Debates within libertarianism

Last updated

Libertarianism is variously defined by sources as there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category. Scholars generally agree that libertarianism refers to the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with little or no government power.

Contents

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines libertarianism as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things. [1] Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution. [2] Libertarian philosopher Roderick T. Long defines libertarianism as "any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals", whether "voluntary association" takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives. [3] According to the American Libertarian Party, libertarianism is the advocacy of a government that is funded voluntarily and limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. [4]

There are many philosophical disagreements among proponents of libertarianism concerning questions of ideology, values and strategy. For instance, left-libertarians were the ones to coin the term as a synonym for anarchism. Outside of the United States, libertarianism is still synonymous with anarchism and socialism (social anarchism and libertarian socialism). [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Right-libertarianism, known in the United States simply as libertarianism, was coined as a synonym for classical liberalism in May 1955 by writer Dean Russell due to American liberals embracing progressivism and economic interventionism in the early 20th century after the Great Depression and with the New Deal. [13] As a result, the term was co-opted in the mid-20th century to instead advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. [14] [15] [16] The main debate between the two forms of libertarianism therefore concerns the legitimacy of private property and its meaning. Most other debates remains within right-libertarianism as abortion, capital punishment, foreign affairs, LGBT rights and immigration are non-issues for left-libertarians whereas within right-libertarianism they are debated due to their divide between cultural liberal and cultural conservative right-libertarians.

Philosophy

Libertarian philosophies are generally divided on three principal questions, namely (1) by ethical theory, whether actions are determined to be moral consequentially or in terms of natural rights (or deontologically); (2) the legitimacy of private property; and (3) the legitimacy of the state. Libertarian philosophy can therefore be broadly divided into eight groups based on these distinctions.

Abortion

An estimated 60–70% of American libertarians believe women are entitled to abortion rights, although many who identify as pro-choice do maintain that abortion becomes homicidal at some stage during pregnancy and therefore should not remain legal beyond that point. [17]

To the contrary, the Libertarian Party states that government should have no role in restricting abortion, implying opposition to any and all proposed federal or state legislation which might prohibit any method of abortion at any given stage of gestation. Groups like the Association of Libertarian Feminists and Pro-Choice Libertarians support keeping government out of the issue entirely.

On the other hand, Libertarians for Life argues that human zygotes, embryos and fetuses possess the same natural human rights and deserve the same protections as neonates, calling for outlawing abortion as an aggressive act against a rights-bearing unborn child. Former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a figurehead of American libertarianism, is an anti-abortion physician as is his son Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Nonetheless, most American libertarians, whether pro-choice or pro-life, agree the federal government should play no role in prohibiting, protecting, or facilitating abortion and oppose the Supreme Court conclusion in Roe v. Wade that abortion is a fundamental right if performed during the first trimester of pregnancy by virtue of an implicit constitutional right to privacy.[ citation needed ]

In addition, there are the property rights perspectives [18] evictionism [19] [20] and departurism [21] [22] [23] which allow that the unwanted fetus is a trespasser on the mother's property (her womb), but hold that this designation does not mean that the child may therefore be directly killed. [24] The former view maintains that the trespasser may only be killed indirectly as a result of eviction, [25] while the latter view upholds only non-lethal eviction during normal pregnancies. [26]

Capital punishment

Right-libertarians are divided on capital punishment, also known as the death penalty. Those opposing it generally see it as an excessive abuse of state power which is by its very nature irreversible, with American libertarians possibly seeing it also in conflict with the Bill of Rights ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". Some libertarians who believe capital punishment can be just under certain circumstances may oppose execution based on practical considerations. Those who support the death penalty do so on self-defense or retributive justice grounds.

