One of the remarkable aspects of Rothbard's Strategy paper is that about a third of it is devoted to praising the strategic genius of two rather anti-libertarian chaps: Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler. Aside from the fact that the course of action chosen by two such despicable human beings as Lenin and Hitler should be viewed with extreme scepticism, the obvious problem with an approach which tries to superimpose strategic successes of the past - in one case a past which is almost 60 years old and in both cases strategies employed during wartime - on today's situation, is that they have little relevance to today's situation. Yet Rothbard, I can tell you from personal experience, persists in his obsessive role-playing as a modern day Lenin. For evidence I refer you to a recent Libertarian Forum in which he rates each and every National Committee member on the basis of what percentage of their votes coincided with his own. Rothbard even rated state delegation votes at the National Convention according to his self-determined party line. To me this sort of breathless accounting of others' deviations which was typical of Lenin's cadre during the revolution is ludicrously out of place in today's libertarian movement. It is not only counter-productive, it is childish.

But here is Rothbard again in his strategy paper describing his plumbline vision of a strict intellectual hierarchy for the movement:

Probably the most successful historical instance of a continuing protracted adherence to this (i.e. his) centrist line ... is Vladimir Lenin.

And later:

That the Nazis understood the importance of hierarchical organization is made clear by Godffrey Pridham, who writes that 'the nature of the Nazi party's organization with it's elaborate system of graded commands provided headquarters with a framework for controlling activities at the grass roots level.'

Some more of the philosophy which I think helps explain Rothbard's recent tirades and machinations:

The Bolshevik Party, the Fascist Party, the Nazi Party, all had gradations of leadership in their organizations. In fact we can now see with greater clarity that one of Lenin's great accomplishments was simply to take the modern theory of organization, of hierarchy of ability and corresponding leadership, which had come to fruition in the corporation, and to introduce it, for the first time, in a movement for radical social change.

Wonderful. There's more good stuff in this paper which serious Libertarians should be aware of if they want to understand Murray Rothbard. Here's another one:

Hitler also understood the importance of having a dedicated cadre within a broader party organization. Thus, Hitler once said, it is necessary to have something ... within the organization of the law of association (as) a further organization which carries through the further idea to the full degree in order to preserve the instrument of the unity of the movement against all attempts to destroy it.

Hitler, Rothbard tells us, was

particularly impressed with the graded hierarchical organization of the Roman Catholic Church.

I could go on. But let me say here that I'm not trying to equate Rothbard with Lenin and Hitler. Rothbard has been a giant in the fight for liberty. His scholarly work in philosophy and economics has earned him a much deserved stature among libertarians. However, this does not make him a political strategist or tactician. Rothbard, it seems to me doesn't want to admit he can't do everything. The similarity between him and these historical figures whose strategies he desires to emulate lies in the self-delusion of his own infallibility. And that would not be dangerous if not for his desire to project his vision for the movement through his beloved hierarchy. If there is a chain of command and Rothbard is at the top, then, he reasons, we are all spouting libertarianism according to Rothbard and all is well with the world. Murray Rothbard fervently wants to do our thinking for us.

Perhaps a couple of final quotes from his strategy paper will make this point clear. Rothbard criticises the Libertarian Party because

First, anyone can become a party member simply by signing a vague (and non-enforceable) pledge, and once a member he cannot be expelled; and Second every party member, regardless of how ignorant, un-libertarian, or moronic, is encouraged to think of himself as cadre, or being as good as any other libertarian.

And finally, in praise of communist parties that have understood the problems created by the unbridled independence of members cited above, he says:

Every party member is not equal to every other. From the very beginning, the new party member knows his place.

And here Rothbard has underlined in the manuscript 'knows his place'.

If Rothbard were simply running a corporation which he had designed in a hierarchical manner to sink or swim based on his commands perhaps one could forgive him these excesses. But as I've stated before, for the libertarian movement to succeed we need real world intellectuals who think for themselves and are out promoting the libertarian philosophy. Ours is a philosophy that can't succeed with an army of robots. Yet that is what I am convinced the Scholar-expert Rothbard wants.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this can be seen in Rothbard's vicious attacks on the Clark for President White Papers. These studies, which detailed the four major planks of Clark's campaign, were singled out, one by one, as unconscionable sell-outs. They were referred to collectively by Rothbard as 'infamous'.

Libertarian principle was betrayed, the LP platform traduced and ignored, our message diluted beyond recognition ... they sold their souls - ours, unfortunately, along with it - for a mess of pottage.

It was Rothbard's outspoken criticism of these White Papers that first really got me thinking about what motivates the man. Here were the four best libertarian analyses of current policy questions ever written and they are viciously attacked by the man who, presumably, was the leading proponent of advancing libertarian ideas. (...) The White Papers consisted of one on education written by Bill Burt, one on foreign policy written by Earl Ravenal, one on social security written by Pete Ferrara and one on Clark's tax and spending cut proposal, which would have reduced the size of the federal government by one-third in one year, written by David Boaz. Now, these papers were meticulously researched, professionally written, and scrupulously edited to ensure that they didn't compromise libertarian principle. They are excellent examples of what libertarian intellectual activists need to compete successfully in the real world of political debate. As I told Ed Clark, Jack Kennedy would have been proud of those White Papers. Seriously, I was amazed at what Rothbard had to say about those papers.

Rothbard said it wasn't clear from the White Paper on education that Clark's tuition tax credit proposal was only a transitional plan. Here's what the White Paper said:

It is fundamentally contrary to the principles of a free Society for government to involve itself in education ... It is time that we establish freedom of education, ... and remove government from this area altogether.

