What is Librtarianism?

[Craig_J]

I've seen it criticsed a lot on this forum, but actually am very confused about what it is.

From what I read it appears to be a form of anarchism or minarchism and I've always thought that it's more or less anarcho-capitalism. Am I correct though as supposedly it can also be colectivist? I'm very confused!

[Blake's Baby]

If you mean 'Right-Libertarianism', such as the 'Libertarian Party' in the US, then yes it pretty much it is the same as 'Anarcho-capitalism'. But if you're talking about 'Libertarian Communism' then it's Anarchist-Communism.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

Basically, libertarianism is a society without state control.

[M. Stuart]

'Libertarian' used to mean Anarchist, which is usually, if not by definition, anticapitalist. In the US, the term was appropriated around midcentury for the small government supercapitalist party of the same name. A few people try to hang on to the earlier definition (Chomsky likes the term 'libertarian socialist'), but its primary feature at this point is confusing people, like American 'liberals' vs. European 'liberals'.

[garrus]

Libertarianism arose in the 19th century, and as previously said, is a tendency to limit state intervention in economic (primarily) affairs.

In commie talk, it has mutated to imply anti-authoritarianism and federalism as opposed to "traditional" leninist currents and their derivatives.
I doubt it holds to say that it's legal since it refers strictly to the transitional phase, as lib-coms reject the existence of a state itself, something not implied in libertarianism (but is a central point in anarcho-capitalism and radical-libertarianism (as formed in the 19th century).

For example a libertarian cappie would want close to zero economic regulation from the goverment, but would also want bail-outs and stuff from a state,so it would be prudent (for the cappie) to keep it around as a last resort.

[The Idler]

Libertarianism as in Hayek is better described as proprietarianism, ie. being pro-property.

[Craig_J]

Thank you all for your replies, this cleared it up :)

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Modern Libertarianism in the U.S. can basically be laid down at the feet of three people: Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand.

Rothbard was an Austrian economist and one of the godfathers of Anarcho-Capitalism, who was famous for trying to form a bridge between Libertarianism and the New Left in the 60s and 70s, and then turning to the extreme right in the 80s and 90s with the Paleo-Conservative crowd (think Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell).

Milton Friedman was an otherwise decent guy who also happens to be the godfather of neoliberalism and one of the guys behind the economic policies of Augusto Pinochet. Reagan was pretty fond of him.

And Ayn Rand.....well, you'll have to look her up yourself. Just speaking that woman's name makes me nauseuous.


Now, there have been libertarian-like currents before these three, but they were all anarchist in nature and tended to be very hostile to big business. Some of them, like Benjamin Tucker, even identified as *gasp* SOCIALISTS!!!

[Red Nightmare]

The word Libertarian used to be a synonym for left-anarchism or anarcho-communism and in fact was actually coined by a French anarcho-communist named Joseph Dejacque in the mid 19th century. However, in the mid to late 20th century the usage of the term took a 180 turn when laissez faire capitalists hijacked it and tried to repackage their ideology under the guise of liberty. It is up to the true libertarians, the communists and anarchists that is, to take back the term "libertarian".

[The Idler]

Isn't there a dividing line between US "libertarianism" and Paleo-conservativism over social issues?

[Marxaveli]

Isn't there a dividing line between US "libertarianism" and Paleo-conservativism over social issues?

Yes and no.

US libertarians try to appeal to apolitical or independent voters by using fancy slogans like "minimum government, maximum freedom". Such things appeal to young people especially because many of them view the problems in our society as being a product of government organizations and institutions, and this applies to a wide range of people (libertarians, social democrats, liberals, and other "reformist" ideologies). They try to appeal to people by taking what they consider the best aspects of the two major parties and combining them. There is no dialectical thinking in their view of social problems, they view them all as separate, abstract problems rather than in the totality of a particular social organization of society.

Truth be told, I dislike libertarians even more than Dem's and Republicans. They live in a complete bubble, thinking that the Fed or some other institution is responsible for all our woes, without taking one objective look at capitalism. At least the republicans are consistent - if you are going to a right winger, may as well be a right winger on economic and social issues, because being a right winger economically but more "left" on social issues is just silly, and doesn't make any sense. Because capitalism manifests all the social ills we see today. Libertarians think we can solve all the worlds problems while keeping capitalism intact - its the most utopian, and unrealistic ideology ever contrived.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Libertarians think we can solve all the worlds problems while keeping capitalism intact - its the most utopian, and unrealistic ideology ever contrived. It's even worse than that. Many American libertarians believe we are living in socialism right now (they think socialism is anything that is not laissez faire or anything that a government does that they don't personally like), which of course they believe is the cause of the ongoing economic crisis around the world, and that we need bring back true capitalism and the market will naturally solve our problems.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

It's even worse than that. Many American libertarians believe we are living in socialism right now (they think socialism is anything that is not laissez faire or anything that a government does that they don't personally like), which of course they believe is the cause of the ongoing economic crisis around the world, and that we need bring back true capitalism and the market will naturally solve our problems.


Take it from someone who used to be heavily involved in the Libertarian camp...it's even worse than THAT.

Something you have to understand about American 'Libertarianism' is that it's heavily based around the concept of Austrian Economics. Austrian Economics is centered almost entirely on this wretched pseudo-science called Praxeology. The guys over at RationalWiki describe it as thus:


Murray Rothbard's Praxeology:The Metholodoly of Austrian Economics describes praxeology as an application of deductive reasoning, applied to a set of "unquestionable" axioms. Of course, any implications derived from these axioms are only as good as the analysis that derived them, and the axiom that they were derived from. This is where praxeology gets into trouble, as they reject less mushy formal analysis in favor of more weasely verbal analysis. Let's look at the axiom that Rothbard refers to as the foundation of praxeological deduction as an example, the "fundamental axiom of action." Almost immediately, the axiom wades into trouble. It states that:

"individual human beings act"

The first part of that assertion is simple enough to grasp, but what does it mean to act? One possible definition of act says it is to "perform an action." This seems to be as far as most Austrian school thinker take this. However, as an air conditioner, vacuum cleaner and TV all perform actions, it would seem this axiom places human beings in the rather large set of things that act. It would be pretty embarrassing then, to derive any economic conclusions from the fact that people are part of the set of things that act, as the conclusions deriving from being a member of the set of things that act would apply to other members of that set as well. Fortunately, Rothbard is kind enough to clarify his definition:

"...that is human beings take conscious action towards chosen goals."

Note that one under-defined concept has now been replaced with two; conscious action and chosen goals. Let us ignore the validity of assertion, and try to figure out just what chosen goals are. The word choice would seem to imply some form of conscious action was taken in forming these goals, so is the real statement of this axiom "human beings take conscious action towards a consciously acted upon set of goals?" Perhaps Rothbard meant to differentiate between "choosing" and "acting," but that is never clearly expressed. In either case, it would seem that the definition of goal needs some work to be truly useful. Sound logic relies on clarity of definition, as many arguments are sensitive to subtle changes in meaning, and vague statements hide contradictions.
This approach of verbal deduction also leads to a rather noticeable (ab)use of false analogies and intuition pumps.



Notice that there is absolutely NO use of empirical testing and mathematical modeling. Say what you want about Keynesians, but AT LEAST they attempt to use actual honest-to-god numbers to make their case.

Austrian Economics is like trying to play fantasy football with the goddamned economy.