The Ethics of Liberty

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NYU Press, 2002 - Business & Economics - 308 pages
In recent years, libertarian impulses have increasingly influenced national and economic debates, from welfare reform to efforts to curtail affirmative action. Murray N. Rothbard's classicThe Ethics of Libertystands as one of the most rigorous and philosophically sophisticated expositions of the libertarian political position.What distinguishes Rothbard's book is the manner in which it roots the case for freedom in the concept of natural rights and applies it to a host of practical problems. An economist by profession, Rothbard here proves himself equally at home with philosophy. And while his conclusions are radical--that a social order that strictly adheres to the rights of private property must exclude the institutionalized violence inherent in the state--his applications of libertarian principles prove surprisingly practical for a host of social dilemmas, solutions to which have eluded alternative traditions.The Ethics of Libertyauthoritatively established the anarcho-capitalist economic system as the most viable and the only principled option for a social order based on freedom. This edition is newly indexed and includes a new introduction that takes special note of the Robert Nozick-Rothbard controversies.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xxii
PREFACE
xxxvii
Natural Law versus Positive
3
A Crusoe Social Philosophy
29
Voluntary Exchange
35
Ownership and Aggression
49
The Problem of Land Theft
63
Land Monopoly Past and Present
69
Bribery
129
Lifeboat Situations
149
The Rights of Animals
155
The Nature of the State
161
The Inner Contradictions of the State
175
The Moral Status of Relations to the State
183
On Relations Between States
189
MODERN ALTERNATIVE THEORIES OF LIBERTY
199

SelfDefense
77
Children and Rights
97
Human Rights As Property Rights
113
Knowledge True and False
121
Toward a Theory of Strategy for Liberty
257
BIBLIOGRAPHY
275
INDEX
295
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

The author of numerous books, the late Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995) was the S. J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Academic Vice President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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