Libertarianism

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For the use of the term "libertarianism" in the philosophy of free will see libertarianism (philosophy).

A libertarian, generally speaking, is one who claims to believe in liberty. The opposite of a libertarian is an authoritarian. There are several different ideologies which would describe themselves as libertarian, each with different goals and views.

Libertarianism is any political philosophy which advocates individual rights and a limited or no government. There are two major brands of Libertarianism.

The type commonly known in the United States is Market-Libertarianism, or right-wing Libertarianism. This brand of Libertarianism is an extreme form of Neoliberalism, or libertarian capitalism. These Libertarians believe that individuals should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon what they believe to be the equal rights of others. In this respect they agree with many other modern political ideologies. The difference arises from the definition of "rights". For right-wing libertarians, there are no "positive rights" (such as to food or shelter or health care), only "negative rights" (such as to not be assaulted, abused, robbed or censored), including the right to personal property. Libertarians further believe that the only legitimate use of force, whether public or private, is to protect these rights.

Other libertarian critics of this view point out that private property is in many ways also a positive right. They also point out that these libertarians do not fundamentally question all authority as a true libertarian should. They are only willing to apply their libertarian beliefs within the realm of the common understanding of the modern nation-state. Any authority that exists outside of this narrow realm, no matter how severe or dangerous to the existence of liberty elsewhere, is none of the business of a right-wing libertarian. These critics point out that private authorities can turn into the state itself. In essence, that is what Fascism is- where a private power/authority becomes the state- and thus right-wing libertarians may inadvertantly be allowing a Fascist system to evolve by their refusal to deal with the question of private authoritarian systems such as corporations.

These critics generally view all forms of authority as ultimately being a means to advance the private ends of those who wield it, and thus even the state itself is really a private institution and a part of the capitalist system. They also critize libertarian capitalists for believing that one can sign away or sell off one's liberty, as being a facade for slavery. Slaves were once considered private property, just as the fruits of a capitalist's "wage slave" labor is the private property of those who the capitalist employs.

This type of Libertarianism is the form more commonly known in Europe, and is called Libertarian Socialism. It is a more radical libertarian view, which is also known as Anarchism or anti-authoritarianism. These left-wing libertarians predate the capitalist libertarian ideology by more than a century, and may also be known as classical libertarians. Some of its 19th century thinkers included Benjamin Tucker, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin, and most famously Mikhail Bakunin and his critique of Marxism.

Terminology

The term "libertarianism" in the capitalist sense has been in widespread use only since the 1950s[1]. Libertarian had previously been used most commonly by anarchists to describe themselves, avoiding the derogatory connotations of the the word "anarchy". In the aftermath of the crushing of the Paris Commune in 1871, anarchism and anarchists were officially outlawed in many countries for decades, so anarchists often called their groups and publications by another name -- hence the adoption of the libertaire as an alternative term in French.

The term became popular in the United States by 20th century thinkers who saw themselves as continuing the classical liberal tradition of the previous century. By that time the term liberalism had come to refer within the United States to belief in government regulation of the economy and government redistribution of wealth. These thinkers therefore came to call themselves libertarians; and from the United States the term has spread to the rest of the world.

However, there is still confusion because in Europe, the French word libertaire, the Spanish word libertario, etc., which are usually translated into English as libertarian, traditionally referred to some kind of socialist anarchism. This is in marked distinction to the modern US usage, by which libertarians are not socialists at all, and most of them are not anarchists, but minarchists (i.e., advocates of some minimal state).

Libertarianism and classical liberalism

Many right-wing libertarians see their origins in the earlier 17th to 20th century tradition of classical liberalism, and often use that term as a synonym for libertarianism.

While market libertarianism has much in common with the earlier tradition of classical liberalism, the latter term specifically refers to historical thinkers of the liberal enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. Others make the distinction to distance themselves from the socialist and welfare state connotations of the word "liberal" in American English. Critics of the trend toward conflation assert that there is a patterned difference between many libertarian and classical liberal thinkers as far as their beliefs about the degree to which the state should be restricted. For example, the classical liberal thinker John Stuart Mill was not opposed to the state and saw a role for the state in the delivery of education, maintenance and expansion of public utilities and even in the provision of assistance to the poor; libertarians are often hostile to the state and think its role should be severely restricted or even eliminated. Capitalist libertarians also argue that the market can be used to organize all or most aspects of society and have developed rational choice theory accordingly, while classical liberals such as Adam Smith argued there were limitations to the market's utility as a means of social organization.

