Let’s take a look at overseas libertarianism, specifically in Europe. This essay will only explore radical right-libertarian movements, although the European continent has many strains of right-liberal and left-libertarian thought extant throughout it. The Liberal and Radical parties of continental Europe had traditionally been far more laissez faire prior to the turn of the 19th century, with men like Frederick Bastiat and Herbert Spencer being prominent members. Even in Spencer’s time he feared a turn to statism from “liberals”, writing his essay “The New Toryism” in 1885. This broadly followed the trend of the decline of liberalism we see in the United States, and like the United States it was only after World War II that Europe also saw a rebirth of radical liberalism in the tradition of Bastiat.

The first and oldest hardcore libertarian party we will look at is the Progress Party in Denmark. Ran by eccentric firebrand Mogens Gilstrup, the party supported the complete abolition of the income tax and other heavy cuts to social spending. Their 1973 breakout success in the Danish elections enthralled Murray Rothbard, who wrote an article “Danish Delight” praising the party and Mogens Gilstrup personally. Gilstrup believed in an ideal system of voluntary taxation, a common minarchist theory, and he was personally persecuted by the state for tax resistance. During the 80s the party started turning to opposing muslim immigration and it became the base of the right-populist party the New Right. A small right-libertarian party still exists in Denmark, Liberal Alliance, which maintains a small presence in Danish parliament.

The Czech Republic is known as a liberal country in general, but it was not until 2014 that a right-libertarian party named Svobodni [Freedomites] was able to break out onto the national stage, winning a European Parliament seat for their leader Petr Mach. The Freedomites were unable to replicate such a success again in 2019, but their party has spawned a much more interesting project for promoting liberty: The micro-nation of Liberland. Party member and anarcho-capitalist Vit Jedlicka traveled to an unclaimed parcel of land between Serbia and Croatia in 2015 and declared it a sovereign country based on the principles of property rights and human freedom. The Croatian state has attempted to shut down any attempt to develop or gather in Liberland, but luckily thanks to the murky legal status of the land, it cannot prosecute its victims effectively. The unrecognized state of Somaliland has engaged with mutual cooperation talks with Liberland in 2017. We may cover both of these states in a future Springtime of Nations video at greater length. 

The Georgian party Girichi is a great example of libertarian promotion through activism. The party, founded in 2015 by minarchists and anarchists, have done propaganda of the deed such as planting marijuana plants on state property to protest drug war policies, forming a “shmaxi” service as a loophole against laws that criminalize Uber type non licensed drivers, and forming a quasi religion to get young men proper paperwork to avoid military conscription as “conscientious objectors” and run a television news outlet which refuses to pay taxes as protest of the Georgian government annulling the debt of their cronies. The party was able to get about 3% of the vote and representation in the 2020 election, although they along with other opposition parties have refused to take their seats as a protest against political corruption in Georgia.

The British isles are usually seen as the birthplace of what became modern classical liberalism, with John Locke, Lord Byron, Richard Cobden and Herbert Spencer hailing from there. However the liberal spirit of the 19th century gave way to the statist spirit of the 20th, with the Liberal party shifting from Gladstonian Laissez faire to passing the 1910 “People’s Budget” which created the modern welfare state. Since then, right-libertarianism has been rather dormant in the UK, with the exception of the small but fiercely outspoken Libertarian Alliance founded by Chris Tame in 1982 and headed by Sean Gabb from 2006 until it’s reformation in 2017 as Mises UK. One notable libertarian in the UK that made waves was the controversial figure of Godfrey Bloom, a UKIP member of European Parliament. In 2013 Mr. Bloom cited “the great political philosopher Murray Rothbard, who said that the State is an institution of theft writ large…the message is getting home to the people of the European Union. You’re going to find that euroskeptics are coming back in June [2014] in ever greater numbers — in ever greater numbers. And I can tell you worse, as the people get your number, it won’t be long before they storm this chamber and they hang you, and they’ll be right.”

A similar character to Godfrey Bloom, who also tended to get himself into hot water with controversial statements, is Polish politician Janusz Korwin-Mikke. A veteran of the polish underground democratic movement before the collapse of the communist regime, Korwin-Mikke gained public notoriety in Poland by attacking democracy on liberal grounds. “Democracy means that if this man, you, and I will be trapped on an island, we having a majority of votes will decide that you have to sleep with us. That’s the Democracy. And with 2/3 votes we can even put that in the constitution.” He advocates for a libertarian society that also includes a monarchy on Hoppean lines. Having been elected an MEP in 2014, he later became a parliament member again (after serving for a time in the early 90s) after the 2019 election. His current party is Coalition for the Renewal of the Republic – Liberty and Hope aka KORWiN after himself, and is allied with the populist right Confederation electoral alliance.

In all of these countries, libertarian movements have managed to push against their rather collectivist societies and have even  gained political representation. In America, we have significant barriers to entry for political office, but in other ways we have less excuses. If a small core of dedicated Georgians can effectively use propaganda of the deed in their small third world country, American libertarians with many times the resources and historical institutions should be able to do much more. We need charismatic leaders, like Mogens Gilstrup, but we also need hard working libertarian believers who can face the odds and spread our message to the populace. To our brothers in Europe and across the world, we salute you!