Murray N RothbardFor a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

Every so often, you hear about a rise or "comeback" of libertarianism in American politics, and it leaves many curious about what exactly libertarianism is. This, in my opinion as a longtime libertarian, is the definitive book to read in order to understand the core philosophy that drives libertarian thinking. If you want to comprehend the beating heart of today's liberty movement, as well as its place in the history of political thought for the last few hundred years *and* its possible future, read Murray Rothbard's "For a New Liberty."Rothbard, the greatest champion of the Austrian school of economics in the latter 20th century, begins his book by explaining how similar the American Revolution and founding was to his idea of libertarianism and places the American experiment as the culmination of a longer progression toward more liberty and freedom. He then proceeds to explain the very simple and compelling moral idea that drives the entire philosophy: the non-aggression principle.The non-aggression principle states that it is wrong to aggress, or initiate violence, toward someone's person or property. In natural rights philosophy, John Locke's thinking that a person's right to certain tangible objects or spaces of land (property) follow from that person's right to their own body. Every person owns their body as well as what they produce with their body. Rothbard takes Locke's logic one step further: if we all own our bodies and what we produce with our bodies, and we all have the right to associate and exchange our property as we see fit, then the state (the government) has no special excuse to violate these rights. The state no more has the right to tax and control its citizens lives than the mafia does to those who live in its claimed neighborhoods.Agree or disagree with that logic, its simplicity is coherent and compelling.After explaining that core ethic of non-aggression, Rothbard applies it abstractly to property and exchange rights and the state in general. From there, he applies his line of thinking to individual issues that are often perceived as the "weak spots" of libertarianism: welfare and poverty, education, corporate monopolies, streets and roads, environmental issues, and, of course, how to deal with crime. In closing the book, Rothbard discusses his purist view of how libertarians should seek to advance their agenda in the real world.This book is written for a general audience—no background in political philosophy or history needed to understand anything he's talking about. The writing is clear and concise. Never wordy or longwinded. I am a libertarian myself largely because of my exposure to Rothbard's logic, but I think for non-libertarians looking for one book that will explain this whole "libertarianism" thing, this book would be it. My one warning for those thinking of purchasing it from Amazon: make sure you're buying the right version. I bought the paperback without knowing it was the large print edition. A little annoying, but it was my own mistake for not double checking.I highly recommend this book for all libertarians and anyone with an interest in politics, political philosophy, or ethics.

A wide-ranging tour de force by a true genius. Rothbard starts us on the road by describing the history of the idea of liberty - how it started, how we won it, and how we subsequently lost it (I found that section absolutely fascinating). Starting from a simple premise - you own your body, your mind, and the fruits of your labor, and no one can beat you up, take your stuff, or lock you up - Rothbard develops a whole philopsophy of society. Nothing is left out, from law enforcement to education to law to public works to commerce. Rothbard relentlessly applies the very basic philosophy consistently to all areas of society. There are definitely ideas in here that will be new to you - anyone who enjoys having their minds stretched will love this book.No one can say what a truly libertarian society might look like (that would be like asking the Wright Brothers how they thought commercial air travel might be organized), but Rothbard takes a stab at it, and draws some very appealing conclusions.I love the way Rothbard was a master of history, philosophy, economics, and politics (among others). Every part of his argument is insightful and logical.

I am about halfway through this book and I can say it is the “Libertarian Manifesto.” It covers every conceivable topic and provides the foundation of libertarianism, which is natural law, and defends private property through that basis. Rothbard takes the ideas of non-violence and property rights to their absolute conclusion: The abolition of the state. As well as addressing problems and solutions, he brutally shoots down any and all arguments with impeccable logic. This book is what all ideas of libertarianism are developed off of so if you want to get to the core of anything you are confused about or just want to explore the philosophy of libertarianism then I definitely recommend this book.

Rothbard is the most persuasive radical libertarian you will find.I was particularly amazed at his short section on abortion; he sidesteps the issue of personhood entirely and treats it purely in terms of property rights. I was so impressed that i had to set the book down and think on his argument for a good hour. I think he changed my pro-life position.After i finished this i immediately went out and ordered 6 of his other books.

The content of the book is good quality, would be 4/5 for the words themselves. However, the hardcover book published by Important Books is defective. Almost every paragraph in the book has internal words spacing issues which is very ir itating. Also the text has been shrunk to non standard tiny font to enable them to use fewer sheets. Finally, the cover is the laminated cheap cardboard type, not cloth. Overall it's a good read, but get the paperback/kindle version instead.ISBN is 978-1-77323-138-0 Avoid this version.

Every politician, both here and in the USA should be forced to read this book. Rothbard should be on the curriculum in every school.This book really does explain how we all might be experiencing true independence and freedom from our enemy, the state. Excellent!

This edition is a must have.

