"TO TWO GENUINE AND UNCOMPROMISING RADICAL (I.E. GENUINE) LIBERTARIANS": FIRST EDITION OF ETHICS OF LIBERTY, INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION BY MURRAY ROTHBARD, "A SCHOLAR OF LIBERTY ON A PAR WITH MISES AND HAYEK"

ROTHBARD, Murray. The Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, (1982). Octavo, original gilt-stamped navy cloth. $7200.

First edition of Rothbard's "second magnum opus… a pillar of the Rothbardian system" in its bold pursuit of principles introduced in Man, Economy and State, inscribed in the year of publication by Rothbard, the father of libertarianism: "To L— & L— F— Warmest regards to two genuine and uncompromising radical (i.e. genuine) libertarians. Murray Rothbard."

"Following his revered teacher and mentor, Ludwig von Mises, Mises' teachers Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk and Carl Menger… Rothbard was one of those rare individuals who did contribute to ethics as well as economics." Building on principles introduced in his first book, Man, Economy and State (1962), Ethics is a "pillar of the Rothbardian system… his second magnum opus. In it, he explains the integration of economics and ethics via the joint concept of property… [and] deduces the corpus of libertarian law" (Hoppe, Introduction, Ethics of Liberty, 1998). "A scholar of liberty on a par with Mises and Hayek … Rothbard not only systematized and perfected the insights of Mises and his school of pure free-market economics, but also fought to establish an American beachhead for the Misesian school—and did it almost single-handedly" (Raimondo, Enemy of the State, 20). "In his masterful Ethics, Rothbard deals with the hard questions: the criminal system, land redistribution, the vexing problem of children's rights, bribery, boycotts, lifeboat situations… If he is an eminent historian, and the world's leading Austrian economist, he is no less than the father of libertarianism" (Rockwell & Block, Man, Economy, and Liberty, xi- xviii).

Ethics remains one of the discipline's most "fundamental theories of justice… a defense of his entire intellectual edifice" (Hamowy, Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, 442-43). "Rothbard says that the very existence of the state—the entity with monopoly privilege to invade private property—is contrary to the ethics of liberty" (Mises Institute). He declares the state dangerously unique in its capacity to tax: "Taxation is theft, purely and simply, even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale" (162). As issued without dust jacket.

A fine copy.