Rothbard v. Rand? Michael Malice and Tom Discuss
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- Опубликовано: 4 янв 2017
- Michael Malice comes to libertarianism more from a Randian perspective, and Tom from a Rothbardian one. Michael recently read The Betrayal of the American Right, Rothbard's part-history, part-autobiography. The resulting conversation is really excellent -- possibly my favorite Malice appearance yet. Subscribe to the Tom Woods Show: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
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It is a rare pleasure to see two knowledgeable libertarians disagree so graciously. Great Show!
I don't think Malice seems like a libertarian at all. He seems like a conservative contrarian.
+Ed Waggoner Sr. I dare to say it's rare to see ANYONE disagree graciously these days. People nowadays can't seem to understand the concept that it is entirely possible for someone to disagree with you, yet still be intelligent and respectable.
fountainhead Are you referring to me?
***** No, I was speaking to the OP, Ed Waggoner Sr. He noted that it's nice to see libertarians debate like gentlemen. I'm just adding that it's a rare sight among non-libertarians too.
I agree. I enjoyed this one quite a lot.
Michael Malice always offers a fresh perspective. It is always good to question one's idols. Who knew Murray Rothbard wrote such sentences about the Sovjetunion.
Listening to you two banter is more entertaining than most modern video games.
So Malice has never read a Rothbard book? Not his history on economic thought? Ethics of liberty? Power and Market? and on and on. That's so crazy to me lol
It does explain quite a bit.
He read anatomy of the state(He read it recently .)
The best part is that he says that rand is better than rothbard BUT HE HAS NEVER READ OME BOOK!!!
I think the reason is because rothbard called ayn rand and her followers a cult
I've never heard of anybody having so many domain names, Tom...
I run an empire.
Kicking ass and taking domain names
@@TomWoodsTV A voluntary empire no less.
Rothbard didn't demand no one talk to them. Criticism is different than ostracism
The red pill, "your supposed to take one, not the whole bottle" Best quote ever. The FDA needs to regulate the distribution of red pills, maybe not.
Rothbard was well aware that the several candidates he backed were not libertarians. In one of his writings he stated that any and all effective (lawful) means should be used to bring about change. If that means variously not voting, backing a reformist non-libertarian candidate, voting 3rd party depending on the circumstances in a given year then so be it. He acknowledged the distinction and non-exclusivity between implementing his ideals long-term and effecting positive change in the here and now.
Yet, Roth Bard backed Buchanan over Marrou in 1992. Marrou was just as good.....maybe better, from a full libertarian perspective than Ron Paul in 1988.
Government will not go away but get bigger and do more harm.
Most likely, and what shame when the truth has never been easier to find.
That was incredible. I could listen to both of your breaks down every section of every Rothbard book ever written. Maybe that needs to be a Series.
I love both Rothbard and Rand. They are two of my main intellectual influences. Great conversation Tom.
Although i don't agree with a number of things with Rand any longer, she is still a towering intellectual for freedom.
However, her acolytes since her death are just the pits, and basically just neocons.
I read the anatomy of the State. I thought it was real good for learning how to counter statist questions like "we are the state"
I love Tom, I love Mike. I love Murray, I love Ayn. And I love Barry and WFB and Uncle Milty and Fritz too. Conservatarians/minarchists are all just fine with me.
ayn rand fell off the ledge and had too many cocktails
Agreed, there is too much infighting. I am for whomever is going to get us less government and more personal freedom.
AnCap movement was literally started by four guys. What is wrong with that? The progress we have made since that time is incredible.
I'm with Malice on the Cold War question. To call the United States the aggressor is to ignore how ruthlessly expansionist and hegemonic the Soviets were toward Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and the Baltic States. The Berlin Blockade was a test to see if Stalin could push his luck in Europe by turning on his former allies, and the only reason he started so small was because we had The Bomb.
I like the fact, that Tom Woods started commenting on his RUclips Channel. Way to go!
