Left-libertarianism , also known as left-wing libertarianism , is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that stresses both individual freedom and social equality . Left-libertarianism represents several related yet distinct approaches to political and social theory . Its classical usage refers to anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics such as anarchism , especially social anarchism .
131-634: While right-libertarianism is widely seen as synonymous with libertarianism in the United States , left-libertarianism is the predominant form of libertarianism in Europe. In the United States, left-libertarianism is the term used for the left wing of the libertarian movement , including the political positions associated with academic philosophers Hillel Steiner , Philippe Van Parijs , and Peter Vallentyne that combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources . Although libertarianism in
262-474: A capitalist philosophy that defends strong private property rights; and socialist libertarianism , an anti-capitalist philosophy that opposes the concentration of wealth . By the turn of the 21st century, some analytic philosophers had also adopted the label of "left-libertarianism". This contemporary model of left-libertarianism, associated mainly with Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner , distinguishes itself from right-libertarianism in its advocacy of
393-534: A left libertarian . In 2015 he said: In contrast to right-libertarianism and libertarian socialism, left-libertarianism holds that individuals should have no exclusive right to the exploitation of natural resources , instead advocating for an equitable distribution of resources, while also insisting on the protection of personal property rights. Contemporary left-libertarian scholars such as David Ellerman , Michael Otsuka , Hillel Steiner , Peter Vallentyne and Philippe Van Parijs root an economic egalitarianism in
524-556: A liberal lifestyle , opposing big business and having a New Left opposition to imperialism and war . Right-libertarianism is described as having interest in economic freedom , preferring a conservative lifestyle , viewing private business as a "great victim of the state" and favoring a non-interventionist foreign policy, sharing the Old Right 's "opposition to empire". Although some libertarians such as Walter Block , Harry Browne , Leonard Read and Murray Rothbard reject
655-745: A capitalist free-market position. However, libertarian intellectuals Noam Chomsky , Colin Ward and others argue that the term libertarianism is considered a synonym for anarchism and libertarian socialism by the international community and that the United States is unique in widely associating it with the capitalist free-market ideology. Modern libertarianism in the United States mainly refers to classical and economic liberalism. It supports capitalist free-market approaches as well as neoliberal policies and economic liberalization reforms such as austerity , deregulation , free trade , privatization and reductions in government spending in order to increase
786-527: A desire to win at least 5% of the vote so that the Libertarian Party candidates could get equal ballot access and federal funding , ending the two-party system . While some political commentators have described Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky as Republican libertarians or libertarian-leaning, they prefer to identify as constitutional conservatives . One federal officeholder openly professing some form of libertarianism
917-500: A distinct ideological tradition, due to its fundamental rejection of the state . In contrast to individualist tendencies , social anarchism rejects private property and market relations, which they believe will be eliminated with the abolition of the state. Social anarchism, originally associated with the libertarianism of Joseph Déjacque , has historically encompassed collectivist anarchism , anarchist communism and anarcho-syndicalism ; each of which became influential tendencies in
1048-632: A few friends formed the Libertarian Party in 1971. Attracting former Democrats , Republicans and independents , it has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. Over the years, dozens of 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. Philosophical libertarianism gained
1179-462: A form of democratised Whig constitutionalism plus the free market . The point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism " and the proper role of government. Some modern American libertarians are distinguished from the dominant libertarian tradition by their relation to property and capital . While both historical libertarianism and contemporary economic libertarianism share general antipathy towards power by government authority,
1310-481: A large degree it has been and remains big businessmen who are the fountainheads of American statism". In 1982, Childs gave a lecture at the Libertarian Party of New York convention on the origins and consequences of Ronald Reagan 's foreign policy and stated his opposition to an interventionist foreign policy. Childs was born in Buffalo, New York , on January 4, 1949. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at
1441-457: A libertarian at heart. Paul was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988. In the 1980s, libertarians such as Paul and Rothbard criticized President Reagan, Reaganomics and policies of the Reagan administration for, among other reasons, having turned the United States' big trade deficit into debt and the United States became a debtor nation for the first time since World War I under
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#17328520911591572-442: A major impact on the libertarian movement through his book The Conscience of a Conservative and his 1964 presidential campaign . Goldwater's speech writer Karl Hess became a leading libertarian writer and activist. The Vietnam War split the uneasy alliance between growing numbers of self-identified libertarians and traditionalist conservatives who believed in limiting liberty to uphold moral virtues. Libertarians opposed to
1703-552: A minimum and that it is only legitimate to the extent that people voluntarily support, leaving a significant imprint on libertarianism in the United States. The use of the term libertarianism to describe a left-wing position has been traced to the French cognate libertaire , a word coined in a letter French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque wrote to anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857. While in New York City, Déjacque
1834-525: A much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence. Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties". Libertarians have worked to implement their ideas through the Libertarian Party, the Free State Project , agorism , and other forms of activism. Since
1965-519: A prominent place in public discourse. In 1960s Germany, the libertarian left was a dominant current in the extra-parliamentary opposition, " Außerparlamentarische Opposition " (ApO). The punk scene provoked an expansion of the libertarian left: "a broader 'libertarian left' influence can be discerned in punk and post-punk's engagement with gender relations, sexuality, consumerism, imperialism and so forth". Northern Europe saw an upsurge in radical left-libertarian activism, squatting and urban unrest at
