Portal:Libertarianism
Introduction
Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, itself from the Latin: libertas, lit. 'freedom') 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.
In the mid-19th century, libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists. These libertarians sought to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty. While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources. Left-libertarian ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school. After the fall of the Soviet Union, libertarian socialism grew in popularity and influence as part of anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti- and alter-globalisation movements. (Full article...)
Selected article
Anarcho-capitalism is a right-libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty in a free market. Economist Murray Rothbard is credited with coining the term. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through taxation and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. According to anarcho-capitalists, personal and economic activities would be regulated by the natural laws of the market and through private law rather than through politics. Furthermore, victimless crimes and crimes against the state would not exist.
Anarcho-capitalists argue for a society based on the voluntary trade of private property and services (including money, consumer goods, land and capital goods) in order to maximize individual liberty and prosperity. However, they also recognize charity and communal arrangements as part of the same voluntary ethic. Though anarcho-capitalists are known for asserting a right to private property (individualized or joint non-public), some propose that non-state public or community property can also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society. For them, what is important is that it is acquired and transferred without help or hindrance from the compulsory state. Anarcho-capitalists believe that the only just and/or most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud.
Anarcho-capitalists see free market capitalism as the basis for a free and prosperous society. Rothbard said that the difference between free-market capitalism and "state capitalism" is the difference between "peaceful, voluntary exchange" and a collusive partnership between business and government that uses coercion to subvert the free market. "Capitalism", as anarcho-capitalists employ the term, is not to be confused with state monopoly capitalism, crony capitalism, corporatism, or contemporary mixed economies, wherein market incentives and disincentives may be altered by state action. They reject the state based on the belief that states are aggressive entities which steal property (through taxation and expropriation), initiate aggression, are a compulsory monopoly on the use of force, use their coercive powers to benefit some businesses and individuals at the expense of others, create monopolies, restrict trade and restrict personal freedoms via drug laws, compulsory education, conscription, laws on food and morality and the like. The embrace of unfettered capitalism leads to considerable tension between anarcho-capitalists and many social anarchists that view capitalism and its market as just another authority. Anti-capitalist anarchists generally consider anarcho-capitalism a contradiction in terms and vice versa.
Selected quote
| “ | Even more remarkably, the Libertarian party achieved this growth while consistently adhering to a new ideological creed—"libertarianism"—thus bringing to the American political scene for the first time in a century a party interested in principle rather than in merely gaining jobs and money at the public trough. We have been told countless times by pundits and political scientists that the genius of America and of our party system is its lack of ideology and its "pragmatism" (a kind word for focusing solely on grabbing money and jobs from the hapless taxpayers). How, then, explain the amazing growth of a new party which is frankly and eagerly devoted to ideology?
One explanation is that Americans were not always pragmatic and nonideological. On the contrary, historians now realize that the American Revolution itself was not only ideological but also the result of devotion to the creed and the institutions of libertarianism. The American revolutionaries were steeped in the creed of libertarianism, an ideology which led them to resist with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor the invasions of their rights and liberties committed by the imperial British government. Historians have long debated the precise causes of the American Revolution: Were they constitutional, economic, political, or ideological? We now realize that, being libertarians, the revolutionaries saw no conflict between moral and political rights on the one hand and economic freedom on the other. On the contrary, they perceived civil and moral liberty, political independence, and the freedom to trade and produce as all part of one unblemished system, what Adam Smith was to call, in the same year that the Declaration of Independence was written, the "obvious and simple system of natural liberty." |
” |
| — Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) For a New Liberty (1973) |
Selected picture
 |
General images
-
Murray Bookchin, American libertarian socialist theorist and proponent of libertarian municipalism and communalism (from Libertarianism) -
Tea Party movement protest in Washington, D.C., September 2009 (from Libertarianism) -
Sébastien Faure, prominent French theorist of libertarian communism as well as atheist and freethought militant (from Libertarianism) -
Members of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo marching in Madrid in 2010 (from Libertarianism) -
The Nolan Chart, created by American libertarian David Nolan, expands the left–right line into a two-dimensional chart classifying the political spectrum by degrees of personal and economic freedom (from Libertarianism) -
-
John Locke, regarded as the father of liberalism (from Libertarianism) -
Former Congressman Ron Paul, a self-described libertarian, whose presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 garnered significant support from youth and libertarian Republicans (from Libertarianism) -
A diagram of the typology of beliefs in libertarianism (both left and right, respectively). (from Libertarianism) -
Thomas Paine, whose theory of property showed a libertarian concern with the redistribution of resources (from Libertarianism) -
The Political Compass: the green quadrant represents left-libertarianism and the purple right-libertarianism. (from Libertarianism) -
17 August 1860 edition of Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social, a libertarian communist publication in New York City (from Libertarianism) -
Noam Chomsky, a noted left-libertarian of the libertarian socialist school (from Left-libertarianism)
.jpg)
Selected biography -
Gary Earl Johnson (born January 1, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 29th governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a member of the Republican Party. He has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 2011 and was the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections. He was also the Libertarian nominee in the 2018 U.S. Senate election in New Mexico.
Johnson entered politics for the first time by running for governor of New Mexico in 1994 on a low-tax, anti-crime platform, promising a "common-sense business approach". He defeated incumbent Democratic governor Bruce King, 50% to 40%. He cut the 10% annual growth in the budget, in part by using the gubernatorial veto 200 times during his first six months. He was unable to convince the state senate to pass any of his motions. (Full article...)Related portals
Parent portals
Socio-political portals
Topics
Categories
Points of interest
 | Points of interest related to Libertarianism on Wikipedia: History – Portal – Category – WikiProject – Alerts – Deletions – Assessment |
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