Ethics

There are broadly two different types of libertarianism which are based on ethical doctrines, namely consequentialist libertarianism and natural-rights libertarianism, or deontological libertarianism. Deontological libertarians have the view that natural rights exist and from there argue that initiation of force and fraud should never take place. [27] Natural-rights libertarianism may include both right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism. [28] Consequentialist libertarians argue that a free market and strong private property rights bring about beneficial consequences, such as wealth creation or efficiency, rather than subscribing to a theory of rights or justice. [29] There are hybrid forms of libertarianism that combine deontological and consequentialist reasoning. [29]

Contractarian libertarianism holds that any legitimate authority of government derives not from the consent of the governed, but rather from contract or mutual agreement, although this can be seen as reducible to consequentialism or deontologism depending on what grounds contracts are justified. [30] [31] [32] Some libertarian socialists reject deontological and consequential approaches and use historical materialism to justify their political beliefs. [33]

Foreign affairs

Libertarians are generally against any military intervention in other countries. Other libertarians are also opposed to strategic alliances with foreign countries. According to its 2016 platform, the American Libertarian Party is against any foreign aid to other countries and the only wars that they support are in situations of self-defense. [34] Such libertarians generally try to explain that they are not isolationists, but non-interventionists. [35] [36]

Immigration

Libertarians generally support freedom of movement and open borders. However, some right-libertarians, particularly Hoppean anarcho-capitalists who propose the full privatization of land and natural resources, contend that a policy of open borders amounts to legalized trespassing.

Inheritance

Libertarians disagree over what to do in absence of a will or contract in the event of death and over posthumous property rights. In the event of a contract, the contract is enforced according to the property owner's wishes. Typically, right-libertarians believe that any intestate property should go to the living relatives of the deceased and that none of the property should go to the government. Others say that if no will has been made, the property immediately enters the state of nature from which anyone (save the state) may homestead it.

Intellectual property

Libertarians hold a variety of views on intellectual property (IP) and patents. Some libertarian natural rights theorists justify property rights in ideas and other intangibles just as they do property rights in physical goods, saying whoever made it owns it. Other libertarian natural rights theorists such as Stephan Kinsella have held that only physical material can be owned and that ownership of IP amount to an illegitimate claim of ownership over that which enters another's mind that cannot be removed or controlled without violation of the non-aggression axiom. Pro-IP libertarians of the utilitarian tradition say that IP maximizes innovation while anti-IP libertarians of the selfsame persuasion say that it causes shortages of innovation. This latter view holds that IP is a euphemism for intellectual protectionism and should be abolished altogether.

Land ownership

Following political economist and social reformer Henry George's philosophy of classical liberalism known as Georgism and the single-tax movement of activists who supported it (see also the single tax), some free-market centrists and non-socialist left-libertarians known as geolibertarians argue that because land is not the product of human labor and it is inelastic in supply and essential for life and wealth creation, the market rental value of land should properly be considered commons. They interpret the Lockean proviso and the law of equal liberty to mean that exclusive land ownership beyond one's equal share of aggregate land value necessarily restricts the freedom of others to access natural space and resources. In order to promote freedom and minimize waste, they argue that absent improvements individuals should surrender the rental value of the land to which they hold legal title to the community as a subscription fee for the privilege to exclude others from the site. Since geolibertarians wish to limit the influence of government, they would have this revenue fund a universal basic income or citizen's dividend which would also function as a social safety net to replace the existing welfare system. Based on David Ricardo's law of rent, they further argue that this tax shift would serve to boost wages.

LGBT rights

In general, libertarians oppose laws that limit the sexual freedom of adults. [37]

Limited government

Libertarians differ on whether any government at all is desirable. Some favor the existence of governments and see them as civilly necessary while others favor stateless societies and view the state as being undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, if not intrinsically evil. [38] [39]

Supporters of limited libertarian government or a night watchman state argue that placing all defense and courts under private control, regulated only by market demand, is an inherent miscarriage of justice because justice would be bought and sold as a commodity, thereby conflating authentic impartial justice with economic power. [40] Market anarchists counter that having defense and courts controlled by the state is both immoral and an inefficient means of achieving both justice and security. [41] [42] Libertarian socialists hold that liberty is incompatible with state action based on a class struggle analysis of the state. [43]

Mandatory vaccination

Right-libertarians are divided over mandatory vaccination. Some oppose mandatory vaccination on the grounds of it violating a person's individual liberty and being skeptical of government authority. Others support mandatory vaccination, arguing that libertarian principles prohibit reckless behaviour that puts other people at risk. According to Voice of America, "opposition to vaccination is often couched in libertarian terms: It's my body, my choice." [44]

Natural resources

Right-libertarians such as free-market environmentalists and Objectivists believe that environmental damage is more often than not a result of state ownership and mismanagement of natural resources, for example by the military-industrial complex. Other right-libertarians such as anarcho-capitalists contend that private ownership of all natural resources will result in a better environment as a private owner of property will have more incentive to ensure the longer term value of the property. Other libertarians such as geolibertarians or left-libertarians believe the Earth cannot legitimately be held in allodium, that usufructuary title with periodic land value capture and redistribution avoids both the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anticommons while respecting equal rights to natural resources.

