Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute

ROTHBARD’S UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
IN 1952, MURRAY ROTHBARD received a grant from the
William Volker Fund to write a book on Austrian economics,
based on the ideas of Ludwig von Mises, to be used as a textbook
for university economics courses. That book became
Man, Economy, and State, published some ten years later. It
contained an in-depth investigation of Austrian economics and
its policy implications, and it went far beyond the standard
university textbook. In the same year of 1952, Rothbard, now
aged 26, began to work for the Volker Fund as a senior analyst,
and over a period of about ten years he reviewed books,
journals, articles, and manuscripts in search of intellectual
allies with libertarian leanings. Rothbard enjoyed this kind of
work as it offered him the opportunity to read, extremely
rapidly, countless books by many different authors. This was
a period of hard work, but it was also a time of intellectual
development and growth.
The Volker Fund was founded in 1932 by a Kansas City
entrepreneur, William Volker. Later, Volker’s nephew, Harold
Luhnow, was responsible for the fund’s consolidation and
development in the 1940s and ‘50s. This foundation played
a crucial role in supporting and disseminating the work of
Hayek, who was writing The Constitution of Liberty, and the
work of many other libertarian scholars both at the University
of Chicago and elsewhere. It organized conferences and
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