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The Libertarian Alliance
A Libertarian society cannot he brought about merely by intervening in the political cut-and-thrust or by a superficial advertising campaign. The roots of the state are buried in thousands of years of history and libertarians recognize the importance of a sustained assault on the foundations of statist ideology, whether it be conservative, fascist or socialist. The primary aim of the Libertarian Alliance is to build up an effectively organized body of committed and knowledgeable libertarian propagandists. The Libertarian Alliance produces pamphlets, leaflets and its website www.libertarian-alliance.org.uk. It also conducts discussions, debates and seminars. The Libertarian Alliance is a voluntary association. Our principles are:
HISTORICAL NOTE LET A THOUSAND
LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCES BLOOM! The Libertarian Alliance (LA) was founded in 1977 by Mark Brady, Judy Englander, David Ramsay Steele and Chris Tame, in Mark Brady’s flat in Woking. It is an alliance of minarchist and anarchist libertarians (classical liberals). It was not the continuation of any other organisation with a similar name, but you can trace its antecedents back to the Radical Libertarian Alliance (founded by Mark Brady, Pauline Russell and Chris Tame) in late 1971, which itself has some links to the Young Libertarians founded by David Myddelton in the late 1960s. The LA had, and has, no director or president or any kind of official leader. But it did have a chairman (David Ramsay Steele), a secretary (Chris Tame) and a treasurer (David Farrer). The LA logo was commissioned and paid for by Mark Brady from Anthony Bartlett in 1977, but he has always allowed the LA to use it. The principles of the LA (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/about.htm) were formulated by the founding members, and written out by David Ramsay Steele. When John Wood set up the Alternative Bookshop in 1978 it temporarily became the unofficial hub of LA activities. Since 1982, when a minority of the Executive Committee sought to take over the LA (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/FL-3-3-2.pdf; http://www.la-articles.org.uk/FL-3-3-3.pdf), there have been two groups calling themselves the LA. The minority faction continued to use the bookshop for a while.We regard any disputes in the past as now dead and buried. Of course we encourage people to join our LA. But we don’t mind in the least if people form their own libertarian groups, even calling themselves the LA and using our logo if they so wish. Whether they want to use our original LA’s somewhat anarchic structure or prefer something more hierarchical is entirely up to them. It is probably best if these are all autonomous groups, otherwise more wasteful disputes or splits are likely to occur (as this seems to be the normal pattern for ideological organisations). We would be grateful to know about such groups. We would be delighted to offer fraternal cooperation with them all, as long as they are advocating libertarian views. Let a thousand Libertarian Alliances bloom!
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HE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE is an
independent, non-party group, brought together
by a shared desire to work for a free society. The
Libertarian Alliance is pledged to fight statism in all its
forms, and to engage in long range propaganda for the
Libertarian alternative.
t is labour,
improvements
and discoveries
that confer the
greatest strength on a
people ... by these
alone and not by the
sword of the
conqueror can nations
in modern and all
future times hope to
rise to power and
grandeur 