Rothbard said the White Paper on foreign policy abandoned a principled policy of non-intervention. Here's what the White Paper says:

The case for non-intervention is based on the moral principles of peace and respect for other peoples.

That's what a principled policy on non-intervention means.

Rothbard said the White Paper on taxing, and spending proposed a tax cut that was not 'perceivably more radical than Reagan's. Well, to say that an immediate 50% reduction in everyone's taxes, which is what the White Paper proposed, cannot be perceived as more radical than Reagan's proposed reduction in tax increases, is equivalent to saying that the Queen Mary can't be perceived to be larger than a rowing boat. Rothbard also accused us - in writing - of not calling for the abolition of OSHA in that White Paper. The Section on OSHA concludes with this sentence:

It should be abolished.

But perhaps that is a little ambiguous.

Libertarianism will prevail in our Society only if we can make it relevant to real people - only if its proponents are armed with the information, the facts necessary to flesh out the theoretical framework. Libertarianism isn't important because it is a beautifully integrated political philosophy, which it is, but because it is consistent with the nature of human beings - it allows them to live in peace, to secure prosperity, to pursue their individual values, to control their own lives. But when libertarian Intellectual-activists try to convey this to the public the philosopher-king gets Indignant. Libertarian ideas are Murray Rothbard's private domain. He's the expert, so forget how good the Clark White Papers are, unauthorised people are dealing in ideas. And I'm not talking solely about anyone who reaches out to other people on behalf of libertarianism.

Here's Rothbard in an issue of Libertarian Forum writing in a column he calls 'The is the Movement You Have Chosen'. His byline, incidentally, is 'Old Curmudgeon', a title he bestowed upon himself many years ago. Rothbard takes Ken Fanning, a libertarian legislator in Alaska, to task for having said in a newspaper article:

To the extent that we keep offering a philosophical diversion for PhDs we're in trouble.

Fanning goes on to say that libertarians

see individualism in a very specific way, cutting wood tonight as opposed to waiting a week to cut wood' [because of some government regulation).

At which Rothbard explodes. He mocks Fanning for espousing 'folk wisdom' and suggests he campaigns on the slogan 'Chop wood now!' He concludes condescendingly:

I'm afraid, big boy, we might have to keep some intellectuals around and even, you should excuse the expression, PhDs.

But what Rothbard doesn't realise, is that for the Libertarian Party to succeed it needs White Papers and Ken Fanning much more than it needs PhDs Scrutinising NatCom voting records. It needs folk wisdom that Rothbard mocks more than it needs scholarly nostalgia over Vladimir Lenin's organising genius.

Murray Rothbard’s Strategies For A Libertarian Victory was condensed from a longer paper dated April, 1977 and entitled "Toward A Strategy For Libertarian Social Change". This 178 page, double spaced, typewritten manuscript was written for an informal private symposium, out of which grew the Cato Institute and several activist organizations, as well as an energized Libertarian Party, which had been founded a few years earlier. The original paper, which has never been published, contains Rothbard’s analysis of several libertarian and non-libertarian political movements in addition to the conceptual framework outlined here.

This condensed version appeared first in Libertarian Review, August, 1978, which was published by the Cato Institute. Rothbard also condensed some of these ideas into Part V of The Ethics of Liberty, a section entitled "Toward A Theory of Strategy for Liberty."

After a simmering dispute over strategy, starting with the 1980 Clark for President campaign, and ending with a bruising battle in 1983 over the party’s presidential candidate, the Cato contingent left the LP, never to return. A few years later Rothbard also left the LP as a result of his own dissatisfaction with its strategic direction.

If liberty is to be the highest political end, then this implies that liberty is to be pursued by the most efficacious means, i.e., those means which will most speedily and thoroughly arrive at the goal. This means that the libertarian must be an “abolitionist,” i.e., he must wish to achieve the goal of liberty as rapidly as possible. If he balks at abolitionism, then he is no longer holding liberty as the highest political end. The libertarian, then, should be an abolitionist who would, if he could, abolish instantaneously all invasions of liberty. Following the classical liberal Leonard Read, who advocated immediate and total abolition of price-and-wage controls after World War II, we might refer to this as the “button-pushing” criterion. Thus, Read declared that “If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would release all wage-and-price controls instantaneously I would put my finger on it and push!” The libertarian, then, should be a person who would push a button, if it existed, for the instantaneous abolition of all invasions of liberty — not something, by the way, that any utilitarian would ever be likely to do.

As many have argued, libertarianism as idea and movement contains strands that often conflict, beg questions, or try our sensibilities. There are multiple libertarianisms. Two leading theorists of modern libertarianism are Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard. Both pupils of Ludwig von Mises, Hayek and Rothbard provide dual libertarianisms that share a common precept but sustain that precept in inverse ways. Both Hayek and Rothbard maintain that, in societies like theirs, the desirable always concords with liberty (or maximal liberty). Rothbard achieved this concordance by molding his sensibilities about the desirable to fit his definition of liberty. Hayek achieved this concordance by molding his definition of liberty to fit his sensibilities about the desirable. These two libertarianisms represent a duality of worthy rhetorical tasks, namely, those of the “bargainer” (exemplified by Hayek) and the “challenger” (exemplified by Rothbard). But libertarians ought to reject the precept of concordance: the desirable does not always concord with liberty. I attempt a blending of Hayek and Rothbard that recognizes the several limitations of libertarianism, sustains Hayek’s sensibilities, yet maintains Rothbard’s cogent definition of liberty. The paper explores various ways in which the proposed blending makes for a reasonable and versatile “mere” libertarianism that successfully participates in mainstream discourse.