Bipolar Typology of Societies by Murray Rothbard

Abstract

The article presents a bipolar typological system developed by the American economist Murray Rothbard. Focusing on describing two ideal types, it tries to introduce criteria in order to sort human communities according to indexing axis defined by contractual society on the one side and by hegemonic society on the other. The basis of the considerations is the Rothbardian notion of “violence” as the coercive type of human actions and the notion of “contract” as the voluntary type of actions. The text raises also the problem of positive and negative liberty as a key element of the typology presented by the American author. Furthermore it proposes possible uses of the discussed rating in social science.