Why Are Latter-day Saints So Libertarian?

I host classical liberal speakers on BYU’s campus—economists, legal scholars, policy analysts—who make the case for limited government and free markets. Several have told me, with genuine surprise, that our students are unusually receptive to ideas that typically meet resistance elsewhere. One recent visitor asked me directly: “Why are Latter-day Saints so comfortable with libertarian arguments?” It’s a fair question. And the answer is more interesting than you might think. Before going further, an important caveat: only 45% of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live in the United States. Our members live all around the world and hold a wide variety of political beliefs. But when speakers visit BYU, they’re encountering a specific subset—American Latter-day Saints—and within that population, some distinctive patterns emerge. The numbers tell part of the story. According to Pew Research’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study, 70% of American Latter-day Saints identify

I host classical liberal speakers on BYU’s campus—economists, legal scholars, policy analysts—who make the case for limited government and free markets. Several have told me, with genuine surprise, that our students are unusually receptive to ideas that typically meet resistance elsewhere. One recent visitor asked me directly: “Why are Latter-day Saints so comfortable with libertarian arguments?” It’s a fair question. And the answer is more interesting than you might think. Before going further, an important caveat: only 45% of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live in