Libertarianism

For other uses, see Libertarian (disambiguation) and Libertarianism (disambiguation).

Libertarianism (Template:Lang-la, "free") is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end. This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty, political freedom, and voluntary association. It is the antonym to authoritarianism. Different schools of libertarianism disagree over whether the state should exist and, if so, to what extent. While minarchists propose a state limited in scope to preventing aggression, theft, breach of contract and fraud, anarchists advocate its complete elimination as a political system. While certain libertarian currents believe that unappropriated land and natural resources may be claimed by anyone with no compensation to society for their use, others hold that unappropriated natural resources belong to the community as a whole, and payment (taxation) can legitimately be required for their appropriation. (see Geolibertarianism, Steiner-Vallentyne left-libertarianism)

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, libertarianism is defined as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things. Libertarian philosopher Roderick 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. In the United States, the term libertarianism is often used as a synonym for combined economic and cultural liberalism.

Many countries throughout the world have libertarian parties (see list of libertarian political parties).

Etymology

The term libertarian was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to the metaphysical belief in free will, as opposed to incompatibilist determinism. The first recorded use was in 1789, when William Belsham wrote about libertarianism in opposition to "necessitarian", i.e. determinist, views.

Libertarian as an advocate or defender of liberty, especially in the political and social spheres, was used in the London Packet on 12 February, 1796: "Lately marched out of the Prison at Bristol, 450 of the French Libertarians." The word was used also in a political sense in 1802, in a short piece critiquing a poem by "the author of Gebir":

The author's Latin verses, which are rather more intelligible than his English, mark him for a furious Libertarian (if we may coin such a term) and a zealous admirer of France, and her liberty, under Bonaparte; such liberty!

The use of the word libertarian to describe a new set of political positions has been traced to the French cognate, libertaire, coined in a scathing letter French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque wrote to mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857, castigating him for his sexist political views. Déjacque also used the term for his anarchist publication Le Libertaire: Journal du Mouvement Social, which was printed from 9 June, 1858 to 4 February, 1861. In the mid-1890s, Sébastien Faure began publishing a new Le Libertaire while France's Third Republic enacted the lois scélérates ("villainous laws"), which banned anarchist publications in France. Libertarianism has frequently been used as a synonym for anarchism since this time.

In 1878, Sir John Seeley characterized a libertarian as someone "who can properly be said to defend liberty", by opposing tyranny or "resist[ing] the established government". In 1901, Frederic William Maitland used the term to capture a cultural attitude of support for freedom: "the picture of an editor defending his proof sheets... before an official board of critics is not to our liking... In such matters Englishmen are individualists and libertarians."

The modern use of liberalism in the USA refers to social liberalism, and so libertarianism has become synonymous with classical liberalism. Libertarianism in the United States is associated with economically conservative and socially liberal political views (going by the common meanings of conservative and liberal in the United States), and, often, a foreign policy of non-interventionism. H. L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock were the first prominent figures in the United States to call themselves libertarians. They believed Franklin D. Roosevelt had co-opted the word liberal for his New Deal policies, which they opposed, and used libertarian to signify their allegiance to individualism and limited government. Mencken wrote in 1923: "My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety."

This US libertarianism has propagated beyond its borders since the 1970s via think tanks and political parties, and libertarianism is increasingly viewed worldwide as a free market position.

Philosophy

See also: Category:Libertarianism by form and Debates within libertarianism

Libertarian philosophies are generally divided on three principal questions: (1) Whether what is ethically permissible is determined consequentially or in terms of natural rights (deontologically); (2) on how natural resources may be appropriated; (3) the legitimacy of private property; (4) on the legitimacy of the state.

Consequentialist – natural rights distinction

Main articles: Consequentialist libertarianism and Natural-rights libertarianism

See also: Non-aggression principle

Broadly, there are two ethically justified variants of libertarianism: "consequentialist libertarianism" and "natural rights libertarianism" (or "deontological libertarianism"). Natural-rights libertarians maintain that natural rights exist, and from there argue that certain actions of the state violate these rights. It may include both right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism. Consequentialist libertarians argue that a free market and strong private property rights bring about beneficial consequences, such as wealth creation and efficiency, rather than subscribing to a theory of rights or justice. There are hybrid forms of libertarianism that combine deontological and consequentialist reasoning.

