Miguel Anxo Bastos: Rothbard’s Contributions to the Austrian School—100 Years with Rothbard, Portugal

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.

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

Summary

Summary of Bastos’ Talk on Murray Rothbard’s Contributions to Economic Theory

In his speech at the 100th anniversary event for Murray Rothbard organized by the Mixos Institute in Portugal, speaker Bastos highlights three major contributions by Rothbard to Austrian economics, with a fourth overarching insight as the most important.

1. Reintegrating History into Economic Thought

Rothbard uniquely brought history back to the center of economics, rejecting the modern view of economics as a natural science detached from historical context. He produced a major (unfinished) two-volume History of Economic Thought and applied Austrian business cycle theory to real historical events, most notably in America’s Great Depression and Conceived in Liberty. Bastos emphasizes that pure theory needs historical illustration and examples to be effective, and that Rothbard’s approach allows for “intellectual archaeology” — recovering forgotten thinkers and placing them in the Austrian tradition. He notes that few Austrians today follow this historical emphasis.

2. Theory of Monopoly

Rothbard’s analysis of monopoly is transformative. True monopolies and monopoly pricing arise primarily from state intervention (patents, licenses, regulations, barriers to entry), not from the free market. Bastos stresses that every firm is a “monopolist” of its own services, but genuine market monopolies require government backing. He criticizes “methodological nationalism” (analyzing markets only within state borders) and gives examples like telecom cartels that persist due to state protection rather than natural market forces. This ties directly into Rothbard’s broader critique of intellectual property and state-granted privileges.

3. Economic Calculation Debate and Its Extensions

Rothbard extended the famous Misesian socialist calculation debate beyond socialism to partial socialism (public policies, infrastructure, education) and even to large private organizations and firms. Large entities suffer from internal calculation problems (especially transfer pricing), which explains why companies and empires eventually fail or stagnate. Bastos notes that firms often only survive at massive scale due to state subsidies, patents, and privileges. Without such support, capitalist firms would not grow into the “enormous octopuses” often criticized by the left.

Main Contribution: War as the Ultimate Synthesis

Bastos argues that Rothbard’s deepest insight is that economics is not the most important thing for libertarians. The core issue is opposition to war, which he sees as the ultimate and most comprehensive form of state intervention. War synthesizes all statist mechanisms: taxation, inflation, price controls, conscription, regulation, and the growth of the state itself. Rothbard understood war (and the military-industrial complex) as organized crime at the heart of statism. Many modern libertarians, coming from an economics background, focus too narrowly on markets and privatization while underappreciating this anti-war core.

Overall Message: Rothbard was not just an economist but a radical thinker who integrated history, power analysis, and a profound anti-statism. Bastos urges the audience to follow Rothbard more fully by studying history, rejecting state-enabled monopolies and calculation failures, and recognizing war as the central enemy of liberty. The talk ends with applause.

The presentation is passionate, personal (Bastos credits Rothbard’s works with deeply influencing his worldview), and aimed at encouraging deeper engagement with Rothbard’s ideas beyond surface-level economics.

Transcript

Introduction and Thanks (0:06) Good afternoon.

I want to thank the Mises Institute in Portugal for the kindness of Mr. Adrián Antonio, for inviting me to speak in the company of such illustrious personalities, on the 100th anniversary of Murray Rothbard.

They told me, “Why don’t you talk a bit about the main contributions of Rothbard to economic theory?” My colleagues have spoken about ideas and other things, so let’s talk a bit about the main contributions to Austrian economic theory. What contributions does he have? Well, in principle, we could say many things, and it’s logical.

In general, someone who works within a school makes few contributions because they continue within that school, within a tradition, so they contribute little. Rothbard did make some. I am going to highlight three, and then the last one is for me the main one of the three.

First Contribution: Reintegrating History into Economic Thought (1:24) First, look, I’ve been listening to several conversations; they talk a lot about Rothbard’s thought, but Rothbard has a peculiarity. He brings history back into economic thought. History.

The modern economist thinks that economics is like a natural science, like physics or biology, right? So there is no history. The only thing that counts is what is happening today, nothing more. All of history is left for the scholars, for the studies, but history doesn’t count. Rothbard says no. Economics is not a natural science; it is a social science, a human science. Therefore, history remains relevant.

And how does he show this? First, by studying the history of economic thought. His posthumous work, his great posthumous work, was a history of economic thought, which remained unfinished, incomplete, but it is a history of economic thought in two very thick volumes, almost 1,000 pages, which unfortunately did not have a successor. No one continued the task. What historians of ideas do we have now? None, because we continue to see it as something minor. “Those are the historians; we are people of science,” right? And he demonstrated that this is not the case.

