I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

The things I like most about Rothbard’s work are these:
Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard 181
• His fundamental premise that it is always restrictions on individual freedom that
are in need of justification, not the reverse.
• His consistent use of the rational actor premise as the fundamental axiom of the
social sciences.
• His ability to integrate and systematize seemingly disparate ideas into larger
wholes. While economics, ethics, philosophy of science, sociology, political philosophy,
politics, etc., all are separate disciplines, they should also be approached
as a unified whole. Rothbard’s original and unique blend of different traditions
came closer to doing that than any other.
• His Menckenesque, joyous disrespectfulness for political authority (although
certainly not for genuine authority).
• His clear prose, even when writing about very complex matters. How can a world
that has the writings of Rothbard have so many who think highly of Foucault,
Žižek and the post-modernists?
This has been Rothbard’s enduring legacy for me. Much else has happened since I was
first inspired by him, not least due to my professional research into constitutional political
economy, public choice and social choice theory, and the necessity to address more empirically
oriented research than currently done by most Austrians. Yet should I ever pick some
thinker’s name to use as a specific adjective for describing myself, I would doubtlessly favor
“Rothbardian” above all others.
Nonetheless, I would be dishonest if I did not also add that over the years I came to
disagree with Rothbard on some issues. Some of these were policy issues—usually areas
where I found Rothbard came to deviate from what I thought the truly Rothbardian position
should be (e.g., on immigration). Other issues are those where I am inclined to agree
with Rothbard’s conclusions, but where I do not find his specific arguments convincing
(e.g., on the issues of abortion and restitution).
More fundamentally, I have over the years come to be increasingly skeptical about how
far we can go in political philosophy with just the two Rothbardian axioms of self-ownership
and non-aggression. For me these will always be sine qua non, but there are important issues
in social and political philosophy, which simply cannot be answered without (implicitly or
explicitly) relying on further assumptions. (And for the record, I still think that a neo-
Aristotelian foundation of rights is superior to the alternatives!)
But what the heck! If there is an afterlife, I hope to be able to go to the big Denny’s in
the sky and have a chat with Murray about those issues, medieval Europe, Gothic cathedrals,
his encounters with Ayn Rand, his views of Woody Allen’s and Clint Eastwood’s best movies,
and whether Adam Smith really was that bad. That would be fun. Until then, I have
his portrait over my office desk and his works close at hand, and that ain’t so bad.
Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard is professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen and
columnist at Berlingske Tidende.