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Comment by rjbwork | Hacker News Reader

No. However, consider that since the 40's there has been a concerted effort by a variety of actors, such as Rothbard and other people backed by institutes such as the Volker fund, the AEI, Federalist Society, Murdochs, etc. to sap both the perceived effectiveness of government and the actual effectiveness of government.

"Government doesn't work - elect me and I'll prove it!"

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No criticism of the ineffectiveness of government is complete until we've blamed Rothbard.

Well hey, he's the only person I know of to have argued professionally that a government shouldn't even be powerful enough to prevent people from selling their children on the open market to the highest bidder. He's kind of the most extreme example one can pluck, and quite an influential one, at that.

Isn't that an argument against Rothbard being successful? You can't meaningfully auction off a child in the US. Although I guess some may argue he's been successful to the extent that in some parts of the US you can electively terminate your unborn offspring, which is a firmly Rothbardian viewpoint.

If my goal is murder, but I only render you completely brain dead, or maybe only paralyzed from the neck down, have I failed? Yeah, in some sense. But in terms of the grievous harm rendered, I've succeeded to a pretty serious degree.

Based on your recommendation of the "pretty serious degree" to the extent Rothbard has managed to decrease government, I have decided to donate a token amount to the Mises Institute in your honor [0]. I gotta say until now I thought he was just a fringe actor with minimal influence and perhaps at most 1 or 2% of representatives even know who he was.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/yu05Gde.png

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