Libertarianism (Political Science)

Introduction

Libertarianism is a political philosophy, or more precisely, a family of closely related political philosophies. “Libertarianism” is sometimes used as a synonym for “classical liberalism,” but is sometimes used to refer more narrowly to more stringent contemporary outgrowth of classical liberal thought. Libertarians believe that respect for human liberty is the central requirement of justice and central goal of politics. They believe that each person has a wide sphere of rights against interference from others. Libertarians hold that there are sharp limits on what individuals may be forced to do: coercion is permissible to protect rights, but individuals generally may not be coerced to serve either the common good or their own good. Libertarians tend to advocate a society based on radical tolerance, consent and voluntarism, peace, and personal responsibility. Libertarianism is not easily fit into American Right versus Left politics. Libertarians advocate strong and expansive private property rights and free market capitalism, but they also usually advocate equal rights for homosexuals, drug decriminalization, open borders, and abortion rights, and oppose moralistic legislation and most military interventions. Libertarians describe themselves as advocating maximal individual liberty in both personal and economic matters. As a result, libertarians see the role of the state as sharply limited. Some libertarians believe that the state may provide only a modest degree of public goods, regulation, and social services, but the majority tend to advocate a “night watchman state,” or full-blown anarchism. Libertarians not only believe that a more expansive government violates individual rights; they also hold that governments tend to undermine prosperity, diminish opportunity, reduce social and economic mobility, and mire some people in poverty and dependency. Polls by Gallup and the Washington Post indicate that roughly 20–25 percent of Americans are broadly libertarian, while the PhilPapers indicates that roughly 13 percent of philosophers (and 15 percent of political philosophers) are libertarian. This bibliography primarily focuses on political philosophy and political theory, but it also includes many entries from empirical political science and economics, especially seminal pieces that contain normative analysis.

General Overviews

Brennan 2012 provides a broad yet in-depth survey of libertarian and classical thought, and is aimed at both an academic and lay audience. Vallentyne and van der Vossen 2014 provides a more focused account of contemporary debates in academic political philosophy, using a more narrow definition of “libertarianism”. Brennan 2012 provides an overview of “neoclassical liberalism,” a form of libertarianism that explicitly embraces a concern for social justice, and which is popular among philosophers in elite academic programs. Gaus and Mack 2004 traces the origins of classical liberal thought.

Brennan, Jason. Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Using a question-and-answer format, this highly accessible book explains libertarian and classical liberal positions on a wide range of topics, including the value of liberty, civil liberties, social justice and the poor, economics, democracy, and the role of government.
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Gaus, Gerald, and Eric Mack. “Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism.” In A Handbook of Political Theory. Edited by Gerald F. Gaus and Chandran Kukathus, 115–129. London: Routledge, 2004.
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A comprehensive, scholarly overview of the tradition of classical liberal and libertarian thought.
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Vallentyne, Peter, and Bas van der Vossen. “Libertarianism.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2014.
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A survey of contemporary questions and issues in academic political philosophy, focusing on a more narrow definition of libertarianism than Gaus and Mack 2004 or Brennan 2012.
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Roots in Early Classical Liberalism

Libertarianism grew out of the classical liberal tradition in political theory. Indeed, some contemporary libertarians refer to themselves as classical liberals, or, more plainly, liberals. The classical liberal tradition was unified in its support of liberty, but different thinkers offered different kinds of justifications. Locke 1980 grounds his defense of liberty on natural rights. Smith 1982, Mill 1989, and Hume 1998 defend liberty largely on consequentialist grounds. Schmidtz and Brennan 2010 traces the history of the development of liberal politics and culture, and uses this historical evidence to try to settle certain philosophical debates about the nature of liberty.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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In this book of moral theory, originally published in 1751, David Hume argues that property rights are useful social conventions for facilitating cooperation in circumstances of limited altruism and moderate scarcity.
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Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Edited by C. B. MacPherson. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980.
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Originally published 1690. Locke argues that the purpose of government is to protect property rights and resolve disputes in a fair and impartial way. Locke develops a theory of property rights that remains influential today.
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Mill, J. S. On Liberty and Other Writings. Edited by Stefan Collini. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
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Originally published in 1859. Mill argues that free speech and freedom of lifestyle choice are essential to producing cultural, scientific, and social progress, and to develop human beings to their fullest degree of virtue. This anthology also contains Mill’s essay “The Subjection of Women,” one of the earliest defenses of feminism and equality for women.
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Schmidtz, David, and Jason Brennan. A Brief History of Liberty. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
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This book provides a historical account of how liberal politics emerged while carefully avoiding a Whiggish reading of history. Schmidtz and Brennan also argue, on empirical grounds, that the best way to promote “positive liberty” is to protect “negative liberty”.
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Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982.
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Originally published in 1776. A book that revolutionized economics. Smith carefully argues that free trade, extensive markets, and the rule of law bring prosperity to the common person. Includes an extended critique of imperialism.
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Contemporary Classical Liberalism

