Dürr, Encountering Rothbard: Property Rights as the Key to Anarchy

by Stephan Kinsella on March 2, 2026

— From Rothbard at 100: A Tribute and Assessment, Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, eds. (Houston: Papinian Press and Property and Freedom Society, 2026) —

Encountering Rothbard: Property Rights as the Key to Anarchy

David Dürr¹

It was in the early 2000s when I felt increasingly lost as an anarchist in a thoroughly statist world, somehow like an alien from a distant planet alone in a world full of humans. I was desperately looking for comrade aliens but there were none. At least not in the environment where I lived as a state educated lawyer and as a law professor at a state university in Switzerland. And then suddenly, I met Murray Rothbard.

I wasn’t an anarchist from birth; I think nobody is born as an anarchist, anarchism has to do with emancipation from parental supervision, of becoming adult. Truly adult people are anarchists; it seems that adult people are a rare species on earth. – But at some point in my life, I became adult and hence anarchist, by emancipation not only from parental custody, but also and mainly from educational indoctrination by state-run law faculties, state driven bureaucracies and state supported courts.

The more I learned and practiced in law, the deeper I delved into the question of what law is all about, the clearer it became in my mind that the state is not the source of law. I realized that laws don’t need to be rendered by an official legislator, but laws are just there, like the law of gravity and other natural regularities. And by realizing this it was a short step to notice that the state is not the grantor but the enemy to what lawyers call The Rule of Law, that the state is illegal … and why shouldn’t we call the state a per se criminal organization?!

Now, it is one thing having realized and been fascinated by such changes of paradigms, and another thing being completely alone with this, not finding interlocutors with whom to discuss or to develop common strategies to overcome that criminal organization. Of course, I knew some books of Hayek and had read not more than one of Mises to broaden my law-oriented horizon towards economics and classical liberalism. But these authors weren’t anarchists.

“Society Without a State”

But then, sometime around 2005 I came across an article entitled “Society Without A State,” published in The Libertarian Forum.² What caught my attention was that the author—an economist called Murray Rothbard—developed his view (a) from a topic I was familiar with, i.e. from fundamental functions of law in society, and (b) started his thoughts by bluntly addressing anarchy.

As for topic (a), i.e. Law, that article went straight into the core of its meaning, i.e. “providing defense or protection services as courts, police, or even law itself,” i.e. functions that are usually connected with what are viewed as the “core functions of the state.” As for topic (b), i.e. Anarchism, the author didn’t leave the slightest doubt as to what his view on the state was:

Let me say from the beginning that I define the State as that institution which possesses one or both (almost always both) of the following properties: (1) it acquires its income by the physical coercion known as “taxation”; and (2) it asserts and usually obtains a coerced monopoly of the provision of defense service (police and courts) over a given territorial area. Any institution, not possessing either of these properties is not and cannot be, in accordance with my definition, a “State.”³

And that’s why according to Murray Rothbard, there is a consistent alternative: a society without a state:

On the other hand, I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights. [Ibid.]

Hello Mr. Rothbard, I said, it is a pleasure to meet you, and even though we have never met before I think we know each other quite well! And thanks to you I am not alone any more as an anarchist in this statist world. We are two now. — Oh no, Murray said, there are many more, may I introduce you to Hans Hoppe and his friends.

Actually, Murray Rothbard at that moment was no longer alive, but reading his crystal-clear sentences I felt like I was hearing the voice of a good friend. And from this to reaching out for his other followers and admirers was a short step. So, I became a friend of Hans and of other anarchists such as Stephan, Guido, Alessandro, Thomas and many others, as well as a regular participant and speaker at the PFS conferences in Bodrum.

And so, it was quite a privilege to present The Murray Rothbard-Memorial Lecture in 2019 at the Austrian Economics Research Conference at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.⁴ That was an occasion to reflect on how an economic approach such as the one by Murray Rothbard leads to the very same conclusions as did my law oriented thoughts that have led me to become an anarchist.

