# Murray Rothbard: Biography Back to [[Murray Rothbard]] · See also [[Bibliography]] · [[Theories and Influence]] **Murray Newton Rothbard** (March 2, 1926, New York City – January 7, 1995, Manhattan) was an American economist in the Austrian School, an economic historian, a political philosopher and an activist. He was the central figure of 20th-century American right-libertarianism and the main founder and theorist of **anarcho-capitalism**. He wrote more than twenty books ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). ## Early life and education (1926–1956) - His parents were David Rothbard, a chemist, and Rae Rothbard, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia respectively. He attended public school in the Bronx and then the private Birch Wathen School in New York City ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - At **Columbia University** he earned a BA in mathematics in 1945. Gordon says he majored in mathematics and economics. He took **George Stigler's** price-theory course, where he met arguments against price and rent control, and wrote to the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), the publisher of a rent-control pamphlet by Stigler and Milton Friedman. Through FEE he met **[[Ludwig von Mises]]** ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - He read Mises's ***Human Action* (1949)** and "was henceforward a praxeologist." He became an active member of **Mises's NYU seminar** ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - **Winter 1949: the turn to anarchism.** His biographer Gordon puts it this way: "If so, should not even protection and defense be offered on the market rather than supplied by a coercive monopoly? Rothbard realized that he would either have to abandon laissez-faire or embrace individualist anarchy. The choice, arrived at in the winter of 1949, was not difficult." ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)) - He earned his **PhD at Columbia in 1956** under the economic historian **Joseph Dorfman**, with a dissertation on *The Panic of 1819*. The degree was delayed partly by conflict with Dorfman and partly because **Arthur Burns**, a family friend and neighbour, rejected the dissertation. It was accepted only after Burns left to chair Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). ## The Volker years and the treatise (1950s–1962) - In the 1940s he vetted articles for Leonard Read at FEE, got to know **Frank Chodorov**, and read Albert Jay Nock, Garet Garrett, Isabel Paterson and H. L. Mencken ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - The **William Volker Fund** paid him to write a college textbook version of *Human Action*. A sample chapter on money and credit won Mises's approval. The project grew into ***Man, Economy, and State* (1962)**. For about ten years the Fund paid him a retainer as a "senior analyst" ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard); [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - Mid-1950s: he helped form the **Circle Bastiat**, a New York libertarian and anarchist social group, and joined the Mont Pelerin Society ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). [[Leonard Liggio]] was a member of the circle. - **1953:** he married **JoAnn Beatrice "Joey" Schumacher** (1928–1999), a historian who became his personal editor and close adviser. He called her "the indispensable framework" of his life ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard); [Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - **Ayn Rand:** he joined her circle in 1954, left, rejoined briefly in 1958 after a fan letter about *Atlas Shrugged* ("you introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and natural law philosophy"), and broke with her again, partly over anarchism. He later satirised the circle in *Mozart Was a Red* and "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult" ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - He wrote for *National Review* in its early years, then broke with Buckley's conservatism over Cold War militarism ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - 1962–63 was his most productive period for books: *Man, Economy, and State* (1962), *The Panic of 1819* (1962), *America's Great Depression* (1963) and *What Has Government Done to Our Money?* (1963). See [[Bibliography]]. ## The New Left alliance (1960s–early 1970s) - **1965–68:** founded and edited ***Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought*** with [[Leonard Liggio]] and George Resch. His essay "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty" set out his strategy of alliances with anti-war groups on both sides ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard); [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **1966:** began part-time teaching of economics to engineering students at the **Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute** (Gordon says "mid 1960s to the mid 1980s"). He stayed until 1986 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **1968:** joined the **Peace and Freedom Party** (member 1968–1974 per Wikipedia's infobox) and wrote for *Ramparts*. He worked with [[Karl Hess]], the former Goldwater speechwriter. - **1969–1984:** edited ***The Libertarian Forum***, at first with Hess (until 1971) ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **1972:** *A New History of Leviathan*, co-edited with [[Ronald Radosh]]. - **1973:** *For a New Liberty*. See [[For a New Liberty (1973)]]. ## Institution-building: LP, CLS, Cato (1970s–1981) - **Libertarian Party**, 1974–1989 (infobox). He was deeply involved in internal party politics. From 1978 to 1983 he was in the **Radical Caucus** with Justin Raimondo, Eric Garris and Williamson Evers ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **Center for Libertarian Studies (CLS):** Wikipedia gives 1976. The Wikipedia page for [[Burton Blumert]] says Blumert co-founded it with Rothbard in **1975**. The year is uncertain. - ***Journal of Libertarian Studies*** **(1977):** it opened with a symposium on Nozick's *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - **Cato Institute (1977):** he co-founded it with [[Charles Koch]] and Ed Crane, and proposed the name, after *Cato's Letters*. After disputes over the 1980 Ed Clark LP campaign and Cato's strategy, **he was removed from Cato's board in 1981**. Janek Wasserman calls this "the first of many examples of Austrian and libertarian schisms in the United States" ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **1975–79:** *Conceived in Liberty*, four volumes of American colonial history. ## The Mises Institute years (1982–1995) - **1982:** co-founded the **Ludwig von Mises Institute** (Auburn, Alabama) with [[Lew Rockwell]] and [[Burton Blumert]]. He was its academic vice president until 1995 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard); [Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - **1982:** *The Ethics of Liberty*. **1983:** *The Mystery of Banking*. - **1986:** moved to **UNLV** as S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, an endowed chair, which he held until his death. [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] came to UNLV the same year to work with him ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard); [Wikipedia: Hoppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe)). - **1987:** founded the ***Review of Austrian Economics***, renamed the *Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics* after 1997 ([Gordon](https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard)). - **1989–1995: paleolibertarianism.** He left the LP in 1989 and allied with paleoconservatives. He co-founded the **John Randolph Club** (Mises Institute plus the Rockford Institute) and wrote the *Rothbard-Rockwell Report* with Rockwell. In "Right-Wing Populism" (1992) and related writing he urged an "Outreach to the Rednecks" and named **David Duke** and **Joseph McCarthy** as strategic models. He backed **Pat Buchanan** in 1992, then Ross Perot, then endorsed **George H. W. Bush** ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **1994:** *The Case Against the Fed*. - **January 7, 1995:** died of a heart attack at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Manhattan, aged 68 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). His two-volume *An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought* appeared posthumously in 1995. ## Character and reputation - Joey Rothbard described a night owl who "managed to make a living for 40 years without having to get up before noon," and who began each day with a phone call to Lew Rockwell. He was religiously agnostic: "a mixture of an agnostic and a Reform Jew" ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - Randy Barnett on his demand for ideological purity: "Almost every intellectual who entered his orbit was eventually spun off, or self-emancipated" ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - Obituaries: the *New York Times* called him an economist who "fiercely defended individual freedom against government intervention." William F. Buckley's *National Review* obituary criticised his "defective judgment." Hoppe compared him to Aristotle, Locke and Kant ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard)). - **Controversies** (reported in Wikipedia and its cited scholarship): - He called for repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and for overturning *Brown v. Board*. - He was hostile to the civil-rights and suffrage movements (historian Michael O'Malley). - He was friends with the Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes (from 1959) and promoted WWII revisionism. - In *The Ethics of Liberty* ch. 14 he argued that parents have no enforceable duty to feed their children and defended a "free market in children." - Historian John P. Jackson Jr. describes antisemitic remarks attributed to him. - In the 2010s he drew renewed attention as an influence on the alt-right. ## Timeline | Year | Event | |---|---| | 1926 | Born March 2, New York City | | 1945 | BA mathematics, Columbia | | 1949 | Reads *Human Action*; joins Mises seminar; becomes an anarchist (winter) | | 1953 | Marries JoAnn Schumacher | | 1954, 1958 | Two short stints in Ayn Rand's circle | | 1956 | PhD Columbia (*The Panic of 1819*); "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics" | | 1962 | *Man, Economy, and State*; *The Panic of 1819* published | | 1963 | *America's Great Depression*; *What Has Government Done to Our Money?* | | 1965–68 | *Left and Right* journal | | 1966 | Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute | | 1968 | Peace and Freedom Party | | 1969–84 | *The Libertarian Forum* | | 1970 | *Power and Market* (Gordon: 1972) | | 1973 | *For a New Liberty* | | 1974 | Joins Libertarian Party; *Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature* | | 1975–79 | *Conceived in Liberty* vols 1–4 | | 1975/76 | Center for Libertarian Studies | | 1977 | Cato Institute co-founded; *Journal of Libertarian Studies* | | 1981 | Removed from Cato board | | 1982 | Mises Institute; *The Ethics of Liberty* | | 1983 | *The Mystery of Banking* | | 1986 | UNLV S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor | | 1987 | *Review of Austrian Economics* | | 1989 | Leaves LP; paleolibertarian turn | | 1991 | "The End of Socialism and the Calculation Debate Revisited" | | 1992 | Backs Buchanan, then Perot, then Bush | | 1994 | *The Case Against the Fed* | | 1995 | Dies January 7; *An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought* | ## Sources - David Gordon, "Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)," Mises Institute: https://mises.org/profile/murray-n-rothbard - Wikipedia, "Murray Rothbard" (accessed 2026-10-21; draws on Raimondo, *An Enemy of the State*, 2000, and others): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard - Wikipedia, "Hans-Hermann Hoppe": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe - Wikipedia, "Burton Blumert": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_Blumert - SEP, "Libertarianism": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/ - Hoppe, introduction to *The Ethics of Liberty* (NYU Press 1998): https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty_2.pdf