Murray Rothard who of course was a historian as well as an economist 众所周知穆瑞.罗斯巴德既是一位历史学家也是一位经济学家
used to dream of a day that there might some day or some place be a historian who understands Austrian economics. 他曾经梦想,某时某地会有一个理解奥地利学派经济学的历史学家
and, I must say he wasn't, he was optimistic about everything he hoped for, but... 他对他所希望的事非常乐观, 但(至今很多事并不如他所愿)
so great that he got to meet and to know Tom Woods before he pasted away. 所以他很在去世之前能与汤姆.伍兹相识实在是一大乐事.
I remember when Tom first came as a student to the Mises University, in 1993 我依然记得1993年当汤姆作为学生第一次来米塞斯学院的时候
and at the closing barbeque he had wanted to meet Murray, and Murray wanted to meet him. 在最后结尾的烧烤时他们都想与彼此见面.
So I noticed them talking together. 当时我注意到他们在聊天,
And I came back maybe two hours later, 大概两个小时以后我回到这个地方,
and they were still right like this, just, you know, talking away. and it was, I thought it was very moving to see it. 他们还在那里谈天说地. 我觉得当时那个场景非常动人
I know it was a great experience for Tom, and it was a great experience for Murray too. 我知道对汤姆来说这是非常棒的经历,对穆瑞来说也是如此.
So, eh, you know Tom Woods, he as a Senior Fellow at the Mises Instituute, 大家都认识汤姆.伍兹. 他是米塞斯学院的资深研究员,
is the author of eleven books, including two best sellers. 11本书的作者, 其中包括两本超级畅销书.
On his way to this proverbial five-foot shelf of books, I guess Tom is. 我猜他正在达成著作等身的路上.
This is in the 19th centruy, what a scholar would aim at. 在十九世纪学者们都会以此为荣.
He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Havard. 他以最高荣誉从哈佛毕业.
He got his M.Phil and his Ph.D from Columbia University. 在哥伦比亚大学获得了他的(历史)硕士和(历史)博士学位
He has a wonderful and innovative website tomwoods.com, and also libertyclassroom.com 他拥有两个非常棒的网站, tomwoods.com和libertyclassroom.com
Tom is gonna to talk to us about Murray Rothbard.
Lew Rockwell: Dr. Tom Woods. (Applause)
Ok. Alright, thanks everybody. I'm cresending this thing.
This has been used for effect.
How about this. Just to indicate there is no egalitarianism here.
Ok, there is no free access to back here. Yeah, it's closed.
Alright. By the way, I'm not reading off this, but there are points I wanna make when talking about Murray Rothbard.
If I forgot to make them, I would be very sad.
So they are just there to remind me.
Anyway, I have been working on this speech all day.
Of course I don't mean this speech, I mean the victory speech I'm gonna give after I beat Walter (Block) in Chess. (Audience Laugh)
Now, incidentally just so you know how this got started,
last year, we had a chess tournament at the Mises Institute, bucasuse we had a bunch of grad student who are interested in chess.
And it was six Europeans, and me.
Like all Americans, I have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Europeans.
So being in the tournament, I thought I have no business even in the same room with these people,
alright of course I'm gonna get slaughtered.
At the first game of the tournament, I lost.
So I thought, ah, just goes to show. What am I doing, I'm not even in the same league as these people
Then I won all the others, and I ended up winning the whole tournament.
So I actually walked around the institute, go "USA! USA!" (Audience laugh)
Well, anyway, we decided for some reason, cuz we knew Walter was a good chess player,
that whoever wins earns the right to play him at Mises U.
We decided we would do this, and to our amazement, people showed up!
Right? It was a room full of people watching us play chess.
I thought wow these kids are dorkier than I could have dreamed. (Chuckle)
So anyway we played.
Just don't get you hopes up.
Walter and I are pretty decent amateurs, but we are not grandmasters,
so don't laugh at us if we commit a blunder or whatever.
It was one of the sort of games where I was clearly ahead. Let's face it, I'm not just saying this. I was clearly a head. I was ahead two pawns.
