Posted on 02/27/2012 6:05:16 PM PST by EveningStar
Bestselling author Tom Woods responds to radio host Mark Levin's attack on the prolific and crucially important free-market economist Murray Rothbard.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
ping
When “libertarians” stray away from economics they get really crazy
I hate to admit this but I’m familiar with neither Rothbard nor Woods.
The US, in its obsession with fighting communism, became communist itself. We see the end results clearly today. This is what Murray Rothbard was warning against.
Me neither but I know Mark Levin. Henceforth, I deem them dunderheads.
ping
When people make generalizations about libertarians...or most any group... they get really crazy.
Not all libertarians are the same, not in personality, not in priorities, not in strategy or tactics.
I was looking up things about the Free West Alliance...
they wanted to legalize all victimless crimes like....
CANNIBALISM...... ORGAN TRAFFICKING..... INCEST.....
geez, thats insane
The Welfare Warfare state did not have do exist. You can defend yourselfa nd your allies without socialism, and socialism certainly can exist without defense. And we are not communist. Had we listened to Rothbard, communists would have conquered the world.
I have a few rothbard books and they are great. Had we pursued his economic ideas we would be in much better shape.
Murray Rothbard is one of the most brilliant men our country has ever produced. If you can make it through all 1200 pages or so,”Man, Economy and State” will teach you all you need to know about economics.
Having said that, he was utterly blind to the simple fact that his version of anarchocapitalism ONLY works in a world in which is universally accepted - an unlikely proposition to say the least.
I Love Mark Levin, but notwithstanding Rothbrd’s blind spot mentioned above, if he ripped Rothbard on economics, he’s treading on thin ice.
Hank
I’m reading that book as we speak. It’s pure economic brilliance. mark Levin is so off base it’s scary on this.
Many of us don’t know exactly what Mark Levin said. It would be nice if someone could direct us to the appropriate audio clip.
Thank you. I’ll take that under advisement.
I recently heard Levin on the radio and he said something about Ron Paul being an “Articles of Confederation guy.”
I know that Levin fancies himself as a historian, but any historian who said something like that would be out of the historian business very, very quickly.
Anyone who has studied the complaints about the Articles and the subsequent Constitutional Convention knows that one of Madison’s complaints about the current system (under the Articles) was that each state had its own currency, and there was no way for the national government to handle interstate transactions. For example, Rhode Island was printing money out of thin air and was attempting to pay its debts with it to out-of-state creditors.
If anyone knows anything at all about Dr. Paul, it is that he is a sound money guy who would be against the system in place prior to the Constitution I just described.
For more info on Madison and the Constitution debates, see the new biography on Madison by Dr. Kevin R.C. Gutzman (a real historian), whose other books include “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution” and “Who Killed the Constitition? The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama” (Dr. Tom Woods is a co-author on that one). Dr. Gutzman has also written for National Review and Human Events and other publications.
In other words, I think its possible for Levin to be wrong.
Most of the time, when I hear him talk, I like to imagine Paul Giamatti as “Pig Vomit” in the Howard Stern movie. Maybe its just the sound of his voice or the way he talks. I don’t know. As a result, I’ve never really taken him seriously anyway.
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