Abstract

Libertarian arguments about the empirical benefits of capitalism are, as yet, inadequate to convince anyone who lacks libertarian philosophical convictions. Yet “philosophical” libertarianism founders on internal contradictions that render it unfit to make libertarians out of anyone who does not have strong consequentialist reasons for libertarian belief. The joint failure of these two approaches to libertarianism explains why they are both present in orthodox libertarianism—they hide each other's weaknesses, thereby perpetuating them. Libertarianism retains significant potential for illuminating the modern world because of its distance from mainstream intellectual assumptions. But this potential will remain unfulfilled until its ideological superstructure is dismantled.