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Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 341.

Below is the video of the speech by Stephan Kinsella,  “Rothbard’s Greatest Hits: A Personal Mix Tape,” delivered at “100 Years with Rothbard,” Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026  (iPhone audio).

See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist.

Transcript and summary below.

See Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account.

[continue reading…]

From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, with two articles and three Reflections in Liberty (January 1989). The first, “No Time for Pessimism,” and the reflections, are covered in a preceding post. Below is the other, “Kingdom Come: The Politics of the Millennium” (39–42, 45).

***

Eschatology

Kingdom Come
The Politics of the Millennium

by Murray N. Rothbard

Christianity has played a central role in Western civilization, and contributed a important influence on the development of classical liberal thought. Not surprisingly, Christian beliefs about the “end times” are very important for us right now.

Christian Reconstructionism is one of the fastest growing and most influential currents in American religious and political life. Though the fascinating discussion by Jeffrey Tucker and Gary North (in the July and September issues of Liberty)¹ have called libertarian attention to, and helped explain, this movement, to clarify Christian Reconstructionism fully we have to understand the role and problem of millennialism in Christian thought.

The problem centers around the discipline of eschatology, or the Last Days, and on the question: how is the world destined to come to an end? The view that nearly all Christians accept is that at a certain time in the future Jesus will return to earth in a Second Advent, and preside over the Last Judgment, at which all those then alive and all the bodily resurrected dead will be assigned to their final places; and human history, and the world as we know it, will have come to an end.

So far, so good; a troublesome problem, however, comes in various passages in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, and especially in the final book of Revelation, in which mention is made of a millennium, of a thousand year reign of Christ on earth—the Kingdom of God on earth [KGE]—before the final Day of Judgment. Who is to establish that Kingdom, and what is it supposed to look like?

The orthodox answer to this problem was set forth by the great Saint Augustine, in the early fifth century; this Augustinian line has been accepted by all the orthodox and liturgical Christian Churches: the Roman Catholic, the Greek and Russian Orthodox, high-church Lutheran, and Anglican, as well as by the Dutch wing of the Calvinist church (where Calvin himself stood is a matter of dispute). The Augustinian line is that the millennium, or thousand-year reign, is solely a metaphor for the creation of the Christian Church; the millennium is not something to be taken literally, as ever to take place, temporally, on earth. This orthodox position has the great virtue of disposing of the millennium problem. The answer: Forget it. At some unknown time in the future, Jesus will return, and that’s that.

But to many centuries of Christian dissidents, this answer has failed to satisfy. It deprives them of hope, of the literal passages in the Bible that seem to promise a thousand years of temporal blessings on earth: the glorious Kingdom. Among the numerous groups of millennialists, those who believe that the KGE will and must eventually arrive, there are two very different groups: those who believe that the Kingdom will be established by Jesus himself, who will therefore return to earth before the millennium (pre-millennialists, or “pre-mils”); and those that believe that Jesus will return to earth after the millennium (the post-millennialists, or “post-mils.”)

This seemingly abstruse theological difference carries enormously significant social and political implications. For as much as the pre-mil yearns to attain the KGE and install it for a thousand years, he is constrained to wait; he must wait for Jesus’s return. The post-mil, on the other hand, maintains that man must establish the KGE, first, in order tliat Jesus may eventually return. In other words, the post-mil is under theological obligation, as a fulfillment of the divine plan, to establish the KGE as quickly as possible. Hence, the sense of hurry, the sense of rushing toward impending triumph, that generally suffuses the post-mils. For the march of history, the plans of Providence itself, depend upon the post-mil being triumphant as soon as he possibly can.

What, then, is this all-important millennium, in either the pre-mil or post-mil version, supposed to look like? As we might expect, as with many Utopias, the vision is a bit cloudy. Most theorists, beginning with one of the first and most influential, the early 13th century Calabrian abbot, Joachim of Fiore, have been explicit communists: that is, that work, private property, and the division of labor will disappear in this perfect society. Joachim, who almost converted three popes and therefore almost significantly altered the history of Western civilization, offered a unique solution to the problem of production under communism: it would disappear, because in the KGE aborning (he predicted its advent in fifty years after he wrote), all human flesh would disappear, and man would be pure spirit. So much for the problem of production or property. These pure disembodied human spirits, then, would chant praises to God in mystical ecstasy for the duration of the millennium. Other millennialists, however, could not take such an easy way out.