The important thing is to have a good history of economic thought from the Austrian perspective. From the Austrian perspective, he shed new light on how to work. In one of his last works, he shed new light on the history of thought and began to recover it. When I read that book, it was one of the ones that most influenced my life. It may be very erudite and have flaws, yes, but he looked at authors that I saw with different eyes. He taught me to see them from a different perspective. He taught me to recover, to do intellectual archaeology, to recover old forgotten authors and place them within the Austrian tradition. That is one of his contributions.

But careful—not only the history of thought (I repeat, there are no continuators except for some works; there is no continuity). None of us like to study the history of economic thought. From our own circles, we are sometimes with scraps of things that he also cites, but we have not studied it.

But he not only studied the history of thought; he also studied economic history. Here I haven’t seen his book America’s Great Depression cited, for example, which is another book that impacted me a lot in my way of seeing the world. Why? Because he takes Austrian business cycle theory first and then applies it to the case, illustrating a crisis from the Austrian point of view. He studies everything that happened according to the theory of cycles from Mises and his successors.

His Conceived in Liberty, which is also a history of the United States—he liked history. He did not despise history as lesser knowledge; rather, it was at the very core of his thought, at the core of his ideas, and he wanted to introduce it because otherwise pure theory, without examples, often doesn’t work well.

This is a very good book called Theory and History. It is also not one of the most cited in old academia, but it is one of the ones I like the most, and it also talks about this. That is, economics is indeed theoretical, but it must be illustrated with examples. Otherwise, in the abstract, it doesn’t sit well. We must apply what we know from theory to these things. And this is Rothbard’s first contribution. A contribution that was not followed much in many cases. We don’t follow it. We are not a science; we are something very elevated; we don’t have time to waste with history. Well, yes—history was very relevant for him, and it is very relevant for anyone who wants to follow him. As was said before, one must take history into account, study history, and incorporate history into one’s analyses. I don’t know if theory and history are distinct, but why not see history with…

I know few cases. In Spain, unfortunately a historian died recently who did apply it—Antiguet—who applied history to Rothbard’s ideas and applied it to the history of the Spanish Empire. How everything changes! [cough] How everything changes when you look at heroic kings, kings who conquered—I suppose it was similar in Portugal, right? A rich navigator [laughter], right? Then he says no, it was a band of thieves [laughter] who debased the currency, devalued everything there was, issued inflationary paper, and did all sorts of things—they embezzled, they were basically war entrepreneurs. Everything they wanted was to get money to finance their wars, those great kings of Spain. How the story changes if we apply Rothbard’s theory! He was one of the few I know. If anyone knows someone else, I’m interested, because few that I know applied the theory to the real economy of the time. Because we are used to it—the kings spent, everything—but he explained how they did it. And careful, it is not exclusive to the kings of Spain; it is true of all kings of the era. It is nothing new, but how the story we were told changes when seen through Rothbard’s economic theory. So that is the first contribution.

Second Contribution: The Theory of Monopoly (7:35) The second one was already cited before—Mr. Gómez spoke about it—the theory of monopoly, which is a theory that also altered me a lot. In Spanish, it was published in the journal Shad when nothing had been translated yet; it was the only thing available translated from Rothbard. So it was the only one I could get. It impacted me a lot also through monopoly. Indeed, because every monopolist company—careful, we are all monopolists of ourselves. [cough]

So the theory of monopoly collapses in that aspect, but careful—when Rothbard explains the monopoly price, he explains it very well by saying the state is a monopoly and wants all institutions to be like it, in its image and likeness. So the state is what creates the monopoly, not the monopoly understood economically, not the monopoly in the basic sense. If there is a monopoly price, it is because there is a state behind it.

The defenders of monopoly think that everyone is like them and that the market is the same as them, but if there is a monopoly price, if there is a single company in a place, first—in what place? We always talk about a monopoly within a state. What the old Martín, the Portuguese professor, called methodological nationalism—that all economic events, all social events have to be seen in national terms, in state terms. So, sure, a monopoly, but a monopoly of where? Where? A monopoly in Portugal, yes, but if I go to Vigo, I already break the monopoly. Or when things are expensive in Vigo, I go to Valencia or Viana do Castelo to buy. So where was the monopoly broken?

The telephone monopoly, the telephone cartel. I repeat [cough], I live very close to Portugal. And I say, why in Spain can there be a telephone cartel that sets prices, they talk among themselves and set prices, monopoly prices above the market to suck [blood] from the workers, right? But I say, why, for example, doesn’t someone come from Portugal, install poles, and already arrive in the city and break the monopoly? Who doesn’t let Telefónica come to Portugal? Or the Spanish state, which doesn’t let new companies from outside come, who puts limits, regulations, or licenses so that foreign companies come? The states, right? Who grants patents, for example, as Professor Kinsella likes so much? Who grants patents that pillar the free market, or do the states grant them? So if there are monopolies, if there are licenses, it is basically an invention, either because the monopoly is given at the state level or because the state prevents other companies from entering the competition, right?

