Rothbard could have been acclaimed for just his works in history, without all his contributions to economics. The Panic of 1819, America's Great Depression, Conceived In Liberty, History of Economic Thought, and A History of Money and Banking are each structured upon Rothbard's theory of power and...

The publication in 1962 of Rothbard's magnum opus rescued economic science from self-destruction. Menger's causal-realist approach had been nearly buried by the Keynesian Revolution. Keynesian macroeconomics denied the efficacy of the price system altogether in coordinating the various sectors of an...

Human action is defined simply as purposeful behavior. Men act by virtue of their being human. Action can be undertaken only by individual actors. Leisure is a good. Mises derives economic law from this axiom that the study of man is the concept of action.

Exchange is the foundation of the division of labor. Each party to an exchange must expect greater psychic benefit than what he is giving up. Thus, trades are not equal, they are win-win activities. Property and ownership are value-free and a pre-condition of a free market.

The mental constructs of the evenly rotating economy and of specific factors of production are discussed. Distinguishing between interest and profits and a construct of slow change are revealed through the ERE as Rothbard considers the final state of rest.The ERE construct is simply a useful...

Here Rothbard deals with the pure rate of interest, as determined by time preference. It's a ratio of prices between present and future goods. The interest rate is equal to the rate of price spread in the various stages of production. It pervades all time markets.

Entrepreneurs see the future better than others and go and make money off it. Profits are an index that maladjustments are being met and combatted by the profit-making entrepreneurs. Capital does not beget profits. Only wise entrepreneurial decisions do that.

Rothbard's approach to money prices is not as a barter exchange system. Instead, he made money prices the common denominator for all exchange ratios. You can now engage in economic calculation.

Direct exchange was limited. The pattern of indirect exchange led to the common medium of exchange: money. Maximization of psychic income always leads the seller of a good to seek the highest money price for it, and the buyer of a good to seek the lowest money price.

This middle chapter on production theory goes into detail on factor pricing and discounted marginal value product. The way Rothbard developed every aspect of production theory is unique. As the economy becomes more specialized and complex, the importance of this market process becomes greater.

Progressive, proportional and regressive taxes. Rothbard is relentlessly not in favor of taxes. The state robs both rich and poor.

Price controls, product controls, compulsory cartels, licenses, standards, tariffs, child labor laws, conscription, minimum wage laws, subsidies, penalties, anti-trust, conservation laws, patents, public utilities, eminent domain, and bribery are among the many triangular interventions by government...

The uniqueness of the Austrian approach to taxation is to first cover Public Policy, then Antimarket Ethics and finally Taxation. It is a praxeological development approach. Robbery and counterfeiting are the revenues to the state. You can't look at taxation alone, you must look at expenditures, too...

The pricing, supplies, and incomes of particular factor prices - labor and land - and the effects of a changing economy upon them are discussed as Rothbard viewed them. The theory of rent is a highlight of this chapter. The Mengarian causal-realist tradition is integrated here.

Power & Market - this second section of Rothbard's book - shows the state was to be protector of the people and property, but the government is contradictory to that task. Government both taxes and demands a monopoly of defensive services within a geographical area.

This completes the study of money and of the effects of changes in monetary relations on the economic system. Like all commodities, money has its own supply and demand and price: purchasing power. Everyone deals in money.

How are money prices determined? The stock of the money commodity responds to demand and supply of the consumers and their preferences just as with any other good.

Main objection to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory is rational expectations - they can't prevent entrepreneurs from making use of loose credit because they would be left behind if they didn't.

Praxeology - economics - provides no ultimate ethical judgments: it simply furnishes the indispensable data necessary to make such judgments. Common criticisms of the free market are refuted praxeologically in this chapter. Absolute equality is an impossible goal.

Walter Block met Rothbard in 1966. Here, Block tells a joke making the point that antitrust law is dead from the neck up. There is nothing wrong with a monopoly price. Whatever price the free market establishes will be the best price.

In this 28-minute talk, Peter Klein explains why governments employ so many economists, and what economists should really be doing.