Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 339.

Below is the video of the speech by Professor Anxo Bastos at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026), “Rothbard’s Contributions to the Austrian School.” See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist. Transcript and summary below. The speech and youtube video are in Portuguese and Spanish (I think). This podcast episode features an AI narration of the English translation (below), prepared by Jorge Besada.

See Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account. See also Miguel Anxo Bastos Boubeta, Nation, Secession, and Freedom (pp 27–35), in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume II, David Howden and Philipp Bagus, eds. (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer, 2023).

Summary of Bastos’ Talk on Murray Rothbard’s Contributions to Economic Theory

In his speech at the 100th anniversary event for Murray Rothbard organized by the Mixos Institute in Portugal, speaker Bastos highlights three major contributions by Rothbard to Austrian economics, with a fourth overarching insight as the most important.

Rothbard uniquely brought history back to the center of economics, rejecting the modern view of economics as a natural science detached from historical context. He produced a major (unfinished) two-volume History of Economic Thought and applied Austrian business cycle theory to real historical events, most notably in America’s Great Depression and Conceived in Liberty. Bastos emphasizes that pure theory needs historical illustration and examples to be effective, and that Rothbard’s approach allows for “intellectual archaeology” — recovering forgotten thinkers and placing them in the Austrian tradition. He notes that few Austrians today follow this historical emphasis.

Rothbard’s analysis of monopoly is transformative. True monopolies and monopoly pricing arise primarily from state intervention (patents, licenses, regulations, barriers to entry), not from the free market. Bastos stresses that every firm is a “monopolist” of its own services, but genuine market monopolies require government backing. He criticizes “methodological nationalism” (analyzing markets only within state borders) and gives examples like telecom cartels that persist due to state protection rather than natural market forces. This ties directly into Rothbard’s broader critique of intellectual property and state-granted privileges.

Rothbard extended the famous Misesian socialist calculation debate beyond socialism to partial socialism (public policies, infrastructure, education) and even to large private organizations and firms. Large entities suffer from internal calculation problems (especially transfer pricing), which explains why companies and empires eventually fail or stagnate. Bastos notes that firms often only survive at massive scale due to state subsidies, patents, and privileges. Without such support, capitalist firms would not grow into the “enormous octopuses” often criticized by the left.

Bastos argues that Rothbard’s deepest insight is that economics is not the most important thing for libertarians. The core issue is opposition to war, which he sees as the ultimate and most comprehensive form of state intervention. War synthesizes all statist mechanisms: taxation, inflation, price controls, conscription, regulation, and the growth of the state itself. Rothbard understood war (and the military-industrial complex) as organized crime at the heart of statism. Many modern libertarians, coming from an economics background, focus too narrowly on markets and privatization while underappreciating this anti-war core.

Overall Message: Rothbard was not just an economist but a radical thinker who integrated history, power analysis, and a profound anti-statism. Bastos urges the audience to follow Rothbard more fully by studying history, rejecting state-enabled monopolies and calculation failures, and recognizing war as the central enemy of liberty. The talk ends with applause.

The presentation is passionate, personal (Bastos credits Rothbard’s works with deeply influencing his worldview), and aimed at encouraging deeper engagement with Rothbard’s ideas beyond surface-level economics.

Rothbard Porto: Miguel Anxo Bastos: Beegarc AI watercolor rendering

Introduction and Thanks (0:06) Good afternoon.

I want to thank the Mises Institute in Portugal for the kindness of Mr. Adrián Antonio, for inviting me to speak in the company of such illustrious personalities, on the 100th anniversary of Murray Rothbard.

They told me, “Why don’t you talk a bit about the main contributions of Rothbard to economic theory?” My colleagues have spoken about ideas and other things, so let’s talk a bit about the main contributions to Austrian economic theory. What contributions does he have? Well, in principle, we could say many things, and it’s logical.

In general, someone who works within a school makes few contributions because they continue within that school, within a tradition, so they contribute little. Rothbard did make some. I am going to highlight three, and then the last one is for me the main one of the three.

First Contribution: Reintegrating History into Economic Thought (1:24) First, look, I’ve been listening to several conversations; they talk a lot about Rothbard’s thought, but Rothbard has a peculiarity. He brings history back into economic thought. History.

The modern economist thinks that economics is like a natural science, like physics or biology, right? So there is no history. The only thing that counts is what is happening today, nothing more. All of history is left for the scholars, for the studies, but history doesn’t count. Rothbard says no. Economics is not a natural science; it is a social science, a human science. Therefore, history remains relevant.

And how does he show this? First, by studying the history of economic thought. His posthumous work, his great posthumous work, was a history of economic thought, which remained unfinished, incomplete, but it is a history of economic thought in two very thick volumes, almost 1,000 pages, which unfortunately did not have a successor. No one continued the task. What historians of ideas do we have now? None, because we continue to see it as something minor. “Those are the historians; we are people of science,” right? And he demonstrated that this is not the case.

The important thing is to have a good history of economic thought from the Austrian perspective. From the Austrian perspective, he shed new light on how to work. In one of his last works, he shed new light on the history of thought and began to recover it. When I read that book, it was one of the ones that most influenced my life. It may be very erudite and have flaws, yes, but he looked at authors that I saw with different eyes. He taught me to see them from a different perspective. He taught me to recover, to do intellectual archaeology, to recover old forgotten authors and place them within the Austrian tradition. That is one of his contributions.

But careful—not only the history of thought (I repeat, there are no continuators except for some works; there is no continuity). None of us like to study the history of economic thought. From our own circles, we are sometimes with scraps of things that he also cites, but we have not studied it.

But he not only studied the history of thought; he also studied economic history. Here I haven’t seen his book America’s Great Depression cited, for example, which is another book that impacted me a lot in my way of seeing the world. Why? Because he takes Austrian business cycle theory first and then applies it to the case, illustrating a crisis from the Austrian point of view. He studies everything that happened according to the theory of cycles from Mises and his successors.

His Conceived in Liberty, which is also a history of the United States—he liked history. He did not despise history as lesser knowledge; rather, it was at the very core of his thought, at the core of his ideas, and he wanted to introduce it because otherwise pure theory, without examples, often doesn’t work well.

This is a very good book called Theory and History. It is also not one of the most cited in old academia, but it is one of the ones I like the most, and it also talks about this. That is, economics is indeed theoretical, but it must be illustrated with examples. Otherwise, in the abstract, it doesn’t sit well. We must apply what we know from theory to these things. And this is Rothbard’s first contribution. A contribution that was not followed much in many cases. We don’t follow it. We are not a science; we are something very elevated; we don’t have time to waste with history. Well, yes—history was very relevant for him, and it is very relevant for anyone who wants to follow him. As was said before, one must take history into account, study history, and incorporate history into one’s analyses. I don’t know if theory and history are distinct, but why not see history with…

I know few cases. In Spain, unfortunately a historian died recently who did apply it—Antiguet—who applied history to Rothbard’s ideas and applied it to the history of the Spanish Empire. How everything changes! How everything changes when you look at heroic kings, kings who conquered—I suppose it was similar in Portugal, right? A rich navigator [laughter], right? Then he says no, it was a band of thieves [laughter] who debased the currency, devalued everything there was, issued inflationary paper, and did all sorts of things—they embezzled, they were basically war entrepreneurs. Everything they wanted was to get money to finance their wars, those great kings of Spain. How the story changes if we apply Rothbard’s theory! He was one of the few I know. If anyone knows someone else, I’m interested, because few that I know applied the theory to the real economy of the time. Because we are used to it—the kings spent, everything—but he explained how they did it. And careful, it is not exclusive to the kings of Spain; it is true of all kings of the era. It is nothing new, but how the story we were told changes when seen through Rothbard’s economic theory. So that is the first contribution.

Second Contribution: The Theory of Monopoly (7:35) The second one was already cited before—Mr. Gómez spoke about it—the theory of monopoly, which is a theory that also altered me a lot. In Spanish, it was published in the journal Shad when nothing had been translated yet; it was the only thing available translated from Rothbard. So it was the only one I could get. It impacted me a lot also through monopoly. Indeed, because every monopolist company—careful, we are all monopolists of ourselves.

So the theory of monopoly collapses in that aspect, but careful—when Rothbard explains the monopoly price, he explains it very well by saying the state is a monopoly and wants all institutions to be like it, in its image and likeness. So the state is what creates the monopoly, not the monopoly understood economically, not the monopoly in the basic sense. If there is a monopoly price, it is because there is a state behind it.

The defenders of monopoly think that everyone is like them and that the market is the same as them, but if there is a monopoly price, if there is a single company in a place, first—in what place? We always talk about a monopoly within a state. What the old Martín, the Portuguese professor, called methodological nationalism—that all economic events, all social events have to be seen in national terms, in state terms. So, sure, a monopoly, but a monopoly of where? Where? A monopoly in Portugal, yes, but if I go to Vigo, I already break the monopoly. Or when things are expensive in Vigo, I go to Valencia or Viana do Castelo to buy. So where was the monopoly broken?

The telephone monopoly, the telephone cartel. I repeat, I live very close to Portugal. And I say, why in Spain can there be a telephone cartel that sets prices, they talk among themselves and set prices, monopoly prices above the market to suck [blood] from the workers, right? But I say, why, for example, doesn’t someone come from Portugal, install poles, and already arrive in the city and break the monopoly? Who doesn’t let Telefónica come to Portugal? Or the Spanish state, which doesn’t let new companies from outside come, who puts limits, regulations, or licenses so that foreign companies come? The states, right? Who grants patents, for example, as Professor Kinsella likes so much? Who grants patents that pillar the free market, or do the states grant them? So if there are monopolies, if there are licenses, it is basically an invention, either because the monopoly is given at the state level or because the state prevents other companies from entering the competition, right?

And there we have the second point. The whole theory of monopoly turns around what refers, for example, to all intellectual property, all licenses, permits. That is another big point of Rothbard.

Third Contribution: The Economic Calculation Debate and Its Extensions (11:10) The third is the calculation, which is also not talked about much. And it is one of the points that for me is most interesting and that can be most developed from Rothbardian thought.

The calculation debate, as we know, is one of the fundamental principles of the Austrian school, where the Austrian school was founded. I am not referring to the Mises-Hayek debate on the possibility or not of a socialist economy—a debate from the 1920s that Mises later developed in his book Socialism and in other works. Mises and Rothbard are also on the topic, and it has tremendous potential. Yes, sir. Look, calculation is not only applied to socialism; calculation can also be applied to companies.

Calculation can also be applied to public policies. What is a public policy, for example? A justice policy, a policy of infrastructure, public works, highways or roads, right? Or any other educational policy, for example. They are partial socialisms in the sense that there are areas of social life that are explained or provided in a socialist way. Careful—the calculation debate also applies to them. Not in the same way as a total socialist economy, because there are some price references, but yes—for example, how much does a teacher cost, where to locate a classroom, the road—how many lanes does it have to have? What quality does the road have to be, from where to where does the highway have to go or not, how many locomotives does it have to have? How many wagons? These are political decisions, not economic decisions, and in the end they fail.

But careful, I am especially interested in the debate on economic calculation in companies, because he also says that companies, organizations, beyond a certain point, also fail, they also calculate badly, especially due to the problem called transfer pricing—internal prices within an organization—and the larger it is, the worse it calculates.

This is a super interesting topic, also empires, sizes, the size of organizations. And this is a very interesting topic because it has tremendous potential for development because it explains why many organizations fail, why the average life of a company is getting shorter, of a large company. I mean, it is now lasting like 40 years. It explains why few companies fail while in their prime. Who remembers IBM? Kodak? They were all-powerful—what became of them and what are the ones now? They fail and he explains it. Look, there comes a point, and why do they surpass that point? That is, they surpass that point many times because they are supported by the state.

The state subsidizes large corporations, whether legally, with patents, with privileges of another style. But basically even [laughter] sometimes states make war for the organizations. And I say, if they can maintain that size and survive, it is because the state allows it, because the state subsidizes those companies. Otherwise, the size of companies—many times people think capitalist companies are like enormous octopuses [laughter] that suck everything. They are not like that; they are so big because someone defends them with weapons behind them and with taxes behind them. That is the difference.

The Central Contribution: War as the Synthesis of Statist Intervention (14:47) But lastly, before finishing, what crowns the door of Rothbardian economic theory is that economics is not everything, as was well said before. For the libertarian, economics is not the main thing. Many modern libertarians are libertarians only in the economic sphere. I don’t blame them, eh? Because the way, the education of many libertarians comes from the field of economics. So they normally tend to analyze all phenomena in economic terms, and I think that can be a problem because they think that basically with private mail, or with the privatization of whatever, that’s it. It’s not that. It’s not that. And the first thing is not stealing. The main thing is war.

Because war synthesizes everything. The opposition to war that many, many of us—I repeat—do not understand. Perhaps because Rothbard writes from a North American perspective, from a country that is imperialist, that gets involved in many wars, and many of us come from countries that, thank God, have not gotten involved in many messes or do not have experience of recent empires, or therefore we do not understand the importance of this. But Rothbard understood it, and moreover, war is the total synthesis of what capitalist thought is.

Because in war, war is the greatest of all interventions. The old one, when he spoke of war and state-building as organized crime—not rare to see if they pay attention to him. The war is the origin of the state, the state is the origin of war too, but at the same time all the fiscal mechanisms—from taxes, from all the inflations, devaluations, all that, all the price regulations, confiscations, everything, everything, everything comes from war.

So the Austrian has to understand this because normally the majority of these things are either in the name of war or some type of war is sought to justify them. Look at the rhetoric of politics: war on poverty, war on drugs, war on whatever occurs to them that seems warlike language to them, because with war you can suspend freedoms, with war you can requisition goods, with war you can intervene in this, but then war also explains to us how states work, what the logic of a state is.

Simply, the people who say simply that they are owners of their persons, of their lives, and of their properties. They say to the lords, all war has to be fought for whatever, right? Then it takes and recruits all these things. It is a complete synthesis of all this, of all traditional anarchist thought, explaining what war is like; you see clearly how it works in a war.

So that synthesis of war as the synthesis of all statist intervention is Rothbard’s main economic contribution, in the sense that economics is not everything.

Thank you very much. [applause]

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 338.

Below is the video and text of the speech by PFS member Fernando Chiocca of Instituto Rothbard (Brazil/Brasil) at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026): “Rothbardianism at Rothbard’s Centenary.”1 See also Chiocca’s Prezi presentation. The speech and youtube video are in Brazilian Portuguese. This podcast episode features an AI narration of the English translation, prepared by Jorge Besada.

See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist. For further information, photos, and so on, see Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account.

Fernando Chiocca’s speech “Rothbardianism at Rothbard’s Centenary,” delivered at the 100 Years with Rothbard event in Porto, Portugal (June 27, 2026), assesses the libertarian movement’s limited practical achievements after 60–70 years and defines the core requirements of true Rothbardianism while diagnosing a crisis within it.

Chiocca contrasts the libertarian movement’s lack of concrete success—no free society or significant reduction in state power—with the faster results of 19th-century British abolitionism and early 20th-century Marxism. He notes that most people do not desire freedom and that secessionist experiments (such as Liberland, which has drawn input from Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Stephan Kinsella, and Alessandro Fusillo) offer more realistic near-term hope than attempts to reform large states. On Rothbard’s centenary, the movement also faces internal betrayal of his legacy even as his ideas have grown in popularity among genuine adherents.

True Rothbardianism, he argues, requires more than Austrian economics. It demands Misesian praxeology (economics as an axiomatic, logical-deductive science), consistent anarcho-capitalism (rejecting the state monopoly on security and justice that Mises retained), a passionate abolitionist hatred of the state, cultural conservatism as a sociological precondition for liberty, historical revisionism that distrusts official narratives, and uncompromising anti-war principles rooted in opposition to aggression. Disagreements on secondary issues (such as intellectual property refinements by Kinsella, democracy, or abortion) are compatible with remaining Rothbardian; core positions are not.

Chiocca identifies Javier Milei as the leading false Rothbardian: not a consistent praxeologist, not an abolitionist (he preserved and strengthened Argentina’s central bank), not a revisionist (he celebrates Churchill and mainstream narratives), and not anti-war (he strongly supports U.S./Israeli actions in Ukraine, Gaza, and against Iran). Recent “tests” of Covid restrictions, the Ukraine war, and Israel/Gaza further sorted genuine from false adherents; Walter Block and certain institutions failed the Israel test. The resulting institutional crisis centers on the Mises Institute, which Chiocca criticizes for platforming Milei apologists such as Jesús Huerta de Soto, sidelining Hoppe, and drifting from radical Rothbardianism toward more moderate liberalism. He presents the Property and Freedom Society and the Brazilian Instituto Rothbard as remaining faithful sources and views Hoppe as the principal intellectual heir and beacon for authentic Austro-libertarian Rothbardianism.

***

Editor’s note: in the text below, Chiocca write:

And the third test, Israel, Milei failed spectacularly. And although most libertarians passed, this test also failed one of the, until then, greatest libertarians in the world: Walter Block. Block was considered by many to be among the three greatest Rothbardians, alongside Lew Rockwell and Hoppe, and he passed the first two tests with merit.

Block was actually terrible on Covid-related issues. In his spoken remarks, Chiocca in fact added a caveat at this part saying that Block was not so good on Covid as well, and saying that he took some strange stances. See Stephan Kinsella, “A Tour Through Walter Block’s Oeuvre,” in Walter Block – Anarcho-Capitalist Austro-Libertarian, Elvira Nica and Gheorghe H. Popescu, eds. (Addleton Academic Publishers, 2025):

This article is not a comprehensive overview of all of Walter’s publications, and does not include mention or criticism of his pro-covid lockdown writing2, his more recent Israel-Gaza related publications,3 or his pro-Milei views.4 As noted above, this is one reason I had withdrawn this piece from the volume, as I agree with Tucker (and Hoppe) on the covid/infectious disease lockdown issue, with Hoppe on Israel-Gaza issues, and also with Hoppe on Milei issues.

The President of Argentina, Javier Milei, has declared that modern-day Israel gave birth to Western civilization.

He says Israel is the last wall protecting Western civilization, and that if Israel falls, the rest of Western civilization will fall with it.

Milei is placing… pic.twitter.com/kyKaTfO5cl

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) July 1, 2026

***

by Fernando Chiocca

100 Years with Rothbard • Porto, Portugal • June 27, 2026

[Google translation]

Thank you Manuel for the invitation and for making this event happen.

The Communist Manifesto was published on February 21, 1848. 69 years later, the Marxist Bolsheviks, most of whom weren’t even truly Russian – 85% of them were Jewish – would seize power in Russia through a coup d’état. The Marxist movement gained power over seven decades.

The abolitionist movement took shape in the United Kingdom among Christian religious groups. The Quakers were the main founders of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1787, 20 years later, in 1807, they succeeded in ending the British slave trade. And in 1833, 46 years after the founding of this abolitionist society, the end of slavery throughout the British Empire would be achieved.

In 2014, Stephan Kinsella gave a lecture titled “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?” where he estimated that the libertarian movement began 50 to 60 years earlier.5 So today, in 2026, on Rothbard’s centenary, the libertarian movement would be between 60 and 70 years old. And before that, 80 years ago, Leonard Reed had founded the Foundation for Economic Education, which even helped publish Mises’s Human Action.

It goes without saying that, compared to the other two movements mentioned, the libertarian movement, in terms of practical results, has failed.

British abolitionists wanted the abolition of slavery and, within a few decades, succeeded in having slavery abolished throughout the British Empire. The libertarian movement, formed by minarchists and anarcho-capitalists, advocated for a minimal state or the abolition of the state. Therefore, if it had had the same success as the anti-slavery movement, the large state, outside of its functions of protection and justice, would have already been abolished at least throughout the American Empire – which is where the libertarian movement originated. Compare the founding of the Abolitionist Society, which 46 years later abolished slavery in the Empire, and the founding of the FEE, Foundation for Economic Education, in 1946, 80 years ago: the American Empire is even further behind than before the minarchism they advocated… it has only gone backward… the state has only grown.

We’ve reached six or seven decades of the movement, and 100 years since Rothbard, without many “practical results” to show for it; we only have a false libertarian who became president of a country in South America, and did nothing to end or diminish the state… on the contrary, he increased the state.  (I’ll give details about this later.)

I think only the most naive libertarians want to “ change the world ,” because the rest of us just want to be left in peace, in our corner. That’s why secession is our main political banner. But we haven’t yet achieved a free society anywhere on the planet. And we didn’t even need a large country, since there aren’t many millions of libertarians in the world. Most people reject the product we’re offering. They don’t want freedom. They want a leader. They want security, stability. They want to be bossed around… they prefer to remain slaves. Or whatever it is they want.

So, just a small territory would be good to start with. We have many libertarian projects, such as Seasteading, Free Cities, and the Free State Project in New Hampshire. And among these projects, there is a promising attempt underway on a small river island between Croatia and Serbia, Liberland. Liberland has counted on the collaboration of three of the greatest Rothbardian Austro-libertarians in the world today, who are present here today:  Kinsella ,  Alessandro Fusillo , and Hoppe. These three, on December 19th of last year, were at a  Liberland event  where they lectured and discussed its constitution. If this project becomes viable, taking into account the advice of these three masters, we will have something practical of value to show in the future.

But that’s not what’s happening now.

If he were alive, Rothbard would celebrate his 100th birthday by seeing the libertarian movement far behind the abolitionist and communist movements in achieving their goals. And that’s not all. He would also witness on his birthday a major crisis within Rothbardianism, with institutions and individuals betraying his legacy.

But of course, he certainly had much to celebrate. His ideas have grown enormously in popularity, with people and institutions doing justice to his legacy (the main ones gathered here today in this celebration). So, I want to talk about who the true and false Rothbardians are, and for that, we need to understand what it means to be a Rothbardian.

Rothbard was an Austrian economist, but being an Austrian economist doesn’t mean being a Rothbardian. In economics, Rothbard was a Misesian. Therefore, to be a Rothbardian, one must be a Misesian, that is, understand economic science as a branch of praxeology. Economics is an axiomatic, logical-deductive science. This means that its propositions have the same status as the axioms from which they are derived, that is, they are irrefutable. This is, for example, quite different from being a Hayekian. Hayek was a Wieserian influenced by Popper who disregarded praxeology.

Rothbard was the foremost and greatest economist after Mises. But Rothbard was not just an economist. Therefore, being merely a praxeologist does not mean being a Rothbardian. Rothbard was a polymath, with profound knowledge in various sciences, but Rothbardianism is characterized by Rothbardian ethics, and the implications of this ethics in his political philosophy.

In this respect, Rothbard departs from Mises. Rothbard is not a Misesian in ethics and political philosophy, only in economics. So, being a complete Misesian is different from being a complete Rothbardian. And when I say “complete” or “true,” it’s good to clarify that being a Rothbardian doesn’t mean agreeing with everything Rothbard said about everything. We are not part of a cult. True, or complete, Rothbardians disagree with Rothbard on some points. For example, Kinsella disagreed with Rothbard on some approaches to intellectual property. He corrected and developed them, using the Rothbardian framework, and we can say that Rothbardians today are Kinsellians on intellectual property. Another example: Hoppe disagreed with Rothbard on his positive view of Democracy as an evolution, and we can also say that Rothbardians today are Hoppeans regarding democracy. Another point… Most Rothbardians disagree with Rothbard’s position on abortion, but that doesn’t make them any less Rothbardians.

But there are issues on which it is impossible to disagree with Rothbard and remain a Rothbardian, as they are contrary to the Rothbardian essence. Therefore, Mises is not a Rothbardian, and Rothbard is not a Misesian, because Mises was not an anarcho-capitalist. Mises, like all liberals, was a walking contradiction. The contradiction of Mises that Rothbard freed himself from, and freed us from, was that of “ attacking monopolies but at the same time defending monopolies .” Mises concluded that monopolies are bad. That everything provided through monopolies is more expensive and of lower quality than it would be if provided by the free market environment. But he defended the monopolistic provision of justice and security services by the state.

Rothbard, like Gustave de Molinari before him, overcame this contradiction and defended the private production of security and justice! So, we can say that the complete Rothbardian is an anarcho-capitalist praxeologist… But Rothbard was not only that, and being a true Rothbardian requires more than that.

To be a Rothbardian means to have a passion for justice. But passion and hatred go hand in hand. So it is also necessary to hate injustice. Rothbard made this clear in his article “ Do You Hate the State? ” There he compares himself to another anarcho-capitalist, David Friedman. Friedman makes a cold analysis and concludes that a stateless society would be superior to one with a state… Not that the state is particularly bad. Just that there is a better alternative. He doesn’t hate the most criminal and murderous institution in history. He shows no feeling towards the endless list of injustices perpetrated by him. At this point Rothbard says he prefers minarchists, who demonstrate a hatred of the state, to indifferent anarcho-capitalists.

To be considered a true Rothbardian, one must hate the state and want to end it as quickly as possible. In his book  The Ethics of Liberty , Rothbard wrote:

The libertarian must be possessed of a passion for justice, an emotion derived from and channeled by his rational insight into what natural justice requires. Justice, not the weak reed of mere utility, must be the motivating force if liberty is to be attained; … (and) this means that the libertarian must be an “abolitionist,” ie, he must wish to achieve the goal of liberty as rapidly as possible…. [He] should be an abolitionist who would, if he could, instantly abolish all invasions of liberty

Rothbard also believed that libertarianism alone would not be sufficient to achieve and maintain a free society, and he considered cultural conservatism to be a sociological presupposition of libertarianism.

Furthermore, another fundamental characteristic of a Rothbardian is historical revisionism. In the talk “Coming of Age with Murray,” Hoppe recounts that one of the two main lessons he learned in the 10 years he spent daily with Rothbard was to be a revisionist. He said:

Furthermore, in our countless conversations, I learned from Murray about the importance of complementing Austro-libertarian theory with revisionist history in order to come up with a truly realistic assessment of historical events and global affairs. …But above all it was Murray, who taught me never to trust official history, invariably written by the victors, but to conduct all historical research instead like a detective investigating a crime.

So to speak…

And lastly, but no less important, a Rothbardian must be anti-war. Opposition to war was the fundamental piece in the formation of Rothbard’s philosophy, which began in the American Old Right. The American Old Right was a group that united against the New Deal and against the US entry into World War II. The issue of war was so important to Rothbard that he, later in life, even attempted an alliance with the Left, solely because of their opposition to the Vietnam War. But above all, Rothbard’s opposition to war stemmed from his opposition to aggression. And war is the ultimate aggression. It involves increased state interference in the economy and large-scale murder and destruction of property.

So, to recap, the complete and true Rothbardian must be:

This is the basic Rothbardian kit.

So, what do we have of true and false Rothbardianism today, on the centenary of Rothbard’s birth?

First, let’s talk about the first president elected in history who calls himself a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist, Javier Milei. Milei is not a praxeologist. His economic discourse is heavily based on statistics, and he does not reject the positivist economic schools which, epistemologically, are diametrically opposed. opposed to the Austrian School. Milei’s intellectual confusion could already be seen in the names he gave to his 4 Cloned dogs: Murray, Milton, Robert, and Lucas. He mixed positivists with Austrians, which are actually incompatible. And a guy who considers Ben Bernanke one of the best economists in history and says he saved the world! can never be considered an Austrian.

Milei is clearly not an abolitionist, since he received the mandate from the ballot box to abolish the main source of money, and power, of the state, the central bank, and he did not do so. On the contrary, he saved Argentina’s central bank!

Milei is not a historical revisionist; on the contrary, he swallows all mainstream history to the point of considering the  villain Churchill  as his great hero.

And worst of all, Milei is not anti-war, quite the opposite. While Rothbard identified only two just wars in history (the secession of the 13 American colonies and the attempted secession of the South), Milei considers all wars of the American Empire just. He most vehemently supported the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza, and the current US-Israeli war against Iran.

Milei is the archetype of the false Rothbardian. And although many Americans don’t pay him any attention, denouncing the fraud that is Milei is one of the most important missions in this Rothbard centenary period. That’s why one of the greatest champions of Rothbardianism today is a Paraguayan musician named Oscar Grau, who has dedicated much of his energy to combating not only the Milei farce but also its apologists within the Austro-libertarian movement, such as Phillip Bagus and Jesús Huerta de Soto.

