Part VI: What are the consequences of path dependence?

 This essay is one of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis of the series and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

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In 1848, Frédéric Bastiat famously wrote:

“The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else” (Bastiat 2012, p. 171).

 A couple of years later he noted that now participation in the making of law has become universal, “equilibrium is being sought in universal plunder” (Bastiat 2012, p.189).

He predicted social unrest: “people will be beating on the door of the legislative palace. The conflict will be no less bitter within it" (Bastiat 2012, p.194).

How can we explain why “universal plunder” has taken so long to become a major problem in the long-standing democracies? Part of the explanation lies in the existence of formal institutions that place constraints on legislatures. As noted in an earlier essay in this series, part of the explanation also lies in two-party systems of government in which power is usually exercised by encompassing interest groups which have an interest in promoting widespread opportunities for individuals to flourish.

However, the existence of formal rules and encompassing political parties doesn’t offer a complete explanation. What is it that has hitherto prevented governing parties from being displaced or taken over by political entrepreneurs seeking to modify the rules of the game to advantage favored interest groups?

I think the answer lies in the “path dependence” of social norms. Please recall at this point that (as noted in Part I) institutions include codes of conduct, norms of behavior, conventions, and customs as well as formal rules. As Douglass North explains:

“Path dependence means that history matters. We cannot understand today’s choices … without tracing the incremental evolution of institutions” (North 1990, p.100).

There was a time when social norms caused people in the long-established democracies to exercise greater restraint in using their democratic “rights” to obtain benefits for themselves at the expense of others. One reason was that inequality under a constitutional order in which the rules of the game were seen as fair didn’t generate tension but was seen as ipso facto also fair. Vincent Geloso and Alex Tabarrok note that James M. Buchanan held that view (Geloso and Tabarrok, 2025).

Buchanan also identified two norms which underpin liberal democracy: that a sufficient proportion of the population can make their own choices and prefer to be autonomous rather than dependent on others; and that a sufficient proportion of the population enter relationships with others based on reciprocity, fair dealing, and mutual respect. (Buchanan 2005, p. 26).

Buchanan asserted:

“Generalized or widespread failure of persons to adhere to these norms, along with widespread recognition that others also disregard the standards, will insure that the liberal order itself must fail, quite independently from any institutional safeguards” (Buchanan 2005, p.28).

The autonomy norm has eroded as more people have become heavily dependent on government for retirement incomes and for services such as health and education. Business and community organisations have also become increasingly willing to forgo their autonomy to pursue social and environmental objectives favored by whatever government happens to be in power and to obtain a more favourable regulatory environment for their activities.

The norm of reciprocity has also eroded considerably in recent decades. Political parties increasingly base their appeal to voters on the supposed benefits a policy might deliver to groups with specific demographic characteristics, rather than pursuing broad community interests. When voters see others declaring their support for political parties which promise additional spending or regulation to benefit specific groups, they are likely to be less inhibited in behaving similarly. As more voters engage in the struggle to obtain benefits, political parties have a greater incentive to compete for the support of narrow interest groups, rather than seeking to appeal to the broader interests of voters in their roles as taxpayers and consumers.

Increasing entanglement of government, industry and community organisations has been associated with inter-related problems of increasing constraints on economic freedom, changes in business culture leading to a decline in dynamism, and rapid growth in public debt levels. Economic freedom levels in countries such as France, Britain and USA are now substantially lower than they were at the turn of the century. Much of this slippage occurred prior to restrictions on freedom imposed during the coronavirus epidemic (Fraser Institute data). Edmund Phelps has noted a decline in economic dynamism associated with corporatism (Phelps 2013, pp. 159-69). Growth of public debt is a predictable consequence of the triadic political relationships discussed earlier. To avoid disappointing current generations by constraining government spending or raising taxes, governments tend to increase public debt, thus transferring the burden to future generations.

My consideration of these matters has led me to expect fiscal crises to become more common in the liberal democracies in the years ahead and that this will lead to consideration of rule changes to raise productivity growth and require governments to live within their means (Bates 2021, pp.117-18).

However, changing the rules of the game to reduce the adverse impact of interest group politics poses a large challenge for reform-minded political entrepreneurs. The problem arises from path dependency. The culture of preferment-seeking and plunder associated with interest group politics took a long time to reach its current state, but it is now entrenched and will be difficult to overcome.

North recognized the role that political entrepreneurs play in institutional change (North 1990, pp. 86-87, 103-4). His analysis implies that their role is to reduce transactions costs associated with institutional change. (North 1990, p.138). The transactions costs of institutional change are high because of the path dependence of institutions. As institutions evolve, ideologies tend to evolve to support them. Organizations and interest groups that have grown up under existing institutions often have a stake in maintaining them (North 1990, pp.91,99). 

In his Nobel lecture, North emphasized that because of path dependence, a change in formal rules may not change economic performance in the manner expected:

“It is the admixture of formal rules, informal norms, and enforcement characteristics that shapes economic performance. While the rules may be changed overnight, the informal norms usually change only gradually. Since it is the norms that provide “legitimacy” to a set of rules, revolutionary change is never as revolutionary as its supporters desire and performance will be different than anticipated. And economies that adopt the formal rules of another economy will have very different performance characteristics than the first economy because of different informal norms and enforcement.” (North 1993).

The implications of path dependence have been further explored by Peter Boettke, Christopher Coyne, and Peter Leeson. These authors contend that the ability of a new institutional arrangement to take hold when it has been transplanted depends on that institution’s status in relations to indigenous agents in the previous time period. They suggest that institutional transplants are unlikely to stick if they are inconsistent with indigenously introduced endogenous institutions (Boettke et al. 2015).

The analytical framework used by Boettke et al. suggests that endogenous political entrepreneurs might be more successful than international agencies in bringing about institutional change. Boettke and Coyne have noted elsewhere that political entrepreneurship entails alertness to the potential for new forms of governance to overcome political and bureaucratic constraints (Boettke and Coyne 2007, pp.130-31).

That raises the question, considered in the following essay, of what other qualities reform-minded political entrepreneurs might require to bring about desirable institutional change.

