How Much Output Can a Man Produce in One Year? R. J. Rushdoony's Annual Report to Donors in 1969
August 22, 2008
Some people tell me I crank out a lot of stuff. I appreciate the praise, but it never cheers me up much. That's because I know what serious output is.
My father-in-law, R. J. Rushdoony, ran his non-profit Chalcedon Foundation from 1965 until 2001, when he died. In the early years, he published a summary of his work for the year, so that donors could see if they were getting their money's worth. You are about to read his annual report for 1969. He was 43 years old.
When he says "books read," he meant underlined, with notes in the back.
When he says "chapters," he means footnoted essays the likes of which few people have ever read, let alone have written. Check out Foundations of Social Order or The Messianic Character of American Education.
He wrote with a steel-tipped pen, which he dipped into an ink well. For block quotations, he would pick up his sheet of paper, put it into the 1918 typewriter that his father bought him, used, when he went off to Berkeley in 1936. He then typed in the quotation. He would then take out the sheet, and begin writing again. Murray Rothbard was the only person I have known who matched Rushdoony's output. But he used an electric typewriter. Rushdoony would have none of that new-fangled technology. (His wife used an IBM electric to type the final copy.)
He did this for 50 years. It added up.
I wish more people would accept at age 18 the reality of what success costs. Success is cumulative. Overnight successes are rare, and those that last are rarer still.
Total no. of speaking [engagements]: 157
Books read: 303
Mail total: 1874 (This, of course, does not include Newsletters)
Articles written for California Farmer: 26 (All columns through 1968 will be published in a forthcoming book, Bread Upon the Waters).
Studies in Book of Revelation: 8 chapters, to be published with earlier studies).
Politico-economic studies: 3 chapters, to be published in a ms being prepared at present)
Two chapters written toward another book on education.
The Myth of Over-Population, written in 1968, to be published, 1969.
30 chapters of study of Biblical law.
Two chapters added to study of the problem of the one and the many.
Two chapters added to the study of constitutional history.
One chapter added to study of The Religion of Revolution.
Two chapters written on U.S. coinage study, to be written with Burton Blumert.
Two articles; three book reviews.
Introduction written to John Witherspoon's Essay on Money, to be reprinted, 1969.
Introduction written: Dooyeweerd's Christian Idea of the State, to be published, 1969.
Proofs corrected, indexing done, for The Foundations of Social Order, Studies in the Creeds and Councils of the Early Church, which came off the presses at the end of December, 1968.
Mss. of The Myth of Over-population, The Biblical Philosophy of History, and Bread Upon the Waters prepared for printers.
During 1968, my study, Freud, went into its second printing, as did also The Messianic Character of American Education.
Wrote 12 Newsletters.