Propertarianism

Right-libertarian philosophies are usually strong propertarians that define liberty as non-aggression, or the state in which no person or group aggresses against any other person or group, where aggression is defined as the violation of private property. [27] This philosophy implicitly recognizes private property as the sole source of legitimate authority. Propertarian libertarians hold that an order of private property is the only one that is both ethical and leads to the best possible outcomes. [41] They generally support the free market and are not opposed to any concentration of power (monopolies), provided it is brought about through non-coercive means. [45] However, there is also a minority of soft propertarian libertarian philosophies. According to this moderately left-libertarian perspective, a society based on individual liberty and equal access to natural opportunities can be achieved through proportionate compensation to others by those who claim private ownership over a greater-than-equal share of the aggregate value of natural resources, absent any improvements. [46] [47] [48] [49]

Non-propertarian libertarian philosophies hold that liberty is the absence of hierarchy and demands the leveling of systemically coercive and exploitative power structures. On this libertarian socialist view, a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. [50] Implicitly, it rejects any authority of private property and holds that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of any production resources to the detriment of others. [46] [47] [48] [49] Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production. The term libertarian socialism is also used to differentiate this philosophy from state socialism. [51] [52] [53] [54] Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils. [55]

Race and sex

American libertarians, especially right-libertarians, are against laws that favor or harm any race or either sex. These include Jim Crow laws, state segregation, interracial marriage bans and laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. Likewise, they oppose state-enforced affirmative action, hate crime laws and anti-discrimination laws. They would not use the state to prevent voluntary affirmative action or voluntary discrimination. [56] [57] [58] Most of these libertarians believe that the drive for profit in the marketplace will diminish or eliminate the effects of racism, which they tend to consider to be inherently collectivist. This causes a degree of dissonance among libertarians in federal systems such as in the United States, where there is debate among libertarians about whether the federal government has the right to coerce states to change their democratically created laws.

Taxation

Some deontological libertarians believe that consistent adherence to libertarian doctrines such as the non-aggression principle demands unqualified moral opposition to any form of taxation, a sentiment encapsulated in the phrase "Taxation is theft!". [59] They would fund all services through gratuitous contributions, private law and defense user fees as well as lotteries. Other libertarians support low taxes of various kinds, arguing that a society with no taxation would have difficulty providing public goods such as crime prevention and a consistent, unified legal system to punish rights violators. Commonly advocated reforms include a flat personal income tax, a consumption tax such as the FairTax, or a land value tax system. While the former proposals are normally considered necessary evils or strategic compromises, geolibertarians in particular argue that a single tax on the rental value of land, typically in conjunction with Pigovian pollution and severance fees to internalize negative externalities and curb natural resource depletion, is not only non-distortionary and politically sustainable but also more ethically attractive than zero taxation and even required for justice in property rights.

Voluntary slavery

Libertarians generally believe that voluntary slavery is a contradiction in terms. [60] However, certain right-libertarians dispute the Lockean claim that some rights are inalienable and maintain that even permanent voluntary slavery is possible and contractually binding. [61] [62] Famous libertarian Murray Rothbard argued that libertarians seeing children as property of the parents left the platform open to sales of children as slaves, when parents needed finances, and that people entering into voluntary slavery would most likely be when there was no alternative available to pay debts, but this was not coercive as under the libertarian platform only the government could engage in coercion. Detractors maintain that there is no such thing as a morally-binding "slavery contract".

Involuntary psychiatry

Involuntary commitment, outpatient commitment, mental health guardianships and involuntary treatment, although in opposition to self-ownership and in some countries the main way of confinement and social control are issues rarely discussed by libertarians.

Thomas Szasz argues that involuntary psychiatry is incompatible with libertarianism and that Bertrand Russell, Robert Nozick, John Stuart Mill, Ayn Rand, The American Civil Liberties Union, and Friedrich von Hayek among other "went wrong" by their omission, ambiguity or direct support. [63]

Most criticism comes from fields such as sociology (such as Michel Foucault), psychiatry (such as Franco Basaglia), human rights NGOs or philosophy and public position by libertarians are often uncertain.

