Libertarianism is Dead

A Return to Liberal Tradition

I was once young, stupid, and libertarian because the idea that people should be free to pursue their own ends is just a beautiful idea to me. But a funny thing happened along the way: I started finding problems with the political theories in the libertarian world. They had a tendency to be really focused on property rights, and those arguments, taken to extremes, could lead to perverse incentives. In fact, it seemed to me, upon fully thinking it through years into my libertarian journey, that if property rights are inviolable, then there is no room for public goods in the end. You regress to fiefdoms. To feudalism. Then the question at the end is: what liberty is left after all that?

This realization didn’t come from watching current events. It came from years of working through political philosophy, moral philosophy, metaethics, and epistemology. The more carefully I examined libertarian arguments, the more I kept hitting the same fundamental problem: the centrality of property in the entire moral architecture.

Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia represents probably the only truly respectable philosophical lineage in libertarian thought. But much of what passes for libertarianism today descends through a different tradition: Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Lew Rockwell, Hans-Hermann Hoppe. And this lineage hangs everything on property rights as the foundation of the entire moral epistemology. The metaethics ties up in “praxeology” and human action. Every other consideration gets subordinated to the inviolability of property.

And when you follow that reasoning honestly, it’s simply a roadmap back to feudalism.

The Austrian school argument goes like this: property rights are natural—they precede law, culture, and society. You mix your labor with unowned resources, you homestead land, and boom—natural property rights emerge from the universe itself. And because these rights are natural, they’re inviolable. Any constraint on them—taxation, regulation, democratic decisions about economic organization—becomes theft or coercion.

This sounds principled until you realize what it means in practice. If property rights trump every other consideration, then those with property set the terms. Those without property accept them. And because property compounds—wealth generates more wealth, ownership enables more ownership—you get systematic concentration of power in private hands.

The libertarian response is always: “But that’s not coercion! These are voluntary exchanges!” But this only works if you define coercion so narrowly that it excludes most of how power actually operates. If you own the land, the resources, the means of production—and I own nothing but my labor—then the “choice” I face between working on your terms or starving isn’t meaningfully voluntary. It’s domination that doesn’t require a state to enforce it.

And here’s where it gets interesting: thinkers like Hoppe don’t deny this. They embrace it. In Democracy: The God That Failed, Hoppe explicitly describes a society of “covenant communities” built around private property and contract rights, where businesses would be free to exclude homosexuals and others—and argues this would be a good thing. The right to exclude becomes absolute. The fascist tendency reveals itself at the bottom of a libertarianism that has no conception of the common good.

Because that’s what this tradition denies: that the common good exists at all. Or if it exists, it’s unknowable except through emergent price signals in perfectly free markets. There’s no room for democratic decisions about how to organize collective life. There’s no obligation to anyone beyond what you’ve contracted for. There’s no question of whether extreme economic domination might be unjust—as long as every exchange leading there was “voluntary.”

The fundamental question libertarianism asks, when you strip away the rhetoric about freedom, is: Who can I exclude? From my property, from my business, from my community. The frustration with any conception of the common good is that having such a conception limits the potential answers to that question.

This was an abstract philosophical problem until it became operational reality.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, smart people I encountered—people in cryptocurrency circles, tech intellectuals, venture capitalists—started discussing feudalism not as historical curiosity but as a serious political option.

Peter Thiel writing that democracy and freedom are incompatible. Curtis Yarvin publishing detailed frameworks for corporate monarchy. Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed becoming required reading in Bitcoin circles. An entire neo-reactionary movement arguing that the democratic experiment failed and we should restore explicit hierarchy.

And they were using libertarian arguments to get there. The same reasoning about property rights, the same suspicion of democratic constraint, the same elevation of individual freedom above collective decision-making. They’d just followed the logic further than most libertarians were willing to go.

This is what I documented in The Plot Against America—how a dangerous ideology born from the libertarian movement was no longer theoretical but operational.

This wasn’t spontaneous. It was the culmination of ideas incubated since 2008. Ideas that began as libertarian skepticism of government and evolved into explicit rejection of democratic governance itself.

Classical Liberalism: The Tradition Libertarianism Corrupted

Here’s what libertarians have forgotten: the thinkers they claim as intellectual ancestors—John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison—absolutely believed in the common good. They believed in democratic self-governance. They believed government had legitimate purposes beyond protecting property.

When Jefferson wrote about “promoting the general welfare” and “securing the blessings of liberty” in founding documents, he wasn’t paying lip service. He meant it. Locke’s social contract theory—which deeply influenced Jefferson—saw government not as necessary evil but as essential good making liberty possible.

