Coming of Age With Murray | Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The keynote address presented at the Mises Institute’s 35th Anniversary Celebration in New York City on October 7, 2017.
For the history you didn’t learn in school, check out Liberty Classroom:
FULL AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT BELOW THE FOLD
0:01it’s my it is my great pleasure to
0:05introduce one of the leading Rothbard
0:09Ian’s and a very faithful rothbard Ian
0:11on this evening we’re comrades in arms
0:14we’ve known each other for 1980 since
0:161985 we’ve but together fought the good
0:20fight hopefully for Austrian economics
0:23and libertarianism the person I’m
0:28introducing is is a hero and that he is
0:31initiated his the property of freedom
0:34society on his own and with the help of
0:37his lovely wife kolchin Emre and that
0:42this is certainly an politically
0:46incorrect but a truth-telling
0:50organization that has no peer in in in
0:56the world and I’m course talking about
1:00Hans Hermann hapa Hans was educated at
1:05the University of the Saarland
1:07Goethe University of Frankfurt both in
1:09Germany and the University of Michigan
1:11for studies in philosophy sociology
1:14history and economics he earned his PhD
1:17in philosophy and his habilitation which
1:20is an advanced degree advanced even
1:22beyond a PhD in sociology and economics
1:25from Goethe University he taught at
1:28several German universities as well as
1:30at the Johns Hopkins University Center
1:33for Advanced Studies in Bologna Italy
1:34and is professor emeritus at the
1:38University of Nevada Las Vegas in 1986
1:41he moved from Germany to the United
1:43States to study under Murray Rothbard
1:44and remained a close associate of
1:47rothbard until Murray’s death in 1995
1:51dr. hopper is currently Distinguished
1:54Fellow of the Mises Institute the only
1:57one who has achieved this recognition he
2:00is former editor of the journal of
2:01libertarian studies and is a lifelong
2:04member of the Royal Horticultural
2:05Society I don’t know where that came
2:08from
2:12among his english-language books our
2:15democracy the God that failed the myth
2:17of national defense economic science in
2:20the and the Austrian method the
2:22economics and ethics of private property
2:24a theory of socialism and capitalism the
2:27great fiction from democracy from
2:30aristocracy excuse me to monarchy to
2:33democracy and numerous articles on
2:35philosophy economics and the social
2:37sciences best of all all of these books
2:41and articles can be written be read by
2:44people without a PhD in anything okay by
2:47regular people by real people and I
2:50recommend that you dip into these works
2:52and you read them and you will soon
2:54become addicted Hans in his lovely wife
2:57Gulshan M ray dr. Gulch enumerate live
3:00in Istanbul so I introduced to you Hans
3:03Hermann ha ha
3:05[Applause]
3:25[Music]
3:29Thank You Jill for that nice
3:32introduction thank you me this ensued
3:36Jeff diced the Rockwell that our net for
3:40the honor to be the keynote speaker here
3:44I will not talk about horticulture even
3:50though I’m a member of the Royal
3:52Horticultural Society thanks to my wife
3:56who is an ardent gardener I’m just more
3:59spectator but my topic is coming of age
4:05with Marie I first met Marie Rose part
4:12in the summer of 1985 I was in 35 years
4:18old and Marie was 59 and for the next 10
4:24years until Marie’s premature death in
4:271995 I would be associated with Marie
4:30first in New York City and then in Las
4:33Vegas at UNLV in closer and more
4:38immediate and direct contact than anyone
4:40else except his wife Julie of course now
4:44being almost as old now as Marie was at
4:47the time of his death I thought that it
4:50would be appropriate to use this
4:52occasion to speak and reflect a little
4:55bit on what I learned during my 10 years
4:58was Marie I was already an adult when I
5:04first met Marie not just in the
5:07biological but also in the mental and
5:10intellectual sense and yet I only came
5:13of age while associated with him and I
5:18want to talk about this experience
5:21before I met Marie I had already
5:24completed my PhD and attained the rank
5:28of private thoughts int that is an a
5:32tenured but unpaid University professor
5:35that incident incidentally is the same
5:37rank that Ludwig von Mises once held in
5:40Vienna the
5:42part from my doctoral dissertation I had
5:45already completed two books one that
5:49revealed me as a musician and another
5:52about to be published in the following
5:55year 1986 that revealed me as a rose
6:00bargain I had already read all of Mises
6:04and rose bard theoretical works but I
6:08must admit that I had not yet read
6:10Marie’s voluminous journalistic work
6:13which was essentially unavailable to me
6:16at that time in Germany thus it was not
6:20my personal encounter with Muresan that
6:23made me a musician and the rose bargain
6:27intellectually I was already a musician
6:30and rose bargain years before I ever met
6:33Marie personally and so notwithstanding
6:36the fact that I am and consider myself
6:39also foremost a theoretician I do not
6:43want to speak here about the grand