There are also many important differences in the understanding of authority, class, politics, and the political economy between classical liberals and right-wing libertarians. Unlike the classical liberals, modern market libertarians tend to be very pro-business and and pro-corporate. They generally view the very wealthy as having "earned their place", while the classical liberals were often skeptical of the rich, businessmen, and corporations seeing them as aristocrats with desires to tyranize the people. And important primary difference is in the nature of the political economy between today and the classical liberal period. Today the wealthy use an insitution that is technically independant of the state- the corporation- to tyranize, while in classical times they used the state itself, which also chartered and ran corporations.

The modern understanding of private property by right-wing libertarians is also much different than the way classical liberals understood it. In that period of time, the right to private property was primarily used by farming peasents to free themselves from oppressive feudal landlords. Today, large accumulations of private property in a few hands is often used for just the opposite purpose. In fact, towards the latter stage of the classical liberal enlightenment, thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rosseau began attacking the concept of privately controlled property.

In addition, much of Adam Smith's theory of economic liberalism contradicts the claims of modern right-wing libertarians. Smith's theory of economic value was based on a Labor Theory of Value, while the modern market libertarians claim that value is Subjective or comes from "marginal utility" to the owner. Smith also saw little useful purpose for corporations in a market economy, having stated in The Wealth of Nations that, "The pretense that corporations are necessary to the better government of the trade is without foundation." Unlike modern right-wing libertarians, Smith also drew class distictions between labor and capital. He viewed businessmen with much suspicion saying in The Wealth of Nations that they are "an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

The opposition to social saftey nets and the welfare state by modern right-wing libertarians also contradicts an idea which originates from the times of classical liberalism. Thomas Paine, arguably the most radical of the classical liberal thinkers, was the first to speak of such ideas in his book The Age of Reason. Indeed, social saftey nets and the welfare state are not creations of Marxism or Socialism, but of an important actor in the American revolution, which is almost always considered the first of the classical liberal revolutions. The eventual implementations of these programs during the early 20th century was not an attempt to undermine the free-market, but rather an attempt to save it from its own excesses and pitfalls.

Critics of the right-wing market libertarianism argue that a more accurate term to describe it would be neo-classical liberalism, or more commonly known as neoliberalism. Classical liberalism by all accounts was intended to be a progressive and dynamic system of free-thought, not a rigid straightjacket that cannot adapt to changes in the political economy, government, and social conditions. Despite propoganda from various sides, modern day social welfare liberalism is in fact the true carrier of the political tradition of classical liberalism, though many radicals would argue that it has become a far more conservative ideology than it was during the 18th and early 19th century.

In any case, whether one equates them or not, right-wing market libertarianism closely models opinions, methods, and approaches of earlier classical liberalism and many capitalist libertarians see themselves as the inheritors of that tradition. It has few commonalities with modern "new" or "welfare" liberalism or socialism. Many economically-oriented libertarians use the word "socialist" nigh-interchangeably with "statist" in critiquing their opponents, even rightist opponents, out of the argument that socialism is the only consistent (family of) statist ideologies. This may perhaps be compared with Marxist use of terms such as "capitalist" and "bourgeois" in critique of other (self-proclaimed) leftists (see state capitalism).

Libertarianism in the political spectrum

While the traditional political spectrum is a line, the Nolan Chart turns it to a plane to accommodate libertarians and others.

In the US some market libertarians feel conservative and some conservatives feel libertarian, because both groups claim as theirs the ideology of the founding fathers of the USA. Still, it is possible to distinguish quite neatly two different and often opposite traditions, and it is only a matter of terminology when confusion occurs. This opposition is clearly explained in Friedrich Hayek's article "Why I Am Not a Conservative" [2]. In fact, there have been times when those with libertarian views were considered left-wing on the political spectrum (for instance, in the seventeenth century, the Whigs were revolutionaries, and in 1848, Frederic Bastiat was seating rather on the left side of the Assembly). It can be argued that while the balance of political opinions has shifted a lot, the anti-statist tradition of libertarianism has not moved, only evolved and grown.

Market libertarians do not identify themselves as either "right-wing" or "left-wing". Indeed, many 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. This space is shown by the Nolan Chart, proposed by David Nolan, the founder of the United States Libertarian Party.[3] Though many libertarians may believe the separation of personal and economic freedom is actually a false dichotomy, the Nolan Chart is frequently utilized in order to differentiate their ideology from others (e.g., conservativism and modern liberalism) which generally advocate greater limitations on different modes of freedom according to their respective conceptions of rights. The libertarian conception of rights maximizes individual liberty and autonomy, which leads libertarians to advocate the fewest possible limitations on either mode of freedom.