Madison’s genius wasn’t just limiting government power. It was understanding that power itself must be dispersed and counterbalanced. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” This wasn’t about eliminating state power—it was about preventing any concentration of power, public or private, from threatening liberty.

And Madison understood something libertarians have forgotten: the British East India Company. The Founders didn’t just fight the Crown—they fought the fusion of corporate and state power. They understood that private power, when sufficiently concentrated, becomes just as dangerous to liberty as government tyranny.

This is what I explored in From Madison’s Vision to Musk’s Dystopia—how libertarianism’s childlike theory of power paves the way for exactly the kind of concentrated private-public power fusion Madison designed the Constitution to prevent. When Musk controls critical infrastructure through Starlink while the U.S. government uses that private power to extort resources from Ukraine, we’re witnessing a modern East India Company scenario. This is what happens when you treat constraint as evil and property as summum bonum: power doesn’t disappear, it reconcentrates.

Classical liberalism understood what libertarianism forgot: freedom requires constraint. Not freedom from government but freedom through government—through rule of law, constitutional limits, democratic accountability. Government isn’t necessary evil. It’s the moral good that makes liberty possible for ordinary people, not just those who own property.

Property rights in the classical liberal tradition were never the highest good. They were instrumental—a means to human flourishing under law, not an end in themselves. When Locke argued for property rights, he embedded them within a framework of mutual obligation and the common good. Property wasn’t natural in some mystical sense; it was a social institution justified by its contribution to human welfare.

This is the fundamental difference: classical liberals asked “What institutions enable human flourishing?” Libertarians ask “What arrangements maximize property rights?” These lead to completely different societies.

Even Nozick Couldn’t Make It Work

Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia represents the most serious attempt to build a coherent libertarian political philosophy. And even he couldn’t solve the fundamental problem.

Nozick starts with the premise that individuals have rights that cannot be violated, even for good ends. He builds from this to argue for a minimal state—one that protects rights but does nothing else. No redistribution, no public goods beyond basic security, no democratic decisions about economic organization.

But Nozick runs into a problem he can’t resolve: How do you get legitimate property holdings in the first place?

His famous “Wilt Chamberlain” example tries to show that any distribution of wealth that emerges from voluntary exchanges must be just. But as critics immediately pointed out, this assumes the initial distribution was just. And when you trace property holdings back through history, you find nothing but violence, theft, conquest, and exploitation.

Nozick acknowledges this. He admits that most existing property holdings probably violate his own principles of just acquisition and transfer. He gestures toward a “principle of rectification” to fix historical injustices. But he never works it out, because working it out would require exactly the kind of massive democratic intervention his system says is illegitimate.

The problem runs deeper. Even if we could somehow establish just initial holdings, Nozick’s system has no mechanism for addressing the systematic concentration of power that would follow. Once you declare property rights inviolable, those with property gain increasing control over those without. There’s no feedback mechanism, no democratic check, no way to prevent the slide into hierarchy.

Nozick saw this problem. That’s why, later in life, he backed away from the strong libertarian position of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. He never fully repudiated it, but he stopped defending it with the same confidence. The philosophical problems were too severe.

The Rothbardian Tradition: Embracing the Implications

But while Nozick wrestled with these contradictions, another strand of libertarian thought simply embraced them.

Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, Lew Rockwell, Hans-Hermann Hoppe—this lineage doesn’t struggle with the implications of absolute property rights leading to hierarchy. They accept it. Some even celebrate it.

Rothbard argued explicitly that property rights are the only rights that matter. Not because they serve human flourishing, but because they’re somehow natural—written into the fabric of reality itself through “praxeology” and human action. This mystical foundation allows him to treat any constraint on property as not just wrong but metaphysically impossible to justify.

The result is anarcho-capitalism: a world where all public goods are privatized, where security and law enforcement are purchased on markets, where those with the most resources exercise de facto sovereignty over their domains. It’s feudalism with better branding.

Hoppe takes this further. In Democracy: The God That Failed, he doesn’t just advocate for minimal government—he advocates for monarchy. Not traditional hereditary monarchy, but “covenant communities” owned and operated by property holders. The right to exclude becomes absolute. Democratic decision-making is replaced by contract. Those without property accept subordinate positions or leave.

This is libertarianism following its own logic to its conclusion. If property rights are inviolable, if democratic constraint on property is illegitimate, if the common good doesn’t exist—then yes, you get hierarchy. You get domination. You get some people ruling over others, not through democratic legitimacy but through concentrated ownership.

The only difference between this and feudalism is the language used to justify it.

The Reckoning Has Begun

What’s remarkable is that serious libertarian intellectuals are starting to acknowledge these problems.

