Rothbard example essay topic

365 words
There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off... These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would reinvent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised. -Etienne de la Boetie The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude I can think of no words more appropriate to mark the loss of Murray Rothbard than this passage.

The revival of interest in la Boetie " 's thought is but one tiny piece of Rothbard's contribution to the theory of libertarianism. Much as I disagreed with some of his recent positions on current events, in all honesty I owe him a profound intellectual debt which I can never truly repay. In the end, I think that Rothbard will be most remembered for his ringing defense of the free-market anarchist position. Many libertarians came to this view via the writings of David Friedman; but the earliest realization of the economic feasibility and moral necessity of the abolition of even the nightwatchman state must be attributed to Rothbard.

(And if I understand matters correctly, it was only after developing the anarcho-capitalist position that Rothbard uncovered such proto-anarcho-capitalists as Gustave de Molinari and Benjamin Tucker.) Rothbard's early death is a loss to all libertarians. A great voice for liberty has been quelled. It is my deepest hope that his work will now be studied on its own merits, and that the lingering bitterness that Rothbard's strong personal it often provoked will be forgotten when seen in the full context of his immense intellectual contribution to human freedom.