What is the Free Market?
Murray Rothbard defines the phrase free market: "a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents. These two individuals (or agents) exchange two economic goods, either tangible commodities or nontangible services.... Both parties undertake the exchange because each expects to gain from it." FULL ARTICLE
Comments (44)
Rothbard always impresses. An excellent read.
Published: January 24, 2006 9:42 AM
Crystal-clear concepts for everyone who *really wants* to understand.
This text should be distributed to schools worldwide and taught to children at the earliest age, to "immunize" them against the real "Katrina" of biased economic ideas that realm almost everywhere - especially in Latin America, where I'm writing from now.
As you may see from recent elections in Latin America, people are kind of hypnotized by massive media campaigns that continuously innoculate virus such as: moral relativism, erosion of family, religion and community values, anti-USA, anti-semitic & anti-Israel propaganda, "politically correct" cultural trash etc., all wrapped into a nicely decorated high-gloss tear-resistant package of SOCIALISM/ COMMUNISM as the magic solution to all Latin American political/ economical issues.
You shoud perhaps try to establish some links to Latin American universities, institutions and media, in order to spread free-market viewpoint.
Published: January 24, 2006 10:14 AM
Always excellent. It gives good understanding to a term that we so often throw around and expect other all others to understand.
Published: January 24, 2006 10:46 AM
Great article. I've always view the free market as just an expression of property rights.
RH, How is Hernando de Soto viewed in Brazil? I agree we need to be more missionary. We need our think tanks, such as the Mises Institute, to set up branches all around the world.
Published: January 24, 2006 10:48 AM
I could have missed the reference, but in what publication did this Rothbard posting initially appear? I'm assuming it was previously published.
Thanks.
Published: January 24, 2006 11:06 AM
I think it was written for inclusion in the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics (Time Warner 1993), edited by David Henderson, but was left out of the final product, not by the editor though. Not sure what the circumstances were behind its exclusion (if I'm right about its original purpose).
Published: January 24, 2006 11:28 AM
Roger M, I regret to tell you that de Soto is virtually ignored in Brazil (I myself have just read something about him on the Internet, to learn a bit on his achievements within Peruvian economy).
It's hard to believe but, nowadays in Brazil there's almost no trace of intelligent life on the mass media, not even on specific publications for economic science. 99% of the articles on economics on the main newspapers and TV news (arghhhh...) have a strong leftist, anti-USA bias.
There are few exceptions to this sinister status quo, for instance a website called "midiasemmascara.com.br" (namely "media unmasked"), which has a link to some content in english - worth checking.
Published: January 24, 2006 11:31 AM
Thanks, Jeff.
Published: January 24, 2006 11:49 AM
Rothbard wrote: "Government, in every society, is the only lawful system of coercion. Other forms of government coercion . . . (prohibitions on deceptive practices, enforcement of contracts) can facilitate voluntary exchanges."
The problem I always encounter with libertarian philosophy and Austrian Economics is the irrational view that we can both have our cake and eat it too. Here Rothbard makes the case for both the right to contract free of government intrusion AND the expectation that, having made such contracts, government shall enforce them for us. This is plainly wrong-headed thought.
Suppose for a moment that our government were a private entity we had hired to enforce our contracts for us (e.g., a private Dispute Resolution Organization or DRO). Would not that DRO set EXACTING rules for us regarding which contracts we could make or, at the very least, which contracts we can make that it will enforce? Government does the same thing -- that is, since we demand public enforcement of our private contracts, government tells us which contracts we can make and those which we cannot.
Austrian economists and libertarians eventually must decide if they are statists -- or not. If they want state services they will be subject to state terms. Only when they FIRST repudiate public enforcement of private contracts will they have ANY hope of the liberty to contract without intervention by the state.
V Harris
Published: January 24, 2006 11:49 AM
RH, Are there any think tanks like the Mises Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute etc. in Brazil?
Published: January 24, 2006 11:59 AM
What an amazing article! He managed to cover a ton of ground in a short time, in a VERY readable fashion. Well done, and thanks!
Published: January 24, 2006 12:58 PM
Excellent article and easy to read, almost right out of Economics 101. Invigorating examples that don't leave the reader confused and not overtly analytical.