Matt Zwolinski—a prominent “bleeding heart libertarian”—recently wrote a piece called “Libertarianism’s Democracy Problem“ that cites my work as offering a “damning critique.” He acknowledges what I’ve been arguing: libertarians “just don’t think all that highly of democracy.”

He describes two types of libertarian frameworks—one based on individual rights, the other on consequentialist efficiency—but admits that neither can see private power as a threat to liberty. The rights-based libertarians define coercion so narrowly that only state action counts. The efficiency-focused ones think markets always work better than politics. Neither has tools to address how private power dominates when democratic constraints are removed.

Zwolinski concludes: “Power removed from the state does not magically evaporate into thin air. Instead, the removal of state power often simply opens up possibilities for that power to reconcentrate in private hands.”

This is exactly right. And it’s exactly what Madison understood and libertarians forgot.

The question now is whether the libertarian movement can abandon the philosophical dead end it’s been following and return to the classical liberal tradition that actually works. Or whether it will continue providing intellectual cover for the neo-reactionaries who understand libertarian premises better than most libertarians—and are using them to build something monstrous.

Why Libertarianism is Dead as a Serious Political Option

Let me be clear about what I mean. Libertarianism isn’t dead because libertarians lost elections or because their policies were tried and failed. It’s dead because the philosophy itself, when examined honestly, leads to conclusions its adherents claim to oppose.

If you take seriously the premise that property rights are inviolable and that democratic constraint on property is illegitimate, you cannot avoid the concentration of power in private hands. You cannot prevent the emergence of hierarchy. You cannot maintain anything resembling equal liberty for all.

The libertarian response has always been: “But the market will prevent that! Competition will discipline power!” But this is faith, not argument. History shows us repeatedly that markets, left unconstrained by democratic governance, produce monopoly, oligopoly, and systematic advantage for those who already have power. The invisible hand doesn’t prevent domination—it enables it.

Some libertarians recognize this and become neo-reactionaries, openly embracing hierarchy as natural and just. Others remain in denial, insisting that their philosophy doesn’t lead where it obviously leads. But neither position is tenable as serious political thought.

The classical liberal tradition offers an alternative that actually works. It recognizes that liberty requires both constraint and enablement. That property rights are important but instrumental, not ultimate. That democratic self-governance isn’t an unfortunate necessity but the foundation of genuine freedom.

This tradition built the most successful experiment in human liberty the world has ever seen—not perfect, not complete, but real. And it did so by understanding what libertarians have forgotten: freedom is not the absence of constraint but the presence of just institutions that enable human flourishing.

The Invitation: A Return to What Actually Works

So here’s where we are. Libertarianism is dead as a serious political option. Not because I say so, but because its own logic leads inexorably to conclusions that contradict its stated values. When your philosophy about freedom leads to feudalism, when your theory about liberty produces hierarchy, when your commitment to voluntary exchange results in systematic domination—it’s time to admit the framework is broken.

But here’s what matters: if your instinct about human freedom was right, if your commitment to individual dignity was genuine, if your suspicion of concentrated power was well-founded—then you don’t have to abandon those values. You just have to abandon the philosophy that betrayed them.

The classical liberal tradition is still here. It’s still alive. And it offers what libertarianism promised but could never deliver: a framework that actually protects liberty for ordinary people, not just for those who own property.

Classical liberalism understands that freedom requires democratic institutions, not their absence. That rule of law protects liberty precisely by constraining what the powerful can do. That property rights serve human flourishing when embedded in frameworks of mutual obligation and the common good. That government isn’t the enemy of freedom but its foundation—the means by which we collectively secure the conditions that make individual liberty possible.

This isn’t compromise. It isn’t settling for less freedom. It’s recognizing what freedom actually is and what it actually requires.

When you say you value liberty, ask yourself: liberty for whom? Just for those with enough property to live independently? Or liberty for everyone, including those without inherited wealth, those without perfect health, those without the advantages that compound over generations?

If your answer is “liberty and justice for all”—not as empty slogan but as genuine moral commitment—then there’s only one tradition that delivers it. Not libertarianism, which treats property as ultimate and accepts whatever hierarchy emerges from that. But classical liberalism, which treats human dignity as ultimate and builds institutions designed to secure it for everyone.

What This Requires

Returning to the liberal tradition means abandoning some comfortable beliefs.

It means accepting that there is such a thing as the common good, even if it can’t be perfectly defined or measured. That we have obligations to each other beyond what we’ve explicitly contracted for. That democratic decisions about how to organize economic life aren’t tyranny but the exercise of collective self-governance.

