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Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed
A lively history of American libertarianism and its decay into dangerous fantasy.
In 2010 in South Fulton, Tennessee, each household paid the local fire department a yearly fee of $75.00. That year, Gene Cranick's house accidentally caught fire. But the fire department refused to come because Cranick had forgotten to pay his yearly fee, leaving his home in ashes. Observers across the political spectrum agreed―some with horror and some with enthusiasm―that this revealed the true face of libertarianism. But libertarianism did not always require callous indifference to the misfortunes of others.
Modern libertarianism began with Friedrich Hayek’s admirable corrective to the Depression-era vogue for central economic planning. It resisted oppressive state power. It showed how capitalism could improve life for everyone. Yet today, it's a toxic blend of anarchism, disdain for the weak, and rationalization for environmental catastrophe. Libertarians today accept new, radical arguments―which crumble under scrutiny―that justify dishonest business practices and Covid deniers who refuse to wear masks in the name of “freedom.”
Andrew Koppelman’s book traces libertarianism's evolution from Hayek’s moderate pro-market ideas to the romantic fabulism of Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand, and Charles Koch’s promotion of climate change denial. Burning Down the House is the definitive history of an ideological movement that has reshaped American politics.
In 2010 in South Fulton, Tennessee, each household paid the local fire department a yearly fee of $75.00. That year, Gene Cranick's house accidentally caught fire. But the fire department refused to come because Cranick had forgotten to pay his yearly fee, leaving his home in ashes. Observers across the political spectrum agreed―some with horror and some with enthusiasm―that this revealed the true face of libertarianism. But libertarianism did not always require callous indifference to the misfortunes of others.
Modern libertarianism began with Friedrich Hayek’s admirable corrective to the Depression-era vogue for central economic planning. It resisted oppressive state power. It showed how capitalism could improve life for everyone. Yet today, it's a toxic blend of anarchism, disdain for the weak, and rationalization for environmental catastrophe. Libertarians today accept new, radical arguments―which crumble under scrutiny―that justify dishonest business practices and Covid deniers who refuse to wear masks in the name of “freedom.”
Andrew Koppelman’s book traces libertarianism's evolution from Hayek’s moderate pro-market ideas to the romantic fabulism of Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand, and Charles Koch’s promotion of climate change denial. Burning Down the House is the definitive history of an ideological movement that has reshaped American politics.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published October 4, 2022
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October 20, 2022
Libertarians have been working hard to take over not just the Republican Party, but the entire conversation. Thanks to huge money from the Koch Bros., this political philosophy has become mainstream in the USA, and nowhere else in the world. What it actually is and where it came from reveal a lot in Burning Down The House, by Andrew Koppelman, who teaches constitutional law. His research has made him pretty clearly and obviously disgusted with this hypocrisy, which is demonstrably tearing the country apart.
Libertarianism, much like other political movements, bears little resemblance today to its origins. Today’s rabid proponents are all but totally ignorant of those leftist beginnings, their logic, or how they fit in the scheme of things. They don’t know how it has changed over the decades, or how it means something completely different today as an offshoot of the extreme conservative right. All they know is property rights and personal freedoms, no matter what it costs anyone else. And as Koppelman finds himself repeating, even their leading lights clearly don’t understand property rights.
Koppelman, who calls himself a pro-capitalism leftist, gives every patron saint of libertarianism their generous time in the spotlight. From Von Mises to Hayek, Epstein, Rothbard and Nozick to Ayn Rand and Charles Koch, he stitches together their views, and points out where they run into difficulty, which is often. But like me when reviewing a conservative’s book, Koppelman hits nonsense walls everywhere he turns, as facts fall by the wayside, logic gets trampled, and personal views take precedence over consistency.
He settles on Hayek as the most rational spokesperson, quoting him throughout, and allowing him to set the stage for each chapter’s discussion of how this does not work. Those chapters cover Prosperity, Tyranny, Liberty, the Nanny State, personal rights – everything near and dear to libertarians. All of them are self-destructive, when they don’t threaten the planet itself.
They consider themselves the opposite of socialists, (whoever they are since that also spreads over a spectrum). They like to say America took a wrong turn to socialism in the Great Depression, under FDR’s horrific, endless presidency. But FDR was no socialist. His philosophy was pretty obviously welfare state capitalism, as Koppelman points out. Libertarians don’t even know who the enemy is.
Most of them are against any kind of aid, from Medicare to farm subsidies to clean water. They want to close down social security on the grounds that it loosens the bonds between parents and children who need to care for aging family members by themselves. The vast majority of Americans totally rely on their social security payments, and ending them would be an unparalleled human disaster in the country.
Koppelman does not accuse libertarians of hypocrisy over property rights. But there are some who believe people have no right to “own” land since they didn’t make it, or sell the minerals they dig up from it, and that people who jealously guard their “private property” should at least pay taxes for the privilege. Even the libertarian scholar Jack Rawls saw that, but libertarians want it all and to never have to pay anything to keep it.
Interestingly for me, Koppelman does not see libertarianism as religion. Religion has the unimpeachable advantage of belief over facts, which neatly allows for all the conflicting variations, doctrines and rules to coexist. And if nothing else in libertarianism, there are variations, doctrines and rules. No one seems to appreciate it the same way as anyone else. Libertarianism is a mess of contradictions. Everyone has their own values they assign to it, and what they say about it is definitive.
It clearly is not definitive, and if you’ve only listened to one or two libertarians, you have no idea how messy their religion really is. Like evangelicals, there is no argument, but everyone goes their own way, from Rapturists to Trump being the Chosen One, to sects like the Moonies and their AR-15 religion or Seventh Day Adventists where only 100,000 get to go to heaven. So with libertarians, where the state should not exist at all, to the state only providing external defense forces, to the state providing some services as long as they are equal for all and don’t require personal taxation, and on and on. Koppelman asks: “Would we be really be freer without roads, bridges, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, police, firefighters, environmental protection?” A better question might be: how long would that last?
The Get Off My Property crowd are all about personal freedoms. Any direction given to them at all is an infringement of their personal freedoms. They firmly believe that anything they work at is their personal property and no one can have any say in it. That even includes the children they make. Their children are their personal property. They do not have to feed or clothe them or educate them if they don’t want to. And they certainly don’t have to vaccinate them against constant flow of plagues, even if they infect others. Incest is totally permitted in this scenario, and should not be mentioned in any law at all. Incest is a personal freedom over one’s private property. Personal property is beyond the reach of any law for libertarians. That goes double for wives.
Along the same lines, there should be no drug laws at all. Anyone can take whatever they want, and if it kills them, that’s their “choice”. But libertarians never consider how many people they take down with them, as they drive drunk, or decide to take their guns to the mall. Aren’t they infringing on other people’s personal freedoms? Wouldn’t alcohol and drug safety laws mitigate some of that risk? Not to libertarians.
No, the government should have no say in what Big Pharma makes and sells, and nothing should be done about cleanliness, sloppiness, impurities, fake ingredients or fraudulent marketing claims. And so with the whole economy. Everyone is on their own in libertarian societies, which as Koppleman points out cannot exist: “It is an infantile fantasy of godlike self-sufficiency. People in fact cannot be free in isolation. There can be no freedom without institutions. Structures of responsible regulation, and nonmarket transfers of income and wealth, are necessary preconditions of liberty.”
Everything in libertarian heaven is private property and private services. The courts and the police are private companies. Pay them often or you might be very sorry some day. (The book opens with the Cranick house burning down unhindered as firefighters watered the neighbors’ houses to prevent them burning too. Cranick failed to pay the fee that year, so no fire protection for them.) Those unable to pay their own way because of illness or disabilities or birth defects would simply be abandoned because there is no room for “moochers”. This is the kind of freedom libertarians are anxious to implement in the USA.
Ayn Rand gets special treatment in the book. She is by far the most famous of the libertarians, but also the least scholarly and the most superficial. She is all about forcefully taking liberties, to the point where Koppelman says: “Religious traditionalists don’t get to tell us what our fundamental purposes are. Neither does Rand.” She is full of “undefended assumptions and circular arguments.” A self-proclaimed poster child for libertarianism, she boasted that she started with nothing and made it entirely on her own, totally ignoring the Chicago family that took her in as an unconnected Russian immigrant and helped her get established. She never paid them back when her millions came in from her books and films, and she wrote them out of her history altogether. Hayek told Ayn Rand: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: (that you the people) are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.” In return, Rand regarded Hayek as “an ass, with no conception of a free society at all.” And these are the two leading lights of the movement.
Ultimately, Koppelman finds himself pleading: “It is educational malpractice to require students to read her prose as if it were an example of serious philosophy.”
He reserves a special place for environmental issues and therefore Charles Koch, who singlehandedly kept the federal government from enacting meaningful global warming laws for decades – until now. Koch has used his billions to force the majority of Republican candidates to sign no climate law pledges, and if they refuse, to pack their meetings with rabid screamers and have them primaried out of office.
Of the anti-environmentalists, Koppelman says: “The most important of these bandits is the fossil fuel industry, which has deployed libertarian language to make the Republican Party the only major political party in the world that denies climate change science. This license to profit by hurting people and destroying their property betrays the most basic commitments of even Randian libertarianism.” How can libertarians allow private property to be so wantonly damaged? Just another contradiction in an incoherent philosophy.
Koch’s Americans for Prosperity has been actively fighting virtually anything that might benefit Americans, even stopping public transit projects and road and bridge repairs. All these things should be privately owned and funded – or not undertaken at all, they say.
