Q: Are libertarianism and socialism mutually exclusive?
A: No. Libertarians believe liberty consists of personal autonomy, and they justify a strong distrust of the state upon this foundation. Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.[1] Although socialism is commonly associated with the planned economies proffered by Marxism-Leninism and other "authoritarian socialists," libertarian socialism rejects economic direction from a central authority such as the state.[2] Thus, libertarianism and anarchism have been synonyms since the 1890s,[3] and other equivalents include libertarian socialism,[4]socialist anarchism,[5] and left-libertarianism.[6] The libertarianism of the 19th century had two strong currents, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, both of which fall under the umbrella of libertarian socialism and were explicitly anti-capitalist.[7][8]
In the 20th century, members of the Old Right in the United States such as Albert Jay Nock and H. L. Mencken[9] began identifying as libertarians to declare their commitment to individualism and distance themselves from liberals who supported welfare capitalism. Some libertarians (e.g. Murray Rothbard, who popularized the libertarian philosophy anarcho-capitalism) were explicitly influenced by the American individualist anarchists, but most were "a rather automatic product of the American environment."[10] This modern American libertarianism is also referred to as right-libertarianism.[11]
Q: What is right-libertarianism? What is left-libertarianism?
Q: How are all these political philosophies related? Which ones are closely related or inclusive?
A: Some labels and qualifiers are typically used to group together multiple political movements or ideologies or distance them from others. Below is a rough and simplified visual representation of how many of the political camps described in the article (i.e. groups that have either identified or been described as libertarian) relate to one another, without any regard to their affinity for one another, their prominence or their significance.
Libertarian classification diagram
Libertarianism diagram
References
^Badie, Bertrand; Berg-Schlosser, Dirk; Morlino, Leonardo (2011). International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE Publications, Inc. p. 2456. ISBN 978-1412959636. "Socialist systems are those regimes based on the economic and political theory of socialism, which advocates public ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources."
^Sacco, Nicola and Vanzetti, Bartolomeo (1928). The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Octagon Books. p. 274. "After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference—the fundamental one—between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government."
^Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism (in English, translated). London:Freedom Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-900384-89-9. OCLC37529250.
^Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. New York:Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-0853451754. "Some contemporary anarchists have tried to clear up the misunderstanding by adopting a more explicit term: they align themselves with libertarian socialism or communism."
^Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14.
^ abBookchin, Murray and Biehl, Janet (1997). The Murray Bookchin Reader. New York:Cassell. p. 170.
^Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Oakland:PM Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1. "[Anarchism] emerged at the end of the eighteenth century in its modern form as a response partly to the rise of centalized States and nationalism, and partly to industrialization and capital. Anarchism thus took up the dual challenge of overthrowing both Capital and the State."
^ abChartier, Gary. Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Minor Compositions. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1570272424. "The anticapitalism of the 'first wave' individualists [represented mainly by 'individualist anarchists' and 'mutualists' such as Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Dyer Lum] was obvious to them and to many of their contemporaries."
^DeLeon, David (1978). The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism.Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. "only a few individuals like Murray Rothbard, in Power and Market, and some article writers were influenced by [past anarchists like Spooner and Tucker]. Most had not evolved consciously from this tradition; they had been a rather automatic product of the American environment."
^ abGoodway, David (2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool:Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."
^Hamowy, Ronald. "Left Libertarianism." The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. p. 288
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The whole discussion that tries to shoehorn libertarian thought into a one dimensional axis is terrible. Human thought isn't as simple as left and right. Rjedgar (talk) 23:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Rjedgar The article does mention other forms of libertarian thought that aren't explicitly right or left wing, including libertarian paternalism, neo-libertarianism and libertarian populism. However, I can understand your point that the article might focus too much on the left-right divide. I think the reason this left-right divide was created was to distinguish between more socialist and anti-capitalist libertarians and more pro-capitalist libertarians. If you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem, please share them with me. X-Editor (talk) 01:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do reject the right and left libertarian terminology attempts to divide along those lines, and think that those two articles should be reduced to short articles on those terms. But I don't see where this article has that problem. North8000 (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You all DO realize that libertarianism in and of itself is an asinine, poorly reasoned, vague and nebulous conception, dont you? Libertarianism is nonsensical from the get go, which is why its difficult to write any coherent descriptions about it. The libertarians cannot even decide what libertarianism is, by enumerating specific tenets and values, and by designing a functional system. Everything is so abstract all the time to the point of vagueness. And idealistic, as well, akin to the socialists utopian ideal; just as delusional and idealistic, merely occupying a different political space. Whenever one libertarian decides a policy is too libertarian, others in his ilk will naturally think him an authoritarian. And the push for ever more libertarianism at the expense of the ejection of prior proponents who are now too authoritarian by comparison is inevitable, precisely because no limits are defined. Simply put, libertarianism is, or will inevitably lead to, anarchism. The typical libertarian, though, is too strung out on pot to ever realize it, and has his mind set on a fantasy world. If you truly simply want less government involvement, but still appreciate the need for the rule of law and for society to set standards of conduct, well then, welcome to the conservative movement and let me introduce you to the tenth amendment. 