Editing Murray Rothbard (section)

== Life and work ==
=== Education ===
Rothbard's parents were David and Rae Rothbard, [[Jewish]] immigrants to the United States from Poland and Russia, respectively. David was a chemist.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.asp |title=Murray N. Rothbard: Economics, Science, and Liberty |first= Hans-Hermann |last=Hoppe |year= 1999 |publisher=The Ludwig von Mises Institute |access-date =September 13, 2014 |archive-date=November 2, 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141102050422/https://mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.asp |url-status= live}} Reprinted from ''15 Great Austrian Economists'', edited by Randall G. Holcombe.</ref> He attended [[Birch Wathen Lenox School]], a private school in New York City.<ref name= "Raimondo2000-34">{{cite book |last=Raimondo|first= Justin |title=An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YBsyVMg5HToC&pg=PA34|year=2000 |publisher=Prometheus Books, Publishers|isbn= 978-1-61592-239-0|page=34|access-date=June 28, 2017|archive-date=October 16, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016074108/https://books.google.com/books?id=YBsyVMg5HToC&pg=PA34|url-status= live}}</ref> Rothbard later said he much preferred Birch Wathen to the "debasing and egalitarian [[public school system]]" he had attended in the [[Bronx]].<ref name= OldRight>{{cite web|last= Rothbard |first=Murray|title= Life in the Old Right|url= https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/life-in-the-old-right/ |publisher= Lew Rockwell |access-date=March 16, 2015|archive-date= September 6, 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170906090636/https://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard45.html|url-status= live}}</ref>

Rothbard wrote of having grown up as a "[[Right-wing politics|right-winger]]" (adherent of the "[[Old Right (United States)|Old Right]]") among friends and neighbors who were "[[communists]] or [[Fellow traveler|fellow-travelers]]". He was a member of the [[New York Young Republican Club]] in his youth.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web | work = NYYRC |url= https://nyyrc.com/history/ |title=History|access-date= October 15, 2019|archive-date= October 12, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20191012210513/https://nyyrc.com/history/ |url-status= live}}</ref> Rothbard described his father as an [[Individualism|individualist]] who embraced [[minimal government]], [[Free market|free enterprise]], [[private property]] and "a determination to rise by one's own merits ...  [A]ll [[socialism]] seemed to me monstrously coercive and abhorrent."<ref name= OldRight /> In 1952, his father was trapped during a labor strike at the Tide Water Oil Refinery in New Jersey, which he managed, confirming their dislike of [[organized labor]].<ref name=":13">{{Cite book |last=Doherty |first=Brian |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/76141517 |title=Radicals for capitalism : a freewheeling history of the modern American libertarian movement |date=2007 |publisher=PublicAffairs |isbn=978-1-58648-350-0 |location=New York |oclc=76141517}}</ref>

[[File:Murray Rothbard.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Rothbard in the mid-1950s]]
Rothbard attended [[Columbia University]], receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics in 1945 and a PhD in economics in 1956. His first political activism came in 1948, on behalf of the [[Jim Crow laws|segregationist]] South Carolinian [[Strom Thurmond]]'s presidential campaign. In the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential election]], Rothbard, "as a Jewish student at Columbia, horrified his peers by organizing a Students for [[Strom Thurmond]] chapter, so staunchly did he believe in [[states' rights]]", according to ''[[The American Conservative]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=McCarthy |first=Daniel |date=March 12, 2007 |title=Enemies of the State |url=http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/mar/12/00027/ |url-status=dead |magazine=[[The American Conservative]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605015227/http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/mar/12/00027/ |archive-date=June 5, 2011 |access-date=August 13, 2013}}</ref> The delay in receiving his PhD was due in part to conflict with his advisor, Joseph Dorfman, and in part to [[Arthur Burns]]'s rejecting his dissertation. Burns was a longtime friend of the Rothbard family and their neighbor at their [[Manhattan]] apartment building. It was only after Burns went on leave from the Columbia faculty to head [[President Eisenhower]]'s [[Council of Economic Advisers]] that Rothbard's thesis was accepted, and he received his doctorate.<ref name= "Enemy"/>{{rp|pages= 43–44}}<ref name= French>French, Doug (December 27, 2010) [https://mises.org/daily/4919/Burns-Diary-Exposes-the-Myth-of-Fed-Independence Burns Diary Exposes the Myth of Fed Independence] {{Webarchive |url=  https://web.archive.org/web/20140914010342/https://mises.org/daily/4919/Burns-Diary-Exposes-the-Myth-of-Fed-Independence |date=September 14, 2014}}, [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]</ref> Rothbard later said that all his fellow students were extreme [[leftists]] and that he was one of only two Republicans at Columbia at the time.<ref name="Enemy"/>{{rp |page=4}}