2096-427: A reintegration of libertarianism with concerns that are traditionally thought of as being concerns of the left. That includes concerns for worker empowerment, worry about plutocracy, concerns about feminism and various kinds of social equality". Konkin defined right-libertarianism as an "activist, organization, publication or tendency which supports parliamentarianism exclusively as a strategy for reducing or abolishing
2227-474: A second Libertarian League was founded in New York City as a political organization building on the Libertarian Book Club . Members included Sam Dolgoff , Russell Blackwell , Dave Van Ronk , Enrico Arrigoni and Murray Bookchin . This Libertarian League had a narrower political focus than the first, promoting anarchism and syndicalism. Its central principle, stated in its journal Views and Comments ,
2358-529: A significant measure of recognition in academia with the publication in 1974 of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick 's Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a response to John Rawls 's A Theory of Justice (1971). The book proposed a minimal state on the grounds that it was an inevitable phenomenon that could arise without violating individual rights . The book won a National Book Award in 1975. According to libertarian essayist Roy Childs , "Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia single-handedly established
2489-684: A storybook land". Paul expressed his disgust with the political culture of both major parties in a speech delivered in 1984 upon resigning from the House of Representatives to prepare for a failed run for the Senate and eventually apologized to his libertarian friends for having supported Reagan. By 1987, Paul was ready to sever all ties to the Republican Party as explained in a blistering resignation letter. While affiliated with both Libertarian and Republican parties at different times, Paul said he had always been
2620-415: A street for protest from its owners. The abolition of public amenities is a common theme in some modern American libertarian writings. During the 18th century and Age of Enlightenment , classical liberal ideas flourished in Europe and North America. For philosopher Roderick T. Long, libertarians "share a common – or at least an overlapping—intellectual ancestry. [Libertarians] [...] claim
2751-450: A term, libertarian or economic libertarian has the most colloquial acceptance to describe a member of the movement, with the latter term being based on both the ideology's primacy of economics and its distinction from libertarians of the New Left. According to Ian Adams: "Ideologically, all US parties are liberal and always have been. Essentially they espouse classical liberalism, that is
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#17328520911592882-581: A universal basic income must be large enough to maintain individual independence regardless of the market value of resources because people in contemporary society have been denied direct access to enough resources with which they could otherwise maintain their existence in the absence of interference by people who control access to resources. In its oldest form, "left-libertarianism" was used synonymously with social anarchism . Although social anarchism and other forms of left-libertarianism share similar roots and concerns, social anarchism has distinguished itself as
3013-543: Is Congressman Justin Amash , who represents Michigan's 3rd congressional district since January 2011. Initially elected to Congress as a Republican, Amash left the party and became an independent in July 2019. In April 2020, Amash joined the Libertarian Party and became the first member of the party in the House of Representatives. Following the 2022 Libertarian National Convention ,
3144-483: Is a tension between the left-libertarian inheritance and demands of pragmatism. For example, Margit Mayer and John Ely describe the German Greens as "remain[ing] connected to the left-libertarian movement milieus in the topics it addresses, its political style, and the omnipresence of movement discourse" while also pursuing practical strategies for party power. A new wave of left libertarian movement parties emerged from
3275-469: Is also related to anti-capitalist , free-market anarchist strands such as left-wing market anarchism , referred to as market-oriented left-libertarianism to distinguish itself from other forms of libertarianism. Libertarianism includes anarchist and libertarian socialist tendencies, although they are not as widespread as in other countries. Murray Bookchin , a libertarian within this socialist tradition, argued that anarchists, libertarian socialists and
3406-449: Is based on consequentialism , only taking into account the consequences of actions and rules when judging them and holds that free markets and strong property rights have good consequences. The second type is based on deontological ethics and is the theory that all individuals possess certain natural or moral rights , mainly a right of individual sovereignty . Acts of initiation of force and fraud are rights-violations and that
3537-419: Is based on pollsters and researchers defining libertarian views as fiscally conservative and socially liberal (based on the common United States 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 to 23% of
3668-416: Is described as one of the three female founding figures of the modern libertarian movement in the United States. Although influenced by the work of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists, themselves influenced by classical liberalism. Rothbard thought they had a faulty understanding of economics because they accepted the labor theory of value as influenced by the classical economists while he
3799-461: Is divided over the use of conservatism as an alternative. Those who seek both economic and social liberty within a capitalist order 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
3930-470: Is enough to generate full private property rights , and they maintain that natural resources should be held in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively . Those left-libertarians who are more lenient towards private property support different property norms and theories, such as usufruct or under the condition that recompense is offered to the local or even global community . Like other forms of libertarianism, left-libertarian views on
4061-611: Is often described by political scientists as left-libertarian. In the wake of the new social movements (especially the ecology and anti-nuclear movements) of the 1970s and 1980s, many left libertarian parties (sometimes called movement parties ) were formed, including green parties, which maintained a relationship with these social movements. Political scientists Santos and Mercea argue that, in recent years, "the rise of movement parties across Europe has disrupted traditional notions of party politics and opened up new avenues for citizen engagement and political mobilisation. Movement parties are
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4192-465: Is sometimes viewed as more humanitarian than thin libertarianism. Wendy McElroy has stated that she would leave the movement if thick libertarianism prevails. Stephan Kinsella rejects the dichotomy altogether, writing: "I have never found the thick-thin paradigm to be coherent, consistent, well-defined, necessary, or even useful. It's full of straw men, or seems to try to take credit for quite obvious and uncontroversial assertions". The Alliance of
