"libertarian"

[tom1992]

Hi i wanted to know what does libertarian mean in the USA?

Because by what i have read it is kinda different than in my country - where i live libertarian tends to be on the left, but i have read comments by so called "libertarians", promoting free market-i was shocked when i first read it.

[Aspiring Humanist]

In the US the ron paul types have taken the word to mean a supporter of free markets and anti-government, everywhere else it means a leftwing anarchist (or minarchist)

[thesadmafioso]

For future reference, take any political construct used here in the states with a grain of salt when taking it in taking it in the international context. The political elites of our nation have created a very peculiar culture around our structure of politics, where red means conservative instead of leftist and where blue means liberal.

Oh, but what we consider to be liberal isn't really liberal but more a slightly lessened variation on conservative, which is also far more conservative here than in most other nations. We also never use the terms socialist, democratic socialist, social democracy, anarchist, or communist properly in mainstream media circles and we have sort of made up our own special definitions and criteria for them.

Much in this same sense, libertarian has been more or less hijacked by the far right as a term for a holier than thou crusader against all forces evil in the world. It also only exists in a very limited sense, where you can still oppose abortions or gay marriage and support action by the state to impose those positions while still being an ardent enemy of the government on other issues. The general rule of thumb is if the program helps people than it has to go, if it deals with the enforcement with conservative morality than it's perfectly acceptable.

[Sugarnotch]

Pretty much that. Libertarians' only common trend is deregulation. They are generally avidly anti-immigration and there's plenty that are anti-marriage equality and anti-choice. They fight for the right of paying workers unlivable wages and dumping industrial toxic effluence into your rivers.

[CAleftist]

American libertarianism is basically an ultra-idealistic capitalist ideology. They are very dogmatic in their views, convinced that "individual freedom" should be absolute in the economic sphere.

Of course, this is not only completely infeasible, it would further exacerbate class divides.

They really only exist as an extreme version of your standard right-wing capitalist ideology.

[syndicat]

there is a history to this. prior to the 1960s the word "libertarian" in the U.S. had a leftwing meaning similar to other countries. but in the U.S. there has always been a strong right wing liberal current who advocated liberalism in the 19th century sense of laissez faire capitalism, minimum government, free trade and so on.

beginning in the "Progressive Era" in the USA, many pro-capitalist liberals of the middle classes began advocating government regulation to respond to growing socialist influence in the working class, and because of the threats to small business from the big corporations. this eventually led to the word "liberal" changing its meaning in the USA, by the time of the New Deal in the 1930s. from that point on, "liberal" was used to mean advocacy of a welfare state, social wage, government protections against the worst excesses of capital etc. This change in the word "liberal" in the U.S. came about because there is no strong social-democratic tradition in the USA. The labor left was never strong enough to form an electoral labor or socialist party of any strength.

so, by the '60s the old fashioned right wing liberals of the old school who advocated laissez faire capitalism could no longer use the word "liberalism" for their viewpoint. that's when some of them got the idea to use the word "libertarian" for their viewpoint. at that time anarchism and libertarian left viewpoints were almost non-existent in the U.S., so these rightwing liberals were able to get away with this theft of the word "libertarian."

another way of looking at it is that there is a fundamental clash over what "freedom" means. the right wing liberals who call themselves "libertarian" in the U.S. are for the freedom of the capitalists to do what they want with their businesses & property. left wing libertarians on the other hand are socialists who are concerned with the liberty of the working class & oppressed.

that's how there came to be two different meanings for "libertarian"