Literature of Liberty: Benjamin Tucker, State, and Society

In commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Benjamin Tucker’s journal Liberty (1881–1908), Wendy McElroy’s following essay, “Benjamin Tucker, Individualism, and Liberty,” contributes a fascinating chapter to the history of libertarian thought and American individualism. Like all good history, her essay illuminates our understanding of the past, in this instance a significant episode in American intellectual history, but sadly neglected by most academic historians. By awakening our sense of the history of ideas, the essay stimulates us to revise our sense of the present, and thereby to speculate on the possibilities of individual freedom in the future…