Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek and my book Defending I; Bastiat Too

From: GB
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 4:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Professor Block, I just re-read your delightful “Defending the Undefendable, which is a book that reminds me in some ways of Bastiat’s essays. A question: How did you ever get both Hayek and Rothbard, who were often rivals, to both endorse your book? GB

Dear GB: Thanks for your kind words. I really don’t know about Hayek. When I opened that letter he sent me, I thought he was drunk when he wrote it. He actually compared me, positively, to his teacher and mentor, Ludwig von Mises. I was in my early 30s at the time, and it really blew me away. As for Murray Rothbard’s encomium to this book, well, all I can say is that I was on his wavelength. Pretty much everything I know in political economy, I learned from him. He was the single most important influence on my professional life. He made the distinction between heroes and saints, something I had not before quite seen. In an important sense, he knew far more about this book, even though I was its author. It is my understanding that the two of them, Hayek and Rothbard, were personally friendly with each other, even though the latter was critical of the former, mainly on political philosophy, not economics, particularly business cycle theory. Thanks, also, for comparing me to Bastiat. You made my day.

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10:23 pm on February 22, 2017