And besides these two propagandists, there are others who may not be considered Milei followers, but whose positions regarding Milei and his propagandists reveal their true priorities. Milei is currently at the center of an institutional crisis that is shaking Rothbardianism in the centenary of Rothbard’s birth.

In recent years, we’ve had three issues that served as Rothbardian tests for individuals and institutions: Covid, Ukraine, and Israel. Most passed the first test. When the globalist alarmism surrounding the Covid pandemic began, virtually all Rothbardians and libertarian institutions raised their voices to oppose this tyranny being imposed on humanity: LewRockwell.com, Mises Institute, Ron Paul Institute, Libertarian Institute, Future of Freedom Foundation, American Institute for Economic Research, FEE… Only institutions we already knew weren’t libertarian remained silent or sided with the tyranny… such as Reason and Mises Brazil, which advocated for staying home, vaccines, and even sold masks. The mask issue is interesting because, for me, it was the first sign that something was very wrong with Milei. At the time, I followed Milei ‘s social media, and he was campaigning for Congress. Campaigning in the streets, outdoors, he appeared wearing a mask all the time. The thing is, almost no one around him was wearing a mask. So it wasn’t even an obligation. He truly believed in it. An absolutely ridiculous measure that anyone could discover in 5 minutes of research is a thousand times larger than the virus. But there he was, every day displaying this symbol of the fear induced by the Covid dictatorship. I couldn’t stand it and I stopped following him. I unfollowed him. Then I ended up letting it go… saying “okay, he’s not a true libertarian. But he’s someone who’s out there saying that taxes are theft and that he’s going to abolish the central bank, etc… ”

But Milei was never in favor of mandatory masks, nor mandatory vaccination. He was against lockdowns, published a book defending individual liberties during the pandemic… so I’d say he passed that test. Not with merit. He also said a lot of nonsense.

The war in Ukraine was another test that most libertarians passed, and in this one, Milei failed. In Brazil, there was one of the few who also failed, a YouTuber who calls himself an ancap, and who, because of his popularity, diverted many potential Rothbardians away from Rothbardianism.

And the third test, Israel, Milei failed spectacularly. And although most libertarians passed, this test also failed one of the, until then, greatest libertarians in the world: Walter Block. Block was considered by many to be among the three greatest Rothbardians, alongside Lew Rockwell and Hoppe, and he passed the first two tests with merit. He did very well with the articles he wrote about Ukraine, and he did relatively well on Covid, too. He spouted some nonsense, but he did well.6 But his perverse position in favor of Israel and its wars revealed that he is neither a Rothbardian nor even a libertarian. It showed that he never ceased to be a genocidal collectivist Randian.

Of course, defending Israel’s monstrosity in Gaza is absolutely incompatible with Rothbardianism, but institutions and people who did not oppose or simply remained silent in the face of the Gaza genocide also simply cannot be considered Rothbardian. But what about those who do not oppose those who actively defend Israel’s atrocities? (like Block and Milei ) How does this affect the degree of Rothbardianism?

So I would say that Block and Milei—Milei especially—represent the fourth Rothbardian test that predated this centenary period.

This brings us to the main institutional crisis in Rothbard’s centenary year. A crisis within the institute he founded and served as academic director until his death, and which was the cornerstone of Rothbardianism worldwide: the Mises Institute.

By becoming a propagandist for Milei, Jesús Huerta de Soto not only betrayed Rothbardianism, but also his Catholicism, by supporting an agent of Chabad-Lubavitch, a Jewish sect that hates Christ. Judaism itself is already a cult based on hatred of Jesus. Chabad is even worse. But the institutional crisis in question came to light when this apologist for Milei was invited to speak at this year’s Austrian Scholars Conference. Following this invitation, Hoppe published the commemorative book for Rothbard’s centenary, with a highly critical introduction to Milei. Apparently, so as not to displease the guest of honor at his conference, the Mises Institute refused to publicize the book and publish the introduction.

Then Huerta de Soto gave his lecture, in which he called Milei the greatest Austro-libertarian hero of all time, and was applauded. The funny thing is that he considers Milei a hero for something that is actually the greatest tragedy of the Milei phenomenon, which is that he drew the attention of a huge audience to Austro-libertarian ideas. But this is terrible, because now this audience associates libertarianism and the Austrian School with Zionism, inflationism, wars, censorship, genocide, and all the other imbecility that Milei has been defending and practicing. The Austrian School is having its reputation tarnished by this fraud. And perhaps we have already lost the term “libertarianism” forever. Perhaps we need a new name.

After that, Hoppe published an article, “Mises Institute: Quo vadis?” , and revealed what lay behind the entire institutional crisis that culminated in this dark moment for Rothbardianism. He exposed a system of incentives and conflicts of interest within the institution involving over $70 million. This went a long way toward explaining why the institute cast Rothbardianism aside and embraced the apologists for a monumental fraud. Quo vadis?—where is it headed?—was the question. And the Mises Institute has already gone somewhere. Where to?

Away from Rothbardianism. It expelled Hoppe and remained with Milei ‘s apologists. It distanced himself from intransigent radicalism and has promoted classical liberals and Hayekians. It still has good collaborators and good content, but it is no longer a reliable source for Rothbardians. Now it is necessary to filter this content to avoid consuming impurities. Or poisons! The position of reliable source is being filled by the PFS blog and journal. And at the Rothbard Institute, we try to be faithful to Rothbard’s legacy, giving exclusivity to praxeology and anarcho-capitalism, publishing a lot of revisionist and culturally conservative content. And we are always fighting against war. It’s one of the most frequent themes there.

Well, we’ll soon have Hoppe’s first lecture since the eruption of this crisis and his break with the Mises Institute, and we may get a glimpse of the current state and future of Rothbardianism in the world. Hoppe is not only Rothbard’s main intellectual heir, but he has also assumed the role of beacon of Austro-libertarianism. Rothbardian. All of this makes this Mises Portugal event a historic occasion of the utmost importance, and I thank you once again for the opportunity to be here and to have been able to make this humble contribution.

Thank you.

***

[Original Brazilian Portuguese]

Obrigado Manuel pelo convite e por ter concretizado este evento.

O Manifesto Comunista foi publicado em 21 de fevereiro de 1848.  69 anos depois, os bolcheviques marxistas, que na maioria nem eram realmente russos – 85% deles eram judeus – tomariam o poder na Rússia através de um golpe de estado.  O movimento marxista conquistou um poder em 7 décadas.

O movimento abolicionista ganharia forma no Reino Unido entre religiosos cristãos.  Os Quakers seriam os principais fundadores da Sociedade para Efetuar a Abolição do Comércio de Escravos em 1787. 20 anos depois, em 1807 eles conseguiram acabar com o comércio britânico de escravos.  E em 1833, 46 anos depois da fundação dessa sociedade abolicionista, o fim da escravidão em todo o Império Britânico seria alcançado.

Em 2014, o Stephan Kinsella deu uma palestra com o título “Libertarianismo após cinquenta anos: O que aprendemos?” onde ele estimou que o início do movimento libertário havia sido 50 a 60 anos antes.  Então hoje, em 2026, no centenário de Rothbard, o movimento libertário teria entre 60 e 70 anos.  E antes disso, há 80 anos, Leonard Read havia fundado a Foundation for Economic Education.

Não preciso nem dizer que em comparação com esses outros dois movimentos citados, o movimento libertário, em termos de resultados práticos, fracassou.

Os abolicionistas britânicos queriam a abolição da escravidão e conseguiram, em poucas décadas, que a escravidão fosse abolida em todo o império britânico.  O movimento libertário, formado por minarquistas e anarcocapitalistas, pregou o estado mínimo ou a abolição do estado.  Então, se tivesse o mesmo sucesso dos antiescravagistas, o estado grande, fora das funções de proteção e justiça, já teria sido abolido ao menos em todo o império americano – que é onde o movimento libertário surgiu.  Comparem a fundação da Sociedade Abolicionista, que 46 anos depois aboliu a escravidão no Império, e a fundação da FEE, Foundation for Economic Education, fundada em 1946, 80 anos atrás: o Império Americano está ainda mais longe do que antes do minarquismo que eles defendiam. . .  só foi pra trás. . . o estado só cresceu.

Chegamos às 6/7 décadas de movimento, e 100 anos de Rothbard, sem muitos “resultados práticos” para mostrar; temos apenas com um falso libertário que se tornou presidente de um país na América do Sul, e não fez nada para acabar ou diminuir o estado. . .  ao contrário, ele aumentou o estado.  (Vou dar detalhes sobre isso mais pra frente)

Acho que só os libertários mais ingênuos querem “mudar o mundo”, por que o resto de nós, só quer ser deixado em paz, no nosso canto.  Por isso a secessão é nossa principal bandeira política.  Mas não conseguimos ainda alcançar uma sociedade livre em nenhuma parte do planeta.  E nem precisávamos de um grande país, pois nem existem muitos milhões de libertários no mundo.  A maioria das pessoas rejeita o produto que estamos oferecendo.  Elas não querem liberdade.  Querem um líder.  Querem segurança, estabilidade.  Querem ser mandadas. . .  preferem permanecer escravas.  Ou seja lá o que for que elas querem.

Então, apenas um pequeno território estaria bom pra começar.  Temos muitos projetos libertários, como Seasteading, Free Cities e o Free State Project de New Hampshire.  E entre esses projetos existe uma tentativa promissora em andamento, numa pequena ilha de rio entre a Croácia e a Sérvia, a Liberland.  A Liberland tem contado com a colaboração de 3 dos maiores austrolibertários rothbardianos do mundo atualmente, que estão presentes aqui hoje, Kinsella, Alessandro Fusillo e Hoppe.  Esses 3, em 19 de dezembro do ano passado, estiveram em um evento da Liberland, onde palestraram e discutiram sua constituição.  Se esse projeto se viabilizar, levando em conta o conselho desses 3 mestres, teremos algo prático de valor para mostrar no futuro.

Mas não é o que acontece agora.

Se estivesse vivo, Rothbard comemoraria seu aniversário de 100 anos vendo o movimento libertário muito atrasado em seu objetivo, quando comparado ao movimento abolicionista e ao comunista.  E não é só isso.  Ele também testemunharia no seu aniversário uma grande crise do rothbardianismo, com instituições e pessoas traindo seu legado.

Mas claro, ele certamente teria muito o que comemorar.  Suas ideias tiveram um enorme crescimento em popularidade, com pessoas e instituições fazendo jus ao seu legado.  (as principais delas reunidas aqui hoje nesta celebração).  Então, eu quero falar sobre quem seriam os verdadeiros e os falsos rothbardianos, e pra isso, precisamos entender o que é ser um rothbardiano.

Rothbard era um economista austríaco, mas ser um economista austríaco não significa ser um rothbardiano.  Em economia, Rothbard era um misesiano.  Então, para ser rothbardiano é preciso ser misesiano, ou seja, entender a ciência econômica como um ramo da praxeologia.  A economia é uma ciência axiomática lógico-dedutiva.  Isto quer dizer que suas proposições possuem o mesmo status dos axiomas de que são derivadas, ou seja, são irrefutáveis.  Isso já é, por exemplo, bem diferente de ser um hayekiano.  Hayek era uma wieseriano influenciado por Popper que desprezou a praxeologia.

Rothbard foi o principal e maior economista depois de Mises.  Mas Rothbard não era só um economista.  Então, ser apenas um praxeologista não significa ser um rothbardiano.  Rothbard era um polímata, com profundo conhecimento em diversas ciências, mas o rothbardianismo se caracteriza pela ética rothbardiana, e as implicações dessa ética em sua filosofia política.

Nisso Rothbard se afasta de Mises.  Rothbard não é um misesiano em ética e filosofia política, somente em economia.  Então, ser misesiano completo é diferente de ser um rothbardiano completo.  E quando eu falo de “completo” ou “verdadeiro”, é bom esclarecer que ser rothbardiano não significa concordar com tudo que Rothbard falou sobre tudo.  Não fazemos parte de um culto.  Os rothbardianos verdadeiros, ou completos, discordam de Rothbard em alguns pontos.  Por exemplo, Kinsella discordou de Rothbard em algumas abordagens sobre propriedade intelectual.  Ele as corrigiu e as desenvolveu, usando a estrutura rothbardiana, e podemos dizer que os rothbardianos hoje são kinsellianos em propriedade intelectual.  Outro exemplo.  Hoppe discordou de Rothbard em sua visão positiva sobre Democracia como uma evolução, e também podemos dizer que os rothbardianos hoje são hoppeanos em relação a democracia.  Outro ponto.  A maioria dos rothbardianos discordam da posição de Rothbard em relação ao aborto e não deixam de ser rothbardianos por conta disso.

Mas existem temas que não é possível discordar de Rothbard e permanecer um rothbardiano, pois são contrárias à essência rothbardiana.  Então Mises não é um rothbardiano, e Rothbard não é um misesiano, pois Mises não era um anarcocapitalista.  Mises, assim como todo liberal, era uma contradição ambulante.  A contradição de Mises que Rothbard se livrou, e nos livrou, foi a de “atacar monopólios mas ao mesmo tempo defender monopólios”.  Mises concluiu que monopólios são ruins. Que tudo que é fornecido através de monopólios é mais caro e com menos qualidade do que seria se fosse fornecido pelo ambiente de livre concorrência do mercado.  Mas ele defendia que os serviços de justiça e segurança fossem fornecidos monopolisticamente pelo estado.

Rothbard, como tinha feito Gustave de Molinari antes dele, superou essa contradição e defendeu a produção privada de segurança, e de justiça!  Então, podemos dizer que o rothbardiano completo é um praxeologista anarcocapitalista. . .  Mas também Rothbard não era só isso, e ser um rothbardiano verdadeiro exige mais do que isso.

Ser um rothbardiano significa ter paixão pela justiça.  Só que paixão e ódio andam juntos.  Então também é preciso odiar a injustiça.  Rothbard deixou isso claro em seu artigo “Você odeia o estado?”.  Ali ele se compara com outro anarcocapitalista, David Friedman.  Friedman faz uma análise fria e conclui que uma sociedade sem estado seria superior a uma com estado. . .  Não que o estado seja particularmente ruim.  Apenas que existe uma alternativa melhor.  Ele não odeia a instituição mais criminosa e assassina da história.  Não demonstra nenhum sentimento em relação a lista interminável de injustiças perpetrada por ela.  Nesse ponto Rothbard diz preferir minarquistas, que demonstram um ódio ao estado, do que anarcocapitalistas indiferentes.

