Episodios

  • Joseph Hiam Levy: A Forgotten Radical for Liberty, with guest Matt Zwolinski

    Joseph Hiam Levy: A Forgotten Radical for Liberty, with guest Matt Zwolinski
    Aug 12 2025

    J.H. Levy was a prominent but now largely forgotten voice in the individualist intellectual circles of Victorian Britain, known for his passionate defense of self-ownership and voluntary social cooperation. Matt Zwolinski introduces listeners to Levy’s life, intellectual context, and the principles that drove his activism in organizations like the Personal Rights Association.


    This episode is also available to watch on Youtube.

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    28 m
  • Liberty With an Asterisk: Black Americans In the Revolution Era

    Liberty With an Asterisk: Black Americans In the Revolution Era
    Jul 3 2025
    In this podcast, we revisit the lives of Elizabeth Freeman, Lemuel Haynes, and James Forten, three Black Americans who lived through the contradictions of the Revolutionary era and helped expand its ideals. These three did not passively await emancipation but seized the rhetoric of liberty and used it to reshape law, religion, and civil society. Their stories illuminate the untold Black contribution to the founding vision of the American Republic.

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    21 m
  • The Father of Abolitionism: John Rankin (With Caleb Franz)

    The Father of Abolitionism: John Rankin (With Caleb Franz)
    Jun 19 2025
    An episode interviewing Caleb Franz covering the life of the abolitionist minister John Rankin. From his hilltop home in Ripley, Ohio, Rankin established a safe haven for enslaved people crossing the Ohio River. Over the course of his life, he became one of the most active conductors on the Underground Railroad, helping hundreds of enslaved people escape to freedom. Rankin was a powerful voice for individual liberty. His Letters on American Slavery, published in the 1820s, were among the earliest and most forceful arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery.

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    50 m
  • How Self-Interest Built Societies: Bernard Mandeville

    How Self-Interest Built Societies: Bernard Mandeville
    May 13 2025
    This episode explores the provocative work of Bernard Mandeville, who argued that everything from commerce to civilization itself emerged not from altruism, but from self-interest, vanity, and competition. In his poetic satire and philosophical essays, Mandeville laid the groundwork for understanding society as an evolving system shaped by passions, not perfection.

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    16 m
  • Shyamji Krishna Varma: A Spencerian Radical

    Shyamji Krishna Varma: A Spencerian Radical
    Apr 8 2025
    Drawing from Hebert Spencer, Shyamji Krishna Varma, an Indian revolutionary and journalist, challenged British colonial rule. From his rise as a Sanskrit scholar to his establishment of India House and the Indian Sociologist in London, his work laid the foundation for a transnational anti-colonial movement. His life is a testament to how classical liberalism and the fight for self-determination were deeply intertwined in the battle against empire.

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    27 m
  • Jeannette Rankin: The Peaceful Outlier

    Jeannette Rankin: The Peaceful Outlier
    Mar 4 2025
    Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, remains one of the most principled pacifists in American political history. She was a vocal opponent of US intervention in European affairs in World War I and was the lone vote against US entry into World War II. Rankin endured harsh criticism for her choice for the rest of her political career. Rankin’s lifelong advocacy for women’s suffrage, social reform, and nonviolence cemented her legacy as a politician guided by conscience rather than political expediency.

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    16 m
  • Olaudah Equiano: The Man Who Transformed the Abolitionist Movement

    Olaudah Equiano: The Man Who Transformed the Abolitionist Movement
    Feb 4 2025

    Born in west Africa and kidnapped into slavery at age eleven, Olaudah Equiano endured the horrors of the Middle Passage before being sold to British and American masters. As an enslaved seaman, he traveled the world, gaining skills and knowledge that would later shape his abolitionist message. After purchasing his freedom, Equiano settled in London, where he became a leading voice against slavery. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, defied racist assumptions, advocating for economic prosperity through free trade rather than human bondage. By blending personal testimony with political and economic arguments, Equiano helped redefine abolitionist thought, paving the way for the eventual end of the transatlantic slave trade.


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    21 m
  • Revisiting Frédéric Bastiat

    Revisiting Frédéric Bastiat
    Jan 14 2025
    From his critique of state-controlled education in “Baccalaureate and Socialism,” to his extensive correspondence with free-trade advocate Richard Cobden, to his independent political career in a tumultuous France, Bastiat’s insights are still applicable today. In this episode, we explore his lesser-known works and his reflections on freedom, self-ownership, and the dangers of state intervention.

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    20 m