6:45Austral libertarian intellectual edifice
6:48that Mises and in his succession
6:52Rothbart have handed down to us or about
6:56my own small contributions to this
6:58system but about my long personal
7:01experience with Marie about the
7:04practical and existential lessons that I
7:08learned through my encounters with him
7:11and that turned me from an adult to a
7:14man who had come of age I moved to New
7:19York City because I considered Marie the
7:23greatest of all social theorists at
7:25least in the 20th century if not of all
7:29times just as I considered Mises the
7:33greatest of all economists of all times
7:36and with Mises having gone long ago and
7:40out of the picture I wanted to meet get
7:43to know and work with this man Rose Bart
7:46I still hold this view concerning the
7:50greatness of Mises and Rose Bart indeed
7:53even more so than
7:56thirty years ago and since then there
7:59has been no second Mises or Ross part
8:02not even close and we may have to wait
8:05for a long time to come
8:08for this to happen again so I moved to
8:12New York City
8:13knowing Murray’s work but knowing almost
8:17nothing about the men
8:19remember this was 1985 I was still
8:25writing in longhand and then using a
8:30mechanical typewriter acquainting myself
8:33was a computer for the first time only
8:36during the following year at UNLV and
8:39Murray never used a computer but State
8:42was an electric typewriter until the end
8:45of his life there were no cell phones
8:48there were no emails no internet no
8:52Google Novica pedia at no YouTube at the
8:57beginning even fax machines did not
8:59exist so my correspondence was Murray
9:03proceeding my arrival in New York City
9:06was by old regular snail mail Murray
9:10expressed his enthusiasm about my wish
9:13to meet and work with him and
9:15immediately offer to enlist the help of
9:17Bert bloomers and indeed Bert loom art
9:22then was of instrumental help in
9:24facilitating my move from Europe to the
9:27US the wonderful Bert bloomer
9:31incidentally was the owner of Camino
9:34coins and also the founder of the
9:37original Center for libertarian studies
9:40that would ultimately be integrated and
9:43merged with the Mises Institute Bert
9:47Lumet was one of Marie’s dearest friends
9:49and confidence and he was also a great
9:52benefactor and dear friend to me I had
9:56seen some photos of Murray I knew that
10:00he liked Mises was Jewish that he taught
10:04at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute which
10:07was subsequently renamed as
10:09New York Polytechnic University and
10:12nowadays Polytechnic Institute of NYU
10:16that he was the odd editor of the much
10:19admired Journal of libertarian studies
10:22and that he was closely associated as
10:25its academic director with the Ludwig
10:28von Mises Institute that Lew Rockwell
10:30had recently then 35 years ago in 1982
10:35found it and that was about it
10:38and so both unprepared we met for the
10:43first time in Maurice University office
10:47here was I the cool blonde from the
10:51north that was that was a popular
10:55advertisement for bitter-tasting north
10:58north and German beers young tall and
11:03athletic and somewhat unsociable dry and
11:07was a dry sense of humor and more on the
11:10blunt sarcastic and confrontational side
11:15so you might say I was perfect there ma
11:18material if you were and there was Marie
11:26the big city no erotic to use a German
11:30title of Woody Allen’s comedic any whore
11:33a generation older short and round
11:38non-athletic
11:39even clumsy except for typing gregarious
11:45and hilarious never moping but every
11:50joyful and in his personal dealings
11:53quite unlike in his writings always non
11:57confrontational well tempered or even
12:00tame not exactly via ma material though
12:07personality wise then we could hardly
12:09have been more different indeed we were
12:12quite an odd couple and yet we hit it
12:16off from the start
12:18given the long special historical
12:21relationship between Germans and Jews
12:34so I am I as a young German meeting an
12:39older Jew in America had been afraid
12:42that this history might become a
12:44potential source of tension but not so
12:50quite to the contrary on the subject of
12:54religion itself there was general
12:57agreement we were both agnostics yet was
13:00a profound interest in the sociology of
13:03religion and quite similar views on
13:06comparative religion yet murray greatly
13:09deepened my understanding of the role of
13:12religion in history through his
13:14unfortunately uncompleted great work
13:17during the last decade of his life on
13:19the history of economic thought moreover
13:23in our countless conversations I learned
13:27from Murray about the importance of
13:29complementing Austral libertarian theory
13:32with revisionist history in order to
13:36come up with a truly realistic
13:38assessment of historic events and global
13:42affairs and it was I then as someone who
13:46had grown up in defeated and devastated
13:50post-world War two West Germany which as
13:54then instill official history taught
13:57across all German schools and
14:00universities of a feeling guilty and
14:04ashamed of being German and German
