I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

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DOUGLAS E. FRENCH
STUDYING UNDER MURRAY
It was only through a series of lucky breaks that I studied under Murray Rothbard.
After moving to Las Vegas in 1986, I decided to go back to school and pursue a Masters
degree in Economics in the fall of 1989. Why economics? I minored in the subject as an
undergrad and kind of liked it. But, at the time MBA degrees were all the rage, and I was
advised that an MBA would be better for my career, I decided on economics. This was my
first lucky break.
By the fall of 1990, I had taken 12 hours worth of Masters’ courses and was trying
desperately to stay away from statistics and econometrics classes. I spotted “History of
Economic Thought” with Rothbard as the instructor in the UNLV course catalog and
thought “perfect!”
I mentioned to one of my classmates that I would be taking the course with Rothbard
and he strongly advised against it, contending that Rothbard was “a kook.” He said I should
take the course, independent study, with another professor.
I didn’t know who Murray was, or what Austrian Economics was, nor had I heard of
the term Libertarian. But, since I worked all day and took classes at night, I didn’t have
time to hassle with lining up an instructor for independent study, so I went ahead and took
Rothbard. My second break.
The first night of class, Murray hit the door and started talking immediately, something
about dumb politicians threatening the evil oil companies that were raising gas prices. From
that thought, he just continued right into his “History of Economic Thought” lecture. He
didn’t take roll, or hand out a syllabus. Murray didn’t have time for that; he had centuries
of history to cover.
So, the 8 or 10 of us in the class furiously took notes trying to keep up. I didn’t know
it at the time, but only half of us were taking the class for credit, the other half were just
auditing the course, having taken it previously for credit. Murray changed his History of
Thought lectures each semester, so students took it as often as it was offered. In the fall of
1990, the course had a financial history emphasis.
I also took Murray for US Economic History the following semester. But, I still
didn’t know Murray at all. The only time we spoke was one night when there was a bomb
scare at Beem Hall where our classroom and the school of business instructors’ offices
were housed. Not being able to enter the building, I went to the student union and saw
Murray sitting with one of my classmates. I asked what was going on, and Murray mentioned
the bomb scare. I sardonically suggested to him, “We should send some