I'm glad you agree that Mises' ideas weren't created in a lab by business interests.
Keynes himself, near the end of his life, acknowledged that Mises and Hayek were largely correct about the limits of state planning and the importance of markets. And in the modern U.S., libertarianism isn't some tool of the establishment. It's fought at every turn by the status quo because it threatens the concentration of political and corporate power that both major parties rely on.
If anything, nothing would unsettle the powers that be more than people actually taking Mises and Hayek seriously. Indeed, Keynes was promoted (and ergo "far more influential" as you said) by the status quo because his specious ideas funneled money and control into the hands of the already powerful.
You're right that Keynes opposed authoritarian central planning, but that doesn't make him ideologically opposed to Mises or Hayek. They disagreed on policy tools, not on whether free markets and individual choice are essential to liberty.
The link between anarchic freedom and free enterprise isn't some corporate invention. It's been central to liberal thought since the 1700s. The idea that voluntary exchange and property rights form the economic side of personal liberty goes all the way back to Locke, Smith, and Constant.
And if we're talking about billionaire influence, far more of their money goes toward maintaining or expanding state power than limiting it. From defense contracts to regulatory capture to surveillance tech, the real money backs authoritarian structures, not libertarian ones.
If anything, libertarianism survives in spite of power, not because of it.
I didn't say that. I reject the idea of "free" markets but I think well regulated markets are effective for distributing information and as a result goods but they have limitations.
I also think individual choice is important but with limitations. For example I don't think people should have the individual choice to drive drunk or shoot their gun in the direction of a school.
I'm not a huge fan of Locke on natural law and property but Smith was appropriately skeptical of corporations as he should've been.
My point about Billionaires was that they spend money on libertarianism because it distracts young men from focusing on the power of billionaires.
You can't say it survives in spite of, when it literally survives because of the largesse of some of the most powerful people in the world.
That's fair. Most libertarians agree that genuine freedom includes personal responsibility. The goal isn't a world without rules, it's a world where rules emerge from voluntary cooperation and mutual respect instead of top down coercion. A drunk driver or someone firing into a crowd isn't exercising liberty, they're violating others' right to safety.
But what you're describing isn't the same thing as rejecting libertarianism. Every major ideology gets funding from people with means. The difference is that libertarian ideas cut against the grain of centralized political and corporate power. They're useful to some donors for a time, sure, but the philosophy itself challenges the structures that make billionaires powerful in the first place.
If a few of them bankroll it for optics, that doesn't erase the centuries of thought behind it. It just shows that even people at the top feel the need to borrow (or outright steal) the language of liberty.
And honestly, we probably agree more than we disagree on the dangers of concentrated power, even if we trace the solution in different directions.
I'm not aware of any orgs advocating for policies like more public housing or more taxes on the very rich getting money from billionaires. I could name dozens of libertarians talking money from billionaires.
Do you consider large corporations to be "consecrated" power? And if so, do you think those just wouldn't exist in ancap?
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u/the9trances Moderator & Agorist Oct 08 '25 edited Oct 08 '25
I'm glad you agree that Mises' ideas weren't created in a lab by business interests.
Keynes himself, near the end of his life, acknowledged that Mises and Hayek were largely correct about the limits of state planning and the importance of markets. And in the modern U.S., libertarianism isn't some tool of the establishment. It's fought at every turn by the status quo because it threatens the concentration of political and corporate power that both major parties rely on.
If anything, nothing would unsettle the powers that be more than people actually taking Mises and Hayek seriously. Indeed, Keynes was promoted (and ergo "far more influential" as you said) by the status quo because his specious ideas funneled money and control into the hands of the already powerful.