Another awesome episode! Can't believe I got by without this show.
In purging out people Rothbard is nowhere close to Rand. he purged people always on ideological bases while Rand did it frequently for personal reasons.
Thank you for discussing IDEAS (!!!)
Fun discussion and great guest.
Malice is very poorly read if he considers himself an Anarcho-Capitalist yet never even read one book by Rothbard. How is that even possible?
Interesting debate. I personally like Rothbard and Rand, I didn't even know they were at odds with each other.
This is very interesting to me. I have only read Rothbard's technical books on economics and ethics -- and his various history of banking works. I have not read Betrayal of the American Right, nor other books like it. So it looks like I only know one particular side of the fellow.
These are my people. The only intellectual space that I feel at home.
Any support for central planning is primitive logic
Basically, central planning comes from a population's desire to be lazy. Decentralization actually requires people to think and act for themselves.
logic gets old?
He should read Power and Market
Aside from Ethics of Liberty, one of the greatest texts in Libertarian literature.
Malice's depth of knowledge of libertarianism and Rothbard begins and ends with Ayn Rand's writing on the topic
Very interesting talk I love Ayn Rand have read her novels now I will look at Rothbard.
I am a student of Professor Andrew J. Galambos, The Free Enterprise Institute.
I recently read the Betrayal of the American Right for dissertation research, it is an invaluable work on the decline of the Old Right.
If I was Gary Johnson I would have either stayed 100% in Colorado and hammered that and got the vote OR I would go national and just promoted freedom and increased your channel Tom Woods, Mises Institute, fff,fee.
As an objectvist I agree with a lot in this video, would be interesting to hear their criticism of Rand's ideas not just her personality and friends.
Rand promoted Greed in the same way the Left promotes Pride. She was a materialist thus leaving her open to utilitarian and consequentialist rebuttals. Her elevation of self-interest and a belief in a spontaneous altruism that would result is nonsense. Her ideas spiral into a material hedonism and libertineism that is counter productive to civilization and reveled in the rejection of many of the norms, like religion, that built it. She was also a propagandist. Her books were works of fiction presenting her ideas through the use of cardboard cutouts for characters.
Rothbard on the other hand offers a political philosophy rooted in Lockean Natural Rights and Thomist Natural Law, thereby placing Rothbardian Libertarianism as an extension of the ideas whose roots built Western Civilization, and particularly American civ. His ideas are rooted in rational constructivist ethics and reject outright utilitarian or consequentialist criticisms. Most importantly, the acknowledgement of a greater moral natural order is present in Rothbard's works. He accepts that material self interest is not the highest aim of a social order and that a society needs more than Liberty to function properly. And finally he was an economist and historian. His works applied his philosophy to the real world. His analysis was grounded in the actions of real people. He was a philosopher instead of a propagandist.
Rothbard realized in his life that there is no right side in politics.
Rothbard gang
Rothbard is better than rand in every way, no question about it.
Dot Red - In what way is cheating on your spouse better than not cheating? How is smoking better than nonsmoking?
@@explosives101 Smoking is clearly superior to non smoking. Fight me.
No way!
Michael is doing the same as left. Picking up things from Rothbard's earlier life and trying to discard him completely.
I wish this got into more of the differences between Rand and Rothbard I'm interested in that. What are they? The only things I got from this are Rothbard is more distrustful of big-business than Ayn Rand and Rothbard perhaps is quicker to blame the USA for the cold war. What are some other differences?
@Travis Thanks! I'll check that Roy Childs response.
The most important difference for me is that Rothbard was an anarchist and Rand was a statist. And I don't mean this in the holier-than-thou libertarian equivalent where people try to be anarchistier-than-thou and accuse everyone who doesn't conform to their view as being a statist.
I mean Rand truly thought that the state served a critical role, that it could be both good and necessary. Rothbard was a dyed in the wool anarchist who opposed the state on a fundamental moral basis.
