Fusillo, Rothbard, Philosopher of Law

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

Rothbard, Philosopher of Law

Alessandro Fusillo¹

Murray N. Rothbard was a universal genius. Equally at home in the study of economics, political philosophy, and history, the fundamental characteristic of Rothbardian thought is its intimate coherence and systematicity. From major works such as Man, Economy, and State and Power and Market² or the monumental History of Economic Thought³ to the countless articles he wrote, even if only to comment on current events, one always perceives that every contribution by Rothbard was an integral part of a grand intellectual edifice whose essential outline and structure were clearly present from the very beginning of his unparalleled intellectual adventure.

Unlike Mises himself, who never wished to abandon the wertfrei and utilitarian approach, or Hayek, a deeply contradictory thinker with confused reasoning and illiberal conclusions,⁴ what is striking about Rothbard is that, despite an intellectual evolution that led him to explore ever broader fields of human knowledge—always with exceptional results, astonishing productivity, and surprising speed of writing—the direction of his studies remained clear and unwavering. Every part, every work fits perfectly into the mosaic of Rothbardian thought and contributes to composing a systematic construction of the entire science of human action, not merely the science of economics. All of it from the coherent perspective of an enemy of the State, as Justin Raimondo rightly characterized him his the biography or Rothbard⁵—in fact, the enemy of the State tout court.

Indeed, the guiding thread of all Rothbardian social philosophy, founded on property, is the radical and uncompromising critique of the organizations called States or governments, whose fundamentally criminal nature Rothbard never ceased to emphasize, given their activity which—even in the case of the smallest and most inoffensive among minimal states—is nonetheless characterized by the violation of property rights.⁶ This tension between property and crime, between the economic means and the political means—to use Franz Oppenheimer’s terms⁷—is what has always distinguished Murray Rothbard’s path.

This brief contribution is dedicated to two aspects of Rothbardian thought: namely, his philosophy of law and Rothbard’s relationship with active politics—two issues that appear distant but are intimately connected.

The systematic treatment of the philosophy of law is contained in one of Rothbard’s most important writings, The Ethics of Liberty,⁸ in which he outlines in a systematic, analytical, and exhaustive manner the foundations of natural law. Rothbard’s aim is to identify legal principles consistent with human nature and capable of being discovered through the use of abstract reasoning. These are principles concerning human conduct deducible from the basic inclinations of human nature and, as such, absolute, immutable, and universally valid for all times and places.⁹ In other words, Rothbard’s program is to retrace, from a secular perspective, the same path followed by Scholasticism in the treatment of natural law, following in the footsteps of St. Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suárez.¹⁰

In undertaking this treatment, Rothbard employs and brings to completion the aprioristic method developed by his master Ludwig von Mises. The Ethics of Liberty applies the praxeological method to a discipline other than economics. Just as Mises derived the entire structure of economic science from the axiom of human action,¹¹ Rothbard traces the basic legal rules of a human society that aspires to be free and just back to a principle even higher and more fundamental than that of human action—namely, the principle of self-ownership. In doing so, Rothbard abandons the utilitarian and wertfrei attitude of his master. The recognition of self-ownership as the foundation of social interaction not only leads to a system capable of guaranteeing maximum economic prosperity, but the natural law system constructed by Rothbard is deemed preferable because it is ethically and morally superior to possible alternatives.

The Ethics of Liberty, therefore, is the starting point for the construction of a new libertarian theory of natural law. Building on its foundations, Hans-Hermann Hoppe would further develop Rothbardian theses, demonstrating through the “ethics of argumentation”¹² that acceptance of the principles of self-ownership and non-aggression as its necessary logical consequence is the precondition for the very possibility of making meaningful and logically grounded statements in the field of the human sciences. Outside the libertarian concept of natural law as a system founded on recognition of the basic principle of self-ownership, it is impossible to make any statement endowed with rationality.

