Abstract

No one could have admired and respected Ludwig von Mises more than did Murray Rothbard, who dedicated his magnum opus in economic theory, Man, Economy, and State, to his great mentor. Yet Rothbard did not shy away from criticizing Mises when he believed such criticism to be called for. Thus, in The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard subjects Mises’s utilitarian liberalism to a searching critique, concluding that it is ultimately incapable of serving as the intellectual foundation for a free society. It is in this Rothbardian spirit of respectful engagement with the thought of Ludwig von Mises that this paper, dealing with a few key issues of politics raised by Mises’s Liberalism, is offered