Koch has been drumming the anti-environmental message so long, it has become a mindless cult: “The libertarians who embrace it, thinking that they are thereby promoting freedom, are useful idiots, like the idealistic leftists of the 1930s whose hatred of poverty and racism led them to embrace Stalin. John Galt is a sap.”
Koppelman cites David Boaz, vice president of the (Koch-founded) Cato Institute, summarizing the differences: “Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult.” That however is not just self-serving but quite untrue. Libertarians don’t want anything to do with you at all, in any way. Empathy is not a libertarian trait.
The book is a comprehensive work of political philosophy - not politics. It is an intellectual examination of what people explain about their own positions inside that philosophy. Their experts are damned by their own scholarship, the crazies hung out to dry. It is a pleasure to read: thorough, detailed and uncompromising.
Ultimately the conclusion to Burning Down The House must be that libertarianism is the male white supremacy patriarchy fantasy to end all. The USA under libertarians would make Mad Max look like Father Knows Best.
David Wineberg
Libertarianism, much like other political movements, bears little resemblance today to its origins. Today’s rabid proponents are all but totally ignorant of those leftist beginnings, their logic, or how they fit in the scheme of things. They don’t know how it has changed over the decades, or how it means something completely different today as an offshoot of the extreme conservative right. All they know is property rights and personal freedoms, no matter what it costs anyone else. And as Koppelman finds himself repeating, even their leading lights clearly don’t understand property rights.
Koppelman, who calls himself a pro-capitalism leftist, gives every patron saint of libertarianism their generous time in the spotlight. From Von Mises to Hayek, Epstein, Rothbard and Nozick to Ayn Rand and Charles Koch, he stitches together their views, and points out where they run into difficulty, which is often. But like me when reviewing a conservative’s book, Koppelman hits nonsense walls everywhere he turns, as facts fall by the wayside, logic gets trampled, and personal views take precedence over consistency.
He settles on Hayek as the most rational spokesperson, quoting him throughout, and allowing him to set the stage for each chapter’s discussion of how this does not work. Those chapters cover Prosperity, Tyranny, Liberty, the Nanny State, personal rights – everything near and dear to libertarians. All of them are self-destructive, when they don’t threaten the planet itself.
They consider themselves the opposite of socialists, (whoever they are since that also spreads over a spectrum). They like to say America took a wrong turn to socialism in the Great Depression, under FDR’s horrific, endless presidency. But FDR was no socialist. His philosophy was pretty obviously welfare state capitalism, as Koppelman points out. Libertarians don’t even know who the enemy is.
Most of them are against any kind of aid, from Medicare to farm subsidies to clean water. They want to close down social security on the grounds that it loosens the bonds between parents and children who need to care for aging family members by themselves. The vast majority of Americans totally rely on their social security payments, and ending them would be an unparalleled human disaster in the country.
Koppelman does not accuse libertarians of hypocrisy over property rights. But there are some who believe people have no right to “own” land since they didn’t make it, or sell the minerals they dig up from it, and that people who jealously guard their “private property” should at least pay taxes for the privilege. Even the libertarian scholar Jack Rawls saw that, but libertarians want it all and to never have to pay anything to keep it.
Interestingly for me, Koppelman does not see libertarianism as religion. Religion has the unimpeachable advantage of belief over facts, which neatly allows for all the conflicting variations, doctrines and rules to coexist. And if nothing else in libertarianism, there are variations, doctrines and rules. No one seems to appreciate it the same way as anyone else. Libertarianism is a mess of contradictions. Everyone has their own values they assign to it, and what they say about it is definitive.
It clearly is not definitive, and if you’ve only listened to one or two libertarians, you have no idea how messy their religion really is. Like evangelicals, there is no argument, but everyone goes their own way, from Rapturists to Trump being the Chosen One, to sects like the Moonies and their AR-15 religion or Seventh Day Adventists where only 100,000 get to go to heaven. So with libertarians, where the state should not exist at all, to the state only providing external defense forces, to the state providing some services as long as they are equal for all and don’t require personal taxation, and on and on. Koppelman asks: “Would we be really be freer without roads, bridges, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, police, firefighters, environmental protection?” A better question might be: how long would that last?
The Get Off My Property crowd are all about personal freedoms. Any direction given to them at all is an infringement of their personal freedoms. They firmly believe that anything they work at is their personal property and no one can have any say in it. That even includes the children they make. Their children are their personal property. They do not have to feed or clothe them or educate them if they don’t want to. And they certainly don’t have to vaccinate them against constant flow of plagues, even if they infect others. Incest is totally permitted in this scenario, and should not be mentioned in any law at all. Incest is a personal freedom over one’s private property. Personal property is beyond the reach of any law for libertarians. That goes double for wives.
Along the same lines, there should be no drug laws at all. Anyone can take whatever they want, and if it kills them, that’s their “choice”. But libertarians never consider how many people they take down with them, as they drive drunk, or decide to take their guns to the mall. Aren’t they infringing on other people’s personal freedoms? Wouldn’t alcohol and drug safety laws mitigate some of that risk? Not to libertarians.
No, the government should have no say in what Big Pharma makes and sells, and nothing should be done about cleanliness, sloppiness, impurities, fake ingredients or fraudulent marketing claims. And so with the whole economy. Everyone is on their own in libertarian societies, which as Koppleman points out cannot exist: “It is an infantile fantasy of godlike self-sufficiency. People in fact cannot be free in isolation. There can be no freedom without institutions. Structures of responsible regulation, and nonmarket transfers of income and wealth, are necessary preconditions of liberty.”
Everything in libertarian heaven is private property and private services. The courts and the police are private companies. Pay them often or you might be very sorry some day. (The book opens with the Cranick house burning down unhindered as firefighters watered the neighbors’ houses to prevent them burning too. Cranick failed to pay the fee that year, so no fire protection for them.) Those unable to pay their own way because of illness or disabilities or birth defects would simply be abandoned because there is no room for “moochers”. This is the kind of freedom libertarians are anxious to implement in the USA.
Ayn Rand gets special treatment in the book. She is by far the most famous of the libertarians, but also the least scholarly and the most superficial. She is all about forcefully taking liberties, to the point where Koppelman says: “Religious traditionalists don’t get to tell us what our fundamental purposes are. Neither does Rand.” She is full of “undefended assumptions and circular arguments.” A self-proclaimed poster child for libertarianism, she boasted that she started with nothing and made it entirely on her own, totally ignoring the Chicago family that took her in as an unconnected Russian immigrant and helped her get established. She never paid them back when her millions came in from her books and films, and she wrote them out of her history altogether. Hayek told Ayn Rand: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: (that you the people) are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.” In return, Rand regarded Hayek as “an ass, with no conception of a free society at all.” And these are the two leading lights of the movement.
Ultimately, Koppelman finds himself pleading: “It is educational malpractice to require students to read her prose as if it were an example of serious philosophy.”
He reserves a special place for environmental issues and therefore Charles Koch, who singlehandedly kept the federal government from enacting meaningful global warming laws for decades – until now. Koch has used his billions to force the majority of Republican candidates to sign no climate law pledges, and if they refuse, to pack their meetings with rabid screamers and have them primaried out of office.
Of the anti-environmentalists, Koppelman says: “The most important of these bandits is the fossil fuel industry, which has deployed libertarian language to make the Republican Party the only major political party in the world that denies climate change science. This license to profit by hurting people and destroying their property betrays the most basic commitments of even Randian libertarianism.” How can libertarians allow private property to be so wantonly damaged? Just another contradiction in an incoherent philosophy.
Koch’s Americans for Prosperity has been actively fighting virtually anything that might benefit Americans, even stopping public transit projects and road and bridge repairs. All these things should be privately owned and funded – or not undertaken at all, they say.
Koch has been drumming the anti-environmental message so long, it has become a mindless cult: “The libertarians who embrace it, thinking that they are thereby promoting freedom, are useful idiots, like the idealistic leftists of the 1930s whose hatred of poverty and racism led them to embrace Stalin. John Galt is a sap.”
Koppelman cites David Boaz, vice president of the (Koch-founded) Cato Institute, summarizing the differences: “Conservatives want to be your daddy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Liberals want to be your mommy, feeding you, tucking you in, and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult.” That however is not just self-serving but quite untrue. Libertarians don’t want anything to do with you at all, in any way. Empathy is not a libertarian trait.
The book is a comprehensive work of political philosophy - not politics. It is an intellectual examination of what people explain about their own positions inside that philosophy. Their experts are damned by their own scholarship, the crazies hung out to dry. It is a pleasure to read: thorough, detailed and uncompromising.
Ultimately the conclusion to Burning Down The House must be that libertarianism is the male white supremacy patriarchy fantasy to end all. The USA under libertarians would make Mad Max look like Father Knows Best.
David Wineberg
October 11, 2023
Les libertariens seraient comiques s’ils n’étaient pas aussi dangereux. Ils sont dangereux parce que leur doctrine est répandue chez les milliardaires du monde, qui y voient une sorte de justification à leur extrême richesse.
J’ai appris dans ce livre que l’économiste ultra-libéral Friedrich Hayek n’était pas aussi sinistre que je le pensais. Il était capable d’imaginer un rôle important pour l’État, contrairement aux « penseurs » libertariens Murray Rothbard et l’épouvantable Ayn Rand qui, eux, étaient bel et bien les tristes personnages que je croyais.
