Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds liberty and personal sovereignty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the non-aggression principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them. Broadly speaking, libertarianism has been defined by many, from a surface-level standpoint, as social liberalism combined with fiscal conservatism.
Libertarianism has been broadly shaped by liberal ideas. Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing economic and political systems.
Schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and non-state power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish these various forms of libertarianism.Long, Joseph. W (1996). "Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class". Social Philosophy and Policy. 15 (2): 310. "When I speak of 'libertarianism' [...] I mean all three of these very different movements. It might be protested that LibCap [libertarian capitalism], LibSoc [libertarian socialism] and LibPop [libertarian populism] are too different from one another to be treated as aspects of a single point of view. But they do share a common—or at least an overlapping—intellectual ancestry."Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. London: SAGE Publications. p. 1006 . . "There exist three major camps in libertarian thought: right-libertarianism, socialist libertarianism, and left-libertarianism; the extent to which these represent distinct ideologies as opposed to variations on a theme is contested by scholars." Scholars have identified distinct libertarian perspectives on the nature of property and capital, typically delineating them along left–right or socialist–capitalist axes.
Overview Etymology
As early as 1796, libertarian came to mean an advocate or defender of liberty, in the sense of a supporter of republicanism, when the London Packet printed on 12 February the following: "Lately marched out of the Prison at Bristol, 450 of the French Libertarians".OED November 2010 edition It was again used in a republican sense in 1802 in a short piece critiquing a poem by "the author of Gebir" and has since been used politically.Seeley, John Robert (1878). Life and Times of Stein: Or Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3: 355.Maitland, Frederick William (July 1901). "William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford". English Historical Review. 16[.3]: 419.
The use of the term libertarian to describe a new set of political positions has been traced to the French cognate libertaire, coined in a letter French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque wrote to mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857.Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. p. 641. "The word 'libertarian' has long been associated with anarchism, and has been used repeatedly throughout this work. The term originally denoted a person who upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the will; in this sense, Godwin was not a 'libertarian', but a 'necessitarian'. It came however to be applied to anyone who approved of liberty in general. In anarchist circles, it was first used by Joseph Déjacque as the title of his anarchist journal Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social published in New York in 1858. At the end of the last century, the anarchist Sebastien Faure took up the word, to stress the difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists". Déjacque also used the term for his anarchist publication Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social (Libertarian: Journal of Social Movement) which was printed from 9 June 1858 to 4 February 1861 in New York City.Woodcock, George (1962). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Meridian Books. p. 280. "He called himself a "social poet," and published two volumes of heavily didactic verse—Lazaréennes and Les Pyrénées Nivelées. In New York, from 1858 to 1861, he edited an anarchist paper entitled Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, in whose pages he printed as a serial his vision of the anarchist Utopia, entitled L'Humanisphére." Sébastien Faure, another French libertarian communist, began publishing a new Le Libertaire in the mid-1890s while France's Third Republic enacted the so-called villainous laws (lois scélérates) which banned anarchist publications in France. Libertarianism has frequently been used to refer to anarchism and libertarian socialism.Ward, Colin (2004). Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 62. "For a century, anarchists have used the word 'libertarian' as a synonym for 'anarchist', both as a noun and an adjective. The celebrated anarchist journal Le Libertaire was founded in 1896. However, much more recently the word has been appropriated by various American free-market philosophers [...]."
In the late 20th century, many Americans with classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians. One person who popularized the term libertarian in this sense was Murray Rothbard, who began publishing libertarian works in the 1960s.Paul Cantor, The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty Vs. Authority in American Film and TV, University Press of Kentucky, 2012, p. 353, n. 2. In the 1970s, Robert Nozick was responsible for popularizing this usage of the term in academic and philosophical circles outside the United States,Teles, Steven; Kenney, Daniel A. (2008). "Spreading the Word: The diffusion of American Conservatism in Europe and beyond". In Steinmo, Sven. Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the 21st Century Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–169. especially with the publication of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), a response to social liberal John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971)."National Book Award: 1975 – Philosophy and Religion" (1975). National Book Foundation. Retrieved 9 September 2011. In the book, Nozick proposed a minimal state on the grounds that it was an inevitable phenomenon which could arise without violating individual rights.Schaefer, David Lewis (30 April 2008). "Robert Nozick and the Coast of Utopia" . The New York Sun. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
Definitions
Although libertarianism originated as a form of anarchist or left-wing politics, since the development in the mid-20th century of modern libertarianism in the United States caused it to be commonly associated with right-wing politics, several authors and political scientists have used two or more categorizations to distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines.
While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources. Left-libertarian ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school. Some variants of libertarianism, such as anarcho-capitalism, have been labeled as far-right or radical right by some scholars.
Those sometimes called "right-libertarians", usually by leftists or by other libertarians with more left-leaning ideologies, often reject the label due to its association with conservatism and right-wing politics and simply describe themselves as libertarians. However, some, particularly those who describe themselves as paleo-libertarians, agree with their placement on the political right. Meanwhile, some proponents of free-market anti-capitalism in the United States consciously label themselves as left-libertarians and see themselves as part of a broad libertarian left.
While the term libertarian had been substantially synonymous with anarchism and seen by many as part of the left,Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. p. 641 . "For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchism but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent. Some anarchists like Daniel Guérin will call themselves 'libertarian socialists', partly to avoid the negative overtones still associated with anarchism, and partly to stress the place of anarchism within the socialist tradition. Even Marxists of the New Left like E. P. Thompson call themselves 'libertarian' to distinguish themselves from those authoritarian socialists and communists who believe in revolutionary dictatorship and vanguard parties." continuing today as part of the libertarian left in opposition to the moderate left such as social democracy or authoritarian and statist socialism, its meaning has evolved during the past half century, with broader adoption by ideologically disparate groups, including some viewed as right-wing by older users of the term. As a term, libertarian can include both the New Left Marxists (who do not associate with a vanguard party) and extreme liberals (primarily concerned with civil liberties) or civil libertarians. Additionally, some libertarians use the term libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasize its connections with socialism.Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. New York City: Monthly Review Press. p. 12. "[A]narchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State." .
The revival of free-market ideologies during the mid-to-late 20th century came with disagreement over what to call the movement. While many believers in economic freedom prefer the term libertarian, some free-market conservatives reject the term's association with the 1960s New Left and its connotations of libertine hedonism. The movement is divided over the use of conservatism as an alternative. Those who seek both economic and social liberty would be known as liberals, but that term developed associations opposite of the limited government, low-taxation, minimal state advocated by the movement. Name variants of the free-market revival movement include classical liberalism, economic liberalism, free-market liberalism and neoliberalism. As a term, libertarian or economic libertarian has the most everyday acceptance to describe a member of the movement, with the latter term being based on both the ideology's importance of economics and its distinction from libertarians of the New Left.