Editing Murray Rothbard (section)

=== Ethics ===
[[File:Ludwig von Mises.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Ludwig von Mises]]]]
Although Rothbard adopted Ludwig von Mises' [[deductive]] methodology for his social theory and economics,<ref>Grimm, Curtis M.; Hunn, Lee; Smith, Ken G. ''Strategy as Action: Competitive Dynamics and Competitive Advantage''. New York: Oxford University Press. 2006. p. 43 {{ISBN?}}</ref> he parted with Mises on the question of ethics. Specifically, he rejected Mises' conviction that ethical values remain subjective and opposed [[utilitarianism]] in favor of principle-based, [[natural law]] reasoning. In defense of his free-market views, Mises employed utilitarian economic arguments to contend that interventionist policies worsened society. Rothbard countered that interventionist policies do, in fact, benefit some people, including certain government employees and beneficiaries of social programs. Therefore, unlike Mises, Rothbard argued for an objective, natural-law basis for the free market.<ref name="Essential" />{{rp|pages=87–89}} He called this principle "[[self-ownership]]", loosely basing the idea on the writings of [[John Locke]] and also borrowing concepts from [[classical liberalism]] and the anti-imperialism of the [[Old Right (United States)|Old Right]].<ref name="Enemy"/>{{rp|page=134}}

Rothbard accepted the [[labor theory of property]] but rejected the [[Lockean proviso]], arguing that if an individual mixes his labor with unowned land, then he becomes the proper owner eternally and that after that time, it is private property which may change hands only by trade or gift.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/j.1536-7150.2004.00298.x|title=31 Reckoning with Rothbard|year=2004|last1=Kyriazi|first1=Harold|journal=American Journal of Economics and Sociology|volume=63|issue=2|pages=451–84}}</ref> Rothbard was a strong critic of [[egalitarianism]]. The title essay of Rothbard's 1974 book ''[[Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays]]'' held: "Equality is not in the natural order of things, and the crusade to make everyone equal in every respect (except before the law) is certain to have disastrous consequences."<ref>George C. Leef, [http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/egalitarianism-as-a-revolt-against-nature-and-other-essays-by-murray-rothbard-edited-by-david-gordon#axzz2i8c6D5oO "Book Review of ''Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays'' by Murray Rothbard", edited by David Gordon (2000 ed.)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019180503/http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/egalitarianism-as-a-revolt-against-nature-and-other-essays-by-murray-rothbard-edited-by-david-gordon#axzz2i8c6D5oO |date=October 19, 2013 }}, ''[[The Freeman]]'', July 2001.</ref> In it, Rothbard wrote: "At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality; that all the world is a tabula rasa that can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will."<ref>Rothbard, Murray (2003). [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard31.html "Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150618045321/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard31.html |date=June 18, 2015 }}, essay published in full at [[Lewrockwell.com]]. See also Rothbard's essay [https://mises.org/daily/3007 "The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914021835/https://mises.org/daily/3007 |date=September 14, 2014 }}, the 1991 introduction to republication of ''Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor'', [[Ludwig Von Mises Institute]], 2008.</ref> [[Noam Chomsky]] critiqued Rothbard's ideal society as "a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it{{nbsp}}... First of all, it couldn't function for a second—and if it could, all you'd want to do is get out, or commit suicide or something."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schoeffel |first1=John |last2=Chomsky |first2=Noam |title=Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky |date=2011 |publisher=ReadHowYouWant.com |isbn=978-1-4587-8817-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TykKulVqY9UC |language=en |access-date=October 31, 2015 |archive-date=August 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806062507/https://books.google.com/books?id=TykKulVqY9UC |url-status=live }}</ref> The philosopher James. W. Child has even questioned whether Rothbard and other 
similar libertarians can sustain a standard of fraud.<ref> Child, James W. (1994). Can libertarianism sustain a fraud standard? Ethics 104 (4):722-738. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/293652?journalCode=et </ref><ref>Ferguson, Benjamin. (2018). CAN LIBERTARIANS GET AWAY WITH FRAUD? Economics and Philosophy, 34(2), 165–184.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/can-libertarians-get-away-with-fraud/3324B0979DFF2E87514B8172240BA8B3</ref>