Para ser considerado um rothbardiano verdadeiro, é preciso odiar o estado e querer acabar com ele o mais rápido possível.  No livro A ética da liberdade Rothbard escreveu:

“O libertário deve possuir paixão pela justiça, uma emoção originada e canalizada por sua percepção racional que a justiça natural exige.  A justiça, e não discursos débeis ditados por mera utilidade, deve ser a força motriz para alcançar a liberdade… (e) isto quer dizer que o libertário deve ser um “abolicionista”, i. e., ele deve desejar atingir o objetivo da liberdade o mais rápido possível… [Ele] deveria ser um abolicionista que, se pudesse, aboliria instantaneamente todas as invasões de liberdade.”

Rothbard também acreditava que só o libertarianismo não seria suficiente para se alcançar e se manter uma sociedade livre, e ele considerava que o conservadorismo cultural era uma pressuposição sociológica do libertarianismo.

Além disso, outra característica fundamental de um rothbardiano é o revisionismo histórico.  No discurso “Amadurecendo com Murray”, Hoppe conta que uma das duas principais lições que ele aprendeu nos 10 anos que conviveu cotidianamente com Rothbard, foi ser um revisionista.  Ele disse:

“em nossas inúmeras conversas, aprendi com Murray a importância de complementar a teoria austrolibertária com a história revisionista, a fim de apresentar uma avaliação verdadeiramente realista de eventos históricos e assuntos globais.  . . .  acima de tudo, foi Murray que me ensinou a nunca confiar na história oficial, invariavelmente escrita pelos vencedores, mas a conduzir toda a pesquisa histórica como um detetive investigando um crime.”

So to speak

E por último, mas não menos importante, o rothbardiano tem que ser antiguerra.  A oposição à guerra foi a peça fundamental na formação da filosofia de Rothbard, que começou na Velha Direita americana.  A Velha Direita americana era um grupo que se uniu contra o New Deal e contra a entrada dos EUA na Guerra Mundial.  A questão da guerra era tão importante para Rothbard que ele, mais pra frente em sua vida, até ensaiou uma aliança com a Esquerda, apenas por causa da oposição dela à guerra do Vietnã.  Mas acima de tudo, a oposição de Rothbard à guerra derivava de sua oposição a agressão.  E a guerra é a agressão máxima. Ela envolve aumento da interferência do estado na economia e assassinato e destruição de propriedade em larga escala.

Então, recapitulando, o rothbardiano, completo e verdadeiro, deve ser:

Então, o que temos de rothbardianismo verdadeiro e falso, hoje, no centenário de Rothbard?

Primeiro vamos falar do primeiro presidente eleito na história que se autodenomina anarcocapitalista rothbardiano, Javier Milei.  Milei não é um praxeologista.  Seu discurso econômico se baseia fortemente em estatísticas e ele não rejeita as escolas econômicas positivistas que, epistemologicamente, são diametralmente opostas a Escola Austríaca.  A confusão intelectual de Milei já poderia ser vista nos nomes que ele deu aos seus 4 cachorros clones: Murray, Milton, Robert e Lucas.  Misturou positivistas com austríaco, que na verdade são incompatíveis.  E um sujeito que considera que Ben Bernanke foi um dos melhores economistas da história e diz que ele salvou o mundo! nunca pode ser considerado um austríaco.

Milei claramente não é um abolicionista, pois recebeu o mandato das urnas para abolir a principal fonte de dinheiro, e poder, do estado, o banco central, e não o fez.  Ao contrário, ele salvou o banco central da Argentina!

Milei não é um revisionista histórico, ao contrário, ele engole toda a história mainstream a ponto de considerar o facínora Churchill como seu grande herói.

E pior de tudo, Milei não é antiguerra, muito pelo contrário.  Enquanto Rothbard identificou apenas duas guerras justas na história (a secessão das 13 colônias americanas e a tentativa de secessão do Sul), Milei considera justas todas as guerras do Império Americano.  Ele apoiou mais veementemente a guerra por procuração dos EUA contra a Rússia na Ucrânia, o genocídio de Israel em Gaza, patrocinado pelos EUA e a guerra atual de EUA e Israel contra o Irã.

Milei é o arquétipo do falso rothbardiano.  E embora muitos americanos não deem importância a ele, denunciar a fraude que é Milei é uma das missões mais importantes neste período do centenário de Rothbard.  É por isso que um dos maiores paladinos do rothbardianismo hoje é um músico paraguaio chamado Oscar Grau, que tem dedicado grande parte de sua energia para combater não só a farsa Milei como também os seus apologistas dentro do movimento austrolibertário, como Phillip Bagus e Jesús Huerta de Soto.

E além destes dois propagandistas, existem outros que podem não ser considerados mileístas, mas que suas posições em relação a Milei e seus propagandistas revelam suas verdadeiras prioridades.  Milei é atualmente o pivô de uma crise institucional que está abalando o rothbardianismo no centenário de Rothbard.

Nos últimos anos tivemos 3 temas que serviram como provas rothbardianas para pessoas e instituições.  Covid, Ucrânia e Israel.  Na primeira prova a maioria passou.  Quando começou o alarmismo globalista da fraudemia Covid, praticamente todos os rothbardianos e instituições libertárias levantaram suas vozes para se opor a essa tirania sendo imposta a humanidade.  LewRockwell.com, Mises Institute, Ron Paul Institute, Libertarian Institute, Future of Freedom Foudantion, American Institute for Economic Research, FEE. . .  Somente instituições que já sabíamos que não eram libertárias se calaram ou se posicionaram ao lado da tirania… como por exemplo a Reason e o Mises Brasil, que defendeu o Fica em Casa, Vacinas e até vendeu máscaras.   O negócio das máscaras é interessante pois pra mim foi o primeiro sinal de que havia algo muito errado com Milei.  Na época eu acompanhava as mídias sociais de Milei, e ele estava em campanha para deputado.  Fazendo campanha, nas ruas, ao ar livre, ele aparecia o tempo todo de máscara.  Isso que em volta dele, não se via quase ninguém de máscara.  Então não era nem uma obrigação.  Ele acreditava realmente naquilo.  Uma medida absolutamente ridícula que qualquer um em 5 minutos de pesquisa descobriria que o tamanho dos orifícios das máscaras é mil vez maior que o vírus.  Mas ele estava lá, todo dia exibindo esse símbolo do medo induzido da ditadura covidiana.  Eu não aguentei e parei de seguir ele.  Dei unfollow.  Depois acabei relevando. . .  dizendo “okay, ele não é um verdadeiro libertário.  Mas é alguém que está aí dizendo que imposto é roubo e que vai abolir o banco central, etc. . .”

Mas o Milei nunca foi a favor da obrigatoriedade de máscara, nem da obrigatoriedade de vacina.   Ele foi contra lockdowns, publicou um livro defendendo liberdades individuais durante a pandemia. . .  então eu diria que ele passou nesse teste.  Não com méritos.  Falou muita bobagem também.

A guerra da Ucrânia foi outra prova que a maioria dos libertários passou, e nessa, Milei foi reprovado.  No Brasil teve um dos poucos que também não passou, um youtuber que se autodenomina ancap, e que por causa da sua popularidade, desviou muitos potenciais rothbardianos para longe do rothbardianismo.

E a terceira prova, Israel, Milei fracassou estrondosamente.  E embora a maioria dos libertários tenha passado, essa prova acabou reprovando também um dos, até então, maiores libertários do mundo.  Walter Block.  Block era colocado por muitos entre os 3 maiores Rothbardianos, ao lado de Lew Rockwell e Hoppe, e ele passou com mérito nas duas primeiras provas. .  Mas, sua posição perversa a favor de Israel e suas guerras revelaram que ele não é rothbardiano e nem sequer um libertário.  Mostraram que ele nunca deixou de ser um randiano coletivista genocida.

Claro, defender a monstruosidade de Israel em Gaza é absolutamente incompatível com o rothbardianismo, mas instituições e pessoas que não se opuseram ou simplesmente se calaram diante do genocídio de Gaza também simplesmente não podem ser consideradas rothbardianas.  Mas e quanto a quem não se opõem a quem ativamente defende as atrocidades de Israel? (como Block e Milei)  Como isso afeta o grau de rothbardianismo?

Nisso chegamos na principal crise institucional no centenário de Rothbard.  Uma crise no instituto que ele fundou e atuou como diretor acadêmico até sua morte, e que era o pilar do rothbardianismo no mundo, o Mises Institute.

Ao se tornar um propagandista de Milei, Jesús Huerta de Soto não só traiu o rothbardianismo, como traiu seu catolicismo, ao apoiar um agente do Chabad-Lubavitch, uma seita judaica que odeia Cristo.  O Judaísmo em si já é um culto baseado no ódio a Jesus.  O Chabad é ainda pior.  Mas a crise institucional em questão, veio à tona quando este apologista de Milei foi convidado para palestrar na Austrian Scholars Conference deste ano.  Após esse convite, Hoppe publicou o livro comemorativo do centenário de Rothbard, com uma introdução altamente crítica a Milei.  Aparentemente, para não desagradar o convidado de honra de sua conferência, o Mises Institute se recusou a divulgar o livro e a publicar a introdução.

Então Huerta de Soto deu sua palestra, em que ele chamou Milei de o maior herói austrolibertário de todos os tempos, e foi aplaudido.  O engraçado é que ele considera Milei um herói por algo que é na verdade a maior tragédia do fenômeno Milei, que é ele ter chamado a atenção de um enorme público para as ideias austrolibertárias.  Mas isso é terrível, porque agora esse público associa o libertarianismo e a Escola Austríaca com o sionismo, o inflacionismo, as guerras, a censura, o genocídio e todo o resto de imbecilidade que Milei vem defendendo e praticando.  A Escola Austríaca está tendo sua reputação manchada por esta fraude.  E talvez já tenhamos perdido para sempre o termo “libertarianismo”.  Talvez precisemos de um novo nome.

After that, Hoppe published an article, “ Mises Institute: Quo vadis? ”, and showed what was behind the entire institutional crisis that culminated in this dark moment for Rothbardianism. He revealed a scheme of incentives and conflicts of interest within the institution, involving more than 70 million dollars. This explained much of why the institute abandoned Rothbardianism and embraced the apologists of a monumental fraud. Quo vadis?, Where are they going? was the question. And the Mises Institute has already gone. Where to?

Away from Rothbardianism. He expelled Hoppe and remained with Milei’s apologists. He distanced himself from intransigent radicalism and has promoted liberals and Hayekians. He still has good collaborators and good content, but he is no longer a reliable source for Rothbardians. Now it is necessary to filter this content to avoid consuming impurities. Or poisons! The position of reliable source is being filled by the blog and journal of the Property and Freedom Society. And at the Rothbard Institute we try to be faithful to Rothbard’s legacy, giving exclusivity to praxeology and anarcho-capitalism, publishing a lot of revisionist and culturally conservative content. And we are always fighting war. It is one of the most frequent themes there.

Well, in a little while we’ll have Hoppe’s first lecture since the eruption of this crisis and his break with the Mises Institute, and we can get a glimpse of the current state and future of Rothbardianism in the world. Hoppe is not only Rothbard’s main intellectual heir, but he has also assumed the role of beacon of Rothbardian Austrolibertarianism. All of this makes this Mises Portugal event a historically significant event, and I thank you once again for the opportunity to be here.

Thanks.

1. See also PFP327 | Fernando Fiori Chiocca, “The First Knight of Libertarianism” (Rothbard at 100); Fernando Chiocca, How to win the economic debate (PFS 2012).
2. See Walter Block, “Forced Vaccinations,” LewRockwell.com (Feb. 4, 2013); see also Libertarianism and Compulsory Vaccinations and others listed here. And more recently, Walter Block, “A Libertarian Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” J. Libertarian Stud. 24 (2020): 206–37. Jeffrey Tucker criticized Walter for some of these views here; a few days later the same program had Walter on to defend his pro-Covid lockdown/mandate views he had expressed at the height of the pandemic lockdown period. Tucker also rightly called out Block for his illiberal and unlibertarian views on infectious diseases, including his bizarre defense of jailing “Typhoid Mary,” in The Downfall of the Gurus. See, e.g., Walter Block, “My Response to Jeffrey Tucker on COVID,” Epoch Times (Feb. 8, 2023; substack version); Jeffrey A. Tucker, “The Downfall of the Gurus,” Epoch Times (Jan. 23, 2023); Block’s appearance online talking about the Typhoid Mary issue. And Walter Block, “Rejoinder to Slenzok on COVID,” J.Libertarian Stud. 25 (1) (2021): 264–68. Other “libertarian” groups like Cato were also bad on this. See Kinsella, What Kind of Libertarian Are You? (see the “COVID Update” section).
3. See Walter E. Block & Alan G. Futerman, “Rejoinder to Hoppe on Israel vs. Hamas,” MEST Journal (2024) which is a response to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “An Open Letter to Walter E. Block,” LewRockwell.com (Jan. 31, 2024). See also David Gordon and Wanjiru Njoya, “The Classical Liberal Case For Israel,” LewRockwell.com (Feb. 2, 2024; Mises.org version) and Walter’s response, Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block, “Rejoinder to Gordon and Njoya on Israel and Libertarianism,” MESTE Journal (Position Paper) (2024).
4. On Milei, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “PFP280 | Special: Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Javier Milei” (PFS 2024),” Property and Freedom Podcast (Dec. 23, 2024); idem, “Resignation from the Scientific Advisory Board of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany,” HansHoppe.com (Aug. 18, 2025); idem, “PFP290 | Hoppe: Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian (AERC 2025),” Property and Freedom Podcast (March 23, 2025); idem, “A ‘Great Thinker’ at Work,” Power & Market (June 19, 2025); Kristoffer Mousten Hansen, “PFP306 | Kristoffer Mousten Hansen: Mileinomics (PFS 2025),” (Jan. 12, 2026).  See also, concerning Milei and the (non-)closure of Argentina’s central bank, Hoppe, “A ‘Great Thinker’ at Work,” and the recent interchange between Philipp Bagus and Jörg Guido Hülsmann, beginning with Philipp Bagus, “Credit Money, Pesos, Dollars and Argentina,” Power & Market (Oct. 20, 2025), first published, in German, as Philipp Bagus, “Kreditgeld, Pesos, Dollars und Argentinien,” Ludwig von Mises Institut Deutschland (Oct. 20, 2025). The Power & Market article contains links to others in the interchange.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 337.

