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view · edit Frequently asked questions Q: Are libertarianism and socialism mutually exclusive? A: No. Libertarians believe liberty consists of personal autonomy, and they justify a strong distrust of the state upon this foundation. Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. Although socialism is commonly associated with the planned economies proffered by Marxism-Leninism and other "authoritarian socialists," libertarian socialism rejects economic direction from a central authority such as the state. Thus, libertarianism and anarchism have been synonyms since the 1890s, and other equivalents include libertarian socialism, socialist anarchism, and left-libertarianism. The libertarianism of the 19th century had two strong currents, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, both of which fall under the umbrella of libertarian socialism and were explicitly anti-capitalist. In the 20th century, members of the Old Right in the United States such as Albert Jay Nock and H. L. Mencken began identifying as libertarians to declare their commitment to individualism and distance themselves from liberals who supported welfare capitalism. Some libertarians (e.g. Murray Rothbard, who popularized the libertarian philosophy anarcho-capitalism) were explicitly influenced by the American individualist anarchists, but most were "a rather automatic product of the American environment." This modern American libertarianism is also referred to as right-libertarianism. Q: What is right-libertarianism? What is left-libertarianism? A: Right-libertarianism refers to those libertarian ideologies that extoll private property without recompense paid by the owner to the local community, and includes anarcho-capitalism and laissez-faire, minarchist liberalism. This is contrasted with left-libertarianism, which either rejects private property, or accepts it only under the condition that the local community is compensated for the exclusionary effects thereof (e.g. a land value tax). Left-libertarianism includes libertarian socialism, left-wing market anarchism, and geolibertarianism. Q: How are all these political philosophies related? Which ones are closely related or inclusive? A: Some labels and qualifiers are typically used to group together multiple political movements or ideologies or distance them from others. Below is a rough and simplified visual representation of how many of the political camps described in the article (i.e. groups that have either identified or been described as libertarian) relate to one another, without any regard to their affinity for one another, their prominence or their significance. Libertarian classification diagram References Badie, Bertrand; Berg-Schlosser, Dirk; Morlino, Leonardo (2011). International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE Publications, Inc. p. 2456. ISBN 978-1412959636. "Socialist systems are those regimes based on the economic and political theory of socialism, which advocates public ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources." Sacco, Nicola and Vanzetti, Bartolomeo (1928). The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Octagon Books. p. 274. "After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference—the fundamental one—between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government." Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism (in English, translated). London:Freedom Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-900384-89-9. OCLC 37529250. Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. New York:Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-0853451754. "Some contemporary anarchists have tried to clear up the misunderstanding by adopting a more explicit term: they align themselves with libertarian socialism or communism." Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14. ^ Bookchin, Murray and Biehl, Janet (1997). The Murray Bookchin Reader. New York:Cassell. p. 170. Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Oakland:PM Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1. " emerged at the end of the eighteenth century in its modern form as a response partly to the rise of centalized States and nationalism, and partly to industrialization and capital. Anarchism thus took up the dual challenge of overthrowing both Capital and the State." ^ Chartier, Gary. Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Minor Compositions. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1570272424. "The anticapitalism of the 'first wave' individualists was obvious to them and to many of their contemporaries." Burns, Jennifer (2009). Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York:Oxford University Press. p. 309. ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7. DeLeon, David (1978). The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. "only a few individuals like Murray Rothbard, in Power and Market, and some article writers were influenced by . Most had not evolved consciously from this tradition; they had been a rather automatic product of the American environment." ^ Goodway, David (2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool:Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition." Hamowy, Ronald. "Left Libertarianism." The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. p. 288 Foldvary, Fred E. "Geoism and Libertarianism". The Progress Report. Progress.org. Retrieved 2013-03-26.

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Whole page and related wiki stuff reads like an ideological campaign for someone's idiosyncratic politics

Needs a major clean up — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.29.166.232 (talk) 15:48, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on that point? X-Editor (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

The whole discussion that tries to shoehorn libertarian thought into a one dimensional axis is terrible. Human thought isn't as simple as left and right. Rjedgar (talk) 23:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

@Rjedgar The article does mention other forms of libertarian thought that aren't explicitly right or left wing, including libertarian paternalism, neo-libertarianism and libertarian populism. However, I can understand your point that the article might focus too much on the left-right divide. I think the reason this left-right divide was created was to distinguish between more socialist and anti-capitalist libertarians and more pro-capitalist libertarians. If you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem, please share them with me. X-Editor (talk) 01:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @North8000: to this discussion X-Editor (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I do reject the right and left libertarian terminology attempts to divide along those lines, and think that those two articles should be reduced to short articles on those terms. But I don't see where this article has that problem. North8000 (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

