User:BigK HeX/sandbox/Libertarianism
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Libertarianism is advocacy for individual liberty[1] and libertarians all support a concept of liberty. Philosophies referred to as "left-libertarianism" and "right-libertarianism" are identified as variants of a broad concept of libertarianism in philosophical literature.[2] Libertarians may embrace a variety of beliefs about political structures ranging from minimization of the state to complete abolition of the state.[3][4][5][6] The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the minimal state as providing law enforcement, a judicial assembly, and armed forces, and, also describes the right-libertarian view called anarcho-capitalist which holds that a government is unnecessary because private companies working for profit should provide the court systems, military, and police forces.[7] In contrast to the anarcho-capitalist ideals, left-libertarian anarchists such as Noam Chomsky propose a libertarian socialist philosophy which promotes the idea that large-scale decentralization will empower workers and should be pursued to eliminate both government and private capitalist organizations, which they view as coercive.[8]
Right-libertarians may be difficult to place in the conventional left/right political spectrum as they may show strong support for traditionally left-wing issues, such as broad freedom from search and seizure, freedom of the press, and other civil liberties. Consequently, some libertarians reject being described as "left" or "right";[9] others reject being described as "anarchists".[citation needed] Among those that may be considered "right libertarian," there is also divergence in that some of these are libertarian moralists and some others are libertarian consequentialists.
History
Etymology
The term libertarian in a metaphysical or philosophical sense was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to those who believed in free will, as opposed to determinism.[10] The first recorded use was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to "necessitarian" (or determinist) views.[11][12]
The use of the word 'libertarian' to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, "Libertaire", which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist communist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[13][14][13][15] Hence the term "libertaire" has been used as a synonym for left wing anarchism or libertarian socialism since the 1890s.[16]
In the 1950s in the United States many with classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as "libertarian."[17] Academics as well as proponents of the free market perspectives note that free market libertarianism has been successfully propagated beyond the US since the 1970s via think tanks and political parties [18][19] and that libertarianism is increasingly viewed worldwide as a free market position.[20][21] However Libertarian socialists Noam Chomsky, Colin Ward and others state that the term is still considered a synonym of anarchism in countries other than the US.[22][23][24]
The term libertarianism is sometimes used as a synonym for anarchism, with that use being especially common outside the United States;,[25] which some explain this to be the original meaning of the term, and, hence, under that definition, "libertarian socialism" is equivalent to "socialist anarchism".[26][27] The American use of term includes non-anarchist free-market political philosophy.
Philosophical origins and history
Enlightenment ideas of individual liberty, limited government, peace and a free market were part of a growing movement in the 19th century. Peter Kropotkin's The Great French Revolution (1909) asserts that the principles of anarchism had their origin in the directly democratic sections of Paris.[28] According to the same author's 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica article on anarchism, the economic and, in particular, the mutual banking ideas of Proudhon were applied by supporters in the United States.[29] The article states that, "It would be impossible to represent here, in a short sketch, the penetration, on the one hand, of anarchist ideas into modern literature, and the influence, on the other hand, which the libertarian ideas of the best contemporary writers have exercised upon the development of anarchism." Writers he names include John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Jean-Marie Guyau, Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée, Multatuli, Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau.[30]
Numerous left libertarians or libertarian socialists around the world have labeled themselves as such throughout the 20th century.[31][32][33] The most significant manifestations at a mass level of libertarian groups opposed to the property principle have been revolutionary socialist workers' movements. Examples repeatedly cited in the literature include the American Industrial Workers of the World, the Makhnovist movement in Ukraine during the Russian revolution of 1917, the CNT and the FAI during the Spanish Civil War, and the Italian autonomist movement. The EZLN movement in Mexico has maintained a significance within Mexican politics since the early 1990s.
Some proponents within the growing movement for more civil liberties also pursued strong private property rights, and this movement came to be referred to as liberalism. While liberalism kept that meaning in most of the world, modern liberalism in the United States began to take a more statist approach to economic regulation.[34][35] While conservatism in Europe continued to mean conserving hierarchical class structures through state control of society and the economy, some conservatives in the United States began to refer to conserving traditions of liberty. This was especially true of the Old Right, who opposed the New Deal and U.S. military interventions in World War I and World War II.[36][37]
Those who held to the earlier liberal views began to call themselves market liberals, classic liberals or libertarians to distinguish themselves.[35] (Some limited government advocates still use the term "libertarianism" almost interchangeably with the term classical liberalism.)[38][39]
The Austrian School of economics, influenced by Frédéric Bastiat and later by Ludwig von Mises,[40] also had an impact on both economic teaching and right-libertarian principles.[41][42] It influenced economists, political philosophers, and theorists including Israel Kirzner and Murray Rothbard.
Ayn Rand's international bestsellers The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) and her books about her philosophy of Objectivism influenced modern libertarianism.[43] Two other women also published influential pro-freedom books in 1943, Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom and Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine.[44]
Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater's libertarian-oriented challenge to authority had a major impact on the libertarian movement,[45] through his book The Conscience of a Conservative and his run for president in 1964.[46] Goldwater's speech writer, Karl Hess, became a leading libertarian writer and activist.[47]
The Vietnam War split the uneasy alliance between growing numbers of self-identified libertarians, anarchist libertarians, and more traditional conservatives who believed in limiting liberty to uphold moral virtues. Libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and peace movements and organisations such as Students for a Democratic Society. They began founding their own publications, like Murray Rothbard's The Libertarian Forum[48][49] and organizations like the Radical Libertarian Alliance.[50]
The split was aggravated at the 1969 Young Americans for Freedom convention, when more than 300 libertarians organized to take control of 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.[51] The split was finalized in 1971 when conservative leader William F. Buckley, Jr., in a 1971 New York Times article, attempted to divorce libertarianism from the freedom movement. He wrote: "The ideological licentiousness that rages through America today makes anarchy attractive to the simple-minded. Even to the ingeniously simple-minded."[44]
In 1971, David Nolan and a few friends formed the Libertarian Party.[52] Attracting former Democrats, Republicans and independents, it has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. By 2006, polls showed that 15 percent of American voters identified themselves as libertarian.[53] 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.[54]
Philosophical libertarianism gained a significant measure of recognition in academia with the publication of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974. The book won a National Book Award in 1975.[55] According to libertarian essayist Roy Childs, "Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia single-handedly established the legitimacy of libertarianism as a political theory in the world of academia."[56]
Philosophies
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