This is the speech by Yorick De Mombynes at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026): Rothbard & Bitcoin.

Powerpoint (.pptx), transcript and summary below.

See also Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account, and the Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist.

What would Rothbard think of Bitcoin?

imho, he would:

1) note that BTC is not (yet) money but a “secondary medium of exchange” in Mises’ sense

2) maintain his proposal to remonetize gold

3) acknowledge that, in the long term, BTC could supplant goldhttps://t.co/273lF6GlrM pic.twitter.com/vPXfE5Vsxs

— Yorick de Mombynes (@ydemombynes) July 20, 2026

Summary of Yorick de Mombynes’ Talk: “Rothbard & Bitcoin”

Yorick de Mombynes explores what Murray Rothbard would likely think of Bitcoin, framing it as “digital gold” in light of Rothbard’s strong advocacy for separating money from the state via a gold standard.

Rothbard (drawing from Menger and Mises) argued that:

He discusses two pragmatic scenarios for the gold definition (Fed liabilities only vs. full money supply/M1), favoring the latter for enabling full-reserve banking (~$1,696/oz historically; much higher today).

Despite Bitcoin’s promise, de Mombynes argues Rothbard would still prioritize remonetizing gold to eliminate fiat entirely:

Conclusion: Rothbard would love Bitcoin as a powerful tool for liberty and sound money but would insist on first destroying fiat via gold remonetization. He would likely own some Bitcoin himself and advise against betting everything on unproven new private currencies (including altcoins). The talk blends deep Rothbardian theory with pragmatic Bitcoin analysis.

The presentation is thoughtful, technical in places, and optimistic about Bitcoin’s long-term potential within a Rothbardian framework.

Opening and Thanks to Organizers 0:07

Hola. Do I say it correctly?

Unfortunately, I will stop there in Portuguese. I’m very happy to attend this amazing event. It’s really a nice event. And I must tell you that it was not very easy to organize. It was organized by a very small team and they dedicated a lot of time and the result is really impressive. So I want to say a big thank you and congrats to the team, especially to Manuel Oando. [applause]

Topic: Rothbard and Bitcoin – Political and Economic Perspectives 0:49

So I’m very happy to talk about my favorite author, Rothbard, and my favorite technology, Bitcoin.

As you know, Rothbard was one of the main proponents to separate money and the state, but he wanted to do that with gold. So, since Bitcoin is often described as digital gold, what would Rothbard think of Bitcoin? Let’s try together to imagine that, knowing that it’s not easy to imagine because he was a genius. So very obviously he would come up with something much more intelligent than what I can guess, but let’s try anyway.

As regards the political aspect of Bitcoin, I think that he would love Bitcoin. He would love the censorship-resistant aspect, the individual sovereignty aspect. But as regards the economic aspect, probably it would be a bit more tricky, a bit more complex.

So I will focus on the economic aspect and I don’t know what you think, but my guess is that he would like Bitcoin as a potential sound money, but paradoxically he would still propose to remonetize gold. He would still propose to remonetize gold and despite that he would agree that Bitcoin may win in the competition against gold later on. So I will try to argue in favor of this thesis in three steps.

First, I will make a short synthesis of Rothbard’s view on money. Second, I will say why, according to Rothbard, Bitcoin may become sound money. And then I will explain why, according to Rothbard, governments should still remonetize gold.

Rothbard’s Theory of Money – Summary 2:58

So first, a short summary of Rothbard’s view on money.

As you know, his theory and history of money is based on Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises. According to them, governments should have no role in money. They have taken control gradually of money with very bad results. Fiat money is a disaster.

Fractional reserve banking is not a good idea. It’s not viable on a truly free market with real free banking and actually it’s fraudulent and it’s not economical. It was promoted by the state and if it survived it’s mainly thanks to the state, especially thanks to central banking, which is a capitalization device in favor of big banks and in favor of the governments.

So this has very bad consequences: price inflation, business cycles, the destruction of the price system and finally the destruction of money and the destruction of the market economy.

So the consequence is that gold became money over the centuries and it was artificially demonetized by the governments. So then we should remonetize gold. Of course, it was a very short summary and his analysis is much richer in his books. He proposed to remonetize gold.

What does it mean exactly? He had a very original theory of how to remonetize gold. Of course, the first step is to abolish legal tender and then we should define the dollar as a fixed weight of gold. The dollar should be a fixed weight of gold as it was before the 20th century.

So every existing dollar currently should be considered as a claim on some specific weight of gold. There should be genuine redeemability of dollars in gold and all the gold of the governments and the central banks should be transferred to the banks and to the people. And after that, no more Fed notes. They can be destroyed. We don’t need any Fed notes anymore. And each bank can issue their own notes with their own name on the notes. But each of them will represent some specific weight of gold. And then there will be free private coinage of gold coins as before, long time ago. And we can close the central bank. We don’t need it anymore. And we can even later on suppress the name “dollar.” We can replace it with a gram of gold or ounce of gold. So that people understand that the dollar doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not an autonomous independent entity anymore. Gold should be dollar, dollar should be gold. And then we can do that with the other currencies. He wrote about the dollar, but the analysis is the same for the other currencies.

Defining the Dollar in Gold – Technical Considerations 6:05

So now a few words about how to define the dollar in terms of weight of gold.

This is a tricky slide. It’s a bit technical. So if you are not crazy about economic theory, you can skip it. There’s no problem. But personally, I struggled to understand that. So I wanted to share it with you. It’s not really a price; it’s a weight of gold. It’s a definition. What definition should we adopt for the dollar?

The first element to take into consideration is that this definition should not be too low. For example, if we take the Bretton Woods system price of $35 per ounce of gold, this would be too low because there it will have a very big deflationary impact on the economy. Why? Because since that time a lot of dollars have been created. So there will be too many dollars. We will need to destroy a lot of dollars to be hard. The commercial banks should call in all existing loans and stop lending money. So it would not be a good idea.

Rothbard was very pragmatic. He didn’t want to impose a solution but he explored various scenarios. The two main scenarios:

The first option is that we should define the dollar so that the Fed’s gold stock covers all the Fed’s liabilities. What are the Fed’s liabilities? The Fed notes plus the deposits due to commercial banks (the reserves of the commercial banks at the central bank). So in that case he made the calculation. The definition of the dollar would bring a price of gold which would be $676 per ounce of gold.

But there’s a second option which is more interesting according to Rothbard. Instead of covering only Fed liabilities, the gold stock of the Fed should cover the whole money supply—all the liabilities issued by all the banks, not only the central bank but also the commercial banks. It’s more or less the monetary aggregate M1 as it was defined at the time of Rothbard: notes plus checkable deposits. He favors that because it would allow 100% reserve banking, full reserve banking, which he favors against fractional reserve banking. And in this calculation, it would bring a definition of $1,696 per ounce of gold. According to my own calculation, then it would be between $35,000 and $40,000 for one ounce of gold. So of course, the owners of gold would be very, very happy.

Why Bitcoin Could Become Sound Money According to Rothbard 9:17

So now, why can we think that Rothbard would think that Bitcoin can become money?

What money is not according to him: Money is not an abstract unit of account divorceable from a concrete good. This is not the case of Bitcoin. It’s not divorced from a concrete good. It’s based on energy, computers, infrastructure.

Money is not a useless token only good for exchanging. Money is not a claim of society (a very fashionable theory nowadays). It’s not a guarantee of a fixed price level. Money is simply a commodity—but not so simply a commodity. Actually, it’s a commodity that is a general medium of exchange. Money is a commodity that serves as a general medium of exchange. Very important definition. Every word is important.

And the concept of general medium of exchange is not so easy to grasp. And Rothbard is very honest on that. He adds that it’s impossible to define very precisely at what step something becomes a general medium of exchange.

So what about Bitcoin? We can argue that Bitcoin is a commodity. We know that Bitcoin is already a means of exchange. But we can guess that Rothbard would say that Bitcoin is still not a general medium of exchange. Whatever you define as a general medium of exchange, you can’t say that Bitcoin is a general medium of exchange now. So he would think that Bitcoin is not (yet) money.

Bitcoin is not yet money. But it can become money. So if it’s not money, what is it? I think that he would use a very important concept in Human Action by Mises: the concept of secondary medium of exchange.

What is it? It’s an asset that you keep with you. You know that you can’t use it to buy a coffee, but you know that you can sell it very easily the day you need some fiat money to buy a coffee. For centuries, those kinds of assets were jewels and now they are government bonds or very liquid assets. They are the most marketable non-monetary goods. You know that money is the most marketable good. But among non-monetary goods, there are goods that are more or less marketable. And the most marketable non-monetary goods are what Mises calls secondary medium of exchange.

And I don’t know what you think, but for me, Bitcoin is exactly that. It’s a secondary medium of exchange. You can own it, you can hold it and you know that you can sell it when you want to get some fiat if you want to buy a Lamborghini or a coffee. And the interest of those assets is to reduce the opportunity cost of holding cash. From an economic point of view, it’s exactly Bitcoin.

Another aspect: You can’t really own Bitcoin because it’s information and there’s no intellectual property as per Rothbard. You can control it. You can possess it because you can have practical control on this scarce resource if you have your private keys. So I think that Rothbard will agree on that, especially if he sees this fascinating talk by Stephan Kinsella who is here today and in 2019. So I advise you to watch it on YouTube.

But a very tricky question is: if you can’t own Bitcoin, if there’s no property title, can it become money? And libertarians don’t all agree on that. A possible answer by Stephan Kinsella is that money is not a legal phenomenon. It’s an economic phenomenon and it’s the economic phenomenon of a medium of exchange to avoid the problems of barter. So even if there’s no property title, even if you can’t own something, it can be money. So we can conclude that Bitcoin could be money despite that.

Another aspect is that Bitcoin has all the necessary physical properties to become money. Even if it’s not a physical thing, we can argue that it’s a digital commodity even if the fungibility is not completely perfect. It depends on if you talk about the fungibility on the protocol level or on the social and legal level. It’s a tricky question.

But it’s divisible, homogeneous, portable, tradable, auditable, etc., like gold actually. And of course, it’s scarce. And it’s emerging through a market process which is very important in the Rothbardian analysis for something to be money.

And I think that Rothbard will agree that there’s an increasing demand for a kind of asset that is very useful to protect savings against monetary inflation and political control and surveillance. So the context is good for Bitcoin to become money and it will not violate the regression theorem, which is a very important thing. I insist on that because here again there’s a lot of controversy among Austrians. Before May 2010 (the first purchase of goods with Bitcoin – pizza) there was a non-monetary use of Bitcoin which is the criteria for the regression theorem. Bitcoin was a collectible; it was an object of interest for geeks, computer scientists, cryptographers, activists, libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and anybody.

And even today we can say that Bitcoin has a non-monetary use. What is it? First, it’s a decentralized timestamping system. Very efficient, more efficient than other timestamping systems. And it’s useful in the industry and in legal services. And more importantly, it’s a payment infrastructure. It’s an infrastructure of value transfer. And it’s not a monetary use. If I want to send you $1 billion, I can use this infrastructure by converting my fiat into Bitcoin, send you some Bitcoin and then you convert the Bitcoin into dollars. So I have used the Bitcoin infrastructure as a payment infrastructure. But even if Bitcoin is not money, it’s a non-monetary use of Bitcoin. So if Bitcoin becomes money later on, there would be no violation of the regression theorem.

So in that case Bitcoin will be part of money in the narrower sense according to Mises and Bitcoin on layers two like the Lightning Network would be considered as a money certificate and not as fiduciary media.

This is a very interesting typology of money by Ludwig von Mises. I don’t have time to explain it but it’s very interesting. You should read Mises and you should read also Saifedean Ammous because in his very good book Principles of Economics he made a very good synthesis of this typology by Mises.

So I think that according to Rothbard, Bitcoin could become sound money. Why? Because it’s hard money. It is very costly to produce and the government has no influence. He will consider that there is very impressive volatility today but it’s probably a very temporary phenomenon. It will decrease if adoption continues. He will like the disinflationary emission of Bitcoin. He will understand that this is going to bring price deflation and it’s perfectly okay. Natural deflation is okay for Austrian economists and he will agree that in the Bitcoin economy there would be less debt to fund investments and business but there would be more equity funding which is fine.

And he could even think that Bitcoin can be better than gold on certain aspects: first because there’s a supply cap; second because we don’t need an additional money for small transactions as we needed some silver for transactions that are too small to use gold. We can use Bitcoin for very small amounts especially on the Lightning Network or other layers two. And contrary to gold, Bitcoin is an improving technology. There’s some progress over time. It can be improved over time. So it’s a huge advantage.

So Bitcoin, according to Rothbard, can become money and would be sound money.

Why Rothbard Would Still Propose to Remonetize Gold 18:51

But paradoxically I think that he would still propose to remonetize gold. Why?

First, let’s disregard three wrong options. The first wrong option is to give legal tender to Bitcoin – the choice that was made in El Salvador. But the problem is that it’s imposed by the government. So Rothbard would not favor that. It’s just impossible.

Second, we should disregard the strategic reserve as proposed by Trump because it would be government-managed. Of course, Rothbard wouldn’t like that. [laughter]

And more interesting, we should avoid the Hayek proposal because of private currencies competing with each other. Why? Because as Rothbard explained very extensively in the Hayek system, fiat money still exists. We don’t suppress fiat money and there’s a competition between fiat money and private monies and it’s not so obvious that people would choose the new private monies because they would prefer to continue to use something they already know. They have known the dollar and other currencies for a long time. So Rothbard explained that the Hayek proposal is not a good idea. It will fail.

So in a Bitcoin situation, probably Bitcoin would be more attractive for the public than new monies issued by banks but we can’t be sure that Rothbard would think that it’s enough for Bitcoin to win in this kind of competition where fiat still exists. I’m not totally sure but I think Rothbard would be skeptical on that. So I think he would still propose to get rid of fiat. This is the priority: to get rid of fiat.

