The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

118 The Essential Rothbard
benefit themselves. The economist should not begin from oversimplified
hypotheses about the economy as a whole, chosen
because convenient for mathematical manipulation. Adoption of
the wrong method was the besetting vice of David Ricardo, the
main impediment, in Rothbard’s view, to the development of economics
in the nineteenth century.
This conflict of method had a fundamental effect on the content
of Say’s and Ricardo’s economics. Say began from the individual
in action, the subject of the common sense propositions he
took to be axiomatic. Thus, Say placed great emphasis on the
entrepreneur. One cannot assume that the economy automatically
adjusts itself: only by the foresight of those able and willing to take
risks can production be allocated efficiently. “It seems to us that
Say is foursquare in the Cantillon-Turgot tradition of the entrepreneur
as forecaster and risk-bearer.” 309
Again, Say’s stress on the individual underlies his analysis of taxation,
which Rothbard rates among his greatest contributions.
Some, including notoriously Adam Smith, consider taxes a way to
benefit the public; but Say would have nothing to do with such
nonsense. Taxation, in essence, is theft; the government forcibly
seizes property from its rightful owners. If the powers-that-be then
condescend to spend some of their ill-gotten gains for the “public
benefit,” they are in reality purchasing people’s goods with the
people’s own money. Taxation, accordingly, should be as low as
possible: the search of Smith and his followers for “canons of justice”
in taxation must be rejected. Rothbard characteristically adds:
why have any taxes at all?
When we turn to Rothbard on Ricardo, the atmosphere is
entirely different. Once again, he reverses conventional opinion.
Say was not a popularizer, but a great economist; likewise contrary
to the prevailing view, Ricardo was not the first truly scientific
economist. His much-praised logic is “verbal mathematics” that
fundamentally misconceives economics.
309 Ibid., p. 26.