J’ai appris dans ce livre que l’économiste ultra-libéral Friedrich Hayek n’était pas aussi sinistre que je le pensais. Il était capable d’imaginer un rôle important pour l’État, contrairement aux « penseurs » libertariens Murray Rothbard et l’épouvantable Ayn Rand qui, eux, étaient bel et bien les tristes personnages que je croyais.
May 23, 2023
[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]
Every so often, I try to read outside my ideological comfort zone. This book, by Andrew Koppelman, counts.
Koppelman bills himself as a "pro-capitalist leftist". I'll put my cards on the table too: I'm a Schrödinger-catlike mixture of National Review-style conservatism and Reason-style libertarianism, about 65-35 weight on the libertarian side. (I subscribe to both magazines, and my disagreements with their articles and editorials are nearly always mild.)
My disagreements with Koppelman are somewhat less mild. But lets get to the good news first: he has studied the "big" libertarian thinkers and popularizers: Hayek, Nozick, Rand, Mises, Rothbard. Others are mentioned less thoroughly: Epstein, Friedman (Milton and David), Barnett, … And some not at all: Sowell, Machan, Murray,…) He also deals with pols and influencers: Reagan, Paul (Ron and Rand), Koch (Charles and David). While he's critical, sometimes very critical, thumbs up for (at least mostly) reading and understanding these folks' arguments and positions. He's most complimentary to Hayek (that's the man himself on the cover, looking out of that burning house on the cover). But his take is a bit weird.
In contrast, Koppelman's own position draws heavily on John Rawls, whose Theory of Justice arguments and their subsequent refinements are described less critically.
Let's be fair: Koppleman's is not a totally crazy position. He's a fan of the European social democracies, with their relatively free economies, strong civil liberties, but also big social "safety nets", financed by high rates of taxation.
He claims that libertarianism has pretty much taken over both political parties. The Democrats hold "Hayekian" (i.e., sensible, respectable) positions, the GOP "Rothbardian" (i.e., crazy, greedy, and stupid) ones. It comes as a huge shock to libertarians that they've actually been in control all this time.
I said above that I was mostly a Reason-style libertarian. You would think that a book purporting to examine the current state of libertarianism might pay more attention to the arguments and proposals carried in that magazine. But no, Reason is pretty much AWOL here; Koppelman prefers to take his shots at people who mostly have been dead for more than a couple decades.
Overall, the book was a constant irritant, even given the author’s occasional pro-capitalism nods. There are a lot of exceptions to that pro-capitalism stance that pile up over the chapters. Koppelman never met a crisis that failed to justify government intervention. Nary a social problem that doesn’t call for some combination of regulations, fines, mandates, bailouts, prohibitions, and subsidies. Covid? Koppelman's disappointed that things weren't more stringent; if only it weren't for those damn libertarians griping about everything. Climate change, of course, calls for serious clampdowns on emissions.
Despite his admiration for Hayek, he pooh-poohs the notion that we’re on the Road to Serfdom; we heeded Hayek’s warnings and now all is well! It’s as if he’s never read Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs (another ignored author).
The book’s title refers to a Tennessee incident back in 2010, where a house burned to the ground despite the presence of the fire department from a nearby town. People in the area had the option of paying a yearly subscription fee for the department’s services, but the house’s owner “forgot” to do that. This is Koppelman’s lead-off example of a “corrupted variety” of libertarianism. (The fire department in question was government-owned, and was operating under the control of its democratically-elected town government, but never mind.)
On taxation, Koppelman, like most leftists, points to the fabled 1950s when the top marginal income tax rate was 90% and everything was great! QED! Not mentioned: Federal government receipts averaged 16.5% of GDP in the 1950s; in (for example) FY2022 they were 19.2% and rising. He likes Hayek, but I'm not sure he likes Chapter 20 of The Constitution of Liberty, "Taxation and Redistribution". He doesn't talk about it much.
It's disappointing that Koppelman doesn't deal with substantive criticisms of Rawls' Theory of Justice. See, for example, Michael Munger's lecture exercise where he puts his students behind an actual "veil of ignorance" and asks them to decide on redistribution strategy; his results are non-Rawlsian. Maybe not a total knock-down argument, but close.
I'd also recommend the symposium on Koppelman's book hosted at Jack Balkin's blog. Which includes responses from Koppelman to his critics there.
October 13, 2022
TL;DR
Burning Down the House is an erudite, well-reasoned examination by Andrew Koppelman of how modern libertarian philosophy was corrupted. Koppelman builds his argument by defining his vision of libertarianism and then critiques other, ‘corrupted’ visions of it. His analysis is astute, surprising, and worth the read. This book isn’t just for libertarians. I’d recommend it to all political junkies, especially those interested in political philosophy. Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
What follows is an excerpt of my much longer review on my website. If you're interested in the full review, please, visit the review on my blog. Thanks for your time.
Review: Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman
Libertarians are the worst. I am incredibly biased against libertarians for reasons that should probably be a blog post all its own, though I’m sure some will pop out in my analysis. Overall, when reading Libertarian writing, I’m very aware of my own negative biases, but the more I age, the less I agree with libertarians. So with this all in mind, when I say that I enjoyed Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman, you’ll know that it’s because the book makes strong solid arguments. I may not agree with Koppelman’s conclusions, but I understood the arguments and how he came to his conclusions. In my experience, this is rare for libertarians, specifically, and politics, in general. Too many people – right, left, libertarian, socialist, green party, whoever – believe their arguments are self-evident and thus require no explanation. Koppelman takes the opposite route. He explains, in depth, his personal philosophy of libertarianism, and it’s because of this, I am doing something I never thought I’d do. I’m highly recommending Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman as an excellent analysis of the modern libertarian party and as a way to understand why Libertarianism is attractive to some.
Andrew Koppelman opens Burning Down the House, or How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed with the story of Gene Cranick’s house being allowed to burn down as a show and defense of libertarian values. He claims that the libertarianism that let that house burn is a corrupted version of the philosophy. (At least, it shows the heartlessness of modern libertarians.) Koppelman then spends time defining what he means by corruption of libertarian philosophy. He uses modern pundits like Glenn Beck, Kevin Williamson, and Jonah Goldberg to make his point. He references Beck again and again because Beck claims to be influenced by Frederick Hayek and Ayn Rand. Koppelman places the fight over the libertarian party’s soul between these two. He claims that modern American libertarianism began with Hayek but that Rand’s philosophies have steered it off Hayek’s course. This is an intriguing argument that the book works heavily toward again and again. Koppelman is clearly a student of Hayek’s, and he’s an excellent advocate for Hayek’s work. Throughout the book, Koppelman works from Hayek’s principles to integrate modern libertarianism with a social safety net. If I understood him correctly, he wants the government to help the poor without capping the rich’s ability to become even richer. Koppelman sees in Hayek’s philosophy a way to protect those most vulnerable in our society through both market and government solutions. In my personal philosophy, I’ve always seen socialism as the net below the trapeze artist. It protects those who are falling but doesn’t impede those who are soaring. Koppelman thinks Hayek would agree to this; though, neither Hayek nor Koppelman would call that socialism.
When I first saw this book on the various reviewer requesting sites, it perked my interest. I requested, and as I began to read it, I found it wasn’t the book that I thought it would be. I had suspected it would be a history of Libertarianism from outside the party itself. Instead, it’s a libertarian looking how the modern party evolved. The introduction angered me. I have 32 highlights and notes there alone. That’s five times the number of highlights that I put in On Critical Race Theory’s introduction, the last political philosophy book I reviewed. In the first chapter, I have 74 highlights and notes. This is a book that angered me, but it’s also a book that I can engage with. To be clear, not all of those highlights are negative, just most. But each chapter tamped down the anger more and more so that I was able to engage intellectually with the book. Koppelman opened my mind with a few sentences at the end of the introduction. The goal of his book was to mix the best of libertarianism with the best of the political left’s policies. Between the introduction and the first chapter, I began to find more and more common ground with Koppelman.
Chapter two dives into the philosophy of rights with a Hayekian interpretation of John Locke and John Rawls. This was the chapter I found most enlightening; though, I believe I read too fast through it and should probably go read it again to digest more of what Koppelman’s aiming to do. (More on this below.) Chapter three examines the arguments of prominent libertarian philosophers Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand. Koppelman looks at their arguments and how extreme they are. For example, Koppleman claims that under Rothbard’s philosophy a person has no legal obligation to his children whether feeding, clothing, or educating. While Rothbard considered not doing those thing immoral, he thought state coercion worse. To be clear, Rothbard thought that a parent has the legal right to let a child die through inaction by not feeding or sheltering. Welcome to the individual that brought the Koch brothers to libertarianism. Chapter four has Koppelman addresses the Libertarian rejection of restrictions upon one’s freedoms. For this, he examines whether all drugs should be legalized. Should heroin be purchasable alongside alcohol at the gas station? Libertarianism would say yes. Should cigarettes be sold to children under the age of 18? Libertarians would say yes. That decision should be made by the parents and not the state. Koppelman makes the case for legal restrictions upon a person’s freedoms for their own good. Chapter five looks at the libertarian view of anti-discrimination laws. Modern libertarian adherence to strict property rights says that yes, property owners have the right to discriminate against anyone. Racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, transphobia,etc. are all acceptable to libertarians in a legal sense. They may personally abhor all those -isms and find them morally reprehensible, but they don’t believe the state should force someone into property transactions against their will for any reason. Koppelman makes a case for limited state intervention when it creates more freedom. (This seems like a very utilitarian view of freedom. The business owner who loses the freedom to discriminate is overwhelmed by the additional freedom of all people of color to use said business.) Chapter 6 addresses the Randian concept of moochers. Libertarians fear and loathe paying for benefits that they themselves do not receive. Koppelman looks at this impulse via the Presidency of Barack Obama, where libertarian racism framed him as a socialist despite all objective evidence that he isn’t. Of course, all right-leaning and conservative people call anything they don’t like socialism, they had it extra bad for Obama despite all his pro-business policies. His signature health initiative, the ACA, benefited private insurance industry. How is that socialism? Hint, it’s not. In this chapter, Koppelman also looks at Charles Koch, the man most responsible for shifting the Overton window towards a heartless brand of libertarianism.