For Mises, the foundation of any reflection belonging to the social sciences is the recognition that human beings act. Action—that is, conscious and voluntary human behavior—constitutes an axiom from which, through a method of logical deduction, all conclusions in economics are derived. According to von Mises, it is impossible to deny the axiom of human action because its very denial would itself be a form of action—to deny something, one cannot help but act, that is, employ one’s conscious and voluntary efforts—so anyone who denied the first principle of human action would fall into a performative contradiction. Action, therefore, is the foundational stone upon which Mises’ entire system of thought is built. The so-called economic laws, then, are not deduced from empirical (a posteriori) observation of exchanges and human behavior in relation to scarcity, but are logically derived as necessary consequences of the general principle of human action, obtainable a priori.

In this context, the measurement of economic aggregates (econometrics) and the historical study of the economy are useful tools in the economist’s hands, but not for deriving “economic laws” inductively from observation of reality and thereby imitating the method of the natural sciences. The latter, according to Mises, cannot be transposed into the field of the human sciences, which operate with a methodology completely opposite to that of the experimental sciences. Thus, for example, the a priori valid principle that an increase in the money supply (inflation) must necessarily result in a distortion of the purchasing power of money is true a priori, independently of concrete measurements of the consumer price index.

Employing the same methodology, Rothbard traces back, for the construction of his philosophy of law, to an axiom even higher than that of human action—namely, self-ownership. That this is a corollary of the former is entirely evident if one simply considers that to act consciously and voluntarily, one must first be the owner of one’s own body. However, whereas according to von Mises it is impossible to make an objective value judgment about the ends pursued by the acting human being, Rothbard proposes to derive the basic rules for constructing a just legal order from the nature of the human being, borrowing the Thomistic and Scholastic principle of identifying the order of natural laws through the instrument of human reason. So much so that right at the opening of his treatment of the issue, Rothbard significantly cites Suárez, De Legibus (II, 6, 3) and leans on an argument that runs through the entire natural-law tradition from Gregory of Rimini and Gabriel Biel to Hugo Grotius: that the norms of natural law have validity not as a command or will of God, since they are a priori rules that would be binding even if God did not exist or did not exercise reason.¹³ Natural law for Scholasticism, therefore, is not the object of divine volition but constitutes a logical and natural necessity deriving from the use of human reason.

The principle of self-ownership on which Rothbard builds his entire treatment of libertarian natural law derives from John Locke’s assertion that every human being has a property right in himself—that is, in his own body and, by logical extension, in what he can produce through the employment of his own bodily energies (mixing land and labor), that is, what he can appropriate from a state of nature where resources are unowned by anyone.¹⁴ Even more strongly than the axiom of human action, the denial of the principle of self-ownership would constitute a performative contradiction.¹⁵

Indeed, to deny that each person is the owner of himself means that the one denying it also disowns being the owner of himself, and therefore his action would be devoid of meaning, as it would be the execution of the will of some further entity that is the true owner of the denier and thus responsible for the denial and, as such, owner of itself. In this hypothesis, the one denying the principle of self-ownership would have to admit to being the slave of another human being who would exercise control over his body and could direct his will and actions. Alternatively, the one denying the principle of self-ownership could do so by asserting that he himself is indeed the owner of himself but denying a similar right to others in relation to whom he claims a supposed right of supremacy or control.

Both hypotheses—which we might call those of the slave and the superman—historically documented in countless cases, have a logical flaw: they fail the test of universalizability, which constitutes a fundamental element—and according to some, the exclusive element—of the possibility of establishing a logically grounded rule.¹⁶

Law defines the conditions that permit the use of violence and coercion in human society. A legal rule, therefore, is one that allows its coercive (violent) enforcement against the will of its addressee. Examples of such rules abound in all systems of positive law. For instance, the legal norm that imposes the payment of taxes is a coercive rule, and its concrete enforcement—in the absence of spontaneous compliance by the so-called taxpayer—is entrusted to the threat of violence (forced expropriation, imprisonment for the evader) or its actual use in case of resistance. The tax norm, however, is clearly a non-universal rule, since the tax system pits a group of people who are passive addressees of the obligation to pay taxes against a different active group that benefits from the tax revenue. This is the well-known distinction by Calhoun between taxpayers and tax consumers.¹⁷

It is evident that the tax system is unequal and non-universal. What is permitted to some—to consume income derived from tax revenue—is forbidden to others who, on the contrary, are forced to finance the consumption performed by the dominating class of parasites. The tax norm, therefore, despite official efforts to present it in terms of fairness and justice, and especially equal distribution of the burden on all taxpayers, constitutes a rule that establishes and affirms a difference in position, respectively active and passive.