4323-541: Is sufficient reason to oppose those acts. Deontological libertarianism is supported by the Libertarian Party . In order to become a card-carrying member, one must sign an oath opposing the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals. Prominent consequentialist libertarians include David D. Friedman , Milton Friedman , Friedrich Hayek , Peter Leeson , Ludwig von Mises and R. W. Bradford . Prominent deontological libertarians include Hans-Hermann Hoppe , Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard . In addition to
4454-417: Is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States, compared to that of left-libertarianism . The latter is associated with the left-wing of the modern libertarian movement and more recently to the political positions associated with academic philosophers Hillel Steiner , Philippe Van Parijs and Peter Vallentyne that combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources ; it
4585-505: Is the political position that considers them to be originally unowned and therefore may be appropriated at-will by private parties without the consent of, or owing to, others. Followers of Samuel Edward Konkin III , who characterized agorism as a form of left-libertarianism and strategic branch of left-wing market anarchism , use the terminology as outlined by Roderick T. Long, who describes left-libertarianism as "an integration, or I'd argue,
4716-413: Is true that the word "liberal" once described persons who respected the individual and feared the use of mass compulsions. But the leftists have now corrupted that once-proud term to identify themselves and their program of more government ownership of property and more controls over persons. As a result, those of us who believe in freedom must explain that when we call ourselves liberals, we mean liberals in
4847-401: Is used as an umbrella concept, gathering different strands of anti-authoritarian forms of socialism , stressing both anti-capitalist and anti-statist views, as well as the need to build a society based on voluntary forms of cooperation. Presently, such movements also often articulate strong criticism of what are seen as other forms of oppression, such as sexism, racism and homophobia, thus making
4978-626: The Journal of Libertarian Studies published by the Mises Institute was dedicated to reviews of Kevin Carson 's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy . One variety of this kind of libertarianism has been a resurgent mutualism, incorporating modern economic ideas such as marginal utility theory into mutualist theory. Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy helped to stimulate
5109-779: The 2016 presidential election , many Tea Party members eventually abandoned more libertarian-leaning views in favor of Donald Trump and his right-wing populism . Additionally, the Tea Party was considered to be a key force in Republicans reclaiming control of the House of Representatives in 2010. Texas Congressman Ron Paul's 1988 , 2008 and 2012 campaigns for the Republican Party presidential nomination were largely libertarian. Along with Goldwater and others, Paul popularized laissez-faire economics and libertarian rhetoric in opposition to interventionism and worked to pass some reforms. Likewise, California Governor and future President of
5240-609: The Alliance of the Libertarian Left and the subsequent Center for a Stateless Society . Drawing from the views of American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner , left-wing market anarchists defend the use of free markets and private property, which they consider to have an "essential coordinating role" in society. Free-market anti-capitalists hold market intervention responsible for capitalist control of
5371-470: The Black Power movement . Rothbard argued that the consensus view of American economic history, according to which a beneficent government has used its power to counter corporate predation, is fundamentally flawed. Rather, he argued that government intervention in the economy has largely benefited established players at the expense of marginalized groups, to the detriment of both liberty and equality. Moreover,
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5502-514: The Carson–Long left-libertarianism school typically endorse the labor-based property rights that contemporary left-libertarians reject, but they hold that implementing such rights would have radical rather than conservative consequences. Left-libertarians of this school hold that it is illegitimate for anyone to claim private ownership of natural resources to the detriment of others. These left-libertarians support some form of income redistribution on
5633-572: The Democratic and Republican parties while others are independent . Gallup found that voters who identify as libertarians ranged from 17 to 23% of the American electorate. Yellow , a political color associated with liberalism worldwide , has also been used as a political color for modern libertarianism in the United States. The Gadsden flag and Pine Tree flag , symbols first used by American revolutionaries , are frequently used by libertarians and
5764-561: The Foundation for Economic Education ) and the European immigrants Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand carried on the intellectual libertarian tradition. In fiction, one can cite the work of the science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein , whose writing carried libertarian underpinnings. Mencken and Nock were the first prominent figures in the United States to privately call themselves libertarians. They believed Franklin D. Roosevelt had co-opted
5895-753: The Green Progressive Accord and GroenLinks in the Netherlands as coming out of the New Left and emphasizing spontaneous self-organisation, participatory democracy, decentralization and voluntarism, being contrasted to the bureaucratic or statist approach. Similarly, political scientist Ariadne Vromen has described the Australian Greens as having a "clear left-libertarian ideological base." Examples of left libertarian parties given by Kitschelt and Hellemans in 1990 were Agalev and Ecolo ; Kittschelt's term
6026-587: The Levellers , Diggers and the Chartists "), the political definition of the term "libertarian" (from the French : libertaire ) was coined by the French anarchist communist Joseph Déjacque in 1857, whereafter libertarianism became synonymous with anarchism . The term was widely used by anarchists until the 1970s, when libertarianism first started to be associated with a radical free market philosophy, particularly in
6157-641: The Mises Caucus , a paleolibertarian faction, became the dominant faction on the Libertarian National Committee. A variant of non-intellectual right-libertarianism that has been described as "growing in prominence", "changing the dynamics" of the conservative movement in the U.S., and even "largely defin[ing] the Republican coalition" in the 2020s, has been dubbed " Barstool conservatism ". First coined in 2021 by journalist Rod Matthew Walther,
6288-531: The Pritikin Center in Miami, Florida to take part in a weight loss program. While there, he fell and was taken to a local hospital, where he died on May 22, 1992, at the age of 43. After his death, libertarian scholar Tom G. Palmer wrote: "Roy Childs was one of the finer members of a generation of radical thinkers who worked successfully to revive the tradition of classical liberalism [...] and who dared to launch
6419-406: The Reagan administration . Rothbard argued that the presidency of Reagan has been "a disaster for libertarianism in the United States" and Paul described Reagan himself as "a dramatic failure". In the 21st century, libertarian groups have been successful in advocating tax cuts and regulatory reform. While some argue that the American public as a whole shifted away from libertarianism following