14:06history and be believing that America
14:10and America’s democratic capitalism was
14:14the greatest thing since or even before
14:16the invention of sliced bread so it was
14:21I who had to revise his formally still
14:25despite all Austria libertarian theory
14:29still quite Rosa naive views about world
14:33affairs in general and u.s. American and
14:37German history in particular as a matter
14:40of fact Murray made me fundamentally
14:43changed my Rosa rosy view of the United
14:47States
14:48and help me for the first time to feel
14:52consoled content and even happy about
14:55being just a German and to develop a
15:00special concern for Germany in the faith
15:03of the German people – my initial
15:07surprisin and ultimately my great and
15:10pleasant relief Marie was quite a German
15:13Oh file he knew and highly appreciated
15:16the German contributions to philosophy
15:19mathematics science engineering
15:22scholarly history and literature his
15:26beloved teacher Mises had originally
15:29written in German and was a product of
15:32German culture Marie loved German music
15:36he loved German baroque churches he
15:39loved the Bavarian beer garden
15:40atmosphere and the from church to beer
15:43garden we go tradition
15:46his wife Joey was of German ancestry her
15:51maiden name being Joe and shoe Maha and
15:54Joey was a member of the jihad Varna
15:57Society of all societies and a lifelong
16:01opera buff as well most of Marie’s
16:04friends that I would eventually meet
16:07turned out German oh files foremost
16:10among them Ralph Rakel the great
16:13historian of classical liberalism who I
16:17had hoped to see again at this occasion
16:20but who sadly left us forever almost a
16:23year ago now I met Ralph only a few
16:27months after my arrival in New York City
16:30at the party held at Marie’s apartment
16:33on the Upper West Side I immediately
16:36took to his caustic sarcasm and over the
16:40years we developed a close friendship
16:43apart from our many meetings at various
16:47Mises Institute events I still fondly
16:51remember in particular our extended
16:54joint travels in northern Italy and
16:57especially when at a conference in
17:00Milano sponsored by some friends and
17:03affiliates of the once but no longer is
17:06a session ously g’nort some
17:10self-proclaimed who would have guessed
17:12that anti-fascist demonstrators appeared
17:17in front of the conference hotel to
17:20denounce us to our great amusement as
17:23Leibert re fascist II
17:30ralph was also the one who introduced me
17:33to the revisionist history religious
17:37scholarship concerning World War one and
17:40World War two as well as the entire
17:43interwar period and it was Ralph who
17:48taught me about the history of German
17:50liberalism and in particular it’s
17:53radical 19th century libertarian
17:56representatives that had been almost
17:59completely forgotten in contemporary
18:01Germany incidentally new Rockwell too
18:06early on showed that his German ofall
18:09credentials when we first met in New
18:11York City in the fall of 1985 he drove a
18:16Mercedes 190 he then went astray for a
18:21few years driving an american-made
18:23pickup truck but ultimately returned to
18:27the fold by driving a Mini Cooper
18:29produced by BMW but above all it was
18:36Murray who taught me never to trust
18:38official history invariably written by
18:42the victors but to conduct all
18:45historical research instead like a
18:48detective investigating a crime always
18:52first and foremost and as a first
18:55approximation follow the money in search
18:58of a motive
18:59who is to gain whether in terms of money
19:03real estate or sheer power from this
19:06measure or that in most cases answering
19:11this question will lead you directly to
19:14the very actor or group of actors
19:16responsible for the measure or policy
19:19under consideration simple as it is to
19:23ask this question however it is much
19:26more difficult and requires often
19:28arduous research to answer it and to
19:32unearth from under a huge smokescreen of
19:36seemingly high-minded rhetoric and pious
19:40propaganda the hard facts
19:43and indicators the money flows and the
19:47welfare games in order to actually prove
19:50a crime and to identify and out its
19:54perpetrators Murray was a master in this
19:57and that at a time when you did not have
20:00access to computers the internet and
20:04search machines such as Google
20:07introduces detectives work I as I
20:11learned from Murray you must go beyond
20:14official documents the mainstream media
20:17the big and famous names the academic
20:21stars and the prestigious journals in
20:23short everything and everyone deemed
20:27respectable and politically correct
20:29you must also and in particular pay
20:32attention to the work of outsiders
20:35extremists and outcasts that is to diss
20:39respectable or deplorable people and
20:43obscure publication outlets that you are
20:46supposed to ignore or not even know
20:49about to this day I have heeded and
20:53indeed relished following this advice
20:56anyone who could see my list of
20:59bookmarks of frequently visited websites
21:02would likely be surprised and any
21:05establishment Aryan or leftist in
