Chronology of the Life and Works of Murray Newton Rothbard

1926. Murray Newton Rothbard is born in New York on March 2, son of Jewish immigrants from Poland.

1942. Goes to Columbia University and at the end of the Second World War becomes a member of the Young Republican Club of New York. Rothbard is close to the isolationist Old Right, which has, however, lost much of its influence by this time.

1946. Is awarded a master’s degree in mathematics.

1949. Attends a seminar on the Austrian School of economics, held by Ludwig von Mises at New York University.

1953. Marries JoAnn Schumaker.

1956. Is awarded a Ph.D. in economics under the guidance of Joseph Dorfman; his thesis is The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Politics. In this period he begins to contribute to the journal Analysis, edited by Frank Chodorov; to The Freeman, the periodical edited by Henry Hazlitt; and to William F. Buckley’s National Review.

1957. In the Southern Economic Journal, publishes the article “In Defense of Extreme Apriorism,” a defense of the deductive axiomatic approach of Ludwig von Mises.

1960. Is no longer able to maintain his position at National Review, the main American conservative journal. His attacks against the interventionist approach to communism upheld by the editor, William F. Buckley, leads to a split and the end of contributions from Rothbard, who adheres to his consistently antimilitarist position.

1962. The Panic of 1819 and Man, Economy, and State are published. The latter deals with Austrian economics and follows the praxeological method.

1963. Publication of America’s Great Depression, in which the author applies Mises’s business-cycle theory to the years leading up to the economic crisis of 1929 and those immediately afterward. Rothbard maintains that intervention in the fields of credit and industry, resulting from Herbert Hoover’s policies, interfered with the capacity of the market to correct its production structure, thus transforming the economic crisis into a long and painful depression.

1965. On April 17, tens of thousands of young people march on Washington, calling for an end to the Vietnam War. Rothbard sympathizes with the youth protest antiwar movement.

1965. Publication of the first issue of the periodical Left and Right founded by Rothbard, Leonard Liggio, and George Resch.

1966. Begins to teach at the Polytechnic Institute of New York, where he will stay until 1986.

1968. Briefly joins the Peace and Freedom Party, attempting to find an alliance with the New Left on the basis of criticism of industry/military relations and links with the state. The party has its origins in the youth protest movement. It is soon dissolved.

1969. The Republican youth organization Young Americans for Freedom divides on the issues of the Vietnam War and conscription. As a result, a new independent libertarian movement, centered around the Society for Individual Liberty, is born.

1970. Publication of Power and Market. It contains a criticism of philosophical arguments against the market and an exposition of the anarcho-capitalist theory of private protection agencies.

1972. The Libertarian Party is founded.

1973. Rothbard joins the Libertarian Party and publishes For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. The volume is intended as a guide to modern libertarianism. The author identifies a long list of problematic areas related to state activities, proposing a free-market solution for each. He supports the private provision of security, both internal and external, and the private supply of all judicial services.

1977. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded by Charles Koch with Rothbard’s collaboration, establishes its headquarters in San Francisco. At Rothbard’s instigation, the institute founds reviews such as Libertarian Review, the Journal of Libertarian Studies, and Inquiry. At the end of the 1970s, relations between Rothbard and the Cato Institute begin to deteriorate. Ed Crane, representing Koch, opts for a decidedly less radical line than Rothbard’s. The headquarters moves to Washington, D.C., and Cato becomes a conservative think tank. Rothbard leaves the institute.

1975–1978. Publication of the four-volume Conceived in Liberty, a libertarian history of the American colonies from the sixteenth century up to the War of Independence. In the experiences of the American colonies, Rothbard recognizes the progress of the libertarian idea, culminating in the Declaration of Independence, an act of rebellion against the British government.

1982. Llewellyn H. Rockwell founds the Ludwig von Mises Institute with the support of Mises’s widow, Margit. Rothbard accepts the position of vice president. The partnership with the Mises Institute and with Rockwell will last for the rest of his life. The Ethics of Liberty is published. This work is an attempt on Rothbard’s part to base the market economy on the theory of natural law.

1985. Appointed to the position of S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

1995. Dies in New York on January 7. Two volumes of An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought are published posthumously.