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

Left – Right distinction

Main articles: Right-libertarianism and Left-libertarianism

Right-libertarianism holds that unappropriated natural resources may be appropriated by the first person who discovers them, mixes their labor with them, or merely claims them – without the consent of others, and with little or no compensation to the rest of society.

Left-libertarianism, by contrast, holds that unappropriated natural resources are initially owned by society in general, which can require those who appropriate natural resources to compensate the rest of society for the value of those rights.

Propertarian – non-propertarian distinction

Main articles: Propertarianism and Libertarian socialism

Propertarian libertarian philosophies define liberty as non-aggression (an arrangement in which no person or group "aggresses" against any other party), where aggression is defined as the violation of private property. This philosophy implicitly recognizes private property as the sole source of legitimate authority. Propertarian libertarians hold that societies in which private property rights are enforced are the only ones that are both ethical and lead to the best possible outcomes. They generally support the free market, and are not opposed to any concentrations of economic power, provided it occurs through non-coercive means.

Non-propertarian libertarian philosophies hold that liberty is the absence of capitalist authority and argue that 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. Implicitly, it rejects any authority of private property and thus holds that it is not legitimate for someone to claim private ownership of any resources to the detriment of others. 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. Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils.

Anarchist – minarchist distinction

Main articles: Anarchism and Minarchism

See also: Anarcho-capitalism and minarchism

Libertarians differ on whether government is desirable. Some, such as minarchists and classical liberals, favor the existence of minimal states and see them as necessary or inevitable. On the other hand, anarchists favor stateless societies and view the state as being undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful.

Minarchists argue that having defense and the courts controlled by the market is an inherent miscarriage of justice because it transforms justice into a commodity, thereby conflating justice with economic power. Anarchists argue that having defense and courts controlled by the state is both immoral and an inefficient means of achieving both justice and security. Libertarian socialists hold that liberty is incompatible with state action based on a class struggle analysis of the state.

History

Age of Enlightenment

John Locke

See also: Age of Enlightenment, Classical liberalism, History of liberalism, and History of anarchism

Elements of libertarianism can be traced as far back as the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu and the higher-law concepts of the Greeks and the Israelites. In 17th-century England, libertarian ideas began to take modern form in the writings of the Levellers and John Locke. In the middle of that century, opponents of royal power began to be called Whigs, or sometimes simply "opposition" or "country" (as opposed to Court) writers.

During the 18th century, classical liberal ideas flourished in Europe and North America. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by classical liberal ideas.

John Locke greatly influenced both libertarianism and the modern world in his writings published before and after the English Revolution of 1688, especially A Letter Concerning Toleration (1667), Two Treatises of Government (1689) and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). In the latter he established the basis of liberal political theory: that people's rights existed before government; that the purpose of government is to protect personal and property rights; that people may dissolve governments that do not do so; and that representative government is the best form to protect rights. The United States Declaration of Independence was inspired by Locke in its statement: "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…"

According to Murray Rothbard, the libertarian creed emerged from the classical liberal challenges to an "absolute central State and a king ruling by divine right on top of an older, restrictive web of feudal land monopolies and urban guild controls and restrictions", the mercantilism of a bureaucratic warfaring state allied with privileged merchants. The object of classical liberals was individual liberty in the economy, in personal freedoms and civil liberty, separation of state and religion, and peace as an alternative to imperial aggrandizement. He cites Locke's contemporaries, the Levellers, who held similar views. Also influential were the English "Cato's Letters" during the early 1700s, reprinted eagerly by American colonists who already were free of European aristocracy and feudal land monopolies.

In January of 1776, only two years after coming to America from England, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet "Common Sense" calling for independence for the colonies. Paine promoted classical liberal ideas in clear, concise language that allowed the general public to understand the debates among the political elites. Common Sense was immensely popular in disseminating these ideas, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Paine later would write the Rights of Man and The Age of Reason and participate in the French Revolution. Paine´s theory of property showed a "libertarian concern" with the redistribution of resources.

In 1793, William Godwin wrote a libertarian philosophical treatise, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness, which criticized ideas of human rights and of society by contract based on vague promises. He took classical liberalism to its logical anarchic conclusion by rejecting all political institutions, law, government, and apparatus of coercion, as well as all political protest and insurrection. Instead of institutionalized justice he proposed that people influence one and other to moral goodness through informal reasoned persuasion, including in the associations they joined, and that this would facilitate human happiness.