Hippies and black panthers both questioned authority, whereas going for a political party keeps the statist ideology in place. Thats the core of anarchism.
I think that was the angle he was going for with them.
Frankly, I never understood Rothbard's contempt for the LP and its Prez candidate in 1992, Andre Marrou (and supporting Buchanan), especially considering Marrou's antiwar stance and his OWN libertarian/anarchist stance. Rothbard is on record saying that he hoped that Marrou tanked in terms of vote totals in '92.
Karl Hess was a hardcore libertarian/anarchist to the very end of his life. I was very young in 1964 with the Goldwater/Johnson election happened but as major party presidential candidates go, Goldwater was ..... IMHO a rock star.
It grosses me out that this episode is 3 years old
was there anything about goldwater's domestic policy that Rothbard didn't like? I've heard conflicting storys on gold water some painting him as a classic liberal but others saying that his libertarian leanings were fake or insincere
How would a free market combat other governments who are using modern techniques of cultural warfare? Would free marketeers embrace their weapons as "trade"? You know the Chinese use their corporations as tools of state power; how can a market combat that? Or are libertarians passive when it comes to foreign corporations conducting social engineering in their geographical territory?
That would probably depend on concrete circumstances. There is not "one" way "the" free market does things. But just as the west basically only had to wait for the Sovjet Union to go broke, you can be sure that any hostile states will need to invest so many ressources for propaganda that they will have a hard time avoiding a revolution in their own country.
Why quote "one" and "the" - i didn't say either of those things. I referred to "a" free market. I'm also hesitant to think that, if, for instance, China is making money (or printing it, etc.) doing legitimate business, then they can pump as much of their profits into propaganda as they want. They're doing it right now in Hollywood (their markets can also make movies that were not profitable in the US, profitable - so we'll get even more garbage). Further, social engineering is more than "propaganda." It refers simply to norm conditioning of any kind; it could all be called propaganda, but the connotations of propaganda seem limited.
Is Michael Malice wrong about everything? His purpose in life seems to pick an untenable position and argue it.
I enjoyed reading Rothbard in the early 80s but I suspect that L. Neil Smith brought more people to anarchocapitalism.
You suspect wrong.
Malice says, "There really isn't really a great working strategy that we have figured out by now, otherwise we'd have a libertarian society." There cannot be a libertarian society until the vast majority of people prefer liberty over (the illusion of) security. We should easily make it there in the late days of the next millennium.
Great summation of GJ. That is exactly why I did not vote for him in 2016. I expected more and he did not oblige.
I think we should always err on the side of producing more conspiracy theories, particularly in the current age in which states are increasingly desperate to regain control of the information on the internet.
Great show as always. One critique:
I wish Tom would stop saying, "Well, I won't say who told me X, Y, & Z" or "I won't mention any names". It's just seems shady. It's ok to have disagreements with other libertarians.
I have mentioned plenty of names, but it's not right to go blabbing about conversations people had a right to expect would be kept private.
I follow. Thanks for all you do for us, Tom.
I have been strongly influenced by both Rand AND Rothbard. For all of Rand's intelligence and ingenuity, she was quite abrasive and she seemed to revel in being a cult like leader. Rothbard, for all his strong, intellectual defense of free markets and ending state coercion, the fact that he supported Pat Buchanan over the LP candidate Andre Marrou (a fellow free market anarchist) in 1992 is ....IMHO unconscionable.
That said, I think both were brilliant but I would probably have to give the nod to Rothbard, simply because he was staunchly anti-war and Rand wasn't.
imagine rand and rothbard getting nasty together
ha ha, brilliant!
He is not finding solutions in government. His point of view was, if someone is going to go elected, why not support the best possible. He gave up on that view too, later in life.
