Abstract

Some recent hostile responses to the rapid growth of Libertarianism have depicted it as a febrile spin-off from the post-hippy 'Me Decade'. In fact we are the inheritors of an illustrious centuries old tradition, largely overlooked by the myopic current fashions in the history of ideas. Liberals like J. S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham receive plenty of attention in college courses, but the libertarian tradition as a whole is largely ignored, and misrepresented where touched upon. Mill and Bentham constitute one aspect - in many ways the feeblest - of liberalism. Dozens of thinkers and activists who embodied the most systematic or radical elements in Libertarianism have been consigned to the Memory Hole.