Classical liberalism and libertarianism are often used as synonyms, but sometimes classical liberalism is distinguished from libertarianism, or libertarianism is treated as a more extreme version of classical liberalism. On this distinction, classical liberals are distinguished by being more pluralistic, pragmatic, and concerned with consequences than libertarians. Hayek 1978 is a seminal work which defends a free order and rule of law on the grounds that human beings are too limited in their cognitive capacities to realize their utopian visions. Berlin 1998 is a seminal piece outlining differing conceptions of liberty between socialists and classical liberals. Epstein 2004 is a more up-to-date defense of liberal order, written in the spirit of Hayek 1978. Otteson 2006, Schmidtz 2006, Gaus 2011, and Tomasi 2012 defend classical liberalism on the basis of four different kinds of background moral theories: Kantianism, Rossian pluralism, contractualism, and Rawlsianism, respectively. Tomasi and Brennan 2012 articulates why many contemporary classical liberals embrace concerns for social justice.

Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays. By Isaiah Berlin. Edited by Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998.
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This classic essay explains that the term “liberty” is often used in different ways. Negative liberty is the absence of interference from others. A person has positive liberty when she has autonomous self-governance. Berlin argues that government can promote one conception of liberty, but not both, as promoting positive liberty would require continuous interference with citizens’ lives.
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Epstein, Richard. Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
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Much like Hayek 1978, Epstein argues that classical liberal institutions are best because we lack the knowledge and ability to do better.
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Gaus, Gerald F. The Order of Public Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Gaus defends what he regards as a more realistic theory of public reason liberalism, in which morality is properly understood as an evolved social fact, one that nevertheless can acquire authority through its history.
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Hayek, F. A. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
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Originally published in 1960, this nuanced book by the Nobel laureate economist F. A. Hayek argues for liberty largely on skeptical grounds. Hayek argues that just as human beings lack the knowledge and ability to manage or control an ecosystem, so they lack the knowledge and ability to manage or control a society. Liberal institutions governed by the rule of law are the best way to facilitate progress.
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Otteson, James R. Actual Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511607042Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Develops a joint Kantian and Aristotelian defense of classical liberalism.
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Schmidtz, David. Elements of Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511817519Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In this rich book, Schmidtz advocates a pluralist conception of justice, explaining how principles of need, reciprocity, desert, equality, and fairness interact. Schmidtz argues that people can come to deserve previously undeserved goods, that distributing according to need is not what people need, and that equality is valuable only when it is liberating or makes us more prosperous.
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Tomasi, John. Free Market Fairness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012.
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Tomasi argues that John Rawls’s theory of justice is best realized by a classical liberal political system, and that libertarians can and should endorse principles of social justice.
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Tomasi, John, and Jason Brennan. “Classical Liberalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy. Edited by David Estlund. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
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An overview of “bleeding-heart libertarianism” or “neoclassical” liberalism, the most prominent strand of libertarian thought among contemporary political philosophers
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Libertarianism

In the middle of the 20th century, one strain of classical liberalism developed into a more stringent and radical version. While classical liberals in general tend to be moral pluralists who use a mix of consequentialist and deontological arguments to defend liberty, the libertarian thinkers below tend to emphasize deontological justifications for rights. They see respect for the separateness of persons as requiring that each person be imbued with an extensive sphere of personal autonomy and stringent rights against interference. Nozick 1974 is the most widely read work of libertarian political philosophy, and much of the past forty years of political philosophy is a reaction to Nozick. Barnett can be seen as taking Hayek 1978 (cited under Contemporary Classical Liberalism) in a more radical direction. Narveson 1988 provides a Hobbesian justification of libertarianism. Lomasky 1987 is an excellent discussion of where rights come from and what rights we have. Mack 2002a and Mack 2002b defend Nozick 1974 against the attack in Cohen 1995 (cited under Critiques of Libertarianism). Bader and Meadowcroft 2012 explore Nozick 1974 at great length.

