One of Murray Rothbard’s greatest contributions to American history was his analysis of the Progressives, and in this week’s column I’m going to discuss two key themes from that analysis, themes that are very relevant to us today. To be clear, we are talking about the period from approximately the mid-1890s to the mid-1920s. The two themes are, first, that the government welcomed war as a means by which it could take over the American economy and subvert our liberties, and second, that the state used kept “intellectuals” to whip up support for its nefarious schemes.

Murray summarizes his view of the connection between war and the government in this way: “More than any other single period, World War I was the critical watershed for the American business system. It was a ‘war collectivism,’ a totally planned economy run largely by big-business interests through the instrumentality of the central government.” The war showed, Murray says, that “the economy could be cartelized under the aegis of government, with prices raised and production fixed and restricted, in the classic pattern of monopoly.”