How do we do it? According to him, the only way to denationalize fiat is to link it to a commodity. It’s the only way. And what commodity? It could be a market-based market basket of commodities. He analyzes this scenario but he doesn’t like it because it will be government-imposed and managed even if there is some Bitcoin in this commodity basket.

So we should link fiat money to a single commodity. And could it be Bitcoin? Maybe Rothbard would think okay, let’s ask the government to define fiat money into Bitcoin. This is possible but I don’t believe that. I think that he would not propose that because he would think that Bitcoin is not (yet) money. It would be arbitrary to ask the government to define fiat money into something that is not yet money. I think that’s the analysis that Rothbard would have.

So he would propose to remonetize gold. It was chosen by the market. And there’s an interesting question: would it be unjust to ask the government to define the dollar in gold? And he has an interesting answer. He says take the example of price control. If government creates price control, of course we should abolish the price control but the only way to abolish the price control is a government law, a government decree, a government bill. The government has to undo what it has done. It’s the only way. And it’s the same with money. The government should undo the demonetization of gold by redefining the dollar in gold.

And of course, we should remove taxes on Bitcoin and then let the market decide. There will be competition between Bitcoin and gold. And maybe Bitcoin will win. According to Rothbard, I think he would accept this possibility.

Conclusion 22:56

So in conclusion, he would like Bitcoin, he would still remonetize gold, he will accept that Bitcoin may win. And at the conclusion of his book chapter “The Case for a Genuine Dollar” he wrote: “I would not advise anyone to bet their life savings on any of these proposed new currencies getting anywhere in this competitive race.” So he was talking about the potential new monies issued by banks and probably today if he was talking about new currencies getting anywhere he would talk about the altcoins that are pretending to compete against Bitcoin.

I think he would say: “I would not advise anyone not to own any Bitcoin.” He would not say Bitcoin is money, we should all use Bitcoin. He would say I would not advise anyone not to own Bitcoin. And I think maybe he would buy some Bitcoin.

Thank you. [applause]

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 336.

From French, Rothbard as Intellectual Inspiration (Mises University, 2006): Douglas E. French, “Rothbard as Intellectual Inspiration,” Mises Daily (08/15/2006) (from Mises University 2006; mp3; local mp3)

Transcript and summary below.

Main Talk Summary In his 2006 Mises University talk, Doug French first honors entrepreneurs such as Willis Haviland Carrier, whose invention of modern air conditioning transformed daily life and made events like the conference possible, and Ron Yanke, the hardworking, generous Idaho businessman who co-founded Micron Technology and helped create Silver State Bank; he contrasts these men with the false Marxist stereotype of greedy capitalists and quotes Mises on the progressive role of entrepreneurial capital accumulation. French then recounts his personal experience as a UNLV graduate student who, despite being warned that Rothbard was a “kook,” took his electrifying History of Economic Thought and U.S. Economic History courses, wrote a thesis on speculative bubbles under Rothbard’s guidance, navigated departmental hostility from the chair and graduate coordinator, and continued to receive generous mentorship by letter after graduation, culminating in a final meeting just before Rothbard’s death. He closes by arguing that true greatness lies in the lasting influence of figures like Carrier, Yanke, and Rothbard, criticizes billionaire philanthropy of the Buffett-Gates variety as misguided, and urges the young audience to carry forward Austrian economics and free markets either as entrepreneurs or scholars.

Q&A Summary In the question period French explained that Bill Bradford’s Liberty magazine talk “Why Libertarians Love to Hate”1 portrayed both Rothbard and Ayn Rand as people who created enemies rather than consensus, though Bradford had once called Rothbard the best person with whom to share a martini; he noted that Rothbard himself, despite having been expelled from Rand’s circle, remained complimentary and urged French to read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. He recalled only a handful of fellow students who stayed connected to the Mises Institute, observed that UNLV classes were small and the broader campus lacked intellectual seriousness, admitted that Austrian insights had cost him money by making him overly wary of bubbles while missing the Las Vegas real-estate boom, yet still found business-cycle knowledge useful in banking, and said the rest of the faculty liked Rothbard personally but did nothing to help him or Hans Hoppe attract students and were jealous of their productivity.

Honoring Entrepreneurs Through Willis Carrier 00:00:00

Doug French opens by noting the informal setting at Mises University in Auburn and the need to honor someone critical to the event’s comfort: Willis Haviland Carrier, the father of modern air conditioning. Carrier did not invent the first cooling system, but his was the first truly successful and safe one, founding Carrier Engineering Corporation in 1915 with $35,000 (about $650,000 in today’s terms). By the previous year the company had $12.5 billion in sales and 45,000 employees.

Cooling for human comfort began in 1924 with the installation at Detroit’s J.L. Hudson department store, where people flocked simply to enjoy the air. It quickly spread to theaters, restaurants, and malls, then to homes in 1928. Carrier transformed lives without public recognition. French asks how Mises University could be held in August in Auburn, or how cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas could grow, without air conditioning. Great entrepreneurs improve lives while receiving little credit.

Debunking Stereotypes of Businessmen 00:02:40

The public image of entrepreneurs as conniving, miserly, and greedy—shaped by Dickens’s Scrooge and Gordon Gekko in Wall Street—mirrors Marxist class-struggle theory. That theory claims the ruling class appropriates a social surplus product from the exploited for its own consumption. French calls this stereotype as false as Marxism itself. While people suffer under socialist regimes, capitalist entrepreneurs invest capital, organize resources, create products and jobs, and make the world better.

He quotes Mises from Human Action: economic progress comes from capital accumulation through saving and technological improvement. The agents of progress are entrepreneurs who adjust production to satisfy consumers best. In doing so they must share the benefits with workers, capitalists, and landowners until their own share melts away.

Ron Yanke as Exemplary Entrepreneur 00:04:58

French turns to Ron Yanke, an entrepreneur who touched thousands of lives and died a few years earlier in Boise. Yanke took over his father’s machine shop, which continued serving contractors, mining, and forestry for 64 years. Employees stayed decades because Yanke would do anything for them and they would walk through fire for him.

He expanded into Montana sawmills, a charter air service, firefighting-equipment manufacturing, ranching, vast timberlands, real-estate projects, mechanical contracting, manufactured housing, and two banks. Most famously, with Tom Nicholson and Allen Noble he funded the Parkinson brothers who started Micron Technology in a dentist’s basement in 1978. Micron became a New York Stock Exchange company with $8 billion in assets, $5.8 billion in equity, and 19,000 employees worldwide—the largest private employer in Idaho.

At Yanke’s funeral speakers described a man with not a mean bone in his body, a true gentleman, the hardest worker and hardest player anyone had seen, operating at “pedal to the metal.” Despite great wealth he lived simply—flying Southwest Airlines to Las Vegas bank meetings and eating at a casino soup-and-salad bar. He and Nicholson put $5 million into starting Silver State Bank, which grew to $1 billion in assets and 190 employees; that investment became worth $100 million. French, employee number 11, credits Yanke and Nicholson for opportunities that enriched both the material and the human world. Yanke’s constant cheerfulness matched only one other person French had known: Murray Rothbard.

Encountering Rothbard at UNLV 00:09:37

Everyone present knows Rothbard; a few knew him personally, and French is proud to be one. After moving to Las Vegas in 1986 he pursued a master’s in economics at UNLV, having minored in the subject as an undergraduate. MBA degrees were the fashion, but he chose economics anyway.

By fall 1990, with twelve credit hours completed and determined to avoid econometrics and statistics, he spotted “History of Economic Thought—Rothbard” in the catalog. A classmate warned that Rothbard was a “kook” and urged independent study instead. French knew nothing of Austrian economics or libertarianism and had no time to arrange alternatives, so he enrolled.

The first night Rothbard entered already talking—about politicians attacking oil companies during the Gulf War—and launched straight into centuries of economic thought without roll call or syllabus. Eight or ten students took furious notes; half were auditors who returned every semester because Rothbard varied the emphasis (that term it was financial history). The lectures were narrative “good guys versus bad guys” delivered at Robin-Williams speed, punctuated by cackles and a dozen precise reading references each night. French recognized this as economics taught as it should be—far superior to graphs and equations.

He took U.S. Economic History the next semester. His first real conversation with Rothbard occurred during a bomb scare at Beam Hall: French suggested sending underclassmen to find the bomb; Rothbard replied, “I like the way you think, Douglas.”

Thesis Advising and Mentorship 00:15:12

Needing to choose between a comprehensive exam and a thesis, French was steered toward the thesis. After another professor declined, he asked Rothbard, who accepted warmly and immediately listed about twenty sources on speculative bubbles. French was among the last students to graduate under the Theory and Policy track designed for those studying with Rothbard and Hans Hoppe; the department later abolished it to discourage such students.

During the thesis work French came to know Rothbard well. Rothbard nicknamed him “the efficient banker” for handling forms and copying. Over time French realized Rothbard’s brilliance: he knew everything yet never acted pompous, always answering “in my opinion” or “in my view.” Bankers, customers, and especially regulators constantly claimed brilliance; Rothbard simply possessed it. At a Stanford Mises seminar people begged French for class notes once they learned he was Rothbard’s student, revealing the professor’s stature. Rothbard was a walking bibliography, supplying full citations on every meeting. His best writing advice was to read H.L. Mencken to cure wordiness.

Department Hostility and Thesis Defense 00:19:45

Department chair Dr. Thayer’s 1991 evaluation rated Rothbard only satisfactory, criticizing limited student contact, “disappointing” scholarly growth, and insufficient service, while demanding more departmental participation and role-modeling for junior faculty. Rothbard replied with a 3,000-word rebuttal calling the evaluation an outrage, listing eleven overlooked 1991 accomplishments, and defending his attendance at meetings, committee work, teaching, advising, and office hours. He asked what other “daily life” was expected and suggested the best role model is a scholar left free of harassment.

Graduate coordinator Tom Carroll circulated a sarcastic memo pretending ignorance of French’s thesis topic and committee (Rothbard, Hoppe, Terry Ridgeway) despite having signed the prospectus and appointment forms months earlier. Rothbard withheld the memo until after the defense so French would not be upset. The defense lasted a torturous hour and a half in an un-air-conditioned room; Rothbard calmed French beforehand by saying he knew more about bubbles than anyone present.

Post-Graduation Mentorship and Final Meeting 00:24:46

After graduation French moved to Reno but stayed in touch by long, single-spaced letters. Rothbard urged him to submit the tulip-mania section of the thesis to mainstream journals, believing it made a real contribution. After repeated rejections Rothbard wrote that referees always seemed “a pack of morons” who missed the point, and that he himself rarely submitted to journals any longer; he suggested further outlets including the Review of Austrian Economics.

In December 1994 French waited an hour outside Rothbard’s office, then met him by chance as the elevator opened. They talked before Rothbard’s last final exam; afterward Rothbard would grade the ten-page papers and essay exams and catch the red-eye to New York. French described a Liberty magazine conference talk by Bill Bradford titled “Why Libertarians Love to Hate,” focused on Rand and Rothbard.1 Rothbard howled with laughter and they planned to listen to the tape together after the holidays—a laugh they never shared. Rothbard never returned from New York.

True Greatness and a Call to Action 00:28:41

Carrier, Yanke, and Rothbard continue to influence lives after death; that is true greatness. In contrast, the press gushes over Warren Buffett’s $31 billion gift to the Gates Foundation. Both men are skilled at accumulating capital yet now seek praise by throwing money at problems free markets already solve—malaria (DDT banned by government) and education (remove government). Capital accumulation, whoever owns it, raises the demand for labor and enriches everyone. If they truly wished to help, they should fund the teaching of Austrian economics and the message of free markets.

John Mackey of Whole Foods argues that well-executed business is the greatest force for good, ending poverty and improving lives. He believes the left captures young idealists; French disagrees, pointing to the room full of idealistic young people at Mises University. They can change the world either as entrepreneurs serving customers or as scholars following Rothbard. Austrian economics is the intellectual backbone of the freedom movement and the Mises Institute its wellhead. The future of that movement and of Rothbard’s legacy rests in their hands.

Q&A: Bradford’s Talk on Libertarians and Hate 00:33:23

An audience member asked what was on Bill Bradford’s tape from the Liberty magazine conference. French explained that the talk, titled “Why Libertarians Love to Hate,”1 focused on Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand. Bradford’s essential point was that both men did nothing but create enemies rather than build consensus; they preferred to fight with everyone. French recalled that Bradford once wrote that Rothbard was the best person in the world to have a martini with, but beyond that he did not have many positive things to say. That was the thrust of the presentation.

Q&A: Rothbard’s View of Ayn Rand 00:34:43

Asked whether Rothbard was a Randian, French said he would not call him one. At the time French knew almost nothing and had never heard of Rand. It was Rothbard who introduced him to her work, recommending Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Even though Rothbard had been excommunicated from Rand’s circle, he remained complimentary rather than antagonistic. French noted that Rand had a choice of economists—Rothbard or Alan Greenspan—and she chose Greenspan.

Q&A: Fellow Students and Career Paths 00:35:48

French was asked about other students from Rothbard’s classes. He recalled only a few names associated with the Mises Institute: someone named Fiametta (last name forgotten) and James Philbin. In one class there were MBA students who were completely befuddled by the pure lecture format and essay exams; they were used to multiple-choice tests and complained constantly. A number of people audited the courses, including Lee Iglody and Jeff Barr, who were still around town. French observed that Rothbard and Hans Hoppe had produced a surprising number of lawyers (in Hoppe’s case, probably a good idea) but not many economics professors. [Ed. note: also including Joe Becker; Kinsella is also an attorney]

Q&A: The Atmosphere and Class Size at UNLV 00:37:52

When asked about the intellectual climate, French noted that UNLV was known mainly for gaming studies and food-and-beverage programs. There was little intellectual rigor among students coming from other disciplines, and the classes themselves were small—only eight to ten people.

