I suppose there has always been an intellectual food chain. Hemingway's dad was a doctor. If there is one eternal factor or reminder that we are all different its quite often intellect that defines us to others. Whether or not that intellect has happy relations or sour ones with others, it does serve us well to visit the view of others. In the libertarian community of today seems to often revolve around the personality of Murray Rothbard for better or worse. When I saw Justin Raimondo's review of Brian Doherty's book I had to go back and crack his book that came about two years ago. It seemed only fair. Antiwar was what originally sent me to Lew Rockwell & the Mises Institute. I might add that I'm happily in that port and would love a chance around the decks on board. 
I gotta admit I gobbled this one up. A lot of snarls about Rothbard are poking up in reform circles . While my knowledge of the man is sufficient to give his work the benefit of my reading, there are far more who have not given the benefit of the doubt as aspersions like Hitler and Lenin are associated with Rothbard. Human Action just showed up yesterday. Its a long road to awareness, Hayek might be right. The beat that JR has on BD is that Cato went yuppy. Comfy seats and stylish relations with power in DC are far more tempting than the screeching howling madness of freedom. That's a beat thing right ? In typical Raimondo magic he twirls his historical knowledge and human insight on those who would deny the efficacy or urgency of the cause. While Doherty denies any thesis, I had to see what 'ol Justin is doing for perpetuity . . .
Sometimes Wikipedia just isn't enough in this short lifetime. This intellectual history and ideas thing is a good thing if you can keep up. Seminary had us reading Jacoby's The Last Intellectuals and The Closing of the American Mind (yours truly was the instigator for that sleeper) and of course lauding the likes of Thorstein Veblen, Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology and other random luminaries whose impact is dubious beyond the current Fabian favorite. When Justin reveals his luck to have come across Rothbard & CATO in San Francisco in the mid-seventies, one appreciates the larger disconnectedness that preceded the age of hyper awareness and hard wired apparatus. Publishing magazines and pamphlets are not rendered quaintly as Raimondo plunges into the roots of what to this day plagues think tanks and party alike.
I'm certain that only 2-3% percent of self-proclaimed libertarians could tell you that Rothbard took some polemics by John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon just prior to the Revolution called Cato's Letters and made that the basis of the now DC based think tank who advocates abolishing Social Security and non-interventionist foreign policies. Recalling a blog post a few years back about why the LP doesn't work with the Cato Institute, one wonders what the toll of uninformed opinion and the ability to share it will do in the upcoming decades.
Rothbard's prolific output over the years makes one wonder what he would have done with a blog . It may have been like just tapping into a lifetime of reading and writing on an almost 24 hr. cycle. Certainly the age old notion of the intellectual was based on this type, whether it Rothbard or Marx. Raimondo is conscious of Rothbard's upbringing as a Jew amongst communists and allows mostly for the minor details about the young economist in these early pages. Once Raimondo starts spinning the tail of associations, scholars and writing he lets us forget about how Murray overcame his fear of travel after a run in with Randian psychology and rational mysticism. It's never clear if Rothbard had children or considered it. Perhaps something anecdotal about Joey's family of life circumstances. Nope. It's headlong into the heroes and villains of Liberty from one small man's perspective and attempt.
Given the context of debate within the LP about platforms and anarchists, its interesting to note that Rothbard found the original party members to be kooks and unbridled wingnuts. Indeed Raimondo asserts that Rothbard "maps the contours of his ideological universe by identifying the libertarian 'center' as a kind of golden-mean between the two basic deviations from libertarian principles." What lures libertarians off the ranch Rothbard defines as opportunism on the Right and sectarianism on the Left. Aside from this theoretical division Rothbard did define himself as the Old Right did and aligned himself with the Left as it was his own opportunism to defy Buckleyism by categorically opposing war. Justin does give us some neat details about conventions and personalities and I'm hoping Doherty provides even greater detail and scrutiny of actors and situations.
This book will not make put you in search of Objectivism. After some poignant personal revelations about Rothbard himself and his relationship with seemingly kindred souls in an empty world of freedom's promise, the reader is cheering the little professor on to leave that fold and continue to be bold. The value of this volume is that general overview in terms of one man and his scholarship. I'm immediately drawn to The Ethics of Liberty and may jump over HUman Action for it. What still is unanswered to me is the concept of law and private property with regard to Rothbard. So much of land and property is determined by the state itself. The idea that we are all Robinson Crusoe's bringing value to our own small islands doesn't seem sufficient to explain constant interaction and public policy. Despite the regaling of the Bastiat Circle's fight songs, the realtoinship between power, legal tradition and the actual actions of these players is never adequately spelled out in Libertarian thought. It seems this ought to be a fulcrum point in terms of defining justice and seeing it in play. Misperceptions, wrong thinking and other factors ( I would include religion despite Rothbard's fancy the value of trade as lead by the Catholic machine) are real aspects of behavior and action. Rothbard's lack of physical capability might be as suspect to his character and thoughts as he attributes to many of the sources of incomes and promotion as Adam Smith and other revered 'great men'.
Sometimes Raimondo can herald and describe a book he has obvious familiarity with and mastery of subject enough to relate, but it often lacks narrative about impact and influence or even rebuttal from the greater world. In reality he makes the reader go out and find the works he or she may closely identify or pursue. He saves the best for last anyway. After finding Rothbard stricken on an errand that included glasses to be adjusted, were given the on deck tour de force of Rothbard's magnus opus that he never finished. Here the full force of Liberty's logic and historical roots is enmeshed with the Rothbard output and what it took as input. Identifying the Irish 'merchant, banker and adventurer, Richard Cantillon as the greater man than Adam Smith is a hitherto unknown detail to modern market thought. According to Raimondo, Rothbard feels Cantillon deserves to be called the first economist because he separated from theology and moral philosophy. But like most of History the popularity contest and power win out, until curious scholars go back and investigate with different tools and purpose.
I've always been keen on the Kuhnian notion of paradigm shifts and it is personally a treat to see it employed within the context of the Austrian Argument (something I hope I just invented) per Rothbard. If Murray had stayed on the sidelines and not gotten involved in the LP its difficult to say what may have happened. The roots and history of a movement are very important. My current generation and some many years older often don't take the time to wrestles with truth, epistemology or any other existential entreaties from the Universe. One one reads the vicious attacks by William F. Buckley and the lies the propagated about the book length secret memo to Cato, it makes me sad to think I easily could have stayed on those decks after Seminary instead and treading out where its real deep.
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