References

Bastiat, Frédéric, “The Law,” “The State,” and Other Political Writings 1843-1850, ed. Jacques de Guenin (Liberty Fund, 2012).

Bates, Winton, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Boettke, Peter J., Christopher Coyne and Peter Leeson, “Institutional Stickiness and the New Development Economics”, Chapter 6 in Culture of Economic Action, ed. Laura E. Grube and Virgil Henry Storr (Edward Elgar, 2015).  

Boettke, Peter J. and Christopher J. Coyne, “Entrepreneurial Behavior and Institutions” in Entrepreneurship: The Engine of Growth, ed. Maria Minniti (Praeger, 2007).

Buchanan, James M. Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative, The normative vision of classical liberalism (Edward Elgar, 2005).

Geloso, Vincent and Alex Tabarrok. “Two Peas in a Pod: Democracy and Capitalism”, in Scott C. Miller and Sidney M. Milkis (eds.) Can Democracy and Capitalism be Reconciled (Oxford University Press, 2025).

North, Douglass C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

North, Douglass C., ‘Economic Performance through Time,’ Nobel Prize Lecture (December 9, 1993) https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1993/north/lecture/

Phelps, Edmund. Mass Flourishing: How grassroots innovation created jobs, challenge and change (Princeton University Press, 2013).

Part III: How is political entrepreneurship similar to economic entrepreneurship?

 This essay is one of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis of the series and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

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As noted in the Preface, Don Lavoie held that entrepreneurship fundamentally consists of interpreting and influencing culture. From Lavoie’s perspective, “entrepreneurial acts are the readings of, and contributions to, different conversations”. He explains further:

“Most acts of entrepreneurship are not like an isolated individual finding things on beaches; they require effort of the imagination, skillful judgements of future costs and revenue possibilities, and an ability to read the significance of complex social situations” (Lavoie 2015, p.63).

It seems to me that political entrepreneurs listen to the discourse of potential supporters about existing policies to discover what they will be likely to find attractive. They use that information to innovate by producing new products and selling them persuasively. The new products are policy proposals. Success is measured, in the first instance, by whether proposed policy proposals are implemented.

Political entrepreneurs respond to public discourse, using it as a basis for policy innovation. However, their ideological agendas may not reflect a society’s underlying cultural values. In democracies, individuals may challenge entrenched interests by creating and participating in new political movements; under authoritarian regimes, such innovation is suppressed.

As I see it, Lavoie’s suggestion that entrepreneurs play an interpretive role in complex systems is applicable to all kinds of entrepreneurship. And Roger Koppl is correct to argue that “entrepreneurs are not a class of people distinct from other persons.” As Koppl says: “Entrepreneurship is an aspect of all human action. Entrepreneurship is a human universal” (Koppl 2006, pp.1-2).

Koppl built on the views of Israel Kirzner to propose a post-Kirznerian theory of entrepreneurial behavior. He suggested that alertness, discovery, and innovation are the key concepts required to understand what entrepreneurs do and what entrepreneurs are. Alertness refers to recognition of opportunities to revise plans and habits. Discovery is finding a profit opportunity, or some other opportunity to achieve a better outcome. Innovation occurs when the entrepreneur acts on the discovery that he or she has made (Koppl 2006, pp.6-7).

It is possible to identify different kinds of entrepreneurship with major contributors to the study of entrepreneurship. While Kirzner recognized the importance of discovery and innovation, he emphasized alertness to profit opportunities (Kirzner 1979). Joseph Schumpeter viewed the entrepreneur as an innovator who does new things, or does things in new ways (Schumpeter 1947).

Some political scientists have suggested a role for political entrepreneurs akin to the role played by Schumpeter’s innovators in the field of economics. Catherine De Vries and Sara Hobolt suggest that competition between political parties in European countries is like competition in economic markets. Long-standing dominant players have been challenged by disruptive new players. The central objective for both challengers and incumbents is the control of government and the delivery of public policies. Political entrepreneurs play a key role because a party that engages in successful political policy innovation can enjoy an effective monopoly on an issue and reap the consequent electoral benefits (De Vries and Hobolt 2020).

De Vries and Hobolt were writing about multi-party systems in which several political parties are competing for power. However, a similar form of competition occurs when an innovator challenges established leadership factions within a major political party by offering a product that is more appealing to a group of party members.

It often makes sense to view political and economic activities as belonging to separate realms. That perspective is helpful in considering the interactions between politics and business. Nevertheless, Richard Wagner makes an important point when he suggests that politics should be viewed as a peculiar form of business because it has many characteristics in common with business. Both attract investors to provide capital, entail competition, offer sources of livelihood for people, and are supported by administrative educational organisations. And both involve entrepreneurship, (Wagner 2016, p.11).

The next essay focuses on the peculiarities of politics as a form of business and discusses the incentives that political entrepreneurs are faced with in their efforts to attain power and introduce policy innovations.

References

De Vries, C.E. and S.B. Hobolt, “Challenger Parties and Populism”, LSE Public Policy Review 1, no.1 (2020), pp. 1–8.

Kirzner, Israel, Perception, Opportunity, and Profit, Studies in the Theory of Entrepreneurship (University of Chicago Press, 1979).

Koppl, Roger, “Entrepreneurial Behavior as a Human Universal” in Entrepreneurship: The Engine of Growth, ed. Maria Minniti (Praeger, 2007).

Lavoie, Don, “The discovery and interpretation of profit opportunities: culture and the Kirznerian entrepreneur”, in Culture and Economic Action, edited by Laura E Grube and Virgil Henry Storr (Edward Elgar, 2015).

Schumpeter, Joseph, “The Creative Response in Economic History”, The Journal of Economic History VII, no. 2 (1947), pp. 149-159.

Wagner, Richard E., Politics as a Peculiar Business: Insights from a Theory of Entangled Political Economy (Edward Elgar, 2016).

Part I: How is human flourishing linked to liberty?

This essay is one of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis of the series and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

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As noted in the Preface, the purpose of the following discussion of the links between freedom and flourishing is to explain why this series of essays is focused on institutions relating to economic and personal freedom.

