Murray N. Rothbard, “Rothbard’s Confidential Memorandum to the Volker Fund, ‘What Is to Be Done?’”

Murray N. Rothbard’s memorandum, first published in 2009 and republished in the documented 2010 version, proposes a strategy for advancing libertarian individualism through scholarship, institutions, and principled alliances. Moving from organizational theory to an assessment of the American libertarian movement, it argues that a growing constituency of sympathetic conservatives cannot substitute for a coherent intellectual nucleus.

Many of us have devoted a great deal of time to advancing and developing libertarian and individualist thought itself, into rendering it consistent, deepening and rediscovering its implications, etc.

Rothbard distinguishes developing ideas from organizing their influence. His selective appropriation of Leninist strategic categories addresses the latter problem: how can a committed minority engage broader circles without surrendering its principles? Sectarianism protects doctrine at the expense of practical engagement; opportunism purchases influence by compromising the commitments that justify it.

If we were forced to choose, surely self-respect would demand the "sectarian" course; the "opportunist" is, by his nature, "liquidationist" of true principle.

This priority does not entail withdrawal. Rothbard instead advocates theoretical consistency alongside participation in limited campaigns. Libertarians need not state their entire philosophy on every occasion, but must not endorse incompatible positions. Income-tax repeal illustrates how a partial reform can advance liberty while introducing collaborators to a more comprehensive argument. Cooperation is judged by its direction, not by whether every participant already accepts the ultimate objective.

The group of totally libertarian thinkers is, in short, the "hard core" or the "cadre" of the broadly libertarian or quasi-libertarian movement.

This distinction between a core and its wider milieu structures the institutional argument. Alliances require an intellectually independent center; otherwise libertarians risk absorption into their allies’ outlook. Independence also means distinguishing objections grounded in liberty from conservative cultural preferences.

As libertarians solely, we have no quarrel with progressive education, privately offered.

The example limits the movement’s common commitments to liberty rather than a comprehensive prescription for private life. Opposition to the Left therefore cannot, by itself, supply an adequate organizational basis.

Rothbard presents the Foundation for Economic Education as an important response to the isolation of scattered thinkers. Beyond distributing literature, it provided a point of contact through which newcomers could meet established intellectuals and develop their commitments. Yet he argues that this achievement was insufficiently consolidated. His criticism of Leonard Read concerns the neglect of advanced scholarship and reliance on elementary generalities. Underlying that judgment is a hierarchical model of intellectual transmission: scholars influence teachers and journalists, who reach wider publics. Publicity cannot replace work at the intellectual source, while fundraising becomes counterproductive when institutional survival displaces substantive purpose.

The Volker Fund represents a further advance through support for research, seminars, fellowships, and scholars such as Mises and Hayek. Nevertheless, Rothbard sees diminishing returns in continually expanding a network of loosely sympathetic academics. Dispersed scholars need sustained collaboration, not merely additional contacts. Seminars involving broadly conservative participants cannot alone deepen a distinctively libertarian research program.

His criticism of the conservatism associated with National Review sharpens this diagnosis. He regards its militarism, hostility to civil liberties, and attachment to traditional authority as threats to the older Right’s commitments to peace and individual freedom. Growth on the Right can consequently weaken libertarianism through ideological absorption. Separation from conservatism qualifies rather than cancels the alliance strategy: cooperation must advance liberty, not simply mobilize against a shared enemy.

The concluding proposals translate intellectual independence into institutional design. Rothbard favors a non-degree-granting institute for advanced scholarship, while considering a research council, scholarly society, journal, or expanded fellowships as alternatives. Existing support should continue, but concentrated intellectual exchange must complement individual grants. The memorandum ultimately treats ideological durability as an institutional accomplishment: principles need settings in which they can be developed, transmitted, and brought into practical cooperation without being dissolved.