The validity of the Nolan Chart is disputed by many libertarians and non-libertarians. Socialists, modern liberals and conservatives often argue that the libertarian definition of "freedom" is flawed or incorrect. In addition, the placement of Communism and Fascism so close together is controversial, and some critics may see this as evidence for their view that the Nolan Chart is overly simplistic. Classical libertarians (libertarian socialists) also point out that the Nolan Chart totally fails to account for their ideology, as well as for varying degrees of authoritarianism that are exclusively on the left or right.

A more accurate chart is the political compass which places left and right on a single axis, and authoritarian/libertarian on another. On this scale, libertarian socialism is on the hard left and very bottom corner, while libertarian capitalism as advocated by Nolan is on the hard right and somewhat libertarian position.


Individualism, liberty, responsibility and property

The fundamental values that capitalist libertarians claim to fight for are individual liberty, individual responsibility and individual property. Capitalist Libertarians have an elaborate theory of these values that they defend, that does not always match prevailing views regarding liberty, and that strictly opposes collectivist views in this regard. As an example, many capitalist libertarians hold that personal liberties (such as privacy and freedom of speech) are inseparable from economic liberties (such as the freedom to trade, labor, or invest). They make this point to contrast themselves with modern liberals who believe that economic regulation is necessary for personal freedom and personal well-being, and with conservatives who tie free trade with a restrictive regulation of personal issues such as sexuality, drug use and speech.

Many criticisms of market libertarianism revolve around the notion of "freedom" itself. For example, socialists would argue that the economic freedoms defended by libertarians result in privileges for the wealthy elite and violations of workers' rights.

Other criticisms revolve around the desirability and practical usefulness of certain freedoms. Conservatives, in particular, would argue that excessive personal freedoms encourage dangerous and irresponsible behaviour, or that they are too permissive on crime.

It is a chief point for many capitalist libertarians that rights vest originally in individuals and never in groups such as nations, races, religions, classes, or cultures. This conception holds it as nonsensical to say (for instance) that a wrong can be done to a class or a race in the absence of specific wrongs done to individual members of that group. It also undercuts rhetorical expressions such as, "The government has the right to ...", since under this formulation "the government" has no original rights but only those duties with which it has been lawfully entrusted under the citizens' rights. Market Libertarianism frequently dovetails neatly therefore with strict constructionism in the constitutional sense.

The classic problem in political philosophy of the legitimacy of property is essential to capitalist libertarians. Capitalist libertarians often justify individual property on the basis of self-ownership: one's right to own one's body; the results of one's own work; what one obtains from the voluntary concession of a former legitimate owner through trade, gift or inheritance, and so forth. Ownership of disputed natural resources is more problematic and solutions such as homesteading have been studied from John Locke to Murray Rothbard. This is particularly important since most criticisms of private property rest on the notion that no person can claim rightful ownership over natural resources, and that since the making of any object requires some amount of raw materials and natural resources, no person can claim rightful ownership over man-made objects either.

Anti-statist doctrine

Capitalist libertarians consider that there is an extended domain of individual freedom defined by every individual's person and private property, and that no one, whether private citizen or government, may under any circumstances violate this boundary.

Indeed, capitalist libertarians consider that no organization, including government, can have any right except those that are voluntarily delegated to it by its members -- which implies that these members must have had these rights to delegate them to begin with.

Thus, according to capitalist libertarians, taxation and regulation are at best necessary evils, and where unnecessary are simply evil. Government spending and regulations should be reduced insofar as they replace voluntary private spending with involuntary public spending, and replace private morality with public coercion. To many capitalist libertarians, governments should not establish schools, run hospitals, regulate industry, commerce or agriculture, or run social welfare programs. Nor should government restrict sexual practices, gambling, drug usage, or any other 'victimless' crimes. Capitalist libertarians also believe in an extremely broad (and in some cases all-inclusive) interpretation of free speech which should not be restricted by government. For libertarians, government's main imperative should be Laissez-faire -- "Hands off!" -- except to protect the individual rights recognized by libertarianism.

Capitalist libertarians believe in minimizing the responsibilities of citizens towards the government, which directly results in minimizing the responsibilities of the government towards its citizens.

See Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy the State for early modern anti-state thought and Lysander Spooner's The Constitution of No Authority for a critique of social contract theory.

Anarchists and minarchists

All capitalist libertarians agree that government should be limited to what is strictly necessary, no more, no less. But there is no consensus among them about how much government is necessary. Hence, libertarians are further divided between the minarchists and the anarcho-capitalists, which are discussed at length in specific articles. Both minarchists and anarcho-capitalists differ in their beliefs from the anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-socialists and libertarian socialists.