=== Marriage, Volker Fund, and academia ===
During the 1940s, Rothbard vetted articles for [[Leonard Read]] at the [[Foundation for Economic Education]] think tank, became acquainted with [[Frank Chodorov]], and read widely in libertarian-oriented works by [[Albert Jay Nock]], [[Garet Garrett]], [[Isabel Paterson]], [[H. L. Mencken]], and Austrian School economist [[Ludwig von Mises]].<ref name="Enemy"/>{{rp |page=46}}<ref name=":13" /> Rothbard was greatly influenced by reading Mises's book ''[[Human Action]]'' in 1949.<ref name=":18" /> In the 1950s, when Mises was teaching in the Wall Street division of the [[New York University Stern School of Business]], Rothbard attended his unofficial seminar.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":14" /> Rothbard wanted to promote libertarian activism; by the mid-1950s, he helped form the Circle Bastiat, a libertarian and anarchist social group in New York City.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":13" /> He also joined the [[Mont Pelerin Society]] in the 1950s.<ref name=":14">{{Cite book |last=Slobodian |first=Quinn |title=Crack-up capitalism: market radicals and the dream of a world without democracy |date=2023 |publisher=Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co. |isbn=978-1-250-75390-8 |edition=1st |location=New York}}</ref>

Rothbard attracted the attention of the [[William Volker Fund]], a group that provided financial backing to promote right-wing ideologies in the 1950s and early 1960s.<ref>David Gordon, 2010, ed., [https://mises.org/document/5777/Strictly-Confidential-The-Private-Volker-Fund-Memos-of-Murray-N-RothbardStrictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140914002006/https://mises.org/document/5777/Strictly-Confidential-The-Private-Volker-Fund-Memos-of-Murray-N-Rothbard |date=September 14, 2014}} Quote from Rothbard: "The Volker Fund concept was to find and grant research funds to hosts of libertarian and right-wing scholars and to draw these scholars together via seminars, conferences, etc."</ref><ref name=":12" /> The Volker Fund paid Rothbard to write a textbook to explain ''Human Action'' in a form that could be used to introduce college undergraduates to Mises's views; a sample chapter he wrote on money and credit won Mises's approval. For ten years, the Volker Fund paid him a retainer as a "senior analyst".<ref name="Enemy" />{{rp |page=54}} As Rothbard continued his work, he enlarged the project. The result was his book ''[[Man, Economy, and State]]'', published in 1962. Upon its publication, Mises praised Rothbard's work effusively.<ref name="Essential">{{cite book |last= Gordon |first=David |author-link=David Gordon (philosopher) |title=The Essential Rothbard |publisher= [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] |location=Auburn, Alabama |year=2007 |isbn= 978-1-933550-10-7 |oclc= 123960448 |url= https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Essential%20Rothbard_4.pdf |access-date=July 7, 2021 |archive-date=May 22, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522113238/https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Essential%20Rothbard_4.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|page=14}} In contrast to Mises, who considered security the primary justification for the state, Rothbard in the 1950s began to argue for a privatized market for the military, police and judiciary.<ref name=":11" /> Rothbard's 1963 book ''[[America's Great Depression]]'' blamed government policy failures for the [[Great Depression]], and challenged the widely-held view that [[capitalism]] is unstable.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kaldis |first=Byron |title=Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences |publisher=[[Sage Publications]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1506332611 |location=United States |page=44}}</ref>

In 1953, Rothbard married JoAnn Beatrice Schumacher (1928–1999),<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://mises.org/library/joann-beatrice-schumacher-rothbard-1928-1999|title = JoAnn Beatrice Schumacher Rothbard (1928–1999)|date = October 30, 1999|access-date = July 20, 2020|archive-date = August 4, 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200804030902/https://mises.org/library/joann-beatrice-schumacher-rothbard-1928-1999 |url-status = live}}</ref> whom he called Joey, in New York City.<ref name= "Essential" />{{rp |page= 124}} She was a historian, Rothbard's personal editor, and a close adviser as well as hostess of his Rothbard Salon. They enjoyed a loving marriage, and Rothbard often called her "the indispensable framework" of his life and achievements. According to her, the Volker Fund's patronage allowed Rothbard to work from home as a freelance theorist and pundit for the first 15 years of their marriage.<ref>Scott Sublett, "Libertarians' Storied Guru", ''Washington Times'', July 30, 1987</ref>

