Murray Rothbard on Sen. Joseph P. McCarthy by Marcus Epstein (The College of William and Mary)
On a superficial level it appears that Rothbard’s current ideological friends and enemies affected his somewhat shifting views on McCarthy. In the 1950s, the Communists and consenus liberals, who Rothbard hated, hated McCarthy, and the Old Right, who Rothbard supported, supported him. During the 1960s, Rothbard began to fear the New Right and made alliances with the New Left who hated McCarthy. Then in the twilight of his life, he made alliances with paleoconservatives, many of whom supported McCarthy and he appeared more sympathetic to him. While this may have had some influence on his tone, Rothbard’s analysis stayed remarkably consistent. Rothbard always believed that McCarthy was important for his ability to appeal directly to the masses by skipping the hostile media and intellectuals; and that his appeal to populism was necessary. However, Rothbard felt that McCarthy’s goal for his populism—rooting out Communists from the government—was too narrow, and in some ways counterproductive for a right wing movement. Rothbard hoped for someone who used McCarthy’s means but for libertarian goals. [READ FULL PAPER]
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While I have long happily known of Doctor Rothbard’s pre-ponderance of favorable disposition to Joseph McCarthy I am just enough in the reactionary camp to deplore his aversion to another great anti-communist, Francisco Franco. Franco dealt with a situation none of us in the developed west has ever faced & admittedly he was quite expedient & even cynical given how he exploited the communist menace to justify being the son of a bitch he plainly sought to be any how–but this was in Spain, far from the direct influence of the English civil wars. Very few non-anglophon responses to ideologic threats such as communism-socialism have met the high standards of us enlightenment types but the people right there on the spot were tough, resolute, decisive, bold, tenacious & stern–& got results. Just like our boy McCarthy.
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