For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto [Paperback]

Murray N. Rothbard (Author), Murray Rothbard (Author), Murray Rothbard (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0930073029 | ISBN-13: 978-0930073022 | Publication Date: February 1985 | Edition: 3rd

A classic that for over two decades has been hailed as the best general work on libertarianism available. Rothbard begins with a quick overview of its historical roots, and then goes on to define libertarianism as resting "upon one single axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else." He writes a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. Rothbard then provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and more.

Editorial Reviews

From Scientific American

And always, reading Rothbard is a mindstretching intellectual adventure. For not only is he a brilliant scholar; he never flinches at taking the libertarian creed to it logical conclusions, no matter how controversial those conclusions may sometimes be.

Rothbard also maps out a strategy for achieving liberty, delving into ethics, tactics, education, abolitionism vs. gradualism, historical antecedents, and other crucial but generally neglected points. For A New Liberty ends on an upbeat, inspiring note, as Rothbard explains why he believes liberty will ultimately triumph over the forces of statism and collectivism.

For A New Liberty gives the reader the invigorating feeling of contact with a truly original, razor-sharp mind. It's a seminal work, rich in insights and novel arguments. And it's written in a lively, vigorous style that makes most other political writing seem dreadfully dull and stodgy by comparison.

How important is For A New Liberty? Let's put it this way: every serious libertarian--indeed, anyone who is at all interested in libertarianism--must be familiar with this book. It is that essential. If a copy of For A New Liberty--preferably worn with wear from repeated readings--is not on your bookshelf, or your friends' bookshelves, remedy that grave omission now.

Review

Murray Rothbard is an economist, historian, political philosopher, iconoclast, and raconteur. He is also a masterful writer--passionate, rigorously logical, and always lively, with a special gift for making even the most complex issues understandable and interesting.

For A New Liberty is Rothbard's introduction to libertarianism, his Libertarian Manifesto. It is Rothbard in top form--a libertarian classic that for more than two decades has been hailed as the best general work on libertarianism available.

For a start, For A New Liberty is an exciting, exhilarating read. It begins with a fast overview of the historical roots of libertarianism: the Levelers, John Locke, classical liberalism, the American Revolution, and so on. Rothbard packs an extraordinary amount of history in a few pages, and establishes libertarianism as the current, and most rigorous and consistent, manifestation of a centuries-long drive for personal and economic liberty.

Rothbard then defines libertarianism. It rest, he tell us, "upon one single axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else." Having made the philosophical case for liberty, Rothbard--in one of the book's most powerful chapters--turns to a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. It is a breath-taking, impassioned demolition job. We see that not only is the emperor naked--he is a murder, tyrant, brigand, liar, and bungler.

Rothbard devotes the lengthiest section of For A New Liberty to showing how the free market and voluntary human action can do a far more efficient and fair job of supplying all the worthwhile services we have been told only government can provide. He provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including pollution, poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and others.

Libertarians are forever faced with a barrage of questions for the unconverted: What about roads? What about the poor? What about--ad infinitum. Here are tough, succinct, innovative, and convincing answers. -- James W. Harris

Product Details

• Paperback: 333 pages
• Publisher: Libertarian Review Foundation; 3rd edition (February 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930073029
• ISBN-13: 978-0930073022
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #695,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE introduction to anarchocapitalist, libertarian thought., March 18, 1999

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Paperback)

If you're looking for an introduction to libertarian thought, this is THE book to read.

Here, free-market economist and radical for liberty Murray Newton Rothbard tackles all the major issues: the philosophical basis of libertarianism, the history of classical liberalism, the failures of government to preserve basic liberties, and the ways in which a free-market economy handily solves problems that seem forever beyond the reach of government.

Rothbard is also one of few libertarians to face the issue of pollution head-on. You'll search Ayn Rand's works in vain for any "pollution solution"; she was apparently content to believe the problem didn't really exist, a practice to some extent continued by her disciple George Reisman in his mostly brilliant treatise _Capitalism_. But Rothbard doesn't duck the issue: demonstrable pollution is an invasion of property rights and should be outlawed.

Nor is Rothbard a friend of "corporate capitalism." Again unlike Rand, who regarded "big business" as "America's most persecuted minority," Rothbard lambastes big business for its constant seeking of government favors and its use of clout to secure protectionist legislation -- including "limited liability."

All in all, this book is a treat. If you haven't read it yet, I envy you. Pick up a copy of this consistent, principled defense of liberty at once.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Become hardcore for freedom., January 29, 2003

By 

Lord Chimp (Monkey World) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Paperback)

Among all the available introductions to libertarian thought, I think Murray Rothbard's _For a New Liberty_ is the best. In it, Rothbard sets out the principles of anarchocapitalism, a system of political-economy where property rights are sacrosanct and no government exists. This is important because most libertarians support some degree of government is necessary in order to preserve a person's right to self-ownership and property.

However, Rothbard argues that the very existence of the State violates man's rights and is incompatible with freedom, even in a democratic society. This is an problem many libertarian scholars have struggled with in attempting to justify limited government. Rothbard faces no such inconsistency.

First, Rothbard introduces the concept of man's rights, establishing that the only valid right can be the right to self-ownership and ownership of one's property. With these principles -- along with the traditional libertarian non-aggression axiom -- Rothbard offers meaningful solutions to the reams of problems in today's society. He makes a forceful case that our problems would be easily solved following principles of the free market, private property, and non-aggression. Education, welfare, free speech, pollution, crime...Rothbard tackles numerous issues with great insight and clarity. In my opinion, the only significant issue he doesn't really explore is healthcare, but hey...it's a short book. (For an excellent libertarian exploration of the healthcare issue [among MANY other things], see Dr. Mary J. Ruwart's definitive _Healing Our World_. Amazon sells it.)

