— From Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2026) —
The Last Lecture
In mid-1994, and with a mixture of terror and an intellectual hubris unique to graduate students, I formally enrolled in ECON 742, Murray Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought. (The Syllabus is reproduced in the Appendix.)
I thought I was finally ready. For the five years prior, I had been steeped in Austrian Economics at UNLV. I had taken every class Hans-Hermann Hoppe taught.2 I was a regular at Hoppe’s weekly informal study sessions (held at a dive-bar with cheap beer). I attended classes with professors who were at least sympathetic to the Austrian School. I had occasionally sat in on a handful of Rothbard’s lectures and attended a few of his study groups (held at a more upscale chain diner across from campus). I read Menger, Mises, Hoppe, and Rothbard—every Austrian resource the UNLV Library held. But I had not yet formally enrolled in a class taught by Rothbard, himself, because until that point, I was afraid.
I feared being formally evaluated by the libertarian legend, Murray Rothbard. Rothbard was an intellectual Goliath in my mind. His writing was more accessible than Menger, Mises, or even Hoppe, and Rothbard’s sharp and clear prose helped form the world-view to which I still hold to this day. And footnotes—how I reveled in the erudition and commentary of Rothbard’s footnotes! My trepidation only multiplied when my academic advisor looked at my proposed schedule and perfunctorily remarked, “Rothbard…students say his lectures are hard.”
With nervous anticipation, I took my seat in the stadium-style seminar room that held about 30 people. Twenty or so students also sat down, but only a handful of whom had actually enrolled. Non-enrolled students, with Rothbard’s encouragement, often dropped in for Rothbard’s lectures. Murray walked into every class with a manila folder tucked under his arm. It is more accurate to say he shuffled in. Rothbard’s gait always struck me as somewhat tentative, but with purpose. He was a diminutive man, balding and gray, with thick glasses. He wore smart, but casual, chino slacks with a button-down short-sleeved shirt. He maneuvered behind a podium set on a table and sat down at high, bar-stool type chair with a blackboard at his back.
Rothbard opened the manila folder then handed out the syllabus.
The syllabus stands a work of poetry and irony.
The first things to note are the times of the class and Rothbard’s office hours—late afternoon and early evening. Murray was a notorious night-owl, and the class times reflect this proclivity.
The next item that struck me was the sheer breadth and depth of the topics. How were we ever going to cover that much material in 16 weeks? We would not.
Rothbard’s choice of textbooks was also quirky. He notes, “There is no fully satisfactory textbook in the history of economic thought.” Little did we know that when Rothbard opened his manila folder at the beginning of class, he was lecturing from notes or a manuscript of his magnum opus, The History of Economic Thought, which would be published posthumously soon after his death.3
With great understatement, Rothbard’s syllabus then remarks, “The class lectures are the central material for the course.”
Lectures were surely the central material for the course.
As a lecturer, Rothbard’s cadence was assertive, confident, and authoritative. His delivery reflected unapologetic passion for libertarian principles. He challenged his students and encouraged their questions.
Like his writings, Rothbard’s lectures maintained a consistent stance against the state and collectivist ideologies. His discussions of economic history were deeply intertwined with his political philosophy. He never once wavered from his convictions, often adding personal commentary to the topic.
Rothbard was not, however, a traditional college lecturer. He was manifestly not the professor who would regurgitate the material in manageable bits to spoon-feed bored students. Instead, Rothbard would begin teaching from his manila folder on the topic of that particular session, but then a student would ask a question, or a current event would pique his interest, or a subject would spark a particular anecdote. Rothbard would inevitably divert from the theme of the class in what can only be described as a marvelous, wonderful tangent. The tangents were not incoherent rants or diatribes. Instead, reflecting the force of his thought and the passion of his conviction, Rothbard would deliver a cogent, well-reasoned, and extemporaneous monologue, complete with citations to the authors he was thinking of. He would say things like, “If you want to read more on this subject, a book came out about ten years ago by so-and-so….” I used to write these citations in the margins of my notes to look up later.
How I loved Rothbard’s magnificent tangents! I looked forward to them every class. I realized in preparing this essay that Rothbard’s tangents were the verbal equivalent of Rothbard’s footnotes! The same erudition that permeated his footnotes informed his tangents, too.
The bold, confident, and assertive tone of Rothbard’s lectures stood in sharp contrast to the man who delivered them. Murray was shy and reserved walking through the halls. His voice was nasally, and it would go up an octave or two when he wanted to emphasize a particular point. He had a rapier wit, a tremendous sense of humor, and loved to poke fun at this politician or that economist or that philosopher. He cackled a bit when he laughed.
The class never did make it through all of the topics on Rothbard’s syllabus. We probably got through J.B. Say. It was a pity because I was truly looking forward to Rothbard’s formal destruction of Marx, in large part because Rothbard never missed an opportunity in his tangents to dismissively and gleefully criticize Marx and Marxists.
At the end of the semester, I turned in my paper and took my exam, convinced that I did not dazzle the great Rothbard with my brilliance. I earned a decent grade. But I am sure I did not dazzle him–Rothbard was also a notoriously generous grader. “That’s okay,” I told myself, “There will be another opportunity in the Spring semester with U.S. Economic History.”
But that opportunity never came. In January 1995, I received a call from the Economics Department secretary informing me that Rothbard had died. There would be no other opportunity. After the initial shock, I realized that I was a most fortunate man: I attended the very last class Murray Rothbard ever taught.
- Jeffrey F. Barr practices law in Las Vegas, Nevada. He studied under Murray Rothbard and Hans Herman-Hoppe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. See also Jeff’s previous reminiscences of Rothbard in Douglas E. French et al., “Murray Rothbard as a Teacher: The UNLV Years—A Panel with Rothbard’s Former Students,” Austrian Economics Research Conference 2023, Auburn, Alabama, Mises Institute (Oct. 7, 2017), available at Stephan Kinsella, “PFP252 | Bonus: Murray Rothbard as a Teacher: The UNLV Years—A Panel with Rothbard’s Former Students (AERC2023),” Property and Freedom Podcast (Oct. 2, 2023). See also Lee Iglody’s chapter in this volume, “The Man Across the Hall: My Time with Professor Rothbard,” Doug French’s “Remembering Murray Rothbard: Teacher, Friend, and Inspiration,” and Hans Hoppe’s “Coming of Age with Murray.” [↩]
- For my previous tributes to Hoppe, see my contributions in his two festschrifts: “A Student’s Appreciation of Professor Hoppe,” in Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009), and “Principled,” in A Life in Liberty: Liber Amicorum in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella, eds. (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2024). [↩]
- See Murray N. Rothbard, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006). See also Stephan Kinsella, “Volume 3 of Rothbard’s History of Economic Thought,” StephanKinsella.com (Sep. 1, 2009). [↩]