Individualist anarchism

Main articles: Individualist anarchism, Individualist anarchism in the United States, and European individualist anarchism

Josiah Warren

During the 19th century a tradition of individualist anarchism developed that continued into and influenced 20th century libertarianism and these included Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Heywood, William B. Greene, J.K. Ingalls, and Stephen Pearl Andrews. They were influenced by individualist German philosophers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Max Stirner, and Friedrich Nietzsche. They also were influenced by Britain's Herbert Spencer and France's Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Josiah Warren's individualistic philosophy arose from rejection of Robert Owen's failed cooperative movement in the 1820s, of which he was a participant. Of it, he wrote: "It seemed that the difference of opinion, tastes, and purposes increased just in proportion to the demand for conformity […] It appeared that it was nature's own inherent law of diversity that had conquered us […] our 'united interests' were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation". Warren even rejected community of property which he considered "doomed to failure because of the individuality of the persons involved in such an experiment."

For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, American individualist anarchism "stresses the isolation of the individual – his right to his own tools, his mind, his body, and to the products of his labor. To the artist who embraces this philosophy it is 'aesthetic' anarchism, to the reformer, ethical anarchism, to the independent mechanic, economic anarchism."

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) was an important early influence in individualist anarchist thought in the United States and Europe. Thoreau was an American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, surveyor, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist best known for his book Walden and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance and moral opposition to an unjust state. He originated the phrase "that government is best which governs less" and wrote "this government of itself never furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of the way."

Benjamin Tucker's Liberty.

In the late nineteenth century individualist anarchism was expressed through Benjamin R. Tucker's periodical Liberty (1881–1908), which Wendy McElroy calls a “textbook of libertarian culture of the late nineteenth century.” It debated issues among the various strains of individualist anarchism in the Americas and Europe. Tucker himself had a "passionate belief in the moral illegitimacy of the state", which premise he often followed to its uncomfortable conclusions. "When was widely criticized, Tucker enthusiastically endorsed the poem, urging all of his subscribers to read it. Tucker, in fact, published an American edition. From its early championing of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, to it's printing of Oscar Wilde's plea for penal reform called "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", to a series of short stories by Francis du Bosque in its last issues, Liberty was a vehicle of controversial, avant-garde literature." Tucker referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "Anarchistic socialism." He also thought that the economics of Josiah Warren constituted the earliest version of socialism, which he saw as the extension of Adam Smith's labour theory of value.

An important concern for American individualist anarchism was free love. Free love particularly stressed women's rights since most sexual laws discriminated against women: for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures. It produced a number of important publications like Lucifer the Lightbearer (1883–1907), The Word (1872–1890, 1892–1893) and Free Society.

"Freethought" was an anti-Christian, anti-clerical movement whose purpose was to make the individual politically and spiritually free to decide on religious matters. The church was seen as a repressive ally of the state. A number of contributors to Liberty were prominent figures in both freethought and individualist anarchism. Freethought was important in European individualist anarchism and it emphasized criticism of religious dogmas and of the church.

Charles-Auguste Bontemps and others were active in French individualist anarchism. Their theoretical positions and practices were iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles, including nudist anarcho-naturism, defense of birth control and the idea of 'unions of egoists' solely for sexual purposes. Spanish individualist anarchists were influenced by American and French theorists, and practiced by individuals like Dorado Montero, Ricardo Mella, Federico Urales and J. Elizalde.

Mutualism

Main article: Mutualism (economic theory)

Mutualism is a libertarian socialist school of thought originating from the mid-19th century writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. While Proudhon argued against private ownership of the means of production and advocated a stateless socialist society based on democratic worker self-management, he denounced the state socialist tendency toward advancing communism through central planning. He acknowledged that principles of competition and solidarity were in conflict but stated that society would find the “most libertarian means possible” to deal with the tension between freedom and order. Proudhon proposed spontaneous order, whereby organization emerges without central authority, a "positive anarchy" where order arises when everybody does "what he wishes and only what he wishes." He saw that every society has libertarian and authoritarian tendencies and that conflicts could be resolved by independent arbitrators or federations. Mutualism has been retrospectively characterized as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism.

• Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Princeton University Press 1996 ISBN 0-691-04494-5, p. 6
• Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, Blackwell Publishing 1991 ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 11.
• George Woodcock in Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements also emphasized mutualism and individualist anarchism, according to John Curl, Ishmael Reed, For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America, PM Press, 2012, ISBN 1604867329, ISBN 9781604867329, pp. 20, 478

Kevin Carson is a contemporary mutualist and author of Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. In the preface of this work Carson describes this work as "an attempt to revive individualist anarchist political economy, to incorporate the useful developments of the last hundred years, and to make it relevant to the problems of the twenty-first century."

Geolibertarianism

Main articles: Geolibertarianism and Georgism

In the late nineteenth century, the libertarian philosophy of Georgism became influential among many libertarians, particularly among American libertarians. The Georgist philosophy is based on the writings of the free market political economist Henry George (1839–1897), and is usually associated with the idea of a single tax on the value of land, a collection of its commonly owned economic rent. Geolibertarians argue that a tax on land value is economically efficient, non-coercive given a proper philosophy of property in land, just and equitable; and that it can generate sufficient revenue so that other taxes, which are less fair and efficient (such as taxes on production, sales and income), can and ought to be reduced or eliminated.

Left-libertarianism

Main articles: Left-libertarianism, Libertarian Marxism, Libertarian socialism, and Anarchist communism

August 17, 1860 edition of libertarian Communist publication Le Libertaire edited by Joseph Déjacque.

Left-libertarianism, libertarian Marxism, libertarian socialism and libertarian communism are all phrases which activists with a variety of perspectives have applied to their views. Anarchist communist philosopher Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as "libertarian". Unlike mutualist anarchist philosopher Pierre Joseph Proudhon, he argued that, "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature." According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the first use of the term "libertarian communism" was in November 1880, when a French anarchist congress employed it to more clearly identify its doctrines. The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure started the weekly paper Le Libertaire (The Libertarian) in 1895.

The revolutionary wave of 1917–23 saw the active participation of anarchists in Russia and Europe. Russian anarchists participated alongside the Bolsheviks in both the February and October 1917 revolutions. However, Bolsheviks in central Russia quickly began to imprison or drive underground the libertarian anarchists. Many fled to the Ukraine. There, in the Ukrainian Free Territory, they fought in the Russian Civil War against the White movement, monarchists and other opponents of revolution, and then against Bolsheviks as part of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, who established an anarchist society in the region for a number of months. Expelled American anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman protested Bolshevik policy before they left Russia.

The victory of the Bolsheviks damaged anarchist movements internationally as workers and activists joined Communist parties. In France and the United States, for example, members of the major syndicalist movements of the CGT and IWW joined the Communist International. In Paris, the Dielo Truda group of Russian anarchist exiles, which included Nestor Makhno, issued a 1926 manifesto, the Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (Draft), calling for new anarchist organizing structures.

The "Bavarian Soviet Republic" of 1918-1919 had libertarian socialist characteristics. In Italy from 1918-1921 the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana grew to 800,000 members

In the 1920s and 1930s, with the rise of fascism in Europe, anarchists began to fight fascists in Italy in France during the February 1934 riots, and in Spain where the CNT boycott of elections led to a right-wing victory and its later participation in voting in 1936 helped bring the popular front back to power. This led to a ruling class attempted coup and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Gruppo Comunista Anarchico di Firenze held that the during early twentieth century, the terms libertarian communism and anarchist communism became synonymous within the international anarchist movement as a result of the close connection they had in Spain (see Anarchism in Spain) (with libertarian communism becoming the prevalent term).

Murray Bookchin wrote that the Spanish libertarian movement of the mid-1930s was unique because its workers’ control and collectives – which came out of a three generation “massive libertarian movement” – divided the “republican” camp and challenged the Marxists. Urban anarchists’ created libertarian communist forms of organization which evolved into the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (“CNT”), a syndicalist union providing the infrastructure for a libertarian society. Also formed were local bodies to administer of social and economic life on a decentralized libertarian basis. Much of the infrastructure was destroyed during the 1930s Spanish Civil War against authoritarian and fascist forces.

The Manifesto of Libertarian Communism was written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one of the key texts of the anarchist-communist current known as platformism. In 1968 in Carrara, Italy, the International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference to advance libertarian solidarity.It wanted to form "a strong and organised workers movement, agreeing with the libertarian ideas". In the United States the Libertarian League was founded in New York City in 1954 as a left-libertarian political organisation building on the Libertarian Book Club. Members included Sam Dolgoff, Russell Blackwell, Dave Van Ronk, Enrico Arrigoni and Murray Bookchin.

