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

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSOPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
20 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
personality to take place. He must, in short, be
free in order that he may be fully human. 29
Rothbard’s formulation seems, at its heart, to be very
close to the so-called Veatch School in that it is characterized
by the rehabilitation of Aristotelian/Thomist metaphysics
for the foundation of natural law and the consequent
anchoring of natural rights. 30 Furthermore, even when Rothbard
follows a deductive, axiomatic approach — beginning
with the axiom of human action, which is considered a selfevident
truth — this truth is founded on the nature of man,
thus placing it in an Aristotelian/Thomist context, as
opposed to the Kantian context in which the a priori truth of
human action would be considered a consequence of the logical
structure of the human mind. 31 Instead, Rothbard
derives the right of self-ownership from natural law, rather
than considering it an axiom, since it is in harmony with
what is supposed to be the natural end of the human being—
the promotion of his own survival.
While the starting points for Rothbard and Veatch are
very similar, the two authors differ profoundly as regards the
concept of the common good and the role of the state.
Veatch thinks that the state should be an instrument, the
institutional framework by means of which all the rights of
life, freedom, and ownership could be guaranteed, in order
that each person can realize himself as a human being, i.e.,
realize the end that is in accordance with man’s nature. The
concept of the common good is therefore strictly bound to
29Murray N. Rothbard, The Logic of Action II: Applications and
Criticism from the Austrian School (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward
Elgar, 1997), pp. 3–4. Originally prepared for the Symposium on
Human Differentiation, for the Institute of Paper Chemistry in
Appleton, Wisconsin, 1970, and sponsored by the Institute for
Humane Studies.
30See Veatch, Human Rights.
31 Murray N. Rothbard, “In Defense of ‘Extreme Apriorism’,” in
The Logic of Action I: Method, Money and the Austrian School
(Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1997), pp. 105–06.