While most KGE theorists have been communists, some post-mils, such as early twentieth-century American Calvinist, J. Gresham Machen, have been laissez-faire, free-market stalwarts. But on one point all millennialists are agreed: there can be no sinners worthy of living in the perfect world of the KGE. “Sinners,” of course, are broadly defined to encompass a massive chunk of the existing human race: they include adulterers, sodomites, blasphemers, idolators, prophets of false doctrines, and all the rest. So a crucial question then becomes: how are the sinners to be gotten rid of, so that the KGE can be established?

For the pre-mil, the answer is that, just prior to Jesus’s Second Advent that will establish the KGE, God will send us Armageddon, the final War of Good against Evil, in which all the strange creatures that populate the Book of Revelation will figure prominently: the Beast, the Anti-Christ, 666, and all the rest. At the end of Armageddon, the world will have been cleansed of all the sinners, and Christ and His cadre of saints can go about establishing His Kingdom. From the libertarian point of view, the pre-mil poses little danger, since his role is to await eagerly the alleged Signs of the impending holocaust. For the pre-mil, regardless how eager he may be, is supposed to wait for God to make the crucial moves. Unfortunately, there are many strains in pre-mil thought holding it important, and morally obligatory, for the pre-mil, knowing Armageddon to be at hand, to try to speed up God’s timetable by giving it a little healthy push, thereby “doing God’s will.” In that way, to borrow from another famous (atheist) millennialist, the pre-mil is to act as “the midwife of history.” Which is why I, for one, would be a bit fidgety to have a pre-mil with his finger near the nuclear button. (Our beloved ex-president, Ronald Reagan, is an avowed pre-mil, but it is doubtful if he fully understands the implications of his own position.)

In general, if you want an event badly enough, and you think it inevitable, you tend to see it coming just over the horizon. And so pre-mils, through history, have been poring over the Bible, and over world events, and seeing presumptively infallible signs of the Big One (Armageddon) coming up. Any times of war, upheaval, or revolution have engendered large numbers of pre-mil movements. But these precise predictions have always been falsified—the eternal problem of “historicist” pre-millennials, those who pick specific historical dates for either Armageddon or the Second Advent. One of the most influential group of historicists was the Millerite movement, followers in America and England of the Yankee preacher William Miller, who forecast Armageddon on a specific day in 1843. Typically, when nothing happens on the predicted date, the guru rethinks the matter and concludes that there was a slight error in his scientific calculations—the date is really a year or so later. This is what happened with Miller. But then, when nothing happens on the second date–in this case 1844-confusion sets in and the movement collapses. In the case of the Millerites, a sub-group arose that claimed that Jesus really did arrive, thus vindicating the prediction, but that his Advent was invisible; the Advent would be made visible to all at some time in the future. This less than satisfying resolution was the path taken by the group that later became known as the Seventh Day Adventists.

But at last a creative way out was discovered from the irritating falsifications of the historicists’ predictions. John Nelson Darby, an English preacher and mystic, invented around this time the concept of dispensationalism, which later spread like wildfire in the United States and was to become known as “fundamentalism” (after the volumes, The Fundamentals, published in 1910.) What Darby and the fundamentalists did was to repudiate the basic method of the historicists, which was to time the countdown to Armageddon from clocks of prophecy which they discovered in the Bible. Darby severed the pre-mils from being tied to the number-prophecies based on the Bible. According to Darby, the Biblical clock of prophecy kept ticking until the founding of the Christian Church. The founding of the Church stopped that clock, since it constituted a new dispensation in history. The Church, in a famous phrase of Darby’s, “is the great parenthesis in history.” At some point, however, for which pre-mils look for Signs, the clock of prophecy will start up again, and the countdown to imminent Armageddon will begin. One of the predicted signs was the return of all the Jews to Palestine and their mass conversion to Christianity. With a little stretching, then, the mainstream of pre-mils picked the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 as the beginning of the countdown, with many of them therefore picking forty years after that, or 1988 as Armageddon Year.

As pre-mil thought developed, however, Armageddon—which is now considered to take seven years, and which is known as “the tribulation”—began to pose a big problem. It is true that the Bad Guys, the vast mass of sinners, will be satisfactorily disposed of by God’s wrath. But how about the Good Guys? After all, they, too, during those wonderful but strenuous years, will be in danger of getting caught in the crossfire, and getting slaughtered along with everyone else. It didn’t seem fair.