The Volker Fund collapsed in 1962, leading Rothbard to seek employment at various New York academic institutions. He was offered a part-time position teaching economics to engineering students at [[Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute]] in 1966 at age 40. The institution had no economics department or economics majors, and Rothbard derided its social science department as "[[Marxism|Marxist]]". [[Justin Raimondo]], his biographer,{{Sfn|Hawley|2016|p=162}} writes that Rothbard liked teaching at Brooklyn Polytechnic because working only two days a week gave him the freedom to contribute to developments in libertarian politics.<ref name="Enemy" /> Rothbard continued in this role until 1986.<ref name="nytimes">[[David Stout]], [https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/11/obituaries/murray-n-rothbard-economist-and-free-market-exponent-68.html Obituary: Murray N. Rothbard, Economist And Free-Market Exponent, 68] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905034710/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/11/obituaries/murray-n-rothbard-economist-and-free-market-exponent-68.html|date=September 5, 2019}}, ''[[The New York Times]]'', January 11, 1995.</ref><ref name= Klein>Peter G. Klein, ed., F.A. Hayek, ''The Fortunes of Liberalism: Essays on Austrian Economics and the Ideal of Freedom'', [[University of Chicago Press]], 2012, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hrS-xhUGKHIC&pg=PA54 p. 54] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503213142/https://books.google.com/books?id=hrS-xhUGKHIC&pg=PA54 |date=May 3, 2023 }}, {{ISBN|0-22632116-9}}</ref> Then 60 years old, Rothbard left Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute for the [[Lee Business School]] at the [[University of Nevada, Las Vegas]] (UNLV), where he held the title of S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, a chair endowed by a libertarian businessman.<ref>Rockwell, Llewellyn H. (May 31, 2007). [https://mises.org/daily/2584/ "Three National Treasures."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914010718/https://mises.org/daily/2584/ |date= September 14, 2014}} Mises.org</ref><ref name=":10">{{cite book |editor1-first= Bruce |editor1-last= Frohnen |editor2-first= Jeremy |editor2-last= Beer |editor3-first=Jeffrey O. |editor3-last= Nelson |chapter= Rothbard, Murray (1926–95) |title= American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia |publisher= ISI Books |location= Wilmington, [[Delaware|DE]] |year= 2006 |isbn= 978-1-932236-43-9 |page=750 | quote = Only after several decades of teaching at the Polytechnic Institute of New York did Rothbard obtain an endowed chair, and like that of Mises at NYU, his own at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas was established by an admiring benefactor.}}</ref>

According to Rothbard's friend, colleague, and fellow Misesian economist [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]], Rothbard led a "fringe existence" in academia, but he was able to attract a large number of "students and disciples" through his writings, thereby becoming "the creator and one of the principal agents of the contemporary libertarian movement".<ref name=":9">Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (1999). [https://mises.org/etexts/HHHonMNR.pdf "Murray N. Rothbard: Economics, Science, and Liberty."] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140224060422/http://mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.pdf |date= February 24, 2014}} Mises.org</ref> Libertarian economist Jeffrey Herbener, who called Rothbard his friend and "intellectual mentor", said in a memoriam that Rothbard received "only ostracism" from mainstream academia.<ref>Herbener, J. (1995). L. Rockwell (ed.), [http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf ''Murray Rothbard, In Memoriam''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220074229/http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf|date=December 20, 2014}}. Auburn, AL.: [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]. p. 87</ref> Rothbard kept his position at UNLV from 1986 until his death.<ref name="nytimes" />

=== Old Right ===
Throughout his life, Rothbard engaged in a number of different political movements to promote [[Old Right (United States)|Old Right]] and libertarian political principles. George Hawley writes that "unfortunately for Rothbard, the Old Right was ending as an intellectual and political force just as he was maturing as an intellectual", with the militantly [[Anti-communism|anticommunist]] conservative movement exemplified by [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] supplanting the Old Right's isolationism.<ref name=":8" />

