《自由的伦理》是对自由主义政治立场的最严密和最具有哲理性的阐述之一。这本著作的特色在于它把自由扎根于自然权利的观念之中并且把其适用于大量实践问题之上。尽管罗斯巴德的结论是激进的——一个严格遵循私有财产权的社会秩序必须排除国家本身存在的制度化侵犯——他对自由主义原则的应用却惊人地显示出其在大量社会难题上的实用性，这些解决方案规避了传统，具有一定的创新性。
这一版本包含了一个导言，其中专门涉及了罗伯特·诺齐克和穆瑞·罗斯巴德之间的争论。

金融危机当前,学点货币理论
易宪容(中国社会科学院金融发展室主任，北京)
莫瑞·罗斯巴德作为现代奥地利经济学派的旗手，尽管没有摘取到世俗所认为的现代经济学皇冠上的明珠，即诺贝尔经济学奖，但是，他开创的恢弘的经济思想体系将成为经济学思想不断的泉源。他作为当代经济学家中一个通才型的学者，从现实生活的点点滴滴入手，从行为的基本公理推演出了他的整个经济体系，表现出了经济学思想的永恒魅力及智慧。从这个意义上说，这正是罗斯巴德经济学生命之树常青的原因所在。
罗斯巴德的著作甚丰，有《人、经济与国家》、《美国大萧条》、《银行业的神话》等，这些著作都以深入浅出的方式道出了一个个深奥的经济问题。而摆在我们面前的这本书就是罗斯巴德著作中充满创造性思想的一本杰作。这本书从1963年首次出版发行后，连续多次再版，并被翻译成了多种文字。对广大读者来说，这本书是一本标准的货币理论启蒙读物。它以最浅显的语言、最鲜明的观点，把最抽象的货币理论的概念活灵活现地展现在读者面前，让所有的抽象概念都具象化，让读者感觉到原来如此抽象的货币问题就发生在你我之间，就发生在人们日常的经济交往中。
但是，具象化的货币并非只是我们日常生活中的“钱”，也并非只是一张张我们手中持有的纸币，更并非只是由政府来印制的钞票。通货膨胀也不只是物价的上涨，它不仅有其前因后果，还包含谁能够获利，谁又在通货膨胀中利益受损；谁喜欢通货膨胀，谁又不喜欢通货膨胀等问题。还有，货币一定是政府提供的吗？如果政府不提供货币，还可以通过什么方式来产生货币？如果政府来提供货币，它对金融市场会有什么影响？再就是，现代金融市场建立以来，为什么金融危机不断，其原因又何在？人类能够找到一条减少或避免这种金融危机不断发生的方式吗？等等。这些金融学上深奥的问题通过罗斯巴德的笔娓娓道来，即使从来不接触金融学的人，也会对金融学与货币理论的知识豁然领悟。
在罗斯巴德看来，在一个自由市场中，货币并不是什么组织或政府安排的，而是源于自由市场选择作为交换媒介的某种有用商品，其关键在于一般商品的“不可分割性”和“没有自己想要的东西”。假如一个人想用犁换几样不同的东西，像鸡蛋、面包和一套衣服，那么他该怎么做呢？他如何把犁大卸八块，将其中一部分交给农夫，剩下的给裁缝？就算东西可以分割，也不太可能让想交换的人同时找到对方，假设A想卖鸡蛋，B有一双鞋，如果A想要的是衣服，怎么可以硬是把两人凑到一起来交换呢？也就是说，由于具体商品交易的不可分割性及交易者交易的愿望，也就有了出现间接交易的需要。
这种间接交易，在尝试错误的过程中大幅扩充了经济的途径，成为现代经济文明发展的基础。因为在间接交换的机制下，你把东西卖掉后，换来的并非直接所需，将它卖掉才能得到真正想要的。这样，货币就在这种间接交换中产生了。这种对货币产生的解释具体、实在，交易者都可触、可摸、可感、可知，这样，发生在我们身边的货币理论就容易理解了。可以说，在本书中，罗斯巴德就是用这样的方式，把货币起源、货币性质、货币单位、货币功能等方面讨论得清清楚楚、一目了然。