Published: January 24, 2006 1:12 PM
Roger M,
As far as I know, there are few local organizations in Brazil that do not play in tune with the red orchestra, e.g.: Instituto Liberal (http://www.institutoliberal.org.br/) and Instituto Liberdade (http://www.il-rs.com.br/). Both websites have links to English version of their contents.
Just a short parenthesis: I´m no economist but Mechanical Engineer, thus I keep no regular contact with academic circles.
I would suggest, someone at Mises.org with any link to Brazilian universities could try to establish contact and begin a local initiative for diffusion of Austrian thinking...
Published: January 24, 2006 1:24 PM
V Harris,
Rothbard was an anarchist. I thought you knew.
Your statement
“Here Rothbard makes the case for both the right to contract free of government intrusion AND the expectation that, having made such contracts, government shall enforce them for us. This is plainly wrong-headed thought.�
indicates you have entirely missed from where he was coming. He had no delusions that government was up to the task of providing justice and property protection. That’s funny.
Suppose another world for a moment; one where attempts to create geographically based coercive monopolies on decision making and property protection were crimes subject to physical beatings. Now imagine under that climate how DROs would operate. They would operate according to how the market, i.e. consumers, wanted them to.
The more I read, and the more I see the stunting effects on the mind due to life under the state, the more I appreciate Einstein’s proverb:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Published: January 24, 2006 1:46 PM
Dennis, my apologies, it was published as an entry from The Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics (Time Warner, 1993), David Henderson, ed., pp 636-639. The file has been updated with that information.
Published: January 24, 2006 2:04 PM
V Harris-What I usually say is *if* government has any legitimate purpose, it is to protect people's rights, i.e. to protect people from the initiation of force. Anything beyond that is illegitimate. But then I question how effective government is at protecting rights and, of course, at being effectively limited to the protection of rights.
The opening statement generally serves to bridge the ground with people who have never questioned the legitimacy of government. And then I have the option to cover more 'traditional' libertarian topics, or the more radical anarcho-capitalist ideas.
Published: January 24, 2006 2:08 PM
V. Harris, please read more of the materials on this site, especially in the media section. The discussions on anarchy are very easy to listen to (as opposed to endless, dry lecture).
Indeed the comment that *IF* government has any legitimate function, in its self-created position as the only _legitimate_ initiator of coercion, then that power is to enforce agreements voluntarily entered.
Published: January 24, 2006 3:22 PM
Did Rothbard, or did he not, defend the use of violence by our monopolistic government to enforce the terms of private agreements onto nonperforming parties?
If so, did he dispute governments power to determine for itself, which agreeements it would violently enforce, which it would not, and which it would not permit to be made in the first place?
If not, why does he cite the utility of government contract enforcement in an article about 'free markets'?
V Harris
Published: January 24, 2006 8:15 PM
The article overlooks that there is no such thing as a free market.
In precapitalist economy, trade is an addendum to the basic economy, the focus of which is production. In many societies, markets did not meet daily, only twice monthly to exchange surpluses. Trade provided additional income from surplus production over the needs of the producers, who are not dependent on trade for survival. The arrival of cash crops in most agricultural economies is the result of and the cause for the development of markets, with the cause/effect flow varying from economy to economy.
Trade is facilitated through money. The growth of importance of money led to development of financialization and its eventual dominance over production. As production came to depend on financialization by the separation of the ownership of land and other means of production from the producers through excess accumulation of trade surpluses by intermediators, income disparity between productive labor and capital increased, further increasing the dominance of financialization. The income disparity between capital and labor produces overinvestment and underconsumption caused by abnormally low wages, leading to overcapacity and growth in unemployment.
the free market concept is flawed and failed
Published: January 25, 2006 12:30 AM
V. Harris,
Rothbard:Other forms of government coercion . . . (prohibitions on deceptive practices, enforcement of contracts) can facilitate voluntary exchanges.
V.Harris: Here Rothbard makes the case for both the right to contract free of government intrusion AND the expectation that, having made such contracts, government shall enforce them for us.
It seems to me there is huge difference between the words can and shall. Nevertheless, Rothbard never said that the state shall exist in the first place.
Published: January 25, 2006 5:54 AM
V Harris,
"Austrian economists and libertarians eventually must decide if they are statists -- or not. If they want state services they will be subject to state terms. Only when they FIRST repudiate public enforcement of private contracts will they have ANY hope of the liberty to contract without intervention by the state."