Bader, Ralph M., and John Meadowcroft. The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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This anthology of essays by leading political philosophers examines Nozick 1974 in great depth, in particular by exploring many of the puzzles Nozick left his readers.
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Barnett, R. The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.
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Barnett claims politics suffers from three major problems: lack of sufficient knowledge, conflicts of interest, and problems of power. Barnett defends a polycentric legal order as a solution to these problems.
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Lomasky, Loren. Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
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Lomasky develops a theory of rights on the grounds that individuals need the space to maintain the commitments and pursue the projects that make their lives meaningful.
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Mack, Eric. “Self-Ownership, Marxism, and Egalitarianism: Part I. Challenges to Historical Entitlement.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 1 (2002a): 119–146.
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This paper, along with Mack 2002b, published in the first volume of what has since become a leading journal in philosophy, defends Nozick 1974 from the sustained critique on Cohen 1995. Cohen 1995 tries to show that Nozick’s entitlement theory of distributive justice is objectionable even on libertarian grounds, but here Mack fills in the gaps and argues, among other things, that Cohen has misunderstood just how property rights work.
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Mack, Eric. “Self-Ownership, Marxism, and Egalitarianism: Part II. Challenges to the Self-Ownership Thesis.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 1 (2002b): 237–276.
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This paper, along with Mack 2002a, defends Nozick 1974 from the sustained critique of Cohen 1995. Cohen 1995 reads Nozick as grounding his libertarian theory of justice on the thesis that every person has nearly absolute property rights in her own body and mind. Cohen tries to show that this self-ownership thesis leads to objectionable results. Here, Mack once again fills in the gaps and argues, among other things, that Cohen has misunderstood what self-ownership amounts to.
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Narveson, Jan. The Libertarian Idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.
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This book, modeled on David Gauthier’s 1986 book Morals by Agreement, argues that rationally self-interested agents would agree to be bound by libertarian rights.
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Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.
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One of the most important books of philosophy in the past century, Anarchy, State, and Utopia is the book that made libertarianism a central topic of study in political theory. In Part 1, Nozick argues, contrary to anarchists, that a night watchman state is compatible with even nearly absolute and stringent libertarian rights. In Part 2, Nozick argues that all of the salient arguments for a more-than-minimal state fail. In Part 3, Nozick argues that libertarianism provides a “framework for utopia,” a framework in which many different kinds of communities with different ideals and rules can flourish side-by-side.
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Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Douglas J. Den Uyl. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.
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Develops a theory of libertarian rights and duties on the basis of Aristotelian eudaemonism. Defends the theory from criticism by left-liberal, communitarian, and conservative objections.
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Left-Libertarianism

“Left-libertarianism” developed in large part as a reaction to Nozick 1974 (cited under Libertarianism), though it draws significantly on George 1879. This tradition holds that each person has stringent rights of self-ownership, but that in some way the world’s resources, or the economic value of these resources, is owned equally by all. Left-libertarians thus tend to hold that while each person is due maximal freedom of action, justice requires significant economic redistribution or economic egalitarianism. Start with Vallentyne 2000 for a thorough introduction. George 1879 is the first major statement of the view. Steiner 1994 and Otsuka 2003 are two recent developments. Mack 2009 is a sustained critique of the theory of property rights underlying left-libertarianism. Chartier 2012 and Chartier 2014 develop an alternative form of left-libertarianism that has little sympathy for statist redistribution or the state.

Chartier, Gary. Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139424899Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Defends a left-libertarian, solidaristic market anarchist society on the basis of a neo-Thomistic theory of natural law.
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Chartier, Gary. Radicalizing Rawls: Global Justice and the Foundations of International Law. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137382979Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A critique of John Rawls’s Law of Peoples, Chartier argues that global justice requires global left-libertarian anarchy.
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George, Henry. Progress and Poverty. New York: D. Appleton, 1879.
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George argued that the people could acquire rights from what they create, but not from what they simply find in nature. He argued that the value of natural resources was commonly owned, and so those who appropriate natural resources for productive use thus owe a kind of rent payment to others. Left-libertarianism can largely be read as combining Lockean (Locke 1980, cited under Roots in Early Classical Liberalism) natural rights and self-ownership with George’s theory of common ownership.
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Mack, Eric. “What’s Left in Left-Libertarianism?” In Hillel Steiner and the Anatomy of Justice. Edited by Steve DeWijze, Mathew H. Kramer, and Ian Carter. London: Routledge, 2009.
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A sustained critique of the theory of property rights that underlies left-libertarianism.
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Otsuka, Michael. Libertarianism without Inequality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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A rigorous development of left-libertarianism. Otsuka argues that each person has stringent rights of control over her own body and mind. However, since the world is commonly owned, Otsuka argues that each person must have equal opportunity for welfare. Perhaps the most radically material egalitarian left-libertarian book.
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Steiner, Hillel. An Essay on Rights. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
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Combines a Lockean theory of natural rights, including a commitment to self-ownership, with an account of common world ownership to justify redistribution.
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Vallentyne, Peter. “Left-Libertarianism: A Primer.” In Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. Edited by Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
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A thorough overview and introduction to the left-libertarian tradition.
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Capitalism and Socialism

Libertarians champion free markets and robust property rights in the means of production. They are suspicious of socialism. They hold that socialism is inefficient (a view now widely accepted among non-libertarian economists) and that it tends to cause the worst people to get on top. They also think that mandatory socialism, even in ideal circumstances, gives too little space and weight to personal liberty. Von Mises 2011 (originally published in 1922) and Hayek 1945 articulate what is sometimes called the Calculation Problem or Knowledge Problem of socialism, which holds that central planning on a large scale is impossible because socialist economies lack price signals. This view is now widely accepted among economists. However, Roemer 1994 tries to defend “market socialism,” arguing that a hybrid of capitalism and socialism can overcome the Calculation Problem. Hayek 2007 argues that central planning creates opportunities for predation and will tend to lead to dictatorship. Zak 2008 argues, contrary to Marxists and conservatives, that market societies tend to enhance rather than degrade people’s virtue. Cohen 2009 argues that if socialism fails in the real word, that is because human beings are too vicious to make it work. The problem is with us, not with socialism. Brennan 2014 responds by arguing that even morally perfect people would be capitalists and so capitalism is morally superior to socialism in every circumstance.