And so pre-mil theorists, poring over the Bible, came up with a solution: the Good Guys will not have to suffer during Armageddon. Instead, just before Armageddon is to begin, Jesus will return invisibly (a variant on the Seventh Day Adventists) and “rapture up” the Good Guys bodily to Heaven. Then, the Good Guys, the saved, will sit at the right hand of God up in Heaven watching (enjoying?) the spectacle of the Bad Guys slaughtering each other down below. Then, after the war is over, the dust settled, and perhaps the radiation fallout finished, Jesus will return visibly to earth along with his Saints, to rule the earth for a thousand years, and with the sinners eliminated in a most satisfying manner. Thus, the Second Advent is split into two parts: the first invisible one where Jesus raptures up the Good Guys; and the second visible one, where He returns with them to set up the KGE.

I well remember one sermon by my favorite pre-mil televangelist, the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart (before personal or satanic forces laid him low). The Rapture, which Jimmy asserted was imminent, was the emotional high for the reverend along with his massive congregation. As he described the glories of the Rapture, shouts and sobs of joy shook the celebrants. It didn’t seem contradictory to any of the faithful when, a few sober moments later, Jimmy pleaded for contributions to his Bible college. But why worry about schools and colleges when the Rapture was promised for a few weeks or so hence?

Pre-millennialism is basically a passive creed, and yet, since the early 1970s, fundamentalist Christians have engaged more and more fervently in political action. Many have understandably grown tired of Waiting for the Rapture, and have started looking for a coherent political program and strategy, which pre-millennialism can never be equipped to provide. Hence, the golden opportunity for the Christian Reconstructionists.

Enter, then, the post-mils. Post-mils have to have some sort of political program, because they believe that man must establish the KGE on his own. Post-mils can be divided into the “im-mediatists,” who want to seize power and establish the KGE immediately, and the gradualists, who are prudently will-ing to wait a bit. The most notorious im-mediatists burgeoned at the beginning of the Reformation, in fifteen brief but turbulent years, from 1520 to 1535. In numerous towns in Germany and Hol-land, different sects of Anabaptists tried to grab power and bring about the KGE. The sinners were to be gotten rid of by immediate slaughter of all heretics, which included all who refused to take orders from the sect’s maximum leader. Leaders like Thomas Miintzer and Jan Bockelson tried to impose theocratic communism, vowing to exterminate un-believers and act as “God’s scythe,” until, as some of them phrased it, blood will cover the world to the height of a horse’s bridle. Finally, in 1535, the last and most important of the bloody experiments in Anabaptist communism, in the city of Munster, was overthrown, and its adherents massacred in turn.

The Anabaptist failures served to discredit immediatism, and from then on, post-mils turned to more gradual, and therefore somewhat less coercive, measures. The idea was that instead of killing all sinners and heretics immediately, post-mils would take over the reins of government, and, by rather kindlier and gentler means, use the State to shape everyone up, make men moral, and stamp out sin, so as to make them fit to enter the KGE. The mainstream Protestant.churches of nineteenth century America, for example, were taken over by a fervent pietist version of post-mil, who emphasized revivalism, bursts of emotion, and rule by the Holy Spirit. These post-mil Protestants became increasingly more progressive and statist, their outlook being best expressed by one of their leaders, Professor Richard T.

Ely, founder of the American Economic Association, Christian Sociologist, and indefatigable activist and organizer, who considered “government as God’s major instrument of salvation.” The sins that the Protestant pietists were particularly interested in stamping out were: Demon Rum, sabbath-breaking, and that well-known instrument of the Anti-Christ, the Roman Catholic Church.

On the other hand, the seventeenth-century Puritans in America were theonomists, believers in God’s law, trying to construct a Christian Commonwealth rather than emotionally harking after the Holy Spirit. The modern Christian Reconstructionists are the Puritans’ spiritual descendants. But post-mil theonomists have a problem. For Jesus never held or ran for political office, nor did he ever advocate any legislation—perhaps, after all, an indication that Jesus was more libertarian or less KGE-minded than the Reconstructionists and other post-mils have believed.

