In an interview on Libertarianism

The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, since 1945, by George N Nash. It sounds heavy.

It is heavy. But it’s easily read. If you want to know about the development of the ideas of libertarianism and Christian conservatism, it’s the best book you could read. Libertarians and Christian conservatives split off after the war. There was no such thing as Christian conservatism before the war – nobody based their principles on how to govern on Christian values.

It is perhaps the most comprehensive and surely the most readable book on the rise of post-war Christian conservatism, à la William F Buckley Jr, and of its unruly, agnostic, and finally disowned older brother, libertarianism. While the Buckleyites cheered the Cold War (and most succeeding wars) and became increasingly militaristic, the libertarians continued to call for small government and a balanced budget. Soon the conservatives squeezed out the libertarians, who finally burst forth again in last year’s Tea Parties. Nash’s book was first published in 1996, but his insights and their cultural context are more pertinent than ever. 

I’m interested that libertarianism is an openly right-wing phenomenon. The word doesn’t sound like that. 

There have been attempts, especially in the 1960s, because libertarians are anti-war, to get together with the New Left, but it didn’t work very well because that was pretty much all they shared. The libertarians just don’t think government should take care of people.

Like anarchy?

Well, that is no government at all. These people want a little tiny government that will defend us against our enemies and police crime in the nation and they want courts that will adjudicate contracts. They think everything should be done by contract.