Liberty. It’s a simple idea, but it’s also the linchpin of a complex system of values and practices: justice, prosperity, responsibility, toleration, cooperation, and peace. Many people believe that liberty is the core political value of modern civilization itself, the one that gives substance and form to all the other values of social life. They’re called libertarians.

60 Second Introduction What is Libertarianism?

Front Page

Featured Media

How Brian Doherty Became a Libertarian

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and Reason.com, and is a preeminent historian of the American libertarian movement.

Featured Essays

Richard Overton

An Arrow Against All Tyrants

Overton was one of the Levellers who, during the English Civil War, were among the very first to articulate the early ideas of liberalism. In this essay, he argues that every individual owns himself and so has rights to life, liberty, and property.

Robert Nozick

Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

Noting that “wordsmith intellectuals” are disproportionately likely to lean left, Nozick attributes their animosity towards capitalism to the difference in value judgments and reward structure between formal schools and capitalist society at large.