Therefore in attempting to construct a commonwealth based on God’s law the Puritans could only turn to the Old Testament, and to the government of ancient Israel. Hence, the emphasis on stoning to death transgressors, and hence the dispute about whether ancient Israelite law applies nowadays to sabbath-breakers.

Conscientious Christians try to abide by a personal and political ethic. It is difficult to see how a Christian can be a utilitarian, a nihilist, or a might-makes-right advocate. There are, it seems to me, only two possible genuine ethical systems for a Christian. One is the natural law/natural rights position of the (Catholic or Anglican) Scholastics, in which human reason is equipped to discover natural law, and purely theological or divinely revealed ethics is a very small separate though important part of the system. Another is the Calvinist view that man’s reason is so corrupted that the only viable ethic, indeed the only truth about anything, must come from divine revelation as presented in the Bible. With his usual insight, Gary North sees that the two positions are and must be at loggerheads, and hence stakes his entire case on Calvinist presuppositionalism. Unfortunately, presuppositionalism is not a position likely to gain adherents outside the hard-core Calvinist faithful, and even there I suspect he might have problems. (Is there really only a Christian chemistry, a Christian mathematics, a Christian way to fly a plane?)

Finally, I must confess I find all the talk about “alliances,” coalitions, associations, or “willingness to work together on an informal basis” (Tucker), an exer-cise in hairsplitting. Libertarians live in a world where—alas!—not everyone is a 100 percent libertarian. Many people—undoubtedly most people—are blends of X percent libertarian and Y percent non or anti-libertarian. To say that it is impermissible to talk to or work with anyone who is not a 100 percent libertarian is to follow the disastrous and crackpot path of Orthodox Randianism: That is, to dig oneself a deep sectarian hole and to leap in. It seems to me that both the sane and the common-sense thing to do is to work with the X percent libertarian aspect of people, and to ignore, discourage, or work against the other Y percent. Whether you call it alliance, coalition, or whatever makes no difference. Obviously, in different contexts and different times, some issues will be more important than others, and it is up to the individual libertarian, depending on the context and on his or her personal temperament and interests, to decide which issues and coalitions to stress.

Obviously, it is important for libertarians to discuss what issues are likely to be dominant or most important in any given historical period. Thus, during the Vietnam War, in my view the most important political issues were the war and the draft, and hence my argument that a coalition, alliance, informal association or what have you with the New Left was in order. Now, the draft is down to registration, and it seems clear that the Wheeler-Rohrabacher “freedom fighters” have pretty well disappeared, and that the Cold War itself is in the process of coming to an end. If that is true, then, in the coming period, some sort of association/coalition or whatever with some types of conservatives might be in order. But only, of course, as once applied to the Left, with anti-Establishment types. There can never be a persuasive argument for coalescing or allying ourselves with the State apparatus.

In any case, one would hope that strategic discussions can be conducted among libertarians with a minimum of anathemas and threats of excommunica-\tion, since, as Jeff Tucker well says, in “questions of strategy, final answers are elusive.”

1. Jeffrey A. Tucker,  “Puritanism Comes Full Circle,” Liberty (July 1989): 72–75, reviewing “Puritan Economic Experiments, by Gary North. Dominion Press, 1988, 68 pp.; and the responses in “Reconstructionists, Libertarians, and Dead Theologians”: Gary North, “Capitalism, Catholicism and Reconstructionism: A Reply to Jeffrey Tucker,” Liberty (Sept. 1989): 48–51; Jeffrey A. Tucker, “Reconstruction and Liberty,” Liberty (Sept. 1989): 51–54. See also Jeffrey A. Tucker & Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., Ayn Rand is Dead; Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Realignment on the Right?,” Conservative Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (May 1990); Kinsella, The Three Fusionisms: Old, New, and Cautious. —Ed. [↩]

Aubrey Herbert [Murray N. Rothbard], “Review of Cross-Currents, by A. Forster and B. Epstein.” Faith and Freedom 7, no. 9 (May 1956): p. 27 (PDF).