I adopt Douglass North’s definition of institutions as “the rules of the game in a society”, along with his more formal definition of institutions as “the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction” (North 1990, p.3). North observed that institutions can be formal or informal. Formal institutions include constitutions, laws, and regulations. Informal institutions include codes of conduct, norms of behavior, conventions, and customs (North 1990, p.4).

The institutional changes that are of most interest for the purposes of this essay are changes in formal institutions that are reflected in levels of economic and personal freedom at a national level.

My understanding of the links between freedom and flourishing has been presented in Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Bates, 2021). In broad terms, the perspective adopted in that book is that institutional changes that result in greater freedom are generally desirable because they expand opportunities for individual flourishing. That perspective reflects my understanding of the nature of human flourishing and evidence of the importance of liberty to individual flourishing. A brief outline of the main points in that line of argument is presented below.

1. Human flourishing is the process by which individuals actualize the potential that is inherent in their human nature. It entails the exercise of one’s practical wisdom, with integrity, in the pursuit of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life (pp.4-5).
2. The basic goods of a flourishing human are a matter for ongoing reflection and discussion. I argue that individuals are flourishing when they are exercising wise and well-informed self-direction, accompanied by good physical health, psychological well-being and positive relationships with others, and are living in harmony with nature (pp.6-7).
3. Wise and well-informed self-direction is of central importance to human flourishing because of the nature of humans as creatures who have potential to direct their own flourishing, in pursuit of goals which they determine for themselves. The exercise of self-direction helps individuals to maintain other basic goods that are necessary for the pursuit of chosen goals (pp.7-8, 12). The Neo-Aristotelian viewpoint in the first three points builds on earlier work by several different authors.
4. Individuals flourish in mutually beneficial interactions with others. Adam Smith made a particularly important contribution in promoting that view (pp.49-50, 60-62, 68-9).
5. Given the nature of individual flourishing as an inherently self-directed process, it is not possible for individuals to flourish unless their natural right to self-direction is recognized in social and political structures (pp.22-3). This discussion references a conceptual framework developed by Edward W. Younkins (Younkins, 2019).
6. Norms of liberty solve the social problem of making it possible for individuals to flourish in different ways without the flourishing of one individual being given structural preference over that of others (pp.23-25). This discussion relies heavily on the views of Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl (Rasmussen and Den Uyl 2005).
7. International comparisons of opportunities to obtain the basic goods of flourishing humans point to the importance of liberty, a culture of trust and high incomes as common elements explaining why opportunities have been greater in some countries than others. Liberty is of utmost importance to provide opportunities for well-informed self-direction. High incomes appear to be the most pervasive element, but liberty and a culture of trust have played an important role in facilitating the underlying development process that has enabled incomes to rise. (pp.65-76). 

The existence of a positive relationship between economic freedom and economic development has been well documented elsewhere (for example, Gwartney et al. 2024, pp.27-33 and the chapter by Kevin Grier and Robin Grier, pp.35-49).

The preceding discussion has focused on links between formal rules of the game and human flourishing. Informal institutions are also of interest because they can interact in important ways with the formal rules that determine economic and personal freedom. North observes that a change in formal rules or their enforcement “will result in a disequilibrium situation” and “give rise to efforts to evolve new conventions and norms” (North 1990, pp.87-8). He also makes the more fundamental suggestion that “constitutional forms are typically derivative”. In response to the claim that “the reason we are a free people is that we have certain constitutional forms”, North suggests that “it may just as easily be the case that the reason we have these constitutional forms is that we are a free people” (North 1990, p.60). North notes that informal constraints “come from socially transmitted information and are part of the heritage that we call culture" (North 1990, p.37).

In the following essay, I discuss the extent to which international differences in levels of economic and personal freedom reflect differences in cultural values rather than the influence of political entrepreneurship and accompanying ideologies.

References

Bates, Winton, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Gwartney, James, Robert Lawson, and Ryan Murphy, Economic Freedom of the World: 2024 Annual Report (Fraser Institute, 2024).

North, Douglass C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Den Uyl, Douglas J, Norms of Liberty (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005).

Younkins, Edward W. ‘Freedom and Flourishing’, Chapter 2 in The Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the context of human freedom, edited by Roger Bissell, Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Edward W Younkins (Lexington Books, 2019).

How can Austrian Economics be reconciled with the Neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Freedom and Flourishing?

 This is a guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins.

Ed is Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. He is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. My review of that trilogy is included among references listed among suggestions for further reading at the end of Ed’s essay.

Ed has numerous other publications, including an essay reviewing books by David L. Norton, which was published here in January and a review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s book “Total Freedom” published here in July. 

Ed Younkins writes:  

The pursuit of human flourishing—what Aristotle termed eudaimonia—stands as a central concern of both philosophical inquiry and economic science. At first glance, the Austrian economic tradition, with its emphasis on subjective value and methodological individualism, might appear incompatible with neo-Aristotelian philosophies like Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J.  Den Uyl's "individualistic perfectionism," which assert the objectivity of human values. Yet, upon deeper examination, these traditions reveal profound compatibilities and complementary insights that provide a more robust framework for understanding human freedom, social cooperation, and the conditions for prosperity. This synthesis offers a powerful intellectual foundation for what could be termed "flourishing individualism"—the view that individuals possess an objective nature whose perfection requires specific social, political, and economic conditions, most notably freedom.

The Austrian School of economics and the neo-Aristotelian philosophy of freedom and flourishing share profound philosophical and methodological affinities. Both frameworks emphasize individual agency, moral responsibility, and the dynamic process of human flourishing in a world of uncertainty and choice. Although Austrian economists such as Ludwig von Mises typically maintain that values are subjective, and neo-Aristotelians assert that values are objective in a moral sense, these positions are not incompatible when understood as operating on different levels of analysis: the praxeological versus the ethical. Both perspectives converge on the centrality of rational agency, the importance of practical wisdom, and the moral necessity of liberty for human flourishing. This essay explores these convergences, demonstrating that Austrian economics and the neo-Aristotelian ethical framework together form a mutually enriching paradigm of freedom and flourishing.

