Ron Paul was the 1988 Libertarian Party presidential nominee and is a public figure who has helped bring libertarianism to political attention.

Isabel Paterson was one of the first well-known libertarian women of her era. She wrote in avid support of minimal government and the free economy.

A well-known novelist and essayist, George Orwell’s social criticisms against totalitarianism still remain relevant today.

José Ortega y Gasset was a philosopher who wrote on the evils of state power and the way society grew and changed after the Industrial Revolution.

Franz Oppenheimer, a German sociologist, wrote a comprehensive explanation of the history of the state as a history of conquest.

Objectivism, the moral philosophy expressed by Ayn Rand, celebrates individualism and argues that humans morally should work towards their own happiness.

Charles Murray’s work has questioned the effectiveness and implications of the American welfare state and promoted individualist solutions instead.

The Mont Pelerin Society was formed in 1947 to gather thinkers and advocates of a free society to discuss and further classical-liberal ideas.

A founding influence of the Austrian School of economics, Carl Menger predominantly wrote on the subjects of prices, marginal utility, and money. 

Henry Louis Mencken was a prolific and stalwart writer, protesting government overreach and planning in newspapers and his own books.

Mason was a Virginian statesman who decried the centralization of government authority and was one of the major supporters of a written Bill of Rights.

Karl Popper’s theory of knowledge and writings on social philosophy helped to shape much of today’s methodology of social science.

Bernard Mandeville’s controversial essays and allegories raised questions about justice and socially or morally virtuous actions.

Henry Sumner Maine was a legal scholar of the 1800s. His best-known work, Ancient Law, explained development of societal structure.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was a powerful voice for classical liberal ideas, writing great historical volumes and political essays on individual freedoms.

The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Cooper was a statesman and philosopher with an interest in individualism and the natural harmony of interests.

Individuals should be able to act in whatever way they want until sufficient reason that they be stopped, instead of needing permission to act.

Liberalism in Germany reacted to the conservative and progressive political changes of the time with a strong anti-government stance.