Talk:Libertarianism/Archive 7
I thought this topic might generate enough disagreement to warrant a talk page.
For example the term minimal statism is a bit clunky, libertarians use the term minarchism.
Also I don't care for this phrase (removed since): its (government's) function is only to keep people from harming each other. I don't think that really captures it. If you own a bookstore and I open a competing one nextdoor I've hurt you. If a husband cheats on his wife he hurts her. To libertarians the only purpose of government is to protect the rights of its citizens(those rights being defined by the non-aggression axiom and its corallaries).
Fare: indeed, to libertarians, the criterion is not whether someone feels hurt, but whether his rights have been respected or not. "hurting" or "profiting" is always respective to other imaginary worlds - and you can always imagine a world where you're better off or worse off. The only legitimate comparison when demanding justice, for libertarians, is between the world where your right has been respected, and the world where it wasn't.
Does libertarianism support state protection of property? I was missing this, which I think has become relevant with legal extensions of the property definition, such as DMCA etc.
MemoryHole.com: Yes libertarians(of the minarchist persuasion) support state protection of property rights. But the DMCA brings up questions of intellectual property rights and there is wide disagreement about that among libertarians.
Fare Most libertarians think that property rights are natural, and that legislation cannot or must not arbitrarily create or destroy them, that it can only discover and claim those rights that exist out of natural law. Actually, many libertarians (particularly the anarchist ones) believe that legislation should not exist at all, and/or should not be a state monopoly, but be done by competing law agencies that people freely adhere to or not.
Fare Some libertarians believe that intellectual property is a natural right, some utilitarian libertarians think that it is an acceptable governmental privilege. The most radical libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, resent state protection of property, and reject intellectual property, at least as we know it.
Is it accurate to treat classical liberalism and libertarianism as synonyms? As I understand it, classical liberalism is used primarily to refer to 18th century and 19th century liberals (as that word was used at the time), such as many of the founders of the US or Adam Smith. Libertarianism (in the recent American sense of the word), by contrast, is used to refer to people since the 1950s.
Although Libertarians look to classical liberals as their origins, I think its wrong to view their views as identical. Though on many issues (e.g. dislike for large or powerful governments) classical liberals and libertarians are similar, I doubt that classical liberals had the same views on all issues as modern libertarians do. (For example, many modern libertarians seem to have an almost Randian enthusiasm for capitalism; Adam Smith, IIRC, saw it not so much as a good thing as the least of the possible evils.)
Furthermore, I think a lot of liberals (in the recent American sense of the word) see their origins in classical liberalism also. (And I think the historical origin of modern liberalism lies in part in classical liberalism as well.) They would argue that where they differ from classical liberalism, they are not so much in opposition to it as a natural development of it. -- Simon J Kissane
No, it is not accurate to treat classical liberalism and libertarianism as synonyms. It is a work of propaganda to do so. -- TheCunctator
Fare: Yes, I think it is arguably accurate to accurate to treat classical liberalism and libertarianism as synonyms. Firstly because classical liberalism is the name for the tradition in all countries but the US. Secondly, because the opinions, the approaches, the methods, etc., are essentially the same - there has been some elaboration, but no revolution, no massive rejection. Indeed, Smith wasn't always enthusiast about capitalism, but Smith wasn't the most enthusiastic man in his own time (compare Turgot, Say or Bastiat). Thridly, yes, the old-time classical liberals did already hold all the modern opinions now claimed loudly by US libertarians, even if they didn't have modern words and references to express them. See for instance this article about Bastiat's opinions. So yes, libertarianism is one and the same with classical liberalism.
Besides, no non-libertarian ideology claims classical liberalism as its root, except in as much as they consider it part of the universal tradition, and after rejecting half of the classical liberal claims. Such is the case for modern US "liberals" -- they are actually socialists who prefer Marx to Smith.
But since I see room for dissensions here, I suppose there should be a specific article about classical liberalism, and another one on libertarianism.
That you can say that modern liberals are socialists is clear evidence of your extremism. Liberals are hardly Marxists; in fact, as the 1960s/70s showed, the distinction between liberals and leftists is pretty strong. None of Lawrence Lessig, Paul Krugman, or Robert Reich show any Marxist leanings, for example.
Your use of the word "ideology" is telling; political theories are not ideologies.
The assertion "Besides, no libertarian ideology claims classical liberalism as its root, except in as much as they consider it part of the universal tradition, and after rejecting half of the classical liberal claims" is as valid as the one you made.
Libertarianism as you define simply can't be a synonym for classical liberalism; libertarianism is a current, 20th-century political theory defined by 20th-century theorists; classical liberalism a historical term for a political theory specific to an earlier era. Asserting that libertarianism and classical liberalism are the same is like asserting that neo-classical and ancient Greek architecture are the same. It's reconfiguring the past into current expectations and understandings.
The past and the present, in reference to social phenomena, cannot be equivalent. Those who believe that they are are idealists or ideologists.
I'd buy that classic liberalism is a precursor to libertarianism.