Brennan, Jason. Why Not Capitalism? New York: Routledge, 2014.
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In this rejoinder to Cohen 2009, Brennan argues that even if people were morally perfect, capitalism would remain the best way to promote mutual cooperation, social justice, community spirit, and prosperity. Brennan argues that the capitalist ideal is morally superior to the socialist ideal, even when measured by socialists’ moral principles.
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Cohen, G. A. Why Not Socialism? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
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Marxist philosopher Gerald Cohen argues that capitalism is a system of predation. If people were as good as they ought to be, they would dispense with private property.
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Hayek, F. A. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review 35 (1945): 519–530.
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A classic, more up-to-date statement of the argument first presented in von Mises 2011. Hayek argues that the knowledge socialist planners would need to plan an economy is dispersed and constantly changing. While market prices communicate this information to all participants in the market in a way that market participants can act upon, socialist planners have no substitute for market prices.
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Hayek, F. A. The Road to Serfdom. Edited by Bruce Caldwell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
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Originally published in 1944. Hayek argues that democratic socialism is unstable and unworkable. Realistically, in any socialist regime, the “worst get on top.” The power we create with the goal of feeding our children will likely be used against them instead.
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von Mises, Ludwig. Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011.
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Originally published in 1922. Von Mises introduced the “calculation problem of socialism, which holds that wide-scale central planning is impossible because socialist planners lack the information needed to make rational plans. Wide-scale cooperation is only possible with market prices, which embody information about relative scarcity.
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Rasmussen, Dennis C. The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith’s Response to Rousseau. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.
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Both Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau worried that markets and commercial society could have a corrupting effect on citizens’ hearts and minds. This text examines why Smith believed commercial society could overcome Rousseau’s concerns.
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Roemer, John. A Future for Socialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
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Roemer argues, contrary to von Mises 2011, that a form of “market socialism” is feasible, and can overcome the calculation problem of socialism. However, in a 2014 article, Roemer has expressed skepticism about his earlier position.
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Zak, Paul. Moral Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
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This anthology of essays from leading psychologists and anthropologists examines and critiques, on empirical grounds, the popular thesis that markets tend to corrupt morality, virtue, and character.
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Property Rights

Libertarians think individuals should be able to acquire stringent property rights in external goods. A private property right is really a bundle of rights in external objects, the central right of which is the right to exclude others from use. Property rights usually also include the right to use, to sell, to bequeath, to rent, to make money from, to modify, and to destroy a good, and to be compensated by those who use or harm the good in question without permission. The articles below discuss justifications of, and complexities in, the idea of property rights. Epstein 1985 makes a legal, rather than moral, case against the modern redistributive state. Schmidtz 1994 provides one of the most famous recent defense of property rights on the grounds that private property is needed to prevent a tragic commons. Hasnas 2005 and Schmidtz 2010 further develop a theory of property rights as conventions that solve problems and facilitate peace. Gaus 2007 offers a constructivist defense of private property, while Mack 2010 explains the concept of natural property rights.

Epstein, Richard. Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
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Epstein argues that the takings clause of the US Constitution should be interpreted in a way that would severely restrict the power of the modern state.
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Gaus, Gerald. “On Justifying the Moral Rights of the Moderns: A Case of Old Wine in New Bottles.” Social Philosophy and Policy 24 (2007): 84–119.
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Gaus argues that moral principles must be justifiable to all reasonable persons. While most philosophers see public reason liberalism as justifying social democratic institutions, Gaus argues they justify classical liberal institutions, including a robust but not absolute right of private property.
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Hasnas, John. “Toward an Empirical Theory of Natural Rights.” Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2005): 111–147.
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Hasnas argues that the content of property rights is not derived from a priori reasoning, but rather are institutions that evolve as solutions to real problems.
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Mack, Eric. “The Natural Right of Property.” Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (2010): 53–79.
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Mack provides a rigorous theory and grounding for natural rights in property.
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Schmidtz, David. “The Institution of Property.” Social Philosophy and Policy 11 (1994): 42–62.
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John Locke (Locke 1980, cited under Roots in Early Classical Liberalism) argued that a person can justly appropriate private property provided she leaves enough and as good for others. But on its face that seems like an impossible standard; if I appropriate land, I necessarily leave less for others. On the contrary, Schmidtz argues that leaving resources in the commons tends to assure their overuse and destruction, while original appropriation actually increases the stock of what can be owned.
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Schmidtz, David. “Property and Justice.” Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (2010): 79–100.
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Argues that property rights are imperfect institutions that evolve in response to real-world problems, and which are justified in part because of their ability to solve such problems.
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The Welfare State, Social Insurance, and Redistribution

Classical liberals generally favor a small degree of government social insurance, while more stringent libertarians reject government social insurance altogether. Critics often assume that libertarians agree with them that the welfare state works, but that libertarians believe that this state is unjust simply because redistribution violates people’s rights. However, most libertarians are skeptical that the welfare state works as intended. They tend to hold that private alternatives are superior, or that in the long run (or even in the short run) welfare programs hurt more than they help. Lately, though, some libertarians have begun advocating what they regard as more efficient and effective forms of social insurance. Schmidtz and Goodin 1998 debates the efficacy and philosophical rationale behind the welfare state. Beito 1999 and Shapiro 2007 examine alternatives to state social insurance. Cochrane 2009 argues single-payer government health insurance is unnecessary. Zwolinski 2011 and Vallier 2014 articulate reasons why classical liberals and libertarians might support state social insurance or a basic income.

