Individuals, radicals reactors and the struggle for the soul of libertarianism. The coauthor matt who is also professor of philosophy at the university of san diego. Professor, what are you trying toid accomplish in this book the individualist . So this book is the First Comprehensive history of libertarian ideas from the middle of the 19th century up to th present day. If theres onene overarching ida in there about that history, its that no matter how many libertarians you know, no matter how many libertarians love or hate or have argued with, libertarianism is much, much more diverse thanto you probably think. We try to show that diversity to the whole history mostly to shed light on the current state of the Libertarian Movement and future possibilities. Host are you libertarian . Guest of sorts but it spends on a lot what you mean by libertarian which is an issue that john and i struggled with a great deal in writing this book. Turned out to be much harder term to pen down to one might expect. Host before get into the book hoosier coauthor . Guest john was a professor of political theory at Brown University radio since moved on and he is now the president of academy, organization that tries to promote diversity of viewpoints in higher education. Host so you talk about the three ways of libertarianism in your book. How did it begin . Waited the concept again . So libertarianism emerge and oregon middle of the 19th century in britain and france before it made its way over to the United States. Individuals didnt necessarily call themselves libertarians and then. So applying that label retrospectively. But what you saw around that time was clearly something new ideologically speaking. So prior to libertarianism definitely knuckle Classical Liberal luke authors, john locke, smith hua talked about the importance of individual dignity and freedom, talk about the ideas of free markets and limited government of which is sought in the 19th century was a w kind of radicalization of those ideas. So a whereas earlier Classical Liberals had viewed these things is kind of presumptions as it were, we should a free market but, of course, asg granting exceptions, things that come with me to do that markets cant do. Libertarians radicalize that view of the idea that markets were sacrosanct, that any interference with mark to come in expansion of government power was a slippery slope which if left unchecked would lead us inevitably down to socialism. Its that were socialism explains why libertarianism emerged when and where it did because in the middle of the 19th century written and france what you start seeing for the first time were socialist revolutionaries who soughtgh to establish a socialist state that would impose a particularly kind of Economic System by force and tired entire national communities. Libertarians saw that and thought this is the antithesis of freedom. This is what we need to stand against. Host so were talking mid 19th century, late 1850s or so. Who wasnt in france and england who take the ideas of abba smith and john locke and putting them into practice . Guest you had a variety of individuals. In france whenvi of the most prominent and if it just was a german named frederick was an economist in france, also member of the French International assembly. He devoted himself primarily to the cause of free trade in france. He thought that restrictions on imports when governments try to meddle with production home to expand certain industries, that this was economically foolish and also an unjust usurpation of individual liberty. So we dedicate himself first to this new economic path of defending freetrade policies, but curious think of that he was he soon began to believe that the moral and economic basis of which freetrade stood actually had implications for a much wider range of governmental and economic questions. So it gradually evolved into this kind of overall Economic System of liberty. In britain you had i think the primary driver of libertarian ideas in britain was herbertwh spencer who is not much removed today social of darwinism, somewhat unjust charge. But at the time he was commenced a popular intellectual figure. One of the most popular public intellectuals of late 19th century. And spencer in 1851 authored what i believe is probably the first systematic treatise of libertarian thought in the book of social status. Spencer set up as i do which was called the law of equal freedom which was the idea that every individual is entitled to as much freedom as possible that is compatible with the sum of freedom for us. M so i have referred to control my own body. You have freedom to control youf blood ive been to mobile armory but i dont have freedom to punch you in the news because that interferesso with your freedom for your own body. As much freedom as possible as long as we render that freedom is compatible with all of the individuals. And then he goes out and explains what that implies in terms of property rights, in terms t of government welfare systems, in terms of the rights for childrensp and women expansn was actually radically progressive on both womens and childrens rights, holding that can both ofed those groups who were denied very many rights in the political circumstance at the time off to be entitled to as much right as anybody else. And so spencer launched a Libertarian Movement in england that spawned a number of followers both after his death and eventually in the United States as. Host so, these ideas of equality were pretty radical, given the politics of mid19th century england and france. Guest thats right. And you saw the same thing in the United States. So libertarianism didnt really emerge in the United States and typical of it after it did in england and france, more like 1870s through the 1890s. And when it did it took a strikingly different form but equally radical and equally egalitarian pixel were as libertarians in britain and france were reacting primarily against socialism, an america there