# Sociology’s Forgotten Origins: Khaldun, Ferguson, and Spencer **URL:** **Published:** June 11, 2026 --- Is sociology mainly a collectivist discipline? Sociology is often treated by libertarians as a hostile discipline: collectivist, ideological, and drawn toward social control. But its origins tell a more complicated story. From Ibn Khaldun to Adam Ferguson and Herbert Spencer, this older tradition reveals a sociology of spontaneous order, civil society, and limits on political power.