Editing Murray Rothbard (section)

=== Austrian economics ===
{{Austrian School sidebar|people}}
Rothbard was an advocate and practitioner of the [[Austrian School]] tradition of his teacher [[Ludwig von Mises]]. Like Mises, Rothbard rejected the application of the [[scientific method]] to economics and dismissed [[econometrics]], empirical and statistical analysis, and other tools of mainstream social science as outside the field (economic history might use those tools, but not Economics proper).<ref name="mises.org">Rothbard, Murray (1976). [https://mises.org/rothbard/praxeology.pdf ''Praxeology:  The Methodology of Austrian Economics''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140731160019/http://mises.org/rothbard/praxeology.pdf |date=July 31, 2014 }}. Mises.org</ref> He instead embraced [[praxeology]], the strictly ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' methodology of Mises. Praxeology conceives of economic laws as akin to geometric or mathematical [[axiom]]s: fixed, unchanging, objective, and discernible through logical reasoning.<ref name="mises.org"/>{{Third-party inline|date=March 2023}}

According to Misesian economist [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]], eschewing the scientific method and [[empiricism]] distinguishes the Misesian approach "from all other current economic schools", which dismiss the Misesian approach as "dogmatic and unscientific." [[Mark Skousen]] of [[Chapman University]] and the [[Foundation for Economic Education]], a critic of mainstream economics,<ref name="mises">{{cite web|url=https://mises.org/media/2938/Where-Modern-Economics-Went-Wrong|website=mises.org|title=Where Modern Economics Went Wrong|access-date=August 28, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140916033639/http://mises.org/media/2938/Where-Modern-Economics-Went-Wrong|archive-date=September 16, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> praises Rothbard as brilliant, his writing style persuasive, his economic arguments nuanced and logically rigorous and his Misesian methodology sound.<ref name=":3">Mark Skousen. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6sisXMv_AecC&pg=PA390 The Making of Modern Economics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160527151449/https://books.google.com/books?id=6sisXMv_AecC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA390 |date=May 27, 2016 }}'' (M.E. Sharpe, 2009, p. 390). Skousen writes that Rothbard "refused to write for the academic journals."</ref> But Skousen concedes that Rothbard was effectively "outside the discipline" of mainstream economics and that his work "fell on deaf ears" outside his ideological circles. Rothbard wrote extensively on [[Austrian business cycle theory]] and, as part of this approach, strongly opposed [[central banking]], [[fiat money]], and [[fractional-reserve banking]], advocating a [[gold standard]] and a 100% reserve requirement for banks.<ref name="Mystery" />{{rp|pages=89–94, 96–97}}<ref name="Gordon" /><ref name="golddollar">{{cite web |url=https://mises.org/daily/1829 |first=Murray |last=Rothbard |title=The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar |year=1991 |orig-year=1962 |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |access-date=August 13, 2013 |archive-date=August 1, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130801065845/http://mises.org/daily/1829 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/north/north769.html |title=What Is Money? Part 5: Fractional Reserve Banking |first=Gary |last=North |author-link=Gary North (economist) |publisher=LewRockwell.com |date=October 10, 2009 |access-date=August 13, 2013 |archive-date=March 13, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313211006/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/north/north769.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

==== Polemics against mainstream economics ====
Rothbard wrote a series of [[polemic]]s in which he deprecated a number of leading modern economists. He vilified [[Adam Smith]], calling him a "shameless plagiarist"<ref>{{cite book |first=Murray |last=Rothbard |title=An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |location=Auburn, AL |date=2006 |orig-date=1995 |isbn=0-945466-48-X |volume=1 |page=435}}</ref> who set economics off track, ultimately leading to the rise of [[Marxism]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Murray |last=Rothbard |title=An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |location=Auburn, AL |date=2006 |orig-date=1995 |isbn=0-945466-48-X |volume=1 |page=453}}</ref> Rothbard praised Smith's contemporaries, including [[Richard Cantillon]], [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot]] and [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac]], for developing the [[subjective theory of value]]. In response to Rothbard's charge that Smith's ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' was largely plagiarized, [[David D. Friedman]] castigated Rothbard's scholarship and character, saying that he "was [either] deliberately dishonest or never really read the book he was criticizing".<ref>[[Gerard Casey (philosopher)|Casey, Gerard]] (2010). ''Murray Rothbard''. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 112. {{ISBN|978-1-4411-4209-2}}.</ref> Tony Endres called Rothbard's treatment of Smith a "travesty".<ref>Tony Endres, review of ''Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective'', History of Economics Review, http://www.hetsa.org.au/pdf-back/23-RA-7.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140127064606/http://www.hetsa.org.au/pdf-back/23-RA-7.pdf |date=January 27, 2014 }}</ref>

Rothbard was equally scathing in his criticism of [[John Maynard Keynes]],<ref>[https://mises.org/resources/5223/Keynes-the-Man Keynes the Man] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110902064513/http://mises.org/resources/5223/Keynes-the-Man |date=September 2, 2011 }}, originally published in ''Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics'', Edited by Mark Skousen. New York: Praeger, 1992, pp. 171–98; Online ed. at The [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]</ref> calling him weak on economic theory and a shallow political opportunist. Rothbard also wrote more generally that Keynesian-style governmental regulation of money and credit created a "dismal monetary and banking situation". He called [[John Stuart Mill]] a "wooly man of mush" and speculated that Mill's "soft" personality led his economic thought astray.<ref>Gordon, David (1999). [https://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=151&sortorder=issue "John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914004452/https://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=151&sortorder=issue |date=September 14, 2014 }} The Mises Review</ref> Rothbard was critical of monetarist economist [[Milton Friedman]]. In his polemic "Milton Friedman Unraveled", he called Friedman a "statist", a "favorite of the establishment", a friend of and an "apologist" for [[Richard Nixon]], and a "pernicious influence" on public policy.<ref>Ruger, William (2013). Meadowcroft, John, ed. ''Milton Friedman. Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers''. New York: Bloomsbury. p. 174 {{ISBN?}}</ref><ref>Rothbard, Murray (1971). [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html "Milton Friedman Unraveled."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313192641/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard43.html |date=March 13, 2014 }} LewRockwell.com</ref> Rothbard said that libertarians should scorn rather than celebrate Friedman's academic prestige and political influence. Noting that Rothbard has "been nasty to me and my work", Friedman responded to Rothbard's criticism by calling him a "cult builder and a dogmatist".<ref>Doherty, Brian (1995). [http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds/3 "Best of Both Worlds."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190405013824/http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds/3 |date=April 5, 2019 }} ''Reason''</ref>