was about any live socialist threat. Socialist that you had in 19th Century America were essentially voluntary, small scale socialists. They wanted to move out to a commune in the countryside, kind of mind their own business and let everyone mind their own business as well. Libertarians didnt have any problem with that. What they did a problem with and what america had that britain and france lacked was slavery, not slavery on some far off slavery like backyard and libertarians used slavery as essentially as everything its good for a lot of good libertarians to out as libertarian they became libertarian. Well known as an abolitionist, he was essentially made as an anarchist based on the same logic, like what is slavery . The unjust Positional Authority of one human over another. Isnt that what government is . Ecbecame a libertarian a lot of people did as well. It wasnt about socialism for the so a lot of libertarians thought socialist is there i and basing their views on the same moral principles as libertarians. Capitalism . Its because they think the capitalist is profiting from the labor. The worker. Well, thats something that libertarians dont like either. We dont like it when government taxes because. We think government is unjustly taking the proceeds of our labor. So its the same moral principle its just a difference of how that principle was applied. So are we still the first wave with what with it coming over to america in the early 20th century or if we moved into the second wave, this is all this is all what call first wave libertarianism. Second wave of libertarianism doesnt really start until about the 1930s. And now were talking primarily about the United States. So whereas britain and france were kind of hotbeds of libertarian theory in the 19th century, by the 20th century, all the action is really in the United States. Most of the major libertarian thinkers are either born in the United States or they migrate the United States. So you get people like ayn rand, for instance, coming from the soviet union. You get people like ludwig von mises and Friedrich Hayek coming from austria. But all the action here is centered in the United States. And what sparks this kind of and reshaping of libertarian thought in the 20th century is essentially a new wave of. Fear of socialism. It starts with the new deal, United States, because a lot of people believe that fdr was essentially attempting to impose a kind of socialist dictatorship on United States through the new deal and other mechanisms and then when the soviet union emerged, a kind of expansionist International Force libertarians are now worried about both International Socialism and domestic socialism. And this provides the kind of glue that, holds the Libertarian Movement together. Most of the 20th century, holds libertarians a kind of uneasy relationship with political conservatives for of the 20th century and defines the what counts as a salient issue. What counts as the major battles for libertarians. For most of that time period. You write in your book, the individualists for libertarians in general and for anarchists in particular. Democrat Political Institutions hold special intrinsic authority. Thats right libertarians have always had a kind of, uneasy relationship with the autocracy and the position radical and extreme. When you put that way. But if you think about the reasoning that led them to that conclusion, its not completely alien to most of us. Right . So most of us believe that democracy has its limits so there are certain things that shouldnt be up for a vote if. 51 of the population decides to enslave 49. The other 49 or 51 decides to deny enfranchisement to the other 49 that strikes most us as deeply unjust. And we think that the constitu option does and ought to prohibit that kind of democratic governments, libertarians take that same but expand it further so that libertarians believe that there are a whole host of rights beyond just not being enslaved or not being enfranchised that are essentially sacrosanct, are moral absolutes and just because a large percentage people votes to abridge those rights doesnt make it any less unjust. So libertarians think what really matters is that . Peoples rights are respected. We that we dont violate peoples rights, that we dont violate peoples rights, bodily autonomy and the particular political mechanisms that we use to enact those rights or enforce those rights, those are of secondary importance only. So democracy at best, not a big deal at worst. Maybe even destructive if it tends to lead to peoples rights being abridged. How different was the libertarianism of the ayn rands and the Friedrich Hayeks from the first wave of libertarianism pretty substantially different. So in the first wave in britain and france, the threat was socialism. And so libertarianism defined itself as anti socialism. In america. As we talked about, it was very different. And so if you look at 20th century libertarianism, the United States, its radically, radically different from 19th Century American libertarianism, where people were talking about libertarianism and socialism is essentially the same thing where libertarians complaining about the injustice of profits and rent. You dont see any of that really in 20th century libertarianism, but 20th Century American libertarianism does look an awful lot like 20th or 19th century british and french libertarianism because theyre both reacting against the same. Theyre both reacting against the threat of socialism. What you saw in the century that was different, both from british and french and american libertarianism in the 19th century, was that liberty and ism came to identify itself as and be identified by as more of a right wing conservative view. Whereas in the 19th century, libertarians saw themselves as radicals, saw themselves as progressives, they saw as people who wanted to fundamentally change the unjust structure of society. And that started shift pretty notably in 20th century