Conceived in Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard

Throughout his life, he found himself at odds with conventional wisdom and was not shy about making his position known. In fact, Rothbard did have the hallmarks of a pugilist and contrarian. Although his parents hired a boxing instructor, he did not respond well and later wrote that it quickly became apparent to all concerned that my career was not along pugilistic lines (p. Rothbard was a precocious child, and like many such geniuses he found social acceptance difficult. Raimondo attributes this quality to the influence of Rothbards father, David, who disdained socialism and preached the gospel of science and rationalism, even naming his son Murray Newton. Rothbard, on the other hand, despite being born into a New York Jewish immigrant family with leftist sympathies (one uncle was an engineer on the Moscow subway), seems always to have been an enemy of the state. Rummel started on the left but shifted ground to libertarianism as a result of experience, research, and reflection. Rummel has even coined a word, democide, to describe the killing of civilian populations during war, the extermination of people in the pursuit of racial purity, the collectivization of agriculture, or other social-engineering desiderata that occurred during the twentieth century. As we look back on that centurys record, it is difficult to disagree with Rothbards negative assessment of it. The Austrian economist and libertarian activist spent a lifetime doing battle with defenders of the welfare-warfare state, which reached its highest form of development in the twentieth century. This invocation would have been a good alternative title for Justin Raimondos energetic and well-written new biography of Rothbard. In his 1992 inaugural address as president of the paleoconservative John Randolph Club, Murray Rothbard urged his audience to repeal the twentieth century! (p.

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Conceived in Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard