Timeline of libertarianism in the United States

This is a timeline of libertarianism in the United States.

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Time period	Development summary	More details

Full timeline

Year	Month and date	Event type	Details
1831		Periodical	The Liberator, an American abolitionist newspaper, is founded.
1844		Organization	Lysander Spooner founds the American Letter Mail Company, which competes "with the legal monopoly of the United States Post Office (USPO, now the USPS) in violation of the Private Express Statutes." The company would shut down in 1851 after it is challenged by the US government.
1845		Publication	The Unconstitutionality of Slavery, an abolitionist pamphlet by Lysander Spooner, is published. The pamphlet advocates "the view that the United States Constitution prohibited slavery. This view was advocated in contrast to that of William Lloyd Garrison who advocated opposing the constitution on the grounds that it supported slavery."
1849		Publication	Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience is published. In the essay, Thoreau asserts that "because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified".
1852		Publication	Lysander Spooner's An Essay on the Trial by Jury is published. The essay argues for jury nullification.
1867		Publication	No Treason by Lysander Spooner is published. Doherty writes: "More than any of his nineteenth-century individualist anarchist brethren, Spooner is still an active influence on the libertarian movement – reprinted, quoted, honored, and relied on."
1935		Publication	Our Enemy, the State by Albert Jay Nock is published.
1943		Publication	The Fountainhead, a novel by Ayn Rand, is published. Among other themes, the novel explores the theme of individualism versus collectivism.
1946			Milton Friedman accepts an offer to teach at the University of Chicago.
1946	000000002024-03-07-0000March 7	Organization	The Foundation for Economic Education, a libertarian think tank, is founded.
1947		Organization	The Mont Pelerin Society is formed. "The society advocates freedom of expression, free market economic policies, the political values of an open society." Some of its founders are prominent libertarians.
1949	000000002024-10-01-0000October 1	Organization	George Mason University (GMU) is established. The GMU economics department would become known for its concentration of free-market-oriented thinkers.
1950	000000002024-10-02-0000October 2	Periodical	The first issue of The Freeman, a libertarian magazine, is published.
1950s			The term "Chicago school of economics" is coined during this period.
1950s–1960s			Ayn Rand's group of close confidants, known as the Collective, meets during this period.
1953	000000002024-04-23-0000April 23		Murray Rothbard meets George Reisman and Ralph Raico at a Mises NYU seminar meeting. The three, along with others, would later form an intellectual salon known as the Circle Bastiat.
1956		Organization	The Freedom School is established.
1957		Publication	Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is published. The book "contains Rand's most extensive statement of Objectivism in any of her works of fiction".
1960		Organization	Liberty Fund, a libertarian non-profit foundation, is established.
1960	000000002024-09-11-0000September 11	Organization	Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is founded. YAF is "an ideologically conservative youth activism organization that was founded […] as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians on American college campuses."
1961		Publication	Thomas Szasz's The Myth of Mental Illness is published. The book "criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness".
1961		Organization	The Institute for Humane Studies, a libertarian non-profit organization, is founded.
1962		Publication	Milton Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom is published. "Friedman argues for economic freedom as a precondition for political freedom. He defines 'liberal' in European Enlightenment terms, contrasting with an American usage that he believes has been corrupted since the Great Depression. His views are especially popular among American conservatives and libertarians."
1962		Publication	The Calculus of Consent, a public choice theory book by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, is published. Of Buchanan's and Tullock's work in public choice, Brian Doherty writes that it has "unquestionably given libertarians a valuable intellectual and ideological tool. Buchanan and Tullock helped build a professional consensus and a rigorous scholarly apparatus around the notion that – despite what many economic professionals used to assume – the behavior of government agents can fruitfully be modeled the same way we model individual behavior in markets; that is, as largely motivated by maximizing the personal utility of the government worker or politician, not by some empyrean concept of 'the public good' or an overall 'social welfare function' that a technical economist could calculate."
1963		Organization	Rampart College, "a libertarian educational institution", is established by Robert LeFevre.
1966		Publication	The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, a libertarian science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, is published. The book popularizes the "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" adage.
1966		Publication	Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand (with additional essays by others) is published.
1968	000000002024-05-01-0000May	Periodical	The first issue of Reason, a libertarian monthly magazine, is published.
1969		Publication	The Nolan Chart is created by libertarian activist and politician David Nolan. "The chart divides human political views into two vectors – economic opinion and personal opinion – to produce a type of Cartesian chart. It expands political view analysis beyond the traditional 'left–right' line, which measures politics along a one-dimensional line, into a graph with two dimensions: degrees of economic and personal freedom." The current version of the chart would be published in 1971.
1969	000000002024-05-01-0000May	Conference	The inaugural Future of Freedom Conference takes place. The conference is "considered as the first explicitly libertarian conference series ever held in the United States".
1970		Publication	The Market for Liberty, an anarcho-capitalist book by Linda and Morris Tannehill, is published.
1971	000000002024-12-11-0000December 11	Organization	The United States Libertarian Party (LP) officially forms.
1972		Periodical	Libertarian Review, a libertarian magazine, is established. It would be published until 1981.
1973		Publication	David D. Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom is published.
1973		Publication	Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty is published. The book argues for anarcho-capitalism.
1973	000000002024-09-11-0000September 11	State	The 1973 Chilean coup d'état takes place. The coup leads to rule of Augusto Pinochet, whose military government implements free-market-oriented policies under the influence of the Chicago Boys.
1974		Publication	Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is published. The book argues in favor of a minimal state.
1974	Fall	Periodical	The Reason Papers is founded. Reason Papers describes itself as "a forum for inquiry and debate across a wide spectrum of views rather than the instrument of any one ideology, party, or camp" and "is not edited for conformity with any particular philosophical or ideological perspective, is neither aligned with nor endorses any other institution or organization, and receives no funding from any outside source". However, it is hosted by the Mises Institute.
1974	000000002024-12-01-0000December	Organization	The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, is founded as the Charles Koch Foundation.
1976		Organization	The Center for Libertarian Studies, a "libertarian and anarcho-capitalist oriented educational organization", is founded by Murray Rothbard.
1976		Organization	The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a libertarian organization, is founded by Ron Paul.
