Roy Alan Childs Jr.
Childs in the 1980s
Born	(1949-01-04)January 4, 1949 Buffalo, New York, United States
Died	May 22, 1992(1992-05-22) (aged 43) Miami, Florida
Occupation	Essayist, editor
Language	English
Period	1967–1992
Subject	Politics

Roy Alan Childs Jr.^[1] (January 4, 1949 – May 22, 1992) was anAmerican libertarian essayist and critic. Similar toKarl Hess and likeSamuel Edward Konkin III, Childs saw himself asleft-libertarian.^[2]

Childs edited the magazineLibertarian Review from 1977 until it folded in 1981. He was also a research fellow and later a policy analyst with theCato Institute from 1982 to 1984. Childs's most visible public role was as lead book reviewer forLaissez Faire Books in which he produced a number of memorable short essays. He held this position from 1984 until his death.

Childs counted among his early influencesAyn Rand,Ludwig von Mises,Rose Wilder Lane andRobert LeFevre.

In his essay "An Open Letter to Ayn Rand", Childs rejectedObjectivism as being true libertarianism, asserting that the establishment of government is in violation ofself-ownership and thenon-aggression principle.^[3] In the 1960s, Childs endorsedanarcho-capitalism, but he later expressed doubts aboutanarchism.^[4] In the 1960s,Ayn Rand wrote an essay entitled "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business". Childs responded with an essay entitled "Big Business and the Rise of AmericanStatism", writing: "To a large degree it has been and remains big businessmen who are the fountainheads of American statism".^[5] In 1982, Childs gave a lecture at theLibertarian Party of New York convention on the origins and consequences ofRonald Reagan's foreign policy and stated his opposition to aninterventionist foreign policy.^[6]

Childs was born inBuffalo, New York, on January 4, 1949.^[7] After graduating from high school, he enrolled at theState University of New York at Buffalo with the intention of eventually becoming a college professor. While there, he was offered a full scholarship to attendRampart College inLarkspur, Colorado, an unaccredited college established byRobert LeFevre to educate students on libertarian views. However, LeFevre's project collapsed soon after Childs arrived and by the fall of 1968 was back at SUNY Buffalo.^[8]

For many years, Childs endured difficulties due toobesity. In later years when he lived inNew York City, he sometimes weighed over 400 pounds and rarely left his apartment. Childs went to thePritikin Center in Miami, Florida to take part in a weight loss program. While there, he fell and was taken to a local hospital, where he died on May 22, 1992, at the age of 43.^[9][10]

After his death, libertarian scholarTom G. Palmer wrote: "Roy Childs was one of the finer members of a generation of radical thinkers who worked successfully to revive the tradition of classical liberalism [...] and who dared to launch a frontal challenge to the twentieth-century welfare state. [...] His writings exercised a powerful influence on a generation of young classical liberal thinkers".^[11]

The Cato Institute named its in-house library which contained many volumes from his collection after Childs. His personal papers are in an archive atStanford University.^[12] The Center for Independent Thought offers a Roy A. Childs Jr. Fund for Independent Scholars which supports non-academicclassical liberal writers.^[13]

Childs wrote essays and book reviews which were collected posthumously into anthologies:

• Taylor, Joan Kennedy, ed. (1994).Liberty Against Power. San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes.ISBN 0-930073-13-4.OCLC 34131336. A paperback collection which includes an introduction byThomas Szasz and a biographical sketch by Taylor.
• Childs, Roy A. Jr. (2012).Anarchism & Justice. Washington, D.C.: Libertarianism.org Press.ISBN 978-1-938048-73-9. An e-book collection with an introduction byGeorge H. Smith.

• Childs, Roy A. Jr. (1994).Taylor, Joan Kennedy (ed.).Liberty Against Power. San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes.ISBN 0-930073-13-4.OCLC 34131336.
• Mariotti, Steve (July 2, 2013)."As DOMA Collapses, I Remember Libertarian Gay Activist Roy Childs".Huffington Post. RetrievedNovember 29, 2013.
• Riggenbach, Jeff (January 21, 2011)."The Story of Roy A. Childs Jr. (1949–1992)".Mises Daily.Ludwig von Mises Institute.
• Taylor, Joan Kennedy (2008)."Childs, Roy A. (1949–1992)". InHamowy, Ronald (ed.).The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage;Cato Institute. pp. 61–62.doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n40.ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4.LCCN 2008009151.OCLC 750831024.

Wikiquote has quotations related toRoy Childs.

• An Open Letter to Ayn Rand at theWayback Machine (archived October 12, 2012), written by Roy Childs.
• Biography at theWayback Machine (archived April 23, 2010)
• Roy Childs papers

• 1949 births
• 1992 deaths
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American essayists
• American critics
• American magazine editors
• American male non-fiction writers
• American political writers
• American gay writers
• Libertarian theorists
• American male essayists
• New York (state) Libertarians
• Writers from Buffalo, New York
• 20th-century American LGBTQ people

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