WEBVTT NOTE Introduction 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:19.000 For A New Liberty, The Libertarian Manifesto, by Murray N. Rothbard, narrated by Jeff Rigenbach, with a new introduction by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. 2 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:24.000 Copyright 2006 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. 3 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 This audiobook was produced by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. 4 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:39.000 For more information or to discover more about the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Austrian Economics, visit Mises.org. 5 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Introduction 6 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:50.000 There are many varieties of libertarianism alive in the world today, but Rothbardianism remains the center of its intellectual gravity, 7 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:58.000 its primary muse and conscience, its strategic and moral core, and the focal point of debate even when its name is not acknowledged. 8 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:11.000 The reason is that Murray Rothbard was the creator of modern libertarianism, a political ideological system that proposes a once and for all escape from the trappings of left and right and their central plans for how state power should be used. 9 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:17.000 Libertarianism is the radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral. 10 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:23.000 Mr. Libertarian, Murray and Rothbard was called, and the state's greatest living enemy. 11 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:44.000 He remains so. Yet he had many predecessors from whom he drew, the whole of the classical liberal tradition, the Austrian economists, the American anti-war tradition, and the natural rights tradition. But it was he who put all these pieces together into a unified system that seems implausible at first, but inevitable once it has been defined and defended by Rothbard. 12 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:56.000 The individual pieces of the system are straightforward—self-ownership, strict property rights, free markets, and I state in every conceivable respect—but the implications are earth-shaking. 13 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Once you are exposed to the complete picture, and for a new liberty has been the leading means of exposure for more than a quarter of a century, you cannot forget it. 14 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:12.000 It becomes the indispensable lens through which we can see events in the real world with the greatest possible clarity. 15 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.000 This book, more than any other explains by Rothbard, seems to grow in stature every year. 16 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:23.120 His influence has vastly risen since his death, and why Rothbardianism has so many enemies 17 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:25.760 on the left, right and center. 18 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:30.080 Quite simply, the science of liberty that he brought into clear relief is as thrilling 19 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:34.480 in the hope it creates for a free world as it is unforgiving of error. 20 00:02:34.480 --> 00:02:39.580 Its logical and moral consistency, together with its empirical explanatory muscle, represents 21 00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:57.340 Rothbard sets out to write this book soon after he got a call from Tom Mandel, an editor 22 00:02:57.340 --> 00:03:01.540 at Macmillan who had seen an op-ed by Rothbard in the New York Times that appeared in the 23 00:03:01.540 --> 00:03:02.540 spring of 1971. 24 00:03:02.540 --> 00:03:08.380 It was the only commission Rothbard ever received from a commercial publishing house. 25 00:03:08.380 --> 00:03:12.580 Looking at the original manuscript, which is so consistent in its typeface and almost 26 00:03:12.580 --> 00:03:16.980 complete after its first draft, it does seem that it was nearly an effortless joy for him 27 00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:17.980 to write it. 28 00:03:17.980 --> 00:03:21.580 It is seamless, unrelenting and energetic. 29 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:25.420 The historical context illustrates a point often overlooked. 30 00:03:25.420 --> 00:03:30.140 Modern libertarianism was born not in reaction to socialism or leftism, though it is certainly 31 00:03:30.140 --> 00:03:34.780 anti-leftist as the term is commonly understood, and anti-socialist. 32 00:03:34.780 --> 00:03:39.900 or rather libertarianism in the American historical context came into being in response to the 33 00:03:39.900 --> 00:03:46.140 statism of conservatism and its selected celebration of a conservative-style central planning. 34 00:03:46.140 --> 00:03:50.580 American conservatives may not adore the welfare state or excessive business regulation, but 35 00:03:50.580 --> 00:03:56.020 they appreciate power exercised in the name of nationalism, warfareism, pro-family policies 36 00:03:56.020 --> 00:03:58.620 and invasions of personal liberty and privacy. 