Beito, Charles. From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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This history book explains how mutual aid societies and fraternal societies used to provide social insurance to members. Many libertarians think such societies could function as an alternative to government social insurance.
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Cochrane, John H. “Health-Status Insurance: How Markets Can Provide Health Security.” Policy Analysis 633 (2009).
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The economist John Cochrane argues that markets can provide excellent health insurance for all, including forms of insurance that would provide security for those with prior conditions, but government regulations forbid the most effective forms of private health insurance from appearing on the market.
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Schmidtz, David, and Robert E. Goodin. Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility: For and Against. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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A lively debate about the efficacy of the welfare debate. Using the concepts of moral hazard and the tragedy of the commons, Schmidtz argues that government guarantees are no guarantee; frequently government guarantees backfire and harm the very people they are meant to help. Goodin argues that better designed welfare institutions can protect citizens from extreme poverty.
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Shapiro, Daniel. Is the Welfare State Justified? New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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Shapiro answers no to the question that forms his book’s title. He argues on empirical grounds that most of the functions of the welfare state would be better served through private means, such as compulsory private insurance. Shapiro claims that defenders of the welfare state often endorse idealized, unrealistic versions of their favored solutions to poverty, while strawmanning libertarian views of how to fight poverty.
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Vallier, Kevin. “A Moral and Economic Critique of the New Property-Owning Democrats: On Behalf of a Rawlsian Welfare State.” In Philosophical Studies 2014.
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Vallier argues that “property-owning democracy,” a type of market system with heavy government intervention, management, and redistribution favored by many Rawlsian left-liberals, is both unworkable and at odds with Rawls’s theory of justice. Vallier argues that a welfare-state capitalist system is superior.
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Zwolinski, Matt. “Classical Liberalism and the Basic Income.” Basic Income Studies 6 (2011): 1–14.
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Zwolinski argues that classical liberals, if not more orthodox libertarians, have no basic ideological opposition to guaranteed basic income. He also argues that a basic income would be a superior alternative to the kinds of welfare programs found in most modern nation-states.
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Government Failure

In economic theory, government failure is the counterpart to market failure. Technically, a government failure occurs when a government action or intervention causes an inefficient outcome. While critics often paint libertarians as having too optimistic or naive a view of the efficacy of markets, libertarians in turn hold that their critics have too optimistic or naive a view of governments. Governments can fail by underregulating or overregulating, by enabling rent seeking and institutional capture, by producing unintended consequences, or by encouraging moral hazard. Buchanan and Tullock 1999 was one of the most important works in economics in the 20th century, and provides the first major theory of government failure. Higgs 1989 argues democratic governments use crises to increase their power, while Mueller 2003 provides an excellent survey of public choice theory.

Buchanan, James, and Gordon Tullock. The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999.
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James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock’s seminal work, originally published in 1962, is one of the founding documents in the public choice school of political economy. Buchanan and Tullock hypothesize that people do not undergo sudden motivational transformations when entering politics, and thus analyze political behavior using the standard tools of microeconomics.
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Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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Higgs argues that crises, especially crises made by war, allow governments to “ratchet up” their discretionary powers and budgets. Citizens tolerate a temporary increase in government power in hopes government will solve the current crisis, but after the crisis, governments rarely reduce their power back to pre-crisis levels.
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Mueller, Dennis. Public Choice III. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511813771Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive review of the field of public choice economics, with lengthy analyses of rent seeking and other forms of government failure.
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Democracy and Citizenship

Classical liberals were often early supporters of democracy or republican forms of government. But for classical liberals, democracy is a means to an end; in principle, a benevolent dictator could fully protect citizens’ liberties, but is just unlikely to do so. Classical liberals and libertarians are often ambivalent or hostile to democracy, especially when democracies are given an expansive sphere of power over individuals’ lives. Many on the Left now argue that liberal rights against interference matter less than rights to participate, and this has led libertarians to cast a critical eye on democracy, political participation, and universal suffrage. Downs 1957 is a landmark work that argues that democratic institutions incentivize agents to produce bad outcomes. Brennan and Lomasky 1993, Pincione and Tesón 2011, and Caplan 2007 develop these ideas further and improve upon them. Brennan and Lomasky 2006 and Taylor 2013 argue that widespread democratic participation in a republican polity is not needed to prevent citizens from being dominated. Brennan 2011 and Somin 2012 offer different responses to the problems of political ignorance and irrationality. Brennan 2011 defends excluding ignorant citizens from the franchise, while Somin 2012 defends reducing the scope and power of government.