You have hit the nail on the head, as I contend that those for whom the state is necessary (Mises) or acceptable (Rothbard) are not libertarians at all, but statists who differ from other statists in degree but not in kind. For the state being inherently evil (Mises), it is inherently anti-social. Thus, the state is a cancer, the eradication of which is the only means by which liberty, and thus humanity, can flourish.
And for what it's worth, I would add that to be anti-state is not to be anti-government. On the contrary, it is to be avowedly pro-government with the understanding that society cannot prevail with government, i.e., without law, the lack of which is anarchy, precisely as the dictionary defines the term.
What the true libertarian seeks, then, is civil society based on government without a state, the latter being, in reality, the antithesis of the former.
Published: January 25, 2006 8:36 AM
I find Murray Rothbard's defence of the free market and attack on government intervention to be wholly convincing and morally correct.
Coercion in all its forms is abhorrent and government plays no small part in this. The government perpetuates the law of the jungle, rather than acting as a counter-balance. There are mainy vile, inhuman activities in the world today, such as the trafficking of women for the sex trade. This has nothing to do with a free market. It is a consequence of government intervention and the resulting loss of individual accountability.
It is time to overthrow all government and destroy the parasites (drug-dealers, rapists, paedophiles, etc) who feed off of the legitimate transactions of the market.
Only in a society in which people face the direct consequences of their actions, rather than hiding behind the branches of government, can we truly be free from evil.
Published: January 25, 2006 8:49 AM
To V Harris
I don't know if M Rothbard has advocated government enforcement of private contracts. I hope not.
If a private contract is not adhered to then the free market does not require govt intervention to correct the situation. The loss of reputation for the individual involved would be sufficient. It is regulation that puts distance between the individual and the consequence of his actions.
The free market has it's own in-built mechanisms to correct failures and right wrongs.
Government control of the money-supply is simply a means through which a small elite enriches its own at the expense of the majority. They have first access to any new money printed. In a truly free market the supply of money would be dependent on the whims of the elite, but on the demand for it as a means of transaction.
Published: January 25, 2006 9:02 AM
In a truly free market the supply of money would NOT be dependent on the whims of the elite, but on the demand for it as a means of transaction.
Published: January 25, 2006 9:21 AM
David,
Rothbard’s is a statist? That's an amazing conclusion. And something tells me you’re not trying to be facetious.
Tell me how a protectionist is in a position to charge Murray Rothbard with being a statist. If Murray had been a statist, your accusation would merely have been the pot calling the kettle black. In this case, it’s the ocean calling the desert all wet.
Published: January 25, 2006 10:52 AM
Drug dealers in the same category as rapists and
pedophiles? Please explain.
Published: January 25, 2006 2:11 PM
Paul,
My "protectionism" is merely the making of the theoretical point (with which Lew agreed, by the way) that if the rest of the world did not exist, or if we treated it as if it didn't, America's 300 million people could have -- and, in a truly free-market environment, would have -- created an economic powerhouse the likes of which the world has never seen. Since we do NOT live in a truly free-market environment and are subjected to largely unfettered trade with nations with which we have enormous wage disparities, the result isn't free trade but rather forced trade -- i.e., trade that we can't afford to do without in the short run but won't be able to afford in the long run -- http://www.lewrockwell.com/douglas/douglas12.html
As for Rothbard, I figured I'd hear from somebody about my calling him a statist and must admit that I was surprised to see myself saying what I said. But insofar as Rothbard was supportive of state action (and he appears to have been in some cases), he was a statist, though I recall him saying (can't put my finger on the piece right now) that because the American experiment in a limited state had failed so miserably, it was not worth trying again and that all who were attempting to rein it back in were wasting their time.
Soooo, the bottom line remains this: You can't have a limited state any more than you can be a little bit pregnant, meaning that the state must go and that only those who so believe are true libertarians.
Published: January 25, 2006 4:09 PM
Max wrote:
"As production came to depend on financialization by the separation of the ownership of land and other means of production from the producers through excess accumulation of trade surpluses by intermediators, income disparity between productive labor and capital increased, further increasing the dominance of financialization."
There is no such thing as "trade surpluses", Max. Producers cannot produce goods out of thin air. There has been no such separation of ownership of land and means of production from producers, Max - that idea is ridiculous.