Rothbard was an admirer of Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]]—not for McCarthy's [[Cold War]] views, but for his [[demagogue]]ry, which Rothbard credited for disrupting the establishment consensus of what Rothbard called "corporate liberalism".<ref name=":8" /> Rothbard contributed many articles to Buckley's ''[[National Review]]'', but his relations with Buckley and the magazine soured as he criticized the conservative movement for militarism.<ref name=":8" /> Specifically, Rothbard opposed how such militarism could justify and expand the state's power.<ref name=":11" />

Rothbard befriended the [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust denier]] [[Harry Elmer Barnes]] in 1959.<ref name=":7" /> In a 1966 issue of [[Robert LeFevre]]'s ''Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought'' devoted to [[historical revisionism]], Rothbard argued that Western democracies had been to blame for starting World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.<ref name=":7" /> Rothbard published works by Barnes in his journals before and after Barnes died in 1968, including posthumously in the [[Cato Institute]]'s journal.<ref name=":7" />

=== Conflict with Ayn Rand ===
In 1954, Rothbard, along with several other attendees of Mises's seminar, joined the circle of novelist [[Ayn Rand]], the founder of [[Objectivism]]. He soon parted from her, writing, among other things, that her ideas were not as original as she proclaimed but similar to those of [[Aristotle]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], and [[Herbert Spencer]].<ref name="Enemy" />{{rp|pages=109–14}} In 1958, after the publication of Rand's novel ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', Rothbard wrote her a "fan letter", calling the book "an infinite treasure house" and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, [but] one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction." He also wrote: "[Y]ou introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and natural law philosophy," prompting him to learn "the glorious natural rights tradition."<ref name="Enemy" />{{rp|pages=121, 132–34}}<ref name="Burns">{{cite book |last=Burns |first=Jennifer |author-link=Jennifer Burns (historian) |title=Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right |title-link=Goddess of the Market |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-19-532487-7}}</ref>{{rp|pages=145, 182}}<ref>[https://mises.org/journals/jls/21_4/21_4_3.pdf "Mises and Rothbard Letters to Ayn Rand"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140711225127/http://mises.org/journals/jls/21_4/21_4_3.pdf|date=July 11, 2014}}, ''[[Journal of Libertarian Studies]]'', Volume 21, No. 4 (Winter 2007): 11–16.</ref> Rothbard rejoined Rand's circle for a few months but soon broke with Rand again over various differences, including his defense of his interpretation of anarchism.

Rothbard later satirized Rand's acolytes in his unpublished one-act farce ''Mozart Was a Red''<ref>[[Chris Matthew Sciabarra]], ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Ly9S2quKl1EC&pg=PA165 Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism]'', Penn State Press, 2000. p. 165, {{ISBN|0-27102049-0}}</ref> and his essay "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult".<ref name="Burns" />{{rp|page=184}}<ref name="Mozart">[http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html ''Mozart Was a Red: A Morality Play in One Act''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150914051843/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html|date=September 14, 2015}}, Lew Rockwell, by Murray N. Rothbard, early 1960s, with an introduction by [[Justin Raimondo]]</ref><ref>Rothbard, Murray (1972). [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202100419/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html|date=December 2, 2016}}, Lew Rockwell.</ref> He characterized Rand's circle as a "dogmatic, personality cult". His play parodies Rand (through the character Carson Sand) and her friends and is set during a visit from Keith Hackley, a fan of Sand's novel ''The Brow of Zeus'' (a play on ''Atlas Shrugged'').<ref name="Mozart" />

=== New Left outreach ===
By the late 1960s, according to ''The American Conservative'', Rothbard's "long and winding yet somehow consistent road had taken him from anti-[[New Deal]] and anti-interventionist [[Robert A. Taft]] supporter into friendship with the quasi-pacifist [[Nebraska]] Republican Congressman [[Howard Buffett]] (father of [[Warren Buffett]]) then over to the League of [[Adlai Stevenson II|(Adlai) Stevensonian]] Democrats and, by 1968, into tentative comradeship with the anarchist factions of the [[New Left]]."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Kauffman |first=Bill |author-link=Bill Kauffman |date=May 19, 2008 |title=When the Left Was Right |url=http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-the-left-was-right/ |url-status=live |magazine=[[The American Conservative]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104203634/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-the-left-was-right/ |archive-date=November 4, 2013 |access-date=August 13, 2013}}</ref> Rothbard joined the [[Peace and Freedom Party]] and contributed writing to the New Left journal ''[[Ramparts (magazine)|Ramparts]]''.<ref name=":8" />

