The Academic Libertarian Left Exists and Should be Read

In 2016 I posted about the value of reading Peter Vallentyne, Hillel Steiner, and Michael Otsuka. These left-libertarian thinkers remain influential in my life. Online and among academic colleagues I find myself continuing to advocate for a wider understanding of libertarianism and classical liberalism. It is depressing that academics reduce libertarianism to caricatures, but these same academics argue aggressively for wider understandings of Marxism. They want people to understand the evolution of Marx, but refuse to acknowledge the variations within other political and economic philosophies.

[amazon_link asins=’0312236999′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’tameri-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’46ff3fa0-3f95-11e8-8820-bb5b862e92cc’]

Left-Libertarianism: A Primer

Peter Vallentyne in Left Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate, edited by Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner (Palgrave Publishers Ltd., 2000): 1-20.

Vallentyne suggests libertarians are influenced by the works of: Hugo Grotius (1625), Samuel Pufendorf (1672), John Locke (1690), William Ogilvie (1781), Thomas Spence (1793), Thomas Paine (1795), Hippolyte de Colins (1835), François Huet (1853), Patrick E. Dove (1850, 1854), Herbert Spencer (1851), Henry George (1879, 1892), and Léon Walras (1896). Among contemporary thinkers, Vallentyne lists: Allan Gibbard (1976), Baruch Brody (1983), James Grunebaum (1987), Hillel Steiner (1994), Philippe Van Parijs (1995), and Michael Otsuka.

We should understand Marxism in a wider, evolving context. We should also understand all political and economic schools of thought with the same openness to the natural evolution of philosophies. Today’s thinkers build on the past, and that’s as true of libertarians as it is of Marxists.

I ask that students consider how contemporary Marxists respond to critiques of Marx. Likewise, how do intellectual libertarians respond to critiques of their schools of thought? There’s a claim among academics that there is no academic libertarianism, but that’s willful ignorance.

Please see the 2016 post, too. There is much more to libertarianism than various myths and misunderstandings promoted by opponents to the schools of thought that begin with the sovereignty of the self.