1977		Organization	The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research is founded as the International Center for Economic Policy Studies. The institute, while not explicitly libertarian, has sponsored the work of libertarian scholars including Walter E. Williams and Charles Murray.
1977	Spring	Periodical	The Journal of Libertarian Studies is established.
1977	000000002024-11-21-0000November 21	Periodical	The first issue of Inquiry, a libertarian magazine, is published.
1978		Organization	The Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, is founded.
1978		Periodical	Ron Paul newsletters begin to be published.
1978		State	Dick Randolph becomes the first Libertarian Party candidate to be elected a state legislator when he is elected to the Alaska House of Representatives.
1979			The Prometheus Award, an award for libertarian science fiction, is first established.
1979		Organization	The Pacific Research Institute, "a California-based free-market think tank", is founded by Antony Fisher.
1979		Publication	Doug Casey's book Crisis Investing is published. Brian Doherty credits the book with getting "anarcho-capitalist thoughts into the hands and heads of an unprecedented number of Americans".
1979	000000002024-10-16-0000October 16	Publication	J. Neil Schulman's dystopian novel Alongside Night is published. It contains the first portrayal of counter-economics in a book.
1980		Organization	The Mercatus Center, a "non-profit free-market-oriented research, education, and outreach think tank", is established at George Mason University.
1980		Organization	The Rampart Institute launches.
1980		Publication	Thomas Sowell's Knowledge and Decisions is published. "Consistent with his established laissez-faire viewpoints, Sowell also indicts price controls (such as rent control, minimum wage, price fixing, and subsidies) as interfering in the implicit communication between consumers and producers necessary to optimize the choices of each. The fact that some industries or government agencies seem particularly incompetent or corrupt over many turnovers of their staff, he argues, is not bad people performing the duties but of rational people acting in their own interests responding to whatever incentives have been established in the system."
1980		State	From History of the Libertarian Party (United States) § Clark, Crane, Koch, and Paul: "In the 1980 presidential contest, the Libertarian Party gain[s] ballot access in all 50 States, Washington, D.C., and Guam, the first time a third party accomplishe[s] this since the Socialist Party in 1916 (when there were only 48 States and the District of Columbia did not get to vote for president)."
1980	000000002024-01-01-0000January	Publication	Free to Choose, a book by economists Milton and Rose Friedman that advocates free market principles, is published. A ten-part television series broadcast on PBS also begins during this month.
1980	000000002024-10-01-0000October	Publication	Samuel Edward Konkin III's New Libertarian Manifesto is published. It is the first explanation of Konkin's agorism.
1980	000000002024-11-04-0000November 4	State	Ronald Reagan is elected president of the United States. Reagan "rhetorically at least, was a libertarian dream, a man who could declare with apparent sincerity in his first inaugural address that 'government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.'"
1981		Organization	The Atlas Network, a nonprofit organization that promotes free market economic policies, is founded by Antony Fisher.
1982		Publication	Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty is published.
1982		Organization	The Ludwig von Mises Institute is founded. "Through its publications, the Institute promotes anarcho-capitalist political theory and a form of heterodox economics known as praxeology".
1983		Organization	The National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonprofit think tank "whose goals [are] to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control", is founded by Antony Fisher.
1984	000000002024-03-09-0000March 9	Organization	The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit libertarian think tank, is founded.
1984	000000002024-11-01-0000November	Publication	Charles Murray's book Losing Ground is published. The book is "about the effectiveness of welfare state policies in the United States between 1950 and 1980". The book, while less explicitly libertarian than some of his later work, tries to show that "by most available measures, the late 1960s wave of income transfer programs […] did not improve the lives of the poor, and in most cases made them worse off".
1985		Organization	The Ayn Rand Institute is founded to promote Objectivism.
1985		Organization	The Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Denver, Colorado, is founded.
1986		Organization	The Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Oakland, California, is founded.
1989		Organization	The Future of Freedom Foundation is founded.
1990		Publication	Bruce L. Benson's The Enterprise of Law is published.
1991		Organization	The Institute for Justice (IJ), a "non-profit libertarian public interest law firm", is founded. IJ is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.
1991		Publication	Robert Ellickson's Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes is published.
1991		Publication	Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is published. The book discusses Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism.
1997		Publication	David Boaz's Libertarianism: A Primer is published.
1998	000000002024-04-02-0000April 2	Publication	Randy Barnett's The Structure of Liberty is published. The book "offers a libertarian theory of law and politics".
1999		Website	The Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib) is launched.
2000		Publication	David D. Friedman's Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters is published.
2001	000000002024-09-01-0000September 1		The Free State Project is formed.
2003	000000002024-01-01-0000January	Website	EconLog launches with Arnold Kling as the sole blogger.
2003	000000002024-08-21-0000August 21	Website	The first post on Marginal Revolution, the economics blog by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, is from this day.
2004	000000002024-04-28-0000April 28	Website	The first post on Cafe Hayek is from this day.
2008		Conference	The inaugural International Students For Liberty Conference takes place in New York City.
2008	000000002024-07-24-0000July 24	Organization	Students for Liberty, a libertarian non-profit organization, is founded.
2009	000000002024-01-22-0000January 22	Periodical	Libertarian Papers, a "peer-reviewed journal of libertarian scholarship", is established. Its self-described purpose is "to advance scholarly research in disciplines of particular interest to the libertarian community, broadly conceived".
2013		Website	Liberty.me, a libertarian online publishing and social networking website, launches.
2013	000000002024-01-01-0000January	Publication	Philosopher Michael Huemer's book The Problem of Political Authority is published. The book first argues for philosophical anarchism starting from "widely shared moral premises", then argues for the viability of anarcho-capitalism.
2015		Organization	The Niskanen Center, a "think tank that advocates for environmentalism, immigration reform, civil liberties, and a national defense policy based on libertarian principles", is founded. It is based in Washington, D.C.
2016	000000002024-01-01-0000January	Publication	Jane Mayer's book Dark Money is published. The book is "about a network of extremely wealthy conservative libertarians, foremost among them Charles and David Koch, who have together funded an array of organizations that work in tandem to influence academic institutions, think tanks, the courts, statehouses, Congress, and the American presidency for their own benefit."
2016	000000002024-02-03-0000February 3		The Free State Project announces that 20,000 people had signed its statement of intent to move, triggering the move (within five years) to New Hampshire.
2017	000000002024-06-01-0000June	Publication	Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America is published. The book is criticized by many in the libertarian movement.

