Rummel started out as a socialist, but he later became an anti-communist, a libertarian and an advocate of economic liberalism, writing about the "miracle of liberty and peace." Apart from being an outspoken critic of communism and Communist regimes, Rummel criticized right-wing dictatorships and the democides that occurred under colonialism, also in the hundreds of millions. Rummel was a strong supporter of spreading liberal democracy, although he did not support invading another country solely to replace a dictatorship. Rummel argued that the more libertarian a state is, the less its foreign violence would be.