Fraud

There has been debate about how to deal with the problem of fraud in a libertarian society. [64] [65] [66] [67] [68]

Strategy

Non-voting

Some libertarians such as agorists employ non-voting as a political tactic and following 19th-century individualist anarchists like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker consider voting an immoral concession of state legitimacy [ citation needed ]. Others who champion the concept of rational ignorance view voting as an impractical and irrational behavior on a cost-benefit analysis. Other more moderate libertarians abstain from voting to voice their perception that the current system is broken or out of touch.

Apart from principled and cynical non-voters, many libertarians interpret voting even for a suboptimal candidate or policy as an act of political self-defense aimed at minimizing rights violations.

Political alliances

Until fairly recently, American libertarians have allied politically with modern conservatives over economic issues and gun laws while they are more prone to ally with liberals on other civil liberties issues and non-interventionism. As conservatives increasingly favor protectionism over free and open trade, and progressives increasingly favor restrictions on speech deemed offensive or disinformative, the popular characterization of libertarian policy as economically conservative and socially liberal has been rendered less meaningful. Libertarians may choose to vote for candidates of other parties depending on the individual and the issues they promote. Paleolibertarians have a long-standing affinity with paleoconservatives in opposing United States interventions and promoting decentralization and cultural conservatism.

Revolution

Libertarians generally agree on the desirability of rapid and fundamental changes in power dynamics and institutional structures, but may disagree on the means by which such changes might be achieved. Orthodox right-libertarians strongly oppose violent revolution as unethical and counterproductive, however there is currently a growing amount of right-libertarians, inspired by the Founding Fathers of the United States, that believe in revolution as a justified means to counter what they see as a corrupt government. Left-libertarians, especially anarchists and socialists, regard the state to be at the definitional center of structural violence, directly or indirectly preventing people from meeting their basic needs, calling for violence as self-defense and seeing violent revolution as necessary in the abolition of capitalist society, mainly to counteract the violence inherent in both capitalism and government (some of them have also come to believe that violence, especially self-defense, is justified as a way to provoke social upheaval which could lead to a social revolution) while others argue in favor of a non-violent revolution through a process of dual power and pacifists see the concept of the general strike as the great revolutionary weapon. Market anarchists of a left-wing persuasion such as agorists also advocate various forms of nonviolent resistance, tax resistance or evasion, public acts of civic disloyalty and disobedience, counter-economics and subversive black markets.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anarcho-capitalism</span> Political philosophy and economic theory

Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership, which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private property would still exist and be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies selected by customers, which would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police.

Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Although usually contrasted with social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Mutualism, an economic theory sometimes considered a synthesis of communism and property, has been considered individualist anarchism and other times part of social anarchism. Many anarcho-communists regard themselves as radical individualists, seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Some anarcho-capitalists claim anarcho-capitalism is part of the individualist anarchist tradition, while others disagree and claim individualist anarchism is only part of the socialist movement and part of the libertarian socialist tradition. Economically, while European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most American individualist anarchists of the 19th century advocated mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that violates the entitlement theory of justice, that is, gives privilege due to unjust acquisition or exchange, and thus is exploitative, seeking to "destroy the tyranny of capital, — that is, of property" by mutual credit.

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism makes the individual its focus, and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation".

Geolibertarianism is a political and economic ideology that integrates libertarianism with Georgism. It favors a taxation system based on income derived from land and natural resources instead of on labor, coupled with a minimalist model of government, as in libertarianism. The term was coined by the late economist Fred Foldvary in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Self-ownership</span> Concept of property in ones own person

Self-ownership is the concept of property in one's own body, often expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity meaning the exclusive right to control one's own body including one's life, where 'control' means exerting any physical interference and 'exclusive' means having the right to install and enforce a ban on other people doing this. Since the legal norm of property title claim incapacitates other people from claiming property title over the same resource at the same time, the right to control or interfere with one's own body in any arbitrary way is secured. Anarcho-capitalism defines self-ownership as the exclusive right to control one's body as long as the owner does not aggress upon others, leading to the concept of the sovereign individual. In Minarchism the 'exclusive right' is understood by separating the 'liberty-to' from the 'liberty-from' where for each person the 'liberty-to' is restricted by all the 'liberty's-from' of others, effectively subjecting the liberty-to to the ban on the usage of force. Thereafter self-ownership means the exclusive right to control one's body insofar considering action between inhabitants and not involving the state, making it roughly a pacifist morality only among inhabitants. Self-ownership is a central idea in several political philosophies that emphasize individualism, such as libertarianism and liberalism.

