David Gordon (philosopher)

Gordon received his degrees from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), including a doctorate in intellectual history.

File:Blumert Rockwell Gordon Rothbard.jpg, Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, and Murray Rothbard]]

Gordon is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank.[https://mises.org/fellow.aspx?id=5 David Gordon biography] at Ludwig von Mises Institute web site. He previously worked for another libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, from 1979 to 1980.{{Cite book |last=Mayer |first=Jane |title=Dark money: the hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right |date=2017 |publisher=Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC |isbn=978-0-307-94790-1 |edition=First edition, paperback |location=New York |pages=107, 488}}{{Cite web |last=Mullins |first=Luke |date=May 30, 2012 |title=The Battle for the Cato Institute |url=https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/05/30/the-battle-for-cato/ |access-date=June 7, 2023 |website=Washingtonian magazine |language=en-US}} He has written for the Rothbard-Rockwell Report published by Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell.{{Cite book |last=Hardisty |first=Jean |title=Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence From The John Birch Society To The Promise Keepers |publisher=Beacon |year=2000 |isbn=9780807043172 |pages=174}} He became a specialist in Rothbard's beliefs on political theory, history, economics, and other subjects.{{Third-party inline|date=June 2023|reason=needs description of Gordon's work with Rothbard}}

He has contributed to Analysis, International Philosophical Quarterly, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics,[https://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&ID=64 David Gordon Literature Archive], Ludwig von Mises Institute listing. Social Philosophy and PolicyDavid Gordon, [http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3093316 "Marxism, Dictatorship, and the Abolition of Rights"], Social Philosophy and Policy (1986), 3: 145–159, Cambridge University Press. and Econ Journal Watch.David Gordon with Per Nilsson, [http://econjwatch.org/file_download/471/CompleteIssueJanuary2011.pdf#page=59 The Ideological Profile of Harvard University Press: Categorizing 494 Books Published 2000–2010], Econ Journal Watch, Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2011 He also has been published in the Orange County Register,[http://articles.ocregister.com/2006-05-10/opinion/24759428_1_quarterly-review-government-ludwig-von-mises "A liberty round table: Libertarian think tank brings its bracing philosophy to Costa Mesa"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811212243/http://articles.ocregister.com/2006-05-10/opinion/24759428_1_quarterly-review-government-ludwig-von-mises |date=August 11, 2011 }}, The Orange County Register, May 10, 2006. The American Conservative[http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/jul/28/00024/ Going Off the Rawls; Libertarians have adopted the Left's favorite modern philosopher] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604172845/http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/jul/28/00024// |date=June 4, 2011 }}, The American Conservative, July 28, 2008, Issue. and The Freeman.David Gordon, [http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/murray-rothbards-philosophy-of-freedom/ "Murray Rothbard's Philosophy of Freedom"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409005008/http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/murray-rothbards-philosophy-of-freedom/ |date=April 9, 2011 }}, The Freeman, Foundation for Economic Education, November 2007, Volume: 57, Issue: 9.

In 1985 Gordon worked with Walter Block on a law review article, "Extortion and the Exercise of Free Speech Rights," which explored contradictions and paradoxes in laws against blackmail and the conditions under which such laws may be acceptable.J Feinberg, [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9337.1988.tb00006.x/abstract "The paradox of blackmail"], Ratio Juris, 1988, Wiley Online Library.Walter Block and David Gordon, [http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_blackmail-extortion-speech-1985.pdf "Extortion and the Exercise of Free Speech Rights: A Reply to Professors Posner, Epstein, Nozick and Lindgren,"] Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 19, no. 1, November 1985, pp. 37–54.

Gordon's 1991 book Resurrecting Marx: The Analytical Marxists on Freedom, Exploitation, and Justice was described by Mises Institute scholar Yuri Maltsev as "a refutation of neo-Marxist attempts to save the system from itself."Yuri N. Maltsev, Requiem for Marx, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1993, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gx0X4NvNE_gC&pg=PA29 p. 29], {{ISBN|978-1-61016-116-9}} The book, which answers the arguments of Marxist political philosophers, including G. A. Cohen, Jon Elster, and John Roemer, dismisses every form of Marxism as theoretically unviable.David Boaz, The Libertarian Reader, Simon & Schuster, 1998, [http://www.google.com/search?q=libertarian%20%20%22david%20gordon%22&hl=en&tbo=u&tbs=bks:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=sp p. 447]. The American Political Science Review said Gordon's argument was "rather crude": capitalism could not be exploitative, and laissez-faire capitalism could serve a just world. Therefore, Gordon concludes, Marxism is "a complete failure."Wright, Bruce E. (1992) "Review of David Gordon's Resurrecting Marx," American Political Science Review, Volume 86, Issue 2, [https://books.google.com/books?id=InkRAQAAMAAJ&q=David+Gordon+Resurrecting+Marx Page 510] Contemporary Sociology said Gordon failed to show that analytical Marxists were "a formidable weapon in the hands of anti-Marxists" such as himself. Gordon was said to have shown little competency in anti-Marxist argument, falling into "easily avoided mistakes." Paul Gottfried in The Review of Metaphysics assessed the book more positively, writing that Gordon had demonstrated that Cohen, Elster and Roemer had failed to "rehabilitate Marx's economic theories". The review said Gordon's explanation of his own libertarian stance was "by far the most stimulating."{{cite journal |last=Gottfried |first=Paul |date=June 1991 |title=Book review: Resurrecting Marx |url=http://www.pdcnet.org/revmetaph/content/revmetaph_1991_0044_0004_0842_0842 |journal=The Review of Metaphysics |volume=44 |pages=842–843 |number=4}} Oxford political scientist David Leopold noted Gordon's thumbnail test regarding whether a writer could be classified as an analytical Marxist as part of a common "misleading and unfortunate" understanding of the school, Gordon writing that a favorable stance on dialectics meant that the writer must be "crossed off the list."{{cite book |first=David |last=Leopold |editor=David Leopold, Marc Stears |chapter=Dialectical Approaches |title=Political Theory: methods and approaches |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2008 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aoas8YEAAqgC&pg=PA121 |page=121 |isbn=978-0-19-923009-9}}