Brennan, Jason. “The Right to a Competent Electorate.” Philosophical Quarterly 61 (2011): 700–724.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.699.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brennan argues that just as defendants in a criminal trial have a right to a competent jury that acts in good faith, citizens have a right to a competent electorate that acts in good faith. Brennan claims democracy violates this right, and thus, all things equal, we should favor epistocracy, a system in which political power is proportionate to competence.
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Brennan, Geoffrey, and Loren Lomasky. Democracy and Decision. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139173544Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Brennan and Lomasky offer a more rigorous model of the expected utility of individual votes than Downs 1957. Further, they argue that while most citizens are rationally ignorant, these citizens vote “expressively,” to express their moral and ideological commitments and their sense of their own identities.
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Brennan, Geoffrey, and Loren Lomasky. “Against Reviving Republicanism.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 5 (2006): 221–252.
DOI: 10.1177/1470594X06064224Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A powerful critique of republican political theory. Neo-republican political theorists hold that widespread political participation in a deliberative democracy is essential for freedom. Moreover, they argue that freedom consists in such participation, rather than in rights against interference from government.
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Caplan, Bryan. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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Caplan argues that citizens are not merely rationally ignorant, but rationally irrational. That is, it is in their interests to process political information in systematically biased and unscientific ways. Caplan argues that citizens in democracies make systematic errors.
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Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper, 1957.
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This seminal work applies economic reasoning to uncover pathologies in democracy. Downs argues that because individual votes have so little efficacy, it is rational for voters to remain ignorant. He also argues that in a two-party system, the parties have a strong incentive to defend vague platitudes and to resemble each other closely.
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Pincione, Guido, and Fernando Tesón. Rational Choice and Democratic Deliberation: A Theory of Discourse Failure. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Pincione and Tesón argue that deliberative democracy is prone to “discourse failure”; that is, that citizens will tend to lie and make systematic errors when deliberating.
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Somin, Ilya. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.
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Somin shows that voters are stunningly ignorant, and argues that attempts to show that voters can use heuristics to make smart decisions (despite their ignorance) fail. Somin argues one of the best responses to the problem of political ignorance is to shrink the scope of government.
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Taylor, Robert. “Market Freedom as Anti-Power.” American Political Science Review 107 (2013): 593–602.
DOI: 10.1017/S0003055413000300Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Taylor argues that republican “freedom as non-domination” is realized through competitive markets. Thus, even if neo-republican theories of liberty are correct, classical liberal institutions can realize this form of freedom.
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Anarchism and Government Authority

Governments are empowered to do things that no individual is permitted to do. A central question in political philosophy is what, if anything, justifies granting governments such power. Should governments have the right to create and enforce rules? What is the scope of this rule-making power? Do we have a duty to obey the rules the government creates simply because the government creates them? Many libertarians are anarchists. They argue we have no duty to obey the law, and that all governments are illegitimate. They believe that our reasons for opposing a monopoly in the retail industry are also reasons to oppose monopolies in the services governments typically provide. Buchanan 1975 argues that a classically liberal polity, while imperfect, balances between the good and bad of both anarchism and expansive state power. Ostrom 1990 is a landmark work explaining how people overcome conflicts without government intervention. Schmidtz 1991; Beito, et al. 2009; and Leeson 2014 can be read as new additions to that line of thinking. Huemer 2012 provides a thorough moral defense of anarcho-capitalism, while Hasnas 2003 argues that, at most, a “less-than-minimal” state can be justified.

Beito, David, Peter Gordon, and Alexander Tabarrok. The Voluntary City. Washington, DC: Independent Institute, 2009.
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Defends the thesis that municipal social services and utilities can be provided privately.
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Buchanan, James. The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
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Buchanan argues that anarchism is feasible only for ideally virtuous people. Uses game theoretic and economic arguments to argue that classical liberal politics provides the optimal amount of government—to protect citizens from both private and public predation and to provide useful public goods.
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Hasnas, John. “Reflections on the Minimal State.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 2 (2003): 115–128.
DOI: 10.1177/1470594X03002001426Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A “minimal state,” as defined in and advocated for by Nozick 1974 (cited under Libertarianism), is a state that retains a monopoly on police, military, and judicial power, but provides no other public goods. Hasnas argues that a state even more minimal than the so-called minimal state can take steps to ensure that law enforcement and dispute resolution services are provided, without itself providing these services.
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Huemer, Michael. The Problem of Political Authority. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137281661Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In the first half of this book, Huemer systematically examines and attempts to refute every major argument for a duty to obey the law. He concludes that states have no authority, and then explains why belief in government authority is so widespread. In the second half, Huemer argues that peaceful, cooperative anarchism is probably feasible, and gives a roadmap for how we might experiment with anarchism.
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Leeson, Peter. Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better than You Think. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
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The economist Peter Leeson examines past and present cases of anarchy “working,” arguing that even in cases where one could expect anarchy to lead to chaos and bloodshed, people frequently can find ways to manage disputes without need for government oversight. Leeson concludes that self-governance is in practice often better than state governance.
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Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511807763Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom’s classic book describes and analyzes a wide range of cases in which societies managed to resolve collective action and common property issues without resolving to state intervention or control.
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Schmidtz, David. Limits of Government. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991.
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The Public Goods Argument for the state holds that markets will systematically underproduce certain necessary public goods, such as roads. Using evidence from experimental economics, Schmidtz argues that the public goods problem can be solved privately using “dominant assurance contracts,” and so the public goods problem fails.
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War and International Justice

