Power & Market

Rothbard Graduate Seminar 2018

Rothbard Graduate Seminar 2018

Today was the first day of this year’s Rothbard Graduate Seminar. A total of 27 students from 13 countries have joined us in Auburn to dissect and discuss Murray Rothbard’s economic treatise Man, Economy, and State. RGS stands alone as the sole academic program in the world that applies the tradition of a great book seminar to Austrian economics. It has proved to be an invaluable asset in developing modern scholars in the Misesian tradition, and is possible thanks to the incredible generosity of  Alice Lillie.

Man, Economy, and State is a work deserving of the title "great book, it having played an important role in the history of Austrian economics. Dr. Joseph Salerno has credited the publishing of Rothbard’s masterpiece as being vital to the revival of the Austrian tradition in the United States. As he wrote in his paper, The Rebirth of Austrian Economics — in Light of Austrian Economics:

This handful of scattered contributions to Austrian economics forthcoming in the 1950s, however, would have defined the death throes of the school rather than the prelude to its rebirth were it not for the creative genius of Murray Rothbard, which came to fruition in the early 1960s. The revival of Austrian economics as a living scientific movement can be dated from the publication of Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State in 1962, a contribution to Austrian economics and to pure economics in general that ranks as one of the most brilliant performances in the history of economic thought.

In his review of the book in 1962, Ludwig von Mises also identified Man, Economy, and State as an important contribution to economics that built upon the contributions of the Austrian school:

The main virtue of this book is that it is a comprehensive and methodical analysis of all activities commonly called economic. It looks upon these activities as human action, i.e., as conscious striving after chosen ends by resorting to appropriate means. This cognition exposes the fateful efforts of the mathematical treatment of economic problems…

In every chapter of his treatise, Dr. Rothbard, adopting the best of the teachings of his predecessors, and adding to them highly important observations, not only develops the correct theory but is no less anxious to refute all objections ever raised against these doctrines. He exposes the fallacies and contradictions of the popular interpretation of economic affairs.

Today’s RGS sessions focused on the first three chapters of Man, Economy, and State, with Dr. David Gordon lecturing on praxeology and Dr. Guido Hulsmann leading discussion on topics such as direct and indirect exchange.

Some photos from today’s sessions can be found below:

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Group photo of Mises staff and fellows