Some people have asked, if I think pure a priori economics cannot be used to defend actual markets, then how can I like von Mises but not Rothbard? After all, wasn’t von Mises just as a priori as Rothbard?

My response: remember what I said in my post about whether economics is a science.

Philosophy of economics is not (usually) economics, just as philosophy of physics is not (usually) physics. So, I think von Mises and Rothbard are both wrong in important ways about their explicit philosophy of economics. But, even if their philosophy of economics is mistaken in my view, that alone would leave me agnostic about their actual output in economics. Just as a chemist can believe in a mistaken philosophy of science but still be an excellent chemist, so can an economist believe in a mistaken philosophy of economics and still be an excellent economist. At the same time, one can have the right philosophy of X but not be a good X. (E.g., I have an excellent grip on philosophy of science in general, but I am not a good scientist. Or, I have a better understanding of philosophy of economics than von Mises, but he is a better economist than I am.)

So, one reason I dislike Rothbard and like von Mises is that, in my view, the former’s output in economics and philosophy in general is really poor, while the latter’s is good. Also, I dislike Rothbard because of how he conducted his personal life, his work to cultivate something approximating a cult of personality, and various things he did that seem to exhibit intergroup bias and confirmation bias. These complaints do not apply to von Mises. With von Mises, it’s easy to cite a big contribution to economics: the calculation problem of socialism. I don’t know of a similar contribution by Rothbard. Outside of the Austrian school, do economists regard Rothbard as having made significant contributions?