Tag: JoAnn Rothbard

“The Annotated Napkin”: a memento of Murray

The napkin on which Murray Rothbard sketched for me a diagram of an aspect of the structure of production on July 1, 1986, now on display at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Among the books I donated two years ago to the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama was my copy of Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature (Libertarian Review Press, 1974) the one that its author, Murray Rothbard, had given to me almost thirty years ago when we went out for dinner at Argo Coffee Shop, located at 90th Street and Broadway, Manhattan, just two blocks from his apartment building.[1] While elaborating on the intricate “latticework” (his metaphor) of a market economy’s production structure, he grabbed a napkin and diagrammed his insight on both sides of it.

Normally, a restaurant napkin wouldn’t last long, but this one had a different destiny. I tucked it inside my library’s newest acquisition, where it remained safe for 28 years until I sent it to Auburn.

Yesterday the Institute’s archivist made my day by sending me a photo of the napkin on display in a plexiglass case, noting that it’s “really enjoyed by our students and visitors.”) The exhibit label reads: “The Annotated Napkin, July 1, 1986, Murray N. Rothbard, Gift of Mr. Anthony Flood.”

Continue reading ““The Annotated Napkin”: a memento of Murray”

Murray Newton Rothbard: Notes toward a Biography

JoAnn and Murray Rothbard, 1950s

I may be fairly described as (among other things) road-kill along the way to the definitive biography of Murray Rothbard (1926-1995). In 1997 I sought and gained the cooperation of his widow, Joann, and Lew Rockwell, then president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, to begin that project.

All I managed to do, however, was fulfill the prediction that this effort would overwhelm me. My enthusiasm for the idea of telling Murray’s story and expounding his ideas blinded me to the fact, obvious to everyone but me (and perhaps my mother), that I was not up to the task. The life of Rothbard, an intellectual giant, awaits its Hülsmann. And if the interval between the death of Ludwig von Mises and the production of Guido Hülsmann’s Mises: Last Knight of Liberalism is any guide, the wait is far from over.

On display below is barely refined ore mined from not only from secondary sources but, more importantly, from interviews conducted with people who knew Murray: in the first place JoAnn Rothbard, but also Leonard Liggio, Ralph Raico, George Resch, John McCarthy, and James Sadowsky.  Readers who have profited from Justin Raimondo’s An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard and Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement as well as Murray’s own monograph, The Betrayal of the American Right will discover a fact or two not related in those works, which I highly recommend.

I was pleasantly surprised when, in 2010, Gerard N. Casey, Professor (Emeritus), School of Philosophy, University College, Dublin, and Associate Scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute cited my unfinished essay (first published on my old site in 2008) in his fine monograph Murray Rothbard, a sure milestone on the road to the “definitive biography” project.1

Murray Newton Rothbard was born in the Bronx on March 2, 1926. His father, David Rothbard, a shoe­maker’s son, was raised in Vishigorod, Ukraine, 40 miles north of Warsaw on the Vistula. David, who had attended Hebrew school as a child, abandoned Juda­ism because its scriptures told of a God who had instigated the violent behavior of the Israelites, and that horrified him. Continue reading “Murray Newton Rothbard: Notes toward a Biography”