Libertarianism 5. Austrian School

Murray Rothbard whilst remaining an anarcho-capitalist his view on what attitude libertarians should adopt to the current political issues changed over his life time. He began as a member of the Old Right but left in the 1950s as the Cold War hotted up and most conservatives supported an activist foreign policy to deal with the communist threat. In the 1960s he aligned himself with the New Left and joined in the protests over the Vietnam movement, whereas following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the last years of his life he turned his attention to more cultural matters and wrote the first important critiques of mass non-white immigration.



Upon his death in 1995 his student Hans-Herman Hoppe elaborated on Rothbard's earlier work and despite himself being an anarcho-capitalist has provided the most cogent argument against open borders and has proved controversial to say the least, with his detractors in the libertarian movement preferring to examine the motives and character of Mr Hoppe rather than the substance of his claims. This fracture has led to the emergence of the Property and Freedom Society where normally taboo subjects such as racial differences and IQ can be discussed openly.

The greatest weakness of the Austrian School in general has been as an apologist of the Corporation, for example the the standard Austrian analysis of the current recession will level apportion blame on the state but avoid any serious criticism on the role of corporations as enablers of such state activism. Also the Austrian School is purely an intellectual movement and does not contribute to any activism beyond the publishing of scholarly articles and the holding of conferences.