 The Foundations of Austrian Economics

Austrian economics emerged in the late nineteenth century with Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics (1871), which emphasized methodological individualism, subjectivism, and the causal-realistic method. Menger held that value originates in the human mind’s recognition of the usefulness of goods for achieving desired ends. Later thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises (1949), Friedrich Hayek (1948), and Israel Kirzner (1973) expanded this foundation, emphasizing purposive human action (praxeology), the coordinating role of the price system, and the discovery process of entrepreneurship. Mises’s Human Action presents economics as a deductive science grounded in the axiom that “man acts purposefully” (Mises 1949). Human action, for Mises, is always rational in the instrumental sense—it involves the use of means to achieve chosen ends under conditions of uncertainty.

Israel Kirzner added to this framework by introducing the concept of entrepreneurial alertness. Entrepreneurs notice opportunities for profit that others have overlooked, thereby correcting market errors and coordinating dispersed knowledge. Kirzner’s entrepreneur is a creative, forward-looking agent who exercises alertness, judgment, and initiative—traits that closely parallel the Aristotelian notion of phronesis, or practical wisdom (Kirzner 1973). In both frameworks, knowledge, creativity, and prudence are essential for navigating the complexities of real-world decision-making.

Neo-Aristotelian and Objectivist Ethics of Flourishing

The neo-Aristotelian philosophy of Rasmussen and Den Uyl, articulated in Norms of Liberty (2005), The Perfectionist Turn (2016) and The Realist Turn (2020) seeks to develop a liberal political order grounded in the ethics of individual perfectionism. They argue that moral value is objective and grounded in human nature: flourishing (eudaimonia) is the natural end of human beings as rational and social agents. Moral principles are thus derived from the requirements of human flourishing, not from arbitrary preferences. Rand’s Objectivism similarly holds that reason is man’s means of survival, that values are objective, and that rational self-interest is the proper moral code (Rand 1964).

Rasmussen and Den Uyl distinguish between self-perfection—the moral ideal of living rationally and virtuously—and self-directedness, the political condition that makes self-perfection possible. Rights, in their account, protect the liberty necessary for individuals to pursue their own perfection in diverse ways. Their framework, like Rand’s, integrates metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics to yield a view of human beings as rational, volitional agents who must exercise practical reason to flourish.

 Subjective and Objective Value: Distinct Spheres of Analysis

One of the most frequently discussed issues in relating Austrian economics to neo-Aristotelian ethics concerns the apparent conflict between Misesian subjectivism and Aristotelian or Objectivist views about value. Mises maintains that “value is subjective,” meaning that economic value arises from individual preferences and choices; there are no objective economic values apart from subjective evaluations by acting persons. Rand and Rasmussen and Den Uyl, by contrast, hold that moral values are objective because they are grounded in the requirements of human life and flourishing. However, as Kathleen Touchstone (2015) and I (2011) have argued, these positions refer to different levels of analysis and are not contradictory.

This subjectivism is epistemological and economic, not moral. Mises did not claim that values are morally relative; rather, he argued that economics must remain value-free to maintain scientific rigor. Mises’s subjectivism pertains to the preferences individuals express in their actions, not to the truth or falsity of moral claims. Austrian economics thus provides a descriptive account of human behavior, focusing on how individuals allocate scarce resources to achieve their goals.

In the praxeological sense, subjectivity refers to the agent-relative nature of preference: each individual chooses based on his or her own hierarchy of ends. In the ethical sense, objectivity refers to the fact that some ends are objectively better than others for human flourishing. Austrian economists do not deny that there may be objective criteria for human well-being; rather, economics as a value-free science abstains from ethical judgments. Thus, Austrian subjectivism is methodological, not moral. Neo-Aristotelian philosophies,  in turn, concern moral evaluation, not economic explanation. The two frameworks, therefore, are compatible and complementary.

In contrast to the Austrian position, Rand's Objectivism maintains that values are objective, meaning they are "determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man's mind."  Values are not created by whim or social convention but are discovered through rational inquiry into the requirements of human life. As Peikoff (1991) explains Rand's ethics, "the fundamental alternative at the base of value is life versus death. Since human beings do not survive automatically, but by the use of reason, the standard of value is not mere survival, but rational flourishing."  From this perspective, something is objectively valuable if it genuinely promotes human life and flourishing according to man's nature as a rational being.

Similarly, Rasmussen and Den Uyl's individualistic perfectionism, while acknowledging the diversity of flourishing paths, maintains that human flourishing serves as an objective standard for ethics. They define human flourishing as objective, inclusive, individualized, agent-relative, self-directed, and social. A person's flourishing is desired because it is desirable and choice-worthy.  The objectivity resides in the factual requirements for human flourishing, while the specific instantiation varies according to individual circumstances, talents, and choices.

The resolution to this apparent contradiction lies in recognizing that these theories operate at different levels of analysis. The Austrian subjective theory of value explains how economic calculation and market prices emerge from individual preferences in the context of scarcity. The neo-Aristotelian objective theory of value explains how certain goods, virtues, and institutions reliably promote human flourishing given human nature. The neo-Aristotelian sense of value-objectivity complements the Austrian sense of value-subjectivity because personal flourishing on an objective level transcends subjective value preferences.

 Entrepreneurship, Practical Wisdom, and Eudaimonia

The Austrian entrepreneur and the Aristotelian practically wise person share deep conceptual similarities. Kirzner’s entrepreneur acts under uncertainty, perceives opportunities, and exercises judgment and creativity—traits essential to human flourishing. Likewise, Aristotelian phronesis involves rational deliberation about means and ends in the pursuit of eudaimonia. Both require sensitivity to context, adaptability, and the courage to act amidst uncertainty.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl (2005) describe flourishing as a self-directed activity of reason, while Kirzner (1973) and Mises (1949) describe the market process as an open-ended discovery procedure. Both perspectives view human action as purposive and guided by reason. The Austrian view of entrepreneurship provides a dynamic understanding of how individuals realize their plans within institutional frameworks, which aligns with the Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as context-sensitive, agent-centered reasoning.

Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s Individualistic Perfectionism builds on Aristotelian ethics to defend a liberal political order. They argue that human flourishing (eudaimonia) is agent-relative and pluralistic, requiring liberty for individuals to pursue their own good. Their philosophy emphasizes practical wisdom (phronesis), the capacity to deliberate well about how to live.

Rand’s rational egoism and Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s agent-relative flourishing both affirm the moral legitimacy of self-interest. Austrian economics shows how self-interest, when channeled through markets, leads to mutual benefit. As Kathleen Touchstone argues, “Practical reason can be aligned with self-interest in a way that promotes both personal and social good.” This alignment reinforces the idea that liberty is not only economically efficient but morally justifiable.

This aligns closely with Austrian economists’ view of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs exercise alertness and judgment in navigating uncertainty and making context-sensitive decisions. As Benjamin Powell and Rosolino Candela (2014) have shown, entrepreneurial action is a form of practical reasoning, akin to Aristotelian phronesis. Both traditions recognize that flourishing requires freedom, creativity, and contextual judgment.

In both frameworks, success depends on alertness to opportunity—economic or moral. The morally flourishing individual, like the entrepreneur, must remain open to new information, creatively respond to change, and act on rational insight. This parallel suggests that the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom and the Austrian idea of entrepreneurial alertness describe complementary dimensions of human rationality: moral and economic.

Both traditions recognize that practical wisdom and entrepreneurial judgment are necessary precisely because human beings face genuine uncertainty and operate with limited knowledge. The Austrian emphasis on the market as a discovery procedure for mobilizing dispersed knowledge complements the neo-Aristotelian recognition that human flourishing requires practical wisdom precisely because we cannot have algorithmic certainty about how to live well. As Kathleen Touchstone observes in her comparison of Rand and the Austrians, the recognition of death's inevitability plays a crucial role in establishing life as the ultimate value, highlighting the finitude that makes choice meaningful.  Our limited time and knowledge make both economic and ethical judgment necessary and meaningful.

Liberty as the Political Prerequisite for Flourishing

Both Austrian economists and neo-Aristotelians maintain that liberty is the indispensable precondition for human flourishing. For Mises and Hayek, economic freedom allows individuals to coordinate dispersed knowledge and discover better ways to achieve their goals. For Rand, Rasmussen, and Den Uyl, moral self-perfection requires the freedom to act on one’s rational judgment without coercion. The rule of law and private property thus provide the institutional context within which individuals can exercise moral and entrepreneurial agency.

Many economists have shown that economic liberty correlates strongly with prosperity and well-being, but beyond material benefits, liberty also enables moral growth, Freedom is valuable not only as a means but also as a necessary condition for self-responsibility and virtue. The Austrian and neo-Aristotelian perspectives converge in seeing liberty as both an epistemic and a moral requirement—a framework that respects the dignity of human choice and the moral significance of self-directedness.

The Austrian understanding of the market as a spontaneous order—an emergent pattern of cooperation that results from human action but not human design—provides an economic justification for the political framework defended by neo-Aristotelian philosophers. The result of these combined perspectives is a powerful moral and political framework that answers the challenge of modern pluralism without surrendering the objectivity of value. It is a theory that preserves the ethical centrality of virtue and the reality of human goods while insisting on the primacy of liberty and individual responsibility.

 Human Action, Rational Agency, and the Unity of Knowledge

Austrian economics and the neo-Aristotelian philosophy share a common anthropological foundation: human beings as rational, purposive agents. Mises’s praxeology and Aristotle’s practical philosophy both begin from the recognition that action is purposeful and intelligible. Barry Smith (1990) has argued that Mises’s praxeological categories correspond closely to Aristotelian metaphysical concepts: means, ends, causality, and teleology. This correspondence suggests that Austrian economics, though methodologically individualist, is compatible with a broader realist metaphysics of human nature.

Rand’s Objectivism likewise rests on a realist ontology and a teleological conception of life. Human reason is a means of survival, and moral virtue is the consistent choice to act in accordance with reason. Rasmussen and Den Uyl (2016) extend this insight by emphasizing that the moral self is a “self-perfecting agent” whose flourishing requires both internal rational order and external social liberty. The Austrian theory of the market as a spontaneous order complements this moral vision: both rely on the creative, adaptive rationality of individuals operating within an open-ended, complex world.

Self-Interest, Practical Reason, and Moral Responsibility

In both Austrian and neo-Aristotelian thought, self-interest is rational and morally legitimate. For Mises, self-interest is inherent in human action: individuals act to remove felt uneasiness and improve their conditions. For Rand, self-interest is the moral expression of the objective requirements of human life. Rasmussen and Den Uyl reinterpret self-interest in terms of self-perfection: the pursuit of moral virtue and excellence as expressions of one’s nature as a rational being.

Practical reason (phronesis) guides this pursuit by integrating knowledge, experience, and judgment in concrete circumstances. Similarly, the Austrian entrepreneur uses reason to identify and pursue profit opportunities, which represent the coordination of subjective values through voluntary exchange. This coordination process can be seen as a form of social learning in which individual discovery contributes to mutual benefit. Both frameworks thus ground moral and economic order in the creative, purposive activity of rational agents.

 Harmony Between Ethics and Economics

Austrian economics and neo-Aristotelian ethics are not separate silos but complementary aspects of a unified understanding of human life. Economic science explains how individuals interact within markets to achieve their diverse ends, while ethical philosophy clarifies which ends are worthy of pursuit. Together they yield a comprehensive view of the human person as a self-responsible, rational being whose flourishing depends on freedom, virtue, and creativity.

It could be argued that integrating these perspectives results in a “humanomics” of flourishing—a science of man that recognizes the inseparability of moral and economic dimensions of action. (Rasmussen 2024-25) Freedom provides the institutional framework; virtue provides the moral compass; entrepreneurship provides the practical engine of progress. Each reinforces the others in a mutually supportive system.

