A Review
The Books to be reviewed
- Rothbard, Murray N. (1962). Man, Economy & the State, with Power & the
- Market. Scholar’s Edition. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- Rothbard, Murray N. (2005). The Ethics of Liberty. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute.
- Rothbard, Murray N. (2015). The Case against the Feds. Auburn (AL): Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Murray Rothbard—there may be no need for an introduction for this household name not only amongst (very online) Libertarians but also more proactive Conservatives, party members as well as non-parliamentarian Conservatives, such as feature writers and columnists. (“Leitartikler” in German, but the English language lumps all opinion writers together, as if they didn’t differ[1]) Whilst fewer have read them, most of them know him, and about his philosophy. The latter accounts even for those who may not relate to the general idea of right-winged Liberalism or the more extreme, subordinated concept “Mr. Libertarian” figuratively represents as both its spiritus rector and best-known thinker. Like von Mises, he also inspired writers and thinkers alike to come, by alternating degrees. To some, Hans Herrmann Hoppe, who himself states to have dominantly been inspired by von Mises, might come to mind as they share a common radicalism of denouncing the state and its regulatory functions altogether (While Rothbard stuck to analysing the state and its institutions from a sober perspective, compiled in books like his “Man, Economy & the State”, which we will discuss later on, or his “Anatomy of the State”, Hoppe was more radical and even declassified Democracy, a common and favoured shape of stately order as a “failed God” in his best-known work, a collection of essays), while others might think of… Well, it is hard to think of any other thinkers in the modern days. But the idea should be clear: He was one of the most influential Libertarian thinkers, whose reputation precedes him unto this day.
And with this reputation, as the internet has become the most dominant means of communication and transferral of information, there are also abundant misinformation and misconceptions of his thinking. There are the self-proclaimed Rothbardians who oftentimes just want to understate their claim that taxes were essentially theft—a claim that is also prominently displayed at the Mises Institute’s author page of Rothbard—as well as the Leftists who treat him as the pariah of an essentially inhumane embodiment of Social Darwinism that trampled the poor and disadvantaged to death. To be honest, not all of those claims are entirely wrong or deliberately misleading without the acceptance of certain wide-ranging premises. As was the case with the last two authors we spoke about beforehand, this is by far no non-controversial topic, but it is worth taking some time to disseminate his two aforementioned major works by quotes, under the additional consideration of occasional secondary literature scattered inside the footnotes. What will be a preliminary extra is the short excerpt on one of Rothbard’s allegedly most infamous quote, widely shared on the internet via a meme that features Rothbard’s iconic portrait photograph, with a verbal approval of his of what can be seen on a photograph behind him, featuring a scene spot once in Depression-era America, of a woman offering her four children for sale[2]. The quote, which we will address hereunder again, was placed thereunder, and reads as follows:
“A children for sale inquire within approve of this voluntary transaction! Now if a parent may own his children he may also transfer that ownership to someone else, he may sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract. In short we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children.”
