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

Recommendations

Info

REVIEWS AND COMMENTS BY MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 127 Another basic flaw in any caste society—and ignored by Polanyi—is the problem of population growth. The witch doctor, the custom of tribe, the chief or king, and Professor Polanyi can all decree that X and the son of X be a baker, Y and the son of Y be a farmer, etc., but what happens when population increases, as it almost inevitably tends to do? What does the younger son do? Polanyi sneers at Malthus but the Malthusian problem is always supremely evident in the caste society. What happens when the “natural checks” of famine and disease do not work sufficiently? This is why the caste-communal society of Sparta put their babies out in the woods for an “exposure test,” not because the Spartans were inherently a cruel people but because they were faced with what was, in the context of their social structure, an insoluble problem: what to do with their population increase. It was population growth, further, that was wrecking mercantilist Europe. Population growth was the reason for the rise of able-bodied beggars and thieves in eighteenth-century England. There was no work for them to do. It was the rise of capitalism—the advance of capital to provide them with jobs, the expansion of the market to produce cheap goods for the masses—that not only enormously increased the standard of living of the masses but also provided jobs for these increasingly “excess” people. Furthermore, Polanyi continues the old anti-capitalist canard that the Industrial Revolution was made possible by the enclosure movement, which supposedly drove sturdy yeomen off their lands and into the cities. 77 This is nonsense; not only did the enclosure movement enclose the “commons” and not people, and by the great increase in agricultural productivity provide the wherewithal in resources and 77 In England in the eighteenth century, vast areas of the country were common land and were cultivated under the open field system. From 1830 on, the development of crop growing techniques made the large farms more efficient and almost all agricultural land was enclosed. According to Polanyi, this led to a mass exodus of small farmers from the countryside.
MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS 128 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI income for the Industrial Revolution, but also the enclosures did not drive people off the land. The surplus population in the rural areas was a consequence of population growth; it was this increase in rural population that drove these desperate people into the cities to look for work. Capitalism did not, therefore, tragically disrupt, as Polanyi would have it, the warm, loving, “social” relations of pre-capitalist era. Capitalism took the outcasts of society— the beggars, the highwaymen, the rural overpopulated, the Irish immigrants—and gave them the jobs and wages that moved them from destitution to a far higher standard of living and of work. It is easy enough to wring one’s hands at the child labor in the new British factories; it is, apparently, even easier to forget what the child population of rural England was doing before the Industrial Revolution—and during the Industrial Revolution, in those numerous areas of England where it and the new capitalism had not yet penetrated: these children were dying like flies and living in infinitely more miserable conditions. This is why we read nowadays, when it seems inexplicable to us, British and American writings of the period that praise the new factories for giving work to women and children! 78 This praise was not due to their being inhuman monsters; it was due to the fact that, before such labor was available (and in those regions where such labor was not available) the women and children were living and suffering in infinitely worse conditions. Women, children, immigrants, after 78 Rothbard, it would seem, was referring to the story of Hannah More, mentioned by Polanyi, from Joseph Palmer’s The Lancashire Colliery Girl (1795). In this story, the author praises a Lancashire girl who worked in a mine from the age of nine with her younger brother. Hannah More stressed the fact that the two children were very useful members of society, and that the girl’s qualities were recognized by her employers (Hannah More, Cheap Repository Tract, described in Polanyi, The Great Transformation, p. 220). The story has an “edifying” ending because the girl manages to raise herself to a level of greater independence by finding work with a family as a servant.
Page 2:
MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOP
Page 5 and 6:
© 2009 by the Ludwig von Mises Ins
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 12 and 13:
ROTHBARD’S UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS I
Page 14 and 15:
LAW AND NATURE IN THE WORK OF MURRA
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45:
Page 46 and 47:
Page 48 and 49:
Page 50 and 51:
Page 52 and 53:
Page 54 and 55:
Page 56:
REVIEWS AND COMMENTS BY MURRAY NEWT
Page 59 and 60:
MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPH
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86: MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPH
Page 135: MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPH
Page 150: CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
Page 153 and 154: MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOP
Page 155 and 156: MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOP
Page 158 and 159: REFERENCES 1 Buckley, William F. Go
Page 160 and 161: REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 151 BIB
Page 162 and 163: REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 153 Dav
Page 164: REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 155 giv
Page 168 and 169: “Absolutes, Relativism, and the S
Page 170 and 171: INDEX 161 environment, 123-24 Essay
Page 172 and 173: INDEX 163 Jesuits, 24 judges, 69 ju
Page 174 and 175: INDEX 165 Oriental Despotism (Wittf
Page 176 and 177: INDEX 167 Socrates, 26n42 solidarit
show all

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

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?