Conclusion: Toward a Paradigm of Freedom and Flourishing

The intellectual convergence between Austrian economics and neo-Aristotelian philosophy represents more than an academic curiosity. It offers a comprehensive framework for understanding human flourishing under conditions of freedom that integrates insights from ethics, economics, and political theory. Their complementarity arises from addressing different but interconnected aspects of the human condition: the Austrian tradition explaining how social cooperation emerges from individual choices under specific institutional arrangements, and the neo-Aristotelian tradition explaining what constitutes a well-lived life for the individual choosing agent.

Rand admired Mises and the Austrian school, praising their defense of capitalism and critique of central planning. She ranked Mises among history’s intellectual giants and featured favorable reviews of his works in her publications. However, she rejected Mises’s value subjectivism, insisting that values must be grounded in objective reality. For Rand, values are not arbitrary preferences but facts of reality that reflect the requirements of human life.

Yet, as scholars like Robert Tarr have noted, this apparent conflict dissolves when we recognize that Mises and Rand operate at different levels of analysis. Mises’s subjectivism pertains to economic behavior, while Rand’s objectivism addresses moral philosophy. As Tarr puts it, “The Austrian and Objectivist views of value are not contradictory but complementary when properly contextualized.” Austrian economics describes how individuals act; Objectivism prescribes how they ought to act.

The resolution of the apparent conflict between subjective and objective value through different levels of analysis enriches both traditions, allowing economists to acknowledge the purpose-serving nature of market activity while enabling philosophers to recognize the institutional prerequisites for virtue. The connection between entrepreneurial judgment and practical wisdom highlights the moral dimension of economic creativity while acknowledging the cognitive demands of both economic and ethical excellence. The defense of political and economic freedom as essential for human flourishing provides a shared normative foundation for evaluating social institutions.

This synthesis finds eloquent expression in the work of scholars who explicitly aim to forge an understanding from various disciplines and to integrate them into consistent, coherent, and systematic whole. The goal is to have a paradigm in which the views of reality, human nature, knowledge, values, action, and society make up an integrated whole. This integrated perspective acknowledges what Rasmussen and Den Uyl (2016) identify as the "tethered character of political philosophy" to deeper metaphysical and ethical frameworks.

Perhaps most importantly, this integrated perspective reminds us that economics and philosophy ultimately serve the same end: understanding and promoting the conditions for human flourishing. The economic creativity unleashed by markets and the ethical excellence cultivated through virtue represent complementary aspects of what can be identified as flourishing and happiness in a free society.  By recognizing their compatibility and complementarity, we can move closer to an integrated understanding of human freedom that enables individuals to realize their highest potential through reason, practical wisdom, and voluntary cooperation.

The convergence of Austrian economics and neo-Aristotelian perfectionism reveals a coherent philosophical paradigm that integrates economics, ethics, and politics around the concept of rational human agency. Austrian economics contributes a dynamic, subjectivist understanding of market coordination and entrepreneurial discovery. Neo-Aristotelian and Objectivist ethics provide an objective, normative account of human flourishing and moral responsibility. Far from being incompatible, the subjective and objective dimensions of value illuminate different aspects of the same reality: human beings as valuers and choosers in a world of possibilities.

By recognizing their compatibility, scholars can move toward a richer, interdisciplinary synthesis—one that unites Misesian praxeology with Aristotelian virtue ethics, Kirznerian entrepreneurship with practical wisdom, and Randian self-interest with moral responsibility. This synthesis provides a powerful conceptual framework for understanding human life as a process of rational self-direction within a free society. It is, ultimately, a paradigm of freedom and flourishing.

 Recommended Reading

Bates, Winton. 2024. “The Vision of Ed Younkins’s Trilogy on Freedom and Flourishing” The Savvy Street.  (May 15).

Block, Walter. 2005. “Ayn Rand and Austrian Economists: Two Peas in a Pod” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies Vol.6 No 2; 259-269.

Boettke, Peter J. 2019. “Mises, Rand, and the Twentieth Century” in Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy.  Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Candela, Rosolino A. 2018. “The Socialist Calculation Debate and its Normative Implications in Austrian Economics” The Next Generation: 29-44

Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen. 2016. The Perfectionist Turn: From Metanorms to Metaethics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Ebeling, Richard M. 2021. “The Case for Freedom in Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Ayn Rand”.  Future of Freedom (January).

Johnsson, Richard C. B..2005. “Subjectivism, Intrinsicism and Apriorism: Rand Among the Austrians”. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies Vol.6 No.2: 317-335.

Kirzner, Israel M. 1973. Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Menger, Carl. 1871. Principles of Economics. Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller.

Mises, Ludwig von. 1949. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Pauls, Theodore N. 2025 “What Do Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives tell us about Flourishing Individualism?” Freedom and Flourishing (June 24).

Peikoff, Leonard. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton

Powell, Benjamin and Rosolino Candela. 2014. “Markets as Processes of Moral Discovery” Studies in Emergent Order. Vol.7: 258-272.

Rand, Ayn. 1964. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet.

Rasmussen, Douglas B. 2024-25 “Homo Agens and Homo Moralis in Humanomics”. The Independent Review. (Winter).

Rasmussen, Douglas B., and Douglas J. Den Uyl. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl. 2020, The Realist Turn: Repositioning Liberalism Palgrave Macmillan.

Smith, Barry. 1990. “Aristotle, Menger, Mises: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Economics.” History of Political Economy 22 (3): 683–706.

Tarr, Robert. 2019."Economic Theory and the Conceptions of Value: Rand and the Austrians versus the Mainstream”. In Gregory Salmieri and Robert Mayhew, Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand’s Political Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 327-380.

Touchstone, Kathleen. 2015. “Rand and the Austrians: The Ultimate Value and the Non-interference Principle”. Libertarian Papers. 7 No.2, 169-204.

Touchstone, Kathleen. 2020.  Freedom, Eudaemonia, and Risk: An Inquiry into the Ethics of Risk-Taking.  Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Younkins, Edward W. 2005. ‘Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6 no.2 Spring: 337-74.

Younkins, Edward W. 2011. Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society: Toward a Synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

How can dialectics help us to defend liberty?

 

This guest essay by Dr Edward W. Younkins is a review of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s book “Total Freedom”, which was published 25 years ago. The epigraph is from page 354 of that book.

