This episode, Roderick and I discuss his essay “The Justice and Prudence of War: Toward a Libertarian Analysis.” Written during the Iraq War, but unfortunately timelier than ever, this essay navigates the messy conceptual battlefield of wartime ethics and avoids the pitfalls of both purely nonviolent pacifism on the one hand and violent aggression on the other. Why must the justified use of force satisfy conditions not only of defensiveness but proportionality? Should force ever be used against innocents? What about innocent threats? Innocent shields? These are some of the most challenging questions, not just for libertarianism, but any moral-political theory, and getting them right is literally a matter of life or death. It’s my hope that this discussion brings more clarity to your thinking on the most gravely important issue facing us. 

The Justice and Prudence of War: Toward a Libertarian Analysis https://mises.org/mises-daily/justice-and-prudence-war-toward-libertarian-analysis 

The Irrelevance of Responsibility https://praxeology.net/RTL-irrelevance.pdf 

Abortion, Abandonment, and Positive Rights https://praxeology.net/RTL-Abortion.htm 

Comment on Stephen Kershnar’s “The Moral Case for a Policy of Assassination” https://praxeology.net/kershnar-assassin.htm

On this episode of The Long Library, Cory Massimino interviews Roderick Long about his essay “They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism" (link: https://c4ss.org/content/15126).

Written over ten years ago about arguments written over one hundred years ago, this essay is as timely as ever here in 2025. Roderick shows that 19th-century libertarians such as Gustave de Molinari, Frédéric Bastiat, Voltairine de Cleyre, Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and others warned against the very tendencies — “militarism, corporatism, regimentation, nationalist chauvinism, plutocracy in populist guise, the call for ‘strong leaders’ and ‘national greatness,’ the glorification of conflict over commerce and of brute force over intellect” — that would decades later culminate in fascism. At a time when many libertarians range from tepid to excited about incipient fascism, it’s important to remember that wasn’t always the case, that there was a time when libertarians consistently opposed these evils and their catastrophic combination, that there was a time when libertarians were libertarians. These 19th-century anti-fascists have much to teach us about 21st-century fascism and, as Roderick reminds us, “their fallen banner is ours to pick up.”

Today I talk with Roderick about his 2013 blog post “Eudaimonism and Non-Aggression,” one of many early 2010s blog posts across the libertarian ecosystem debating the pros and cons of the non-aggression principle, or NAP. As usual, Roderick thinks both sides make some good points, but ultimately lands on the side of the NAP. Though in order to avoid the common pitfalls of the NAP, such as downgrading it to a mere rule of thumb or applying it in a reductionist manner, Roderick counsels libertarians to turn to Ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in order to situate the NAP in the broader ethical outlook concerned with human flourishing known as eudaimonism. This was one of my first introductions to eudaimonism and still serves as a very useful entry point into these ancient ideas. I’ve sent this article to many libertarians looking for more robust and sophisticated ways of grounding libertarian ideas, and I hope you find my discussion with Roderick insightful.

“Eudaimonism and Non-Aggression": https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2013/04/eudaimonism-and-non-aggression/

C4SS Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c4ssdotorg

“Corporations versus the Market; or, Whip Conflation Now” was the lead essay of Cato Unbound’s 2008 discussion “When Corporations Hate Markets” and later included in C4SS’s “Markets Not Capitalism.” The essay is one-half political economy, sketching out the basic ideas behind freed-market anti-capitalism, and one-half political psychology, exploring the various pitfalls leading virtually everyone, from libertarians to conservatives to socialists, to conflate freed markets with capitalism and thereby bolster the mutually reinforcing power of both capitalism on the one hand and statism on the other. The piece is ambitious in scope yet accessible to readers unfamiliar with freed-market anti-capitalist arguments (so almost everyone). It’s still one of my go-to pieces to share with people interested in these ideas and I hope you enjoy my discussion with Roderick about it.

“Corporations versus the Market; or, Whip Conflation Now”:  https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/11/10/roderick-t-long/corporations-versus-market-or-whip-conflation-now/

C4SS Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c4ssdotorg 

In our first episode I talk to Roderick about his 2004 monograph “Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections.”  This is one of the first things I had ever read by Roderick and greatly hastened my journey to anarchism. It remains one of the most concise, accessible, wide-ranging, and good faith introductions to libertarian anarchist arguments and I always include it among the zines when I table for C4SS at book fairs and conferences. It makes for a great entry point into not only libertarian anarchist thought but The Long Library itself. I hope you all enjoy our first stop on this exploration of the writings of Roderick Long.

"Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections": https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Libertarian%20Anarchism%20Responses%20to%20Ten%20Objections_2.pdf

Video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SIz7Zvc07PQ

Video version on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97544868