Intellectual lineage

Your politics didn't come from nowhere.

Every archetype is a conversation with the arguments, schools, and people that came before it. This is the map of how those ideas travel—not a reading list, and never an endorsement.

Explore the map Find my lineage
A single threadExample lineage
ThinkersCharles de Montesquieu1689–1755Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859
TraditionLiberal Political Thought
Archetype
ClassicalLiberal

Arguments become schools. Schools leave descendants.

How a lineage works

Every position has an intellectual ancestry.

Thinkers shape schools of thought; those schools leave recognizable descendants in contemporary politics. Each view below is a curated sample of the strongest relationships—not a claim of agreement.

Anarcho-Capitalist
Classical LiberalismIndividualist AnarchismPolitical EconomyJohn Locke1632–1704Robert Nozick1938–2002Max Stirner1806–1856Benjamin TuckerHerbert Spencer1820–1903

Read from the source: thinkers shape traditions, and traditions converge into an archetype.

Anarcho-Capitalist
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Associations describe intellectual influence or affinity. They do not imply endorsement by the thinker—or of the thinker.

The map at a glance

Built from the same curated relationship data used across every archetype and Archetype Guide.

  • 735thinkers
  • 92traditions
  • 32archetype lineages
  • Humaneditorial curation
From the archive

Six voices in a much larger conversation.

See all thinkers
01Hannah Arendt1906–1975Hannah Arendt was a German-American political theorist who refused every ideological camp, rebuilding political thought from the lived experience of totalitarianismRuns throughRepublicanism02Friedrich Hayek1899–1992Friedrich Hayek was the Austrian-British classical liberal economist who won the Nobel Prize for showing how dispersed knowledge makes markets work and central planning failRuns throughMultiple traditions03Karl Marx1818–1883Karl Marx was the German philosopher and economist whose critique of capitalism reshaped the political imagination of the modern worldRuns throughMarxism04John Locke1632–1704John Locke was the founding philosopher of modern liberalism, grounding political legitimacy in consent, natural rights, and the protection of propertyRuns throughClassical Liberalism05bell hooks1952–2021bell hooks was an American writer and feminist theorist who fused Black feminism, class critique, and a politics of love into a searching challenge to interlocking systems of domination.Runs throughCritical Theory06Thomas Sowell1930–Thomas Sowell is a free-market conservative economist whose empirical case for markets and against government intervention reshaped American debates over race, culture, and social policyRuns throughChicago School Economics
Enter the archive

Follow a person, or follow an idea.

Both routes lead through the same map. Choose the doorway that matches how you think.

735Explore the thinkersFigures across eight families and every role.92Explore the traditionsSchools of thought from ancient philosophy to the present.