Libertarian Literary and Media Criticism: Essays in Memory of Paul A. Cantor
Edited by Jo Ann Cavallo
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025
ISBN: 978-3031810015

It is a rare thing these days to encounter a tenured academic who is also a committed libertarian. Rarer still is one who manages to engage seriously with culture—high and low—without giving in to the deadening consensus of modern academia. Paul Cantor was such a man. That he is no longer with us is a cause for sadness. But that he was able, for so many years, to articulate a thoughtful and robustly libertarian view of culture from within the academy is something to celebrate.

Cantor’s contribution to libertarian thought was not primarily in economics. Unlike so many who approach liberty from the perspective of tax policy or regulation, his work engaged with culture. His interests lay in literature, television, aesthetics, and the political implications of narrative. But he brought with him a deep understanding of Austrian economics, shaped by personal study and by his time attending Ludwig von Mises’s New York seminar at the precocious age of sixteen. As Cantor once put it, “it is possible to talk about literature and still make economic sense” (Cantor 1994, p. 5).

This is a long books, so I will focus on one chapter, “First Principles on the Final Frontier.” I find this most relevant to my own interests, and therefore most conducive to providing a fast review. But this chapter alone illustrates just how fruitful Cantor’s conviction was that you can talk about the arts and still make economic sense.

McCaffrey and Dorobat explore how modern science fiction television—specifically Star Trek, Firefly, The Expanse, Andor, and Battlestar Galactica—dramatises core principles of Austrian economics. Scarcity, division of labour, black markets, protectionism, and bureaucratic failure are all given their due. It is a kind of applied praxeology through narrative: not a treatise, but a demonstration.

A standout section is the critique of Star Trek’s post-scarcity conceit. The authors explain how The Next Generation tries to eliminate scarcity through ideological enlightenment and technological miracles—most notably, the replicator. Yet even within the internal logic of the show, scarcity remains. Energy must still be allocated. Not all items can be replicated. And human time, knowledge, and skill remain stubbornly finite. As they write, “replicators cannot produce human ingenuity or services, which are also scarce… They also cannot produce space itself” (p. 224). That so much modern fiction rests on ignoring scarcity tells us something uncomfortable about the economic literacy of our culture.

If Star Trek retreats from economic realism, Battlestar Galactica and The Expanse lean into it. The authors praise the former for portraying scarcity “as humanity’s battle,” forcing characters to ration, specialise, and barter. In The Expanse, the interplanetary economy dramatizes the failure of protectionism and the benefits of comparative advantage. McCaffrey and Dorobat’s discussion of black markets is particularly insightful. One character in Battlestar Galactica is quoted as saying: “Without us, people would have nowhere to turn. The fleet would tear itself apart” (p. 229). Far from being merely criminal, these markets serve a stabilising role, supplying goods where official channels fail.

The discussion of interplanetary bureaucracies—The Expanse’s United Nations, Firefly’s Alliance, and Andor’s Galactic Empire—is a brilliant satire in its own right. Drawing on Mises’s critique of global governance, the authors argue that these entities inevitably descend into sclerosis, cronyism, or tyranny. Andor’s bureaucracy, run by “middle management careerists,” is compared to Max Weber’s worst nightmares. The real danger isn’t Darth Vader—it’s the HR department of the Empire.

Throughout the chapter, Cantor’s intellectual presence is unmistakable. His insights into the Western genre’s moral ambiguity, its tension between law and liberty, and its transformation into science fiction are given generous attention. Cantor once noted that the archetypal hero is an elite of “uncommon and highly cultivated nature… aristocrats serving democratic ends” (Cantor 2012, p. 65). That idea, applied to Captain Picard, Commander Adama, or even the conflicted James Holden of The Expanse, helps us understand why these stories matter.

Perhaps the most moving passage comes at the end, when the authors recall how they first encountered Cantor’s work—through his 2006 lectures on “Commerce and Culture” at the Mises Institute. They describe it as a “truly path-breaking account of the relationship between markets and art… [that] would no doubt have thrilled Mises just as they have thrilled us” (p. 240).

This chapter succeeds not only as a scholarly piece of cultural analysis but as a rare example of libertarian thought engaging seriously and sympathetically with contemporary art. It is tempting to lament how few public intellectuals today can combine literary criticism with economic rigour. But perhaps it is better to be grateful that Paul Cantor did so, and to be inspired by his example.