Such a norm cannot be logically justified because it fails the test of universality or, if you will, because it is inconsistent with the principle of formal equality before the law. The only way to assert the possibility of an unequal coercive rule is to divide any society into passive subjects of coercion—slaves—and active subjects—supermen—to whom different rules apply regarding the right of self-ownership.

All philosophical treatments of law except that of Rothbard end up justifying different kinds of violations of the principles of self-ownership and private property. It may be God’s will, the greater good, the triumph of the Aryan race, the proletarians, the mission of civilization of the Ancient Romans, the British, the Spanish, the Islamic rulers, democracy and the volonté générale. There is a host of excuses and justifications that always lead to the same conclusion: some are entitled to aggress against others. Hence, the basic logical flaw in any philosophy of law that does not share libertarian Rothbardian principles, namely its failure to pass the universalization test;¹⁸ different rules apply to different people. The legal relationship is unequal and always entails a principle of supremacy.¹⁹

But there is another aspect to the logical and rational superiority of the Rothbardian reconstruction of the philosophy of law: it is the only concept of social life that enables the pursuit of happiness.²⁰ As Rothbard puts it, natural law provides man with a “science of happiness” and at the same time offers the logical arguments to oppose the utilitarian tenet of the “greatest happiness for the greatest number”²¹ since proponents of this end cannot “make it intelligible why the happiness of the greater number should be cogent as an end upon those who happen to belong to the lesser number.”²² For the greatest happiness for the greatest number is very far from being an axiom, as proposed by Bentham, and needs a logical demonstration, that is impossible because it presupposes the possibility of measuring happiness. Happiness, being a subjective feeling that is different from individual to individual, cannot be established in an objective way. Hence, the utilitarian idea of the greatest happiness for the greatest number hides a totalitarian project where there is a group of enlightened technocrats, dictators or social overlords who will be endowed with the task of judging what is better and what is worse for all the others. Utilitarianism is thus just another disguise for central planning.²³

On the contrary, natural law in the Rothbardian sense is the science of the good life; it is the reflection on the conditions that enable each and every one to pursue their own ends without hindering others from doing the same. To live and let live.

This is the point where Rothbard departs from the formal consideration of human action by economic science.

Value in the sense of valuation or utility is purely subjective, and decided by each individual. This procedure is perfectly proper for the formal science of praxeology, or economic theory, but not necessarily elsewhere. For in natural-law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees; value here is objective—determined by the natural law of man’s being, and here “happiness” for man is considered in the commonsensical, contentual sense.²⁴

And the only social organization where pursuit of happiness is made possible is one where self-ownership and the non-aggression principle are respected.

Rothbard’s rejection of any political organization that is not based upon voluntary participation and freedom of exit comes as a natural consequence of his philosophy of law. Any type of coercion violates the principles of non-aggression and self-ownership. Thus, a coercive organization that claims the monopoly of violence and decision-making is necessarily an evil to be opposed in any possible way. This is why Rothbard always was an extremist and an uncompromising enemy of the State.

Many so-called libertarians have questioned this conclusion regarding Rothbard’s thought. Especially after the election of the self-proclaimed libertarian Milei as president of Argentina and after Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States, some have argued that, if he were alive, Murray Rothbard would have supported the policies of Milei and Trump because gradualism would be preferable to a utopianism devoid of any concrete prospect of achieving successes and tangible improvements in the conditions of social life.²⁵

We will attempt to respond both to the somewhat idle—but nonetheless legitimate—question of what Rothbard would have thought of the current political situation, and to the far more important one of how to frame the enthusiastic support given to Milei and Trump by some who were part of the libertarian world but have forfeited their right to call themselves libertarians because they support the chiefs of two coercive and violent organizations as the USA and the Argentinian Republic.