Ed Younkins is Professor of Accountancy and Business at Wheeling University, and Executive Director of its Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality. He is author of a trilogy of important books on freedom and flourishing: “Capitalism and Commerce”, “Champions of a Free Society”, and “Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society”. Ed has numerous other publications, including an essay reviewing books by David L. Norton, which was published here in January.    

 Ed Younkins’s review was previously published in 2001 in “Le Québécois Libre”. 

There are two reasons why it is appropriate for it to be re-published now.

First,“Total Freedom” deserves more attention, and the 25^th anniversary of its publication is a particularly appropriate time for that to occur.

Second, in the light of declining economic and personal freedom in many parts of the world, the defense of liberty has become more urgent than it was 25 years ago. Ian Vásquez and his colleagues responsible for measurement of human freedom for Cato and the Fraser Institute have noted that on a world-wide basis, and using a population weighted comparison, a high point for freedom occurred in 2005–2007, followed by a steady decline through 2019, and a precipitous descent in 2020 through 2021 associated with government responses to the Covid virus (“The Human Freedom Index 2024, pp. 21-25). The latest data suggest although some recovery has occurred since, human freedom remains lower than in the year 2000.

Younkins ended his review by noting that he was “looking forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will contribute toward the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.” Chris Sciabarra has continued to make important contributions in this field even though illness has somewhat constrained his efforts.

Here is Ed Younkins’s review of:

Sciabarra, Chris Matthew, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (Pennsylvania State University Press: 2000).

In Total Freedom, Chris Matthew Sciabarra offers a provocative, scholarly, and original work in social theory for the analysis of society and human liberty. The author aims to reclaim the dialectical method, the art of context keeping, in the name of liberty and from the authoritarian left in order to make it the foundation for a radical (i.e., one that goes to the root) defense of libertarianism.

The necessity of context

Sciabarra is convinced that a successful libertarian project must stress the necessity of context – the totality of systemic and dynamic connections among social problems. More specifically, the libertarian ideal cannot be isolated from the context upon which it depends and freedom cannot be defended successfully when separated from its broader requisite conditions. The author proposes in Total Freedom a metatheoretical foundation upon which to construct a comprehensive libertarian social theory. Rather than making a convincing argument for liberty, he offers a means for structuring the methodology of social inquiry. The book is about how a context-sensitive methodology can be used to defend freedom. In order to think about freedom, people need to grasp the totality of its prerequisites and implications. Emphasizing the indivisible unity of theory and practice, Sciabarra says that any effort to understand or change society requires an analysis of its many related aspects.  

Sciabarra explains that dialectics emphasizes the centrality of context in the intertemporal analysis of systems. It is a thinking style that stresses the contextual analysis of systems across time. Dialectics may be viewed as a method of analysis, a mode of inquiry, or a type of meta-methodological orientation or set of assumptions about how we approach the object of our study. Dialectics is an approach to thinking that attempts to grasp the full context of a philosophy or social problem. Dialectical thinking endeavors to understand the whole through differential vantage points and levels of generality and by a systemic and dynamic extension of analytical units. 

The author emphasizes that dialectical thinking necessitates that we do not engage in context dropping, but instead make every possible effort to see interconnections between seemingly disparate branches of knowledge. Such an approach compels scholars to investigate empirically the potential connections between various spheres in an effort to attain integrated knowledge of the full context. Since people are not omniscient, understanding a complex world thoroughly requires an on-going investigation of its many interrelated facets from shifting vantage points. 

Down to earth dialectics

As a methodological orientation, dialectics has been employed in the analysis of systems of argumentation, philosophy, ethics, linguistics, history, culture, psychology, social theory, political economy, etc. One of Sciabarra's goals is to capture the essence of the many dialectical approaches that have appeared throughout intellectual history. He argues that in its origins dialectics is not an especially Hegelian or Marxian tradition, but rather in its inception it is firmly Aristotelian. 

Sciabarra explains that, although the pre-Socratics and Plato were the earliest practitioners of dialectics, it was Aristotle, the true father (or fountainhead) of dialectical inquiry, who first articulated its theoretical principles and techniques. Plato had connected dialectics to an idealist ontology that entailed the search for comprehensive transcendent truth. Plato's unrealistic epistemological standard was for human beings to somehow attain a synoptic perspective on the whole society. 

Aristotle brought the dialectic down to earth by severing its principles from their Platonic-idealist formulation. The Aristotelian idea of dialectics eliminates cosmology from philosophy and relies on a minimalist metaphysics that states that existence is what it is, that consciousness is our means for understanding it, and that everything that exists is part of one reality. The history of dialectics is filled with battles between the synoptic Platonic idealist conception and the contextual Aristotelian realist understanding. As a dialectical reality, Sciabarra tells us that we should rightfully criticize those who form dialectical abstractions with no regard for their relationship to the facts of reality. 

Sciabarra explains that Aristotle advocates shifting our viewpoints on any object of study in order to illuminate different aspects of it. In this way, Aristotle keeps the Platonic predilection for organic unity, but acknowledges the central importance of context. Aristotle's principles of inquiry call for us to constantly shift our perspective on any object of study. Each point of view provides a different context of meaning. It is by piecing together the various perspectives that a person can gain a comprehensive understanding of the full context of the object. 

Like Aristotle, the Medieval Scholastics applied dialectical principles to the argumentative arts. Sciabarra observes that they brought dialectics to the consideration of Biblical texts and thus began the centuries-long journey toward the secularization of the human mind because they were brave enough to subject the scriptures to analysis, something that was disapproved of for centuries before.  

Sciabarra argues that Hegel's conception of the dialectic harks back to the Ancient Greek ideal of organic unity and to the Platonic penchant for the divine. In turn, Marx anchored dialectics to investigations of the real world. However, Marx's vision presumed god-like planning and control of many nuances, tacit practices, and unintended consequences of social action. He also presumed a total grasp of history and often attempted to study the present as if from an imagined future. When Marxists suggest that history can lead to a victory over human ignorance, they are implying privileged access to total knowledge of future social conditions. This is inherently utopian and undialectical since it is unbounded by the context that exists and is based on a « synoptic delusion, » a belief that one can live in a world in which every action produces consistent and predictable outcomes.

