Shielding the Market from the Masses: The Origins of Libertarian Anti-environmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

For decades, a large and influential group of free-market conservative think tanks has been pushing climate change scepticism, thereby contributing to a weakening of US commitment to environmental protection. What unite organizations such as the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute is a libertarian commitment to free markets and low taxes, as well as a critique of ‘big government’. These positions form the ideological bedrock of free-market think tanks’ efforts to halt climate action. But what are the historical roots of anti-environmentalism in libertarian thought? In which contexts did it emerge, who gave voice to it, and what are the themes, arguments and beliefs underpinning it? This essay locates the roots of modern libertarian anti-environmentalism in the strong reactions of libertarian figureheads, such as Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, to the rise of environmentalism as a mass social movement and as a new area of government policy in the 1960s and 1970s. It shows how Rand and Rothbard perceived environmentalism as a collectivist leftist attempt to dismantle the American system of free enterprise capitalism and the whole of modern civilization in the name of environmental protection. In a fierce defence of modern industrial capitalism, Rand and