So, why read Burning Down the House? Because it’s intelligent, and you will learn something. I have never read Hayek before, but I plan to as my review stack gets smaller. Koppelman has shown that Hayek’s ideas are worth examining regardless of your political party. Koppelman places Hayek in a philosophical continuum from John Locke to John Rawls in a way that keeps free market idealism while making the case for small amounts of redistribution and regulation. This is brave for a libertarian because the modern party has become extreme property rights fanatics. Koppelman, however, seeks to reclaim libertarian sensibilities for left-leaning individuals. Because of this book, I’ll have more patience with libertarians to see if they’re in the Hayekian tradition.
Conclusion
Andrew Koppelman’s Burning Down the House is a smart, well-written, well-argued attempt to realign modern libertarian philosophy in a tradition of Frederick Hayek and John Rawls. Koppelman’s analysis of how libertarians evolved from Hayek to the modern interpretation favored by Glenn Beck is excellent and thought-provoking. Despite all the biases I had prior to reading this book, Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman won me over. With each chapter, my curiosity grew, and I became more and more impressed with Koppelman’s dedication to his Hayekian principles. This is one of the best political books that I’ve ever read. Now, I need to find time so that I can read it again. Highly recommended.
Burning Down the House is an erudite, well-reasoned examination by Andrew Koppelman of how modern libertarian philosophy was corrupted. Koppelman builds his argument by defining his vision of libertarianism and then critiques other, ‘corrupted’ visions of it. His analysis is astute, surprising, and worth the read. This book isn’t just for libertarians. I’d recommend it to all political junkies, especially those interested in political philosophy. Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
What follows is an excerpt of my much longer review on my website. If you're interested in the full review, please, visit the review on my blog. Thanks for your time.
Review: Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman
Libertarians are the worst. I am incredibly biased against libertarians for reasons that should probably be a blog post all its own, though I’m sure some will pop out in my analysis. Overall, when reading Libertarian writing, I’m very aware of my own negative biases, but the more I age, the less I agree with libertarians. So with this all in mind, when I say that I enjoyed Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman, you’ll know that it’s because the book makes strong solid arguments. I may not agree with Koppelman’s conclusions, but I understood the arguments and how he came to his conclusions. In my experience, this is rare for libertarians, specifically, and politics, in general. Too many people – right, left, libertarian, socialist, green party, whoever – believe their arguments are self-evident and thus require no explanation. Koppelman takes the opposite route. He explains, in depth, his personal philosophy of libertarianism, and it’s because of this, I am doing something I never thought I’d do. I’m highly recommending Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman as an excellent analysis of the modern libertarian party and as a way to understand why Libertarianism is attractive to some.
Andrew Koppelman opens Burning Down the House, or How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed with the story of Gene Cranick’s house being allowed to burn down as a show and defense of libertarian values. He claims that the libertarianism that let that house burn is a corrupted version of the philosophy. (At least, it shows the heartlessness of modern libertarians.) Koppelman then spends time defining what he means by corruption of libertarian philosophy. He uses modern pundits like Glenn Beck, Kevin Williamson, and Jonah Goldberg to make his point. He references Beck again and again because Beck claims to be influenced by Frederick Hayek and Ayn Rand. Koppelman places the fight over the libertarian party’s soul between these two. He claims that modern American libertarianism began with Hayek but that Rand’s philosophies have steered it off Hayek’s course. This is an intriguing argument that the book works heavily toward again and again. Koppelman is clearly a student of Hayek’s, and he’s an excellent advocate for Hayek’s work. Throughout the book, Koppelman works from Hayek’s principles to integrate modern libertarianism with a social safety net. If I understood him correctly, he wants the government to help the poor without capping the rich’s ability to become even richer. Koppelman sees in Hayek’s philosophy a way to protect those most vulnerable in our society through both market and government solutions. In my personal philosophy, I’ve always seen socialism as the net below the trapeze artist. It protects those who are falling but doesn’t impede those who are soaring. Koppelman thinks Hayek would agree to this; though, neither Hayek nor Koppelman would call that socialism.
When I first saw this book on the various reviewer requesting sites, it perked my interest. I requested, and as I began to read it, I found it wasn’t the book that I thought it would be. I had suspected it would be a history of Libertarianism from outside the party itself. Instead, it’s a libertarian looking how the modern party evolved. The introduction angered me. I have 32 highlights and notes there alone. That’s five times the number of highlights that I put in On Critical Race Theory’s introduction, the last political philosophy book I reviewed. In the first chapter, I have 74 highlights and notes. This is a book that angered me, but it’s also a book that I can engage with. To be clear, not all of those highlights are negative, just most. But each chapter tamped down the anger more and more so that I was able to engage intellectually with the book. Koppelman opened my mind with a few sentences at the end of the introduction. The goal of his book was to mix the best of libertarianism with the best of the political left’s policies. Between the introduction and the first chapter, I began to find more and more common ground with Koppelman.
Chapter two dives into the philosophy of rights with a Hayekian interpretation of John Locke and John Rawls. This was the chapter I found most enlightening; though, I believe I read too fast through it and should probably go read it again to digest more of what Koppelman’s aiming to do. (More on this below.) Chapter three examines the arguments of prominent libertarian philosophers Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand. Koppelman looks at their arguments and how extreme they are. For example, Koppleman claims that under Rothbard’s philosophy a person has no legal obligation to his children whether feeding, clothing, or educating. While Rothbard considered not doing those thing immoral, he thought state coercion worse. To be clear, Rothbard thought that a parent has the legal right to let a child die through inaction by not feeding or sheltering. Welcome to the individual that brought the Koch brothers to libertarianism. Chapter four has Koppelman addresses the Libertarian rejection of restrictions upon one’s freedoms. For this, he examines whether all drugs should be legalized. Should heroin be purchasable alongside alcohol at the gas station? Libertarianism would say yes. Should cigarettes be sold to children under the age of 18? Libertarians would say yes. That decision should be made by the parents and not the state. Koppelman makes the case for legal restrictions upon a person’s freedoms for their own good. Chapter five looks at the libertarian view of anti-discrimination laws. Modern libertarian adherence to strict property rights says that yes, property owners have the right to discriminate against anyone. Racism, religious bigotry, homophobia, transphobia,etc. are all acceptable to libertarians in a legal sense. They may personally abhor all those -isms and find them morally reprehensible, but they don’t believe the state should force someone into property transactions against their will for any reason. Koppelman makes a case for limited state intervention when it creates more freedom. (This seems like a very utilitarian view of freedom. The business owner who loses the freedom to discriminate is overwhelmed by the additional freedom of all people of color to use said business.) Chapter 6 addresses the Randian concept of moochers. Libertarians fear and loathe paying for benefits that they themselves do not receive. Koppelman looks at this impulse via the Presidency of Barack Obama, where libertarian racism framed him as a socialist despite all objective evidence that he isn’t. Of course, all right-leaning and conservative people call anything they don’t like socialism, they had it extra bad for Obama despite all his pro-business policies. His signature health initiative, the ACA, benefited private insurance industry. How is that socialism? Hint, it’s not. In this chapter, Koppelman also looks at Charles Koch, the man most responsible for shifting the Overton window towards a heartless brand of libertarianism.
So, why read Burning Down the House? Because it’s intelligent, and you will learn something. I have never read Hayek before, but I plan to as my review stack gets smaller. Koppelman has shown that Hayek’s ideas are worth examining regardless of your political party. Koppelman places Hayek in a philosophical continuum from John Locke to John Rawls in a way that keeps free market idealism while making the case for small amounts of redistribution and regulation. This is brave for a libertarian because the modern party has become extreme property rights fanatics. Koppelman, however, seeks to reclaim libertarian sensibilities for left-leaning individuals. Because of this book, I’ll have more patience with libertarians to see if they’re in the Hayekian tradition.
Conclusion
Andrew Koppelman’s Burning Down the House is a smart, well-written, well-argued attempt to realign modern libertarian philosophy in a tradition of Frederick Hayek and John Rawls. Koppelman’s analysis of how libertarians evolved from Hayek to the modern interpretation favored by Glenn Beck is excellent and thought-provoking. Despite all the biases I had prior to reading this book, Burning Down the House by Andrew Koppelman won me over. With each chapter, my curiosity grew, and I became more and more impressed with Koppelman’s dedication to his Hayekian principles. This is one of the best political books that I’ve ever read. Now, I need to find time so that I can read it again. Highly recommended.
April 11, 2024
This book is terrible. I’m disappointed that I bought it.
September 10, 2025
2.5 stars!
In 2010 a paid local fire department with a yearly fee of $75 refused to put out a fire because the family did not pay their yearly fee. This sparked outrage but also revealed the true face of the libertarian party and ideals.