Rothbard introduces many ideas in this book that would be dubbed "radical" by most -- the abolishment of government police services, courts, and national defense being the most obvious. But he also believes in unlimited free speech -- this means there would be nothing illegal about blackmail or libel in a libertarian society. To most, many libertarians included, these ideas are difficult to get one's head around.

Large chapters are devoted to education, welfare, private roads, crime & private security, ecology, conservation of resources, and national defense. Some have accused Rothbard of skipping out on the private police/courts system, but this book is not a 1000-page treatise. He offers theory and historical evidence to support his ideas, but truthfully such a topic requires many books on its own. A good and short adjunct to Rothbard's ideas here is Hans-Hermann Hoppe's brilliant article "The Private Production of Defense", from the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Some good books on the issue are _The Enterprise of Law_ and _To Serve and Protect_, both by Bruce Benson, and _The Structure of Liberty_ by Randy Barnett. I believe Amazon sells all of them.

I've read this book around ten times. Worth owning if you care about where the world is headed.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Food for thought, January 3, 2004

By 

Wheelchair Assassin (The Great Concavity) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Paperback)

I've long had somewhat of a libertarian streak in my thinking (one of the few A's I managed to get in high school was for a 15-page paper defending Dr. Kevorkian), but before reading this book I could scarcely have imagined that there existed such a systematic and comprehensive treatise in support of liberty. In "For A New Liberty," the late Murray Rothbard makes a powerful case for abolishing the state and allowing individualism to reign. Rothbard's ideology exists completely outside the tired rhetoric of this country's "left" and "right," instead laying out a new course in line with the classical liberalism that came to prominence around the eighteenth century. If you never vote in elections because you think the major-party candidates are all basically the same, this book may well provide the alternative you've been looking for.

Dispensing with such ideologies as democracy, fascism, and communism, Rothbard reaches back to the tradition of the early American Republic to find support for his views. The American Revolution, he writes, "resulted in governments unprecedented in restrictions placed on their power," and the forces of big government triumphed only when the libertarian Democratic party was split over slavery. Rothbard is not at all ambiguous about what the post-Civil War statist order has brought: war, militarism, protectionism, and government-sponsored corporate monopoly, none of which benefit the great mass of people. While it may seem odd to see the son of Jewish immigrants championing the unfashionable ideals of our Founding Fathers, Rothbard makes a powerful case for a return to our country's roots.

In place of a tax-financed government parcelling out benefits to its subjects, Rothbard advocates a free and voluntary society based on individual property rights. The right of property, whether in one's person or in material objects, is the right from which all other rights proceed: freedom of speech, of religion, of assemly, of the press, and any other right you can think of. If the state can abridge property rights, by extension it can abridge any other right. Rejecting the idea that a government can be a guarantor of liberty and security, Rothbard substitutes an axiom of nonaggression, claiming that property rights are of necessity inviolable and violence, theft, and coercion of any kind are inherently criminal. Rather than utilitarian concerns, Rothbard's belief in nonaggression is grounded in his perception of morality, making it perhaps the only consistent, workable moral absolute that mankind has yet developed. However, Rothbard hastens to point out that his doctrines would advance the material as well as the moral well-being of society, and comes up with plenty of evidence to back up his claim.

In his early section on the State, Rothbard provides the reader with the ultimate devastation of the view of government as a force for good. His chief target is the double standard by which governments routinely get away with doing things that would be roundly condemned if private individuals or groups were to commit them. In Rothbard's view, any aggression against the person or property of another is immoral and illegal, and he sees the state as the ultimate aggressor against property rights. Only the State is allowed to trample on the rights of individuals, which it justifies with euphemisms like "war," "taxation," and "consciption." For these terms, Rothbard substitutes, respectively, "mass murder," "robbery," and "slavery." And given the fact that governments the world over (ours included, though communist systems are of course much worse) spent the twentieth century engaging in activities that made the September 11 attacks look like a street mugging, Rothbard's thesis bears contemplating whether you agree or not.

So, what exactly are the implications of the libertarian anti-state, free market ethos? Well, Rothbard thought of several, and much of the book is devoted to an application of his ideals of individual liberty and absolute property rights for a free society. Education, crime, monetary policy, eduation, pollution, and on into infinity: Rothbard claims these have become problematic issues because of government involvement, and only the libertarian principles of voluntarism and free trade can fix them. Rothbard argues that the free market has worked so well because it encourages competition, which gives those who provide any service an incentive to consistently please their customers, a motivation that a government monopoly lacks. No reasonable person would conclude that the provision of food and clothing should be nationalized; so why, Rothbard begs the question, is the State allowed to exert so much control over education, police protection, roads, or anything else for that matter? Rothbard can't think of a reason, and argues that government should never be allowed to interfere with the genius of the market.

Running through Rothbard's thesis is one nagging question: are his ideas workable? He claims that they have worked (see his discussion of Ireland's libertarian history prior to its conquest by Britain), and they can work again. Rothbard also hastens to point out that even if they're not perfect, libertarian societies would hardly be capable of the massive levels of violence and oppression that governments carry out on a regular basis. Rothbard's tour of American foreign policy and its imperialist bent over the past century is especially sobering and enlightening for his discussion of the destructive potential of ANY state, "democratic" or otherwise. Admittedly, many of the ideas contained in this book could be considered "radical," but far more pernicious ideas have come to dominate large parts of the world (Communism, anyone?). Considering some of the truly wacky ideas out there, Rothbard at least deserves to be heard. So read, and decide for yourself. Even if you're not converted to libertarianism, I can offer a virtual guarantee that your outlook on the world will be reoriented.