As we noted above, opposition to any form of state organization—which constitutes a central element of Rothbard’s political philosophy and philosophy of law—excludes the possibility of considering anyone libertarian and Rothbardian who supports any political organization or any government.

Rothbard’s attitude toward active politics was clearly outlined in the fifteenth chapter of For a New Liberty,²⁶ where he provides a detailed analysis of the issue concerning libertarians’ engagement in active politics.

How can we get from here to there? Rothbard asks. How can we attempt to reverse the trend of modern states toward a constant increase in coercion, regulation, oppressive taxation, and capillary intervention in every aspect of private life, with the progressive elimination of every vestige of individual liberty?

According to Rothbard, the libertarian cannot help but be the extreme radical, the one who demands without exception the total elimination of state coercion: “The libertarian, then, should be a person who would push the button, if it existed, for the instantaneous abolition of all invasions of liberty.”²⁷

Gradualism, Rothbard argues, is a betrayal of the very principles upheld by libertarians and ultimately reveals itself as an abandonment of those principles in favor of a political realism that is unacceptable to the libertarian.

Gradualism in theory indeed undercuts the goal itself by conceding that it must take second or third place to other non- or antilibertarian considerations. For a preference for gradualism implies that these other considerations are more important than liberty. Thus, suppose that the abolitionist of slavery had said, “I advocate an end to slavery—but only after ten years’ time.” But this would imply that abolition eight or nine years from now, or a fortiori immediately, would be wrong, and that therefore it is better for slavery to be continued a while longer. But this would mean that considerations of justice have been abandoned, and that the goal itself is no longer held highest by the abolitionist (or libertarian). In fact, for both the abolitionist and libertarian this would mean they are advocating the prolongation of crime and injustice.²⁸

What, then, would Rothbard have thought of Milei and Trump, presented by many as champions of liberty from a gradualist perspective on the need to dismantle states progressively?

It is clear beyond cavil that Rothbard would have unmasked both of them for what they are: political opportunists who use a few libertarian slogans for the purpose of pursuing the end that characterizes every politician: enriching themselves at the expense of others and exercising power.

Moreover, just one issue would have been sufficient to induce Rothbard to decisively reject both Milei and Trump: their unconditional support for the Zionist policies of the State of Israel. Rothbard always criticized decisively the militaristic and expansionist policy of the State of Israel and the systematic violation of the property rights of Palestinians. This single argument would have been enough for a rejection of the policies of Trump and Milei.²⁹

Equally severe would have been his judgment on the continuation of monetary inflation by both presidents, which places them at the antipodes of the Austrian School of Economics and of libertarianism.

Finally, if Rothbard were alive, he would have clearly denounced the attempt to appropriate the libertarian movement by a political class that is emerging onto the scene after decades of dominance by the woke caste and the left. The Trump presidency is building a new system of global control based on the massive use of artificial intelligence and global control systems (facial recognition, digital identity). Behind the Trump presidency lies a new technocratic totalitarianism. To make it appealing to the masses—whose consent is always necessary for any regime—it is necessary to present the ongoing regime change with an external facade that makes it palatable and acceptable.

Along with the rejection of the most absurd aspects of woke ideology and leftist policies that have prevailed in recent years, there is the presentation of liberal and libertarian slogans that serve a dual purpose: on the one hand, to carry out a counter-revolution against the protest movements that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic period by incorporating them into a governmental narrative;³⁰ on the other, to hollow out the libertarian movement from within because it represents the only radical and uncompromising critique toward any governmental activity.

That libertarian movement which arose from the fusion between the individualist anarchism of Lysander Spooner, Benjamin Tucker, Albert J. Nock, and Frank Chodorov and the liberal tradition of the Austrian School of Economics. A fusion that constitutes the intellectual merit and legacy of Murray Rothbard.

It is our task to take on his intellectual inheritance of uncompromising defense of intellectual radicalism and the unyielding tension toward individual liberty as the necessary and sufficient condition for the pursuit of happiness.