The minarchists believe that a "minimal" or a "night-watchman" state is necessary to guarantee property rights and civil liberties, and is to be used for that purpose only. For them, the proper functions of government might include the maintenance of the courts, the police, the military, and perhaps a few other vital functions (e.g., roads). While they are technically statists since they support the existence of a government, they would resent the connotations usually attached to this term.

The anarcho-capitalists, believe that even in matters of justice and protection and particularly in such matters, action by competing private responsible individuals (freely organized in businesses, cooperatives, or organizations of their choice) is much better than action by governments. While they consider themselves to be anarchists, they insist in rejecting the connotations often attached to this term regarding support of a socialist ideal.

Minarchists consider that they are realists, while anarcho-capitalists are utopian to believe that governments can be wholly done without. Anarcho-capitalists consider that they are realists, and that minarchists are utopian to believe that a state monopoly of violence can be contained within any reasonable limits. Critics of both these positions generally point to the historical record of democratic governments as evidence that democracy and popular rule have succeeded not only in containing government abuse of freedom, but have in fact transformed the state from a violent master of the people into their loyal and peaceful servant.

The minarchist/anarcho-capitalist division is very friendly, and not the source of any deep enmity, despite the sometimes involved theoretic arguments. Capitalist Libertarians feel much more strongly about their common defense of individual liberty, responsibility and property, than about their possible minarchist vs. anarchist differences. Since both minarchists and anarchists believe that existing governments are far, far too intrusive, the two factions seek change in almost exactly the same directions.

Many capitalist libertarians don't take a position with regard to this division, and don't care about it. Indeed, many capitalist libertarians consider that governments exist and will exist in the foreseeable future, up to the end of their lives, so that their efforts are better spent fighting, containing and avoiding the action of governments than trying to figure out what life could or couldn't be like without them. In recent years market libertarianism has attracted many "fellow-travelers" (to borrow a phrase from the Communists) who care little about such theoretical issues and merely wish to reduce the size, corruption, and intrusiveness of government.

Some capitalist libertarian philosophers argue that, properly understood, minarchism and anarcho-capitalism are not in contradiction. See Revisiting Anarchism and Government by Tibor R. Machan.

Utilitarianism, natural law, and reason

Capitalist Libertarians tend to take either one of an axiomatic natural law point of view, or a utilitarian point of view, in justifying their beliefs. Some of them (like Frederic Bastiat), claim a natural harmony between these two points of view (that would indeed be but different points of view on a same truth), and consider it irrelevant to try to establish one as truer.

An exposition of utilitarian libertarianism appears in David Friedman's book The Machinery of Freedom, which includes a chapter describing an allegedly highly libertarian culture that existed in Iceland around 800 AD.

For natural rights libertarianism, see for instance Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

See also relevant paragraphs about this difference in points of view in the article about Anarcho-capitalism.

An alternate justification for capitalist libertarian ideas (broadly speaking), predicated on the use of reason and the observance of a certain code of ethics (rather than pursuit of social ends) is contained within the philosophy of Objectivism established by Ayn Rand. It should be noted that although Objectivism and libertarianism overlap, Rand did not consider herself a libertarian.

Some capitalist libertarians do not attempt to justify their beliefs in any external sense; they support market libertarianism because they desire the maximum degree of liberty possible within their own lives, and see libertarianism as the most effective political philosophy towards this end.

Controversies among capitalist libertarians

Capitalist Libertarians do not agree on every topic. Although they share a common tradition of thinkers from centuries past to contemporary times, no thinker is considered a common authority whose opinions are to be blindly accepted. Rather, they are generally considered a reference with which to compare one's opinions and arguments.

These controversies are addressed in separate articles:

A typographical convention

Note that some writers follow the convention of using libertarian (spelled in lowercase) to mean a general advocate of libertarianism, while Libertarian (capitalized) refers specifically to a member of a libertarian political party.

Quotations on Market Libertarianism

"Libertarianism is a philosophy. The basic premise of libertarianism is that each individual should be free to do as he or she pleases so long as he or she does not harm others. In the libertarian view, societies and governments infringe on individual liberties whenever they tax wealth, create penalties for victimless crimes, or otherwise attempt to control or regulate individual conduct which harms or benefits no one except the individual who engages in it."

-- Definition written by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, during the process of granting the Advocates for Self-Government status as a non-profit educational organization.

Modern capitalist libertarians

Notable theorists and authors

Politicians and media personalities

Celebrities

Capitalist Libertarian magazines

See also

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