Surveys of libertarian-leaning individuals in America show that the intellectual champions they venerate the most are Thomas Jefferson and Ayn Rand. The author of the Declaration of Independence is an inspiring source for individuals longing for liberty all around the world, since he was a devotee of individual rights, freedom of choice, limited government, and, above all, the natural origin, and thus the inalienable character, of a personal right to property.
However, such libertarian-leaning individuals might be surprised to learn that, in academic circles, Jefferson is depicted as a proto-socialist, the advocate of simple majority rule, and a powerful enemy of the wicked “possessive individualism” that permeated the revolutionary period and the early republic.
