Editing Murray Rothbard (section)

=== Conflict with Ayn Rand ===
In 1954, Rothbard, along with several other attendees of Mises's seminar, joined the circle of novelist [[Ayn Rand]], the founder of [[Objectivism]]. He soon parted from her, writing, among other things, that her ideas were not as original as she proclaimed but similar to those of [[Aristotle]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], and [[Herbert Spencer]].<ref name="Enemy" />{{rp|pages=109–14}} In 1958, after the publication of Rand's novel ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', Rothbard wrote her a "fan letter", calling the book "an infinite treasure house" and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, [but] one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction." He also wrote: "[Y]ou introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and natural law philosophy," prompting him to learn "the glorious natural rights tradition."<ref name="Enemy" />{{rp|pages=121, 132–34}}<ref name="Burns">{{cite book |last=Burns |first=Jennifer |author-link=Jennifer Burns (historian) |title=Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right |title-link=Goddess of the Market |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-19-532487-7}}</ref>{{rp|pages=145, 182}}<ref>[https://mises.org/journals/jls/21_4/21_4_3.pdf "Mises and Rothbard Letters to Ayn Rand"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140711225127/http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_4/21_4_3.pdf|date=July 11, 2014}}, ''[[Journal of Libertarian Studies]]'', Volume 21, No. 4 (Winter 2007): 11–16.</ref> Rothbard rejoined Rand's circle for a few months but soon broke with Rand again over various differences, including his defense of his interpretation of anarchism.

Rothbard later satirized Rand's acolytes in his unpublished one-act farce ''Mozart Was a Red''<ref>[[Chris Matthew Sciabarra]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ly9S2quKl1EC&pg=PA165 Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism]'', Penn State Press, 2000. p. 165, {{ISBN|0-27102049-0}}</ref> and his essay "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult".<ref name="Burns" />{{rp|page=184}}<ref name="Mozart">[http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html ''Mozart Was a Red: A Morality Play in One Act''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150914051843/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html|date=September 14, 2015}}, Lew Rockwell, by Murray N. Rothbard, early 1960s, with an introduction by [[Justin Raimondo]]</ref><ref>Rothbard, Murray (1972). [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202100419/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html|date=December 2, 2016}}, Lew Rockwell.</ref> He characterized Rand's circle as a "dogmatic, personality cult". His play parodies Rand (through the character Carson Sand) and her friends and is set during a visit from Keith Hackley, a fan of Sand's novel ''The Brow of Zeus'' (a play on ''Atlas Shrugged'').<ref name="Mozart" />