Visual data

Google Trends

The image below shows Google Trends data for Libertarianism (Political philosophy), from January 2004 to March 2021, when the screenshot was taken. Interest is also ranked by U.S. state.

Google Ngram Viewer

The chart below shows Google Ngram Viewer data for Libertarianism in the United States, from 1950 to 2019.

Wikipedia Views

The chart below shows pageviews of the English Wikipedia article Libertarianism in the United States, on desktop from December 2007, and on mobile-web, desktop-spider, mobile-web-spider and mobile app, from July 2015; to February 2021.

Meta information on the timeline

How the timeline was built

The initial version of the timeline was written by Issa Rice. Vipul Naik provided many suggestions for things to include in the timeline.

Funding information for this timeline is available.

What the timeline is still missing

• More abolitionist publications could be added [1]
• Kock brothers [2], [3], [4]
• prominent women: [5], [6]
• [7]
• [8]
• [9]
• maybe [10]
• [11]
• tea party [12], [13]
• bleeding heart [14]
• more about LP: [15], [16]
• it seems like a lot of libertarians have written about jury nullification, so maybe cover more of that
• There are some other timelines that might have good events: [17], [18], [19], [20], [21]
• I got through chapter 8 of Doherty, and some parts of chapters 1 and 5; however, even in chapter 8 I haven't added all events that might be worth adding.

See also

• Timeline of the environmentalist movement

External links

• Timeline of libertarian thinkers
• Discussion on Facebook