KOL286 | Tom Woods Show: On Coronavirus, My Road to Libertarianism, and the Good and Bad in Ayn Rand

Is there some kind of unspoken rule among you guys that Molyneux can’t be mentioned? When Tom asks Stephan about the new cadre of libertarians, Molyneux was the first name that popped into my mind, and I’m sure many other listeners, yet he was never mentioned. He was the one who introduced me to anarcho-capitalism in 2009 (or at least helped convince me that it was practical and achievable) via some of his essays that were republished on the Freenet darknet (eg. his “gun in the room” essay). He might not have contributed as rigorous an analysis as the authors you chose to name instead, but they were nevertheless incredibly powerful and novel – specifically the idea of making the arguments personal (eg. the “against me argument” – that was never done before (by any of the major thinkers mentioned) – and that’s arguably the only way we’re going to win this fight. Ayn Rand and Ron Paul similarly didn’t contribute anything “academic”, but were incredibly influential. Molyneux was among the first, and is probably the most well-known, to carry the torch online via his massive Youtube reach.