This is a review of Cross-Currents, by Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein (Doubleday, New York/Garden City, 1956; 382 pp.; Internet Archive). According to Grok, the subtitle/cover line is roughly “The book that tells how anti-Semitism is used today as a political weapon,” and it was associated with the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

For related Rothbard and PFS pieces, see

• PFS, “Nozick v. Rothbard on Zionism and Israel (1979),” PFS Blog (July 30, 2026)
• Tyler Kubik, “Murray N. Rothbard Bibliography: 1940–1986,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 16, 2026); and
• PFS posts on Zionism

CROSS-CURRENTS
ARNOLD FORSTER AND BENJAMIN R. EPSTEIN
(New York: Doubleday and Co., 1956, 382 pp., $4)

This is a remarkably poor work, misleading, slipshod, inaccurate, a mish-mash of uncoordinated interoffice memoranda. Why review the book at all? Because a libertarian may find a friend or favorite author mentioned somewhere in its pages.

The major theme of this work, as in so many Anti-Defamation League products of the past, is to tar every “rightwinger” with the brush of “antiSemitism.” This is done primarily by extreme use of the age-old technique of “guilt by association.” And it is pushed to lengths which no “McCarthyite” would ever think of going.

A and B don’t like the income tax; B once shared a platform attacking fluoridation with C (whose article blasting the UN was reprinted in an allegedly anti-Semitic periodical). Therefore, A, B and C are all anti-Semites. And so it goes.

A curious naivete runs through the volume. Not only do the authors attack all critics of Eisenhower or all those desirous of a Third Party; they clearly believe that all such activities are wicked and un-American. They don’t bother to explain why.

Most disturbing aspect of the book: the quotations from apparently private letters and conversations. Even friendly reviewers have wondered about this invasion of privacy. The ADL has often been accused of being a private espionage organization. If this charge is correct, we may—without passing judgment on the legality of its procedures—wax pretty indignant over their immorality.

AUBREY HERBERT

Murray N. Rothbard, “The Zionist Conquest of American Opinion,” Property and Freedom Journal (July 30, 2026).

This previously unpublished piece, found in an online PDF, is from the Leonard P. Liggio papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, which gives the preferred citation as Rothbard, Murray N., “The Zionist Conquest of American Opinion”, Leonard P. Liggio papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, https://n2t.net/ark:/54723/h30g3h843. Likely written September–November 1976, according to a Likely written September–November 1976, according to a Grok estimate. [audio; pdf]

For related Rothbard and PFS pieces, see

• PFS, “Nozick v. Rothbard on Zionism and Israel (1979),” PFS Blog (July 30, 2026)
• Tyler Kubik, “Murray N. Rothbard Bibliography: 1940–1986,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 16, 2026); and
• PFS posts on Zionism

From the Vault: Kinsella, Better than the Nolan Chart, StephanKinsella.com (Oct. 28, 2009).

In “Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism” (originally published in Property, Freedom and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (2009)), Jesus Huerta de Soto provides an excellent chart (above) that I think is superior to the Nolan Chart (below). [continue reading…]

From the Vault: Douglas E. French, “Book Review: Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II by Murray N. Rothbard,” The Freeman (March 1997)

Related

• Rothbard, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006)
  • Vol. I: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith
  • Vol. II: Classical Economics
• re Vol. III, The History of Economic Thought: From Marx to Hayek: Volume 3 of Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought
• Vance, Murray Rothbard and Liberty Magazine (re Skousen on Rothbard, re Rothbard’s negative views on Smith and classical economics)

Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II by Murray N. Rothbard

Edward Elgar Publishing Limited • 1995 • 528 + xvi pages • $99.50

Reviewed by Douglas E. French

Years ago Murray Rothbard set out to write an Austrian answer to Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers. Rothbard was much more ambitious than Heilbroner, whose 347 pages only (lightly) covers from Adam Smith to The Modern World. Professor Rothbard kept finding more and more characters that influenced economic thought, resulting in a two-volume history of economic thought from the Austrian perspective. His death in 1995 kept him from finishing the third volume. [continue reading…]

An entry buried in Tyler Kubik’s “Murray N. Rothbard Bibliography: 1940–1986”: “964.“Rothbard Replies 1.” Libertarian Review 7, no. 12, January 1979, p. 10. Re: R. Nozick’s letter on Anwar Sadat; Rothbard replies to Nozick’s criticism that he, Rothbard, is more anti-Zionist than Sadat.” PDF

This led me to the previous Rothbard piece to which Nozick was responding: Murray N. Rothbard, “The Plumb Line: Camp David and After,” The Libertarian Review (October 1978): 14–16. This issue also includes Earl C. Ravenal, “The Middle East After Camp: David Walking on Water,” The Libertarian Review (October 1978): 17–25 (correct link: pdf), which is also worth reading.

