In a new addition to the Mises Institute's online media library today, part of The Libertarian Tradition podcast series, Jeff Riggenbach discusses libertarian science fiction.
Riggenbach discusses the role of science fiction in keeping individualism alive, the phenomenon of all the best known libertarian novels being science fiction novels, Eric S. Raymond's “A Political History of SF” in which Raymond argues that science fiction has a natural affinity with libertarianism, and the importance of dramatizing our values (pdf).
Reviewed in some detail are A.E. van Vogt's novel The Weapon Shops of Isher and Eric Frank Russell's novel The Great Explosion.
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Konrad Graf February 2, 2011 @ 2:30 am | Link
This is a great podcast. It fleshes out, with help from “The Political History of SF,” why there might be an inherent synergy between authoritarianism and science-hatred on the one hand and libertarianism and embrace of change agents such as science (and science fiction) on the other. The Great Explosion is also presented as a particularly worthy but neglected classic in need of rescue from obscurity.
Stephan Kinsella February 1, 2012 @ 10:18 am | Link
hmm, I don’t see it on the Mises Media podcast feed. I wonder if they put it on some other feed…
Geoffrey Allan Plauché February 1, 2012 @ 10:27 am | Link
I don’t know. It’s been a while since I posted these Libertarian Tradition podcasts. The links work! That’s enough for me.