"The income disparity between capital and labor produces overinvestment and underconsumption caused by abnormally low wages, leading to overcapacity and growth in unemployment."
Please explain by what mechanism does the supposedly income disparity between "capital" and "labor" causes overinvestment, Max, and what is an abnormally low wage. Care to state what would a "normal" wage look like?
Published: January 25, 2006 4:22 PM
David,
“My "protectionism" is merely the making of the theoretical point (with which Lew agreed, by the way) that if the rest of the world did not exist, or if we treated it as if it didn't, America's 300 million people could have -- and, in a truly free-market environment, would have -- created an economic powerhouse the likes of which the world has never seen.�
Applying Rothbardian free market, anti-statist analysis to your position, I would argue that your conclusion would only be correct DESPITE your state enforced protectionism, not, in any form, due to it. One of the reasons your conclusion would be correct is because your scenario precludes trade restrictions between the 300 million individuals in the united states; from Oregon to Florida; from the affluent in Hollywood to the destitute in New York’s slums. Economic theory expounded by Rothbard refutes the conclusion that coercive trade restrictions of any sort can ever provide a net benefit to any economy. International trade restrictions would necessarily on net, hurt the consumers of the United States, regardless of foreign wage disparities, other government interventions or any other circumstances one might chose to consider in the analysis.
There are alleged “free market� economists out there who can fairly be labeled statists. Rothbard was never one of them. But furthermore, when it is you who advocates a particular form of state intervention in the market, where Rothbard consistently advocated hands off, consider first the potential for irony in being the one labeling him as a statist.
Published: January 25, 2006 6:06 PM
Paul,
Hollywood doesn't trade with Harlem, at least not in any meaningful way, whereas America not only trades with China, et al., but does so on a massive scale that would not be possible unless those countries didn't in turn lent us the money to do so. You're welcome to call this free trade, but the fact is that globalization is so corrupted by fraudulent government money and other statist interventions that "free trade" in today's world is complete and utter nonsense.
As for Rothbard, I'm a huge fan and was stretching things to make a point, which is that the only difference between a small state and a large one is time, as Rothbard apparently learned in the interim.
Published: January 25, 2006 7:48 PM
i.e., without law, the lack of which is anarchy, precisely as the dictionary defines the term
You have a bad dictionary. Try the OED. An-arkhos = without-rulers, not without-laws; the latter would be a-nomos, anomy.
Published: January 25, 2006 8:13 PM
David, am I reading you correctly? Are you saying that Rothbard advocated statism or state intervention of some sort or favored state action anywhere at anytime in human history? You need to get to some specifics and some citations and quickly. Somehow if this were true, I do think that the Rothbardians should be the first to know about it. Actually, there is no need for a dramatic pause here. It's just not true.
Published: January 25, 2006 8:57 PM
Paul and Jeffrey,
Granted, one steps in it big-time on this site to accuse Rothbard of being of all things a statist, but all I was really doing was picking up on V Harris's Rothbard quote above -- "Government, in every society, is the only lawful system of coercion. Other forms of government coercion . . . (prohibitions on deceptive practices, enforcement of contracts) can facilitate voluntary exchanges" -- to make the point that once the state is in any way legitimized (and I don't see how Rothbard doesn't legitimize it here), one is on the slippery slope from being a little bit pregnant to giving birth to a monster.
And now that I've now found the Rothbard essay I referred to above -- http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1709 -- let me quote the relevant passage:
"The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances. If it failed then, why should a similar experi ment fare any better now? No, it is the conservative laissez-farist, the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and THEN says, 'Limit yourself'; it is HE who is truly the impractical utopian."
So lest either of you think I'm trying to denigrate Rothbard, I assure you I'm trying no such thing. I'm just saying that because the state is inherently evil, its every act, no matter how beneficial to some, must by its nature be harmful to others. Thus, like a cancer, it cannot be accommodated and must instead be eradicated.
Peter,
I'm well aware of the OED definition of the word anarchy, but as Wikipedia rightly says, "Anarchy can refer to several different things," and today anarchy is understood by the general public not in terms of absolute individual freedom being a political ideal but "Absence of any form of governmental authority or law," "Political disorder and confusion," etc.