Libertarians have written relatively little about topics in just war theory or international justice. Most likely, this is because libertarians tend to find these topics philosophically uninteresting. The default libertarian view of just war theory is that war is permissible only in self-defense or defense of others, and that soldiers cannot acquire a permission right to kill innocent people simply because they are ordered to do so. As for international justice, libertarians by default regard membership in a nation-state as morally uninteresting, and so by default are cosmopolitans. Though most libertarians are skeptical of humanitarian intervention, Téson 1988 defends humanitarian intervention. Téson 2009 argues free trade is required for international justice. McMahan 2011 articulates what is likely to be the libertarian view of the ethics of killing in war.

McMahan, Jeff. Killing in War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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Though McMahan is not a libertarian, the theory of the ethics of killing in war presented here is the theory most libertarians accept. McMahan argues that killing is permissible only in self-defense and defense of others. Further, he argues that soldiers in war do not enjoy moral equality. Soldiers cannot acquire a permission right to kill others just because they have been ordered to do so, and soldiers fighting for an unjust cause have no permission right to kill others.
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Téson, Fernando. Humanitarian Intervention: An Inquiry into Law and Morality. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational, 1988.
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Most libertarians are skeptical of humanitarian intervention, but this book lays out a case for humanitarian intervention consistent with libertarians’ background moral and empirical assumptions.
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Téson, Fernando. “Why Free Trade Is Required by Justice.” Social Philosophy and Policy 29 (2009): 126–153.
DOI: 10.1017/S0265052511000112Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Most libertarians advocate free trade on the grounds that it is economically efficient and that people have a right against interference with mutually beneficial, voluntary trades. This paper provides an additional justification for free trade, namely, that it is necessary to realize humanitarian concerns for social justice.
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Civil Rights

There is less philosophical writing on civil rights than on other topics, in part because libertarians tend to agree with left-wing philosophers about most major issues in civil rights. However, libertarians advocate certain positions many on the Left reject: (1) That there should be open borders, as everyone has a basic right to immigrate; (2) that paternalism is wrong, and so the drug war should be eliminated. Thomson 1971 uses a libertarian-esque theory of self-ownership to defend abortion rights. Bernstein 2001 gives examples of how laws nominally created to protect people might in fact be used against them instead. Cohen 2007 has a thorough defense of liberal toleration. Husak 2008 argues that criminal law is too expansive and is a threat to the rule of law. Huemer 2010 and Carens 2013 argue for open borders, while Flanigan 2012 and Husak and de Marneffe 2008 defend drug decriminalization and a patient’s right to self-medicate.

Bernstein, David E. Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts from the Reconstruction to the New Deal. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.
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Bernstein argues that labor market regulations were in the past used largely to disadvantage black workers for the sake of whites, and that, even now, such regulations are subject to exploitative capture.
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Carens, Joseph. The Ethics of Immigration. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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A careful examination of the arguments philosophers give on behalf of immigration restrictions. Carens, himself not a libertarian, argues that the egalitarian commitments of the Left imply they should advocate open borders. A more in-depth examination of immigration than Huemer 2010.
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Cohen, Andrew Jason. “What the Liberal State Should Tolerate within Its Borders.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2007): 479–513.
DOI: 10.1353/cjp.2008.0000Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues from Mill’s harm principle for a principle of radical toleration. Cohen argues that the state should allow citizens to make autonomous sacrifices of their own autonomy, including by autonomously joining groups that undermine their autonomy.
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Flanigan, Jessica. Three Arguments against Prescription Requirements. Journal of Medical Ethics 38 (2012): 579–586.
DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2011-100240Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Under the doctrine of informed consent, patients have a right to refuse medication and treatment. Flanigan argues that this widely accepted and practiced doctrine also implies that patients have a right to self-medicate without obtaining a doctor’s prescription.
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Huemer, Michael. “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” Social Theory and Practice 36 (2010): 429–461.
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Huemer argues that immigration restrictions impose suffering, harm, and death upon the world’s most vulnerable people. He argues that none of the purported justifications for such restrictions succeed.
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Husak, Doug. Over-Criminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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Husak argues that in most modern democratic nation-states, criminal law is too expansive. Too many things are illegal and criminalized. Husak argues that the overexpansion of criminal law is a threat to the rule of law; it inevitably gives officials too much discretionary power over citizens and tends to distribute power in unfair ways.
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Husak, Doug, and Peter de Marneffe. The Legalization of Drugs: For and Against. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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A debate between two leading philosophers on the question of drug decriminalization, examining both moral and social scientific questions about drug use. Though neither author is libertarian, Husak’s arguments are similar to the kinds of arguments libertarians favor.
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Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971): 47–66.
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The most widely read philosophical paper on the ethics of abortion. Notable for grounding its defense of a woman’s right (and the permissibility of abortion) on a woman’s ownership of her own body.
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Environmental Issues

