On this episode of The Long Library, I interview Roderick Long about his essay “They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism.”
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.”
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