Six Stages of the Libertarian Movement

A prolific author and Austrian economist, Murray Rothbard promoted a form of free market anarchism he called “anarcho-​capitalism.”

In this video from the first Libertarian International World Libertarian Convention in 1982 in Zurich, Switzerland, Rothbard gives a lecture on what he identified as the six stages of building an independent libertarian (or any philosophical) movement. Rothbard identifies possible growing pains associated with the growing popularity of libertarianism but ultimately concludes that such risks are necessary because “Libertarians, it seems to me, are not content with contemplating justice, contemplating truth, goodness and beauty, we’re not playing intellectual games -- we mean to change the world. We want to put this thing into reality.”