The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.

Joseph Déjacque was a French political journalist and poet. A house painter by trade, during the 1840s, he became involved in the French labour movement and taught himself how to write poetry. He was an active participant in the French Revolution of 1848, fighting on the barricades during the June Days uprising, for which he was arrested and imprisoned. He quickly became a target for political repression by Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's government, which imprisoned him for his poetry and forced him to flee into exile. His experiences radicalised him towards anarchism and he regularly criticised republican politicians for their anti-worker sentiment.

The non-aggression principle (NAP), also called the non-aggression axiom, is the fundamental principle of morality that states that any person is permitted do everything with his property except aggression, defined as the initiation of forceful action, which is in turn defined as 'the application or threat of' 'physical interference or fraud ', any of which without consent. The principle is also called the non-initiation of force. The principle incorporates universal enforcability.

Left-libertarianism, also known as left-wing libertarianism, or social libertarianism, is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that stresses both individual freedom and social equality. Left-libertarianism represents several related yet distinct approaches to political and social theory. Its classical usage refers to anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics such as anarchism, especially social anarchism, communalism, and libertarian Marxism, collectively termed libertarian socialism. A portion of the left wing of the green movement, including adherents of Murray Bookchin's social ecology, are also generally considered left-libertarian.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing equality before the law and civil rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism. Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libertarianism in the United States</span> Origin, history and development of libertarianism in the United States

In the United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty. According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as conservative on economic issues and liberal on personal freedom, often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism. Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely the libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard, who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting the labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party, which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul.

Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to property and income. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. While anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, opposition to the state is not its central or sole definition. Anarchism can entail opposing authority or hierarchy in the conduct of all human relations.

Individualist anarchism in the United States was strongly influenced by Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert Spencer and Henry David Thoreau. Other important individualist anarchists in the United States were Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Batchelder Greene, Ezra Heywood, M. E. Lazarus, John Beverley Robinson, James L. Walker, Joseph Labadie, Steven Byington and Laurance Labadie.

The law of equal liberty is the fundamental precept of liberalism and socialism. Stated in various ways by many thinkers, it can be summarized as the view that all individuals must be granted the maximum possible freedom as long as that freedom does not interfere with the freedom of anyone else. While socialists have been hostile to liberalism, which is accused of "providing an ideological cover for the depredation of capitalism", scholars have stated that "the goals of liberalism are not so different from those of the socialists", although this similarity in goals has been described as being deceptive due to the different meanings liberalism and socialism give to liberty, equality and solidarity, including the meaning, implications and norms of equal liberty derived from it.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anarchism:

Natural-rights libertarianism is the theory that all individuals possess certain natural or moral rights, mainly a right of individual sovereignty and that therefore acts of initiation of force and fraud are rights-violations and that is sufficient reason to oppose those acts. This is one of the two ethical view points within right-libertarianism, the other being consequentialist libertarianism which only takes into account the consequences of actions and rules when judging them and holds that free markets and strong private property rights have good consequences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taxation as theft</span> Position that taxation is immoral

The position that taxation is theft, and therefore immoral, is found in a number of political philosophies. Its popularization marks a significant departure from conservatism and classical liberalism, and has been considered radical by many as a result. The position is often held by anarcho-capitalists, objectivists, most minarchists, anarchists, right-wing libertarians, and voluntaryists.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to libertarianism:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Tucker</span> American individualist anarchist (1854–1939)

Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was an American individualist anarchist. Tucker was the editor and publisher of the American individualist anarchist periodical Liberty (1881–1908). Tucker described his form of anarchism as "consistent Manchesterism" and stated that "the Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats."