Text of Rothbard’s first piece, Nozick’s letter, and Rothbard’s reply below. [continue reading…]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (29.0MB)

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 340.

Below is the video of the speech by PFS stalwart Saifedean Ammous: “Rothbard on Palestine,” at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026). See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist.

Transcript and summary below.

See Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account.

See also other PFS posts on Zionism.

[continue reading…]

Reginald Godwyn, “The Jury’s Ancient Power: Why Every Englishman Should Know About Jury Nullification,” Libertarian Alliance (UK) (July 29, 2026).

Related

• On jury nullification and the Fully-Informed Jury Amendment, or FIJA, see: Stephan Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023), n. 139
• Don Doig, “New Hope for Freedom: Fully Informed Juries” (pdf), pamphlet published by the International Society for International Liberty
• Comment, “The Changing Role of the Jury in the Nineteenth Century,” Yale L.J. 74 (1964): 170–92 (2)
• Lysander Spooner, “An Essay on Trial by Jury,” in The Lysander Spooner Reader (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992; version available online at http://www.lysanderspooner.org/works), at 122
• FIJA-and-Militia-Nut-material (StephanKinsella.com)
• Fun fact: I was raised on Penn Blvd. in Prairieville, Louisiana, and lived in Pennsylvania for a while. Coincidence? I think not!

The Jury’s Ancient Power: Why Every Englishman Should Know About Jury Nullification

Reginald Godwyn • July 29, 2026

This article is concerned exclusively with the constitutional history and legal status of trial by jury in England and Wales. It is not intended to influence the outcome of any criminal proceedings currently before the courts, nor to encourage any juror in any pending case to reach a verdict other than in accordance with his oath and his own conscientious assessment of the evidence. The discussion is directed solely to matters of constitutional principle and to the proper scope of public debate concerning the future of jury trial.

There are few institutions in England older than trial by jury. There are fewer still that continue to exercise a genuine restraint on the power of the State. Parliament may pass whatever laws it pleases. Governments may prosecute whom they choose. Judges may explain the law in whatever terms they consider correct. Yet in every Crown Court where a jury is empanelled, twelve ordinary citizens retain the power to refuse conviction—even where the evidence appears overwhelming and the judge has directed that the law points only one way. [continue reading…]

From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, with two articles, “No Time for Pessimism” and “Kingdom Come: The Politics of the Millennium,” and three Reflections in Liberty (January 1989). The Reflections and first article are covered here; the second article will be covered in a second post.

Reflections

• “Pineapple Face?” (p. 5): Rothbard notes the media’s habitual nickname for Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega—“pineapple face”—and mockingly asks whether this shows “remarkable and brutal insensitivity toward the pockmarked.” He facetiously predicts that the “Pockmarked League of America” will soon protest. [continue reading…]

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “On War, Democratic Peace, and Reeducation: The “German Experience” in Reactionary Perspective,” Property and Freedom Journal (July 28, 2026).

This is based on Hoppe, “On War, Democratic Peace, and Reeducation: The “German Experience” in Reactionary Perspective,” which was supposed to be forthcoming in a book based on the Mises Institute’s Revisionist History of War Conference, May 15, 2025—May 17, 2025, which seems unlikely at the present time.

It also served as the basis for Professor Hoppe’s talk PFP307 | Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Democratic Peace and Re-Education: The German Experience (PFS 2025). See also PFP290 | Hoppe: Considerations and Reflections of a Veteran Reactionary Libertarian (AERC 2025), Professor Hoppe’s 2025 AERC speech in which he talked a bit about what he was planning to do in in his PFS 2025 talk.

Related

• On the Frankfurt school: My Path to the Austrian School of Economics; Habermas, Hoppe’s Teacher and PhD Advisor, dies at 96; On War, Democratic Peace, and Reeducation: The “German Experience” in Reactionary Perspective; Tom Woods Elite Letter: The Hans Hoppe Interview (2025)
• Hoppe, “Introduction,” in Democracy: God that Failed (2001)

From the Vault: “Vortrag von Professor Hoppe in der „Akademie Modelhof“: „Privatrechtsgesellschaft ohne Staat““, Mises Institut Deutschland (Jan. 16, 2013) (“Lecture by Professor Hoppe at the Modelhof Academy: “Private law society without a state”). See also Modelhof Akademie; Vortrag von Professor Hoppe in der “Akademie Modelhof”: “Privatrechtsgesellschaft ohne Staat,” HansHoppe.com

January 16, 2013 – On November 23, 2012, Prof. Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe spoke at the “Akademie Modelhof” (Müllheim, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland) on the topic of “Private law society without a state”.