Gordon's book The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics (1992), which explores the philosophical origins of Carl Menger's economic theories, was highly praised by Murray Rothbard.Murray Rothbard, [http://www.rothbard.it/essays/present-state-of-austrian.pdf " The Present State of Austrian Economics"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120126142946/http://www.rothbard.it/essays/present-state-of-austrian.pdf |date=January 26, 2012 }}, paper delivered October 9, 1992; reprinted in The Logic of Action One: Method, Money, and the Austrian School, Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 1997, pp. 111–172. Rothbard writes: "For a brilliant and incisive discussion and demolition of the logical empiricist contention on many levels, see David Gordon, The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics." Writing in The Review of Austrian Economics, Barry Smith criticized the book for its over-simplistic division of philosophers into two camps—German (Hegelian, organicist and anti-science) and Austrian (Aristotelian, individualist and pro-science)—despite philosophers having more complex interrelations. For instance, Franz Brentano is exemplary of Austrian thought though he was born in Germany and was strongly influenced by German philosopher Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg.Barry Smith [https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF01101946 "The philosophy of Austrian economics"], Review of David Gordon's The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics, The Review of Austrian Economics, Volume 7, Number 2, 127–132, {{doi|10.1007/BF01101946}} Gordon later wrote an essay, "Second Thoughts on The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics," to provide some additions and corrections to his book.David Gordon, [https://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/RAE7_2_8.pdf "Second thoughts on The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics"], The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 7, No. 2.{{Third-party inline|date=September 2023|reason=WP:IS needed for context and WP:DUEWEIGHT}}

In 2002, Gordon edited Secession, State & Liberty, a collection of essays arguing that secession should be seriously considered. The essays analyze U.S. history, examine theoretical issues, and apply these ideas to the modern world.George C. Leef, [http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-review-secession-state-liberty-edited-by-david-gordon/ "A Feast of Challenges to the Conventional Wisdom"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110301130142/http://www.thefreemanonline.org/departments/book-review-secession-state-liberty-edited-by-david-gordon/ |date=March 1, 2011 }}, a review of Secession, State & Liberty, Freeman On Line, 1998.

In 2011, Gordon and Swedish consultant Per Nilsson analyzed books published by Harvard University Press in their paper "The Ideological Profile of Harvard University Press: Categorizing 494 Books Published 2000–2010" in Econ Journal Watch. They concluded that the press's ideology is predominantly leftist, although they acknowledged they hadn't read all the books they categorized.Nina Ayoub, [http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/harvard-press-leans-left-economists-say/28133 "Harvard Press Leans Left, Economists Say"], Chronicle of Higher Education, January 25, 2011.

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Murray Rothbard referred to Gordon as a friend and "Mr. Erudition."Murray N. Rothbard, "Mr. Bush's shooting war," February 1991, published in Llewellyn H. Rockwell, editor, The Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard, Center for Libertarian Studies, 2000, {{ISBN|978-1-883959-02-9}} In The Myth of National Defense, Luigi Marco Bassani and Carlo Lottieri described Gordon as the "semiofficial reviewer of the libertarian community." Reason journalist Brian Doherty wrote in the foreword to Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard that Gordon was "the only man around who knows as much as Rothbard did about the historical, philosophical, and economic background of libertarianism."Murray Rothbard, Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2010, [https://books.google.com/books?id=rWRE9h95qtcC&pg=PR10 p. x], in foreword by Brian Doherty, {{ISBN|978-1-933550-80-0}} The Orange County Register called him a "polymath."

Peter J. Boettke, in Reason Papers (Fall 1994), described Gordon as a philosopher and intellectual historian deeply influenced by Rothbardian economics.

• {{cite book|isbn=978-0-88738-390-8|title=Resurrecting Marx: The Analytical Marxists on Freedom, Exploitation, and Justice| year=1991 |publisher=Transaction Publishers}}
• Editor, with Jeremy Shearmur. H. B. Acton's The Morals of Markets and Related Essays, (1971) essays. 2nd edition (1993), Liberty Fund, {{ISBN|978-0-86597-106-6}}.
• {{cite book|isbn=978-0-945466-14-7|title=The Philosophical Origins of Austrian Economics|year=1996 |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute}}
• {{cite book|isbn=978-0-945466-28-4|title=An Introduction to Economic Reasoning (ebook version) |year=2000|publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute|url=https://www.mises.org/etexts/EconReasoning.pdf}}
• Editor, {{cite book|isbn=978-0-7658-0943-8|title=Secession, State & Liberty|year= 2002 |publisher=Transaction Publishers}}
• {{cite book|isbn=978-1-933550-10-7|title=The Essential Rothbard|year=2007 |publisher=Ludwig von Mises Institute}}[https://mises.org/resources/3093 Description of Gordon's The Essential Rothbard] written with access to Rothbard's private correspondence.

{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/david-gordon/?ptype=lrc-blog David Gordon archives at LewRockwell.com]
• [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon82.1.html 2010 Mises Faculty Spotlight: Text Interview with David Gordon]
• [http://badquaker.com/archives/2228 2012 Bad Quaker Podcast: Audio Interview with David Gordon]

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