Reviews for For a new liberty

The average rating for For a new liberty based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-06 00:00:00 Harold Mckinney The level of radical thought in this book is so exciting, I literally read all 419 pages in a personal record of 5 days. In the book, Rothbard hones in all the pieces connecting the modern Libertarian movement (as of 1972 when the book was first published at least) and the most striking thing was the consistency of the logic. It's solid. That's not to say that it shouldn't open to scrutiny, but that's precisely what Rothbard expects, and it gets me eager to catch up on the 35+ years of scholarship that's followed his manifesto, as well as specific predecessors that he used as examples. The most important and most amazing parts of his book are how he explains most of the aggression and economic woes that we're experiencing today. It's not that he's a magician with a window into the future. It's that he understands the ultimate unattainable utopianism of supporters of stateism. From government bailouts to war quagmires like Iraq and Afghanistan, Rothbard not only predicts them, but explains why they are occurring, and the inevitable failure that can come from them, because it's the only logical conclusion. The concepts espoused in For a New Liberty are gathered and encapsulated in virtual perfection by Rothbard, to expose a new generation of the world that could be. It is so fierce, unapologetic and unrelenting in its logic, that this book, more than any I've ever read, makes me want to hold it as tight to my breast as possible, while raising my other arm and proclaiming Vive La Liberte!

Review # 2 was written on 2011-10-18 00:00:00 Sheila Neufeld A facile argument that attempts to borrow authority from Locke and the natural rights tradition. Interestingly, what is wrong about this book is fairly easily summarized. On p.38, he quotes from one of Locke's treatises on government: . . . every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to. Now, what is interesting is not that he is quoting Locke (or the natural rights tradition, flawed as it is, more generally), or what he is quoting from Locke, but rather what Rothbard is omitting. Consider the full paragraph, which runs as follows: Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. See what is left out? It is basically because of this omission that Rothbard can make his case at all (ignoring the fact that the rest of the book is filled to the brim with false dichotomies and other kinds of sloppy argumentation). Because most if not all of the rest of his argument rests on the twin assumptions that a. a society is just only if there exist private property rights, and b. these rights are necessarily absolute, which these omissions -- concerning the absolute nature of this status, and property rights as an organizing principle more generally -- are explicitly meant as checks against.