37 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:03.780 In the post-LBJ period of American history, it has been Republican presidents more than 38 00:04:03.780 --> 00:04:08.300 and democratic ones who have been responsible for the largest expansions of executive and 39 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:10.180 judicial power. 40 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:15.140 It was to defend a pure liberty against the compromises and corruptions of conservatism, 41 00:04:15.140 --> 00:04:19.540 beginning with Nixon but continuing with Reagan and the Bush presidencies that inspired the 42 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:23.180 birth of Rothbardian political economy. 43 00:04:23.180 --> 00:04:27.940 It is also striking how Rothbard chose to pull no punches in his argument. 44 00:04:27.940 --> 00:04:31.420 Other intellectuals on the receiving end of such an invitation might have tended to water 45 00:04:31.420 --> 00:04:38.420 Why, for example, make a case for statelessness or anarchism when a case for limited government might bring more people into the movement? 46 00:04:38.420 --> 00:04:47.420 Why condemn U.S. imperialism when doing so can only limit the book's appeal to anti-Soviet conservatives who might otherwise appreciate the free market bent? 47 00:04:47.420 --> 00:04:53.420 Why go into such depth about privatizing courts and roads and water when doing so might risk alienating people? 48 00:04:53.420 --> 00:04:58.420 Why enter into the sticky area of regulation of consumption and of personal morality? 49 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:07.420 and Regulation of Consumption and of Personal Morality, and do it with such disorienting consistency when it would surely have drawn a larger audience to leave it out. 50 00:05:07.420 --> 00:05:17.420 And why go into such detail about monetary affairs and central banking and the like when a watered-down case for free enterprise would have pleased so many Chamber of Commerce conservatives? 51 00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:23.420 But trimming and compromising for the sake of the times of the audience was just not his way. 52 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:31.120 He knew that he had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to present the full package of libertarianism in all its glory, and he was not about to pass it up. 53 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:36.420 And thus do we read here, not a case for cutting government, but eliminating it altogether. 54 00:05:36.420 --> 00:05:42.920 Not just an argument for assigning property rights, but for deferring to the market even on questions of contract enforcement. 55 00:05:42.920 --> 00:05:48.920 And not just a case for cutting welfare, but for banishing the entire welfare warfare state. 56 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:59.920 Whereas other attempts to make a libertarian case both before and after this book might typically call for transitional or half-measures, or be willing to concede as much as possible to statists, that is not what we get from Murray. 57 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:05.920 Not for him such schemes as school vouchers or the privatization of government programs that should not exist at all. 58 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:11.920 Instead he presents and follows through with the full-blown and fully bracing vision of what liberty can be. 59 00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:20.920 This is why so many other similar attempts to write the libertarian manifesto have not stood the test of time, and yet this book remains in high demand. 60 00:06:20.920 --> 00:06:29.920 Similarly, there have been many books on libertarianism in the intervening years that have covered philosophy alone, politics alone, economics alone, or history alone. 61 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:34.920 Those that have put all these subjects together have usually been collections by various authors. 62 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:41.920 Rothbard alone had mastery in all fields that permitted him to write an integrated manifesto, one that has never been displaced. 63 00:06:41.920 --> 00:06:48.920 And yet his approach is typically self-effacing. He constantly points to other writers and intellectuals of the past and his own generation. 64 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:56.920 In addition, some introductions of this sort are written to give the reader an easier passage into a difficult book, but that is not the case here. 65 00:06:56.920 --> 00:07:02.920 He never talks down to his readers, but always with clarity. Rothbard speaks for himself. 66 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:11.920 I'll spare the reader an enumeration of my favorite parts, or speculations of what passages Rothbard might have clarified if he had a chance to put out a new edition. 67 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:25.920 The reader will discover on his or her own that every page exudes energy and passion, that the logic of his argument is impossibly compelling, and that the intellectual fire that inspired this work burns as bright now as it did all those years ago. 68 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:37.920 The book is still regarded as dangerous precisely because once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics or sociology can be read the same way again. 69 00:07:37.920 --> 00:07:45.920 What was once a commercial phenomenon has truly become a classical statement that I predict will be read for generations to come.