Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
28 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, human capital, labour economics, libertarianism, Murray Rothbard, Public Choice Tags: signaling
SummaryIn this chapter, Rothbard makes the case for the abolition of public schooling. While he somewhat surprisingly views Friedman’s voucher system as “a great improvement over the present system in permitting a wider range of parental choice and enabling the abolition of the public school system,” Rothbard will settle for nothing less than the separation…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 7
14 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in Austrian economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
[Update: I’m on vacation next Friday, so the next installment of this book club will be in two weeks.]SummaryIn this chapter on “Personal Liberty,” Rothbard puts run-of-the-mill “civil libertarians” to shame. He’s more radical than most of the left on traditional civil liberties like freedom of speech, drugs, and wiretapping. He stands up for the…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 6
02 Mar 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, law and economics, liberalism, Murray Rothbard, privatisation, Public Choice
Update: I’m doing a Substack Live today on You Have No Right to Your Culture with the Boyd Institute’s Peter Banks. 4 PM ET.SummaryThis is the shortest chapter of the book, just six pages long. Rothbard makes a laundry list of what he calls “the major problem areas of our society” and argues that government…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 4
21 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
SummaryRothbard now applies the normative standards developed in chapter 2 to explain what libertarians have against government (or as Rothbard, inspired by Germanic capitalization, calls it, “the State”). The argument is simple: If a private individual did what governments do, almost everyone would call him a criminal. If I took your money without your consent, I’d…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 3
14 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
SummaryIn this chapter (“Property and Exchange”), Rothbard introduces the “non-aggression axiom,” also often known as the “non-initiation of force axiom.” The intuition is simple enough: No one has the right to start using physical violence or the threat thereof against another person or his property. This is one of the first moral rules we learn as…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 2
07 Feb 2026 Leave a comment
in libertarianism, Murray Rothbard
Here’s my plan: I’ll lead off each discussion of Murray Rothbard’s For a New Liberty with (a) a brief summary of the chapter of the week, and (b) some critical comments. But this is your book club, so in the comments feel free to not only to discuss my summary and critique, but any thoughts…
Bet On It Book Club: For a New Liberty, Chapter 1
12 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, income redistribution, international economics, labour economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, Milton Friedman, monetary economics, Murray Rothbard, Public Choice Tags: Argentina
My trip to Argentina last year motivated me to write Part I of this series, which focused on whether things might get better in that tragic country for the simple reason that they couldn’t possibly get any worse. In Part II of this series, I analyzed whether a libertarian candidate’s surprisingly strong performance in Argentina’s […]
Can Argentina Be Rescued, Part III
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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