6550-490: The Russian and Spanish Revolutions . The contemporary left-libertarian Murray Bookchin advocated for the replacement of the state with a libertarian communist society , which he saw as a decentralized confederation of municipalities , in which decisions would be made by direct democracy . Bookchin was also harshly critical of individualist anarchism, which he held responsible for the failure of left-libertarianism to take
6681-780: The State University of New York at Buffalo with the intention of eventually becoming a college professor. While there, he was offered a full scholarship to attend Rampart College in Larkspur, Colorado , an unaccredited college established by Robert LeFevre to educate students on libertarian views. However, LeFevre's project collapsed soon after Childs arrived and by the fall of 1968 was back at SUNY Buffalo. For many years, Childs endured difficulties due to obesity . In later years when he lived in New York City , he sometimes weighed over 400 pounds and rarely left his apartment. Childs went to
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#17328520911596812-570: The Tea Party movement (founded in 2009) which has become a major outlet for libertarian Republican ideas, especially rigorous adherence to the Constitution, lower taxes and an opposition to a growing role for the federal government in health care. However, polls show that many people who identify as Tea Party members do not hold traditional libertarian views on most social issues and tend to poll similarly to socially conservative Republicans. During
6943-511: The Vietnam War and its opposition . These radicals had long embraced a reading of American history that emphasized the role of elite privilege in shaping legal and political institutions, one that was naturally agreeable to many on the left, increasingly seeking alliances with the left, especially with members of the New Left, in light of the Vietnam War, the military draft and the emergence of
7074-621: The alterglobalisation and anti-austerity movements from the late 1990s. In Portugal , the Left Bloc emerged in the late 1990s from the anti-austerity movement, and is inspired by the libertarian left. Greece’s Synaspismos and its successor Syriza came from a similar background. In Turkey, Ufuk Uras of the Party of the Greens and the Left Future identifies as a left-libertarian.Ufuk Uras identifies as
7205-654: 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 American historian Bernard Bailyn , during and after the American Revolution , "the major themes of eighteenth-century libertarianism were brought to realization" in constitutions , bills of rights , and limits on legislative and executive powers, including limits on starting wars. According to Murray Rothbard ,
7336-433: The egalitarian distribution of natural resources. Other left-libertarians believe that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights and maintain that natural resources ought to be held in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively . Political scientist Peter Mclaverty notes it has been argued that socialist values are incompatible with
7467-585: The fall of the Soviet Union , citing the success of multinational organizations such as NAFTA and the increasingly interdependent global financial system , others argue that libertarian ideas have moved so far into the mainstream that many Americans who do not identify as libertarian now hold libertarian views. Circa 2006 polls find that the views and voting habits of between 10 and 20 percent (increasing) of voting age Americans may be classified as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or libertarian". This
7598-608: The labor theory of value in favor of Austrian School economics and the subjective theory of value ; the libertarianism developed in the 1970s by Robert Nozick and founded in American and European classical liberal traditions; and the libertarianism associated with the Libertarian Party , which was founded in 1971, including politicians such as David Nolan and Ron Paul . The right-libertarianism associated with people such as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick, whose book Anarchy, State, and Utopia received significant attention in academia according to David Lewis Schaefer,
7729-635: The means of production , a situation they believe will be solved by the introduction of free competition. Building on Tucker's ideas, Kevin Carson has also defended the labor theory of value and occupancy-and-use land ownership , although not all free-market anti-capitalists agree with these positions. Like social anarchists and unlike many right-libertarians, left-wing market anarchists are opposed to capitalism and other forms of oppression such as racism and sexism ; they consider this anti-oppression politics to be an integral part of left-libertarianism. The green movement, especially its more left-wing factions,
7860-428: The political spectrum (especially the left–right political spectrum ) whilst denying any association with both the political right and left, other libertarians such as Kevin Carson , Karl Hess , Roderick T. Long and Sheldon Richman have written about libertarianism's left-wing opposition to authoritarian rule and argued that libertarianism is fundamentally a left-wing position. Rothbard himself previously made
7991-453: The robber baron period, hailed by the right and despised by the left as a heyday of laissez-faire , was not characterized by laissez-faire at all, but it was in fact a time of massive state privilege accorded to capital. In tandem with his emphasis on the intimate connection between state and corporate power , he defended the seizure of corporations dependent on state largesse by workers and others. This tradition would continue through
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#17328520911598122-658: The social ownership and equitable distribution of natural resources , while also upholding the libertarian principle of self-ownership . While all libertarians begin with a conception of personal autonomy from which they argue in favor of civil liberties and a reduction or elimination of the state, left-libertarianism encompasses those libertarian beliefs that claim the Earth's natural resources belong to everyone in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Left-libertarians generally uphold self-ownership and oppose strong private property rights, instead supporting
8253-410: The state as an unnecessary evil; minarchists such as Nozick who recognize the necessary need for a minimal state, often referred to as a night-watchman state ; and classical liberals who support a minimized small government and a major reversal of the welfare state . The major libertarian party in the United States is the Libertarian Party . However, libertarians are also represented within
8384-554: The state , typically opposes Counter-Economics , either opposes the Libertarian Party or works to drag it right and prefers coalitions with supposedly ' free-market ' conservatives ". While holding that the important distinction for libertarians is not left or right, but whether they are "government apologists who use libertarian rhetoric to defend state aggression", Anthony Gregory describes left-libertarianism as maintaining interest in personal freedom , having sympathy for egalitarianism and opposing social hierarchy , preferring
