Portal:Libertarianism/New Liberty

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For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1973, that helped launch the modern libertarian movement in the United States, and was the first modern free-market anarchist manifesto. The second edition was first published in 1978, while the third edition was first published in 1985. It is the only book for which Rothbard received a mainstream publishing contract. Radicals for Capitalism notes, "This book strove to synthesize, in condensed form, the economic, historical, philosophical, and policy elements of Rothbard's vision...the book was meant as both a primer and a manifesto, so Rothbard crammed in as much of his overall theory of liberty as he could...Rothbard hits the harder anarcho-capitalist stuff, but slips it in so smoothly that many readers might not notice that this 'libertarian manifesto' promotes anarchism."[1]

The book is strikingly similar to The Market for Liberty, in that it seeks to encompass practically the full gamut of libertarian topics; is of similar length; and even is organized similarly, with a similar number of chapters divided into three parts, with the third part dealing with how to bring anarcho-capitalism about in the modern world. Both use the word "anarchy" extremely rarely or not at all. Some of the similarity between the two books is, perhaps, explained by the fact that Morris and Linda Tannehill had read some of Rothbard's writings prior to composing their own tome.

  1. ^ Doherty, Brian. "Goldwater, the Objectivist Crackup, and Hippies of the Right". Radicals for Capitalism. pp. 378–381. ISBN 978-1-58648-350-0.