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Making Economic Sense

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Murray Newton Rothbard tragically ceased to be "the State's greatest _living_ enemy" when he died in 1995. But his thought lives on in this posthumous collection, mostly drawn from his monthly essays for _The Free Market_ between 1982 and 1995.

These essays cover a wide range of topics, from the welfare state to Clintonomics to fiat money to U.S. intervention in the Middle East -- and Rothbard is uniformly sharp, clear, incisive, and witty wherever he turns his pen.

This collection should also be of interest to those of Rothbard's readers who have heard that he somehow changed his views near the end of his life; the fact is that Rothbard was as strongly laissez-faire and libertarian in his later years as he had ever been.

Some of his readers had simply failed to recognize that the earlier Rothbard was not at all "libertine" but socially quite conservative; they were therefore surprised that he found anything good to say about Pat Buchanan (as he does here, several times) or against allowing illegal aliens to have access to the vast machinery of the welfare state (as in a passage regarding California's Prop. 187 in the book's final essay, a previously unpublished commentary on the November 1994 elections).

As the essays in this volume make clear, it was those readers, not Rothbard, who were guilty of inconsistency. Rothbard was uncompromisingly and consistently devoted to liberty throughout his entire career; he simply did not, as some of his readers have done, confuse antifederalism with moral nihilism.

Also, the penultimate essay provides an overview of the history of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, AL), of which Rothbard was Academic Vice President until his death. By the time readers reach this essay, they will be unsurprised that, when Austrian economics sprang again to life in the 1980s and 1990s, it was wearing a rumpled jacket and a bow tie.

I liked this book because it tries to fill in the gap in the free-market literature of today. I find too many free-market many books on general topics like taxes, education, antitrust, money, and economics in general. However, I like to see real-world opinions of a noted libertarian on topics of the day. This collection is just that. Here, I can see how Rothbard applied his fundamental beliefs and knowledge to the contemporary news stories. The essays range from 1982 to 1995. I can compare his views with views of other commentators, both leftists and conservatives. It's too sad he did not live through all the Clinton years, I'm sure he'd have had much to say. I learned much from these short essays because they _are_ short and to the point.

From 1982 to his death in 1995, Murray Rothbard wrote a monthly column for the Ludwig von Mises Institute's newsletter, The Free Market. In these columns - which are collected here - Rothbard commented on the economic affairs and policies of the day. While these pieces generally use certain current events as the starting point, Rothbard used these events as a springboard to discuss Austrian economics. Taken as a whole, they provide an excellent introduction to economics from the Austrian school.

This book also contains a few unpublished pieces. The best is Rothbard's analysis of the 1994 elections. As usual, Rothbard gets to the crux of the issues involved, dealing with the characters whose actions (often behind the scenes) were decisive. Reading this piece reminded me of how much we lost in Murray's death - not just a brilliant theoretician, but a man whose comments on the events of the day were a constant source of illumination. Make sure you also get THE IRREPRESABLE ROTHBARD, his collection of essays from the Rothbard-Rockwell report.

This is a great book to fill the void if you are lacking in free market economics. Murray Rothbard, a profound Austrian Economist, wrote most of these articles in the Free Market I believe. Each article deals with certain issues and policies. He uses rational thought and logic to come to a free market solution. This book can be read within a matter of days, depending on how fast you want to read it. And you don't need to have a degree in economics to be able to understand the literature. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to gain insight into economics, especially free market economics.