In Australia the Sydney Push was a predominantly left-wing intellectual subculture in Sydney from the late 1940s to the early 1970s which became associated with the label "Sydney libertarianism". Well known associates of the Push include Jim Baker, John Flaus, Harry Hooton, Margaret Fink, Sasha Soldatow, Lex Banning, Eva Cox, Richard Appleton, Paddy McGuinness, David Makinson, Germaine Greer, Clive James, Robert Hughes, Frank Moorhouse and Lillian Roxon. Amongst the key intellectual figures in Push debates were philosophers David J. Ivison, George Molnar, Roelof Smilde, Darcy Waters and Jim Baker, as recorded in Baker's memoir Sydney Libertarians and the Push, published in the libertarian Broadsheet in 1975. An understanding of libertarian values and social theory can be obtained from their publications, a few of which are available online.

In 1969 French platformist anarcho-communist Daniel Guérin published an essay in 1969 called "Libertarian Marxism?" in which he dealt with the debate between Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin at the First International and afterwards he suggested that "Libertarian marxism rejects determinism and fatalism, giving the greater place to individual will, intuition, imagination, reflex speeds, and to the deep instincts of the masses, which are more far-seeing in hours of crisis than the reasonings of the ‘elites’; libertarian marxism thinks of the effects of surprise, provocation and boldness, refuses to be cluttered and paralysed by a heavy ‘scientific’ apparatus, doesn’t equivocate or bluff, and guards itself from adventurism as much as from fear of the unknown." Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France. They emphasize the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state. Libertarian Marxism includes such currents as council communism, left communism, Socialisme ou Barbarie Lettrism/Situationism and operaismo/autonomism, and New Left.

Anarcho-capitalism

Main article: Anarcho-capitalism

Murray Rothbard

The early liberals believed that the state should confine its role to protecting individual liberty and property, and opposed all but the most minimal economic regulations. The "normative core" of classical liberalism is the idea that in an environment of laissez-faire, a spontaneous order of cooperation in exchanging goods and services emerges that satisfies human wants. Some individualists came to realize that the liberal state itself takes property forcefully through taxation in order to fund its protection services, and therefore it seemed logically inconsistent to oppose theft while also supporting a tax-funded protector. They advocated what may be seen as classical liberalism taken to the extreme by only supporting voluntarily funded defense by competing private providers. One of the first liberals to discuss the possibility of privatizing protection of individual liberty and property was France's Jakob Mauvillon in the 18th century. Later, in the 1840s, Julius Faucher and Gustave de Molinari advocated the same.

Murray Rothbard was influenced by the work of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists, themselves influenced by classical liberalism. However, he thought they had a faulty understanding of economics. The 19th-century individualists had a labor theory of value, as influenced by the classical economists, but Rothbard was a student of neoclassical economics which does not agree with the labor theory of value. Rothbard sought to meld 19th-century American individualists' advocacy of free markets and private defense with the principles of Austrian economics: "There is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics,' a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung".

Modern anarcho-capitalism (also referred to as free-market anarchism, market anarchism, private-property anarchism) rejects collectivism and statutory law while embracing free and competitive markets in all services, including law and civil defense. This political philosophy advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under tort and contract law, rather than by statute through punishment and torture under political monopolies.

Contemporary libertarianism

U.S. libertarianism

Further information: Libertarian Party (United States), Libertarianism in the United States, and Classical liberalism

This "modern libertarianism" strongly supports minimal government, ending military alliances, free trade, and a return to civil society where individuals retain their rights and are responsible for their actions. Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard is said to have founded modern libertarianism when he merged the laissez-faire economics of Ludwig von Mises with the individualist anarchist views of Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. A 1971 New York Times article noted that 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza was a forerunner of modern libertarianism, writing "He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it." Its authors stated that modern libertarianism, in part a continuation of 18th-century and 19th-century liberalism, is on a “much more solid intellectual footing than old-style liberalism” because rather than taking their views from religious mysticism, they based it on “a scientific appraisal of the nature of man and his needs.”

David Nolan in 1996 with a version of his Nolan Chart distributed by Advocates for Self-Government.