in a way that still lingers on today. I think libertarianism, if you average person on the street where you place libertarianism on the left, right spectrum, theyre going to put it on the right. Well before we get into the third wave, i wanted to ask you, you spent quite a bit of time with Lysander Spooner in your book, who he . Lysander spooner is fun. Its hard not to spend a lot of time. Lysander spooner have you ever seen a picture of the guy you should google him because hes got this tremendous beard. He just looks the kind of person that youd see at a conference like this and youd walk up with him and have a really interesting conversation about all kinds of youd never thought of before. And he was a bit of a crank. He was, you know, we call our book the individualists and theres a number of reasons for that. Some of them philosophical, but some of them are cultural libertarians are just they go own way. They dont think like else does in Lysander Spooner certainly fits up to that bill he a lawyer in the 19th century United States he was a abolitionist and one of his most famous legal works was a piece called the unconstitutionality of slavery, where he tried to show through meticulous legal and philosophical why slavery was incompatible with the constitution of the United States then on to have a pretty tremendous influence on the Libertarian Movement. But it was a pretty mainstream piece as spooner age she became more and more radical. So after having written the un constitution out of slavery, he wrote another piece called to the non slave holders the south. And this was not a document for public dissemination in the same way that earlier piece was. This was a broadside that was going to be distributed to the non slave holders of the south urging them to essentially incite and support any slave rebellions that they could. He kind of given up on the Legal Process as a means for remedying slavery and he thought look these are people whose rights are being violated on a systematic and, egregious basis. Anybody who is in a position to aid those, whose rights are being violated, is least permitted to do so and may be morally obligated to do so. So if you can get guns to slaves, if you can help slaves escape, if you can capture a slave owner and flogging him on the street to teach him a lesson these are all things you should do. So he wrote up this pamphlet. The story gets better, by the way. He wrote it this pamphlets to distribute it. Word gets around that Lysander Spooner is this plot and john brown pays a visit to lysander and says, look, this is great, but im actually planning on doing Something Like this fairly soon. And if you go distributing your pamphlet calling attention to it beforehand, thats going to set a spotlight me in a way that i dont want. So can you just like keep this quiet for now . Let me do my thing. And so he did john brown conducted his raid on harpers ferry, got arrested, at which point Lysander Spooner hatched another plot to kidnap the governor of virginia and hold him for ransom exchange for john browns release, which thankfully he was talked out of by his friends. So colorful character, to say the least but one of the one of the most interesting figures 19th century lewinski are we currently in the third wave of libertarianism. What is it we are what it is is something that in some ways remains yet to be determined. So what really held libertarians together for most of the 20th century . What held libertarians and conservatives together . A somewhat Uneasy Alliance for the 20th century was socialism, but by the end of the 20th century, socialism essentially collapsed, both politically, intellectually, politically, the berlin wall falling 89, and with it so too did the threat of International Socialism as a military expansionist force. And intellectually, there simply arent that many people around anymore who believe in socialism in the sense full state control of the economy, the people who themselves socialists nowadays mostly believe in a market economy. All right. They believe we all have a capitalistic name with private ownership of the means of production they just think that there should be a lot of regulation, that there should be a dose of redistribution to help. Those who are left behind by the rising tide of a capitalist economy. So socialism essentially died. And when socialism die, libertarians kind of looked at themselves and thought, well, look if were not, we cant define ourselves being against that. What we what are we for . What what positive thing are we standing for . So some socialists are sort of looking towards the right or some libertarians rather looking towards the right and looking at current movements. The Republican Party of nationalist populist movements and asking like, is that where we find our home nowadays . Do we believe the nation state . Do we believe in and popular autonomy other are looking to the left looking to black lives matter and asking is that we should be putting our energy defending the rights of the oppressed. And so youve seen this both within the Libertarian Party. Theres been a split between different factions and some kind of moving in a trumpist direction. Others want to move back towards a more form of Classical Liberalism. And i think you see this in broader world, broader world of libertarian ideas as well. Libertarians are trying to figure out what theyre against and thus what theyre for in the 21st century. Would you describe contemporary Libertarian Party as probusiness . No, i dont think that the Libertarian Party, probusiness libertarians always had a kind of uneasy relationship with. The business community, on the one hand, libertarians support, capitalism, they support the rights of businesses to compete and flourish in a free market economy and profit as much as they wish. And of course, libertarians often defended this for much of the 20th century and up to the present day on, the business community, for a heavy dose of financial. So