There have been several criticisms of my piece on Murray Rothbard for the Baffler. I did not, it is alleged, fully address the diversity of the man’s own thought. True enough—I felt like there was a case to be made that he had a coherent thrust to his conceptions throughout his life, eccentricities aside. Another criticism is that I glossed too rapidly over his New Left period, and also didn’t address in careful enough detail the time after his New Left period, when he was at the Cato Institute and then at the Mises Institute. Instead, I gave too much weight to his Paleo period, where he openly embraced Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and “unleashing the cops.” Yet another criticism is that I did not prove—to some people’s satisfaction—that his ideas had a significant influence on the alt-right, that they had not internalized any specifically “Rothbardian” ideas. According to those critics, I showed just his attempts at fringe-y political maneuver, which they contend are totally unremarkable for some reason I don’t quite understand, and, however interesting they might be from a historical perspective, somehow those decisions are not really related to the central project of his life’s work. And even if I showed how much interest alt-rightniks have professed in his writing, I did not adequately demonstrate that they incorporated anything significant that could really be called Rothbard’s own thought. From this perspective, his political writings do not rise to the dignity of The Idea—only the hardcore of abstract economics and praxeology is the “true Rothbard,” and since alt-rightniks are supposed to be mostly uninterested in
Here for the articles on France’s 3rd Republic, but I’d like to add that, regarding the “natural elite” and Charles Murray, the people who have urged me to read Rothbard are unduly fascinated by epigenetics. He’s also popular among Gen Y gamers, you know the type.
Firstly, though not in full agreement with Robert Anton Wilson, e.g. I hold that Uri Geller was a fraud and James Randi (ע״ה) _opened_ a reality-tunnel (in R.W.A.-speak) by debunking him, I can recommend his novelette-length screed "Natural Law, or, Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy" prompted by Rothbard's invocation of the concept.
It is fully in keeping with his reverence for the Angelic Doctor, for whom homosexuality behaviour were 'unnatural' despite its frequency in actual nature, that many nearly universal human impulses should be 'unnatural'.
I will note in passing that Rothbard's obsession with 'parasites' is Rand's, and hers at root an example of Stalinist indoctrination détourned.
Finally, I will point-out that any Just World hypothesis that is not Panglossean has a tendency to adjust to reality by the addition of an epicyclic Devil who (for example) keeps the 'natural' Master Race down. I think that this is why adherents to such, from Social Darwinists to those Christians who do not understand their own doctrine's insistence that the World will not be in conformance with them, are ripe for belief in Conspiracy Hypotheses.
Here for the articles on France’s 3rd Republic, but I’d like to add that, regarding the “natural elite” and Charles Murray, the people who have urged me to read Rothbard are unduly fascinated by epigenetics. He’s also popular among Gen Y gamers, you know the type.
Firstly, though not in full agreement with Robert Anton Wilson, e.g. I hold that Uri Geller was a fraud and James Randi (ע״ה) _opened_ a reality-tunnel (in R.W.A.-speak) by debunking him, I can recommend his novelette-length screed "Natural Law, or, Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy" prompted by Rothbard's invocation of the concept.
It is fully in keeping with his reverence for the Angelic Doctor, for whom homosexuality behaviour were 'unnatural' despite its frequency in actual nature, that many nearly universal human impulses should be 'unnatural'.
I will note in passing that Rothbard's obsession with 'parasites' is Rand's, and hers at root an example of Stalinist indoctrination détourned.
Finally, I will point-out that any Just World hypothesis that is not Panglossean has a tendency to adjust to reality by the addition of an epicyclic Devil who (for example) keeps the 'natural' Master Race down. I think that this is why adherents to such, from Social Darwinists to those Christians who do not understand their own doctrine's insistence that the World will not be in conformance with them, are ripe for belief in Conspiracy Hypotheses.