Can socialists be libertarian?

[Arathian]

Hello gentlemen. I have a question for you which I am sure you will be delighted to discuss. My question, as the title would suggest is: Can socialists be libertarian?

Now, let's get a hypothetical situation where a country's central authority collapses and workers get power. They say "yeah, fuck that capitalism stuff, lets collectivize". They remove any form of wage, collectivize and share work blah blah blah.

Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done? If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian. It is highly authoritarian since the "collective", in effect, acts like the state.

If you say "well, ok, not cool but you can keep your stuff" then the system just got individual ownership. That means that the system, by definition, will be anarcho-individualist rather than anarcho-socialist/communist since individuals can own wealth and collectivization is a choice rather than a forceful demand.

And please, don't tell me "nobody will choose to keep private ownership in my dream society". You know that this is false. Greedy people will exist everywhere and will never give up their wealth, no matter how much 'education' or social pressure.

[Art Vandelay]

There are indeed socialists who are libertarian, so one of them can answer your question; but, as for myself, I'm proudly authoritarian. :D

[Let's Get Free]

Now, let's get a hypothetical situation where a country's central authority collapses and workers get power. They say "yeah, fuck that capitalism stuff, lets collectivize". They remove any form of wage, collectivize and share work blah blah blah.

Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done? If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian. It is highly authoritarian since the "collective", in effect, acts like the state.

Well, first of all, socialists make a distinction between personal property and private property. Socialists do not want to take away your house, car, personal belongings, etc. That is personal property. Private property is a social relationship, and has its basis in the fact that the means of production in the capitalist system are owned by one small segment of the population and not by the rest. Thus, although the institution of private ownership of capital appears in bourgeois society as an impersonal power that controls the relationship between worker and owner, in fact it is the idealized expression of the capitalist's dominant social position over the workers. So by one small segment of the population having control of the means of production, it puts the working class in an oppressed position.



If you say "well, ok, not cool but you can keep your stuff" then the system just got individual ownership. That means that the system, by definition, will be anarcho-individualist rather than anarcho-socialist/communist since individuals can own wealth and collectivization is a choice rather than a forceful demand.

And please, don't tell me "nobody will choose to keep private ownership in my dream society". You know that this is false. Greedy people will exist everywhere and will never give up their wealth, no matter how much 'education' or social pressure.

In revolutionary Spain, the workers and peasants took over the land and factories, the agricultural day laborers decided to continue cultivating the soil on their own. They associated together in "collectives" quite spontaneously. In Catalonia a regional congress of peasants was called together by the CNT and agreed to the collectivization of land under trade union management and control. Large estates and the property of fascists were socialized, while small landowners had a free choice between individual property and collective property.

[Rational Radical]

All socialists are authoritarian in regards to tearing down the current existing social order and replacing it , however what separates us libertarian socialists from what we call authoritarian is forms of organization and attitudes toward the state. Also, we don't aim to take your "wealth" but a definite goal of ours is to collectivize all of the means of production,thus abolishing classes. Under capitalism,liberty is a false concept since the boss or manager represents unjustified and illegitimate authority and a strong state,an attribute of capitalism,is used to protect property rights and have directly aided the capitalist repression of workers movements .

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done?
The very defining factor of wage labor is just that - the value workers create being taken from them, through being paid only a fraction of what they've produced. Capitalism is inherently authoritarian.

[The Jay]

Being a libertarian does not mean that you agree with the Non-Aggression Principle, which is what you are implying. You may wish to research the origin of the word in question: libertarian. The word was originally used to describe socialists.

[Questionable]

Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done? If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian. It is highly authoritarian since the "collective", in effect, acts like the state.

A lot of people seem to be apologizing for this but I have no problem with this situation. Your last part isn't a flaw of socialism, it is exactly what the proletariat plans to do; use state power to assert its new rule. We don't care about individuals, we care about tearing down an economic and social system that cannot help but result in exploitation.

Besides, the situation is flawed because the wealth this person owns is produced by surplus-labor from the working class, and if the extraction of surplus-labor is removed, there's really not much else this person can do. They can live somewhere with their wealth but without the capitalist system it will be static. It's like imagining a guildmaster who refuses to give up his status during the bourgeois revolution. He'll just be a cog without a machine.

[Red Commissar]

You may wish to research the origin of the word in question: libertarian. The word was originally used to describe socialists.

Yeah, that is true though it described those from the Anarchist end of things more.