1. Alessandro Fusillo is a libertarian attorney based in Italy, Spain, and Germany. [↩]
2. Both in the omnibus edition Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, Scholar’s ed., second ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009). [↩]
3. 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). [↩]
4. See, e.g., Hoppe’s various criticisms of Hayek, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Libertarian Search for a Grand Historical Narrative,” and “Hayek on Government and Social Evolution,” both in The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline, 2d. ed (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2021); idem, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006), pp. 310–12; idem, Economic Science and the Austrian Method (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 1995), pp. 177–178; idem, “PFP101 | Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Hayek Myth (PFS 2012),” Property and Freedom Podcast (April 12, 2022); idem, “Why Mises (and not Hayek)?“, Mises Daily (Oct. 10, 2011); Mateusz Machzg, “Socjaldemokratyczny Hayek,” Najwyzszy czas (Sept. 2004) (English translation: “Social Democratic Hayek: An Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe by Mateusz Machaj“); Stephan Kinsella, “Hoppe on Hayek,” StephanKinsella.com (Sept. 20, 2009); also Walter E. Block, “Hayek’s Road to Serfdom,” J. Libertarian Stud. 12, no. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 327–50. On Hayek’s view that state legislation is unobjectionable as long as it is of general applicability, predictable, and known in advance, see Stephan Kinsella, “On the Non Liquet in Libertarian Theory and Armchair Theorizing,” StephanKinsella.com (July 20, 2025); idem, “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston: Papinian Press, 2023), Part III.B.1, n.34. On criticism of Hayek’s focus on knowledge, see idem, “Knowledge vs. Calculation,” Mises Economics Blog (July 11, 2006); Murray N. Rothbard, “The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited,” Economic Controversies (Auburn, Ala: Mises Institute, 2011), p. 846 (“the entire Hayekian emphasis on ‘knowledge’ is misplaced and misconceived”); Jörg Guido Hülsmann, “Knowledge, Judgment, and the Use of Property,” Rev. Austrian Econ. 10, no. 1 (1997): 23–48, p. 39 (discussing “the irrelevance of knowledge problems”); Joseph T. Salerno, “Ludwig von Mises as a Social Rationalist,” Rev. Austrian Econ. 4 (1990): 26–54, p. 44 (“[t]he price system is not–and praxeologically cannot be–a mechanism for economizing and communicating the knowledge relevant to production plans. The realized prices of history are an accessory of appraisement”); Hoppe, “Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem?”, in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 146 (“Hayek’s contribution to the socialism debate must be thrown out as false, confusing, and irrelevant.”); Kinsella, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” in Legal Foundations of a Free Society, p. 509 n.25. [↩]
5. Justin Raimondo, Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (2000). [↩]
6. Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009), also included in idem, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, R.A. Childs, Jr., ed., 2d. ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2000 [1974]), originally published in Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer 1965) 1–24. [↩]
7. Franz Oppenheimer, The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926), pp. 24 ff. See also Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order,” in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 84 (“One can acquire and increase wealth either through homesteading, production and contractual exchange, or by expropriating and exploiting homesteaders, producers, or contractual exchangers. There are no other ways.”) and p. 85, n.9; Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, Power and Market, ch. 2, pp. 1057–1058 et pass. [↩]
8. Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998). [↩]
9. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 3. [↩]
10. Francisco Suárez, Tractatus de legibus ac Deo legislatore, Lib. 2, Cap. VI, 120; Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace (1625), Book 1, Chapter X. [↩]
11. Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Scholar’s ed. (Auburn, Ala: Mises Institute, 1998), pp. 62 ff. [↩]
12. See Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (Laissez Faire Books, 2013), ch. 7; idem, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006), chs. 11, 13; Stephan Kinsella, “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide,” Mises Daily (May 27, 2011); idem, “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights” and “Defending Argumentation Ethics,” both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). [↩]
13.  Onorato Grassi, “Influenze agostiniane nel ‘si Deus ipse non esset’ di Gregorio da Rimini,” in Ipsum verum non videbis nisi in philosophiam totus intraveris: Studi in onore di Franco De Capitani, Fabrizio Amerini and Stefano Caroti, eds., Quaderni di Noctua 3 (Firenze-Parma-Torino: E-theca OnLineOpenAccess Edizioni, Università degli Studi di Torino, 2016), pp. 375–407. [↩]