21:08particular would likely be shocked and
21:11shudder in disgust
21:23now with this general perspective and
21:26outlook on things
21:28revisionists such as Murray and then in
21:31his footsteps also myself are regularly
21:35charged contemptuously as some nutty
21:38conspiracy theorists to this charge
21:42Murray would typically respond first put
21:46bluntly and sarcastically even if I were
21:50a certified paranoid this cannot be
21:53taken as proof that no one was actually
21:56after you and your money after all and
21:59second and more systematically
22:03conspiracies are of course less likely
22:05of the large as a number of supposed
22:08conspirators also it is naive to assume
22:11the existence of just one big orc
22:14encompassing conspiracy run by one
22:18all-powerful group of conspirators but
22:21conspiracies often rival or even
22:25contradictory conspiracies that is
22:28confidential efforts of various groups
22:31of people acting in concert in the
22:34pursuit of some gum common goal are
22:37indeed an ever-present feature of social
22:40reality as any action such conspiracies
22:44can succeed or they can fail and can
22:47lead to consequences that were
22:49unintended by the conspirators but
22:52realistically speaking most if not all
22:56historical events are more or less
22:59exactly what some identifiable people or
23:02a group of people acting in concert
23:05intended them to be indeed to assume the
23:09opposite is to assume incredibly that
23:13history is nothing but a sequence of
23:15unintelligible
23:17events and accidents moreover in
23:21learning from Murray about the necessity
23:23of complementing Australia a and C or E
23:27with revisionist history so as to gain a
23:31complete realistic picture of the world
23:35worldly Affairs I also received constant
23:38training from him in the art of prudent
23:41and judicious judgment and evaluation of
23:44people actions and events pure Theory
23:49allows us to make rasa kriyakid
23:52judgments of true or false
23:55right who are wrong and effective
23:58leading to the goal intended or
23:59ineffective but many if not most actions
24:04and events provoking or eliciting our
24:07judgment do not fall into the category
24:11of matters that can be evaluated in this
24:14simple yes or no matter we are
24:18surrounded or better encircled by a
24:21class of people politicians and state
24:23agents that day in and day out renders
24:28and enforces decisions that are systemic
24:31that is systematically impact and affect
24:34our property and consequently our entire
24:37conduct of life without our consent and
24:41against our explicit protestation we are
24:45confronted by an elite of rulers and
24:48confronted with politicians and
24:50political decisions and our judgment
24:53concerns the evaluation of at best
24:56second bests the question is not true or
25:00false right or wrong effective or
25:04ineffective Raza it is this given that
25:07political decisions are per se false
25:10wrong and ineffective which of these
25:13decisions is less false wrong and
25:16effective in comparatively closer to the
25:19truth the right and the good and which
25:22person represents a lesser evil or a
25:25greater one than another such questions
25:29do not allow for a scientific answer
25:32because answering them involves the
25:35comparative evaluation of countless
25:39immeasurable and incommensurable
25:41variables and in any case newly
25:45discovered facts about the past or
25:47future developments
25:49may well reveal any such judgment as
25:51mistaken but the answer is also not
25:55arbitrary what is true right and
25:58effective is given as fixed points and
26:02reasons must be supplied was are based
26:05on logic or empirical evidence for
26:08locating various second bests as closer
26:12or more distant to such points raza
26:17judgment making in matters such as these
26:20is a difficult art much like
26:23entrepreneurship is not a science but an
26:26art and just as some people are good at
26:30enterpreneurship and others bad
26:33indicated by monetary profits or losses
26:36and so are some people good at judging
26:39political events and actors and others
26:42bad gaining or losing in refutation as
26:48wise or prudent judges now Murray was of
26:53course not unfailing in his judgments
26:55during the late 1960s and early 1970s
26:59for instance he misjudged the anti-war
27:02stand of the new left as more principled
27:06than as actually was something that he
27:09afterwards readily admitted as a mistake
27:12and I know of at least one rather
27:15personal case where Joey’s judgment was
27:18better and more on the mark than his but
27:22this notwithstanding I have not
27:24encountered any one of sounder and
27:27supplicant Lee vindicated judgment than
27:31Murray now is this I want to come to a
27:34second major lesson I learned during my
27:36long association with Murray well the
27:39first lesson in revisionism concerned
27:43matters of practice and method the
27:46second lesson concerned an existential
27:49matter before I met Marie I knew of
27:53course that he was a radical outsider in
27:57a predominantly leftist liberal academia
28:00and I expected
28:02I was willing to accept for myself that