Really for the longest time "libertarian" was associated with this. Somewhere along the way the American libertarian political viewpoint came to be associated with a revival of classical liberalism, confused conservatives, and randroids. I guess at some point this went international.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Hello gentlemen.
Two words into this post, and it's already dubious. Why assume that you're only talking to men here?


Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done? If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian. It is highly authoritarian since the "collective", in effect, acts like the state.
The revolution will be authoritarian in that socialism can only be built by the working class suppressing all other classes and expropriating the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Libertarianism for socialists refers to how that new society will be organized, decentralized and radically democratic, versus a centralized state controlled by a vanguard party.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Two words into this post, and it's already dubious. Why assume that you're only talking to men here?


The revolution will be authoritarian in that socialism can only be built by the working class suppressing all other classes and expropriating the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Libertarianism for socialists refers to how that new society will be organized, decentralized and radically democratic, versus a centralized state controlled by a vanguard party.

Vanguard parties aren't necessarilly undemocratic. I think that a lot of comrades hear the word 'vanguard' and think of an atomised, beureaucratic elite with caste-based organisation "leading" the supposedly braindead working-class to socialism. To be honest, this is nothing further from the truth: Although I do not fully understand how a vanguard operates in stalinist organisations, the entire point is to have a 'class-party', made up of the entire working class - with provisionally elected managers (as is the case with most anarchist groups. To be honest, the whole Top Down/Bottom Up dichotomy is a farce in my opinion. All genuine revolutionary proletarian movements will organise as a class-for-itself, meaning that a dictatorship of an oligarchic minority within the party irrespective of the proletariat wouldn't be socialist in the first place).

[AxiomFire]

"If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian." It is not a freedom to restrict the freedom of others; that is sheer lunacy. To claim that destroying authoritarian relations (in this case, private property relations) is authoritarian is illogical. You do not specify whether you refer to the individual continuing to possess his property, or his possessions. The libertarian left has always distinguished heavily between the two. Political domination cannot co-exist with a communistic economy. Daniel Guerin stated that "the anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man". Exploitation can be political as well as economic.
So I would reverse the question on you, and ask, 'Can socialists be authoritarian?'

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Can socialists be libertarian?

Yes they can, I am an example of that.

[Blake's Baby]

To the OP: Who says that it's 'his' wealth? We believe that wealth is a social product and cannot be 'owned' by individual. To expropriate the social product and claim it as individual wealth is authoritarian.

[l'Enfermé]

There are no scientific socialists that believe in this libertarianism-authoritarianism bullshit.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

There are no scientific socialists that believe in this libertarianism-authoritarianism bullshit.
Take it up with the vanguard party supporters.

[Tim Cornelis]

Now, in this hypothetical scenario, a single person says no and wants to keep his wealth. What can be done? If you coerse him into giving up on his wealth, that is NOT libertarian. It is highly authoritarian since the "collective", in effect, acts like the state.

Let's look at an example where right-wing libertarians consider expropriation of property just. Aristocrats exist by the thousands in the Western world. Their ancestors of a few generations back were aristocrats and today their offspring still lives in their mansions and living of their wealth. The reason right-wing libertairans would consider the forceful expropriation ("coercion") of this property just is because it was acquired through coercive and unjust means.

Expropriation of property is just if it was preceded by unjust or coercive appropriation.

Similarly, libertarian socialists contend that you can only get rich through unjust means. No person earns his wealth by individual merit and consequently it can't be his personal or individual wealth. A person can acquire excessive amounts of wealth through:
1) being on top of the corporate hierarchy (it is only through the possession of corporate authority that they can appropriate for themselves these excessive amounts of wealth)
2) inherit it/gift
3) win a lottery

I am not aware of an example that would fall out of either of these three categories. All three categories are not legitimate means of acquiring wealth. It is therefore not unlibertarian for libertarian socialists to expropriate mansions and the likes. The mansions have been earned through the collective labour of workers, not individual work of a capitalist.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Yes they can, I am an example of that.

An example of how ridiculous it is, yeah.

[The Jay]

There are no scientific socialists that believe in this libertarianism-authoritarianism bullshit.

Woah, you are so badass! Please tell me more about what a super scientific person thinks in order to ignore the fact that some think that rights have different hierarchies and therefore form governments and laws differently.

If you pull that "revolution is authoritarian" card I may tear my hair out.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

If you pull that "revolution is authoritarian" card I may tear my hair out.

Revolution is authoritarian. ;)

Anyway, OP, some of us think that the authoritarian-libertarian dichotomy is a false one for various reasons. Our reasoning generally follows this line of thought. What may be libertarian for one group may be extremely authoritarian for another group. For example, the confiscation of bourgeois property, we would argue, is extremely libertarian for the proletariat while it would be extremely authoritarian for the bourgeoisie. Here's a good quote on this.