50.34.32.46 (talk) 03:21, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"let me introduce you to the tenth amendment." The tenth amendment of what? And conservatism is not about less government involvement, it tends to support hierarchical society and traditionalism, and to oppose social reforms. Dimadick (talk) 08:39, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly. Fiscal conservatism is in favour of smaller government in the economic sense, while traditionalist conservatism and social conservatism primarily favour hierarchy and traditionalism and oppose social reform. X-Editor (talk) 02:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not going to respond to that other than to say that the topic is far more complex and diverse than you imagine. You should start by reading the article. North8000 (talk) 16:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We’re not here to debate the merits of libertarianism, we’re here to discuss improvements to the article on libertarianism. X-Editor (talk) 02:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying libertarianism is nonsense because (unlike any other political philosophy) it has factions that disagree? If so, then what – the article ought not to exist? —Tamfang (talk) 06:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with this point. I’ve noticed as of recently that there is an obsession on Wikipedia with categorizing every single political ideology and movement into a simple left vs. right spectrum. This greatly oversimplifies the many complexities of politics. X-Editor (talk) 02:39, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree and agree that this is a problem. Plus even "left" and "right" are in the eye of the beholder. The left/right concept makes a particular mess out of covering libertarianism, because in that area the meanings of the terms are very different in the US vs. Europe. Also see my comment below. North8000 (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We should just edit this article and the other relevant ones. There is no group with any entrenched viewpoint defending the status quo. There is just 10+ years of random discussion, random viewpoints and random debates. North8000 (talk) 23:29, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@North8000: "Random" is a good way of describing this article. I keep coming back to it and keep being surprised by how incoherent it is, it reads more as an ideological tug-of-war than an actually informative encyclopedic article. Even just the lead section is a rambling grab-bag of nonsense, from that sea of blue links for different random concepts that libertarians "emphasise" (which honestly reads as synth), to the paragraphs about random sub-schools, to the recent claims about elected heads of state. I wouldn't know where to start with improving this, because I'm not even sure it can be improved. I worry this article is doomed to forever be an ideological battleground where different editors claim different people, movements and philosophies, without ever caring to explain what "libertarianism" actually is... Grnrchst (talk) 09:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Grnrchst: I've been through all of the battles here and there are reasons that give me more hope than that. The battles are usually "Tower of Babel" based rather than an ideological war. The term (plus other related terms) has a completely different meaning in Europe vs. the (common meaning in the) US and so even well meaning people think that the article is screwed up. To complicated it more, the most prominent libertarian organization in the US (the USLP) is more philosophical and Europeanish than the common meaning of the term in the US. So everybody thinks that half of the article has been hijacked and is totally wrong. Second, it easy to make the mistake of thinking that it fundamentally a philosophical topic (rather than "in practice") and so we tend think that by covering the philosophies and we are covering the topic. So, to be a bit facetious, if one philosopher guy invents a libertarian term and philosophy, he is considered to be a "source" on his invention and then it gets a whole section in the top level libertarian article. IMO the article just needs a lot of work, while acknowledging and dealing with the above issues. Also not using other terms to describe the topic which have opposite meanings or at least acknowledge the problems with the terms. An example: "Right Libertarian" is a term which is an oxymoron in the USA but used by Europeans to describe the forms libertarianism which are common in the US. So we'll tell people about the term but otherwise use it to describe libertarianism. North8000 (talk) 20:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that it is used in the US....of course there are probably rare exceptions. And the fact that some (non-US sources) use it does not refute that. North8000 (talk) 23:06, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consider that on the Spanish Wikipedia some editors say that "right-wing libertarian" is an American term... In common parlance the term is probably not used in the United States, but in U.S. books and academic papers "right-libertarian" is used.
These beliefs aren't libertarian. Libertarianism supports individual ownership or ownership by groups of individuals who consent to such shared ownership. As the phrase hints, this, rather, is egalitarianism, bordering dangerously on collectivism, socialism and state-dictatorship. It's also hard to imagine how resources can be "unowned". Furthermore, the matter of ownership includes more than natural resources. It also includes man-made/man-organised goods such as agricultural land, the means of production, the products of such production (such as food, clothing, cars and computers), buildings and infrastructure. 2A02:C7C:AA6B:F800:C5B4:971E:405C:F94B (talk) 16:50, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What's with the "Origins of political libertarianism" and "Growth of the libertarian movement" sections?
Don't these two sections substantially duplicate the scope of the "History" and "Contemporary libertarianism" sections? Is there a reason they need to be separate and not merged together? --Grnrchst (talk) 11:29, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