28:05this would involve some sacrifices that
28:08is that one would have to pay a price
28:10for being a rose partying not only but
28:14also in terms of money but I was quite
28:17surprised to realize how high this price
28:20loss I knew that Brooklyn Polytechnic
28:25was not a prestigious university yet I
28:28expected Marie to occupy their a
28:31comfortable well-paying post moreover at
28:35the time I still fancied the United
28:38States as Sebastian and bull var of free
28:42enterprise and consequently expected
28:45that Marie as a foremost intellectual
28:48champion of capitalism and the
28:50personified anti Caesars of Marx would
28:54be held in high esteem if not in
28:57academia then certainly outside of it in
29:00the world of Commerce and business and
29:03accordingly be rewarded with a certain
29:06degree of affluence in fact at Brooklyn
29:12Polytechnic Murray occupied a small
29:16grungy and windowless office that he had
29:20to share was a history professor in
29:23Germany even research assistants enjoyed
29:26more comfortable surroundings not to
29:29speak of full professors Murray ranked
29:32among the lowest paid full professors at
29:35his school indeed my German National
29:38Science Foundation grant at the time a
29:41heisenberg scholarship turned out to be
29:45considerably higher than maurice
29:46university salary something that i was
29:49too ashamed to reveal to him after i had
29:52discovered it and Marie’s apartment in
29:56Manhattan large and filled to the
29:59ceiling with books was dark and rundown
30:03certainly nothing like the penthouse
30:06that I had imagined him to occupy now
30:10this situation improved significantly
30:13with his move in 1986
30:16at the age of 62 Las Vegas and UNLV
30:21while my salary went down there as
30:23compared to my previous compensation
30:26Marie’s went sharply up but was still
30:29well below 100 K and he would could
30:34afford to buy a roomy but Spartan house
30:37even as a holder of an endowed chair at
30:41UNLV however Murray did not have command
30:44of any research assistants or a personal
30:48secretary yet Murray never complained or
30:51showed any bitterness or signs of envy
30:55but always plugged along joyfully and
30:58pushed ahead instead with his writings
31:01this was a hard lesson for me to learn
31:04and I’m still having difficulties
31:06following it at times Apple both joy and
31:13Murray once told me laughingly how at
31:17the time when they were still dating
31:19both had expected the other to be a good
31:23catch Joey Joey because Murray was
31:28Jewish and Murray because Joey was
31:31Gentile only to then find out that they
31:37were both wrong in their expectation
31:42moreover despite his towering
31:45achievements as an intellectual champion
31:47of free market capitalism Murray never
31:50won any prizes awards or honors to speak
31:54of that he did not win a nobel prize in
31:58economics was not surprising after all
32:00the great Mises also did not win it but
32:04in the US alone they existed existed
32:07dozens of institutions sink tanks
32:10foundations business associations
32:12research centers and universities that
32:15professed their dedication to free
32:18markets and liberty and yet none of them
32:21ever awarded Murray any significant
32:24price or honorary award all the wild
32:28they showered people with money and
32:30awards who had done little more than to
32:33suggest daringly some incremental reform
32:37such as let’s say lowering the marginal
32:41tax rate from thirty five to thirty
32:43percent were cutting or cutting the
32:46budget of the EPA by some percentage
32:49points or who had simply expressed their
32:52personal love of freedom and free
32:55enterprise often loudly and emphatically
32:59enough none of this fazed Murray in the
33:03slightest
33:04indeed he expected nothing else for
33:07reasons that I still had to learn what
33:11Murray realized and I still had to learn
33:14was that the most was was sephorus
33:17and ferocious rejection in opposition to
33:20Australia Bert Arianism would not come
33:23from the traditional socialist left but
33:26razza from these very self-proclaimed
33:30anti-socialist Pro minimal State Pro
33:33private enterprise and pro freedom
33:36outfits and their intellectual
33:38mouthpieces and above all from what has
33:41become known as the Beltway libertarians
33:44they simp
33:53they simply could not stomach the fact
33:56that Marie had demonstrated was plain
33:58logic that their doctrines were nothing
34:01but inconsistent intellectual claptrap
34:04and that they were all to use Mises
34:08verdict Vasavi Milton Friedman and his
34:11company a bunch of socialists
34:22socialists notwithstanding of course
34:24their vehement protest ations to the
34:26contrary for as Murray argued once you
34:30admit that the existence of a state any
34:33state defined as a territorial
34:36monopolist of ultimate decision-making
34:38in every case of conflict including
34:40conflicts involving the state itself
34:43then all private property had been
34:46effectively abolished even if it
34:49remained provisionally as a state grant
34:53nominally private and all that had been
34:57replaced instead by a system of
