Republicans and Evangelicals | A Brief History of Libertarianism (featuring Andrew Koppelman)

Give to help Chris continue Truce

Modern evangelicalism sometimes incorporates pieces of different ideas. Things that are in the air. Social messages. Political stances. But has evangelicalism been enchanted by libertarianism?

In this episode, we cover a brief history of libertarianism. What is it and who are some of the main thinkers? We discuss Murry Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick.

What is a libertarian? Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi define libertarianism by six characteristics. Libertarians are defined by a love of private property, they are skeptical of authority, and they like free markets, spontaneous order, individualism, and negative liberty. We will define each of these throughout the episode.

Our special guest for this episode is Andrew Koppelman, law professor at Northwestern University. He's the author of the book Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed.

Sources

• Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed. by Andrew Koppelman
• The Individualists by Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi
• The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek
• Matthew 25
• The Road to Serfdom cartoon version
• The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (for the Dust Bowl section in book 2)
• 99% Invisible episode The Infernal Machine for information on anarchists
• Teddy Roosevelt's first address to Congress
• Dark Money by Jane Mayer
• EPA.gov article about The Clean Air Act
• NPR story about law enforcement throwing protestors in unmarked vans
• Listen America! by Jerry Falwell
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (I could only stomach maybe 1/4 of it. I promised myself if she wrote "Rearden Steel" one more time that I would stop reading. She did. So I did.)

Discussion Questions

• What is libertarianism?
• How have you seen libertarianism crossing over into evangelicalism?
• Does libertarianism counter the story from Matthew 25?
• What is the impact of Ayn Rand? Have you read her books?
• Why did Atlas Shrugged suddenly become the "it" book among Republicans in 2020?
• Is there any place for selfishness in the Christian walk?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices