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

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
66 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
And, of course, he fails to mention, since it is inconvenient
for him, that libertarianism—laissez-faire—reached its
apogee in the French rationalist works of Bastiat, Molinari,
etc., in the middle and late nineteenth century. 17 Bentham
erred in being too empirical and pragmatic, just as were
Hayek’s other heroes, such as Burke. It is ironic that it was
17Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) was orphaned at the age of nine
and then raised by relatives. Sometime later he became involved in
the family’s exporting business. He then went to Spain and Portugal
to try, without success, to establish an insurance company. In 1825,
he returned to France after inheriting his grandfather’s estate. He
began his career as a writer, publishing some articles in the Journal
des économistes. Among these was the “Lettre ouverte à M. de
Lamartine sur le droit au travail,” a criticism of socialist theories. He
was enthusiastic about Richard Cobden’s opposition to the Corn
Laws in England, about which he wrote Cobden et la ligue, ou l’Agitation
anglaise pour la liberté des échanges. He published a series
of articles in which he attacked protectionism, highlighting the problem
of the unintended consequences of government policies. Some of
his writings were published in Sophismes économiques
(1845–1848). In 1846, he founded the Association pour la liberté
des échanges in Paris. In addition, because of his writings and
speeches he was appointed to the finance commission. Also see his
Harmonies économiques.
Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) was one of the most important
proponents of laissez-faire and liberalism in France. Against protectionism,
statism, militarism, colonialism, and socialism, he continued
to fight for liberal ideals right up until the eve of the First World
War, when he was in his nineties. In 1840, he moved from his native
Belgium to Paris to start work as a journalist and economist. His liberalism
was based on the theory of natural rights. He supported laissez-faire
in economics and minimum state intervention in politics. In
1849, in the Journal des économistes, he published “De la production
de la sécurité,” in which he maintained that private companies
working under a regime of competition, along with insurance companies,
could supply policing and national security services more efficiently,
more economically, and in a more moral way than the state.
He contributed a series of articles to the Dictionnaire de l’économie
politique (1852–1853). During the reign of Napoleon III, he
returned to Belgium where he became a professor of political economy.
See also his works L’Évolution économique du dix-neuvième
siècle: théorie du progrès (1880) and L’Évolution politique et la
révolution (1884).