In his lecture, Prof. Hoppe demonstrates that competition in today’s party democracy – a competition in lying and profiteering, in deception and camouflage – cannot produce good results.

As an alternative, he offers a private-law society, based on self-determination and voluntariness. In this system, conflicts are resolved neutrally.

Prof. Hoppe also points out that the model of a private law society is not a utopia, but rather rigorously thought out, realistic, and, upon closer inspection, even self-evident.

We thank the “Akademie Modelhof” for permission to publish the videos.

Andreas Marquart

The videos are below. English translations TBD. (Vimeo versions: Lecture; Q&A)

[continue reading…]

Cristiano Fiori Chiocca, “Rothbard’s 100th birthday celebration in Porto – and the libertarian cause was the one who received the gift,” Instituto Rothbard (20/07/2026)

[Google translation]

This year, 2026, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Murray Rothbard, an economist, philosopher, activist, intellectual, and professor with encyclopedic knowledge on such a vast range of subjects that he is one of the few people in history who can boast the title of polymath.

By definition, a polymath is someone who has in-depth knowledge of a wide range of subjects, and Rothbard, in addition to perfectly fitting the definition, had the clarity to express this knowledge as another remarkable quality. [continue reading…]

[StephanKinsella.com cross-post]

Principled libertarians are anti-state because they favor property rights and oppose aggression.¹ This does not mean respect for rights, or the non-aggression principled is our “only,” or even the “highest,” “value”;² nor that we believe in “absolute” property rights, whatever that means.³ It only means that we have a principled case for property rights and we oppose aggression; we recognize that it is impossible to justify aggression.⁴

And for these reasons we oppose both private crime or aggression, and institutionalized aggression by the state, including taxation and other forms of institutionalized theft by the state—such as eminent domain, conscription, intellectual property law,⁵ and so on (as well as many other types of aggression).⁶ [continue reading…]

1. The Nature of the State and Why Libertarians Hate It, StephanKinsella.com (May 3, 2010). [↩]
2. Kinsella, The “Liberty Is Your Only Value” Canard. [↩]
3. Kinsella, Dominiak & Wysocki, “Libertarianism, Defense of Property, and Absolute Rights”. [↩]
4. Kinsella,”What Libertarianism Is“and “What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist,” both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). [↩]
5. Intellectual Property versus Intellectual Property Rights. [↩]
6. See discussion of Rothbard’s typology of state interventions in Kinsella, KOL493 | Rothbard’s Greatest Hits: A Personal Mix Tape (Porto, Portugal); The Undeniable Morality of Capitalism, n.14; Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes; see Rothbard, Power and Market, in the chapter “Fundamentals of Intervention. [↩]

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “My Discovery of Human Action and of Mises as a Philosopher,” Property and Freedom Journal (July 27, 2026); also in The Influence and Significance of Human Action After 75 Years, Joseph T. Salerno, ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2025), presented at the Human Action Conference, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, AL, May 16, 2024. Now finally available online. Who knows when Hoppe’s “On War, Democratic Peace, and Reeducation: The “German Experience” in Reactionary Perspective” will ever be published (it was supposed to be forthcoming in a book based on the Mises Institute’s Revisionist History of War Conference, May 15, 2025—May 17, 2025). [continue reading…]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:07 — 5.9MB)

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 339.

Below is the video of the speech by Professor Anxo Bastos at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026), “Rothbard’s Contributions to the Austrian School.” See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist. Transcript and summary below. The speech and youtube video are in Portuguese and Spanish (I think). This podcast episode features an AI narration of the English translation (below), prepared by Jorge Besada.

See Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account. See also Miguel Anxo Bastos Boubeta, Nation, Secession, and Freedom (pp 27–35), in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume II, David Howden and Philipp Bagus, eds. (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan / Springer, 2023). [continue reading…]

From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “Loathing the Fear in New York, New York,” , Liberty (November, 1989): 29–32. And one Reflection: “Two cheers for Webster” (p. 7).