Wherefrom this exact quote was derived is currently unbeknownst to me as I have just copied it from the meme. (Typos in the punctuation could have occurred, but shouldn’t) I also couldn’t find it in the “Ethics of Liberty”, where it was allegedly cited from, although OP didn’t provide a page number for any existing edition of the book. What I could find instead was a similar quote, one that I am also more familiar with than the one quoted above:
“Now if a parent may own his child (within the framework of nonaggression and runaway-freedom), then he may also transfer that ownership to someone else. He may give the child out for adoption, or he may sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract. In short, we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children.”[3]
In the end, what it says is the same, obviously, but we should still correct quotes that are either not his or have been distorted in its characteristics either due to a blend with similar statements of either his or others, or seemingly via a game of Chinese whispers. Later on, we will bring this quote up at-larger with further implications, showing that he even contradicts himself within two continuous paragraphs. Furthermore, his comprehension of children at an early stage of development, of what good they could be as labourers. We can imagine what would be their primary use when being purchased by someone, firstly ignoring the more egregious utilisation. Menial labour would be their profession, as we will later learn that they could do nothing besides running errands or exercising numb, repetitive activities. Presuming that he is (one of) the first Libertarian thinkers to consider children not only their parents’ property but also a tradable commodity—some might even go as far as to say that he is the only one to at least have written it, while many more have had thought about it, but never dared to write it down as it is finally immoral and even inhumane (which he wrote in the first sentence from the book that has not yet been quoted but will be addressed later)—he also deserves to be the one under whom we will speak briefly about the pointlessness of child labour, not from a moralist or left-leaning perspective (although we may also speak of a humanistic perspective, as even Libertarian politician Gary Johnson from New Hampshire, a ruby-red state with Conservatives leaning fairly across the right’s spectrum, well into the Libertarian sector, had to contradict his own party when it was announced via its Twitter channel that public schools should be closed and children should instead seek jobs to gain experience there[4]. As with Rothbard, no particular age at which this rule should set in was mentioned, meaning that right after birth, such suggestions could be implied. This problem we will address also), but from an economic one. Afore we could already mention anecdotal evidence for whatever that in other, poorer places of the world, children showed a high stage of development when they began to address not the fundamental nuisance of their coercion into labour but the conditions under which they have worked. Such was the situation in Bolivia, where children negotiated with their employers to obtain better working conditions[5]. Manifest realpolitik, we could say, but in the end, we will see that children are naturally incapable of and useless for exercising actual labour. As mentioned before, errands are the most productive they could exercise. But this will be for later. Otherwise, we will of course speak about his general philosophy, about relations with the previously examined authors and probable distinctions from them, if there are any. In this regard, he will not differ from anybody else about whom we have spoken so far. What we can say is that he is, apparently, not as vulgar as some of his self-proclaimed disciples caricature him. It may be due to the internet’s culture of permanent distress and anger, but this would be up for the reader to evaluate[6]. As for me, we should not bring up more ado and dive straight into his work. Allez !
Read the full text: »Google Drive«
Comments, Feedback and the likes are going here: »Telegram«
[1] Then again, we see evermore news readers—mere laymen, they are—who fail to distinguish between analyses and opinion pieces when the apparent sort of text is not written above the text itself. Whether this is a nuisance on behalf of the authors or the readers… Professionals seem to consider the formers to be the perpetrators: Miller, Eliana (July 15, 2020). Opinion, news or editorial? Readers often can’t tell the difference. Poynter Institute: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2020/opinion-news-or-editorial-readers-often-cant-tell-the-difference/
[2] To see the meme that is talked about (although I may be declared a normie for sharing a dead meme, but may the devil care about such etiquettes): https://me.me/i/a-children-for-sale-inquire-within-approve-of-this-voluntary-11290651. And for those who may also be interested in the—likely foreseeable—history of the background photograph, there is also a family history included, which has been shared on this website: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/4-children-sale-1948/. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find or didn’t have the time to find it at the Library of Congress. It at least didn’t intend to find the Vidette-Messenger in the newspaper section.
[3] Murray Rothbard (2005), page 142. This is also the page number as per the PDF edition. It might occasionally happen that the page number as per the ePUB edition is quoted. In this case, this will be mentioned separately.
[4] … Which doesn’t mean that Libertarians in general were anxious to state that child labour protections were a nuisance that should have been gotten rid of yesterday at the latest. Renowned think tanks like the CATO Institute spoke out in favour of uplifting them in great detail: Powell, Benjamin (July 29, 2014). A Case against Child Labor Prohibitions. CATO Institute: https://www.cato.org/economic-development-bulletin/case-against-child-labor-prohibitions
[5] The final resolution, shared in a higher resolution by the UNESCO, can be found without a proper citation but under the following name: “Ley n° 548. Código Niño, Niña y Adolescente”: https://siteal.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/sit_accion_files/siteal_bolivia_0248.pdf (PDF, 742 KB)
[6] This opinion, for which I am grateful as it puts the whole situation on Social networks aptly into form, was inspired by an Indo-American blogger: Rao, Venkatesh (January 16, 2020). The Internet of Beefs. Ribbonfarm: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/
No comments:
Post a Comment