This was an interesting read in terms of learning about the Libertarian Party, both its appeal and its pitfalls. I definitely came away with a better understanding of the philosophy and the impact it’s had politically and culturally. But I struggled with the structure. The book often skipped around decades within a single paragraph, which made it feel disorganized and hard to follow. it also felt repetitive, circling back to the same points without adding anything new.
I’m glad I read it for the information, but the writing style and structure kept me from fully enjoying the book.
“Conservatives want to be your daddy telling you what to do and what not to do. liberals want to be your mommy feeding you tucking you in and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult”
In 2010 a paid local fire department with a yearly fee of $75 refused to put out a fire because the family did not pay their yearly fee. This sparked outrage but also revealed the true face of the libertarian party and ideals.
This was an interesting read in terms of learning about the Libertarian Party, both its appeal and its pitfalls. I definitely came away with a better understanding of the philosophy and the impact it’s had politically and culturally. But I struggled with the structure. The book often skipped around decades within a single paragraph, which made it feel disorganized and hard to follow. it also felt repetitive, circling back to the same points without adding anything new.
I’m glad I read it for the information, but the writing style and structure kept me from fully enjoying the book.
“Conservatives want to be your daddy telling you what to do and what not to do. liberals want to be your mommy feeding you tucking you in and wiping your nose. Libertarians want to treat you as an adult”
October 13, 2022
Severely Flawed Overall Reasoning Yet Good Introduction To Left Libertarianism. This is a book whose goal, as the author states near the end of Chapter 1, "is not only a critical description of libertarianism. It aims to marry what is best about libertarianism with the agenda of the left." Thus, the author makes such radical-to-anyone-who-actually-studies-American-history-and-politics claims as that Rothbardian libertarianism has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the usual and at this point banal attacks on Charles Koch as a standard boogeyman. And yet, despite the rampant strawmen and cherry picked history and analyses, this book truly does serve as a reasonably well argued and written look into the general forms of "left libertarian" philosophy. At 36% documentation, it is actually on the strong side of well-documented (though still not the *best* I've ever encountered), so even with its cherry picking, at least it does in fact cite most of its arguments quite well. (Despite several of its more plebian-according-to-leftist-standards comments being undocumented.) Thus, while there is nothing of the structure of the book to hang a star deduction on, it is still one whose arguments should be considered critically and indeed, one should actively study the same philosophers and economists Koppelman often cites - from Hayek, Mises, and Friedman to Locke, Rothbard, Rand, and even Lysander Spooner. Still, for what it is and for the education it could bring (as even reading Mein Kampf is quite educational, in seeing how even the worst thinkers known to man think), this book is very much recommended.
January 9, 2026
A self-described moderate libertarian work, which believes in free markets and government institutions, this book is fairly interesting yet fails to authentically deliver on the ideological terms that it uses. Andrew Koppelman identifies as a "pro-capitalist leftist," but these terms are used as meaninglessly as numerous others are throughout the book. Koppelman doesn't believe in fundamental libertarian tenets, including the basic concept that people have the right to live their own lives freely if they don't harm others, and this fact makes the book feel continually disingenuous. The condescending writing style and hatred of individualism will thus alienate many of the people who it seeks to convert: "Sometimes paternalism makes us freer," Koppelman writes in regard to drug laws, similar to the arguments he makes in favor of COVID-19 lockdowns and laws against BDSM clubs.
The book at its core serves as a defense of welfare state provisions including Social Security and Obamacare, with the latter being a central subject in the work. It is essentially a polemic for Democratic Party priorities, aimed at trying to convert self-identified libertarians with nods to language that they are familiar with. It is thus essentially an argument for social democracy, something that is certainly valid as a philosophical text, and it does have the tone of a philosophy textbook. Not engaging very much with fiscal criticisms of the current state of affairs, Koppelman links modern libertarianism to harsh concepts like racism, depicting Republicans as greedy and negative in contrast to the consistently well-intentioned Democrats; there is a flaw of the ideological worldview here, in always believing that there are bad motivations for the right and seeing Barack Obama as always well-intentioned.
My judgment rendered in my rating is primarily toward how much the book delivers on its promise. However, it is definitely a work with an interesting perspective to share. Koppelman views the modern libertarian movement as being a "corrupted variant" that is rooted in "ideological and sentimental weakness." Indeed, Koppelman gives libertarianism the general benefit of the doubt as being idealistic, even as he sees the ends as an "unworthy utopia" that gives the book its title. As someone who sees my own political views somewhat reflected in the author's, I do think there is something to this work, but I don't know what audience will really enjoy it or find themselves convinced by its particular reasoning based in appeal to authority or shaming.
The book at its core serves as a defense of welfare state provisions including Social Security and Obamacare, with the latter being a central subject in the work. It is essentially a polemic for Democratic Party priorities, aimed at trying to convert self-identified libertarians with nods to language that they are familiar with. It is thus essentially an argument for social democracy, something that is certainly valid as a philosophical text, and it does have the tone of a philosophy textbook. Not engaging very much with fiscal criticisms of the current state of affairs, Koppelman links modern libertarianism to harsh concepts like racism, depicting Republicans as greedy and negative in contrast to the consistently well-intentioned Democrats; there is a flaw of the ideological worldview here, in always believing that there are bad motivations for the right and seeing Barack Obama as always well-intentioned.
My judgment rendered in my rating is primarily toward how much the book delivers on its promise. However, it is definitely a work with an interesting perspective to share. Koppelman views the modern libertarian movement as being a "corrupted variant" that is rooted in "ideological and sentimental weakness." Indeed, Koppelman gives libertarianism the general benefit of the doubt as being idealistic, even as he sees the ends as an "unworthy utopia" that gives the book its title. As someone who sees my own political views somewhat reflected in the author's, I do think there is something to this work, but I don't know what audience will really enjoy it or find themselves convinced by its particular reasoning based in appeal to authority or shaming.
March 26, 2024
CAN HAYEKIAN LIBERTARIANISM ACCOMMODATE LEFTISTS AND LIBERTARIANS?
Author Andrew Koppelman wrote in the Introduction to this 2022 book, “The story of the corruption of libertarianism is a sad tale with a hopeful ending. It has pitted decent Americans against one another, the left suspecting the right of blind rapaciousness, the right suspecting the left of malicious envy. The encouraging news is that they are less far apart than they think. Libertarianism is most persuasive then it shares the commitment of the political left. The disagreement is not about ends. It concerns strategy. Too many on the left fail to grasp that the original libertarian strategy has been massively vindicated. The capacity of markets to alleviate poverty has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated in recent decades that it is silly to keep denying it. Too many on the right fail to grasp that unregulated markets cannot deliver a livable world. Modern libertarianism can bridge some of the bitterest divisions of contemporary American politics.” (Pg. 5)
He continues, “I’m writing this book for two audiences… I’m going to try to persuade leftists and libertarians that your ideals are not so far from each other as you believe, and that you need not be enemies… At the deepest philosophical level, they agree. They hate poverty and they want to make people free and prosperous. A moderate libertarianism … in its original Hayekian form---can accommodate both.” (Pg. 9)
He recalls, “I was not reading libertarian writers in a generous spirit… So I was surprised to discover that, while some of them were as callous as I had expected, others were animated by a deep humanitarian impulse… The thinker who most clearly reflected that impulse was Friedrich Hayek, the founder of the movement… So now I faced a puzzle: How did libertarianism come to take such different forms?... I write from a peculiar political position. On the American political right, libertarianism competes with Christian fundamentalism and Trumpian racist, xenophobic nationalism… I am a pro-capitalist leftist. There exists no sustained critique of libertarianism from this perspective. Hence this book.” (Pg. 12-13)
He goes on, “Two libertarian factions matter in modern American politics. The ideas of Hayek… are today commonplace in the Democratic Party… but it must be tempered by regulation and redistribution. Democrats do not all accept that… But the Hayekians have lost ground to a different, more extreme libertarianism, which oppose nearly everything that government does. Its most important proponents have been the economist Murray Rothbard, the philosopher Robert Nozick, and [Ayn] Rand.” (Pg. 13-14)
He suggests, “Redistribution is fine so long as it does not tax so severely as to destroy the accumulations of capital that a well-functioning market requires. What the poor need most, however, is not redistribution but economic opportunity that can produce enough wealth for everyone.” (Pg. 14)
He points out, “Large, sophisticated actors can exploit and hurt people in plenty of ways if the state doesn’t intervene. They can destroy the environment and heat up the planet, as the coal and petroleum industries do. They can … drive up the cost of medical care, as the health industry does. They can risk another bust on the scale of 2008, as the financial industry does. They can manipulate and deceive employees and consumers… Such pests are likely to be hostile to regulation, and so they piously recite ideas of small government. The most important of these bandits is the fossil fuel industry, which has deployed libertarian language to make the Republican Party the only major political party in the world that denies climate change science. This license to profit by hurting people betrays the most basic commitments of even Randian libertarianism… Hostility to government also has crippled public services that capitalism needs. In the name of freedom, roads and bridges deteriorate, funding for medical research disappears, science if starved… The enfeeblement of the state is self-defeating even from the selfish standpoint of business, which depends on functioning infrastructure… The hamstringing of environmental regulation empowers a small group of industrialists to impose massive costs on the rest of humanity… It is a new road to serfdom… The libertarians who embrace it… are useful idiots… John Galt is a sap.” (Pg. 20-21)
He admits that Hayek is “a bit of a mess as a political philosopher. On the fundamental question of the criterion for a good government, he is pulled in several directions… He has no account of what our rights are, or why we have rights in the first place… That may be the main reason why he has been displaced by a more uncompromising, rights-based libertarianism.” (Pg. 71-73)
He notes that Rothbard “denounced the Clean Air Act of 1970. The environmental laws of that time were enacted because in some cities, the air was becoming dangerous to breathe and the river water toxic… Absent regulation, some cities … might now be uninhabitable… Consider one type of pollution that has now been banned: the use of lead additives in gasoline… what’s relevant for us is that, for Rothbard, it doesn’t matter… regulation remains impermissible. You will have the consolation of knowing that what killed you and your family wasn’t the state.” (Pg. 121-122)
