The answer is that, since the early origins of the State, its rulers have always turned, as a necessary bolster to their rule, to an alliance with society’s class of intellectuals. The masses do not create their own abstract ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and promulgated by the body of intellectuals, who become the effective “opinion moulders” in society.

When the original edition of this book was published (1973), the new libertarian movement in America was in its infancy. In half a dozen years the movement has matured with amazing rapidity, and has expanded greatly both in quantity and quality. Hence, while the discussion of libertarianism in this book has been strengthened and updated throughout, the greatest change is in our treatment of the libertarian movement.

On election day, 1978, Libertarian party candidates for congressional, state, and local offices amassed 1.25 million votes throughout the country. Richard Randolph was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives on the LP ticket, and Edward Clark piled up 377,960 votes for governor of California. After the LP presidential ticket gained 174,000 votes in 32 states in 1976, the sober Congressional Quarterly was moved to classify the fledgling Libertarian party as the third major political party in America.

Thus, America, above all countries, was born in an explicitly libertarian revolution, a revolution against empire; against taxation, trade monopoly, and regulation; and against militarism and executive power. The revolution resulted in governments unprecedented in restrictions placed on their power.

We can now see that the rapid growth of the libertarian movement and the Libertarian party in the 1970s is firmly rooted in what Bernard Bailyn called this powerful “permanent legacy” of the American Revolution. But if this legacy is so vital to the American tradition, what went wrong? Why the need now for a new libertarian movement to arise to reclaim the American dream?