8515-666: The 19th century, libertarian philosophies included libertarian socialism and anarchist schools of thought such as individualist and social anarchism . Key libertarian thinkers included Benjamin Tucker , Lysander Spooner , Stephen Pearl Andrews and William Batchelder Greene , among others. While most of these anarchist thinkers advocated for the abolition of the state, other key libertarian thinkers and writers such as Henry David Thoreau , Ralph Waldo Emerson and Spooner in No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority argued that government should be kept to
8646-486: The 19th century, the term libertarian has referred to advocates for freedom of the will, or anyone who generally advocated for liberty, but its long association with anarchism extends at least as far back as 1858, when it was used for the title of New York anarchist journal Le Libertaire . In the late 19th century (around the 1880s and 1890s), Anarchist Sébastien Faure used the term libertarian to differentiate between anarchists and authoritarian socialists . While
8777-456: The 20th and 21st centuries, being taken up by the left-libertarian, free-market anti-capitalism of both Samuel Edward Konkin III 's agorism and left-wing market anarchism . During the mid-20th century, many with Old Right or classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians. Important American writers such as Rose Wilder Lane , H. L. Mencken , Albert Jay Nock , Isabel Paterson , Leonard Read (the founder of
8908-590: 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 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 and concise language that allowed
9039-547: The Libertarian Left is a left-libertarian organization that includes a multi-tendency coalition of agorists , geolibertarians , green libertarians , left-Rothbardians , minarchists , mutualists and voluntaryists . The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane , Murray Rothbard and Charles Koch , chairman of
9170-527: The New Deal, but by the mid-1930s the word liberalism had been widely used to mean social liberalism . The word liberal had ceased to refer to the support of individual rights and limited government and instead came to denote left-leaning ideas that would be seen elsewhere as social-democratic . American advocates of classical liberalism bemoaned the loss of the word liberal and cast about for others to replace it. In August 1953, Max Eastman proposed
9301-548: The Reagan administration's policies after Reagan's election in 1980 and later recalled being the only Republican to vote against Reagan budget proposals in 1981, aghast that "in 1977, Jimmy Carter proposed a budget with a $ 38 billion deficit, and every Republican in the House voted against it. In 1981, Reagan proposed a budget with a $ 45 billion deficit – which turned out to be $ 113 billion – and Republicans were cheering his great victory. They were living in
9432-416: The Right [today] are run by economically liberal conservatives who, in varying degrees, have marginalized social , cultural , and national conservatives ". Academics as well as proponents of the capitalist free-market perspectives note that libertarianism has spread beyond the United States since the 1970s via think tanks and political parties and that libertarianism is increasingly viewed as
9563-506: The United States Ronald Reagan appealed to cultural conservative libertarians due its social conservatism and in a 1975 interview with Reason stated: "I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism". However, many libertarians are ambivalent about Reagan's legacy as president due its social conservatism and how the Reagan administration turned the United States' big trade deficit into debt, making
9694-589: The United States has become associated with classical liberalism and minarchism , with right-libertarianism being more known than left-libertarianism, political usage of the term libertarianism until then was associated exclusively with anti-capitalism , libertarian socialism , and social anarchism; in most parts of the world, such an association still predominates. Left-libertarians are skeptical of, or fully against, private ownership of natural resources, arguing, in contrast to right-libertarians, that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources
9825-528: The United States . The oldest, traditional, definition of "left-libertarianism" used it synonymously with social anarchism . Seeking to distinguish themselves from the new generation of free-market libertarians, social anarchists began referring to themselves as "left-libertarians", while the new adoptees of the term became known as " right-libertarians ". This usage is also applied to libertarian socialists such as William Morris or Fenner Brockway and libertarian Marxists such as Cornelius Castoriadis . At
9956-647: The United States a debtor nation for the first time since World War I. Ron Paul was affiliated with the libertarian-leaning Republican Liberty Caucus and founded the Campaign for Liberty , a libertarian-leaning membership and lobbying organization. Rand Paul is a Senator who continues the tradition of his father Ron Paul, albeit more moderately as he has described himself as a constitutional conservative and has both embraced and rejected libertarianism. Since 2012, former New Mexico Governor and two-time Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson has been one of
10087-490: The United States, libertarianism is a political philosophy promoting individual liberty . According to common meanings of conservatism and liberalism in the United States, libertarianism has been described as conservative on economic issues ( fiscal conservatism ) and liberal on personal freedom ( cultural liberalism ), often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism . Broadly, there are four principal traditions within libertarianism, namely
10218-543: The [radical left libertarian movements] become less disruptive and violent, in favor of tactical pragmatism and conventional forms of protest". Alongside social anarchists, left-wing proponents of free-market economics have associated themselves with left-libertarianism, also partly influenced by the New Left. This post-classical definition has been used synonymously with the free-market anti-capitalism ( a.k.a. left-wing market anarchism) advocated by Kevin Carson , Gary Chartier , and Charles W. Johnson , who together formed
10349-509: The alternative cultures and movements that arose out of the new social movements from the 1960s onwards, such as those involved in squatting and militant anti-fascism . For example, in a comparative study of left libertarianism in Sweden and Poland, Piotrowski and Wennerhag state that activists from anarchist, autonomist, and anarcho-syndicalist groups, whose political orientations include both libertarian Marxist and anarchist perspectives,… are
10480-548: The basis for the further development of the left libertarian perspective." Most left-libertarians of this tradition support some form of economic rent redistribution on the grounds that each individual is entitled to an equal share of natural resources and argue for the desirability of state social welfare programs. Scholars representing this school of left-libertarianism often understand their position in contrast to right-libertarians, who maintain that there are no fair share constraints on use or appropriation that individuals have