He states that Robert Nozick’s ‘Anarchy, State, and Utopia’ “fails on multiple levels: it does not rehabilitate the inadequately defended nonaggression principle, it does not refute the anarchist inference from that principle, and … it does not justify its conception of property.” (Pg. 125)
Of Ayn Rand’s character (in ‘Fountainhead’) Howard Roark, he suggests, “We’re told that he worked his way through college, but could he exhibit the same fierce independence today if he were saddled with $150,000 in student loans? Might not state-funded financial aid help produce more Roarks than we could otherwise have?” (Pg. 149)
He recounts “asking [my students] whether they think heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine should be available in convenience stores… most people use illegal drugs responsibly, and the law’s interference with them is pointless. But these drugs also do so much harm that most people are willing make at least this exception… a serious case can be made for complete legalization. That case, however, can be persuasive only if it engages with the inevitable human costs.” (Pg. 152-153)
He points out, “A lot of the time… workers whom most employers shun find niches where their abilities are appreciated and rewarded. But sometimes markets fail to provide such opportunities. In 1964 America, the waste of African American human capital was massive. Employers paid no price for this behavior, because their competitors were doing the same thing… Repealing the Civil Rights Act… would be a dangerous experiment… This exposes a deep flaw in the libertarian conception of freedom. The lives that most of us hope for require the cooperation of others… But it sometimes happens that a characteristic that we can’t hide, such as our race or sex, is the object of pervasive discrimination… Under those circumstances, a law prohibiting discrimination can make us freer.” (Pg. 178)
He even states, “there’s not that much daylight between Hayek and Obama. Obama continued the dominance of Hayekianism within the Democratic Party that began with Bill Clinton…Obama was a market-friendly, good-government wonk, in the tradition of Dewey and Eisenhower. Those ideals were in retreat in the Republican Party.” (Pg. 192)
He argues, “The world is full of misfortunes that humans don’t cause but have the power to collectively prevent. They cannot act against those misfortunes unless the state can do more than protect rights. In the libertarian vision of a minimal state, disasters such as climate change and COVID must be patiently endured… [The] important problem COVID poses for libertarianism is that it calls attention to the fact that, in nature, pandemics sometimes happen… Humans are distinctive in our capacity … to consciously detect and respond to disease.” (Pg. 231-232)
He concludes, “libertarianism has a deeper emotional source… a peculiar vision of heroic solitary individual, who sustains himself without any external support… It is a delusion… We are born helpless… Without our settled practices of mutual aid we would die within a few hours… Humans need both self-reliance and cooperation… The burgeoning markets and diversity of lifestyles that libertarians laud can happen only in a state strong enough to operate autonomously from the powerful interests within it. Freedom is … a COLLECTIVE achievement… the risks to which [people] are vulnerable are often systemic risks. The notion of a life without vulnerability, dependence, and need is an infantile fantasy.” (Pg. 236-237)
More ‘doctrinaire’ libertarians may reject Koppelman’s arguments; but it is a challenging and persuasive interpretation, that may even appeal to some liberals/progressives.
Author Andrew Koppelman wrote in the Introduction to this 2022 book, “The story of the corruption of libertarianism is a sad tale with a hopeful ending. It has pitted decent Americans against one another, the left suspecting the right of blind rapaciousness, the right suspecting the left of malicious envy. The encouraging news is that they are less far apart than they think. Libertarianism is most persuasive then it shares the commitment of the political left. The disagreement is not about ends. It concerns strategy. Too many on the left fail to grasp that the original libertarian strategy has been massively vindicated. The capacity of markets to alleviate poverty has been so overwhelmingly demonstrated in recent decades that it is silly to keep denying it. Too many on the right fail to grasp that unregulated markets cannot deliver a livable world. Modern libertarianism can bridge some of the bitterest divisions of contemporary American politics.” (Pg. 5)
He continues, “I’m writing this book for two audiences… I’m going to try to persuade leftists and libertarians that your ideals are not so far from each other as you believe, and that you need not be enemies… At the deepest philosophical level, they agree. They hate poverty and they want to make people free and prosperous. A moderate libertarianism … in its original Hayekian form---can accommodate both.” (Pg. 9)
He recalls, “I was not reading libertarian writers in a generous spirit… So I was surprised to discover that, while some of them were as callous as I had expected, others were animated by a deep humanitarian impulse… The thinker who most clearly reflected that impulse was Friedrich Hayek, the founder of the movement… So now I faced a puzzle: How did libertarianism come to take such different forms?... I write from a peculiar political position. On the American political right, libertarianism competes with Christian fundamentalism and Trumpian racist, xenophobic nationalism… I am a pro-capitalist leftist. There exists no sustained critique of libertarianism from this perspective. Hence this book.” (Pg. 12-13)
He goes on, “Two libertarian factions matter in modern American politics. The ideas of Hayek… are today commonplace in the Democratic Party… but it must be tempered by regulation and redistribution. Democrats do not all accept that… But the Hayekians have lost ground to a different, more extreme libertarianism, which oppose nearly everything that government does. Its most important proponents have been the economist Murray Rothbard, the philosopher Robert Nozick, and [Ayn] Rand.” (Pg. 13-14)
He suggests, “Redistribution is fine so long as it does not tax so severely as to destroy the accumulations of capital that a well-functioning market requires. What the poor need most, however, is not redistribution but economic opportunity that can produce enough wealth for everyone.” (Pg. 14)
He points out, “Large, sophisticated actors can exploit and hurt people in plenty of ways if the state doesn’t intervene. They can destroy the environment and heat up the planet, as the coal and petroleum industries do. They can … drive up the cost of medical care, as the health industry does. They can risk another bust on the scale of 2008, as the financial industry does. They can manipulate and deceive employees and consumers… Such pests are likely to be hostile to regulation, and so they piously recite ideas of small government. The most important of these bandits is the fossil fuel industry, which has deployed libertarian language to make the Republican Party the only major political party in the world that denies climate change science. This license to profit by hurting people betrays the most basic commitments of even Randian libertarianism… Hostility to government also has crippled public services that capitalism needs. In the name of freedom, roads and bridges deteriorate, funding for medical research disappears, science if starved… The enfeeblement of the state is self-defeating even from the selfish standpoint of business, which depends on functioning infrastructure… The hamstringing of environmental regulation empowers a small group of industrialists to impose massive costs on the rest of humanity… It is a new road to serfdom… The libertarians who embrace it… are useful idiots… John Galt is a sap.” (Pg. 20-21)
He admits that Hayek is “a bit of a mess as a political philosopher. On the fundamental question of the criterion for a good government, he is pulled in several directions… He has no account of what our rights are, or why we have rights in the first place… That may be the main reason why he has been displaced by a more uncompromising, rights-based libertarianism.” (Pg. 71-73)
He notes that Rothbard “denounced the Clean Air Act of 1970. The environmental laws of that time were enacted because in some cities, the air was becoming dangerous to breathe and the river water toxic… Absent regulation, some cities … might now be uninhabitable… Consider one type of pollution that has now been banned: the use of lead additives in gasoline… what’s relevant for us is that, for Rothbard, it doesn’t matter… regulation remains impermissible. You will have the consolation of knowing that what killed you and your family wasn’t the state.” (Pg. 121-122)
He states that Robert Nozick’s ‘Anarchy, State, and Utopia’ “fails on multiple levels: it does not rehabilitate the inadequately defended nonaggression principle, it does not refute the anarchist inference from that principle, and … it does not justify its conception of property.” (Pg. 125)
Of Ayn Rand’s character (in ‘Fountainhead’) Howard Roark, he suggests, “We’re told that he worked his way through college, but could he exhibit the same fierce independence today if he were saddled with $150,000 in student loans? Might not state-funded financial aid help produce more Roarks than we could otherwise have?” (Pg. 149)
He recounts “asking [my students] whether they think heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine should be available in convenience stores… most people use illegal drugs responsibly, and the law’s interference with them is pointless. But these drugs also do so much harm that most people are willing make at least this exception… a serious case can be made for complete legalization. That case, however, can be persuasive only if it engages with the inevitable human costs.” (Pg. 152-153)
He points out, “A lot of the time… workers whom most employers shun find niches where their abilities are appreciated and rewarded. But sometimes markets fail to provide such opportunities. In 1964 America, the waste of African American human capital was massive. Employers paid no price for this behavior, because their competitors were doing the same thing… Repealing the Civil Rights Act… would be a dangerous experiment… This exposes a deep flaw in the libertarian conception of freedom. The lives that most of us hope for require the cooperation of others… But it sometimes happens that a characteristic that we can’t hide, such as our race or sex, is the object of pervasive discrimination… Under those circumstances, a law prohibiting discrimination can make us freer.” (Pg. 178)
He even states, “there’s not that much daylight between Hayek and Obama. Obama continued the dominance of Hayekianism within the Democratic Party that began with Bill Clinton…Obama was a market-friendly, good-government wonk, in the tradition of Dewey and Eisenhower. Those ideals were in retreat in the Republican Party.” (Pg. 192)
He argues, “The world is full of misfortunes that humans don’t cause but have the power to collectively prevent. They cannot act against those misfortunes unless the state can do more than protect rights. In the libertarian vision of a minimal state, disasters such as climate change and COVID must be patiently endured… [The] important problem COVID poses for libertarianism is that it calls attention to the fact that, in nature, pandemics sometimes happen… Humans are distinctive in our capacity … to consciously detect and respond to disease.” (Pg. 231-232)
He concludes, “libertarianism has a deeper emotional source… a peculiar vision of heroic solitary individual, who sustains himself without any external support… It is a delusion… We are born helpless… Without our settled practices of mutual aid we would die within a few hours… Humans need both self-reliance and cooperation… The burgeoning markets and diversity of lifestyles that libertarians laud can happen only in a state strong enough to operate autonomously from the powerful interests within it. Freedom is … a COLLECTIVE achievement… the risks to which [people] are vulnerable are often systemic risks. The notion of a life without vulnerability, dependence, and need is an infantile fantasy.” (Pg. 236-237)
More ‘doctrinaire’ libertarians may reject Koppelman’s arguments; but it is a challenging and persuasive interpretation, that may even appeal to some liberals/progressives.
