Book Club: Herbert Spencer's the Right to Ignore the State and Hayek’s Why I Am Not a Conservative

Both texts are arguments against submission: against the idea that we must accept the dictates of authority, the habits of conformity, or the rule of the majority as the final word on justice.

This month, our book club read Hebert Spencer's The Right to Ignore the State (1851) and Hayek’s Why I am Not a Conservative (1960). These two essays, written a century apart, confront us with the same question: Do we believe in freedom enough to trust others with it?

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This month, the Fighting for a Free Future Book Club brought together two short but radical essays that cut to the heart of what it means to live freely:

Herbert Spencer’s The Right to Ignore the State (1851) and F. A. Hayek’s Why I Am Not a Conservative (1960).

Both are arguments against submission: against the idea that we must accept the dictates of authority, the habits of conformity, or the rule of the majority as the final word on justice. Yet they come from very different angles. Spencer defends the moral right of the individual to withdraw entirely from the state’s authority, while Hayek defends the moral necessity of principles that limit all authority, even that of one’s own political tribe. My speaking notes introducing the two texts at the Book Club meeting are below.

Introductory note

Herbert Spencer: The Right to Ignore the State

Spencer’s essay is a daring statement of individual sovereignty.