Property Rights: The Point of Convergence

The point of convergence, so to speak, is Property Rights. Property is a prominent subject in economics as well as in law, and of course in politics. Even though Rothbardian theory starts with economics his political interest in property seems to be a legal one. Typical economic aspects of property are rather those we know from famous articles like the one by Roland Coase⁵ who shows the economic effects of how property rights are allocated to these or to those, leading to economically efficient or inefficient results respectively. Similar viewpoints are known in connection with what is named the Law-and-Economics Movement with legal scholars like Richard Posner as a prominent exponent.⁶ These aspects it seems are not of primary interest to Murray Rothbard.⁷

Property Through Conflict: An Imagined Dialogue with Rothbard

In “Society Without a State” it is specifically the legal aspect of property which opens the door to an anarchist society. Property as such, as a theory, seems to be irrelevant; relevance arises only when property becomes the object of a conflict about resources, as when A tries to take away a thing and B reacts by resisting. And while I was first discussing this with Murray (i.e. when I was first reading “Society Without A State”) I heard him saying (i.e. I read him writing):

“Let us now turn to the problem of how disputes—in particular, disputes over alleged violations of person and property—would be resolved in an anarchist society.”⁸ And so, we both imagined A trying to take away from B a thing such as a painting, a tool or a machine.

“Hands off!” shouts B.
“Why should I? “I like this thing, not less than you like it.” says A.
Then B: “But I have priority, since I am holding the thing in my hands, while you are trying to take it away.” Which is what the law calls Possession, we are still not dealing with Property.⁹
“But holding something in one’s hand is just a fact, it’s not a right.” says A.

This is when C, attracted by the shouting, intervenes: “You are right, it’s just a fact. But for the sake of calm and cultivated behavior I recommend that you respect purely factual situations as well, at least to pause the quarrel, to put the case on the table, to try to convince each other or to call for an independent third to help as a mediator—just like me.”¹⁰

At this stage of the conflict neither of the parties A and B nor the mediator C has referred to something like “Property.” That wouldn’t have helped either, since both sides may claim “Property,” but this alone would not convince the mediator.¹¹ This one instead, is now asking each of the parties:

“What is the reason that giving away this thing is disturbing you and how significant are your disadvantages in such a case?”¹²
Possessor B: “I like the thing, it’s beautiful, it’s useful, it’s practical. Not having it means frustration and loss of practical help in everyday life.”
Taker A: “Exactly the same is true for me. But on top of it: It was me who worked hard in constructing the thing or in earning money to buy the thing, I enjoyed it as the fruit of my work, when B came by and took it away. All my efforts are in danger of being in vain.”
Possessor B: “But nevertheless, for me, not having the thing is less than having it. Having it is something, not having amounts to zero.”
Taker A: “But for me not having the thing is not zero, it is negative; it is zero minus my previous efforts.”

When at this stage of the discussion, mediator C concludes that taker A’s position prevails and possessor B should return the thing, and when C now looks for a catchy word, why taker A is right and possessor B is wrong, why shouldn’t he say: This painting, tool, or machine is the “individual property of A.”

So, Murray and I came to the conclusion: Property is not, as classical liberals usually say, an absolute principle hanging high in heaven providing advantages to individuals becoming entitled with; but instead, property is an essentially relative matter,¹³ not more than the outcome of conflicts about attributing the many disadvantages down here in this world. — And that’s why, Murray and I agreed in our imaginary discussion, that Property is the key not to heaven, but to a peaceful and cultivated society without a state, i.e. to anarchy, down here in our world.