本书对通货膨胀的解释并没有放在通货膨胀的产生、类型及治理上，而是放在通货膨胀对广大人民利益的影响上。在罗斯巴德看来，通货膨胀好比赛跑，看谁最先拿到新钱。先拿到钱者是那些与政治权力较近的人。因此，通货膨胀是政府的一种意愿，往往同政府权力的远近有关。离政府的权力越近，拿到新钱就越早，那么这些早入者受到通货膨胀的影响就越小。而因为通货膨胀惨遭损失的后知后觉者，显然比其他人晚取得新钱，受害最大。这些人不仅与政府权力远，而且都是依赖固定合约获得收益，而这些合约是在价格因通货膨胀而上涨前就签订的。因此，当通货膨胀出现时，这些人的利益首先受到损害，受到的伤害也最大。
正是从这个意义上说，通货膨胀表面上创造了经济的繁荣，但实际上则损害了广大人民的生活。同时，通货膨胀不仅改变了整个市场的经济预期，也成了掠夺广大民众财富的工具。而在这个过程中，与政治权力密切相关的利益集团获利最大，从而从根本上证明了通货膨胀对社会的危害性、对广大居民财富的掠夺性。正如罗斯巴德所言，通货膨胀（货币替代品增加，而没有相应金属货币存量的增加）从来对社会没有好处，只是牺牲一群人的利益来造福另一群人。通货膨胀是用欺诈的方式侵犯他人财产，在自由市场中是不会发生的，这就是现代社会通货膨胀的实质所在。
本书以布雷顿森林体系的瓦解为结尾，并且预言未来还将出现汇率的持续波动、债务的急剧增加、通货膨胀、危机、救市，以及对货币和信贷进行更集中控制的政治方面的冲动。事实上，近几年国际金融市场所发生的事情表明，国际金融市场的巨大波动无不是各国政府对金融市场过度干预和管制的结果。在各国国家政府对国际金融无所不能的管制过程中，不同的利益集团就会以不同的利益金融管制方式不完全地攫取或掠夺他人的利益，从而造成整个国际金融市场一个又一个的利益不平衡，而这种利益不平衡正是造成国际金融市场剧烈波动与危机的结果。
还有，罗斯巴德秉承奥地利学派的基本精神，一直保持着对政府干预市场的警惕。在他看来，政府对市场的干预不仅根本不能保护货币，而且反而会威胁到货币体系本身的完整性。政府的干预导致更多的弊端和更加严重的不稳定性。因此，政府的货币政策在货币体系中起到的作用是负面的，它只是为与政府组织紧密相关的利益集团对我们的社会采取集权控制打开了方便之门，这也是导致现代经济危机、货币危机和金融危机的根源。在本书中，罗斯巴德用西方世界出现的货币崩溃的简短历史作为例证，对此进行了生动的描述。
总之，这是一本绝大多数人都能轻松读下去的通俗的货币理论普及读物，但它并不是简单性的知识介绍，而是以深入浅出的方式，把最深奥的货币理论以最简单的方式表达出来，让读者对一般的货币理论可触、可感、可知，并从个体的日常生活中体悟到现代金融理论的真谛。
——转自《南方都市报》(日期：[2008年10月12日] 版次：[GB22] 版名：[阅读周刊 社科])http://epaper.nddaily.com/C/html/2008-10/12/content_595281.htm

《NAFMII金融译丛·银行的秘密:揭开美联储的神秘面纱(第2版)》内容简介：当更多的人把金融危机的根源锁定在人的贪婪原罪时，罗斯巴德把思考的重点放在了政府与货币的关系上，并指出货币垄断才是构成经济危机的核心。所以，当经济危机来临，那种指望政府救市的理念和措施，不仅无助于市场的完善，甚至会拉长经济危机的期限。

What is it about today's school system that so many find unsatisfactory? Why have so many generations of reformers failed to improve the educational system, and, indeed, caused it to degenerate further and further into an ever declining level of mediocrity?