In a memorial volume published by the Mises Institute, Rothbard's protégé and libertarian theorist [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] wrote that ''[[Man, Economy, and State]]'' "presented a blistering refutation of all variants of mathematical economics" and included it among Rothbard's "almost mind-boggling achievements". Hoppe lamented that, like Mises, Rothbard died without winning the [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences|Nobel Prize]] and, while acknowledging that Rothbard and his work were largely ignored by academia, called him an "intellectual giant" comparable to [[Aristotle]], [[John Locke]], and [[Immanuel Kant]].<ref name="Murray Memoriam">{{cite book|last=Rockwell|first=Llewellyn|title=Murray N. Rothbard In Memoriam|year=1995|publisher=Mises Institute|location=Auburn, Alabama|pages=33–37|url=http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf|access-date=December 16, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220074229/http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf|archive-date=December 20, 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Disputes with other Austrian economists====
Georgetown Professor [[Randy Barnett]] says, regarding Rothbard's "insistence on complete ideological purity", that "[a]lmost every intellectual who entered his orbit was eventually spun off, or self emancipated, for some deviation or another. For this reason, the circle around Rothbard was always small."<ref>https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1860&context=facpub</ref> Although he self-identified as an Austrian economist, Rothbard's methodology was at odds with that of many other Austrians. In 1956, Rothbard deprecated the views of Austrian economist [[Fritz Machlup]], stating that Machlup was no praxeologist and calling him instead a "positivist" who failed to represent the views of Ludwig von Mises. Rothbard noted that, in fact, Machlup shared the opposing positivist view associated with economist [[Milton Friedman]].<ref>In "Defense of 'Extreme Apriorism' Murray N. Rothbard" ''Southern Economic Journal'', January 1957, pp. 314–20</ref> Mises and Machlup had been colleagues in 1920s Vienna before each relocated to the United States, and Mises later urged his American protege [[Israel Kirzner]] to pursue his PhD studies with Machlup at [[Johns Hopkins University]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Kirzner|first=Israel|title=Interview of Israel Kirzner|url=https://www.mises.org/journals/aen/aen17_1_1.asp|publisher=Mises Institute|access-date=June 17, 2013|archive-date=February 10, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080210215643/http://www.mises.org/journals/aen/aen17_1_1.asp|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Third-party inline|date=April 2023}}

According to libertarian economists [[Tyler Cowen]] and Richard Fink,<ref name=ERE>{{cite journal|last=Tyler Cowen and Richard Fink|title=Inconsistent Equilibrium Constructs: The Evenly Rotating Equilibrium Economy of Mises and Rothbard|journal=American Economic Review|volume=75|issue=4|pages=866–69|year=1985|jstor=1821365}}</ref> Rothbard wrote that the term ''evenly rotating economy'' (ERE) could be used to analyze complexity in a world of change. Mises introduced ERE as an alternative nomenclature for the mainstream economic method of [[static equilibrium]] and [[general equilibrium]] analysis. Cowen and Fink found "serious inconsistencies in both the nature of the ERE and its suggested uses". With the sole exception of Rothbard, no other economist adopted Mises' term, and the concept continued to be called "equilibrium analysis".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gunning|first=Patrick|title=Mises on the Evenly Rotating Economy|journal=Journal of Austrian Economics|volume=3|issue=3|url=https://mises.org/periodical.aspx?Id=4|date=November 23, 2014|access-date=September 13, 2014|archive-date=September 14, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914050526/https://www.mises.org/periodical.aspx?Id=4|url-status=live}}</ref>

In a 2011 article critical of Rothbard's "reflexive opposition" to inflation, ''[[The Economist]]'' noted that his views were increasingly gaining influence among politicians and laypeople on the right. The article contrasted Rothbard's categorical rejection of inflationary policies with the monetary views of "sophisticated Austrian-school monetary economists such as [[George Selgin]] and [[Lawrence H. White]]", [who] follow [[Friedrich Hayek|Hayek]] in treating stability of nominal spending as a monetary ideal—a position "not all that different from [[Scott Sumner|Mr [Scott] Sumner]]'s".<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 22, 2011 |title=Missing Milton Friedman |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2011/07/22/missing-milton-friedman |access-date=2023-03-12 |issn=0013-0613 |archive-date=March 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230312073452/https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2011/07/22/missing-milton-friedman |url-status=live }}</ref> According to economist Peter Boettke, Rothbard is better described as a [[Property rights (economics)|property rights]] economist than as an Austrian economist. In 1988, Boettke noted that Rothbard "vehemently attacked all of the books of the younger Austrians".<ref name="Boettke Nomos">{{cite journal|last=Boettke|first=Peter|title=Economists and Liberty: Murray N. Rothbard|journal=Nomos|year=1988|pages=29ff|url=https://www.academia.edu/2800511|access-date=November 17, 2013|archive-date=May 3, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503213135/https://www.academia.edu/2800511|url-status=live}}</ref>