Libertarianism - RationalWiki
5 of 11
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Libertarianism
Party types (colloquially called "Minarchists") who take a position of advocating minimal government, and on the other there are the market anarchists who believe that all the services the government provides are unjust monopolies, which the free market can handle better if let go of by the State. Market anarchists can be split into two groups, "anarcho-mutualists" who believe in a free market but not in capitalism or class, and anarchocapitalists who believe in completely unregulated capitalism. There is usually little room in between these two, but even then, there are still different branches within these umbrella terms. On the Minarchist side of the libertarian ideology, there are the paleo-libertarians, who advocate a strong return to the Constitution and are somewhat conservative in their arguments to preserve moral law, much like the Old Right paleoconservatives. Ron Paul, who is often viewed as a Libertarian, would more fit the paleoconservative/libertarian framework, and not actual libertarianism. Additionally, there exist the geo-libertarians (who advocate simply a tax on fallow and unused land), neo-libertarians (often regarded not in any sense as libertarians, as their political views conflict with the very principles of the Non-Aggression Axiom), and other branches with their own nuances. On the Anarchist side of the spectrum, things tend to be more homogeneous, with the major disagreements usually only amounting to how to achieve a libertarian society and solutions to ethical dilemmas. This ideological division occurs not only externally in political theory, but philosophically as well. On the one side, there are the deontological natural rights theorists (Murray Rothbard being the most prominent advocate), and on the other are the utilitarian libertarians (David D. Friedman is often the most associated with this view). A few minority nihilists and radical subjectivists exist within these circles, but these views are often seen to be in conflict with the general premises laid out by the Non-Aggression Axiom.
Left-libertarianism The word 'libertarianism' was used before the current usage came about to refer to anarchists, who are against hierarchies brought about by stratified classes and a state controlled by the wealthy elites, and thus oppose capitalism. Many call themselves 'libertarian socialists,' a philosophy championed by Noam Chomsky. The use of "libertarianism" to describe anarchy dates back to the late 1850s, with Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social being the name of a journal published by anarchist Joseph Dejacque. The term 'libertarian communism' originated in the 1880s, when the French anarchist congress adopted it. As late as 1954, a largely anarchosyndicalist movement named The Libertarian League was set up in the US. The current Libertarian Party in the US only came into being in early 1970s, well over a 100 years after anarchists had begun using the term to describe themselves. In the US, to quote Murray Bookchin, the "term 'libertarian' itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for 'pure capitalism' and 'free trade.' This movement never created the word: it appropriated it from the anarchist movement of the [nineteenth] century. And it should be recovered by those anti-authoritarians...who try to speak for dominated people as a whole, not for personal egotists who identify freedom with entrepreneurship and profit." This ideology is now called "libertarian socialism". Many left-libertarians of this school favor equality as much as liberty and argue for fraternal health societies, civil disobedience through the black market, non-capitalist free trade and competitive worker co-ops.
Brief attempt at (right-)libertarian taxonomy in the US There is a good deal of overlap between these groups, but the hardliners tend to lavish hate on each other. Anarcho-capitalists/Rothbardians: Deontological anarchists in the vein of Rothbard. Walter Block of the LvMI is one. (Most anarcho-capitalists fall into the Rothbardian camp, though a few like David D. Friedman take the more utilitarian approach, and a few like the Voluntaryists follow the pure pacifism of Robert LeFevre.) 5/30/2012 1:08 AM