Because libertarianism, like conservatism, is a broad term, I must begin with a definition. Primarily in America, libertarianism implies anti-statism, a free market capitalist economic system, and support for private property. This is the tradition that I am focusing on. Historically, and outside America, libertarianism was synonymous with the anti-statist socialist and left-anarchist movements. It was anti-statist, but rejected hierarchy and private property. For this reason, “libertarian socialist” is not a contradiction, given the historical definition.
But terms can be taken and redefined over time. For a basic understanding of this older understanding, I recommend Proudhon’s What is Property? and the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker’s Individual Liberty.
With the rise of the Old Right in the early 20th century as a reaction to the Progressive era, war, and New Deal politics, a new libertarian movement emerged, influenced by these left anti-statists as well as the American Jeffersonian tradition (hint, reading Jefferson would be recommended). For a bit of recommended reading of the early pro-liberty American conservative tradition up to the Old Right, see the beginning of Sources in Ideology, Part 2.
Thankfully for us, Keith Knight of the Libertarian Institute recently published a collection of fifty important essays in the libertarian tradition, The Voluntaryist Handbook. This is an excellent beginner’s guide that will give you more than a basic understanding of this tradition, and will make you familiar with many important names. If you want to go far more in-depth, read on.
The Old Right
There are many important names in the Old Right. Bill Kauffman’s America First! will tell you quite a bit about this movement and the people within it enclosed in a single book. Albert Jay Nock and H.L. Mencken are both recommended reading. Both edited Old Right publications. Nock edited The Freeman and Mencken The American Mercury. Frank Chodorov, founder of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (renamed the Intercollegiate Studies Institute), whose essays are highly recommended, revived The Freeman from 1937 to 1942. It was revived again in 1950, continuing until 2016.
From 1954, The Freeman was managed by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), an organization founded by Leonard Read that continues today.
A few other figures in the Old Right worth reading are Isabel Patterson (The God of The Machine), Rose Wilder Lane (The Discovery of Freedom), Garet Garrett (Defend America First) and John T. Flynn (Forgotten Lessons).
Libertarian Journals
In the 1950s, conservatives established National Review and Modern Age, which many libertarians contributed to. Then in the 1960s, many libertarian publications arose. The New Individualist Review ran from 1961-1968. Murray Rothbard, sometimes known as “Mr. Libertarian,” started Left and Right, which ran from 1965 to 1968. Then he ran The Libertarian Forum from 1969-1984. These three are all available in their entirety, but the latter is highly recommended for understanding the highs and lows of the libertarian movement during this period.
Reason magazine began in 1968, and still exists today, but for libertarian thought it is far more bland. In 1977, the Journal of Libertarian Studies began, which continues today.
The Split
In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a split in the libertarian movement that remains today. The Cato Institute and Reason magazine hold to a more acceptable, mainstream libertarianism that is more supportive of liberal democracy. The Mises Institute (which I cannot recommend highly enough) is the bastion of the other, more radical, more Rothbardian strain of libertarianism.
Murray Rothbard and Mises Institute founder Lew Rockwell published the Rothbard-Rockwell Report in the 1990s, which contains several brilliant essays, many of which are collected in The Irrepressible Rothbard. Rothbard also published the Review of Austrian Economics until his death in 1995.
Rothbard et al.
Murray Rothbard’s contributions to libertarian thought can not be underestimated. His For a New Liberty is a fantastic manifesto. He has written many excellent history books, including The Panic of 1819, America’s Great Depression, The Progressive Era, and a five volume history of colonial America called Conceived in Liberty. He also wrote a two volume (a third was never finished) Austrian Perspective on The History of Economic Thought. His Ethics of Liberty, The Case Against The Fed, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, and The Betrayal of The American Right are just a few of his other books that come to mind, all highly recommended.
F. A. Hayek is another popular libertarian name, who wrote the famous The Road to Serfdom and won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974. His Capitalism and The Historians is highly recommended, among other works.
At this point, I wish to note that libertarian theory and free-market economic thought are very much intertwined. Rothbard, Hayek, and the great Ludwig von Mises wrote quite a lot on both libertarianism and Austrian economics. I will devote future articles to these different economic schools of thought (to make sure you don’t miss those, make sure you subscribe).
If you read Rothbard, Hayek, and Mises, you will understand both libertarianism, Austrian economics, and their relation quite well. But the Austrian school is not the only free-market school of thought. There is the public choice school of James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. There is also the Chicago school, with its most popular economist Milton Friedman (his Free to Choose book and video series are both recommended). These are all related to libertarianism, and should be looked into (again, make sure you’re subscribed above to be notified when I write the Sources in Ideology for those).
A final figure worth mentioning is Hans-Hermann Hoppe, who has continued the Rothbardian libertarian tradition of thought. His Democracy: The God That Failed is one of many great works. His annual Property and Freedom Society meetings bring together many great thinkers from across the world to deliver lectures.
Libertarian Politics
The Libertarian Party, founded in 1971, has tried, with very slight success, to elect libertarians into political office. But the most famous libertarian runs for president were not under the Libertarian Party banner. Ron Paul’s two runs for president in 2008 and 2012 (he also ran as a Libertarian in 1988) brought libertarianism into the public eye, recruiting many young activists and starting Young Americans For Liberty. It is a common theme today to hear many libertarian origin stories begin with Ron Paul. His Liberty Defined was influential for me, and his speeches from those runs are worth going back to watch.
So Much More
It would take at minimum several years to get through each of these articles, and yet there is still so much that I have left out. To end, I will recommend three podcasts: The Tom Woods Show, The Human Action Podcast, and The Bob Murphy Show. The three of these in total form a lengthy archive of libertarian thought, and are all still continuing today.