Rothbard later criticized the New Left for supporting a "[[People's Republic]]"-style [[Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays ]].{{Third-party inline|date=June 2023}} It was during this phase that he associated with [[Karl Hess]] (a former [[Barry Goldwater]] speechwriter who had rejected conservatism)<ref name=":8" /> and founded ''[[Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought]]'' with [[Leonard Liggio]] and George Resch. Raimondo described Rothbard during this time as "a man of the Old Culture: he believed that it was possible to be a revolutionary, an anarchist, ''and'' lead a bourgeois life", and wrote that the "respectably dressed, if a bit rumpled" Rothbard was "immune to the blandishments of sixties youth culture".<ref name=":8" /> During this time, Rothbard proposed that black Americans should embrace [[Black separatism|racial separatism]] and [[secession]].<ref name=":14" /> He was frustrated that blacks and whites in the New Left instead decided to work together for egalitarian goals.<ref name=":14" /> In the 1970s, Rothbard turned sharply against the left and described equality as evil.<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":14" />

=== Libertarianism and Cato Institute ===
From 1969 to 1984, Rothbard edited ''[[The Libertarian Forum]]'', also initially with Hess (although Hess's involvement ended in 1971).<ref>{{cite news |last=Riggenbach |first=Jeff |date=May 13, 2010 |title=Karl Hess and the Death of Politics |newspaper=Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/daily/4330 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021020555/http://mises.org/daily/4330 |archive-date=October 21, 2013 |access-date=August 13, 2013 |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute}}</ref> Despite its small readership, it engaged conservatives associated with the ''[[National Review]]'' in nationwide debate. Rothbard rejected the view that [[Ronald Reagan]]'s 1980 presidential election was a victory for libertarian principles, and he attacked Reagan's economic program in a series of ''Libertarian Forum'' articles. In 1982, Rothbard called Reagan's claims of spending cuts a "fraud" and a "hoax" and accused Reaganites of doctoring the economic statistics to give a false impression that their policies successfully reduced inflation and unemployment.<ref>Ronald Lora, William Henry Longton, editors, ''The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America'', Chapter "The Libertarian Forum", Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ioakmq8yxA4C&dq=Murray+Rothbard+nonintervention+foreign+policy&pg=PA372 p. 372] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510233147/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ioakmq8yxA4C&pg=PA372&dq=Murray+Rothbard+nonintervention+foreign+policy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0HT4UbrPAsKCyAHn44HIAg&ved=0CGQQ6AEwCQ |date=May 10, 2016 }}, {{ISBN|0313213909}},</ref> He further criticized the "myths of [[Reaganomics]]" in 1987.<ref name="mises3">{{cite web |date=June 9, 2004 |title=The Myths of Reaganomics &#124; Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/library/myths-reaganomics |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020062853/https://mises.org/library/myths-reaganomics |archive-date=October 20, 2017 |access-date=August 28, 2017 |website=mises.org}}</ref>

Rothbard criticized the "frenzied nihilism" of [[left-wing libertarians]] but also criticized [[right-wing libertarians]] who were content to rely only on education to bring down the state; he believed that libertarians should adopt any moral tactic available to them to bring about liberty.<ref>{{cite book |last=Perry |first=Marvin |title=The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-313-21390-8 |editor1-last=Lora |editor1-first=Ronald |location=Westport, Connecticut |page=369 |chapter=Libertarian Forum 1969–1986 |oclc=40481045 |editor2-last=Henry |editor2-first=William Longton}}</ref> Imbibing Randolph Bourne's idea that "war is the health of the state", Rothbard opposed all wars in his lifetime and engaged in anti-war activism.<ref name="Gordon">{{cite web |last=Gordon |first=David |author-link=David Gordon (philosopher) |title=Biography of Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) |date=February 26, 2007 |url=https://mises.org/about/3249 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120202054227/http://mises.org/about/3249 |archive-date=February 2, 2012 |access-date=August 13, 2013 |publisher=[[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]}}</ref>