It means recognizing that “voluntary exchange” doesn’t automatically produce just outcomes when people start from radically unequal positions. That private power needs democratic constraint just as much as state power does. That letting markets operate without democratic oversight doesn’t maximize freedom—it maximizes the freedom of those who enter the market with the most advantages.

It means understanding that taxation isn’t theft but the means by which we collectively provision for shared needs. That regulation isn’t inherently oppressive but the mechanism through which democratic societies impose rules on those who would otherwise dominate others. That public goods aren’t violations of property rights but the foundations that make property valuable in the first place.

Most fundamentally, it means accepting that government—properly constrained by constitutional limits, genuinely accountable to citizens, committed to rule of law—isn’t a necessary evil but a profound good. It’s how free people govern themselves rather than being governed by those who claim natural right to rule.

The Choice Before Us

We’re watching libertarian ideas play out to their logical conclusion. Not in theory but in practice. Neo-reactionaries are using libertarian arguments about property rights and democratic inefficiency to justify dismantling constitutional governance. They’re building technological systems designed to replace democratic deliberation with algorithmic optimization. They’re creating structures where power flows to those who own the infrastructure rather than to those accountable to citizens.

This is where libertarianism was always leading. Some of us saw it through philosophical analysis. Now everyone can see it through direct observation.

The question for those who still identify as libertarian is simple: Do you want to be part of this? Do you want your philosophy to provide cover for people explicitly working to end democratic self-governance? Do you want your arguments about freedom to be weaponized by those building a new aristocracy?

Or do you want to return to a tradition that actually delivers on the promise of liberty—the classical liberal tradition that understands freedom requires democratic institutions, that property rights serve rather than supersede human dignity, that we govern ourselves collectively or find ourselves governed by those with no obligation to serve our interests?

This isn’t a call to abandon your values. It’s a call to embrace a framework that actually embodies them.

Liberty and Justice for All

That phrase—liberty and justice for all—contains the entire difference between libertarianism and liberalism.

Libertarianism hears “liberty” and stops there. It treats liberty as the absence of constraint, particularly constraint on property. It assumes that if we just remove democratic governance, freedom will naturally emerge. And it has no answer when that “freedom” produces hierarchy, domination, and the systematic concentration of power in private hands.

Liberalism hears the whole phrase. Liberty and justice. For all. It recognizes that these aren’t competing values but complementary ones. That genuine liberty requires just institutions. That freedom for all requires democratic constraint on private power just as much as constraint on state power. That “for all” isn’t just an aspirational add-on but the core commitment—if liberty isn’t available to everyone, regardless of how much property they own, then it isn’t liberty at all.

This is what the classical liberal tradition built, however imperfectly. A system where ordinary people could govern themselves. Where power was dispersed rather than concentrated. Where no one had to accept subordinate status just because they lacked property. Where the common good was a legitimate concern of democratic politics rather than something to be dismissed as unknowable or nonexistent.

That tradition is still here. It’s been corrupted by libertarian ideas about property rights and market fundamentalism, weakened by decades of treating democratic governance as inherently suspect, undermined by the belief that freedom means absence of constraint rather than presence of just institutions.

But it can be restored. The philosophical foundations are sound. The institutional frameworks are proven. The moral vision is compelling: that ordinary people can and should govern themselves, that we have obligations to each other, that liberty and justice for all is not just possible but worth fighting for.

The Wire Still Holds

I started this journey as a libertarian because I believed in human freedom. I’m no longer a libertarian because I still believe in human freedom—and I came to understand that libertarianism doesn’t actually protect it.

The ideas I once held turned out to be a roadmap to feudalism. The philosophy I thought would maximize liberty instead provides cover for those who want to end democratic self-governance entirely. The framework I believed would empower individuals actually enables the powerful to dominate everyone else.

But the values were right. The commitment to human dignity was right. The suspicion of concentrated power was right. I just had the wrong philosophy for realizing them.

Classical liberalism offers what libertarianism promised: a world where people are free to pursue their own ends, where power is dispersed and constrained, where no one has to accept subordinate status. But it achieves this through democratic institutions rather than their absence. Through collective self-governance rather than market fundamentalism. Through recognizing that liberty and justice for all requires all of us working together to maintain the conditions that make freedom possible.

This is the invitation: Come back to what actually works. Abandon the dead philosophy that leads to feudalism. Return to the living tradition that built the most successful experiment in human liberty the world has ever seen.

The wire still holds. But only if we’re willing to walk it consciously, understanding that freedom requires constraint, that liberty needs justice, that “for all” is not negotiable.

Libertarianism is dead. Long live the liberal tradition.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And if your summum bonum is truly liberty and justice for all, there is only one path forward: the tradition libertarianism abandoned and neo-reactionaries seek to destroy.

Choose wisely.

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