Originally published in 1957, Ludwig von Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences. He defends the epistemological status of economic proposition. He has his most extended analysis of those who want to claim that there is more than one logical structure by which we think about reality. He grapples with the problem of determinism and free will. And presents philosophy of history and historical research. Overall, this is a tremendously lucid defense of the fundamental Misesian approach to social philosophy. Narrated by John Pruden.

Theory and History

Mises

Preface by Murray N. Rothbard

Introduction

1. Judgments of Value

2. Knowledge and Value

3. The Quest for Absolute Values

5. Determination and Its Critics

7. Dialectical Materialism

Jeff Deist interviews Titus Gebel on the Free Private Cities Project. Find more about Free Private Cities at FreePrivateCities.com.

Interview

Free Private Cities: An Interview with Dr. Titus Gebel

Presented to the Department of History at New York University on December 4, 1979. The description below is excerpted from "Rothbard Lectures on American History: Lost and Found" by Chris Sciabarra.

The central theme of Rothbard’s lecture was the conflict between “Liberty” and “Power” throughout history. He did not deny the complexities of historical events and did not disapprove of alternative approaches to the understanding of history. Drawing from Albert Jay Nock, however, he believed that the contest between “social power” (embodied in voluntary institutions and trade) and “state power” (in which certain interests used the coercive instruments of government to expropriate others for their own benefit) was central to understanding the ebb and flow of historical events. Social power, which reached its apex in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, breeds prosperity, civilization, and culture; state power, which came to dominate the twentieth century, produced the most regressive period in human history—as government expanded its powers through warfare and a maze of regulatory agencies, central banking, and welfare-state bureaucracies. Throughout his talk, he drew on the pioneering scholarship of Bernard Bailyn on the ideological origins of the American Revolution; Jackson Turner Main on the role of the antifederalists in restraining, through the Bill of Rights, the “nationalist” forces that forged the counter-revolutionary Constitution; Paul Kleppner, who provides an enlightening take on the struggle between “liturgical” and “pietist” cultural forces, the latter viewed as a key element in the emergence of the Progressive Era and the growth of government intervention; and Gabriel Kolko, whose revisionist work on the role of big business in the move toward the regulatory state explains much about the rise of corporatist statism in the twentieth century and beyond.

The entire 90-minute talk, which included a brief question-and-answer session, is peppered with that edgy Rothbardian wit, which entertained as much as it informed. By the end of the lecture, Rothbard was given a standing ovation.

Special thanks to Chris Sciabarra for making this important recording available.

Rothbard Lectures on American History: Lost and Found

Libertarian Paradigms in American History | Murray N. Rothbard

Presented at "Libertython" at New York University on September 20, 1980, sponsored by the NYU chapter of Students for a Libertarian Society. The description below is excerpted from "Rothbard Lectures on American History: Lost and Found" by Chris Sciabarra.

In September 1980, I extended an invitation to Murray to be among the speakers featured in a nearly week-long “Libertython” sponsored by the NYU chapter of Students for a Libertarian Society—dedicated to exploring the politics, economics, and philosophy of freedom. On September 23, 1980, he gave the second of six scheduled lectures that day. His lecture focused on “The Crisis of American Foreign Policy,” wherein I introduced him to a slightly smaller audience than the event sponsored by the History Department. The size of the audience didn’t matter; for Rothbard, there was nothing more important than the issue of war and peace. As he put it, libertarians were usually quite good in opposing the regulations of OSHA or criticizing the destructive effects of price controls. But when faced with the role of the warfare state as the single most important factor in the expansion of government power: “Blank out”—a turn of phrase he used, giving credit to Ayn Rand—was the typical response he’d witnessed from far too many libertarians. By not focusing enough attention on the role of “war and peace,” all the other issues concerning price control, free will and determinism, and so forth, become “pointless … if we’re all washed away” as a species.

With a bit of gallows humor, he couldn’t resist criticizing the U.S. military’s plan that would whisk away politicians to safety as nuclear warfare becomes imminent such that the “goddamn government” will go on in bomb shelters, while the rest of us perish. As the antidote to war, he cited W. C. Fields, who, when asked by the Saturday Evening Post how to end World War II, remarked: “Take the leaders of both sides or all sides, in the Hollywood Bowl, and let them fight it out with sackfuls of guns.” The Post didn’t publish the comment, Rothbard says, but he yearns for a world that gets back to jousting between the leaders of warring governments, rather than a policy of what Charles Beard once called “perpetual war for perpetual peace,” in which twentieth-century technology had made possible mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

Some will have difficulty accepting Rothbard’s argument that in any clash between “democratic” and “dictatorial” countries, the latter is not necessarily the source of contemporary conflict. In fact, Rothbard argues, the foreign policy of the “democratic” United States has been at the root of many of the global conflicts in the post-World War II era.

During the Q&A session, folks who are familiar with the voice of Don Lavoie will recognize him instantly. Included here as well are several self-acknowledged “digs” that Rothbard takes at the Libertarian Party’s 1980 Presidential candidate, Ed Clark, with some surprising comments on subjects such as immigration policy.

Special thanks to Chris Sciabarra for making this important recording available.

The Crisis of American Foreign Policy | Murray N. Rothbard

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Seattle, 14 September 2019. Includes an introduction by Jeff Deist.

Elites in America spent the twentieth century lecturing us about the unquestioned virtue of democracy and voting. But they change their tune when the wrong guy wins. Donald Trump, Brexit, and the rise of right-populist movements in Europe all challenge the West's great sacred cow.

Hans Hoppe famously reconsidered the cult of democracy in his 2001 book 'Democracy: The God that Failed' (Mises.org/GodThatFailed). Democratic politicians and voters, with high time preference and no skin in the game, give us endless spending, debt, entitlements, and war — not liberty. 

Our speakers will apply Hoppe's critique to the upcoming 2020 presidential election, which promises to be brutal. What are the limits of democracy in a country of 320 million people? Have we reached the end of the myth of democratic consensus? What if democratic voting, so called, doesn’t yield any compromise between Left and Right — but only creates endless division and an entrenched political class? And what might the future of democracy look like? (hint: decentralized, smaller, local)

Why Democracy Fails

How Democracy Made Us Dumb | Ilana Mercer

Libertarian writer David Ramsay Steele joins Bob for a fun tour of some essays from his collection, "The Mystery of Fascism".

For more information, see BobMurphyShow.com.

The Bob Murphy Show

David Ramsay Steele on Socialist Calculation, Mental Illness, and the JFK Assassination

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