Libertarianism in the United States developed in the 1950s as many with "Old Right" or classical liberal beliefs in the United States began to describe themselves as libertarians. Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater's challenge to authority also influenced the U.S. libertarian movement. In the 1950s, Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand developed a philosophical system called Objectivism, expressed in her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, as well as other works, which influenced many libertarians. However, she rejected the label "libertarian" and denounced non-Objectivist libertarians. Philosopher John Hospers, a one-time member of Rand's inner circle, proposed a non-initiation of force principle to unite both groups; this statement later became a required "pledge" for candidates of the Libertarian Party, and Hospers himself became its first presidential candidate in 1972.

During the 1960s, the Vietnam War divided American libertarians, anarchists, and conservatives. Libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and peace movements and began founding their own publications, like Rothbard's The Libertarian Forum and Reason magazine. The 1960s also saw the formation of organizations like the Radical Libertarian Alliance and the Society for Individual Liberty. In 1971, a small group of Americans led by David Nolan formed the U.S. Libertarian Party. The party has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. Over the years, dozens of capitalism-supporting libertarian political parties have been formed worldwide. Educational organizations like the Center for Libertarian Studies and the Cato Institute were formed in the 1970s, and others have been created since then.

Governor Gary Johnson, 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate

Modern libertarianism gained significant recognition in academia with the publication of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974, a response to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. The book proposed a minimal state on the grounds that it was an inevitable phenomenon. Anarchy, State, and Utopia won a National Book Award in 1975.

In the United States, polls (circa 2006) find that the views and voting habits of between 10 and 20 percent (and increasing) of voting age Americans may be classified as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or libertarian." This is based on pollsters and researchers defining libertarian views as fiscally conservative and socially liberal (based on the common US meanings of the terms) and against government intervention in economic affairs, and for expansion of personal freedoms. Through 20 polls on this topic spanning 13 years, Gallup found that voters who are libertarian on the political spectrum ranged from 17–23% of the US electorate. A 2011 Reason-Rupe poll found that among those who self-identified as Tea Party supporters, 41 percent leaned libertarian and 59 percent socially conservative. In 2012 anti-war presidential candidates – Libertarian Republican Ron Paul and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson – raised millions of dollars and garnered millions of votes despite opposition to their obtaining ballot access by Democrats and Republicans. In 2013, The Economist opinion piece held that British youth supported a "minimal 'nightwatchman' state", disliked taxation, and were "deficit-reduction hawks" who wanted government out of their personal lives, and accepted homosexuality. It stated, "Today’s distracted libertarians are tomorrow’s dependable voter block."

Left libertarianism

Further information: Left-libertarianism

A surge of popular interest in libertarian socialism occurred in western nations during the 1960s and 1970s. Anarchism was influential in the Counterculture of the 1960s and anarchists actively participated in the late sixties students and workers revolts. In 1968 in Carrara, Italy the International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference held there in 1968 by the three existing European federations of France, the Italian and the Iberian Anarchist Federation as well as the Bulgarian federation in French exile. The uprisings of May 1968 also led to a small resurgence of interest in left communist ideas. Various small left communist groups emerged around the world, predominantly in the leading capitalist countries. A series of conferences of the communist left began in 1976, with the aim of promoting international and cross-tendency discussion, but these petered out in the 1980s without having increased the profile of the movement or its unity of ideas. Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Party, International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency.

The housing and employment crisis in most of Western Europe led to the formation of communes and squatter movements like that of Barcelona, Spain. In Denmark, squatters occupied a disused military base and declared the Freetown Christiania, an autonomous haven in central Copenhagen.

Noam Chomsky, a noted contemporary libertarian socialist.

Around the turn of the 21st century, libertarian socialism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Group of Eight, and the World Economic Forum. Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction, and violent confrontations with police. These actions were precipitated by ad hoc, leaderless, anonymous cadres known as black blocs; other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include security culture, affinity groups and the use of decentralised technologies such as the internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at WTO conference in Seattle in 1999. For English anarchist scholar Simon Critchley "contemporary anarchism can be seen as a powerful critique of the pseudo-libertarianism of contemporary neo-liberalism...One might say that contemporary anarchism is about responsibility, whether sexual, ecological or socio-economic; it flows from an experience of conscience about the manifold ways in which the West ravages the rest; it is an ethical outrage at the yawning inequality, impoverishment and disenfranchisment that is so palpable locally and globally."