you have people like charles koch for whos been a major donor to a lot of libertarian organizations like the cato institute, like the institute for humane to this present day. But on the hand, theres a lot of you see in american capitalism today that libertarians dont that they morally disapprove of, that they think is economically inefficient. You have a system in which theres competition. Yes. But theres also a lot of government. There are rules that prescribe certain kinds of competition in certain sectors of the economy. There are subsidies, certain favorite corporations. There are tariffs against foreign competition. And so what you get the end of all this is its a market but its not the kind of free market that libertarians envision and hope for. And so are they probusiness . Well, yeah, in a sense they want business to be able to flourish, but want a level Playing Field. They want a fair Playing Field in which you succeed or fail on your own merits and not because your cousin is a state legislator and he happened to put in a good word for you in latest appropriations bill. What is blog bleeding hearts, libertarians . So i wrote a substack called bleeding heart libertarian. Now this was a we started group blog about ten years ago by this name. Then it kind of fell apart and im sort of resurrecting the idea there was really to convey message that you could be a libertarian and and still care about the poor the the oppressed that these werent necessary really incompatible worldviews in a way that a lot of people seem to think they were a lot of people thought that like if youre a libertarian youre youre an individualist in the pejorative sense. Right, you care about yourself. You dont care about others. Dont tread on me. Everyone else can fend for themselves. My view is that these things not only arent incompatible they actually are symbiotic and an important way. Right . So the reason that im a libertarian is because i believe it will benefit the poor and the marginalized. The reason im a libertarian is because i believe that when state power is exercised as its often often exercised, not for the benefit of the poor and vulnerable, but against their interests. And so a commitment to limiting the state while it might seem like thats going to cut off the support that the state currently provides the lower classes actually. When you look at where the government spends its money, most of the money the government spends is not on the poor and vulnerable. Its on politically wellconnected and the economically welloff. So i think that a principle to libertarianism and a principled to social justice go hand in. And thats a message that im im trying to get out there to as many people as possible. University san diego philosophy professor is the coauthor with john tomasi of the individualists radicals react and the struggle for the soul of libertarianism. Thank you for being on book tv. Its a pleas stacy was a guest on tv, not program. Chronicled the lives of cleopatra, and even frequent and others. The salem witch trials, Benjamin Ragland life and discussed her most recent book about samuel adams. A quote from your the which is. America tiny reign of terror salem represents one of the rare moments of our past from the candles are out and everyone is growing about the dog. A place for all good stories begin. It is the only tragedy is acquired its own unrelated holiday, its more difficult to comprehend. What happened . For would you like to start next. Anywhere. What happened early 1692, january, two little girls, 19 and 111 these are the times begin to yelp and shutter and ultimately unable to speak and what appeared to be nonsensical terms and threw themselves into fireplaces and falling down 12 no one could quite figure out what their meant to convey. Epilepsy was known, there had been a few years earlier and outbreak of witchcraft which is described in a bestselling book in the symptoms were identical so soon after, no one rushes to an immediate diagnosis but several weeks after he began to decline it spread to another household in the diagnostic test witchcraft and this is a house of a minister so its difficult for people to come and the girl felt even more and one thing with witchcraft suggested, a which needs to be found somehow fingers pointed in the 1692. Two of them say they have no idea their innocent, obviously not there doing. Known for coming by peoples houses. That was sarah good luck. Exactly. She been turned down peoples houses because they feared, shes married but on lousy terms of her husband. A small child with her, she recently made a visit in the second who was a woman disputing for some time, somewhat welcome to the community and the third we do have an explanation for why the third woman was probably the indian slave in the household who would have known these girls met with these girls and probably slept there and lived with these girls and was named as a potential suspect. Tonight all intimacy with witchcraft and immensely colorful condition and as soon as someone confesses to witchcraft, the witchcraft file is set in place. Watch the full Program Online booktv. Org. Just search indepth for stacy schiff. Nonfiction book lovers policies that has a number of podcasts for you. Bestselling nonfiction authors and intellectual interviews on the efforts podcast. Q a, wideranging conversations were nonfiction books dollars. Book notes plus from an hour long conversation that regularly features authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety. He about books podcast behind the scenes of the nonfiction books Publishing Industry with insider interviews and bestseller list. Find them by downloading the free eastbound not up or wherever you get your podcast and on cspan. Org podcast. Recess for the holidays and will be back in the new york for the start of the second session of the 118 congress. The senate convenes january 8 and the house on generate night. Both face to a growing device to avoid a government shutdown