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by Joan Taylor Kennedy (Editor), Roy A. Childs (With)
One of the most influential figures in the libertarian movement of the 1970s and 1980s is someone you may not have heard of, Roy A. Childs Jr., who tragically died in 1992 at the age of 43. During his short life, Childs, a brilliant autodidact, wrote and lectured extensively on individual liberty and free markets, and the dangers of state power and foreign intervention. He served as editor of Libertarian Review from 1977 to 1981, perhaps the high point of his career, and was a wildly popular public speaker. At the 1979 Libertarian Party convention he delivered the keynote address to repeated standing ovations. Childs boomed, "We mean to change the course of history. . . . We will not bend before the power of the state!" Childs's warm personality and enthusiasm were infectious, and he served as a mentor to many future luminaries in the libertarian movement.
This new edition of Liberty Against Power presents some of the best of Childs's essays, letters, and criticism written between 1967 and 1989, as well as a lengthy interview conducted shortly before his death. In fluid prose, they explain the libertarian approach to some of the major issues of the last half of the 20th century, including Vietnam and conscription, corporate statism, objectivism, anarchism, education, property rights, civil rights, the drug war, the principle of non-aggression, price controls, protectionism, and economic nationalism. Childs's prophetic essay, "Politics: The New Authoritarians," written in 1982, uncannily explains the rise of populism and support for a powerful executive among the American Right today. The closing essay is a heartfelt tribute to the Russian immigrant Ayn Rand and her incalculable influence on the libertarian movement; we must combine the best in us, wrote Childs, for "we really do have a world to win, you know."
In the brief 27 years of his career, Childs either participated in events held by or wrote for the Cato Institute (where he worked from 1982 to 1984), the Libertarian Scholars Conference, the Libertarian Party, the Society for Individual Liberty, Rampart College, Libertarian Review, Reason, The Individualist, and Laissez Faire Books (where he worked from 1984 to his death). Childs knew and often collaborated with libertarian scholars such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, Thomas Szasz, Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, Leonard Read, David Boaz, and Joan Kennedy Taylor. Liberty Against Power ensures Childs' intellectual legacy and is indispensable for students and academics learning about libertarianism and its growing appeal.