January 23, 2023
I would love for all the people that claim to be libertarian but really just dont want to pay taxes to read this book. There is so many misconceptions about Libertarianism these days. I am really glad the author published this book of libertarian philosophy. I received an ARC of this book for my honest review.
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October 6, 2022I have long noticed that if two self-styled libertarians are having a discussion about the role of government, it is highly probable that they will have significant disagreement between each other. This book helped me to understand what may be at the root of at least some of those disagreements (acknowledging that other disagreements come because many who claim to be libertarians may not really know what that means.) Koppelman starts the book by reviewing the literature and ideas of many influential libertarians, they largely fall into two camps, represented in this work by Hayek and Rothbard. The author breaks down the significant points of agreement and disagreement between the two versions. For anyone interested in political philosophy and wanting to understand libertarianism, this book would be a good introduction.
Ultimately, Koppelman contends that while the Hayekian view is more logically sound and most politically workable, that Rothbard is currently the one wielding more influence. That being the case, despite the fact that "the standard libertarian story is that people have the right to do what they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else." Many libertarians now hold that "they have a right of choice even if they do hurt or even kill other people."
In all, I found the book to be informative and helped me better understand the philosophy of libertarianism.
(My copy was an "Advance Reader Copy" and had some technical errors, as well as including an entirely blank index section. I assume those issues are addressed in the final version, those fixes would enhance the reading experience.)
Ultimately, Koppelman contends that while the Hayekian view is more logically sound and most politically workable, that Rothbard is currently the one wielding more influence. That being the case, despite the fact that "the standard libertarian story is that people have the right to do what they want as long as they don't hurt anyone else." Many libertarians now hold that "they have a right of choice even if they do hurt or even kill other people."
In all, I found the book to be informative and helped me better understand the philosophy of libertarianism.
(My copy was an "Advance Reader Copy" and had some technical errors, as well as including an entirely blank index section. I assume those issues are addressed in the final version, those fixes would enhance the reading experience.)
August 6, 2023
Although I am a long time libertarian, I have been questioning some aspects of libertarianism for some time now. So I read this book, partly because it had a favorable comment from Dierdre McCloskey. I was not disappointed. Koppelman is a law professor at Northwestern and very knowledgeable on political philosophy. He is not what I would call a leftist, but an honest critic of some aspects of libertarianism. He contrasts Friedrich Hayek's libertarianism with that of Rothbard, Nozick and Rand. He is very much in favor of Hayek's approach and argues that Hayek's nuanced views on the merits of capitalism have been adopted by the Democratic Party while the Republicans have gone hard-core Rothbard.
While I have been influenced by Rand's views for much of my life, I started drifting towards the Hayekian view over the last ten years. I don't agree with all aspects of Koppelman's views on paternalism (he argues for paternalism in some cases, including on drug policy), he does make some good points with respect to consumer protection and Social Security. And he includes a chapter on racial discrimination and the positive role government action played in reducing racism in society, something I agree with.
His critiques of Rothbard, Nozick and Rand are well thought out and cogent. He seems to understand the appeal of libertarianism though he finds the R-N-R versions to be extreme and lacking in empathy. I am thinking of writing a much more detailed review in the near future. I'll add a link here if I do.
Suffice to say the book is well written and fair-minded in its treatment of the subject. Whether you agree with him or not, it is worth a read.
While I have been influenced by Rand's views for much of my life, I started drifting towards the Hayekian view over the last ten years. I don't agree with all aspects of Koppelman's views on paternalism (he argues for paternalism in some cases, including on drug policy), he does make some good points with respect to consumer protection and Social Security. And he includes a chapter on racial discrimination and the positive role government action played in reducing racism in society, something I agree with.
His critiques of Rothbard, Nozick and Rand are well thought out and cogent. He seems to understand the appeal of libertarianism though he finds the R-N-R versions to be extreme and lacking in empathy. I am thinking of writing a much more detailed review in the near future. I'll add a link here if I do.
Suffice to say the book is well written and fair-minded in its treatment of the subject. Whether you agree with him or not, it is worth a read.
August 31, 2023
This book challenged me in some really constructive ways! I've become pretty reflexively suspicious and disdainful of libertarian movements and thought but this book was an excellent reminder that there is a thoughtful foundational canon of philosophy behind it, which is incomplete (like most philosophies) and seeks to grapple honestly with how to structure human life.
HOWEVER. This book is also very honest about the gaps in libertarian philosophy and vital questions left unanswered. I appreciate this as I find most advocates for it are not always willing to acknowledge this - veering from political philosophy straight into religious dogma.
Ultimately, that veering path is what this book focuses on. By examining the foundational thinkers and text of the philosophy, Koppleman explores where the most current and loudest derivations of libertarianism (the American right) are badly out of step with their own claims and dogma. I agree with much of his diagnosis, especially that a critique of/queries around what the correct application of the state has turned into reflexive hatred of the state, and some of the reasons why that is.
It was good to be reminded of the foundations and "how we got here." And where there may be genuine potential for better, honest political engagement across left and right divides on specific issues...were we all not so perniciously fallible and human!
HOWEVER. This book is also very honest about the gaps in libertarian philosophy and vital questions left unanswered. I appreciate this as I find most advocates for it are not always willing to acknowledge this - veering from political philosophy straight into religious dogma.
Ultimately, that veering path is what this book focuses on. By examining the foundational thinkers and text of the philosophy, Koppleman explores where the most current and loudest derivations of libertarianism (the American right) are badly out of step with their own claims and dogma. I agree with much of his diagnosis, especially that a critique of/queries around what the correct application of the state has turned into reflexive hatred of the state, and some of the reasons why that is.
It was good to be reminded of the foundations and "how we got here." And where there may be genuine potential for better, honest political engagement across left and right divides on specific issues...were we all not so perniciously fallible and human!
November 9, 2022
Great book! I am not a libertarian, but I know good people who are. I chose to read this book to better understand the philosophy of libertarianism. It is a fascinating book. The author talks about the philosophical underpinnings of the political philosophy of libertarianism and also describes ways in which those who claim to be libertarians fall short of basic libertarian ideas. The title of the book comes from a n event where a fire department stood by and watched a house burned because the owner, who had paid the money for years previously, forgot to pay the money required by the city in order for him to be protected from fire by the city’s fire department. I found it unbelievable that there were only two choices: the fire department goes in and saves the house in spite of the man’s not paying the fee or standing by and letting the house burn. In my mind it’s inconceivable to let something that tragic happen. There surely are other choices available! Reading this book just strengthened my belief in communitarianism and my dislike of libertarianism.
November 6, 2024
2.5*
I read this whole book thinking it was one of the NYT notable books, only to realize when I came to review it that it was the right title, but the wrong book. I read a whole book on libertarianism for NOTHING. I promise I'm not letting that impact my review.
Anyway, libertarianism is wild. The story at the beginning of the book, where Koppelman pulled his title from is unreal. A man lives in a county where you have to pay $75 each year to the fire department for their services. One year he forgets to pay and his house catches fire and they don't come to put it out until it threatens the house of a neighbour (who'd paid their $75 that year). WILD. I didn't love this book, not just because of the topic, but because it didn't seem super well edited, which always makes me worry about the actual content. If no one caught your grammatical errors or awkward sentence structures, there's no way anyone actually checked the rest of it for accuracy. I'm not saying Koppelman made things up, it's more that I think this book needed another set of eyes on it.
I read this whole book thinking it was one of the NYT notable books, only to realize when I came to review it that it was the right title, but the wrong book. I read a whole book on libertarianism for NOTHING. I promise I'm not letting that impact my review.
Anyway, libertarianism is wild. The story at the beginning of the book, where Koppelman pulled his title from is unreal. A man lives in a county where you have to pay $75 each year to the fire department for their services. One year he forgets to pay and his house catches fire and they don't come to put it out until it threatens the house of a neighbour (who'd paid their $75 that year). WILD. I didn't love this book, not just because of the topic, but because it didn't seem super well edited, which always makes me worry about the actual content. If no one caught your grammatical errors or awkward sentence structures, there's no way anyone actually checked the rest of it for accuracy. I'm not saying Koppelman made things up, it's more that I think this book needed another set of eyes on it.