--TheCunctator
Fare: if you think they differ, show me a point where libertarianism and classical liberalism differ, where one isn't the natural extension of the other. Show me a fork or interruption in classical liberalism. To me this is but US word-play. Just because the US has two words for it doesn't mean it differs.
Okay, here's my assertion: there is no fork, and Lawrence Lessig, Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich are classical liberals. --TheCunctator
Look, it's this simple. If a lot of people, and there are at least a few here, think that classic liberalism and libertarianism are distinct, then they are similar but different things that some people equate and other people distinguish.
Hey Fare, editing my work on the main pages is fine but please don't mutilate my comments on a /Talk page or else remove my name from any comments of mine that you change! I don't want credit for any of your prose. --MemoryHole.com
Wow. The "anarcho"-capitalists have really hijacked many of the articles here on wikipedia.
- Libertarians loathe socialism.
Would you elaborate on that, please? --Ed Poor
How is it propaganda to say that Libertarians are classical liberals? I would also disagree that they are the exact same thing, but aren't there many similarities between the beliefs of Jefferson, Locke, and Smith and the tenets of libertarianism? I would agree that Libertarianism was influenced by Classical Liberalism, but I would take it one step further and say that Libertarianism is a more extreme form of Classical Liberalism...but not the same thing.
Actually, to be fair, lots of people claim influence from classical liberalism: the contemporary left, the Old Right (a la John Birch Society), Libertarians, Left-Anarchists, Socialists, even a Marxist could use the Marxist philosophy of history to argue that Classical Liberalism precedes socialism which leads to communism. Who's correct seems to be a matter of debate which is the result of subjective, hermeneutic interpretation of the works of the Classical Liberals. --Damnedkingdom
Ed libertarians loathe socialism because socialists believe in a strong welfare state that requires high taxes which runs against the libertarian desire for a minimal (or non-existent) state. --Damnedkingdom
There is a section here for controversies within libertarianism, but nothing about problems with libertarianism. This in itself seems to be other than neutral.
On an abstract level, the largest problem with libertarianism seems to me to be circularity. Libertarians talk about property and contracts, ignoring that both property and contracts are meaningless without law, and therefore presume a law-giver: in other words, property and contracts are impossible without government. It is not obvious why government is obliged to act in a way that makes libertarianism possible, or to create such rights at all; it is even less obvious that when the source of these rights qualifies or cancels them, it has acted illegitimately.
There are, of course, other more practical problems: public goods and natural monopolies. ---Ihcoyc
If one is a libertarian minarchist then they do, by definition, believe that there should be a government that does recognize property rights, which has its source in natural law. For an American minarchist, they would argue that America should be libertarian because the Constitution limits the government to provide basic services (see the Tenth Amendment). An anarchist would argue that they wouldn't necessarily get rid of government institutions, but merely privatize them, laws included, so that they exist but not in the traditional sense, so if the government is dissolved people can contract for their own laws under private institutions. If you want to know how an anarco-capitalist society could possibly solve problems like public goods and natural monopolies they're addressed in The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman. --Damnedkingdom
I don't want to interrupt the discussion on theory, but wouldn't it be better to merge all the Libertarian Perspectives pages? they aren't that long you know. I'd like to either add them at the end of this page or create a single "Contorversies among Libertarians" page. :: aravindet
- Libertarians prefer not to be called "right-wing." Indeed, they reject the one-dimensional left/right political spectrum and instead propose a two-dimensional space with personal freedom on one Cartesian axis and economic freedom on the other.
I'm a little confused by this part of the article: It mentions that 'Libertarians prefer not to be called "right-wing."' ... does this mean that Libertarians are more frequently accused of being right-wing? In my experience this would seem to be the case and, if so, surely this should be mentioned in the article?
- Yes, that is correct: Libertarians are often categorized as rightists, particularly by socialists and social-democrats. I'm not sure why, except for that socialism ultimately derives a lot of its analysis from Marx, who saw economics as far more important than culture, "personal freedom", or other areas where libertarians differ strongly from rightists. (One catchphrase is "A libertarian is a Republican who smokes pot or has an unusual sex life.")
- However, libertarians usually also differ economically from rightists in being opposed to military adventures for economic benefit (including oil wars), corporate welfare and protectionism, and so forth. --FOo 22:40 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Similarly, this article does not discuss objections with the Libertarian 'political graph'. Is this discussed elsewhere or shuold it be added in for the sake of NPOV? -- Axon Tue Jul 22 11:09:16 GMTDT 2003
- I think political spectrum discusses it somewhat. --FOo 22:40 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Removing Nolan Chart
The Nolan Chart, as depicted in this article, is hopelessly POV. "The sector of this Nolan Chart labelled Communism/Fascism was originally labelled Populist. The X-axis was originally labelled Government Intervention in Economic Affairs. These labels have since been changed to promote the Libertarian agenda." I originally had that in a caption, but that's way too big of a caption to include. Furthermore, the use of the terms "economic freedom" and "personal freedom" are POV. Surely liberals and conservatives, as well as libertarians, believe they are providing people with the most economic and personal freedom. This chart is propaganda, even if it it is edited to conform to the original wording. I'm surprised Wikipedians have let something this blatant go for so long.