Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard

by Justin Raimondo

This is the first biography of one of the most interesting and controversial social theorists of our time. Murray N. Rothbard was the founder of the libertarian movement, a radical free marketeer who came of age in the era of collectivism and fought all his life for individualism and laissez-faire against overwhelming odds. The story of his life is at the same time a cavalcade of virtually all of the controversial events, ideas, and personalities of the latter part of the twentieth century.

The author of twenty-eight books and thousands of articles, Rothbard's life goal was to found a science of liberty, a comprehensive libertarian system of social thought encompassing philosophy, ethics, economics, and history. This book tells the story of the intellectual adventure that was Rothbard's life, his relationship with the great libertarian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises, and his intellectual growth and development as an economist and a thinker. While Rothbard's contributions to the history of social thought are important, his life story is interesting in itself: against almost impossible odds he managed to singlehandedly create the libertarian movement out of thin air at a time when such ideas were considered completely outside the pale.

An Enemy of the State traces Rothbard's ideological odyssey, from the Old Right of the Chicago Tribune and the "isolationist" America First Committee, to the conservative movement of the fifties and early sixties, to the New Left of the mid-sixties, and then on to the Libertarian Party and the post-Cold War return to his Old Right roots. Rothbard was that interesting combination, an intellectual system-builder and theorist who was also an intellectual street fighter, a scholar, and a man of action. Anyone interested in the history of ideas, whether or not they agree with Rothbard's ideology, is bound to be captivated by and drawn into the story of his fascinating life.

Genres: Biography, Politics, History, Economics

402 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2000

About the author

Justin Raimondo was an American author and former editorial director and co-founder of Antiwar.com.

Reviews

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[Bartosz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jak na biografię jest lekko chaotyczna, mimo, że opowiada o postaci z czasów bardzo nam bliskich. Cała książka waha się pomiędzy zbiorem anegdot i opowiastek z życia Rothbarda (które bardzo cenię), a wykładem o jego miejscu w szeregu ekonomistów i filozofów. Mimo wszystko nie mam do tego żadnego problemu. Dodatkowy plus za ukazanie czytelnikom jaką sektą w dosłownym tego słowa znaczeniu było środowisko randystów.

Ogólnie 5/5. Cieszę się, że jest na polskim rynku biografia Rothbarda, choć mam nieodparte wrażenie, że książka mogłaby być o wiele grubsza.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A FASCINATING, WONDERFULLY-INFORMATIVE BIOGRAPHY

Rothbard was (as I'm sure you already know) an anarcho-capitalist, a foremost American exponent of Austrian economics, as well as "Mr. Libertarian" in the Libertarian movement.

The author states in the Introduction to this 2000 book that "I hope, in what is little more than an extended biographical sketch, to capture the essential Rothbard, not only his ideas but also his personality and some sense of his historical significance. To those readers unfamiliar with the man and his works, this book is meant as a doorway to discovering the most important and interesting development in the modern history of ideas: the Rothbardian system or paradigm of pure liberty." (Pg. 19)

Rothbard was A "night owl" who never rose before noon; he was "4-F" in WWII (pg. 37), but entered the nascent free market movement through reading non-interventionist books (pg. 41, 46-47). A mixture of agnosticism and Reform Judaism (pg. 67), he married a Gentile (pg. 62), and was falsely said to have converted to Roman Catholicism at the end of his life (pg. 325-326).

He actually endorsed Adlai Stevenson for President, and worked for his campaign (pg. 80-81, 105). He was briefly associated with Buckley's National Review (pg. 99), and was for a time part of Any Rand's inner circle (pg. 109-113). He admitted that "Almost all of the young people drawn to libertarianism in the 1960s and early 1970s came through the Randian movement." (Pg. 131) He was the one who named the Cato Institute (pg. 218).

The book details at some length the Libertarian Party Presidential candidate squabbles during the Roger MacBride-Ed Clark-David Bergland-Ron Paul era, which "reduced the membership of the Libertarian Party by at least half and destroyed it as an effective political force." (Pg. 240) Ultimately, Rothbard resigned from the party (pg. 268), and devoted his attention to Lew Rockwell's Ludwig von Mises Institute (pg. 260).

This book is a marvelous history (not available anywhere else; at least in book form) of the Libertarian movement; 'Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement' is another book that would be of great interest to those interested in Rothbard and Libertarianism.
 

[Nicolas S Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rank hagiography.