Libertarians believe that people should be free to do as they please so long as they do not impose wrongful harms upon others or violate their rights. However, one major question is whether libertarianism can adequately deal with the externalities caused by pollution without major government regulation. The entries below explore “free market environmentalism,” policies that are meant to resolve environmental issues through normal market institutions. Anderson and Leal 2001 is a landmark piece; many environmental groups have since acted upon their policy ideas. Cashore, et al. 2004 explains how forest management improved without state intervention. Railton 2003 argues that pollution poses a special problem for libertarianism. A sober textbook, Schmidtz and Willott 2009, contains a large number of articles debating both government and market successes and failures in dealing with environmental problems.

Anderson, Terry L., and Donald R. Leal. Free Market Environmentalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
DOI: 10.1057/9780312299736Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using the model of the tragedy of the commons, this book argues that robust property rights are an essential tool in protecting the environment from harm. Since the book’s publication, many environmental groups, from the World Wildlife Foundation to the Oregon Water Trust, have followed Anderson and Leal’s advice to significant success.
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Cashore, Benjamin, Graeme Auld, and Deanna Newsom. Governing through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-State Authority. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
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A series of fascinating case studies in which the Forest Stewardship Council used markets and property rights, rather than government regulation, to manage and promote sustainable forest use.
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Railton, Peter. “Locke, Stock, and Peril: Natural Property Rights, Pollution, and Risk.” In Facts, Values, and Norms. By Peter Railton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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A prominent critique arguing that natural property rights regimes cannot adequately deal with problems of pollution.
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Schmidtz, David, and Elizabeth Willott. Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
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This anthology, meant to be used as a textbook, contains a wide range of libertarian and non-libertarian responses to environmental problems. The first half debates how we should value nature, the environment, and non-human animals. The second half debates what policies and institutions tend to actually succeed in protecting the environment.
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Critiques of Libertarianism

Most political philosophers are not libertarians or classical liberals. The entries below explore various reasons why note. Cohen 1995 is an important Marxist rejoinder to Nozick 1974 (cited under Libertarianism). Sobel 2012 also expresses skepticism about libertarian self-ownership. Sunstein and Holmes 2000 and Murphy and Nagel 2004 both respond to the libertarian claim that taxation is on par with forced labor or theft. Freeman 2002 attacks libertarianism from the perspective of Rawlsianism and argues that libertarians are not true liberals. Frank 2011 and Conly 2012 argue for paternalism and government intervention on the grounds that individuals are too irrational to benefit from maximal freedom. Pettit 2012 claims libertarians have a defective conception of freedom and offers an alternative.

Cohen, G. A. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511521270Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Though Nozick 1974 uses the term “self-ownership” only once, Cohen reads Nozick as grounding his libertarianism on a theory of self-ownership. Cohen first argues that Nozick’s libertarian conclusions do not follow from the self-ownership thesis, and second argues that we should reject the self-ownership thesis, though it is an attractive principle.
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Conly, Sarah. Against Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139176101Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Conly claims that people are predictably irrational. Granting them a wide sphere of freedom (over what they eat, how they spend or save, and so on) will likely undermine their interests. An important and rigorous response to John Stuart Mill’s classic book On Liberty in defense of coercive state paternalism.
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Frank, Robert H. The Darwin Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.
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Behavioral economist Robert Frank claims that people are too irrational for markets to work the way libertarians intend, and claims this calls for greater government paternalism and control for people’s own good.
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Freeman, Samuel. “Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism is Not a Liberal View.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 30 (2002): 105–151.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.2001.00105.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Freeman claims that libertarianism (but not classical liberalism more broadly) is not a true liberal view, because it does not rely upon a conception of all people as free and equal.
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Murphy, Liam, and Thomas Nagel. The Myth of Ownership. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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Libertarians often claim “All taxes are theft!” and even non-libertarian laypeople still regard government taxes as taking their money. Murphy and Nagel argue that people do not have a right to their pre-tax income, but only their after-tax income, and so the money a person pays in taxes in a just democratic regime was never really hers.
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Pettit, Philip. On the People’s Terms. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139017428Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of Pettit’s many works developing a republican conception of liberty and defending an institutional framework that can best realize this conception. Pettit’s book is a challenge not just to libertarians, but to liberals in general, as Pettit claims they rely upon a defective conception of freedom.
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Sobel, David. “Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership.” Ethics 123 (2012): 32–60.
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Like Cohen 1995, Sobel reads Nozick as grounding his theory in a principle of self-ownership. Sobel identifies conceptual problems with one strong reading of libertarian self-ownership, and then claims these problems cannot be solved without rendering the principle unable to do the work libertarians need it to do.
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Sunstein, Cass, and Stephen Holmes. The Cost of Rights. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.
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Sunstein and Holmes argue that there are no purely negative rights. Without government enforcement of rights, they claim, rights are meaningless, and thus a negative right to life should really be seen as a positive right to government assistance.