10611-488: The board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries , the second largest privately held company by revenue in the United States. In July 1976, the name was changed to the Cato Institute. Roy Childs Roy Alan Childs Jr. (January 4, 1949 – May 22, 1992) was an American libertarian essayist and critic. Childs edited the magazine Libertarian Review from 1977 until it folded in 1981. He
10742-442: The classical liberal concepts of self-ownership and land appropriation, combined with geoist or physiocratic views regarding the ownership of land and natural resources (e.g. those of Henry George and John Locke ). Their intellectual forebears include Henry George , Thomas Paine , and Herbert Spencer . Classical economists such as Henry George, John Stuart Mill , the early writings of Herbert Spencer, among others, "provided
10873-546: The concept of self-ownership when this concept is considered "the core feature of libertarianism" and socialism is defined as holding "that we are social beings, that society should be organised, and individuals should act, so as to promote the common good, that we should strive to achieve social equality and promote democracy, community and solidarity." However, political philosopher Nicholas Vrousalis has also argued that "property rights [...] do not pass judgment as to what rights individuals have to their own person [...] [and] to
11004-468: The consequentialist libertarianism as promoted by Hayek, Mark Bevir holds that there is also left and right libertarianism. Left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism is a categorization used by some political analysts, academics and media sources in the United States to contrast related yet distinct approaches to libertarian philosophy. Peter Vallentyne defines right-libertarianism as holding that unowned natural resources "may be appropriated by
11135-572: The electorate. While libertarians make up a larger portion of the electorate than the much-discussed "soccer moms" and "NASCAR dads", this is not widely recognized as most of these vote for Democratic and Republican party candidates, leading some libertarians to believe that dividing people's political leanings into "conservative", "liberal" and "confused" is not valid. In the United States, libertarians may emphasize economic and constitutional rather than religious and personal policies, or personal and international rather than economic policies such as
11266-453: The establishment of government is in violation of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle . In the 1960s, Childs endorsed anarcho-capitalism , but he later expressed doubts about anarchism . In the 1960s, Ayn Rand wrote an essay entitled "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business". Childs responded with an essay entitled "Big Business and the Rise of American Statism ", writing: "To
11397-400: The establishment was withholding it. They argue this shift in concerns helped cause Thatcherism and was incorporated into Thatcherism's appeal. Since the resurgence of neoliberalism in the 1970s, this form of libertarianism has spread beyond North America and Europe, having been more successful at spreading worldwide than other conservative ideas. It has been noted that "[m]ost parties of
11528-452: The external world" and that "the nineteenth-century egalitarian libertarians were not misguided in thinking that a thoroughly libertarian form of communism is possible at the level of principle." Other left-libertarians make a libertarian reading of progressive and social-democratic economics to advocate a universal basic income . Building on Michael Otsuka 's conception of "robust libertarian self-ownership", Karl Widerquist argues that
11659-502: The first person who discovers them, mixes her labor with them, or merely claims them—without the consent of others, and with little or no payment to them". He contrasts this with left-libertarianism, where such "unappropriated natural resources belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner". Similarly, Charlotte and Lawrence Becker maintain that left-libertarianism most often refers to the political position that holds natural resources are originally common property while right-libertarianism
11790-624: 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 would later 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. Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary In
11921-467: The grounds of a claim by each individual to be entitled to an equal share of natural resources. Unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common and private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources. Libertarianism in the United States In
12052-462: The growth of new-style mutualism, articulating a version of the labor theory of value incorporating ideas drawn from Austrian economics. In 2022, the term kremlintarian emerged as a description of an individual claiming libertarian identity while defending the behavior of totalitarian regimes. There are broadly two ethical viewpoints within libertarianism, namely consequentialist libertarianism and deontological libertarianism . The first type
12183-471: The label libertarian and harshly denounced the libertarian movement as the "hippies of the right". Nonetheless, 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. Along with Isabel Paterson and Rose Wilder Lane , Rand
12314-456: The labor movement (in particular during the late 19th and early 20th century) and the "new left" or "new social movements" of the 1960s and onwards. Within these movement families, the groups we analyze here have often been thought to constitute the "radical flank" (cf. Haines 2013). According to sociologist Jennifer Carlson , left-libertarianism is one of the three main branches of libertarian political philosophy, alongside right-libertarianism ,
12445-519: The latter exempts power wielded through free-market capitalism . Historically, libertarians including Herbert Spencer and Max Stirner have to some degree supported the protection of an individual's freedom from powers of both government and private property owners. In contrast, while condemning governmental encroachment on personal liberties, some modern American libertarians support freedoms based on private property rights. Anarcho-capitalist theorist Murray Rothbard argued that protesters should rent
12576-399: The left should reclaim libertarian as a term, suggesting these other self-declared libertarians to rename themselves propertarians instead. Although all libertarians oppose government intervention, there is a division between those anarchist or socialist libertarians as well as anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard and David D. Friedman who adhere to the anti-state position, viewing
12707-442: The legitimacy of libertarianism as a political theory in the world of academia". British historians Emily Robinson, Camilla Schofield, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Natalie Thomlinson have argued that by the 1970s Britons were keen about defining and claiming their individual rights, identities and perspectives. They demanded greater personal autonomy and self-determination and less outside control. They angrily complained that
12838-568: 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" as well as 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,
12969-513: The libertarian-leaning Tea Party movement . Although libertarian continues to be widely used to refer to anti-state socialists internationally, its meaning in the United States has deviated from its political origins to the extent that the common meaning of libertarian in the United States is different from elsewhere. The Libertarian Party asserts the following core beliefs of libertarianism: "Libertarians support maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters. They advocate
13100-511: The libertarianism that developed in the mid-20th century out of the revival tradition of classical liberalism in the United States after liberalism associated with the New Deal ; the libertarianism developed in the 1950s by anarcho-capitalist author Murray Rothbard , who based it on the anti-New Deal Old Right and 19th-century libertarianism and American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner while rejecting
13231-423: The market and property. In a 1975 interview with Reason , California Governor Ronald Reagan appealed to libertarians when he stated to "believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism". Ron Paul was one of the first elected officials in the nation to support Reagan's presidential campaign and actively campaigned for Reagan in 1976 and 1980. However, Paul quickly became disillusioned with
13362-421: The movements potential allies to a wider section of movement cultures. The anarchist ideology and movement are firmly rooted within this broad ideational category, together with other branches of left-libertarianism such as council communism, anarcho-syndicalism or autonomism. The term "radical left-libertarian movements" (RLLMs) is used by many political scientists to refer to anarchists, autonomists and others in
13493-457: The organization from conservatives. The burning of a draft card in protest to a conservative proposal against draft resistance sparked physical confrontations among convention attendees, a walkout by a large number of libertarians, the creation of libertarian organizations like the Society for Individual Liberty and efforts to recruit potential libertarians from conservative organizations. The split
13624-415: The power to appropriate unowned things by claiming them (usually by mixing their labor with them) and deny any other conditions or considerations are relevant and that there is no justification for the state to redistribute resources to the needy or to overcome market failures . A number of left-libertarians of this school argue for the desirability of some state social welfare programs. Left-libertarians of
13755-449: The primary status of economic issues, and argue that "the predominance of markets and bureaucracies must be rolled back in favor of social solidarity relations and participatory institutions". He posits that the strong commitment to direct participation leads to the weakness (or even absence) of formal structurel, centralized organization, leadership and hierarchy, and "a sometimes chaotic ‘assembly’ organizational style (as best illustrated by
13886-554: The principal actors within the radical left-libertarian movement in the countries of our study. All of these groups are based on ideologies that express anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian/anti-state, anti-racist/antifascist and pro-direct/participatory democracy stances from a radical left-libertarian standpoint (Katsiaficas 1997; Curran 2006; Romanos 2013). Historically, such movement activism can be connected to those ideologies and strategies that emerged within two broader "movement families" (cf. della Porta and Rucht 1995, 230 ff.): namely,
14017-424: The public faces of the libertarian movement. The 2016 Libertarian National Convention saw Johnson and Bill Weld nominated as the 2016 presidential ticket and resulted in the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since 1996 and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number. Johnson received 3% of the popular vote, amounting to more than 4.3 million votes. Johnson expressed
14148-547: The reflection of a wider socio-political transformation of increasing interconnection between electoral and non-electoral politics". For them, green/left-libertarian movement parties "embody a generational gap in political participation, as they utilise both electoral and non-electoral engagement to express their post-industrial demands... [Their] voters tend to be younger and more educated and engage more in online political activities." According to Herbert Kitschelt , left libertarian parties are "post-materialist" in that they reject
14279-453: The role of the private sector in the economy and society. This is unlike the common meaning of libertarianism elsewhere, with libertarianism being used to refer to the largely overlapping right-libertarianism , the most popular conception of libertarianism in the United States, where the term itself was first coined and used by Joseph Déjacque to refer to a new political philosophy rejecting all authority and hierarchies, including
14410-777: The same point, rejecting the association of statism with the left. Thin and thick libertarianism are two kinds of libertarianism. Thin libertarianism deals with legal issues involving the non-aggression principle only and would permit a person to speak against other groups as long as they did not support the initiation of force against others. Walter Block is an advocate of thin libertarianism. Jeffrey Tucker describes thin libertarianism as "brutalism" which he compares unfavorably to "humanitarianism". Thick libertarianism goes further to also cover moral issues. Charles W. Johnson describes four kinds of thickness, namely thickness for application, thickness from grounds, strategic thickness and thickness from consequences. Thick libertarianism
14541-467: The same time as social anarchists began using the term to distinguish themselves from free-market libertarians, some of the advocates of free market economics that were associated with the New Left , including Roy Childs and Samuel Konkin , also began referring to themselves as "left-libertarians" in order to highlight themselves as the left-wing of the new free-market libertarian movement. As anti-capitalist advocates of free-market economics, they used
14672-400: The seventeenth century English Levellers and the eighteenth century French Encyclopedists among their ideological forebears; and [...] usually share an admiration for Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine ". The United States Declaration of Independence was inspired by Locke in its statement: "[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
14803-536: The state range from minarchism , which argues for a decentralised and limited government , to anarchism , which advocates for the state to be abolished entirely. Libertarianism is a philosophy that advocates for freedom , whether political , economical or metaphysical . Although older political movements have been identified as libertarian (for example, Marxist historian E.P. Thompson argued in 1979 that "the English left-libertarian tradition can be traced back to
14934-468: The term libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasize its connections with socialism . The revival of free-market ideologies during the mid-to-late 20th century came with disagreement over what to call the movement. While many of its adherents prefer the term libertarian , many conservative libertarians reject the term's association with the 1960s New Left and its connotations of libertine hedonism . The movement
15065-407: The term libertarian has been largely synonymous with anarchism , its meaning has more recently diluted with wider adoption from ideologically disparate groups. As a term, libertarian can include both the New Left and libertarian Marxists (who do not associate with a vanguard party ) as well as extreme liberals (primarily concerned with civil liberties ). Additionally, some anarchists use