The art of context keeping

 If dialectics is the art of context keeping, then historical materialism proposes a theory of history that places the theoretician outside the context of the human condition. The problem occurs when Marx steps into the future to evaluate the present. He assumes the information needed by future planners will be available despite the fact that these planners will have destroyed the context (i.e., the price system), which permits such information to be generated and socially traded. By holding this incorrect assumption, Marx is placing himself outside the historical process that he analyzes. Sciabarra observes that it is as though Marx is permitting himself privileged access to information about a future that is ontologically and epistemologically impossible. Such a Utopian way of viewing the world is essentially an a-contextual, a-historical search for human ideals with no understanding of the limits or nature of reason. It is as if people can step outside the bounds of culture and society to re-create the world. 

Sciabarra goes on to explore the manifestations of dialectics among those from the liberal tradition including Herbert Spencer, Carl Menger, Mises, Hayek, Rand, and especially Murray Rothbard. The author's goal here is to show how classical liberal and modern libertarian approaches embody conflicting orientations. He also describes how these thinkers have been richer, more complex, and more context-sensitive than their critics have been willing to acknowledge. Total Freedom documents how a contextual-dialectical approach informed many of the classical liberal, and libertarian thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

A large portion of the second half of Sciabarra's work involves a comprehensive case study of the writings of Murray Rothbard, one of the major libertarian thinkers of the 20th century. Sciabarra attempts to identify the dialectical and undialectical aspects of Rothbard's wide-ranging anarcho-capitalist analytical model. Rothbard's work is used to expose and analyze the dialectical strengths and nondialectical weaknesses that are typical in modern libertarian social theory. 

Sciabarra observes that Rothbard, for most of his life, believed that libertarianism did not require a theory of culture. Rothbard appeared to think that his axiom of non-aggression could resolve social and political problems by itself. Like many other libertarians, he simply dropped the larger context which freedom requires in order to flourish and stressed libertarian goals without considering the problem of meeting them. He insisted that libertarianism was a political philosophy that could accommodate any culture. For example, Rothbard believed that men could simply use their reason to develop a permanently fixed Libertarian Law Code in accordance with anarcho-capitalist principles.  

Sciabarra questions the efficacy of such an imposition because it does not take into account the philosophical, cultural, and historical context upon which libertarian principles depend. The acceptance of a Libertarian Law Code in the real world would require a deeper understanding of personal and cultural factors. Rothbard had abstracted a single principle of non-aggression and created a dualistic tension between theory and reality by declaring that state institutions are at odds with human nature. This led Rothbard to universalize the market as a means of destroying the state.  

Sciabarra points out that later Rothbard realized that proponents of a free society needed a fully articulated theory of culture, since some cultures foster, while others threaten, a free society. Rothbard's later greater dialectical sensibility is exhibited in his theory of structural crisis which was simultaneously historical, political, economic, and sociological and in the foundations of his non-Marxist theory of class struggle. 

In need of an effective strategy

Toward the end of his book, Sciabarra briefly surveys the growing dialectical trend among libertarians such as Peter Boettke, Douglas Den Uyl, Don Lavoie, Douglas Rasmussen, Mario Rizzo, and others. Sciabarra is convinced that libertarianism as a social theory is valuable and offers a valid perspective on the nature of the crisis in modern society and that voluntary social relations, with all their preconditions and effects, are morally and consequentially preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. However, he does not believe that libertarian theorists have presented the best formulations and arguments in the context of social conditions that exist. Freedom cannot be defended successfully when severed from its broader requisite conditions. Libertarians must pay greater attention to the broader context within which their goals and values can be realized.

Sciabarra's message is that libertarians need an effective strategy that recognizes the dynamic interrelationships between the personal, political, historical, psychological, ethical, cultural, economic, etc., if they are to be successful in their quest for a free society. He explains that attempts to define and defend a non-aggression axiom in the absence of a broader philosophical and cultural context are doomed to fail. Libertarians must pay greater attention to the broader context within which their goals and values can be realized. The battle against statism is simultaneously structural (political and economic), cultural (with implications for education, race, sex, language, and art) and personal (with connections to individuals' tacit moral beliefs, and psycho-epistemological processes).

The author wants people to understand both the necessity for objective conceptual foundations for a free society and the need for cultural pre-requisites in the battle for the free society. The fight for freedom is multidimensional and takes place on a variety of levels with each level influencing and having reciprocal effects on the other levels. Dialectics require that people take into account and pay attention to all the levels and structures that a politics of freedom depends upon. Sciabarra contends that it is possible to look at society from different angles and on different levels of analytical generality in order to obtain an enriched portrait of its total form. Change must occur on many different levels and cannot be dictated from the realm of politics – it must filter through all the various levels.

The goals of Total Freedom are to defend the need for a dialectical libertarianism that synthesizes multiple disciplines and to reclaim dialectics as a viable methodology for libertarian social theory. The author accomplishes this in his well-documented, innovative, and academic treatise. He offers libertarianism as a valid and valuable perspective that is preferable to the status quo and to statism in all its varieties. However, Sciabarra stops short of developing his own substantive dialectical libertarian social theory. 

His work is primarily methodological and only articulates the view that a dialectical libertarianism is essential to the future of both dialectics and libertarianism. He has taken the first step by offering a metatheoretical structure for social inquiry, rather than a comprehensive argument for liberty. Sciabarra cautions that much work needs to be done to test the validity of various libertarian theories. I am looking forward to seeing what Sciabarra will offer us next that will contribute toward the development of a comprehensive defense of freedom.

Addendum

Readers may also be interested in an essay that Chris M. Sciabarra recently published to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the first two books in his "Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy": "Marx, Hayek, and Utopia" and "Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical," and the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Total Freedom." This "Trilogy Anniversary" essay can be found on both Notablog and Medium:

https://notablog.net/2025/06/09/a-trilogy-anniversary/

https://medium.com/@cm.../a-trilogy-anniversary-6265b10c1258