14. John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690), ch. V, § 27, 1690. [↩]
15. See, on this, Stephan Kinsella, “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability,” Part III.C, and “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” p. 54 et pass., both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society; idem, “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract,” in David Howden, ed., Palgrave Handbook of Misesian Austrian Economics (Palgrave, forthcoming 2026), Part VI.A; Sheldon Richman, “The Absurdity of Alienable Rights,” Liberty (January, 1989): 50–52. [↩]
16. According to Giovanni Birindelli, the universalization test is the only criterion to distinguish arbitrary rules from an objectively founded legal system. He argues that the only rule that passes the test is the non-aggression principle which justifies coercion (self-defense) as a means to uphold self-ownership. Giovanni Birindelli, “L’etica dell’uguaglianza davanti alla legge” (“The ethics of equality before the law“), Giovanni’s Substack (Nov. 5, 2023). [↩]
17. John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government, in The Works of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 1 (edited by Richard K. Crallé, 1851). [↩]
18. Birindelli, “L’etica dell’uguaglianza davanti alla legge.” [↩]
19. See generally Stephan Kinsella, “What Libertarianism Is,” text at n. 23; “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” text at n. 15; “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights,” Part III.D.2; “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights,” text at n. 46; “Defending Argumentation Ethics,” pass., all in Legal Foundations of a Free Society, et pass. [↩]
20. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 12. See also idem, “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle,” Libertarian Forum, 1, no. 6 (June 15, 1969) in The Complete Libertarian Forum, Murray N. Rothbard, ed., Volume 1: 1969–1975 (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006); Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Rothbardian Ethics,” in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, pp. 383–84; idem, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 169–70; Kinsella ,“Defending Argumentation Ethics,” n. 31, “How We Come to Own Ourselves,” p. 56 and Appendix, and “Defending Argumentation Ethics,” n. 31; idem, “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society,” Part II.C, n. 27 and “Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce,” n. 20, both in Legal Foundations of a Free Society.  [↩]
21. Jeremy Bentham, A Fragment on Government (1776). [↩]
22. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 202 quoting Felix Adler, “The Relation of Ethics to Social Science,” in H.J. Rogers, ed., Congress of Arts and Science (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906), vol. 7, p. 673. [↩]
23. But see, on the distinction between utilitarianism and consequentialism, such as that of Mises, Randy E. Barnett, “Of Chickens and Eggs—The Compatibility of Moral Rights and Consequentialist Analyses,” Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 12 (1989): 611–36; idem, “Introduction: Liberty vs. License,” in The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law, 2d ed. (Oxford, 2014); Kinsella, “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights,” n.3; idem, “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law,” text at n.6. [↩]
24. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, p. 12. [↩]
25. Brian Doherty, “Rothbardian Javier Milei Takes Control of a Major Country,” Reason (Nov. 27, 2023); Walter Block and Alan Futerman, “What Would Murray N. Rothbard Have Made of Javier Milei?” Eurasia Review (Oct. 18, 2025); George Hawley, “What Would Rothbard Think of Trump?”, GeorgeHawley.com (Oct. 14, 2015). See also the comments on Milei by Professor Hoppe in the Introduction to this volume. [↩]
26. Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 2d ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006). [↩]
27. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 379. See also idem, “Why be libertarian?”, Left and Right 2, no. 3 (1966): 5–10. But see Stephan Kinsella, “On the Non Liquet in Libertarian Theory and Armchair Theorizing,” StephanKinsella.com (July 20, 2025 ); idem, “Roman Law and Hypothetical Cases,” StephanKinsella.com (Dec. 19, 2022); idem, “On Pushing the Button–the problem with magic,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 3, 2009 ).  [↩]
28. Ibid., p. 380. [↩]
29. Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East,” Libertarian Institute (Oct 9, 2023), originally published in Left and Right, 3, no. 3 (Spring-Autumn 1967): 20–30.  [↩]
30. The hijacking of revolutionary movements by government forces is a well-stablished strategy; see Sheldon Richman, America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited (Griffin & Lash: Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2016). [↩]