: Protectionism Wrecks Prosperity
Hey, Pat. Anti-trade policies hurt American businessmen and consumers-not to speak of the cause of liberty-while enriching pressure groups and strengthening government.

The Foreign Policy of the Old Right
Murray N. Rothbard shows that our ideological ancestors were pro-peace because they were pro-liberty, unlike the warfare-welfare statists of the Bill Buckley-CIA conservative movement. (Note: requires Adobe Acrobat, which is free.

 
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