A grandmaster would have resigned out of sheer embarassment, by that point.
But Walter tenaciously hang on,
because after all, what does he do other than "Defend the undefendable".
So he just carried on, doing that.
And I have busted up all of the pawns in front of his king,
but I just couldn't stick the knife all the way in.
Then I got into time trouble.
I just couldn't keep it up, and finally one little error, then BANG!
Walter got me.
So I realized that it's not just defending the undefendable,
this really is, he pplays chess the way he fights the fight.
Right? He finds somebody, there's just one deviation with somebody, then Walter's there, BANG!
"You are not a Libertarian!"
So watch out. So anyway, tonight we are going to revisit this. The one request we have for everybody is no wager.
Otherwise we would be gald if you just sat here.
Otherwise if you'd rather be drunk, that is find too.
Right? We are completely indifferent between these options.
Audience: "Indifference? @#!" 观众: "无差异?!" 注: 根据奥地利学派所持的序数偏好理论, 行为人的偏好由行为揭示,不存在对可选项中立或所谓"无差异"的态度. 见 Man, Economy & State Ch 4
Oh yeah, right, of course. Maybe I'm not an Austrian or something.
This being the evening session, it's optional.
This means I can get away with saying things I wouldn't say during the formal session,
Remember after all Austrian economics is descriptive rather than prescriptive;
it's positive rather than normative; 它研究实然而不是应然,
it's describing social phenomena,
but it's not saying therefore you ought to do X and Y.
So it's not really right to be giving lectures entirely about Libertarianism,
because as Walter Block points out repeatedly, you could be an Austrian economist, and be a totalitarian socialist,
because you know that the free market yields social harmony, but you hate mankind,
so you want to impose socialism.
That is possible
So for all you totalitrarian socialist who applied to Mises University, I don't want to offend you.
But this being the after hour session, I can sort of get away with some of that.
So in a little bit of what I say and later on second half of what I'm gonna do tonight,
it will be a little bit free-willing Libertarian stuff, rather than strictly Austrian economics.
I want to inoculate you against a cult that's out there.
There is a cult out there in the Libertarian world.
I call it the cult of anti-Rothbard.
You are going to encounter this, I'm not going to name names or places or institutions,
this is not what I'm here for, I just want to talk about ideas and a great man.
It's a cult of anti-Rothbard because you'll encounter people who will be delighted to tell you all about the times they met Milton Freedman,
"Oh my goodness I met Milton Freedman", "I served him dinner", "I sat next to him", "I paid his bill". Whatever the story is.
They are all thrilled to tell you about their story of Milton Friedman.
You begin to realize that with some people, there are only three Libertarians in the whole world.
There was Hayek, sometimes. Hayek is Ok sometimes, 哈耶克算一个, 但最多有时候能算;
but let's never mention his actual economic contributions,
so nothing from the 30s, no Pure Theory of Capital in the early 40s, none of that, none of the stuff he won his Nobel Prize for.
We don't wanna talk about that, but we will talk about other things about Hayek. Hayek, sometimes.
Basically it's Milton Fredman and John Stossel.
That's the Libertarian world.
Now that is not to take away from Milton Friedman and John Stossel.
For example, it must have been very very difficult for John Stossel, being with ABC, and trying to say anything remotely libertarian year after year.
I do respect that contribution.
Likewise we all know and perfectly happy to concede that Milton Friedman was quite good on some things,
and was a good debater, and could present many of the ideas of a free society very very effectively, and could win converts.
Nobody takes any of that away from him.
It's very odd to me that you will have someone, as accomplished as Murray Rothbard, who basically created the Libertarian movement as we know it,
he was known as Mr. Libertarian,
and there's absolute silence about him.
It's not that for every 100 times Milton Friedman is mentioned, Rothbard is mentioned only once!
I started to say that to Lew (Rockwell) once, in an interviewe I did on his own Podcast,
I stoped myself and I said it's not for every hundred mentions of Friedman it's one of Rothbard, it's every hundred of zero!