References

  1. Peter Vallentyne. "Libertarianism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  2. George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Llibertarian Ideas and Movements. Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. pp. 11–31, especially p. 18. ISBN   1551116294.
  3. Roderick T. Long (1998). "Towards a Libertarian Theory of Class" (PDF). Social Philosophy and Policy. 15 (2): 303–349, at p. 304. doi:10.1017/S0265052500002028. S2CID   145150666.
  4. Duncan Watts (2002). Understanding American Government and Politics: A Guide for A2 Politics Students. Manchester, England. Manchester University Press. p. 246.
  5. Joseph Déjacque, "De l'être-humain mâle et femelle–Lettre à P.J. Proudhon" (1857).
  6. "[Joseph Déjacque] called himself a "social poet," and published two volumes of heavily didactic verse—Lazaréennes and Les Pyrénées Nivelées. In New York, from 1858 to 1861, he edited an anarchist paper entitled Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, in whose pages he printed as a serial his vision of the anarchist Utopia, entitled L'Humanisphére." George Woodcock. Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements. Meridian books. 1962. p. 280.
  7. Mouton, Jean Claude. "Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social".
  8. Marshall (2009). p. 641. "The word 'libertarian' has long been associated with anarchism, and has been used repeatedly throughout this work. The term originally denoted a person who upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the will; in this sense, Godwin was not a 'libertarian', but a 'necessitarian'. It came however to be applied to anyone who approved of liberty in general. In anarchist circles, it was first used by Joseph Déjacque as the title of his anarchist journal Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social published in New York in 1858. At the end of the last century, the anarchist Sebastien Faure took up the word, to stress the difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists".
  9. Robert Graham, ed. (2005). Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Vol. One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE–1939). Montreal: Black Rose Books. §17.
  10. Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism. London: Freedom Press. p. 162. ISBN   978-0900384899. OCLC   37529250.
  11. Colin Ward (2004), Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 62. "For a century, anarchists have used the word 'libertarian' as a synonym for 'anarchist', both as a noun and an adjective. The celebrated anarchist journal Le Libertaire was founded in 1896. However, much more recently the word has been appropriated by various American free-market philosophers..."
  12. Chomsky, Noam (23 February 2002). "The Week Online Interviews Chomsky". Z Magazine. Z Communications. Archived from the original on 13 January 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2011. The term libertarian as used in the US means something quite different from what it meant historically and still means in the rest of the world. Historically, the libertarian movement has been the anti-statist wing of the socialist movement. Socialist anarchism was libertarian socialism.
  13. "Who is a libertarian?" [ permanent dead link ]. Russell, Dean, 1955. "Many of us call ourselves 'liberals.' And it is true that the word 'liberal' once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in the uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding. Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word 'libertarian'".
  14. Hussain, Syed B. (2004). Encyclopedia of Capitalism. Vol. II : H-R. New York: Facts on File Inc. p. 492. ISBN   0816052247. In the modern world, political ideologies are largely defined by their attitude towards capitalism. Marxists want to overthrow it, liberals to curtail it extensively, conservatives to curtail it moderately. Those who maintain that capitalism is a excellent economic system, unfairly maligned, with little or no need for corrective government policy, are generally known as libertarians.
  15. Rothbard, Murray N. (2009). The Betrayal of the American Right. Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN   978-1610165013. One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy... 'Libertarians'... had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over...
  16. Fernandez, Frank (2001). Cuban Anarchism. The History of a Movement. Sharp Press. p. 9 [ permanent dead link ]. "Thus, in the United States, the once exceedingly useful term 'libertarian' has been hijacked by egotists who are in fact enemies of liberty in the full sense of the word."
  17. "Ask Dr. Ruwart". Advocates for Self-Government. Archived December 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  18. Block, Walter; Whitehead, Roy (2005). "Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy". Appalachian Law Review. 4 (1): 1. SSRN   1889452. We advocate a liberty and private property rights approach to the issue of abortion.