Also in this issue: Hoppe, “Intimidation by Argument—Once Again” (Nov. 1989; also in EEPP, Appendix).

“Two cheers for Webster” (p. 7): Grok summary:

Rothbard gives qualified support (“two cheers”) to the Supreme Court’s Webster decision. He argues it largely preserves the core right to abortion choice established in Roe v. Wade, making only a marginal restriction: states may require viability testing earlier in the second trimester (up to about the 20th week). He notes this limit already existed in Roe itself, which never recognized an absolute right of privacy or bodily self-ownership across all trimesters—only in the first, after which “state interest” could regulate or ban abortion. [continue reading…]

Originally published at The Rude Awakening.

Broken Window Press

The Rude Awakening (June 25, 2026)

By Sean Ring

I never thought Marc Andreessen would make me laugh, but his X post was a masterclass in head-smacking, jaw-dropping disbelief.

“Every day I see something I am convinced I hallucinated.”

He was quoting a local news story from Oakland, California. KTVU, a Fox affiliate, reported that car break-ins across the city had declined. A rare public safety win! Fewer victims. Fewer shattered windows. Fewer mornings ruined.

Then came the kicker. [continue reading…]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:58 — 8.2MB)

Property and Freedom Podcast, Episode 338.

Below is the video and text of the speech by PFS member Fernando Chiocca of Instituto Rothbard (Brazil/Brasil) at 100 Years with Rothbard (Porto, Portugal, June 27, 2026): “Rothbardianism at Rothbard’s Centenary.”¹ See also Chiocca’s Prezi presentation. The speech and youtube video are in Brazilian Portuguese. This podcast episode features an AI narration of the English translation, prepared by Jorge Besada.

See Cataláxia Editora Rothbard 100 Youtube playlist. For further information, photos, and so on, see Kinsella, Rothbard Takes Portugal: 100 Years with Rothbard: A Personal Account.

[continue reading…]

1. See also PFP327 | Fernando Fiori Chiocca, “The First Knight of Libertarianism” (Rothbard at 100); Fernando Chiocca, How to win the economic debate (PFS 2012). [↩]

Anti-Iran War Spain’s defeat of Milei’s pro-war Argentina in the World Cup.  Pastor Chuck Baldwin explains.

After nearly five months since the start of the U.S. initiated 2026 Straight of Hormuz Crisis it should be clear that bombing, blockades, and rhetorical bluster cannot compel the flow of commerce through the region. Since February 28, 2026, the movement of crude oil and other commodities remains at a standstill.

Former Navy SEAL, apocalyptic novelist, and social commentator, Matt Bracken highlights the impossibility U.S. forces controlling Iran’s coastal islands, Kharg and Qeshm. His X, Gab and Substack accounts are worth following. Aside from the World Trade Organization data on crude oil movement, all of the graphics in this post are Bracken’s creations. [continue reading…]

From the vault: Murray N. Rothbard, “My Break With Branden and the Rand Cult,” Liberty (September 1988): 27–32. This issue also contains Rothbard’s entries in the Reflections section:

• “Her feet’s too big!”, p. 7: Rothbard mocks Eileen Ford (of the Ford Model Agency) for her lifelong personal hatred of Eleanor Roosevelt, which she attributes purely to Roosevelt’s appearance—calling her an “ugly old toad” with “awful size 50 feet”—rather than any political or ideological disagreement. He notes the absurdity of such superficial judgment and compares it to the Fats Waller lyric “Hate you cause your feet’s too big,” asking whether modern culture has become a living parody of that song. [continue reading…]

The Mises Institute used to have a very useful feature, the Mises Wiki (archive), but like many aspects of Mises.org since Jeff Tucker and Doug French left, it has fallen into desuetude.¹

As noted in this Facebook post (and LinkedIn post), David Veksler has revived it at his site,  freecapitalists.org, as The Austrian Economics Wiki: “A free encyclopedia of Austrian economics and the libertarian tradition.” Heroic!

[continue reading…]

1. See Kinsella, “My Years with the Mises Institute,” Property and Freedom Journal (May 2, 2026), the sections Pointless Name Changes, Website Changes, and Journal Confusion and Mises.org; Copyright and Open Publishing/Information. [↩]