34:59collective or as a state property state
35:02any state means socialism defined as the
35:07collective ownership of factors of
35:09production the institution of a state is
35:13praxeological II incompatible with
35:15private property and private property
35:18based enterprise
35:26it is it is the very antithesis of
35:29private property in any proponent of
35:32private property and private enterprise
35:34and must as a matter of logic be an
35:37anarchist in this regard as in many
35:40others Murray was unwilling to
35:42compromise or intransigent as his
35:46detractors would say because in theory
35:49in thinking compromise is impermissible
35:53in everyday life compromise is a
35:56permanent and ubiquitous feature of
35:59course but in theory compromise is the
36:02ultimate sin a strict and absolute no-no
36:06it is not permissible for instance to
36:10recoup remise between the two
36:12incompatible propositions that one plus
36:14one equals two or that one plus one
36:17equals three and except that it is to
36:200.5 either some proposition is true or
36:24it is false there can be no meeting in
36:27the middle of truth and falsehood
36:29now here regarding Murray’s
36:32uncompromising radicalism a little
36:35anecdote told by Ralph Reich over seems
36:38apropos to court Ralph Murray was
36:43someone special I recognized that fact
36:46the first night I met him it was after
36:50the Mises seminar a buddy of mine and I
36:54had been invited to attend and
36:56afterwards Murray suggested we have
36:59coffee and talk my friend and I were
37:03dazzled by the great Mises and Murray
37:06naturally was pleased to see our
37:09enthusiasm he assured us that Mises was
37:13at least the greatest economy of the
37:15century if not the whole history of the
37:18economic sort as far as politics went
37:21though Murray said lowering his voice
37:25conspiratorial II well when it comes to
37:28politics
37:29some of us consider Mises a member of
37:32the non-communist left
37:38[Applause]
37:39and Ralph concludes this by saying yes
37:45it was easy to see we had met someone
37:48very special
37:53unlike Marie quite a few individuals who
37:58had learned essentially everything they
38:00ever knew from Marie in particular from
38:03his man economy and state quite a few
38:06people were willing to make such
38:08intellectual compromises and they were
38:11richly rewarded for their intellectual
38:14flexibility and tolerance but that was
38:17not Marie and consequently he was in is
38:21still ignored excluded or denounced by
38:25the Chieftains of the limited limited
38:27government free market industry and he
38:31was essentially left without any
38:33institutional support as a lone fighter
38:36until the arrival of Lew Rockwell and
38:39the Mises Institute I experienced this
38:43rose bart phobia second handedly if you
38:46will for as soon as word had gotten out
38:50that the new German arrival was Marie’s
38:53boy and also appeared Raza intransigent
38:57I found myself immediately placed on the
39:00same black lists with him thus I had
39:03quickly learned a first important
39:05real-life lesson of what it means to be
39:08a rose bargain you will be blackballed
39:12another lesson was in humility Joe
39:17Salerno talked about that love it I have
39:19to add a few things
39:21Marie wah had a huge library and read
39:25and digested an enormous amount of
39:28literature and was consequently a humble
39:31man he was always reluctant and highly
39:35skeptical to assume or recognize any
39:38originality claims originality claims he
39:42knew are made most frequently by people
39:46with teeny libraries and little reading
39:50indistinct contrast Murray was highly
39:54generous in giving credit to others and
39:56he was equally generous in giving advice
39:59to anyone asking indeed on almost any
40:03conceivable subject he was prepared on
40:06the top of his head to provide you with
40:09an extensive bibliography as well he
40:13encouraged any sign of productivity even
40:16among his lowliest students while I was
40:21why I always try to follow this example
40:23I could not bring myself to go quite as
40:27far as Murray did because I thought and
40:30still think that Murray’s humility was
40:32excessive that he was humble almost to a
40:36fault his students at Brooklyn
40:39Polytechnic for instance mostly
40:41engineering majors or as Murray
40:44described Mises students at NYU
40:47packaging majors they had they had no
40:51idea who he was because he never
40:54mentioned his own works they were
40:56genuinely surprised to find out from me
40:59who they are jolly professor was when I
41:03substituted teaching Murray’s class
41:05while he was out of town and you and our
41:09visa situation was not much different
41:12while I actively promoted him as his
41:15unofficial PR agent Murray continued in
41:19his self-deprecation although he had
41:22written on almost any imaginable subject
41:25in the social sciences he would when he
41:28suggested or assigned term papers to his
41:31students mention his own related
41:34writings if at all only as some sort of
41:37afterthought or upon specific requests
41:40yet Murray’s extreme modesty had also
41:44another unfortunate effect when we moved
