The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Essential Rothbard 93
When, e.g., he deduces from the nonaggression axiom that
people ought to be free to make any voluntary exchange they wish,
his conclusion, like his premise, is part of political philosophy. He
makes no attempt to argue that every voluntary exchange is
morally desirable. It follows, Rothbard contends, from sound
political principles that blackmail ought not to be legally prohibited:
it is the sale of the service of withholding information from
interested parties. As another example of the iron consistency with
which Rothbard is willing to pursue his conclusions in the face of
commonly held beliefs, parents should be under no obligation to
care for their infant children.
Some would at this point throw up their hands in outraged horror.
But one may hope that before doing so, anyone who reacts
negatively will consider the main issue. Rothbard in no way suggests
that blackmail or parental neglect is morally permissible. His
moral opinion of these practices is just the same as that of most
people. But from the fact that an activity is immoral, it does not
follow that it ought to be legally banned. Indeed if Rothbard is
right about political morality, it will often be immoral to attempt
to prohibit immoral activity. This seeming paradox, instead of
undermining morality, actually serves as an important means for
its defense. One has only to glance at any period of history to see
that the main violator of morality has been what Nietzsche called
“that coldest of all cold monsters, the State.” A doctrine, like
Rothbard’s, that rigidly restricts the role of politics in the enforcement
of morality can only be welcomed from the moral point of
view.
A substantial part of The Ethics of Liberty is devoted to Rothbard’s
criticisms of other classical liberals, including Mises, Hayek,
and Isaiah Berlin. His discussion of Robert Nozick is especially
noteworthy. As he points out, a key part of Nozick’s defense of a
minimal state depends on an equivocation. Nozick’s argument is a
response to Rothbard’s contention that, ideally, protective services
should be provided by competing private agencies. A compulsory
monopoly agency, i.e., a government, is neither necessary nor
desirable.