I'm all too aware (having been subjected to verbal attack by more than a few of them) that many libertarians identify with the older definition of the term and refuse to give it up just because today it is perceived as a pejorative. And while I continue to maintain the their doing so is counterproductive -- "I'm an anarchist...no no, let me explain! -- I've resigned myself to the fact that we are a long way, if ever, from resolving the matter within our ranks.
Published: January 26, 2006 8:40 AM
I don't dispute Rothbard's point that government coercion can facilitate voluntary exchanges. Similarly, I don't entirely disagree that governments monopoly control over money can fuel economic expansion. Rather, it is the negative consequences that flow from governmental expropriation of these 'powers' that eventually becomes the rub.
I'm no student of Rothbard, but I presume he had the foresight to renounce fully state monetary monopolies due to the negative consequences that follow. Apparently he didn't renounce state contract enforcement monopolies with similar zest, opting instead merely to niggle about where best to draw the contract-making and enforcement lines -- while seemingly ceding fully to government its enforcement monopoly. Hence, is not his a 'statist' position -- accepting both state powers and the 'unintended' consequences that follow?
This, of course, makes David's observation spot-on that ". . . those for whom the state is necessary (Mises) or acceptable (Rothbard) are not libertarians at all, but statists who differ from other statists in degree but not in kind." A most excellent observation!
V Harris
Published: January 26, 2006 11:43 AM
Ok, thanks for the clarification David. I suppose it is possible to acknowledge that some statist ends are not incompatible with markets (criminal punishment, contract enforcement, etc.) while also pointing out that the means by which these activities are funded (taxation, inflation) and carried out (exclusion of competition) are incompatible with the market society.
Published: January 26, 2006 12:08 PM
For those arguing that Rothbard had a Statist strain in him, what exactly would you suggest? Given that we have a State right now, a question that is legitimate to deal with is, "What should it do?" And by that, I mean in a practical way. An obvious answer to that question, from an anarcho-capitalist position, is that it should dismantle itself and completely privatize all of its functions that would be legitimate on a free market. However, that isn't going to happen in the immediate future; in fact, the prospects of any State ever dismantling itself seems very dim (rather, if a totally voluntary society is to come, it won't come through abdication by gov't officials).
So, given that we have a State right now, and that it isn't going away anytime in the immediate future, one question that we can ask is, "What now?" Is anyone here seriously suggesting that there shouldn't be contract-enforcement law, law against murder, against rape, against the destruction/invasioon of property, simply because the unfortunate situation is that right now, a coercive gov't monopoly is the only thing allowed to enforce these laws?
Now, it's also a valid ancap position to say that the State shouldn't enforce the laws, but rather leave that to private organizations. All good and well, but that also isn't happening anytime in the immediate future .
Likewise, given that we have a State now, what of someone who wants to become a policeman, or fireman? I argue, as Rothbard did, that this person isn't a crook by libertarian standard. The world they were born into isn't their fault, and it would be a truly perverse interpretation of libertarianism to assert that it means that individuals can't pursue their own career-choices -- that is, that their liberty should be further restricted -- just because their liberty is already restricted by the existence of the State.
Published: January 26, 2006 1:00 PM
David, while I tend to agree with your post, I also think there's a difference between a homicide cop and one on the vice squad!
Published: January 26, 2006 1:29 PM
Murry Rothbard did not support the existance of government.
The gentleman above seems to be confusing Rothbard with minimal state libertarians (such as myself) we can indeed be accused of accepting the existance of governnment and then wanting to restrict its activities.
Anarchists (or anarcho-capitalists if you prefer) regarded us as silly for thinking that government (was accepted) could ever be really limited in the long term.
On "pre capitalist" economic life. Even M.M. Poston (no libertarian) accepted (in his 1972 work) that England in the middle ages most farming villages were part of a market economy (even before serfdom went into decline with the Black Death of the 14th century). I repeat that Poston was an establishment historian - for an examination of the supposedly "feudal mode of production" by a more free market person see Alan Macfarlane's "The Origins of English Individualism" (1978).
A market economy does not have to mean big factories. Indeed a market economy does not even have to have coins - money was in use in many forms before the invention of coins (contracts would simply be expressed in terms of the weight and quality of a certain commodity, for example silver).
As for Latin America: The only free market university I have heard of in Latin America is in Guatemala (although there may be others).
But, of course, academia (and much of the media) in Europe and North America is dominated by people who want an ever bigger government.
