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FROM NOVELIST TO PHILOSOPHER, 1944–1957
apartment. Energetic, polymathic, and erudite, Rothbard dazzled his
retinue, mostly young men who were students at the Bronx High School
of Science. This group called themselves “the Circle Bastiat,” after the
nineteenth-century French economist Frederic Bastiat, and looked to
Rothbard as an intellectual leader. When the Circle Bastiat discovered he
knew the famous Rand, they clamored to meet her. Rothbard reluctantly
agreed. First he went to her apartment with two students, and then a
week later brought the whole gang.
Both visits were “depressing,” Rothbard told Richard Cornuelle in a
lengthy letter. The passage of time, and the presence of reinforcements,
did not help. Rand argued vigorously with George Reisman, one of his
group, subjecting him to a barrage of vitriol. According to Rothbard,
Reisman was the only one to “realize the power and horror of her
position—and personality.” The rest of the high school students were
captivated by Rand and eager for more contact. Rothbard, however, was
secretly relieved that Reisman’s battle with Rand provided the perfect
excuse to avoid seeing her again. Even better, he would no longer have to
deal with the Collective, a passive, dependent group who “hover around
her like bees.” 46
Rand was bad enough, but Rothbard was truly horrifi ed by the
Collective. “Their whole manner bears out my thesis that the adoption of
her total system is a soul-shattering calamity,” he reported to Cornuelle.
Rand’s followers were “almost lifeless, devoid of enthusiasm or spark,
and almost completely dependent on Ayn for intellectual sustenance.”
Rothbard’s discomfort with the Collective masked his own confl icting
emotions about Rand and her circle. After all, Rothbard had also gathered
to himself a set of much younger students over whom he exercised
unquestioned intellectual authority. He freely used the word “disciple” to
refer to both his and Rand’s students, a word she eschewed. Now some
of Rothbard’s own students were feeling the magnetic pull of Rand. Even
Rothbard, as he later confessed, was subject to the same response. Many
years later, speaking of this time, he told Rand, “I felt that if I continued to
see you, my personality and independence would become overwhelmed
by the tremendous power of your own.” 47 Rand was like a negative version
of himself, a libertarian Svengali seducing the young.
Rothbard fortifi ed his emotional distaste for Rand with intellectual
disagreement. By the time of his second encounter with her, Rothbard
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