Q&A: Practical Applications of Austrian Economics 00:38:52

An audience member asked about real-world applications. French admitted the ideas had cost him money: after studying with Rothbard he began looking for a bubble around every corner and bought gold at $500, only to watch it fall to $250. Living in Las Vegas, he should instead have borrowed heavily and invested in real estate. Still, knowledge of the business cycle is useful in banking. Most bankers and business owners are not particularly smart about cycles. Entrepreneurs, when money is cheap, will borrow and build until they go broke and then start over. French said he had lent as much as possible on Las Vegas real estate over the previous decade and it had worked so far, though he could not predict the next few years. He also received emails asking whether an MBA or a master’s in economics is better; employers sometimes find an economics degree intimidating, while an MBA intimidates no one.

Q&A: Faculty Attitudes Toward Rothbard and Hoppe 00:42:19

French was asked how the rest of the faculty viewed Rothbard. He said they universally thought Murray was a good guy, yet they did him and Hans Hoppe no favors in attracting students. Virtually all the publishing in the department came from the east end of the hall where Rothbard and Hoppe had their offices; the other faculty published almost nothing and there was jealousy. Murray was impossible not to like, but the department never encouraged anyone to become an Austrian.

Honoring Entrepreneurs and the Father of Air Conditioning 00:00:06

Thank you, Lou. Thank you, everyone above me, behind me. Jeff said this would be very casual and informal. Actually, I find it kind of intimidating, actually, to be surrounded. But I am going to talk about Murray, but that’s going to come a little later.

I think that given the conditions here in Auburn, I think there’s someone that we really need to honor as someone who’s critical to the Mises Institute. A guy named Willis Haviland Carrier. No, he wasn’t an Austrian economist, but he’s recognized as the father of air conditioning.

Carrier didn’t invent the very first system to cool an interior structure. However, his system was the first truly successful and safe one and started a science of modern air conditioning. He and six engineers started Carrier Engineering Corp. in 1915 with only $35,000. That’s not very much today. The equivalent today would be $650,000. But last year, Carrier sales topped $12.5 billion, and the company employs 45,000 employees.

Now, cooling for human comfort rather than just industrial need began actually in 1924, which is not all that long ago. They installed it in the J.L. Hudson department store in Detroit. And strangely enough, people flocked into the store just to enjoy the air conditioning. They then started putting air conditioning in movie theaters, restaurants, theaters, and shopping malls. And then it was very quickly began in 1928 putting air conditioners in residential units.

Now William Carrier made a huge difference in people’s lives, people that have never really heard of him. And can you imagine having the Mises University in August in Auburn without air conditioning? Would millions of people be moving to Phoenix or Las Vegas if there was no air conditioning? But that’s what great entrepreneurs do. They make people’s lives better, and most of the time they receive little or no credit for it.

In fact, the public’s image of entrepreneurs and businessmen as conniving, miserly, greedy crooks has been shaped since the time of Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, to the modern-day Michael Douglas character of Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. This image essentially puts a face on Marxist class struggle theory. According to the theory, the primary form of exploitation is economic. The ruling class… It appropriates part of the productive output of the exploited, or as Marxists say, it appropriates a social surplus product and uses it for its own consumptive purposes.

Of course, this negative stereotype of businessmen is as false as Marxist theory itself. While millions continue to struggle and have struggled under Marxist and socialist economic regimes, entrepreneurs are at work in the capitalist world, investing capital, organizing resources, and developing new products and creating jobs to make the world a better place.

Mises wrote in Human Action, the vehicle of economic progress is the accumulation of additional capital goods by means of saving and improvement in technological methods of production. The execution of which is almost always conditioned by the availability of new capital. The agents of progress are the promoting entrepreneurs intent upon profiting by means of adjusting the conduct of affairs to the best possible satisfaction of customers. In the performance of their projects for the realization of progress, they are bound to share the benefits derived from progress with the workers and also with the part of the capitalists and landowners and to increase the portion allocated to those people step by step until their own share melts away entirely, unquote.

Ron Yanke: Entrepreneur Who Touched Thousands of Lives 00:04:58

Now a guy you haven’t heard of is probably a guy named Ron Yanke. He was an entrepreneur who touched thousands of lives, died a couple years ago up in Boise, Idaho. Yanke grew up working in his father’s machine shop and took over the business when his father died. Yanke Machine Shop is now in its 64th year in business, serving contractors, mining companies, and the forestry industry.

Speaking at Yanke’s Funeral Services, his friend Tom Nicholson mentioned that there are a number of people that have worked for the machine shop for over 50 years. Yanke would do anything for an employee, and in turn, the employees would walk through fire for him. The machine shop business was just the beginning for Yanke. He owned two sawmills in Montana, Charter Air Service Company, a company that manufactures firefighting equipment. He was a rancher. He owned vast amounts of timberland in western United States. He developed a number of real estate projects. Held significant ownership in a mechanical contracting firm and manufactured housing firm in two banks.

But Yanke is best known as being one of the three original investors in a little company called Micron Technology, second largest memory chip manufacturer in the world, and the largest private sector employer in Idaho. Yanke, along with Nicholson and a friend, Allen Noble, funded brothers Ward and Joe Parkinson when they started Micron in 1978 in the basement of a dentist’s office. From those humble beginnings, Micron’s now traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It has $8 billion in assets, $5.8 billion in shareholder equity, and employs 19,000 employees worldwide.

Reverend James Wilson said at the Yanke funeral that there was not a mean bone in Ron Yanke’s body. He described him as a gentleman in the true sense of the word, a gentle man. But Ron Yanke was, believe me, the hardest worker anybody had ever seen and the hardest player anybody had seen, as I can attest when I went to a little snowmobile trip with Ron. Nicholson, his friend, amplified the point, telling the crowd that he had one speed for work and play, pedal to the metal.

Now, Ron Yanke was a man of considerable wealth, but his tastes were not very expensive at all. He’s a big supporter of the Boise State football team, and he would allow the coaches to use the airplane on their recruiting trips. However, when he would come down to Las Vegas for bank board meetings, he, his son-in-law, and his friend Tom Nicholson would fly Southwest Airlines. And after the board meeting, we’d all have lunch at the soup and salad bar at a local casino. He also was interested in any free drink tickets any of us had for Southwest.

Now, Boise Media did not mention Ron Yanke’s investment in a community bank in southern Nevada after he died. Because in relation to Micron and some of his other businesses, the bank was really too small to merit any attention. But just in the case of Micron, there wouldn’t be a Silver State Bank if it wasn’t for Ron. Yanke and Nicholson invested $5 million to start the bank 10 years ago. Today the bank has a billion in assets, employs 190 people, and that $5 million investment is now worth $100 million.

Now, I’m one of those 190 employees. In fact, I think I was employee number 11, I believe. But I thank my lucky stars for Ron Yanke and his friend Tom Nicholson for the opportunities that they created for me. And if it was not for people like Ron Yanke, the world would be not only a poorer place, but an emptier place. Ron Yanke was a big man. He was larger than life personality. It’s been said that he never had a bad day. And you should believe it. The only other person I’ve been around who was as constantly cheerful as Ron Yanke was a person very near and dear to my heart, Murray Rothbard.

Meeting Murray Rothbard at UNLV 00:09:37

Of course, everybody in this room knows who Murray Rothbard is. And a few of us know him personally. And I’m proud to say that I’m one of those people. I moved to Las Vegas in 1986. And I got the bright idea to pursue a master’s in economics at UNLV.

Why economics, you might ask? Well, I minored in the subject during undergrad, and I kind of liked it. But at the time, MBA degrees were all the rage, and they probably still are. I was advised that an MBA degree would be much better for my career. But I decided on economics anyway. By the fall of 1990, I had 12 hours of master’s credit under my belt, and I was desperately running out of options in terms of trying to avoid econometrics and statistics. So I was looking through the catalog, the UNLV course catalog, and I saw an entry, History of Economic Thought, Rothbard. Perfect.

I mentioned this to one of my classmates that I’d be taking the course under Rothbard, and he said, no, no, you shouldn’t do that at all. Guy’s a kook. Don’t want to think about it. He said I should go take the course independent study with another instructor. Now, I didn’t know who Murray was. I didn’t know whether he was a kook or not. I didn’t know what Austrian economics was. I hadn’t heard of the term libertarian. But I worked all day at the bank, and I was taking classes at night, and frankly, I didn’t have time to go screwing around lining up an instructor for independent study. So I went ahead and took Rothbard.

Well, the first night of class, Murray hit the door and he started talking immediately, like he had started his lecture out in the hallway somewhere. And it was something about dumb politicians threatening the evil oil companies that were raising gas prices. Some things never change, I guess. It was during the first Gulf War, I believe. And from that thought, he just continued right into the history of economic thought lecture. He didn’t take roll. He didn’t hand out a syllabus. He didn’t have time for any of that. He had centuries to cover. So the eight or ten of us in class furiously took notes to keep up.

And I didn’t know it at the time, but only about half of us were taken for credit. The other half had already taken the course, and they were just auditing because Murray changed his history of economics class every semester focusing on a different aspect of economic history. And in the fall of 1990, the course had a financial history emphasis. And in fact, if you want to read essentially the notes from Murray’s history of economics class, pick up his history of economics from an Austrian perspective book.

As Murray launched into this lecture, I knew that this was economics the way it should be taught. Forget the graphs, the equations, the other nonsense that I endured for previous two semesters. This was good guys versus bad guys, human action stories told at a pace of a Robin Williams monologue. Occasionally punctuated with occasional cackle and a dozen or so reading references a night. He’d give you the book title, the author, the year published, the publisher name. It’s really quite extraordinary.

So I went ahead and took Murray for U.S. Economic History the following semester, but I didn’t really know Murray at all. And to illustrate that point, someone asked me last night, the first book that I ever read by Murray. I said, well, it’s America’s Great Depression. And really, why? And I said, well, I decided to write a paper on America’s Great Depression. And I went into Murray to see if he was okay with the topic. He said, yeah, yeah, that’s great. I said, do you have any suggestions for sources? He says, well, I wrote a book about that, and you might want to take a look at it. I said, is it in the library? He goes, yeah, yeah. That’s a little tip for you students. If your instructor has written a book on your subject, you should probably consult it and quote it liberally. That’s probably the way to do that.

But anyway, the only time we spoke actually was one night when there was a bomb scare at Beam Hall over at UNLV. And so I couldn’t get into the classroom. So I went over to the student union, and I saw Murray sitting with one of my classmates. And I walked up and I said, what’s going on? And Murray said, oh, there’s a bomb scare. And I said, well, we should send some of the underclassmen in there to find it. He goes, I like the way you think, Douglas. And that was essentially my first kind of conversation with Murray.

Thesis Work and Mentorship Under Rothbard 00:15:12

But I was getting close at this point to, I needed to make a decision whether to take a comprehensive test to get a master’s or write a thesis. And I was actually leaning toward taking the test, but thankfully somebody convinced me to write a thesis. But I still didn’t know Murray well enough, actually, to pursue him as my thesis coordinator or chairman, if you will. So I asked somebody else, and in another huge break, that instructor turned me down. So I went to Murray and reintroduced myself to him and asked him if he’d be my advisor and I proposed a subject and Murray welcomed me with open arms. And then he proceeded to rattle off about 20 sources on speculative bubbles to, you know, just get me going. And away we went.

Something else I was very lucky about, at UNLV they used to have something called the Theory Policy Track. And it was really geared for students who wanted to come and study under Murray and Hans Hoppe. And I think I was the last, or I believe that I am, the last student who was able to graduate via that theory policy program. Subsequent to that, the economics department graduate coordinators and others managed to dump that program to actually keep people from coming to UNLV to study under Murray and Hans.

I really got to know Murray during the researching and writing of my thesis. Spent a lot of time with him. But I really didn’t realize his greatness. To me, he was just a good guy. He called me the efficient banker because I was fairly adept at getting approval forms signed and getting things copied. You know, things like that. Probably because I wasn’t his smartest student, so he had to call me something. But anyway. But over time, I realized how brilliant he was. And as a banker, I meet a lot of people. And I have a lot of people who are trying to convince me that they’re brilliant. Whether they be other bankers, customers, regulators. They all think they’re brilliant and they want to convince you of that. Especially regulators.

And talk to anybody who’s made millions of dollars in real estate investment. They’re all real smart. Just ask them. But Murray was actually a guy who did know everything. But he didn’t act like it. He was never pompous. He never talked down to me or anybody else that I knew of. When I asked him a question, he’d start with an answer. Well, in my opinion or in my view, he didn’t act like he had all the answers, but he did.

And as for his professional stature, I really didn’t have a sense of it until I attended a Mises seminar in Stanford. And when I told some people at the table I didn’t know anybody there other than Murray, I told them I was from Vegas. And they said, well, do you know Murray Rothbard? I said, yeah, I’m actually a student of his. And then these people proceeded to beg me for my class notes. And I guess it was at that point it kind of hit me that this guy was something special. Of course, Murray was a walking bibliography. Every time I would meet with him on my thesis, he had more sources, just title, author, publisher, year published. I can’t imagine a better weapon as far as having a thesis advisor.

But actually, Murray’s best advice came and concerned my writing. My initial drafts and my thesis were very wordy. I had these long, complicated sentences. And Murray told me, if you want to learn how to write well, just read H.L. Mencken. And that started my love affair with Mencken. And I would urge anyone who’s struggling with their writing to do the same.

Department Conflicts and Thesis Defense 00:19:45

Now, as great as I thought Murray was, the department chair, Dr. Thayer, didn’t give Murray high marks in his 1991 annual evaluation. And although the chairman, and the chairman, by the way, his claim to fame, I think, was a professional paper on the various potency of sunscreen and how that would affect. That was his contribution to economic literature, Dr. Thayer. Anyway, he criticized Murray for having only, quote, only limited contact with most economic students, unquote. Incredibly, in the area of scholarly research or creative activity, Thayer wrote, Professor Rothbard’s performance in the area of professional growth has been disappointing. Thayer also wrote that Murray was disappointed in the area of service. Thayer gave Murray an overall satisfactory rating, but he concluded his evaluation with, quote, also we expect Professor Rothbard to participate in departmental affairs to teach more students to be available as a role model for junior faculty, unquote.

Now you can imagine, Murray blasted Thayer with this 3,000-word comment, he called it, calling Chairman Thayer’s evaluation an outrage. Murray pointed out 11 of his scholarly accomplishments in 1991 that for some reason Thayer had overlooked. And commenting on Thayer’s rating him disappointing for service, Murray wrote, In the economics department, I have attended and participated in all department meetings, and I have not refused appointment to any department committees. I don’t know what Chairman Thayer means by seldom participating in the daily life of the department, teaching courses, advising students, keeping office hours, attending department meetings. What other daily life am I supposed to be missing?

