Rothbard's Conflationary Universe - Audiobook
A few years ago, I wrote a response to an essay called 'Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Human Nature' by Murray Rothbard, one of the founders of modern right-libertarianism. Published in 1973, the essay is still widely beloved by many on the right. I tried to demonstrate that Rothbard's argument is riddled with holes and bad faith, constructed of distortions, conflations, category errors, non sequiturs, tautologies, and begged questions. This might seem like an odd way for me to spend my time, given the age of the essay. But it's illustrative because the faulty arguments Rothbard employs in the essay are still very much with us. They're essentially the same arguments you hear from the right today, and in service of the same agenda.
I've been playing around - as much for my own amusement as for any other reason - with making audio recordings, and I decided to create an 'audiobook' version of this essay. And here it is, just for my patrons - at least for the forseeable future.
Comments are welcome, be they on my essay or my recording.
Comments (4)
I really enjoyed listening to this
Thank you for posting this!
I had a conversation with an old friend a while back. He believes he is a “leftist” but he still falls into many of the same rhetorical traps exposed here. I hope this helps me show him the water he’s swimming in.
Coincidentally, I was just rereading this essay of yours the other day. (Can't remember why. Did you link to it recently?) But thanks for doing this, I will see how it goes down in audio form!