Exposing the Racist History Of Libertarianism And Murray Rothbard

[ZombieHorde]

Murray Rothbard was the student of Ludwig Von Mises and a friend of Ayn Rand. Rothbard was a racist, and believed in the "voluntary" separation of the races. I have argued that his teacher, Mises, was an elitist with fascist tendencies. This part of libertarian history is a part that the libertarians would like to cover up. It slips out at times and has done so with Ron Paul, Rand Paul and others. But we need to take a look at what these guys believed, circa 1990 because that was not so long ago.

We know that Rothbard spoke kindly of David Duke, the KKK office seeker. One disaffected libertarian was dismayed that Rothbard would seek to align himself with a pure racist just because he believed in limited government. The only reason that Rothbard did not back a separate state for blacks was because he was afraid it would cost too much in "foreign aid".

It should be noted that Ron Paul distanced himself from Rothbard's racism, in stating that racism is a collectivist view. Still, there is a strong racial tension in libertarian thought. Ron Paul's newletters had racist thoughts in them, although Dr Paul stated they were put in his publications without his knowledge. I have no reason to doubt that. But these were mistakes that are significant.

But even Rand Paul made a racial gaff right after he won the senate seat, that he regretted, when he said he was for the repeal of the 1964 civil rights act. It would seem that this racial/libertarian theme continues.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/exposing-the-racist-history-of-libertarianism-and-murray-rothbard-2011-10#ixzz2l5ByXCKU

[cprise]

1. At what point did libertarianism catch on....

It seems to be just after the Civil Rights movement won some major victories. At that point, the US government was no longer "by white people, for white people"... government was no longer exclusively "ours" so it was re-cast as an alien presence. Suddenly Barry Goldwater was making a case for extremism.

Neocon attitudes embody the sentiment that if we (white people) cannot have the government to ourselves, then nobody can have it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Yes, that would be it

the Civil Rights Act seems to've been the primary motivator for the growing popularity of "libertarianism"; that, and the Great Society social programs of LBJ's administration.

One of the big things for "Libertarians" is the idea that a business owner should be able to refuse service to anyone for any reason and that there should be nothing at all wrong with discrimination on grounds of race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or for any other reason (because in the "Libertarian" view the rights of a property owner to do as he wishes with his property trump the social considerations of equal access).

And the opposition to things like welfare and Medicare and Medicaid and Head Start and so on is also very significantly race-based; it's all about "I don't want my tax dollars going to support those people".

[Hoyt]

3. When it comes to bigotry, greed, callousness,don't see much difference in Repubs and Libertarians.