In this radical and scholarly monograph, out of print for two decades and restored according to the author's original, Murray N. Rothbard identifies the crucial feature of our educational system that dooms it to fail: at every level, from financing to attendance, the system relies on compulsion instead of voluntary consent.
Certain consequences follow. The curriculum is politicized to reflect the ideological priorities of the regime in power. Standards are continually dumbed down to accommodate the least common denominator. The brightest children are not permitted to achieve their potential, the special- needs of individual children are neglected, and the mid-level learners become little more than cogs in a machine. The teachers themselves are hamstrung by a political apparatus that watches their every move.
Rothbard explores the history of compulsory schooling to show that none of this is accident. The state has long used compulsory schooling, backed by egalitarian ideology, as a means of citizen control. In contrast, a market-based system of schools would adhere to a purely voluntary ethic, financed with private funds, and administered entirely by private enterprise.
An interesting feature of this book is its promotion of individual, or home, schooling, long before the current popularity of the practice.
As Kevin Ryan of Boston University points out in the introduction, if education reform is ever to bring about fundamental change, it will have to begin with a complete rethinking of public schooling that Rothbard offers here.

Murray N. Rothbard's great treatise Man, Economy, and State and its complementary text Power and Market provides a sweeping presentation of Austrian economic theory, a reconstruction of many aspects of that theory, a rigorous criticism of alternative schools, and an inspiring look at a science of liberty that concerns nearly everything and should concern everyone.
The Mises Institute's new edition of Man Economy, and State, united for the first time with its formerly sundered companion volume Power and Market, is a landmark in the history of the Institute. It takes this book out of the category of underground classic and raises it up to its proper status as one of the great economic treatises of all time, a book that is essential for anyone seeking a robust economic education. The revealing new introduction by Joseph Stromberg uses material from the Rothbard Archives, including his personal notes during the research and writing phases, to reconstruct the intellectual setting in which the book was written, and its initial and widening impact.
For years, the Mises Institute has kept it in print and sold thousands of copies in a nice paperback version. Now in our twentieth year, we decided to take a big step and put out an edition worthy of this great treatise. It is the Scholar's Edition of Man, Economy, and State—-an edition that will immediately become definitive and used throughout the world. The footnotes (which are so brilliant and informative!) are at the bottom of every page. The index is huge and comprehensive. The binding is impeccable and its beauty unmatched.
Students have used this book for decades as the intellectual foil for what they have been required to learning from conventional economics classes. In many ways, it has built the Austrian school in the generation that followed Mises. It was Rothbard who polished the Austrian contribution to theory and wove it together with a full-scale philosophy of political ethics that inspired the generation of the Austrian revival, and continues to fuel its growth and development today.
From Rothbard, we learn that economics is the science that deals with the rise and fall of civilization, the advancement and retrenchment of human development, the feeding and healing of the multitudes, and the question of whether human affairs are dominated by cooperation or violence.
Economics in Rothbard's wonderful book emerges as the beautiful logic of that underlies human action in a world of scarcity, the lens on how exchange makes it possible for people to cooperate toward their mutual betterment. We see how money facilitates this, and allows for calculation over time that permits capital to expand and investment to take place. We see how entrepreneurship, based on real judgments and risk taking, is the driving force of the market.
What's striking is how this remarkable book has lived in the shadows for so long. It began as a guide to Human Action, and it swelled into a treatise in its own right. Rothbard worked many years on the book, even as he was completing his PhD at Columbia University. He realized better than anyone else that Mises's economic theories were so important that they needed restatement and interpretation. But he also knew that Misesian theory needed elaboration, expansion, and application in a variety of areas. The result was much more: a rigorous but accessible defense of the whole theory of the market economy, from its very foundations.