Anti-state and pro-market

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THE LEFT, THE RIGHT, & THE STATE

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

Ludwig von Mises Institute, $29, 568 pages

Reviewed by William H. Peterson

So Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., founder-president-thinker of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, opens his highly successful daily e-mail newsletter on literally the largest nonprofit Web site in the world. That opening features his own selected articles and speeches, reprinted now in "The Left, the Right & the State," a book displaying a leading libertarian's taking on of critics of libertarianism.

For example, he cites then-Vice President Dick Cheney saying, "one of the things that's changed so much since September 11th is the extent to which people do trust the government and value it, and have higher expectations for what we can do." Ha, says Mr. Rockwell, "The triumph of hope over experience!"

Or, notes the author, here is columnist George Will writing that Sept. 11 "forcefully reminded Americans that their nation-state ... is the source of their security. Events since Sept. 11 have underscored the limits of libertarianism."

Mr. Rockwell takes Duke University professor Francis Fukuyama to task for proclaiming the "fall of the libertarians." Mr. Fukuyama says Sept. 11, "not the market or individuals," reminds Americans "why government exists, and why it has to tax citizens and spend money to promote collective interests," including fighting terrorists and screening passengers at airports.

Mr. Rockwell also quotes Albert Hunt of the Wall Street Journal as typical of this genre of commentary: "It's time to declare a moratorium on government-bashing." And note that all this is before the arrival of Obamanomics. President Obama's name didn't even make the Rockwell index, though he became a U.S. senator in 2004.

Well, just who is this Llewellyn Rockwell whom money expert and investment adviser Gary North declares to be the nation's new top libertarian with the passing of Mr. Mises and Murray Rothbard? Mr. Rockwell has edited six books, including "The Irrepressible Rothbard." In 2007, he published "Mises: The Last Knight of [Classical] Liberalism" by Jorg Guido Hulsmann, a 1,160-page definitive and riveting biography of Mr. Mises, 1881-1973.