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Murray Rothbard discusses the merits and morality of voting in a 1972 interview with The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal. NEW BANNER:   Some libertarians have recommended anti-voting activities during the 1972 election. Do you agree with this tactic? MURRAY ROTHBARD:   I’m interested to talk about that. This is the classical

[A Selection from Libertarian Review , August 1978.] If victory is indeed our given end, an end given to us by the requirements of justice, then we must strive to achieve that end as rapidly as we can. But this means that libertarians must not adopt gradualism as part of their goal; they must wish to achieve liberty as early and as rapidly as

I have come to realize, since writing this essay, that I overweighted the contributions and importance of Adam Smith on the division of labor. And to my surprise, I did not sufficiently appreciate the contributions of Ludwig von Mises. Despite the enormous emphasis on specialization and the division of labor in the  Wealth of Nations , much of

In recent years, Americans have been subjected to a concerted assault upon their national symbols, holidays, and anniversaries. Washington’s Birthday has been forgotten, and Christopher Columbus has been denigrated as an evil Euro-White male, while new and obscure anniversary celebrations have been foisted upon us. New heroes have been

[ Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market ]   The analysis in chapter 1 was based on the logical implications of the assumption of action, and its results hold true for all human action. The application of these principles was confined, however, to “Crusoe economics,” where the actions of isolated individuals are considered by themselves.

This article is also available as an Audio Mises Daily [Adapted from Rothbard’s book review of Freedom and the Law by Bruno Leoni. This review first appeared in New Individualist Review, edited by Ralph Raico.] [In his book Freedom and the Law ,] Professor [Bruno] Leoni’s major thesis is that even the staunchest free-market economists have

In the course of his interesting discussion of “The Politics of Political Economists,” Professor Stigler challenges the alleged view of Professor Mises that “economic statistics, or more generally quantitative economics — generates a radical political viewpoint.”   Stigler asserts that the empirical student acquires a “real feeling” for the

If inflation is the health of the State, how and in what way has government generated inflation in the history of the United States? The following case studies illustrate this process, as well as the important connection between inflation and centralized State control of the economy. They illustrate also the connection of inflation with

Scarcely more than a year since it was signed, the Smithsonian Agreement, the “greatest monetary agreement in the history of the world” (in the words of President Nixon) lay in shambles. And so the world vibrates, with increasing intensity, between fixed and fluctuating exchange rates, with each system providing only a different set of ills. We

The best way to look at tariffs or import quotas or other protectionist restraints is to forget about political boundaries. Political boundaries of nations may be important for other reasons, but they have no economic meaning whatever. Suppose, for example, that each state of the United States were a separate nation. Then we would hear a lot of