David Dürr is Professor of Law emeritus, University of Zürich/Switzerland, and Attorney-at-Law, SwissLegal-Group. He is the author of “The Ethics of Physics,” 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), “The Inescapability of Law, and of Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe,” J. Libertarian Stud. 23 (2019): 161–170, and many other publications. [↩]
Murray N. Rothbard, “Society Without A State,” Libertarian Forum 9, no. 1 (Jan. 1975): 3–7, in The Complete Libertarian Forum, Murray N. Rothbard, ed., Volume 1: 1969–1975 (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006). [↩]
Ibid., p. 3. See similar definitions of the state in Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Role of Intellectuals and Anti-intellectual Intellectuals,” in The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline, 2d. ed (2021), p. 3; idem, “Reflections on State and War,” in The Great Fiction; Rothbardian Ethics”; and idem, “Rothbardian Ethics,” in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006). On Rothbard’s observation that the state “possesses one or both (almost always both)” of taxation and coercive monopoly, see Stephan Kinsella, “The Power to Tax and the Power to Outlaw Competition Imply Each Other,” StephanKinsella.com (July 12, 2025). [↩]
David Dürr, “The Inescapability of Law, and of Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe,” J. Libertarian Stud. 23 (2019): 161–170; text; video. [↩]
Ronald Coase, “The Problem of Social Cost,” J. Law & Econ III (Oct. 1960): p. 1–44. [↩]
Richard Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 9^th ed. (Aspen Publishing, 2014). [↩]
In any event, Rothbard was especially skeptical and critical of utilitarian theories, cf. Murray N. Rothbard, Classical Economics: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume II (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006 [1995]), p. 56 et pass.; idem, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 52, and ch. 26, “Utilitarian Free-Market Economics”; and many other works, e.g. idem, “Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics,” “Value Implications of Economic Theory,” “The Myth of Efficiency,” and “Praxeology, Value Judgments, and Public Policy,” all in Murray N. Rothbard, Economic Controversies (Auburn, Ala: Mises Institute, 2011). Rothbard was, of course, nonetheless, fully familiar with “technical” elements of economics, such as those extensively dealt with in idem, Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, Scholars ed., 2d ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009 [1962]). As Jeff Deist notes in his contribution to this volume, “bright young Murray entered Columbia to earn an undergraduate math degree—a noteworthy detail overlooked by his future econometrician critics.” [↩]
Rothbard, “Society Without A State,” ch. II, p. 4. [↩]
On the distinction between possession and use of resources, an economic and descriptive classification, on the one hand; and ownership and property rights, a normative and legal concept that operates as normative support for possession, on the other, see Stephan Kinsella, “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” in David Howden, ed., Palgrave Handbook of Misesian Austrian Economics (Palgrave, forthcoming 2026), Part I; idem, ” On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession,” StephanKinsella.com (April 19, 2025); idem, “What Libertarianism Is,” App. I, “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection,” text at notes 23, 35–36, both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). [↩]
On the resort to dispute resolution the further goal of avoiding conflict in a world of scarce resources, see Stephan Kinsella, The Universal Principles of Liberty (Aug 14, 2025), §11. [↩]
See Hoppe’s explanation that mere verbal decree is not sufficient to establish ownership of a contestable resource. Hoppe, “The Ethical Justification of Capitalism and Why Socialism Is Morally Indefensible,” in Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (Laissez Faire Books, 2013), pp. 160–163; idem, “From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism,”in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, pp. 320–321; Stephan Kinsella, “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” pp. 51–52 and “Defending Argumentation Ethics,” pp. 150–151, both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society. [↩]
This is why justice and law emerge not from purely deductive armchair reasoning but from actual cases and controversies where real judges can take evidence and context into account. See, on this, Stephan Kinsella, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” Part V.B, and “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” p. 524, both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society; idem, “On the Role of Commentators and Codes and the Oracles of the Law,” StephanKinsella.com (July 31, 2025); idem, “Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases,” StephanKinsella.com (Dec. 19, 2022). [↩]
On how property disputes concern which party has “better title” than the other, and on Hoppe’s emphasis on the importance of the prior-later distinction, see Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is,” p. 24 & n.33, et pass. [↩]