41:48to Las Vegas in 1986 we had expected to
41:52turn UNLV into a bastion of Austrian
41:55economics at the time you and Elvis
41:59basketball team the running rebels under
42:02coach Jerry
42:03our canyon were a national powerhouse
42:06always slightly scandalous but
42:09impossible to overlook now we had hoped
42:12to become the Runnin Rebels of economics
42:15at UNLV several students had transferred
42:20and enrolled at the University in
42:23anticipation of such a development but
42:26these hopes were quickly disappointed
42:28already at our arrival at UNLV the
42:33composition of the Economics Department
42:35has significantly changed and then
42:38majority rule democracy sent in to
42:42balance the Austrian influence only one
42:45year later the department majority
42:47decided against our position to hire a
42:51no-name Marxist I urged Murray to use
42:55his position and reputation to interfere
42:58with the university’s high ups and
43:01prevent his appointment except for Jerry
43:05Tarkanian Murray was the only
43:07nationalized
43:08record nationally recognized person at
43:11UNLV he helped the only endowed chair at
43:14the University we knew the university’s
43:17president and provost socially and were
43:21on cordial terms with both of them
43:23accordingly I believed that there was a
43:26realistic chance to overturn the
43:28department’s decision but I could not
43:31persuade Murray of his own powers that I
43:34thought he clearly had after this missed
43:37opportunity MERIS became worse the
43:40department continued to hire anyone but
43:43an Austrian or Austrian sympathizer our
43:46students were maltreated and
43:48discriminated against the department and
43:51the Dean of the Business College denied
43:53me tenure which decision was overruled
43:56by the university’s provost and
43:58president not least because of massive
44:01student protests and the intervention of
44:04several university donors the department
44:07chairman wrote an outrageous nasty and
44:10insulting annual evaluation of Murray’s
44:13professorial perform
44:16upon which the university administration
44:18forced the Chairman to resigned from his
44:21position as a consequence a second
44:24chance for us arose to turn metas around
44:27plans were developed and were discussed
44:30with a Provost to split the department
44:33and establish a separate economics
44:35department in the College of Liberal
44:37Arts this time Murray became involved
44:40but the initial momentum to our
44:43advantage had been lost in the meantime
44:46and after the first signs of resistance
44:49Murray quickly resigned and gave up he
44:52was not willing to take off his gloves
44:54and I was a session Asst movement
44:57project soon fizzled out in defeat only
45:03to quickly finish our UNLV saga after
45:07Murray’s death in 1995 I continued
45:10working at UNLV for another decade in an
45:13increasingly hostile environment the
45:16once protective university
45:18administration had changed and I felt
45:20ever more unappreciated and out of place
45:23even my great popularity among students
45:26was used against me as proof of the
45:29great danger emanating from my teaching
45:32in 2004 many of you have heard this I
45:37became embroiled in a scandal in a
45:40lecture I had to hypothetically
45:42suggested that homosexuals on average
45:44and owing to their characteristic lack
45:47of children had a comparatively higher
45:50degree of time preference it is of
45:52present orientation a crybaby student
45:55complained in the
46:05and the university’s affirmative action
46:08commissar immediately as if he had only
46:10waited for this opportunity initiated
46:13official proceedings against me
46:15threatening severe punitive measures if
46:18I were not to instantly and publicly
46:21recant and apologize intransigent
46:25as I was I refused to do so
46:36and I must say I’m quite certain that it
46:39was only the steadfast refusal of mine
46:42to beg for forgiveness that after a full
46:46year of administrative harassment I
46:49ultimately emerged victorious from this
46:52battle with the sought police and the
46:54university administration and the
46:58university administration suffered an
47:00embarrassing defeat a year later then I
47:03resigned from my position and left UNLV
47:06and the US for good now coming back to
47:08Murray
47:09naturally I was disappointed about the
47:12development at UNLV but they did not
47:15have the slightest effect on our
47:16continued cooperation
47:18maybe Murray had been right and more
47:21realistic all along and it was I who had
47:24suffered from too much useful optimism
47:26who knows and in any case there was one
47:30more important lesson about the larger
47:33scheme of things that I still had to
47:35learn whereas most people tend to become
47:39milder and more tolerant in their views
47:42si grow older Murray grew increasingly
47:45more radical and less tolerant over time
47:50not in his personal dealings as I
47:53already emphasized in this regard Murray
47:56was and remain to the end a softy but in
48:00his speeches and in his writings this
48:03radicalization in increasing
48:05intransigence came in response to
48:09developments in the world of u.s.
