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The Roots of Rothbard
by David Gordon
by David Gordon
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The Irrepressible Rothbard:
The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard
Edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Center for Libertarian Studies, 2000
xx + 431 pgs.
This indispensable selection of articles that Murray Rothbard wrote
for the Rothbard-Rockwell Report contains the most insightful comment on
foreign policy I have ever read. In a few paragraphs, Rothbard destroys the
prevailing doctrine of twentieth-century American foreign policy.
According to the Accepted Picture, totalitarian powers twice
threatened America during the past sixty years. Germany, under the maniacal
leadership of Hitler, aimed at world conquest. When the United States and her
allies succeeded in halting the Nazis, a new menace demanded attention.
The Soviet Union, a militantly expansionist state, had to be
contained during the protracted cold war. At various times throughout the cold
war, and continuing after it to the present, hostile and aggressive dictators
presented America with problems. Saddam Hussein ranks perhaps as the most
notorious of these tyrants.
The Accepted Picture draws a lesson from all these events. An
aggressive power, almost always led by a dictator, must be dealt with as one
would handle a neighborhood bully. Only firm demands to the dictator can stave
off war.
Since bullies generally are cowards, dictators will back down if
directly challenged. The Munich Conference, September 29-30, 1938, perfectly
illustrates how not to handle a dictator. Britain and France appeased Hitler;
the result was war one year later. Had Britain and France acted when Hitler
remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, the Nazis could have been overthrown
virtually without cost.
Rothbard at once locates the fallacy in this oft-repeated line of
thought. "Answer me this, war hawks: when, in history when, did one State,
faced with belligerent, ultra-tough ultimatums by another, when did that State
ever give up and in effect surrender - before any war was fought? When?" (p.
170).
Rothbard's rhetorical question rests upon a simple point of
psychology. The supposed "bully" cannot surrender to an ultimatum lest he be
overthrown. "No head of State with any pride or self-respect, or who wishes to
keep the respect of his citizens, will surrender to such an ultimatum" (p. 170).
The Gulf War perfectly illustrates Rothbard's contention. Faced
with an overwhelming show of force, Saddam Hussein did not back down.
Rothbard's apt generalization explains Saddam's seemingly irrational response.
But have we not forgotten something? What about World War II? Does
not the failure to confront Hitler over Czechoslovakia in 1938 prove
conclusively the thesis of the anti-appeasers?
Our author's response illustrates his ability to counter an
opposing argument at its strongest point. "Neither was World War II in Europe a
case where toughness worked. On the contrary, Hitler disregarded the English
guarantee to Poland that brought England and France into the German-Polish war
in September 1939" (p. 170).
A belligerent foreign policy, then, will most likely lead to the
wars it professes to deter. But who urges us toward this course? Rothbard
arraigns the social democrats and their successors, the neoconservatives. These
he accuses of support for statism at home and war abroad.
Rothbard tersely sums up the credo of social democracy in this way:
"on all crucial issues, social democrats stand against liberty and tradition,
and in favor of statism and Big Government. They are more dangerous in the long
run than the communists, not simply because they have endured, but also because
their program and their rhetorical appeals are far more insidious, since they
claim to combine socialism with the appealing virtues of 'democracy' and
freedom of inquiry" (p. 23).
For Rothbard, the State always ranks as the principal enemy. The
battle against the "massive welfare-warfare State" to him was no mere clash of
abstractions. Quite the contrary, he aimed at particular targets who embodied
the statist doctrines he abhorred. Sidney Hook occupied a place near the summit
of his intellectual foes. A precocious communist in the 1920s, Hook found the
Soviet Union insufficiently revolutionary and soon beat the drums for militant
anticommunism, though of a distinctly socialist cast. Throughout his long life,
he called for war, first against Nazi Germany and then against Comrade Stalin.
According to Rothbard, "one's attitude toward Sidney Hook . . . provides a
convenient litmus test" (p. 25).
The struggle against the State needed to be waged on many fronts.
Rothbard saw a disturbing trend among certain left-libertarians. Although
libertarianism quintessentially opposes State power, some doctrinal deviants
allowed the enemy to enter through the back door.
They did so by holding that public agencies must observe rules of
nondiscriminatory treatment. These rules have nothing to do with the free
market, but everything to do with the slogans of the contemporary Left.
Rothbard expertly locates the central fallacy in the argument of the
libertarian heretics. Since nearly everything nowadays partakes to a degree of
the State, the new doctrine leads to total government control.
Rothbard states his point with characteristic panache: "But not
only literal government operations are subject to this egalitarian doctrine. It
also applies to any activities which are tarred with the public brush, with the
use, for example, of government streets, or any acceptance of taxpayer funds .
. . sometimes, libertarians fall back on the angry argument that, nowadays, you
can't really distinguish between public and private anyway" (p. 103).
We have, then, an all out statist attack on liberty. How has this
assault managed to do so well? Rothbard's answer exposes the philosophical
roots of our problem. No longer does the academic elite believe in objective
morality, grasped by right reason. Lacking a rational basis for moral values,
our supposed intellectual leaders readily fall prey to statist fallacy.
The beginning stage of nihilism, Rothbard maintains, occurred in
art. "First, the left-liberals preached l'art pour l'art in aesthetics, and, as
a corollary in ethics, trumpeted the new view that there is no such thing as a
revealed or objective ethics, that all ethics are 'subjective,' that all of
life's choices are only personal, emotive 'preferences'" (p. 296).
The denial of objective standards in the name of freedom led to
death and destruction. Rothbard maintains that ethical nihilism results in the
overthrow of the most basic human rights, including the right not to be
murdered. He has not the slightest sympathy for the rampant pro-euthanasia
movement. "No, the mask is off, and Doctor Assisted Death and Mr. Liberal Death
with Dignity, and all the rest of the crew turn out to be Doctor or Mister
Murder. Watch out Mr. And Ms. America: liberal humanists, lay and medical, are
. . . out to kill you" (p. 303).
What can be done to combat statism and nihilism? Rothbard views
populism with great sympathy. As so often in his work, he rethought and
deepened his position. He determined that a common libertarian strategy,
looking to the courts to enforce rights, was mistaken.
Even in cases in which courts enforce the "correct" position, the
imperatives of local control and states rights should not be overturned. Thus,
Rothbard favored a "pro-choice" position on abortion, but he was loath to have
courts enforce abortion rights against recalcitrant states.
"No; libertarians should no longer be complacent about
centralization and national jurisdiction - the equivalent," he writes, "of
foreign intervention or of reaching for global dictatorship. Kansans henceforth
should take their chances in Kansas; Nevadans in Nevada, etc. And if women find
that abortion clinics are not defended in Kansas, they can travel to New York
or Nevada" (p. 306).
Although Rothbard found great merit in populism, he did not defend
the movement uncritically. He saw danger in leftist populism: a true populist
movement must not abandon the free market in favor of crackpot panaceas. In one
of the last articles he wrote, he warned Pat Buchanan against this danger. "In
this murky and volatile situation, the important thing for us paleopopulists is
that we find a candidate as soon as possible who will lead and develop the
cause and the movement of right-wing populism, to raise the standard of the
Old, free, decentralized, and strictly limited Republic" (p. 141).
This is taken from the Winter 2000 issue of the Mises Review.
November 6, 2000
David Gordon [send him mail] is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von
Mises Institute and editor of its Mises Review. See also his Books on Liberty.
Copyright © 2000 Ludwig von Mises Institute
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