And there we have the second point. The whole theory of monopoly turns around what refers, for example, to all intellectual property, all licenses, permits. That is another big point of Rothbard.

Third Contribution: The Economic Calculation Debate and Its Extensions (11:10) The third is the calculation, which is also not talked about much. And it is one of the points that for me is most interesting and that can be most developed from Rothbardian thought.

The calculation debate, as we know, is one of the fundamental principles of the Austrian school, where the Austrian school was founded. I am not referring to the Mises-Hayek debate on the possibility or not of a socialist economy—a debate from the 1920s that Mises later developed in his book Socialism and in other works. Mises and Rothbard are also on the topic, and it has tremendous potential. Yes, sir. Look, calculation is not only applied to socialism; calculation can also be applied to companies.

Calculation can also be applied to public policies. What is a public policy, for example? A justice policy, a policy of infrastructure, public works, highways or roads, right? Or any other educational policy, for example. They are partial socialisms in the sense that there are areas of social life that are explained or provided in a socialist way. Careful—the calculation debate also applies to them. Not in the same way as a total socialist economy, because there are some price references, but yes—for example, how much does a teacher cost, where to locate a classroom, the road—how many lanes does it have to have? What quality does the road have to be, from where to where does the highway have to go or not, how many locomotives does it have to have? How many wagons? These are political decisions, not economic decisions, and in the end they fail.

But careful, I am especially interested in the debate on economic calculation in companies, because he also says that companies, organizations, beyond a certain point, also fail, they also calculate badly, especially due to the problem called transfer pricing—internal prices within an organization—and the larger it is, the worse it calculates.

This is a super interesting topic, also empires, sizes, the size of organizations. And this is a very interesting topic because it has tremendous potential for development because it explains why many organizations fail, why the average life of a company is getting shorter, of a large company. I mean, it is now lasting like 40 years. It explains why few companies fail while in their prime. Who remembers IBM? Kodak? They were all-powerful—what became of them and what are the ones now? They fail and he explains it. Look, there comes a point, and why do they surpass that point? That is, they surpass that point many times because they are supported by the state.

The state subsidizes large corporations [cough], whether legally, with patents, with privileges of another style. But basically even [laughter] sometimes states make war for the organizations. And I say, if they can maintain that size and survive, it is because the state allows it, because the state subsidizes those companies. Otherwise, the size of companies—many times people think capitalist companies are like enormous octopuses [laughter] that suck everything. They are not like that; they are so big because someone defends them with weapons behind them and with taxes behind them. That is the difference.

The Central Contribution: War as the Synthesis of Statist Intervention (14:47) But lastly, before finishing, what crowns the door of Rothbardian economic theory is that economics is not everything, as was well said before. For the libertarian, economics is not the main thing. Many modern libertarians are libertarians only in the economic sphere. I don’t blame them, eh? Because the way, the education of many libertarians comes from the field of economics. So they normally tend to analyze all phenomena in economic terms, and I think that can be a problem because they think that basically with private mail, or with the privatization of whatever, that’s it. It’s not that. It’s not that. And the first thing is not stealing. The main thing is war.

Because war synthesizes everything. The opposition to war that many, many of us—I repeat—do not understand. Perhaps because Rothbard writes from a North American perspective, from a country that is imperialist, that gets involved in many wars, and many of us come from countries that, thank God, have not gotten involved in many messes or do not have experience of recent empires, or therefore we do not understand the importance of this. But Rothbard understood it, and moreover, war is the total synthesis of what capitalist thought is.

Because in war, war is the greatest of all interventions. The old one, when he spoke of war and state-building as organized crime—not rare to see if they pay attention to him. The war is the origin of the state, the state is the origin of war too, but at the same time all the fiscal mechanisms—from taxes, from all the inflations, devaluations, all that, all the price regulations, confiscations, everything, everything, everything comes from war.

So the Austrian has to understand this because normally the majority of these things are either in the name of war or some type of war is sought to justify them. Look at the rhetoric of politics: war on poverty, war on drugs, war on whatever occurs to them that seems warlike language to them, because with war you can suspend freedoms, with war you can requisition goods, with war you can intervene in this, but then war also explains to us how states work, what the logic of a state is.

Simply, the people who say simply that they are owners of their persons, of their lives, and of their properties. They say to the lords, all war has to be fought for whatever, right? Then it takes and recruits all these things. It is a complete synthesis of all this, of all traditional anarchist thought, explaining what war is like; you see clearly how it works in a war.

So that synthesis of war as the synthesis of all statist intervention is Rothbard’s main economic contribution, in the sense that economics is not everything. [cough]

Thank you very much. [applause]