You all DO realize that libertarianism in and of itself is an asinine, poorly reasoned, vague and nebulous conception, dont you? Libertarianism is nonsensical from the get go, which is why its difficult to write any coherent descriptions about it. The libertarians cannot even decide what libertarianism is, by enumerating specific tenets and values, and by designing a functional system. Everything is so abstract all the time to the point of vagueness. And idealistic, as well, akin to the socialists utopian ideal; just as delusional and idealistic, merely occupying a different political space. Whenever one libertarian decides a policy is too libertarian, others in his ilk will naturally think him an authoritarian. And the push for ever more libertarianism at the expense of the ejection of prior proponents who are now too authoritarian by comparison is inevitable, precisely because no limits are defined. Simply put, libertarianism is, or will inevitably lead to, anarchism. The typical libertarian, though, is too strung out on pot to ever realize it, and has his mind set on a fantasy world. If you truly simply want less government involvement, but still appreciate the need for the rule of law and for society to set standards of conduct, well then, welcome to the conservative movement and let me introduce you to the tenth amendment. 50.34.32.46 (talk) 03:21, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

"let me introduce you to the tenth amendment." The tenth amendment of what? And conservatism is not about less government involvement, it tends to support hierarchical society and traditionalism, and to oppose social reforms. Dimadick (talk) 08:39, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Not exactly. Fiscal conservatism is in favour of smaller government in the economic sense, while traditionalist conservatism and social conservatism primarily favour hierarchy and traditionalism and oppose social reform. X-Editor (talk) 02:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Not going to respond to that other than to say that the topic is far more complex and diverse than you imagine. You should start by reading the article. North8000 (talk) 16:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

We’re not here to debate the merits of libertarianism, we’re here to discuss improvements to the article on libertarianism. X-Editor (talk) 02:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Are you saying libertarianism is nonsense because (unlike any other political philosophy) it has factions that disagree? If so, then what – the article ought not to exist? —Tamfang (talk) 06:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with this point. I’ve noticed as of recently that there is an obsession on Misplaced Pages with categorizing every single political ideology and movement into a simple left vs. right spectrum. This greatly oversimplifies the many complexities of politics. X-Editor (talk) 02:39, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree and agree that this is a problem. Plus even "left" and "right" are in the eye of the beholder. The left/right concept makes a particular mess out of covering libertarianism, because in that area the meanings of the terms are very different in the US vs. Europe. Also see my comment below. North8000 (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe you could take this issue to the NPOV noticeboard for discussion? X-Editor (talk) 21:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

We should just edit this article and the other relevant ones. There is no group with any entrenched viewpoint defending the status quo. There is just 10+ years of random discussion, random viewpoints and random debates. North8000 (talk) 23:29, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough X-Editor (talk) 20:53, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Lack of criticism of left-libertarianism

In the criticism section there is one line referring to criticism of left-libertarianism, but four paragraphs to the right. Considering left-libertarianism is talked about frequently in this article, why so little criticism mentioned? Zilch-nada (talk) 05:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. I think that "left-libertarianism" and "right-libertarianism" are terms that need to be covered but not valid for use in covering libertarianism. But I don't know how to answer your question. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@North8000: I had a look at Google Ngrams and found that there's a pretty massive gap between the coverage of the term "libertarianism" and those of its branches. Together, the terms "right-libertarianism", "left-libertarianism", "libertarian socialism" and "libertarian communism" make up only 4% of the coverage of "libertarianism" as a whole. But in our article, for 502 uses of the term "libertarian", there are 25 uses of "left-libertarian", 25 cases of "libertarian socialis", 20 uses of "right-libertarian" and 16 uses of "libertarian communis". That's 17% of the cases in the article.

So I think there's a very good argument to be made that such excessive rack-focusing on different branches of libertarianism, rather than giving a broad overview of the subject, is probably undue. -- Grnrchst (talk) 12:10, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Spanish language article

I was reading the Spanish version of this article and realized that it is very low-quality and an apparently US-centric, right-libertarian only, and outright sometimes incorrect description of libertarianism that fails to even mention its history before right-libertarianism and the expansiveness of non-right libertarian movements. I will try to contribute to its improvement when I am free, but if there are other people who speak/write Spanish I strongly encourage you to help with its improvement. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

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