It is thus a metaphysical error to seek to resolve human problems in one of either two ways, as is done for example by those who counterpose violence and the State: either one declares oneself in favor of the State and for violence; or against the State and against violence. Dialectically, however, these problems are situated in the context of their historical moment and are simultaneously resolved with opposed formulas, by upholding the use of violence in order to abolish violence, and by using the State to abolish the State. The errors of the authoritarians and the errors of the libertarians are in principle equally metaphysical.

Amadeo Bordiga-On The Dialectical Method

[Ocean Seal]

Hello gentlemen. I have a question for you which I am sure you will be delighted to discuss. My question, as the title would suggest is: Can socialists be libertarian?
Not in the manner that you say so. Certainly in communism you can be libertarian, but to not force collectivization under socialism is antithetical to socialism. It is to drain the the new found workers power of unity and strength and to leave it prey to imperialism. I don't think that would be worth it.



If you say "well, ok, not cool but you can keep your stuff" then the system just got individual ownership. That means that the system, by definition, will be anarcho-individualist rather than anarcho-socialist/communist since individuals can own wealth and collectivization is a choice rather than a forceful demand.

And please, don't tell me "nobody will choose to keep private ownership in my dream society". You know that this is false. Greedy people will exist everywhere and will never give up their wealth, no matter how much 'education' or social pressure.
For what its worth what you are describing here sounds a lot like communism, and by the time that rolls around its not a question of greedy individuals. Its a question of what means they have for their greed. If you are greedy then you want what generates most for yourself, and certainly an individualist path won't help you if you don't have access to the means of production. So the idea that greedy people will come to ruin communism is laughable, almost as silly as the notion that some capitalists will want to declare themselves kings under capitalism.

[The Jay]

Revolution is authoritarian. ;)

Anyway, OP, some of us think that the authoritarian-libertarian dichotomy is a false one for various reasons. Our reasoning generally follows this line of thought. What may be libertarian for one group may be extremely authoritarian for another group. For example, the confiscation of bourgeois property, we would argue, is extremely libertarian for the proletariat while it would be extremely authoritarian for the bourgeoisie. Here's a good quote on this.

Rather than saying that this makes the distinction bunk, you could - like what I have suggested many times - simply add the qualification of defining what the libertarian-authoritarian definition is in reference to, which is obviously the proletariat for anyone on this site. . . . . dialectics

[Rafiq]

Within the context of your question, no, socialists cannot be Libertarian in the way in which you describe what Libertarianism is. All Socialists, anarchist or otherwise, oppose the existence of market relations and "freedom to private property" whether they disguise it with "well majority of workers won't do that", "It's voluntary but unlikely" etc. Unconsciously, we all know that the abolishment of private property will be something enforced with the armed wing of the proletarian dictatorship.

[Ostrinski]

I don't like that a lot of the same people that say the libertarian-authoritarian dichotomy is bogus turn around and say things like "revolution are authoritarian durrhurr"

All in all it's a pretty boring conversation that keeps re creating itself but doesn't help understand socialism at all

[Rafiq]

I don't like that a lot of the same people that say the libertarian-authoritarian dichotomy is bogus turn around and say things like "revolution are authoritarian durrhurr"

All in all it's a pretty boring conversation that keeps re creating itself but doesn't help understand socialism at all

A revolution is authoritarian, however, the problem with the dichotomony is it's categorization of movements, parties, etc. as such, it's criticism (morally) of acts because they are "Authoritarian", etc. Rather than an objective class analysis. To be authoritarian is to impose authority, and every real Anarchist, whether or not they like to admit it, agrees that the imposition of proletarian authority over its class enemy is the most significant component of the process we call the revolution.

There is no authoritarian or libertarian socialism, measures which can be considered both authoritarian and perhaps libertarian may be taken, though.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

To be authoritarian is to impose authority, and every real Anarchist, whether or not they like to admit it, agrees that the imposition of proletarian authority over its class enemy is the most significant component of the process we call the revolution.
Yes, but you're playing dumb when you pretend you don't know the context of the authoritarian vs. libertarian argument is about post-revolutionary society.

[Marxaveli]

Sigh, not this argument again. I think Brosa said it best when he stated that the authoritarian-libertarian paradigm is a matter of perspective. For the ruling class, a communist revolution is going to be "authoritarian". But for us, the proletarian, it is going to be quite libertarian.