The idea that the "cultural superstructure" is dominated by a "capitalist ideology" is Marxist nonsense.
Indeed even in Karl Marx's own lifetime the best selling (and best known) economic and political writer in the English speaking world was John Stuart Mill - not the defender of a pure free market (as he is sometimes presented) but a confused and often deeply interventionist person.
See the examination of J.S. Mill that Rothbard gives in his "An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought: Volume Two, The Classical School".
It would be useful to read his examination of Karl Marx in the same work.
Last point: I remember Rothbard as saying "all rights are property rights" rather than "all rights are human rights", but I am not a young man anymore and my memory may be at fault.
Published: January 26, 2006 1:53 PM
I apologize for typing "was accepted" rather than "once accepted", and for my other errors.
Published: January 26, 2006 1:58 PM
David Heinrich,
I don't sneer at my postman because he works for the state; rather, I lament his participation in what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil" and the terrible destructiveness that this matter-of-factness (as was the case with the Nazi concentration camps that she was referring to) has on human society.
As for your question "What now?", given that the state "isn't going away anytime in the immediate future," I would say don't be so sure. In light of my Rothbard quote above and the fact that the American welfare-warfare colossus teeters on the brink of collapse (i.e., years not decades away), will the resulting devolution of power back to the states not set the stage for real experiments, at long last, in stateless society -- i.e., of government without a territorial monopoly on the use of force?
To understand what the World Wide Web is all about is to get a glimpse of the answer:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
And the state has no place in it.
Published: January 26, 2006 5:50 PM
Austrians (including Rothbardians) are obliged either to repudiate or fully articulate the proper role of state coercion in economic affairs -- including contracting and enforcement. From the smattering of reading I've done, Austrians are keen on repudiating state intervention in the making of contracts while demurring on the principle of publicly-financed violent enforcement of same. Even if not so, to outside observers this appears blatantly hypocritical.
No one faults Austrians for behaving in accordance with current law, only for their zeal to attack government intervention where it runs counter to their interests while remaining mostly silent about government intervention where it seemingly serves their interests.
Austrians should delineate the proper economic system for both making and enforcing private agreements -- and posit a plausible method of getting from here to there. But don't be naive. Don't expect that government will continue to use its power to enforce our private agreements while freeing us from its current restrictions on which agreements we can make and which it will enforce. Any transition will have to be done the other way around -- FIRST ceasing public enforcement THEN freeing us to contract as we choose.
That is, of course, if Austrians genuinely desire to get off the public dole with respect to enforcement of their private agreements. It's not entirely clear to me that Austrians really do wish to forfeit public financing for the enforcement of the contracts they make.
V Harris
Published: January 27, 2006 10:48 AM
V Harris,
Anarchy, in a nut-shell, is what us Rothbardians advocate. That is: no state, no taxes, no coercively enforced monopolies of any kind in any market, including courts, military defense, insurance, police protection and even road building. There is no proper role for the state anywhere, ever, under any circumstance. In anarchy, people are free to enter any market, including the above mentioned and any others.
Libertarian, i.e. Rothbardian anarchy would prohibit all encroachments on property, and these prohibitions would be enforced via private insurance, private police and private courts, and whatever the free market chose.
Until this situation is realized, you may still hear a Rothbardian comment that, whoever owns that road should fill in that pot-hole. And as it presently sits unfortunately, the state owns the road.
Published: January 27, 2006 11:47 AM
Hi Paul,
"There is no proper role for the state anywhere, ever, under any circumstance. In anarchy, people are free to enter any market, including the above mentioned and any others".
Absolutely 100% correct - this is the type of situation we should all be working towards.
Published: January 28, 2006 8:01 PM
V Harris
"Austrians should delineate the proper economic system for both making and enforcing private agreements"
If you are continuing in the context of Rothbardian views, my understanding is that he was a 'propertarian' rather than a 'contractarian'. Therefore 'enforcement of private agreements' was not something I understood he advocated per se, i.e. he would that either party was free to end the contract at any time. What was enforceable was the returning of any property for that portion of the contract that had not been carried out (obviously as well as payment for those portions that had).
This is not to say of course that all "Austrians" are Rothbardians. Simply that enforcement of contract may have several interpretations depending on ones position.
Published: January 29, 2006 6:12 PM