During the 1970s and 1980s, Rothbard was active in the [[Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian Party]]. He was frequently involved in the party's internal politics. Rothbard founded the [[Center for Libertarian Studies]] in 1976 and the ''[[Journal of Libertarian Studies]]'' in 1977. He was one of the founders of the [[Cato Institute]] in 1977 (whose funding by [[Charles Koch]] was a major infusion of money for libertarianism){{Sfn|Hawley|2016|p=129, 164}} and "came up with the idea of naming this libertarian think tank after ''[[Cato's Letters]]'', a powerful series of British newspaper essays by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon which played a decisive influence upon America's Founding Fathers in fomenting the Revolution".<ref name="Burris">{{cite web |last=Burris |first=Charles |date=February 4, 2011 |title=Kochs v. Soros: A Partial Backstory |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/kochs-v-soros-a-partial-backstory/ |access-date=August 14, 2013 |publisher=[[LewRockwell.com]] |archive-date=March 14, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220314082157/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/kochs-v-soros-a-partial-backstory/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=25 years at the Cato Institute: The 2001 Annual Report |url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/papers/25th_annual_report.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070508204943/http://www.cato.org/pubs/papers/25th_annual_report.pdf |archive-date=May 8, 2007 |access-date=August 18, 2013 |pages=11–12}}</ref>

From 1978 to 1983, Rothbard was associated with the [[LPRadicals|Libertarian Party Radical Caucus]], allying himself with [[Justin Raimondo]], [[Eric Garris]] and [[Williamson Evers]]. He opposed the "low-tax liberalism" espoused by 1980 Libertarian Party presidential candidate [[Ed Clark]] and Cato Institute president [[Ed Crane (Libertarian)|Edward H Crane III]]. According to Charles Burris, "Rothbard and Crane became bitter rivals after disputes emerging from the 1980 LP presidential campaign of Ed Clark carried over to strategic direction and management of Cato".<ref name="Burris" />

Janek Wasserman wrote, "The tempestuous tale of the Rothbard-Koch-Cato relationship has been told and retold because of its floridness."<ref name=":18" /> Rothbard sought to cultivate radical anarcho-capitalists, while Crane and Koch wanted a more reformist approach to influence government and gain political power.<ref name=":18" /> Rothbard was removed from Cato's board in 1981.<ref name=":18" /> Wasserman described the split as "the first of many examples of Austrian and libertarian schisms in the United States".<ref name=":18" />

=== Mises Institute ===
In 1982, following his split with the Cato Institute, Rothbard co-founded the [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]] in [[Auburn, Alabama]], (with [[Lew Rockwell]] and [[Burton Blumert]])<ref>{{cite web |date=September 19, 2018 |title=The Story of the Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/wire/story-mises-institute |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute |access-date=February 8, 2022 |archive-date=August 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200823180918/https://mises.org/wire/story-mises-institute |url-status=live }}</ref> and was vice president of academic affairs until 1995.<ref name="nytimes" /> Rothbard also founded the institute's ''[[The Review of Austrian Economics|Review of Austrian Economics]]'', a [[heterodox economics]]<ref>Lee, Frederic S., and Cronin, Bruce C. (2010). [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00751.x/pdf "Research Quality Rankings of Heterodox Economic Journals in a Contested Discipline."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180311153929/http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2010.00751.x/pdf|date=March 11, 2018}}  ''American Journal of Economics and Sociology''. 69(5): 1428</ref> journal later renamed the ''[[Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics]]'', in 1987.<ref name="Gordon" /> Rothbard "worked closely with Lew Rockwell (joined later by his long-time friend Blumert) in nurturing the Mises Institute and the publication, ''The Rothbard-Rockwell Report''; which after Rothbard's 1995 death evolved into the website, ''LewRockwell.com''", according to the website.<ref name="Burris" />

Rothbard and other Mises Institute scholars criticized libertarian groups funded by the [[Koch Brothers|Koch brothers]], referring to them as the "Kochtopus".{{Sfn|Hawley|2016|p=128}} In contrast to some other libertarian groups, the Mises Institute "pushed more politically marginal positions like the virtues of secession, the need for a return to the gold standard, and opposition to racial integration", according to historian [[Quinn Slobodian]].<ref name=":14" /> Rothbard split with the Radical Caucus at the 1983 national convention over cultural issues and aligned himself with what he called the "[[Right-wing populism|right-wing populist]]" wing of the party, notably [[Lew Rockwell]] and [[Ron Paul]], who [[Ron Paul presidential campaign, 1988|ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988]].

