Murray Rothbard would have turned 90 years old on Wednesday, and his contributions to economics have never been more relevant. As more Americans wake up to the Federal Reserve’s shell game and frustration continues to grow from our dead beat Uncle Sam, Rothbard’s uncompromising assault on the state has made him one of the rare scholars to see his influence and following grow exponentially, even after his passing.
One of the qualities that makes Rothbard special is the incredibly wide scope of scholastic work. Beyond his contributions to Austrian economics that directly led to its revival in America, he was a masterful libertarian political theorist, strategist, revisionist historian and even the occasional playwright.
The new Rothbard Reader, released this past Wednesday, offers readers a convenient way to sample Rothbard’s many contributions to the libertarian tradition.
Dr. Matthew McCaffrey, who along with Dr. Joseph Salerno, served as an editor to this new collection, joined Jeff Deist for the latest episode of Mises Weekends. Matt discusses Rothbard’s amazing range of interests and knowledge, his relationship with Mises, his great opus Man, Economy, and State — written in his early 30s — and his enduring legacy in a sea of forgotten mainstream economists.
In case you missed any of them, here are articles from this past week’s Mises Daily and Mises Wire:
- The Long History of Government Meddling in the American Marketplace by Mike Holly
- Did Free Markets Cause the Flint, Michigan Water Disaster? by Dale Steinreich
- Understanding the Federal Reserve’s Shell Game by Dan Sanchez
- A Conversation with my Neighbor “Sam” by Mark Brandly
- Economists for the Nanny State by David Gordon
- Negative Rates, Negative Outcomes by Sean Corrigan
- The Greatest Entitlement by Jeff Deist
- Claudio Grass on Swiss Decentralization and Double Majorities by Ryan McMaken
- How Sweet It Is! The Maple Syrup Cartel Crumbles by Joseph Salerno
- Rothbard’s Depression Analysis Is Now More Relevant than Ever by Antony P. Mueller
- The JetBlue Democracy Experiment by Jonathan Newman
- Murray Rothbard at 90 by David Gordon
- Introducing the Rothbard Reader
- A New Working Paper from Joseph Salerno
- Bernie Sanders Meets Romanian Internet by Carmen Elena Dorobăț
- The Economics of Hunting and Species Conservation by Ryan McMaken
- The Container Ship Curse? by Mark Thornton
