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

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
58 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
have turned out to be weaklings? And how many Americans
have risen from the ranks of the poor and ignorant? Let us
never forget that Beethoven was the son of a confirmed
drunkard, a man “unfit” by any eugenic standard. If Dr. Cutten
or other “rugged” would-be murderers had been permitted
to do their work in that era, the world would have lost
a Beethoven. How many unborn geniuses would similarly be
slaughtered by the “scientific” rugged eugenists?
When it comes to sterilization, Mr. Rugged Individualist,
“kindly include me out.” I’m sure my sentiments will be
heartily echoed by all the rest of the nonrugged or
antirugged individualists. If, Mr. R.I., you grieve because you
cannot impart your gift to the world, remember that “charity
begins at home.”
5. The Fallacy of the “Improvement of the Race”
A fallacy committed by many groups of political philosophers
is that somehow an individual living in the present is
of far less importance and value than some hypothetical person
living in the future.
People of the present are supposed to have a sacred duty
to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the “future,” for the
benefit of some man of the future. Thus, the Marxists justify
their unconscionable slaughter as the inevitable birth
pangs of a better and happier world of the future.
Aside from the fact that the Marxian-Stalinist future
would not be a happy one, I strenuously object to a doctrine
that holds a person of the present expendable for the benefit
of the future.
The Rugged Individualist, however, justifies slaughter of
the present because future individuals are supposedly benefited.
“Was nature unkind to the negro when she quietly got
rid of the malaria-susceptible members of the race and
developed race immunity?” 12 This is merely one example.
12 Cutten, “Rugged Individualism,” p. 70.