[[File:Murray&Joey.jpg|thumb|left|Rothbard with his wife Joey]]

=== Paleolibertarianism ===
[[File:Lewrockwell.jpg|thumb|150px|[[Lew Rockwell]]]]
In 1989, Rothbard left the Libertarian Party and began building bridges to the post-[[Cold War]] anti-interventionist right, calling himself a [[paleolibertarian]], a conservative reaction against the [[cultural liberalism]] of mainstream libertarianism.<ref name="Paul Newsletters" /><ref>Rothbard, Murray (November 1994). [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch16.html "Big Government Libertarianism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131223653/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch16.html|date=January 31, 2017}}, LewRockwell.com</ref> Paleolibertarianism sought to appeal to disaffected working-class whites through a synthesis of cultural conservatism and libertarian economics. According to [[Reason (magazine)|''Reason'']], Rothbard advocated right-wing populism in part because he was frustrated that mainstream thinkers were not adopting the libertarian view and suggested that former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard [[David Duke]], as well as Wisconsin Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]],<ref name=":4">{{cite news |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |date=2010 |title=A Strategy for the Right |newspaper=Mises Institute |url=https://mises.org/library/strategy-right |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030205243/https://mises.org/library/strategy-right |archive-date=October 30, 2020 |access-date=September 18, 2020 |publisher=[[mises.org]]}}</ref> were models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks" effort that a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition could use. Working together, the coalition would expose the "unholy alliance of 'corporate liberal' Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass". Rothbard blamed this "underclass" for "looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America".<ref name="Paul Newsletters" /> Regarding Duke's political program, Rothbard asserted that there was "nothing" in it that "could not also be embraced by paleoconservatives or paleolibertarians; lower taxes, dismantling the bureaucracy, slashing the welfare system, attacking [[affirmative action]] and racial set-asides, calling for equal rights for all Americans, including whites".<ref name="lewrockwell">{{cite web |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |date=January 1992 |title=Right-wing Populism |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160524131828/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html |archive-date=May 24, 2016 |access-date=August 14, 2013 |publisher=[[LewRockwell.com]]}} Originally published in the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report.</ref> He also praised the "racialist science" in Charles Murray's controversial book ''[[The Bell Curve]]''.{{Sfn|Hawley|2016|p=166}}

Rothbard co-founded and became a key figure in the [[John Randolph Club]], which was an alliance between the Mises Institute and the paleoconservative [[Rockford Institute]].{{Sfn|Hawley|2016|p=164}}<ref name=":12" /> He supported the presidential campaign of [[Pat Buchanan]] in 1992, writing that "with Pat Buchanan as our leader, we shall break the clock of [[social democracy]]".<ref>{{cite web |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |title=Strategy for the Right |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard219.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140313192556/http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard219.html |archive-date=March 13, 2014 |access-date=August 14, 2013 |publisher=[[LewRockwell.com]]}} First published in ''The Rothbard-Rockwell Report'', January 1992.</ref> When Buchanan dropped out of the Republican primary race, Rothbard then shifted his interest and support to [[Ross Perot]],<ref>{{cite web |last=Rockwell |first=Llewellyn H. Jr. |author-link=Lew Rockwell |date=April 8, 2005 |title=Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy |url=https://mises.org/daily/1788 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130920065557/http://www.mises.org/daily/1788 |archive-date=September 20, 2013 |access-date=August 13, 2013 |work=Mises Daily |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute}}</ref> who Rothbard wrote had "brought an excitement, a verve, a sense of dynamics and of open possibilities to what had threatened to be a dreary race".<ref>Rothbard, Murray (June 1, 1992) [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-06-01-me-286-story.html "Little Texan Connects Big With Masses: Perot is a populist in the content of his views and in the manner of his candidacy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240417154919/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-06-01-me-286-story.html |date=April 17, 2024 }}, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''</ref> Rothbard eventually withdrew his support from Perot, and endorsed [[George H. W. Bush]] in the [[1992 United States presidential election|1992 election]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |date=July 30, 1992 |title=Hold Back the Hordes for 4 More Years: Any sensible American has one real choice – George Bush |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-07-30-me-4460-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=February 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020023729/http://articles.latimes.com/1992-07-30/local/me-4460_1_george-bush |archive-date=October 20, 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Raimondo |first=Justin |author-link=Justin Raimondo |date=October 1, 2012 |title=Race for the White House, 2012: Whom to Root For? |url=http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/09/30/race-for-the-white-house-2012-whom-to-root-for/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130501141747/http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/09/30/race-for-the-white-house-2012-whom-to-root-for/ |archive-date=May 1, 2013 |access-date=August 13, 2013 |publisher=[[Antiwar.com]]}}</ref> Like Buchanan, Rothbard opposed the [[North American Free Trade Agreement]] (NAFTA);<ref>[[Charley Reese|Reese, Charley]] (October 14, 1993) [https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1993/10/14/the-us-standard-of-living-will-decline-if-nafta-is-approved/ "The U.S. Standard Of Living Will Decline If Nafta Is Approved"], ''[[Orlando Sentinel]]''</ref> however, he had become disillusioned with Buchanan by 1995, believing that the latter's "commitment to protectionism was mutating into an all-round faith in economic planning and the nation state".<ref>Lew Rockwell, [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/paleoism.html "What I Learned From Paleoism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200610014040/https://www.lewrockwell.com/2002/05/lew-rockwell/what-i-learned-from-paleoism/|date=June 10, 2020}}, [[LewRockwell.com]], 2002.</ref>

