The State versus Liberty

The Nature of the State (MP3) The Inner Contradictions of the State (MP3)

The Moral Status of Relations to the State (MP3) On Relations between States (MP3)

Most people, writes Murray Rothbard, including most political theorists, believe that once one concedes the importance, or even the vital necessity, of some particular activity of the State — such as the provision of a legal code — that one has ipso facto conceded the necessity of the State itself. The State indeed performs many important and necessary functions: from provision of law to the supply of police and fire fighters, to building and maintaining the streets, to delivery of the mail. But this in no way demonstrates that only the State can perform such functions, or, indeed, that it performs them even passably well. FULL ARTICLE

Lysander Spooner: Libertarian Pietist

Only Spooner realized that it would be compounding crime and error to try to use government to right the wrongs committed by another government, writes Murray Rothbard. And so, among his pietistic and moralizing anti-slavery colleagues, only Spooner was able to see with shining clarity, despite all temptations, the stark difference between vice and crime. He saw that it was correct to denounce the crimes of governments, but that it was only compounding those crimes to maximize government power as an attempted remedy. Spooner never followed other pietists in endorsing crime or in trying to outlaw vice. FULL ARTICLE