  19. Block, Walter (2011B). "Evictionism is Libertarian; Departurism is Not: Critical Comment on Parr" (PDF). Libertarian Papers. 3 (36).
  20. Block, Walter (2013). "Rejoinder to Parr on Evictionism and Departurism". Journal of Peace, Prosperity & Freedom. 2: 125–138.
  21. Parr, Sean (2011). "Departurism and the Libertarian Axiom of Gentleness" (PDF). Libertarian Papers. 3 (34).
  22. Parr, Sean (2013). "Departurism Redeemed" (PDF). Journal of Peace, Prosperity & Freedom. 2: 109–123.
  23. Parr, Sean (2020). "Departurism: Gentleness and Practical Consistency in Trespasses Inside and Outside the Womb" (PDF). The Christian Libertarian Review. 3: 59–102.
  24. Block, Walter; Kinsella, Stephan; Whitehead, Roy (2006). "The Duty to Defend Advertising Injuries Caused by Junk Faxes: An Analysis of Privacy, Spam, Detection and Blackmail" (PDF). Whittier Law Review. 27 (4): 945. The woman who no longer wishes to 'house' the fetus within her body is under no obligation to do so. She may evict this interloper from her 'premises.' She must do so in the gentlest manner possible, for the trespasser in this case is certainly not guilty of mens rea.
  25. Block, Walter (2011A). "Response to Wisniewski on Abortion, Round Two" (PDF). Libertarian Papers. 3 (4): 2. The 'gentlest manner possible' in this case requires that the mother notify the authorities to see if they will take over responsibilities for keeping alive this very young human being. However, if the 'gentlest manner possible' implies the death of this very young human being, then so be it: the mother still has that right.
  26. Parr, Sean (2020). "Departurism: Gentleness and Practical Consistency in Trespasses Inside and Outside the Womb" (PDF). The Christian Libertarian Review. 3: 65. It is only the lethal (or otherwise debilitating) eviction of a fetus during a normal pregnancy that departurism views as discordant with gentleness and, thus, a violation of the NAP.
  27. 1 2 Murray Rothbard (1989). For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto . New York City: Collier Books. ISBN   0020746903.
  28. Mark Bevir (2010). Encyclopedia of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. p. 811.
  29. 1 2 Jonathan Wolff. "Libertarianism, Utility, and Economic Competition" (PDF). Virginia Law Review. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 12, 2013.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  30. "Contractarianism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, California. April 4, 2007.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  31. Anthony de Jasay (1996). "Hayek: Some Missing Pieces" (PDF). The Review of Austrian Economics. 9 (1): 107–118. doi:10.1007/bf01101884. ISSN   0889-3047. S2CID   145372389.
  32. Hardy Bouillon, Harmut Kliemt (2007). "Foreword". In Hardy Bouillon; Hartmut Kliemt (eds.). Ordered Anarchy: Jasay and his surroundings. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. p. xiii. ISBN   978-0754661139.
  33. B. Franks (2003). "Direct action ethic" (PDF). Anarchist Studies. 11 (1): 13–41, especially pp. 24–25.
  34. "2016 Platform".
  35. "Libertarian Gary Johnson Clarifies Foreign Policy Stances".
  36. "Time for a Rethink?: Libertarians and Foreign Policy" [usurped] .
  37. Dynes, Wayne (2008). "Sexuality". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Nozick, Robert (1938–2002). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, Cato Institute. pp. 461–462. doi:10.4135/9781412965811. ISBN   978-1412965804. LCCN   2008009151. OCLC   750831024.
  38. Errico Malatesta. "Towards Anarchism". Man!. Los Angeles, California: International Group of San Francisco. OCLC   3930443."Anarchism". The Shorter Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy . 2005. p. 14. Anarchism is the view that a society without the state, or government, is both possible and desirable. The following sources cite anarchism as a political philosophy: Paul Mclaughlin (2007). Anarchism and Authority. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 59. ISBN   978-0754661962.R. Johnston (2000). The Dictionary of Human Geography. Cambridge, England: Blackwell Publishers. p. 24. ISBN   0631205616.
  39. Carl Slevin (2003). "Anarchism". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford University Press.
  40. Randal G. Holcombe. "Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable" (PDF). The Independent Review. 8 (3): 325–342 at pp. 326–328 (armed forces), 330–331 (market failure in protective services), 332–333 (police). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-05. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  41. 1 2 Murray Rothbard (1998). The Ethics of Liberty. New York City: New York University Press. ISBN   978-0814775066.