February 13, 2023
I thought this book would be a complete take-down of libertarian philosophy, something that being a liberal that I thought I would enjoy. The book is much, much, much more than that. Koppelman analyzes libertarian philosophy in depth and with a respect that isn't common in today's political analysis. Koppelman is a liberal though has an intense respect for many of libertarian's best thinkers and does a deep dive into thinkers as diverse as John Locke, JS Mill, Murray Rothbard, Frederich Hayeck, Ayn Rand, and John Rawls. The book is heavy on political philosophy and covers in depth limitations of contemporary libertarian philosophy, especially in dealing with externalities such as the environment. He has a deep respect for free markets and digs into the notion of freedom and a free society in ways that expanded my thinking about such topics.
A great read! We need more intense dispirited political analysis in today's world.
A great read! We need more intense dispirited political analysis in today's world.
February 10, 2026
A serviceable basic overview of libertarian philosophy from Friedrich Hayek to the Koch brothers, the Cato institute, "anarcho"-capitalists, and modern-day American Republicans. Koppelman makes his liberal and emphatically pro-free-market arguments competently, albeit with certain weaknesses: He takes for granted the ideas that the existence of billionaires is a net positive (they create jobs and propel innovation! - to provide an oversimplified and somewhat unfair distillation of his stance) and that wealth inequality is a necessary evil in service of the "great enrichment" - these give some of his arguments the timbre of Reagan's "trickle-down" swindle. In the end, though this is a fine argument against the predatory libertarianism of the wealthy, it doesn't exactly make a convincing case for capitalism itself.
September 30, 2022
I received a free copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. While the topic is interesting, it is written more like a research paper and is too dry for my taste. I appreciate the author putting this out there as a reference though. Truthful information about the libertarian party needs to be available, for those who might be tempted to vote libertarian in major, vital elections thinking a 3rd party vote is the solution. It is NOT the solution, and at this dangerous time in our democracy, when one party has become so extreme as to try to overthrow elections and encourage their followers to attack the United States Capitol on January 6th, the only solution is to vote all in the GOP out of office. Vote Blue. Vote Democrat. Straight Ticket. Our democracy currently depends on it.
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May 9, 2023From our pages (Spring/23): What some Americans understand libertarianism to be—a way of thinking that led to firefighters in South Fulton, Tennessee, watching a house burn after the owner failed to pay his annual fee to the fire department—is a corrupted form of the ideology, argues Andrew Koppelman. A professor of constitutional law, Koppelman aims to show readers what this understanding of libertarianism gets wrong and how moderate libertarianism may be the best means of realizing ideals of both the right and the left.
https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-n...
https://mag.uchicago.edu/university-n...
March 17, 2023
Incredible Text on Libertarianism
Though I have read a number of the books referenced by Professor Koppelman in this excellent book, I have never before read a text so well reasoned and sourced on this particular political philosophy. This text addressed those aspects of the modern Libertarian platform and philosophy with which I had been struggling for a number of years.
For readers interested in economics, politics, and philosophy, this book will not disappoint.
Though I have read a number of the books referenced by Professor Koppelman in this excellent book, I have never before read a text so well reasoned and sourced on this particular political philosophy. This text addressed those aspects of the modern Libertarian platform and philosophy with which I had been struggling for a number of years.
For readers interested in economics, politics, and philosophy, this book will not disappoint.
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July 22, 2023I tried and tried to read this giveaway win over the last few months because I am truly interested in the topic. I feel like I don't have a strong enough background knowledge to absorb a lot of it and it also reads like a text book, so it is very dry. I won't rate it, because I didn't finish it, but I think the point of the review is that in the end the struggle wasn't worth it, so I have permanently put it away.
September 26, 2022
An useful guide to understanding the modern Libertarian movement. Mr. Koppelman writes in a very insightful manner, making his findings unsettling. He illustrates an almost Utopian version of a government-free society that has evolved into a force in American politics today. This book should be an eye opener to anyone who cares about democracy in the USA.
November 2, 2022
A much-needed corrective analysis to the modern strain of USAnian libertarianism which has become less about liberty than feudal misery and robber-baronism. Koppelman may go further than me in his reliance on the state, but his arguments are convincing and must be read by everyone interested in the subject.
February 9, 2023
Still not a fan of the philosophy regardless of what form it takes. Regardless, Koppelman is way more open-minded and willing to interrogate certain calcified understandings that may be part of the current zeitgeist than I would be, and that makes this a way more insightful and interesting read than it ever would be just on its face.
January 22, 2024
Appreciate the authors open minded approach to much of the book and he tends to give people he clearly does not like the benefit of the doubt. He takes people at their word instead of trying to read things in the worst possible faith. Reads like a political book from the 90's in that way.
The covid chapter attached to the end is a bit shoddy and doesn't hold up a year after it was written.
The covid chapter attached to the end is a bit shoddy and doesn't hold up a year after it was written.
January 14, 2024
Fantastic book that surveys Libertarian thought and where it goes right and wrong. Written by a left leaning legal academic, but very objective. Agrees with Hayek, thinks Rothbard and Rand are wacky and wrong. I agree pretty unanimously.
July 30, 2025
Koppelman aims for balance, but in light of the extremism that now characterizes this self-serving, self-sealing, booji pseudo-philosophy, in addition to its destructive real-world influences, his critique needed more teeth. Quinn Slobodian's Crack-Up Capitalism gets one further along that road.
March 7, 2023
Gave it three stars but honestly, I'm not going to finish it. Just not very interesting.
July 2, 2023
It takes a while but eventually the author lays out a clear enough account of Libertarian stances. Mainly the Hayek model that understands a large administrative state does not automatically equal unfreedom, and the Rothbard model that doesn’t think to deeply outside of the need to protect individual choice and refuse government intervention at any cost.
This is far from a perfect narrative. For starters it wasn’t always clear to me what the author was trying to claim, especially in the first section on prosperity. There seems to be an unnecessary level of praise for Hayek while still pointing out the limitations in Hayek’s philosophy. However, stick with the book as it does get good, with fairly deep analysis.
I appreciate the author’s repeated attempts to point out delusions in the modern libertarian movement, though again, I am left wondering what Koppelman is trying to do. Supposedly there are a few deep thinkers in the Libertarian billionaire class who might stumble onto this book and learn the error in their ways; Koppelman seems to wish for this. But the book goes from careful not to offend to savage disgust. For the record, I’m here for all the savagery but I don’t think it will knock the Koch brothers out of their delusions.
If you fall somewhere between “eat the rich” and the Koch brothers then you can find value in this book. Perhaps it will give you a better understanding of your otherwise reasonable Libertarian friends.
What I really liked:
-Explanation of the complexity of value and how it is largely a social creation.
-Exploration of the Libertarian misunderstandings on Property
-Analysis of the ideas of Ayn Rand; A theorist who matters because her delusional passions made their way into the US education system.
What I wish was better:
These are threshold and balancing questions the all Libertarian thought fails to understand. Their desire to simplify and mischaracterize the intertwined nature of policy may be difficult to analyze but I wish more weight was placed on understanding this as a failing of Libertarian philosophy, though perhaps that is a story for a psychologist to take up.
UPDATE: I have had some time to sit with my thoughts related to this book. Substantively, I haven’t changed my assessment, the text is very good in many ways but I think I understand my initial confusion. The author was confusing to me at times because I believed his arguments were dissonant. I couldn’t quite tell if he was still a believer in some pure or otherwise humanitarian form of Liberalism that modern politicians have lost.
What is clear is that the author doesn’t believe such a perfect Libertarian ideology is in power today.
This is far from a perfect narrative. For starters it wasn’t always clear to me what the author was trying to claim, especially in the first section on prosperity. There seems to be an unnecessary level of praise for Hayek while still pointing out the limitations in Hayek’s philosophy. However, stick with the book as it does get good, with fairly deep analysis.
I appreciate the author’s repeated attempts to point out delusions in the modern libertarian movement, though again, I am left wondering what Koppelman is trying to do. Supposedly there are a few deep thinkers in the Libertarian billionaire class who might stumble onto this book and learn the error in their ways; Koppelman seems to wish for this. But the book goes from careful not to offend to savage disgust. For the record, I’m here for all the savagery but I don’t think it will knock the Koch brothers out of their delusions.
If you fall somewhere between “eat the rich” and the Koch brothers then you can find value in this book. Perhaps it will give you a better understanding of your otherwise reasonable Libertarian friends.
What I really liked:
-Explanation of the complexity of value and how it is largely a social creation.
-Exploration of the Libertarian misunderstandings on Property
-Analysis of the ideas of Ayn Rand; A theorist who matters because her delusional passions made their way into the US education system.
What I wish was better:
These are threshold and balancing questions the all Libertarian thought fails to understand. Their desire to simplify and mischaracterize the intertwined nature of policy may be difficult to analyze but I wish more weight was placed on understanding this as a failing of Libertarian philosophy, though perhaps that is a story for a psychologist to take up.
UPDATE: I have had some time to sit with my thoughts related to this book. Substantively, I haven’t changed my assessment, the text is very good in many ways but I think I understand my initial confusion. The author was confusing to me at times because I believed his arguments were dissonant. I couldn’t quite tell if he was still a believer in some pure or otherwise humanitarian form of Liberalism that modern politicians have lost.
What is clear is that the author doesn’t believe such a perfect Libertarian ideology is in power today.
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