International anarchist federations in existence include the International of Anarchist Federations, the International Workers' Association, and International Libertarian Solidarity. The largest organised anarchist movement today is in Spain, in the form of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). CGT membership was estimated to be around 100,000 for 2003. Other active syndicalist movements include in Sweden the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden and the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation; the CNT-AIT in France; the Union Sindicale Italiana in Italy; in the US Workers Solidarity Alliance and the UK Solidarity Federation. The revolutionary industrial unionist Industrial Workers of the World, claiming 2,000 paying members, and the International Workers Association, an anarcho-syndicalist successor to the First International, also remain active.

Libertarian socialists in the early 21st century have been involved in the alter-globalization movement, squatter movement; social centers; infoshops; anti-poverty groups such as Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and Food Not Bombs; tenants' unions; housing cooperatives; intentional communities generally and egalitarian communities; anti-sexist organizing; grassroots media initiatives; digital media and computer activism; experiments in participatory economics; anti-racist and anti-fascist groups like Anti-Racist Action and Anti-Fascist Action; activist groups protecting the rights of immigrants and promoting the free movement of people, such as the No Border network; worker co-operatives, countercultural and artist groups; and the peace movement etc.

Libertarian socialism has also more recently played a large part in the global Occupy movement, in particular its focus on direct participatory democracy.

Contemporary libertarian organizations

See also the categories Libertarian parties, Libertarian publications, and Libertarian think tanks

Since the 1950s, many American libertarian organizations have adopted a free market stance, as well as supporting civil liberties and non-interventionist foreign policies. These include the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Center for Libertarian Studies, the Cato Institute, and the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL). The activist Free State Project, formed in 2001, works to bring 20,000 libertarians to New Hampshire to influence state policy. Active student organizations include Students for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty.

A number of countries have libertarian parties that run candidates for political office. In the United States, the Libertarian Party of the United States was formed in 1972. The Libertarian Party is the third largest American political party, with over 370,000 registered voters in the 35 states that allow registration as a Libertarian and has hundreds of party candidates elected or appointed to public office.

Current international anarchist federations which sometimes identify themselves as libertarian include the International of Anarchist Federations, the International Workers' Association, and International Libertarian Solidarity. The largest organised anarchist movement today is in Spain, in the form of the Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) and the CNT. CGT membership was estimated to be around 100,000 for 2003. Other active syndicalist movements include, in Sweden, the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden and the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation; the CNT-AIT in France; the Union Sindicale Italiana in Italy; in the US, Workers Solidarity Alliance; and in the UK, Solidarity Federation. The revolutionary industrial unionist Industrial Workers of the World, claiming 2,000 paying members, and the International Workers Association, an anarcho-syndicalist successor to the First International, also remain active. In the United States there exists the Common Struggle – Libertarian Communist Federation or Lucha Común – Federación Comunista Libertaria (formerly the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC) or the Fédération des Communistes Libertaires du Nord-Est) an is a platformist anarchist communist organization based in the northeast region of the United States.

Libertarian theorists

See also Category:Libertarian theorists and Timeline of libertarian thinkers

• Émile Armand – early 20th century individualist anarchist
• Mikhail Bakunin – theorist of collectivist anarchism and influence on the development of Left-libertarianism
• Walter Block – author of Defending the Undefendable and Yes to Ron Paul and Liberty, Austrian economist
• Murray Bookchin – the founder of libertarian municipalism and theorist of the social ecology movement
• Noam Chomsky – doctor of linguistics, MIT professor, author of political science books, and proponent of libertarian socialism
• Joseph Déjacque – the first recorded person to call himself "libertarian" and the founder of the first publication with the name "Libertarian" in its title
• Milton Friedman – Nobel Prize-winning monetarist economist associated with the Chicago School of Economics, advocated economic deregulation and privatization
• William Godwin – the first modern proponent of anarchism, whose political views are outlined in his book Political Justice
• Emma Goldman – proponent of anarcha-feminism
• Friedrich Hayek – Nobel Prize-winning Austrian School economist, notable for his political work The Road to Serfdom
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe – developed argumentation ethics
• Peter Kropotkin – theorist of libertarian communism
• Ludwig von Mises – figure in the Austrian School of economic thought who established praxeology
• Stefan Molyneux – creator of Freedomain Radio, a philosophy discussion on the internet
• Robert Nozick – political philosopher and author of Anarchy, State, and Utopia
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – the first self-described anarchist and founder of mutualism
• Ayn Rand – founder of Objectivism
• Murray Rothbard – the founder of anarcho-capitalism and an Austrian school economist
• Richard Epstein – legal scholar, specializing in the field of law and economics
• David D. Friedman – anarcho-capitalist theorist, author of Machinery of Freedom, and son of Milton Friedman
• Jan Narveson – political philosopher and professor emeritus, member of the Order of Canada
• Max Stirner – founder of egoist anarchism
• Henry David Thoreau – one of the early philosophers of American Transcendentalism and anarcho-pacifism
• Benjamin Tucker – theorist of individualist anarchism in the 19th century
• Josiah Warren – the first known American anarchist and author of the first anarchist periodical The Peaceful Revolutionist