  42. David Friedman (1989). The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism . La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company. ISBN   978-0812690699.
  43. Lewis Call (2002). Postmodern anarchism. Lanham, Maryland. Lexington Books. pp. 66–68.
  44. Farivar, Masood (2021-08-04). "Why Some Libertarians Support Vaccine Mandates". Voice of America . Retrieved 2022-03-08.
  45. Ludwig von Mises (2007). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund. ISBN   978-0865976313.
  46. 1 2 Peter Vallentyne (September 5, 2002). "Libertarianism". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 ed.). Stanford, California: Stanford University . Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  47. 1 2 Will Kymlicka (1995). "libertarianism, left-". In Ted Honderich (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy . Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0198661320.[ page needed ]
  48. 1 2 Peter Vallentyne, Hillel Steiner, ed. (2000). Left-libertarianism and its critics: the contemporary debate. New York City: Palgrave (St. Martin's Press). p. 393. ISBN   0312236999.[ page needed ]
  49. 1 2 Eric Mack, Gerald F Gaus (2004). "Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition". In Gerald F. Gaus, Chandran Kukathas (ed.). Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. pp. 115–131, at p. 128. ISBN   978-0761967873.
  50. Manuel da Silva Mendes (2011). Socialismo libertario ou Anarchismo. Historia e doutrina (in Portuguese). Adegi Graphics LLC. ASIN   B004IKWRH2.[ page needed ]
  51. Paul Zarembka (2007). Transitions in Latin America and in Poland and Syria. Emerald Group Publishing. p. 25
  52. Daniel Guerin (2011) [1970]. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice [originally published as French: Anarchisme, de la doctrine à l'action] reprinted online: libcom.org [first published in English: New York: Monthly Review Press]. §1 sub-§"A Matter of Words". "At the end of the century in France, Sebastien Faure took up a word originated in 1858 by one Joseph Dejacque to make it the title of a journal, Le Libertaire. Today the terms "anarchist" and "libertarian" have become interchangeable. Some contemporary anarchists have tried to clear up the misunderstanding by adopting a more explicit term: they align themselves with libertarian socialism or communism or as a synonym for anarchism".
  53. Geoffrey Ostergaard (1991). "Anarchism". Limited A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 21.
  54. Noam Chomsky, Carlos Peregrín Otero (2004). Language and Politics. AK Press. p. 739.
  55. Rudolf Rocker (2004). Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. Oakland, California: AK Press. p. 65. ISBN   978-1902593920.
  56. Murray Rothbard (November 1994). "Big Government Libertarians".
  57. Charles Murray (1997). "What it means to be a Libertarian" Archived 2008-09-06 at the Wayback Machine . Cato Institute Journal.
  58. "2008 Platform".
  59. Walter Block (Summer 2005). "Governmental Inevitability: Reply to Holcombe, Journal of Libertarian Studies". Volume 19. No. 3. pp. 71–93. "The libertarian, if he is to be logically consistent, must urge zero crime, not a small amount of it. Any crime is anathema for the libertarian. Any government, no matter how 'nice,' must therefore also be rejected by the libertarian".
  60. Murray Rothbard (16 January 2007), A Crusoe Social Philosophy
  61. "Toward a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon, and Epstein".
  62. Casey, G.(2011), "Can You Own Yourself?", Analysis and Metaphysics, Vol. 10, pp. 60-66. https://researchrepository.ucd.ie/entities/publication/d53b4dab-f934-41a4-81c2-e73ad97b9865/details
  63. kanopiadmin (2014-07-30). "Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices, by Thomas Szasz". Mises Institute. Retrieved 2022-07-27.
  64. Child, J. 1994. Can libertarianism sustain a fraud standard? Ethics 104: 722–738. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/293652?journalCode=et
  65. Benjamin Ferguson. "Can libertarians get away with fraud?" Economics and philosophy : 165-184. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/economics-and-philosophy/article/can-libertarians-get-away-with-fraud/3324B0979DFF2E87514B8172240BA8B3
  66. Steiner Hillel. "Asymmetric information, libertarianism, and fraud" Review of social economy : 94-107. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00346764.2019.1602280
  67. Dominiak, Łukasz, and Tate Fegley. 2022. "Contract Theory, Title Transfer, and Libertarianism". Diametros 19 (72):1-25. https://diametros.uj.edu.pl/diametros/article/view/1800
  68. Slutskiy, Pavel. "Fraudulent advertising: A mere speech act or a type of theft?" Libertarian Papers, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 109+. http://libertarianpapers.org/author/pavelslutskiy/

Further reading