=== Personal life ===
Joey Rothbard said in a memoriam that her husband had a happy and bright spirit and that Rothbard, a [[Night owl (person)|night owl]], "managed to make a living for 40 years without having to get up before noon. This was important to him." She said Rothbard would begin every day with a phone conversation with his colleague Lew Rockwell: "Gales of laughter would shake the house or apartment, as they checked in with each other. Murray thought it was the best possible way to start a day".<ref>{{cite book |last=Rothbard |first=JoAnn |url=http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf |title=Murray Rothbard, In Memoriam |publisher=von Mises Institute |location=Auburn, AL |page=vii–ix |access-date=December 16, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220074229/http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf |archive-date=December 20, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Rothbard was irreligious and agnostic about God,<ref>Sciabarra, Chris (2000). ''Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism'', Penn State Press, 2000. p. 358, {{ISBN|0-27102049-0}}</ref><ref>Vance, Laurence M (March 15, 2011). "Is Libertarianism Compatible with Religion?" Lew Rockwell.</ref> describing himself as a "mixture of an agnostic and a [[Reform Judaism|Reform Jew]]".<ref name="Raimondo2000-67">{{cite book |last=Raimondo |first=Justin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YBsyVMg5HToC&pg=PA67 |title=An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard |publisher=Prometheus Books |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-61592-239-0 |page=67 |access-date=June 28, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191016074204/https://books.google.com/books?id=YBsyVMg5HToC&pg=PA67 |archive-date=October 16, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> Despite identifying as an agnostic and an [[atheist]], he was critical of the "left-libertarian hostility to religion".<ref>{{cite book |last=Raimondo |first=Justin |title=An Enemy of the State: the Life of Murray N. Rothbard |publisher=Prometheus Books |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-57392809-0 |page=326 |quote=In the same letter, he reiterates his atheism: "On the religion question, we paleolibertarians are not theocrats," he writes. "Obviously, I could not be myself, both as a libertarian and as an atheist." However, he continued, "the left-libertarian hostility to religion, based as it is on ignorance and the bitterness of "aging adolescent rebels against bourgeois America", is "monstrous."}}</ref> In Rothbard's later years, many of his friends anticipated that he would convert to [[Catholicism]], but he never did.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Casey |first1=Gerard |title=Murray Rothbard |publisher=Continuum |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4411-4209-2 |editor1-last=Meadowcroft |editor1-first=John |series=Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers |volume=15 |location=London |page=15 |author-link=Gerard Casey (philosopher)}}</ref>

=== Death ===
Rothbard died of a [[heart attack]] on January 7, 1995, in [[St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center]] in Manhattan, at the age of 68.<ref name=":2" /> ''[[The New York Times]]'' obituary called Rothbard "an economist and social philosopher who fiercely defended individual freedom against government intervention".<ref name="nytimes" /> Lew Rockwell, president of the Mises Institute, told ''The New York Times'' that Rothbard was "the founder of right-wing anarchism".<ref name="nytimes" /> William F. Buckley Jr. wrote a critical obituary in the ''National Review'', criticizing Rothbard's "defective judgment" and views on the [[Cold War]].<ref name="Casey" />{{rp|pages=3–4}} Hoppe, Rockwell, and Rothbard's other colleagues at the Mises Institute took a different view, arguing that he was one of the most important philosophers in history.<ref name="Murray N. Rothbard, In Memoriam">''[http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf Murray N. Rothbard, In Memoriam] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220074229/http://library.freecapitalists.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/memoriam.pdf|date=December 20, 2014}}'', Preface by JoAnn Rothbard, edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr, published by Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995.</ref>