Saturday, March 10, 2012

MAN, ECONOMY, AND STATE turns 50!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State. Long considered Rothbard's Magnum Opus, it is a tremendous achievement and still deserves to be read by everyone who is interested in economic theory and policy.

The final event of this year's Austrian Scholars Conference will be a roundtable panel session today on the semicentennial of the book. I am honored to participate, along with Peter Klein, Joseph Salerno, David Gordon, Guido Hulsmann, and Jeffrey Herbener.

Some of my remarks will be based on part of an article I wrote a number of years ago, "Samuelson and Rothbard: Two Texts and Two Legacies," in which I compare Paul Samuelson's Economics: An Introductory Analysis with Man, Economy, and State. My brief prepared remarks will be discussing why Man, Economy, and State works so well for teaching principles of economics. Its main virtues along these lines is that Rothbard is a very engaging and clear writer and his building up an edifice of economic truth from the premise of human action. As such, readers of Rothbard learn a body of economic laws that they can take to the bank (and a 100% reserve bank at that!). The bulk of my text is based on the pedagogy of Rothbard's great achievement. Man, Economy, and State is deserving of this conference session drawing attention to its many contributions because economic truth never grows old.

Word has it that the session will be streamed live today at 5:30pm Eastern, 4:30pm Central. You can watch it here:


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