Murray Rothbard in the context of "Old Right (United States)"

Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied, or put into practice. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practising ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paulo Freire, Murray Rothbard, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.

In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. Libertarianism has been described as laissez-faire on economic issues while supporting civil liberties and personal freedom. The movement is often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism. Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely the libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard, who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting the labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party, which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul.

The right-libertarianism associated with people such as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick, whose book Anarchy, State, and Utopia received significant attention in academia according to David Lewis Schaefer, is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States, compared to that of left-libertarianism. The latter is associated with the left-wing of the modern libertarian movement and more recently to the political positions associated with academic philosophers Hillel Steiner, Philippe Van Parijs and Peter Vallentyne that combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources; it is also related to anti-capitalist, free-market anarchist strands such as left-wing market anarchism, referred to as market-oriented left-libertarianism to distinguish itself from other forms of libertarianism.

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises (/vɒn ˈmiːzɪz/; German: [ˈluːtvɪç fɔn ˈmiːzəs]; September 29, 1881 – October 10, 1973) was an Austrian and American political economist and philosopher of the Austrian school. Mises wrote and lectured extensively on the social contributions of classical liberalism and the central role of consumers in a market economy. He is best known for his work in praxeology, particularly for studies comparing communism and capitalism, as well as for being a defender of classical liberalism in the face of rising illiberalism and authoritarianism throughout much of Europe during the 20th century.

Since the mid-20th century, both libertarian and classical liberal movements, as well as the field of economics as a whole have been strongly influenced by Mises's writings. Economist Tyler Cowen lists his writings as "the most important works of the 20th century" and as "among the most important economics articles, ever". Entire schools of thought trace their origins to Mises's early work, including the development of anarcho-capitalist philosophy through Murray Rothbard and the contemporary Austrian economics program led by scholars such as Peter Boettke at George Mason University.

Anarcho-capitalism (colloquially: ancap or an-cap) is a political philosophy and economic theory that advocates for the abolition of centralized states in favor of stateless societies where systems of private property are enforced by private agencies. Anarcho-capitalists argue that a society can function without a state through voluntary exchange and private institutions that provide law and security. This would result in a voluntary society based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets, and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, private defence agencies and/or insurance companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police, similar to a state apparatus.

According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism. While the earliest existing attestation of "anarchocapitalism" [sic] is in Karl Hess's essay "The Death of Politics" published by Playboy in March 1969, American economist Murray Rothbard was credited with coining the terms anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-capitalism in 1971. A leading figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement, Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian School, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchists and mutualists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, while rejecting the labour theory of value. Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". This legal code would recognize contracts between individuals, private property, self-ownership and tort law in keeping with the non-aggression principle. Unlike a state, enforcement measures in Rothbard’s version of an anarcho-capitalist society would only apply to those who initiated force or fraud. Rothbard views the power of the state as unjustified, arguing that it violates individual rights, reduces prosperity, and creates social and economic problems.

The Libertarian Party (LP) is a political party in the United States. It promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism, and limiting the size and scope of government. The world's first explicitly libertarian party, it was conceived in August 1971 at meetings in the home of David Nolan in Westminster, Colorado, and was officially formed on December 11, 1971, in Colorado Springs. The organizers of the party drew inspiration from the works and ideas of the prominent Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard. The founding of the party was prompted in part due to concerns about the Nixon administration's wage and price controls, the Vietnam War, conscription, and the introduction of fiat money.

The party generally supports "personal liberty" and fiscal conservatism, as compared to the Democratic Party's modern liberalism and progressivism and the Republican Party's social conservatism and right-wing populism. Gary Johnson, the party's presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016, claims that the Libertarian Party is more socially liberal than Democrats, and more fiscally conservative than Republicans. Its fiscal policy positions include lowering taxes and abolishing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), decreasing the national debt, allowing people to opt out of Social Security, and eliminating the welfare state, in part by utilizing private charities. Its social policy positions include ending the prohibition of illegal drugs, advocating criminal justice reform, supporting same-sex marriage, ending capital punishment, and supporting the right to keep and bear arms.

A Vindication of Natural Society: or, a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every Species of Artificial Society is a work by the Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke, published in 1756. Although the Vindication is a satire aimed at the deism of Lord Bolingbroke, Burke confronted Bolingbroke not in the sphere of religion but in that of civil society and government, countering that his arguments against revealed religion could apply to all institutions. So close to Bolingbroke's style was the work that Burke's ironic intention was missed by some readers, leading Burke in his preface to the second edition (1757) to make plain that it was a satire; this is the consensus view among most Burkean scholars and followers.

The Vindication was recognized as satire by William Godwin, often regarded as the first modern proponent of philosophical anarchism, who supported part of Burke's arguments critical of the existing political institutions despite the irony inherent in its satire. Conversely, some modern right-wing libertarian commentators, such as Murray Rothbard and Joseph Sobran, interpreted Burke's satire as a serious philosophical anarchist argument against the state.

The commercial state concept (and its important variant, commercial society) is sometimes associated with Adam Ferguson's concept of civil society and refers to a government or political state devoted primarily to the promotion and advancement of commercial interests. Ferguson, Adam Smith and other representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment (and who referred to themselves as the literati) were more likely to use the term commercial society. The underlying idea of the commercial state can also be linked to the American School of Economics (and in particular to the legacy of the political and economic approach of Alexander Hamilton). In its modern manifestation, national, state and local governments which pursue business and commercial development and other forms of economic and industrial development through tax policies and forms of positive incentives and inducements may properly be termed commercial states. Practical commercial state activities include governmental economic development efforts including encouraging plant relocations, tax rebates, zoning easements and assorted other incentives and concessions.

Several lines of thought and action (e.g. Mercantilism) run from ancient Greek and Roman philosophy through Ferguson and Adam Smith. They can be traced through the Federalist party of Alexander Hamilton and more recently Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Frederick Hayek. An essentially commercial view of the state has continued down to modern theorists including Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard, who argue not only for a limited role for government, but also that that residual role is heavily commercial. The modern U.S. Republican Party and Democratic Party in the U.S. both include significant factions of commercial state adherents, although commercial state rhetoric is usually much more evident in the former. (See, for example, discussions of Reaganomics in Ronald Reagan and the U.S. Republican Party.)