Criticisms

Main article: Criticism of libertarianism

Criticism of libertarianism includes ethical, economic, environmental, and pragmatic concerns. Critics have claimed the political philosophy does not satisfy collectivist values, and that private property does not create an egalitarian distribution. It has also been argued that laissez-faire capitalism does not necessarily produce the best or most efficient outcome, nor does its policy of deregulation prevent the abuse of natural resources. And the lack of contemporary examples of fully actualized libertarian societies has been criticized on the premise that, if libertarianism were viable and beneficial, it would have been tried.

See also

• Christian libertarianism
• Debates within libertarianism
• Green libertarianism
• Laissez-faire
• Left-libertarianism
  • Libertarian socialism
  • Libertarian communism
  • Libertarian Marxism
• Libertarianism in South Africa
• Libertarianism in the United Kingdom
• Libertarianism in the United States
• Libertarian feminism
• List of basic libertarianism topics
• List of libertarian organizations
• Paleolibertarianism
• Right-libertarianism
• Categories:
  • Libertarian economists
  • Libertarian theorists
  • Libertarians by nationality
  • Libertarianism by country
  • Left-libertarians

Bibliography

• Bevir, Mark (2010). "Libertarianism". Encyclopedia of Political Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-4129-5865-3.
• Block, Walter (2010) [2006]. "The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism". In Iulian Tãnase, Bogdan Glãvan (ed.). Building Blocks for Liberty: Critical Essays by Walter Block. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute. pp. 217–220. ISBN 978-1-933550-91-6.
• Cohen, G.A. (1995). Self-ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Doherty, Brian (2007). Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. PublicAffairs.
• Goldberg, Jonah (December 12, 2001). "Freedom Kills: John Walker, Andrew Sullivan, and the libertarian threat. [Opinion.]". National Review Online.
• Graham, Robert (ed) . Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas.
  • Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE to 1939) Black Rose Books, Montréal and London 2005. ISBN 1-55164-250-6.
  • Volume Two: The Anarchist Current (1939–2006) Black Rose Books, Montréal 2007. ISBN 978-1-55164-311-3.
• Hospers, John (1971). Libertarianism. Santa Barbara, CA: Reason Press.
• Hospers, John (1995). "Arguments for Libertarianism". In Harwood, Sterling (ed.). Business as Ethical and Business as Usual. Jones and Bartlett Series in Philosophy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Lester, J.C. (2000). Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled. Basingstoke, UK/New York, USA: Macmillan/St Martin's Press.
• Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-09720-3.
• Otsuka, Michael (2005). Libertarianism Without Inequality. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-928018-6.
• Palda, Filip (2011) Pareto's Republic and the New Science of Peace 2011 [7] chapters online. Published by Cooper-Wolfling. ISBN 978-0-9877880-0-9
• Vallentyne, Peter; Steiner, Hillel (2000a). The origins of left-libertarianism: an anthology of historical writings. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-23591-8.
• Vallentyne, Peter; Steiner, Hillel (2000b). Left-libertarianism and its critics: the contemporary debate. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-23699-1.
• Vrousalis, Nicholas (2011). "Libertarian Socialism". Social Theory and Practice 37. pp. 211–26.
• Woodcock, George (1962). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements, Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-022697-4. OCLC 221147531.

External links

• Foundation for Economic Education (Foundation for Economic Education) – an American libertarian organization founded in 1946
• Libertarianism.org (Libertarianism.org) – sponsored by the Cato Institute, it discusses the history, theory, and practice of libertarianism