Roy A. Childs, Jr.

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

Roy Alan Childs, Jr. (January 4, 1949 – May 22, 1992) was an American libertarian essayist and critic.

Childs counted among his early influences Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Rose Wilder Lane, and Robert LeFevre.

In his essay, "An Open Letter to Ayn Rand," Childs rejected Objectivism as being true libertarianism, asserting that the establishment of government is in violation of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. In the 1960s, Childs endorsed anarcho-capitalism, but later expressed doubts about anarchism. 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 American Statism." He wrote, "To a large degree it has been and remains big businessmen who are the fountainheads of American statism." Childs edited the magazine Libertarian Review from 1977 until it folded in 1981. He was also a research fellow and later a policy analyst with the Cato Institute from 1982 to 1984. Perhaps Childs's most visible public role was as lead book reviewer for Laissez Faire Books, in which position he produced a number of memorable short essays. He held this position from 1984 until his death.

Childs was born in Buffalo, New York on January 4, 1949. After graduating high school, he enrolled at the State University of New York at Buffalo, with the intention of eventually becoming a college professor. While there, he was offered a full scholarship to attend Rampart College in Larkspur, Colorado, an unaccredited college established by Robert LeFevre to educate students on libertarian views. However, LeFevre's project collapsed soon after Childs arrived, and by the fall of 1968 he was back at SUNY Buffalo.