Michael Oliver: Rothbard vs. Rand—Can Anarcho-Capitalism and Objectivism Be Reconciled?

This weekend Jeff Deist welcomes Michael Oliver, and if you like debating Rothbard vs. Rand — or anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government — you’ll really enjoy our show. Michael witnessed the beginning of the modern anarcho-capitalism movement, meeting Rothbard in the early 1970s and writing a graduate thesis based on Murray’s provocative descriptive term for a libertarian society.

That thesis became a book entitled The New Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism. But Oliver was also a dedicated Objectivist, and thus his book attempted to reconcile Rothbardian thought with the work of Ayn Rand — even in presumably thorny areas like natural law, private defense, and pure anarchism. The results are fascinating and provocative.