The only clue in Chairman Thayer’s remarks is that I am supposed to be available as a role model for junior faculty. Apart from wondering why Mr. Thayer should possibly want someone of limited professional growth to serve as a role model, I must say that the best way someone, including myself, can so serve is to be allowed to go about his business as a scholar and teacher without being subject to harassment.

Along with Chairman Thayer, the graduate coordinator, Tom Carroll, or the evil Tom Carroll, as we now called him, was also antagonistic toward Murray and Murray’s students. After I subjected my committee and the others who attended my torturous one-and-a-half-hour thesis defense, by the way, if you’re ever defending your thesis, you want to thin out the crowd, keep the questions at a minimum, go for an hour and a half. Especially in an unconditioned room. Murray handed me, after the defense, Murray handed me a sarcastic memo that Carroll had circulated to the Economics Department faculty. It read, on Thursday, April 2nd at 3 p.m., Doug French will defend his thesis in room 518. Since he has not shared his thesis topic with me, you will have to learn that on Thursday. As far as I know, his committee consists of Murray Rothbard, Hans Hoppe, and Terry Ridgeway. Nevertheless, all graduate faculty from the department are permitted to attend the presentation, ask questions, and make recommendations to the candidates committee.

Now, the idea that Carroll, as graduate coordinator, didn’t know what my topic was or who was on my committee is complete nonsense. In fact, he signed off on my thesis prospectus on October 2, 1991, approving my topic, he signed my appointment of examination committee on November 21, 1991, approving my committee members. See, I’m the efficient banker. I kept all these records. Carroll’s memo clearly bothered Murray, but he didn’t want me upset, so he didn’t show me the memo until after I’d completed the defense. I also remember being quite apprehensive the day of my thesis as the thesis defense approached and knowing that all the graduate economics faculty were invited. But Murray calmed me down. He said, don’t worry, you know more about bubbles than anyone in the room.

Continued Mentorship and Final Meeting 00:24:46

Murray’s mentoring didn’t stop when I completed my thesis and graduated. I moved to Reno, but we did stay in touch by mail. I was actually talking to Jeff on this iPod thing we did today. Whatever an iPod is. Tell me. But a guy as busy and productive as Murray had time to write letters to me, two and three pages long, single space, just staying in touch with an ex-student. It was really quite extraordinary. And Murray was very, very generous with his time.

But Murray encouraged me to take part of my thesis that dealt with tulip mania. Submitted as an article for publication in various mainstream economics journals. He felt I had a good chance for publication, believing that I had made, as he put it, a contribution. However, for whatever reason, none of the seven or eight mainstream economics journals shared Murray’s view. And actually, he wrote me in a letter in December of 92. Your experience with the journals reminds me that every time I’ve been rejected by a scholarly journal, I’ve been infuriated, not because of the rejection, but because the referees all seem to be a pack of morons. I’ve missed the point of the article. Hence, I rarely submit stuff to the journals anymore. But Murray wanted me to continue to try and mention three other journals to submit to, which I did. But then a year later, after these rejections, Murray wrote me, that’s monstrous about these rejections. I might have told you that I’ve never received a rejection letter that furthered the alleged purpose of the offering, of offering helpful criticisms, and I guess it’s still a perfect record. If you haven’t tried Economic Inquiry and the Southern Economic Journal, you might try them if the Journal of MCB turns it down. If all else fails, don’t forget the Review of Austrian Economics, which will certainly be receptive.

I was back in Vegas in December of 1994, and I went to see Murray. I hadn’t seen him in a few years since I’d moved to Reno. And went up to his office and actually waited in the hallway, as I had many, many times, for an hour to see him. Thankfully, over the years, they’ve started putting a chair out there so you didn’t have to sit on the floor. But I waited for an hour. He didn’t show up, so I gave up. I actually took the elevator down to leave. But the elevator opened, and there he was. So we went up to his office. We chatted for a while before he was going to give his last final. And what Murray would do would give his last final. He’d grade all the papers. Everybody had to write a 10-page paper, if I remember right, and all the exams, which were all essay questions. And then he’d catch the red-eye in New York. And so I was catching him on that last night.

But I told Murray about a Liberty Magazine conference that I had attended that fall. It was given by Bill Bradford, I guess the late Bill Bradford, which was entitled, Why Libertarians Love to Hate.1  And the speech was essentially about Ayn Rand and Murray. I told Murray about it. He just howled with laughter when I told him about it. And I had ordered the tape of Bradford’s talk, and we were actually going to get together when he got back from the holidays and play the tape, and what fun that would have been to do that with Murray. Unfortunately, that’s a laugh we were never able to share. He never made it back from New York City.

True Greatness Versus Billionaire Philanthropy 00:28:41

But these gentlemen that I’ve talked about, have had and continue to influence lives even after their deaths. And that is true greatness. In contrast, the mainstream press is gushing over Warren Buffett’s $31 billion contribution to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And all these guys are very astute at accumulating wealth. And now they want to bask in the glow of the worldwide praise, they’re essentially going to throw their money at solving problems that money’s not needed to solve. Gates said he and Buffett are looking for problems that the free market cannot or will not solve, and Buffett claims the market system has not worked in terms of poor people.

I tend to agree with Doug Casey, who wrote in his recent International Speculator newsletter that he calls Gates and Buffett idiot savants, that they are anti-capitalistic limousine liberals. Buffett is on record as being pro-high property taxes and along with Bill’s dad. Bill Gates is dead, supports taxing the dead. And the Gates Foundation, by the way, focuses on world health and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools. Ironically, one of the diseases the foundation focuses on is malaria, but as Lou wrote a couple weeks ago, it’s already a cure for malaria. DDT and the government’s banned it. And as far as improving high schools, again, get the government out of the education business and that problem would be solved. Don’t need Warren’s $31 billion to fix that problem.

Gates and Buffett should continue to do what they do best, make money and accumulate capital. The accumulation of capital, no matter who owns it, adds to the demand for everyone’s labor and so enriches everyone. If these billionaires want to truly help the poor and sick and insist on donating their vast fortunes, they should support the teaching of Austrian economics. What the world needs now are free markets and unfettered capitalism. Gates and Buffett should use their billions to spread that message. But something tells me they haven’t dropped by the Mises Institute to drop off a check. So it’s left to us to carry on Murray Rothbard’s work and ideas. Ideas that will stop the devolution of society and allow entrepreneurs like Carrier and Yanke to make the world a better place.

There’s only free markets that can do that, not increasing amounts of government interference, not billionaires spreading their money around perpetuating the same frauds, or rich ex-basketball stars being governor. John Mackey, the CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods, believes, quote, business has a much greater purpose than just profits and is possibly the greatest force for good on the planet today. He said, when executed well, business increases prosperity, ends poverty, improves the quality of life, and promotes the healthy and longevity of the world population at an unprecedented rate. But Mackey also thinks the left has the young audience captured because leftists are idealists who want to change the world.

Well, I think Mackey is wrong. I think we have a room full of idealistic young people that want to change the world right here. You have your whole lives in front of you. And with that, you have the chance to change people’s lives for the better, either by serving customers as an entrepreneur or following in Murray’s footsteps as a scholar and teacher. Austrian economics is the intellectual backbone for the freedom movement. The Mises Institute is the wellhead for its education. You in this room are the best and brightest we have. The future of the Freedom Movement and Murray Rothbard’s legacy is in your hands. I know you’re up for the task. Thank you.

Q&A: Bradford’s Talk on Libertarians and Hate 00:33:23

Audience Member: What was on Bradford’s tape?

Doug French: It was essentially that Murray and Ayn Rand did nothing but create enemies. And that was… That was essentially, instead of building consensus, they wanted to fight with everybody. And that was essentially his take on both Murray and him. I mean, I think that Bill wrote once that Murray was the best guy in the world to have a martini with. But other than that, I don’t know if he had all that many good things to say. That was essentially the thrust of his presentation.

Audience Member: Is that right?

Doug French: Yeah.

Q&A: Rothbard and Ayn Rand 00:34:43

Audience Member: What’s that?

Doug French: Well, interestingly enough, I wouldn’t call him a Randian, and I didn’t know who Rand was at the time. In fact, as you can tell, I didn’t know much of anything. Probably still don’t. But Murray is the one who introduced me to Ayn Rand. And since he was, of course, excommunicated from the circle, you would expect that maybe Murray would be somewhat antagonistic about Rand. But he wasn’t. He was very complimentary. Oh, you should read Atlas Shrugged. You should read Fountainhead. So when I talked to him about Ayn Rand, he was very complimentary, but I certainly wouldn’t call him a Randian. So, you know, Rand picked her economist. She had a choice, Murray and Alan Greenspan. So the choice was obvious. She went to Greenspan.

Q&A: Other Students and the Theory-Policy Track 00:35:48

Audience Member: Yes, sir.

Doug French: Yeah. Yeah, you know, a few of them you know. Fiametta. I forgot our last name, James Philbin. It’s the only two that I can really remember that I think at all have been associated with the Mises Institute. I know in one class we had, I remember we had some MBA students, and they were completely befuddled by A, it was complete lecture, and B, the tests were essay, and they were all used to multiple choice. And so they did nothing but complain. But there were a number of people, like I say, that took it for auditing purposes. Lee Iglody, Jeff Barr, a few people that are around town. Hans and Murray have been, actually, they’ve produced a lot of lawyers for whatever reason. [Ed. note: also including Joe Becker; Kinsella is also an attorney] In Hans’ case, it’s probably a good idea.2 But not many economics instructors, so anyway.

Q&A: Intellectual Atmosphere at UNLV 00:37:52

Audience Member: Right.

Doug French: I mean, UNLV is known for its gaming studies, I think, and food and beverage, I believe. So, yeah, there wasn’t a lot of intellectual rigor going on in terms of students coming from other disciplines. And there wasn’t very many people in class. There were only about eight to ten people.

Q&A: Practical Applications of Austrian Economics 00:38:52

Audience Member: Yeah.

Doug French: Yeah, it’s cost me a lot of money, actually. Yeah, you know, I took Murray and then fell into this hook, line, and sinker. So I immediately thought, I’m looking for a bubble around every corner. So I buy gold. So I was buying gold at $500 and watched it go down to $250. Instead, I was in Las Vegas, and I should have been taking my money and putting it in real estate, borrowing all I could. But I think that in banking, certainly, there is an application in terms of a knowledge of the business cycle that I think that a lot of people believe that bankers are smart, their average banker is smart, and he’s not. And the average business owner that’s out there…

I think there was a question in the macro panel today about entrepreneurs, why don’t they anticipate when things are going to be bad? And that’s not the way entrepreneurs are. If money’s cheap, and I’ve literally had real estate developers say this to me, I’m going to borrow money even if it’s wrong because the money’s so cheap. And they also will build until they go broke. If it doesn’t work out, then they’ll hit the wall and they’ll start all over again. And I’ve heard the chairman of the National Association of Income Property essentially say that. So I think as a banker you get a better sense for business cycles, and that’s especially probably the most handy thing about it. However, I think we tend to be a little early. We see things and probably miss some opportunities, and that’s why you can be sure, folks, that I’ve lent as many dollars as I possibly can on real estate in Las Vegas in the last nine or ten years. And to this point, it’s been successful, but I can’t say, you know, what it will be in the next few years. But, yeah, there are some applications.

But as far as, and I have received e-mails about whether it’s better to get an MBA or a master’s in econ. And that’s maybe an open question, but I think that employers, an economics degree sometimes might intimidate them, whereas an MBA I don’t think intimidates anybody. And it certainly shouldn’t.

Q&A: Faculty Attitudes Toward Rothbard and Hoppe 00:42:19

Doug French: I think that universally the faculty thought that Murray was a good guy, but that they certainly didn’t do him or Hans any favors in terms of trying to help them attract students. All of the publishing that was being done at the east end of the hall where Professor Hoppe and Murray’s office was. None of the other faculty were publishing anything, and I think there was a fair amount of jealousy because of that. But Murray was impossible not to like. I mean, they liked the guy, but they certainly didn’t encourage anyone to become an Austrian.

Audience Member: You guys aren’t going to spit on me.

Doug French: Thank you very much.

1. See Douglas E. French, “Rothbard as Teacher,” Liberty (May 1995), p. 14 & 69; Liberty (March, 1995), p. 13 (offering for sale video and audiotape of “Why Libertarians Hate,” by R.W. Bradford, from the Liberty Editors’ Conference in Tacoma, Washington, 1994). —Ed.
2. See Kinella, “The Ordeal of Hoppe” (with Jeffrey Tucker), The Free Market, Volume 25, Number 4 (April 2005).  —Ed.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 335.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The final entry:

20. Rahim Taghizadegan, “Murray N. Rothbard and the Demystification of Economics”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment was presented last month at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 334.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

19. Josef Šíma, “Life in a World Without the Rothbardian One Big Liberty Master Button”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment was presented last month at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 333.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

18. Thorsten Polleit, “Thank you, Murray Rothbard, For Your Extreme ‘Defense of Extreme Apriorism’”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment was presented last month at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 332.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

17. David Howden, “Privatizing Entry, Dissolving State Borders: Immigration Policy as the Apex of Rothbardian Libertarianism”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment was presented two days ago at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 329.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

16. Sean Gabb, “Rothbard: An Appreciation from England”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment will be presented at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 330.

AI-assisted audio narration of the main chapters of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment (Papinian Press and The Saif House, 2026) is available at this PFS Youtube Playlist; the mp3 files may also be downloaded in this zip file.

The first two chapters—my “Preface” and Hans’s “Introduction”—were published the week of Rothbard’s birthday here on the Property and Freedom Podcast (PFP315 and PFP314). The other main chapters will be released sequentially weekly on Mondays. The next in the queue:

15. Alessandro Fusillo, “Rothbard, Philosopher of Law”

Note: These audio versions were prepared by Jorge Besada. A professionally-produced audio format is now also available from the Saif House.

The cloth hardcover edition of Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment will be presented at 100 Years with Rothbard, Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026. This and other formats are available at Amazon; Saif House also offers these versions as well as the professionally-produced audio version.