Paleolibertarianism

Paleolibertarianism (also known as the "Paleo strategy") is a right-libertarian political activism strategy aimed at uniting libertarians and paleoconservatives. It was developed by American anarcho-capitalist theorists Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell in the American political context after the end of the Cold War. From 1989 to 1995, they sought to communicate libertarian opposition to government intervention through messages accessible to the working class and middle class of the time. They combined libertarian free market views with the cultural conservatism of paleoconservatism, while also opposing protectionism. The strategy also embraced the paleoconservative reverence for tradition and religion. This approach, usually identified as right-wing populism, was intended to radicalize citizens against the state. The name they chose for this style of activism evoked the roots of modern libertarianism, hence the prefix paleo. That founding movement was American classical liberalism, which shared the anti-war and anti-New Deal sentiments of the Old Right in the first half of the 20th century. Paleolibertarianism is commonly classified by political scientists and commentators as a right-wing form of libertarianism due to its combination of libertarian economic views with cultural conservatism.

The paleolibertarian strategy was expected to shift the libertarian movement away from the influence of public policy-oriented libertarian organizations based in Washington, D.C. (which were accused of failing to communicate the full libertarian message and of adopting Beltway political and cultural values to gain acceptance among the political elite) and to simultaneously shift American right-wing politics away from the neoconservative movement and its promotion of hawkish or interventionist foreign policy, usually characterized as imperialist by libertarian thinkers.