The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

22 The Essential Rothbard
POWER AND MARKET:
THE FINAL PART OF ROTHBARD’S TREATISE
As Rothbard originally planned Man, Economy, and State, it
was to include a final part that presented a comprehensive
classification and analysis of types of government intervention.
Unfortunately, this part of the book appeared in the original
edition only in a severely truncated form. Its full publication
came only in 1970, under the title Power and Market. 36 The complete
version of Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, as
Rothbard originally intended it to appear, was finally published in
2004.
In Power and Market, he divides intervention into two types:
triangular, in which “the invader compels a pair of people to make
an exchange or prohibits them from doing so,” 37 and binary, which
is a coerced exchange between the invader and his victim (taxation
is the principal example of this). With great care, he elaborates a
detailed classification of the possible sorts of intervention that fall
under each heading, in every case showing the deleterious effects
of such interference.
As one illustration of Rothbard in action, consider the following:
All government expenditure for resources is a form of consumption
expenditure, in the sense that the money is spent on
various items because the government officials so decree. . . .
It is true that the officials do not consume the product
directly, but their wish has altered the production pattern to
make these goods, and therefore they may be called “consumers”
. . . all talk of government “investment” is fallacious.
38
36 Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Kansas City: Sheed
Andrews and McMeel, 1970).
37 Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, p. 1075.
38 Ibid., p. 1153.