Can someone name a single original and meaningful contribution of Ayn Rand to libertarian philosophy? Her economic and political philosophy is just repackaged classical liberalism of the Enlightenment: Adam Smith, Locke, Thomas Jefferson, etc. Her epistomelogical philosophy isn't really significant, and is basically repackaged scraps of Aristotle. What we are left with are virtually non-existent inventor-executives (inserted in her works as a means to legitimize patents which should be abolished) and her personal sexual fantasies about lanky redheads. That sums up her novels. If we get into the philosophy books it only gets worse: e.g. advocacy for carpet-bombing-into-submission of all non-libertarian countries and other misguided rants.
She is an average-skill novelist whose great accomplishment was to be a marketing tool for the libertarianism, bringing millions of young people into the fold; no small feat. But in terms of original philosophical contributions to libertarianism she is not even in the same galaxy as Rothbard.
Agreed, she added nothing. But she did popularize some aspects of it in a big way, and that is arguably more important. I'd like to know of one contribution beyond Bastiat and Mises... in my view, they said all that ever need be said about libertarianism.... actually, I can think of a few contributions by David Friedman, and perhaps Hoppe also.
There are dozens in Austrian school living and dead who have made great and original (if less noticed by masses) contributions. These are real philosophers/economists eons ahead of Rand, who did not really 'go deep' or think of anything new and is best described as a novelist who liked libertarianism and imaginary lanky inventor-executives, and decided to repackage others' ideas and become leader of a cult, and who also popularized libertarianism (though due to her polarizing nature it isn't clear what net benefit was).
psmith85 Glad to look at a single thing that is added to Mises' work that are original and meaningful as the OP stipulated (again, Hoppe is one Austrian that I can think of some exceptions on such, as the performative contradiction point).
As as example, after reading Human Action, I could not find a single sentence in Man, Economy, and State that didn't amount to a less-well-stated recap.
I'm not saying that any of these works (like Tom's pile of excellent work) are unimportant, but "original and meaningful to libertarianism" is a high standard in my view. Also, a lot of it is garbage that only diverted or watered down the giants like Bastiat and Mises.
Another example of someone who did great work is Robert Higgs, but his message was covered by Mises... he just put a sharper point on it and kept the focus that war is the blood of the state. Terrific and essential point, but not original in at all.
Well then I guess my standard is lower. I'm not saying it has to be an earthshaking tome, just anything original, even a short article. If someone elaborates on/sharpens or corrects a previous argument, discovers a new correlation, or does something like study a historical event or period (e.g. the depression of 1920, among many others) and synthesize an original point about it that elucidates libertarianism's merits or lack thereof, that's all original. Works that make historical arguments can make a stronger impression on some people than raw theory. I don't think Rand did any of these things. All of her non-fiction work (and I have seen most) is either paraphrasing of others or opinion rants. No offense, but I have strong doubts you could read both works and be completely sure whether there were any differences. And putting that one aside Rothbard has many other works that are both original and important.
psmith85 Yes, there have been many terrific contributors,but I personally find it is very useful to look at the basics and not lose track of them e.g. The Law.
None of Malice's critcism were really substantive. Nitpicking a couple of claims of which there's little at stake is just that. I think Malice is still biased by his Randian roots against the Rothbard. Also, I still consider Malice neo-conish. He's terrible on Hamilton, and his rhetoric on North Korea will not help establish peace there.
Mentioning Ayn Rand in the same breath with Murray Rothbard is an insult to more things than I care to mention.
I appreciate she wanted us all to be free, but that's as far as it goes. Her prose was turgid, her "philosophy" infantile. Reading Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead demands you simply agree in advance with what her stories set out to "prove" and serve as proof positive you must HATE literature in any form more graceful, sophisticated, or eloquent than the writing found on a tube of toothpaste, a bus or subway map, or the instructions accompanying a purchase from IKEA. Bravo that she was for freedom and all, but her arguments were moronic, and fail to cover for the fact she simply started from the conclusion she wanted and worked backward from there. Her maintaining how rational she was at all times while ACTUALLY being bat-shit crazy trying to form a cult around herself doesn't endear me to her much, either, even if it IS more or less a side note.