48:11politics at large and in particular was
48:14in the limited government free market
48:16industry and among the so called
48:18libertarians assembled around Washington
48:21DC’s Beltway there everywhere a slow yet
48:26systematic drift towards the left and
48:28leftist ideas could be observed adrift
48:32that ever since up to this day has only
48:35further gained in momentum and grown in
48:39strengths constantly new rights more
48:42discovered and adopted in particular
48:45also by so-called libertarians human
48:48rights and civil rights
48:50woman rights and gay rights the right
48:53not to be discriminated against the
48:56right to free and unrestricted
48:57immigration the right to a free lunch
49:00and free health care and the right to be
49:03free of unpleasant speech and sought
49:06Laurie demolished all of this allegedly
49:09humanitarian or to use a German word
49:13would mention talk as intellectual
49:16rubbish and in demonstrating that none
49:19of these supposed rights were compatible
49:22with private property rights and that as
49:25libertarians above all people should
49:28know only private property rights that
49:31is the right of every person in the
49:34ownership of his physical body and the
49:37ownership of all external objects justly
49:40peacefully acquired by him can be
49:43argumentatively
49:44defended as universal and composable
49:47human rights
49:49everything except private property
49:51rights then Murray demonstrate again and
49:54again a phony none Universal izybelle
49:58every call for human rights others and
50:01private property rights is ultimately
50:04motivated by egalitarianism and as such
50:07represents a revolt against nature
50:10moreover
50:13[Music]
50:19moreover Marie moved still further to
50:22the right in accordance with Eric Phan
50:25currently Dean’s dictum that the right
50:28is right and the left is wrong in
50:31pointing out that in order to establish
50:35maintain and defend a libertarian social
50:38order more is needed than the mere
50:41adherence to the non-aggression
50:43principle the ideal of the left or modal
50:48libertarians as Maria referred to them
50:50of live and let live as long as you
50:54don’t address anyone else that sounds so
50:57appealing to adolescents in rebellion
51:00against parental authority and any
51:02social convention and control may be
51:05sufficient for people living far apart
51:08and dealing with each other and trading
51:10with each other only indirectly and from
51:13afar but it is decidedly insufficient
51:17when it comes to people living in close
51:19close proximity to each other as
51:21neighbors and cohabitants of the same
51:25community the peaceful cohabitation of
51:28neighbors and of people in regular
51:30direct contact with each other on some
51:33territory requires also a commonality of
51:37culture of language religion custom and
51:41convention there can be peaceful
51:43coexistence of different cultures on
51:46distant physically separated territories
51:49but multiculturalism cultural
51:52heterogeneity cannot exist in one and
51:56the same place and territory without
51:58leading to diminishing social trust
52:01increased conflict and ultimately the
52:04destruction of anything resembling a
52:06libertarian social order now if Murray
52:10had been ignored neglected or resented
52:13before by the usual suspects now was
52:17this stand against every single Italy
52:20correct he was vilified and met with
52:23undisguised hatred the by now only to
52:27all-too-familiar litany of DiNunzio arms
52:32follow
52:32Marie was a reactionary a racist a
52:35sexist and authoritarian an elitist
52:38xenophobe a fascist and to top it all
52:42off a self-hating Jewish Nazi now Marie
52:49shrugged it off
52:51indeed he laughed about it and it was a
52:54consternation of the smear bunt as Marie
52:58referred to the United popular front of
53:01his end die fascist as detractors his
53:04influence only grew and has continued to
53:07grow still further since his death it
53:11may not be widely recognized but without
53:13Marie there would be no Ron Paul as we
53:16know him and I say this without wishing
53:18thereby to minister or belittle Ron
53:20Paul’s own personal role and
53:22extraordinary achievements in the
53:24slightest there would be no Ron Paul
53:27movement and there would be no popular
53:29or as a smear bunt prefers to say no
53:33populist libertarian agenda as for me my
53:38own views radicalized too along with
53:41Murray’s my democracy the God that
53:44failed was the first major documentation
53:47of this intellectual development and if
53:50anything my radical intolerance
53:53regarding anything left libertarian and
53:56politically correct correct has been
53:58growing still ever since
54:06almost needless to say that I too then
54:09have been awarded the same and even a
54:12few extra honorary title spies a smear
54:14bunt as Marie except for the self-hating
54:18Jewish stuff yet I had learned to shrug
54:24it off too as I had seen Marie do it and
54:28as ralph Rico had always encouraged on
54:31continued to advise me
54:33in addition remembering the popular
54:36German saying helped me feel fine feel
54:39air many enemies much honor and indeed
54:43the ongoing success of my own property
54:46and freedom society which is now in this
54:49twelfth year helped and conducted in a
54:52genuinely Rose body and spirit has
54:54demonstrated the utter failure of all
54:57defamation campaigns directed at me if
54:59anything they have helped rather than
55:02hindered me and attracting an ever
55:05larger circle of intellectual friends
55:07affiliates and supporters I should add
55:11that during the last decade or so and as
55:15a wise and strict guidance of my lovely
55:18wife Gucci
55:19I have also made some strides in
55:22combining uncompromising intellectual
55:24radicalism with a certain degree of
55:27personal love ability
55:34even though I must admit that nature and
55:38natural dispositions have prevented me
55:40from coming anywhere close to Murray in
55:42this regard I have said far too little
55:46here about Lu and I apologized but I
55:51must say apart from Marie Lu has played
55:55a tremendously important role in helping
55:59me become the man that I am today and to
56:03Marie who I’m sure is watching us today
56:06from up high I say
56:09Thank You Marie you are my hero I shall
56:13not look upon his like again and I hope
56:17you are happy with your student I always
56:20felt tremendous joy when you told me
56:22great hunts are a boy and even if I can
56:27hear can’t hear you right now nothing
56:30would give me greater pleasure than if
56:32you said it again right now
56:34up there were the kings of thought are
56:37gathered thank you very much
56:40[Applause]
56:55[Applause]