Since the Libertarian party has been getting so much attention during the 2016 election as a possible alternative to the candidates from the two major parties, it seemed like a good idea to try to learn more about the positions of the party. I started with their 2016 party platform but found it nothing more than the equivalent of a few powerpoint bullet points.I was therefore happy to have found this book from Rothbard since it tries to layout the Libertarian position on everything from drugs, abortion, foreign policy, and even air and noise pollution. Although I still have many questions about their positions, after finishing this book I feel I have a real understanding of the principles of the party. The book begins with a discussion of the basic principles of the Libertarians and then, chapter for chapter applies those principles to specific topics in a well reasoned fashion. It is also easy to read depite many of the political discussions being dated to the situations in the 1970s.The author, Murray Rothbard, is considered to be one of the founders of the Libertarian movement and had been involved with other key movement figures like Ayn Rand and the Koch brothers. According to other books about the movement, most of those relationships ended in disagreements. This book was published originally in 1973 as an attempt to layout the Libertarian principles. It succeeds very well.Reading the book, it was hard to escape the impression that Libertarian thinking fit perfectly for a comfortably living academic who now has his own and wants to keep everyone else away. It is hard to imagine this philosophy appealing to people that are poor or downtrodden or not strong enough to protect their own interests like the women killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire or coal miners who had been forced to "sell their souls to the company store."It is easy to imagine the movement as an association of people arguing about true principles rather than as an association of people that could actually build a society that functions. One conservative (William Buckley) described them as a group of people that would argue constantly about privatizing garbage disposal. I can imagine their get-togethers having the same level of discussion as a get-together of Trotsky and Lenin followers.It is debatable whether many of these Libertarian approaches would work in practice. For that reason, it would be really useful if a group of Libertarians would form a community somewhere based upon their principles to see if they could really make this work. For example, many of their approaches for providing community services and infrastructure is based upon an assumption that so many firms would be competing to supply you with water and remove your garbage that those businesses would provide perfectly efficient services to you. Ironically, Rothbard's love of firms in the earlier chapters is dismissed by his attacks of our current big businesses with their tendencies to drive towards monopolies and to feed at the government trough.The Libertarian society painted by Rotbard would likely be a very litigious society since many of Rothbard's remedies for air and noise pollution involve suing the person who caused this attack on your personal property.Rothbard paints the Libertarian movement like other utopian movements but claims that his utopian vision is the one utopia that will really work since he feels it is the only movement based upon real human nature. The last chapter at the end of the book discusses how to make a Libertarian world come about. His proposed techniques are admittedly borrowed from Marxist movements and include many strategies that have since been implemented by the Koch brothers and the tea party movement. He also sees the need for a "crisis moment" to occur in order to get the world to adopt the Libertarian agenda. If he were still alive, Rothbard would clearly be made happy by the crisis of the 2016 election. He sees hope that "government itself has been desanctified in America. No one trusts politicians or government anymore; all government is viewed with abiding hostility, thus returning us to that state of healthy distrust of government ...."One challenge for the Libertarian political party having a presidential candidate would be what would happen if he would actually win. Since Rothbard explains that the Libertarian movement is against government in general, it would make it very difficult for any true Libertarian to take the presidential oath to preserve the constitution.In summary, this book is recommended as a logical and easy to read explanation of Libertarian thinking. ( ) flag M_Clark | Aug 12, 2016 | edit |I agree with almost nothing in this book, and find the arguments facile, the examples contrived, the analogies false, and the general intellectual tone shallow and utterly unconvincing.The best criticism comes from the book itself (p. 217): "Every reader of detective fiction knows that private insurance detectives are far more efficient than the police in recovering stolen property." That is the caliber of the argument throughout: it's easy to pretend X, therefore X is the case.But, none of that means this is a bad book. It's a good book: well-organized, easy to follow, covering a lot of ground simply, clearly and coherently. It's written for the ones who have already drank the Kool-Aid and so provides talking points, not really arguments, and it's a breeze to get through.If you want to know how radical libertarians think, this is a very good place to start. Much of the content is dated (the book was originally published in 1973), so read fast and be prepared to skip large sections.

I am only a few chapters in but the content of the book is very good. So far, it outlines philosophical standpoints that I am already familiar with as an anarchist/libertarian but does so in a manner that, I believe, may make it easier for statists to digest. I bought 3 copies of the book, 2 to give to friends and I'm anxious to discuss the content with them as we read.The only downside is that there are a lot of typographical errors. I'm assuming the book was originally printed in another format or something and there are a lot of erroneous spaces in the middle of words which can make the reading kind of choppy. It would be nice if the publisher would go through the book and correct the errors. Perhaps someone with more time will read the book with a highlighter and mail it back to the publisher when they are done. I'm tempted to do it myself.