Unusual to hear Woods being so biased. I'm curious to see if he would ever criticize Rothbard. The CIA National Review thing is just so silly.
It's only silly to people who can't bring themselves to look into the history of their programs and who operate on Santa Claus-like articles of faith about how the world works.
Nah, it's silly. So is the passage about Rothbard thinking the USSR had to responsibility for the Cold War. Woods at least kind of admitted the second one was silly, but was still making excuses for Rothbard's silly conspiracies. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Woods fan and like Rothbard, but I get a sense of here worship going on.
+Jay Valko On the National Review, ever hear of Operation Mockingbird? Do you really doubt publications are still influenced by intelligence today, with all the echoing of the ridiculous Russian-interference themes, etc? It's so blatant. Udo Ulfkotte confirmed with his testimony that it's still going on, as if it wasn't obvious. As far as its other unorthodox activities, the CIA was also heavily involved with 1960s counter-culture and drug icons in the 1990s like Terence McKenna. This stuff goes on whether you like or not. I recommend you read Rothbard's The Conspiracy Theory of History Revisited mises.org/library/conspiracy-theory-history-revisited
K. Look, at least Woods admitted he can't endorse the idea that the US was solely responsible for the Cold War. Something tells me that if he didn't you'd be coming up with all sorts of reasons why the US was 100% responsible and calling me naive for thinking the USSR had a little something to do with it.
Haven't had a chance to look over the essay and wasn't alive at the time/have not studied it in-depth, but considering the US-led West is 99-100% responsible for the 'Second Cold War' (which we are in now), it wouldn't surprise me if what we have been told about it is a lie/exaggeration.
Malice is weird. Very unimpressed with his review.
pyongyang python Same.
In your world, this post contains valuable criticism.
the russian interference conversation has aged nicely. right? idk lol its post 2020
Michael Malice was voted the most favorite guest of the Tom Woods Show!? WTF? I can't stand him.
For real who did this voting... we all know the best is Peter Schiff!
Lew Rockwell!
I think the best guest is anyone who has something insightful to teach, and Michael Malice is not that person.
Hard to argue against Lew Rockwell as best regular
I like Lew, I like it the most when he has professionals from various industries on.
Rothbard over Rand
Rand's "philosophy" is an embarrassment. She cannot hate Kant's epistemology and endorse Mises economics.
Mises wasn't an idealist Kantian. He was a rationalist and a pragmatist.
The Aristotelian influence on Mises is much deeper than Kant.
He isn't a "utilitarian *rather than* a pragmatist". He's explicitly a utilitarian *AND* a pragmatist. Pragmatism isn't an ethical philosophy, it's a philosophy of knowledge and truth. Mises was *NOT* a Kantian.
*****
What would you suggest to read, either about Mises or from Mises? Mises seems to me to hold Kant in higher esteem than Mill. He, after all, does himself refer to Kant when explicating the status of a prioirism in his system.
***** What are you quoting from?
+Travis Spalding Mises wasn't a Kantian. He wasn't an idealist at all. He was explicitly a rationalist, a pragmatist, and a utilitarian.
+Etienne de La Boetie I would recommend you read Guido Hulsman's biography to understand how Mises responded to his intellectual environment.
*****
I've been thinking there are some libertarians who interpret Mises in a way that attempts to drag him closer to Ayn Rand. Attacking Kant is one of the pillars of that movement. You are certainly right about action being Mises' addition to the Kantian Categories.
Rand brought libertarianism down anyway. She hated libertarianism so we should stop applying her to us.
Funny, how jews like Malice always find a way, and feel entitled to critique the Church...of course criticisms of them are anti-Semitic sigh
I used to like malice but is anyone else getting tired of his crap
Rand and Rothbard, both are lightweights.
who, then, do you recommend?