15196-512: The term libertarian was Murray Rothbard , who started publishing libertarian works in the 1960s. Before the 1950s, H.L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock had been the first prominent figures in the United States to privately call themselves libertarians. 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
15327-589: The term "left-libertarian" in order to distinguish themselves from the right-wing advocates of libertarian capitalism. Left libertarianism is defined a little differently by many European political scientists, in a usage introduced by Herbert Kitschelt in 1989. Left libertarian parties emphasise notions of internal party democracy and bottom-up participation. Green parties and radical left parties are often grouped together as "left-libertarian" parties by political scientists. For political scientists Jan Jämte and Adrienne Sörbom, The term radical left-libertarianism
15458-418: The term describes a movement whose primary base of support is young non-religious males, and combines total opposition to political correctness and " wokism " with the more traditional libertarian opposition to controls on the pursuits of pleasure (sex, gambling, pornography, alcohol). Anti-capitalist libertarianism has recently aroused renewed interest in the early 21st century. The Winter 2006 issue of
15589-438: The terms New Liberalism and liberal conservative which were not eventually accepted. In May 1955, the term libertarian was first publicly used in the United States as a synonym for classical liberal when writer Dean Russell (1915–1998), a colleague of Leonard Read and a classical liberal himself, proposed the libertarian solution and justified the choice of the word as follows: Many of us call ourselves "liberals." And it
15720-574: The turn of the 1980s. From this point until the late 2010s, "the main tendency in radical left activism shifted from party-based Marxism-Leninism to network-based, direct-action activism based on libertarian socialist ideals… shifting [in this period] from direct-action networks that engaged in a variety of political issue—anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, feminism, animal rights, etc.—to more 'conventional' networks of organizations and initiatives through which activists intervened in local politics and neighborhood and workplace conflicts. The same period also saw
15851-417: The uncorrupted classical sense. At best, this is awkward and subject to misunderstanding. Here is a suggestion: Let those of us who love liberty trade-mark and reserve for our own use the good and honorable word "libertarian". Subsequently, a growing number of Americans with classical liberal beliefs in the United States began to describe themselves as libertarian . The person most responsible for popularizing
15982-479: The war joined the draft resistance and peace movements and organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society . They began founding their own publications like Rothbard's The Libertarian Forum and organizations like the Radical Libertarian Alliance. The split was aggravated at the 1969 Young Americans for Freedom convention when more than 300 libertarians coordinated to take control of
16113-735: The water-balloon attack on Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer at the 1999 congress of the German Greens)." For example, between 1984 and 1986, ecologists worked together with anarchists and libertarians in Greece's Green Alternative Movement . while the Dutch GroenLinks moved from socialism to left libertarianism in the early 1990s. Political scientists see European political parties such as Ecolo and Groen in Belgium, Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany, or
16244-500: The word liberal for his New Deal policies which they opposed and used libertarian to signify their allegiance to individualism . In 1923, Mencken wrote: "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". As of the mid-20th century, no word was used to describe the ideological outlook of this group of thinkers. Most of them would have described themselves as liberals before
16375-541: Was "equal freedom for all in a free socialist society". Branches of the Libertarian League opened in a number of other American cities, including Detroit and San Francisco. It was dissolved at the end of the 1960s. The 1960s also saw an alliance between the nascent New Left and other radical libertarians who came from the Old Right tradition like Murray Rothbard , Ronald Radosh and Karl Hess in opposition to imperialism and war , especially in relation to
16506-582: Was a student of neoclassical economics and supported the subjective theory of value . Rothbard sought to meld 19th-century American individualists' advocacy of free markets and private defense with the principles of Austrian economics, arguing that there is 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". Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater 's libertarian-oriented challenge to authority had
16637-442: Was able to serialize his book L'Humanisphère, Utopie anarchique ( The Humanisphere: Anarchic Utopia ) in his periodical Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social ( Libertarian: Journal of Social Movement ), published in 27 issues from June 9, 1858, to February 4, 1861. Le Libertaire was the first libertarian communist journal published in the United States as well as the first anarchist journal to use libertarian . Tucker
16768-527: Was also a research fellow and later a policy analyst with the Cato Institute from 1982 to 1984. Childs's most visible public role was as lead book reviewer for Laissez Faire Books in which he produced a number of memorable short essays. He held this position from 1984 until his death. Childs counted among his early influences Ayn Rand , Ludwig von Mises , Rose Wilder Lane and Robert LeFevre . In his essay "An Open Letter to Ayn Rand", Childs rejected Objectivism as being true libertarianism, asserting that
16899-661: Was applied to the Green Party of England and Wales in 2008; examples given by Santos and Mercea more recently are Denmark 's Alternativet , Germany's Bündis 90/Die Grünen, in Hungary LMP – Hungary's Green Party and Dialogue – The Greens' Party , and the UK's Green Party, Scottish Greens and Sinn Fein . Such parties attempt to apply left-libertarian ideas to a more pragmatic system of democratic governance as opposed to contemporary individualist or socialist libertarianism. Typically, there
17030-411: Was finalized in 1971 when conservative leader William F. Buckley Jr. attempted to divorce libertarianism from the movement, writing in a New York Times article as follows: "The ideological licentiousness that rages through America today makes anarchy attractive to the simple-minded. Even to the ingeniously simple-minded". As a result of the split, a small group of Americans led by David Nolan and
17161-601: Was the first American born to use libertarian . By around the start of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed. Moving into the 20th century, the Libertarian League was an anarchist and libertarian socialist organization. The first Libertarian League was founded in Los Angeles between the two World Wars. It was established mainly by Cassius V. Cook, Charles T. Sprading, Clarence Lee Swartz , Henry Cohen, Hans F. Rossner and Thomas Bell. In 1954,
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