Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/1 Classical liberalism is a political philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals, including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and free markets.
Classical liberalism developed in the 19th century in Western Europe and the Americas. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the 18th century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy required as a result of the Industrial Revolution and urbanization. Notable individuals who have contributed to classical liberalism include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo. It drew on the economics of Adam Smith, a psychological understanding of individual liberty, natural law and utilitarianism and a belief in progress. Classical liberals established political parties that were called "Liberal", although in the United States classical liberalism came to dominate both existing major political parties. There was a revival of interest in classical liberalism in the 20th century led by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, it advocated social Darwinism. Right-libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism. The term "classical liberalism" was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism. Classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the 20th century whereas some American conservatives and libertarians use it to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. However, it is not always clear which meaning is intended.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/2 Social anarchism, sometimes referred to as socialist anarchism, is a non-state form of socialism and is considered to be the branch of anarchism that sees individual freedom as being dependent upon mutual aid.
Social anarchist thought emphasizes community and social equality as complementary to autonomy and personal freedom. They also advocate the conversion of present-day private property into social property or the commons while retaining respect for personal property. The term is used to describe those who—contra individualist anarchism—place an emphasis on the communitarian and cooperative aspects of anarchist theory while also opposing authoritarian forms of communitarianism associated with groupthink and collective conformity, instead favouring a reconciliation between individuality and sociality.
Emerged in the late 19th century as a distinction from individualist anarchism, social anarchism is considered an umbrella term that includes—but not limited to—the post-capitalist economic models of anarcho-communism, collectivist anarchism and sometimes mutualism as well as the trade union approach of anarcho-syndicalism, the social struggle strategies of platformism and specifism and the environmental philosophy of social ecology.
The term "libertarianism" was coined and used as synonymous for anarchism and socialism, hence the terms "social anarchism" and "socialist anarchism" are often used interchangeably with libertarian socialism, left-libertarianism or left anarchism.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/3 Libertarian socialism (or socialist libertarianism) is a group of anti-authoritarian political philosophies inside the socialist movement that rejects socialism as centralized state ownership and control of the economy.
Libertarian socialism also rejects the state itself, is close to and overlaps with left-libertarianism and criticizes wage labour relationships within the workplace, instead emphasizing workers' self-management of the workplace and decentralized structures of political organization. It asserts that a society based on freedom and justice can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite. Libertarian socialists advocate for decentralized structures based on direct democracy and federal or confederal associations such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions and workers' councils.
All of this is generally done within a general call for libertarian and voluntary human relationships through the identification, criticism and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of human life. As such, libertarian socialism within the larger socialist movement seeks to distinguish itself both from Leninism/Bolshevism and from social democracy.
Past and present political philosophies and movements commonly described as libertarian socialist include anarchism as well as autonomism, communalism, participism, guild socialism, revolutionary syndicalism and libertarian Marxist philosophies such as council communism and Luxemburgism as well as some versions of utopian socialism and individualist anarchism.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/4 Libertarian communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labour and private property (while retaining respect for personal property) in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
Some forms of libertarian communism, such as insurrectionary anarchism, are strongly influenced by egoism and radical individualism, believing libertarian communism is the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Some libertarian communists view libertarian communism as a way of reconciling the opposition between the individual and society.
Libertarian communism developed out of radical socialist currents after the French Revolution, but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International. The work of Peter Kropotkin took importance later as it expanded and developed pro-organizationalist and insurrectionary anti-organizationalist sections. To date, the best-known examples of libertarian communist societies were the anarchist territories during the Spanish Revolution and the Free Territory during the Russian Revolution.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/5 Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism and Maoism.
Libertarian Marxism is also often critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France, emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.
Libertarian Marxism includes such currents as council communism, De Leonism, Socialisme ou Barbarie, Lettrism/Situationism and workerism/autonomism and parts of the New Left. Libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on both post-left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Anton Pannekoek, Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, E. P. Thompson, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Negri, Cornelius Castoriadis, Maurice Brinton, Guy Debord, Daniel Guérin, Fredy Perlman, Ernesto Screpanti and Raoul Vaneigem.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/6 Left-libertarianism (or left-wing libertarianism) names several related, but distinct approaches to political and social theory which stress both individual freedom and social equality. In its classical usage, libertarianism is a synonym for anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics, e.g. libertarian socialism, which includes anarchism and libertarian Marxism, among others.
Left-libertarianism can also refer to 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. While maintaining full respect for personal property, they are skeptical of or fully against private property, arguing that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights and maintain that natural resources (land, oil, gold and vegetation) should be held in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Those left-libertarians who support private property do so under the condition that recompense is offered to the local community. Many schools of thought are communist, advocating the eventual replacement of money with labor vouchers or decentralized planning.
On the other hand, left-wing market anarchism, which includes Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism and Samuel Edward Konkin III's agorism, appeals to left-wing concerns such as egalitarianism, gender and sexuality, class, immigration and environmentalism within the paradigm of a socialist free market. In the United States, the word "libertarian" has become associated with right-libertarianism after Murray Rothbard and Karl Hess reached out to the New Left in the 1960s. However, until then political usage of the word was associated exclusively with anti-capitalism and in most parts of the world such an association still predominates.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/7 Right-libertarianism (or right-wing libertarianism) refers to libertarian political philosophies that advocate negative rights, natural law and a major reversal of the modern welfare state. Right-libertarians strongly support private property rights and defend market distribution of natural resources and private property. This position is contrasted with that of some versions of left-libertarianism, which maintain that natural resources belong to everyone in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Right-libertarianism includes anarcho-capitalism and laissez-faire, minarchist liberalism.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/8 Minarchism is a libertarian political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract and fraud (such states are sometimes called night watchman states). Some minarchists defend the existence of the state as a necessary evil. Minarchism is closely associated with right-libertarianism, propertarianism and classical liberalism.
Samuel Edward Konkin III, an agorist, coined the term in 1971 to describe libertarians who defend some form of compulsory government. Konkin invented the term "minarchism" because he initially felt dismayed of using the cumbersome phrase "limited-government libertarianism".
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/9 Anarcho-capitalism is a right-libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty in a free market. Economist Murray Rothbard is credited with coining the term. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts and all other security services would be provided by voluntarily-funded competitors such as private defense agencies rather than through taxation and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. According to anarcho-capitalists, personal and economic activities would be regulated by the natural laws of the market and through private law rather than through politics. Furthermore, victimless crimes and crimes against the state would not exist.
Anarcho-capitalists argue for a society based on the voluntary trade of private property and services (including money, consumer goods, land and capital goods) in order to maximize individual liberty and prosperity. However, they also recognize charity and communal arrangements as part of the same voluntary ethic. Though anarcho-capitalists are known for asserting a right to private property (individualized or joint non-public), some propose that non-state public or community property can also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society. For them, what is important is that it is acquired and transferred without help or hindrance from the compulsory state. Anarcho-capitalists believe that the only just and/or most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud.
Anarcho-capitalists see free market capitalism as the basis for a free and prosperous society. Rothbard said that the difference between free-market capitalism and "state capitalism" is the difference between "peaceful, voluntary exchange" and a collusive partnership between business and government that uses coercion to subvert the free market. "Capitalism", as anarcho-capitalists employ the term, is not to be confused with state monopoly capitalism, crony capitalism, corporatism, or contemporary mixed economies, wherein market incentives and disincentives may be altered by state action. They reject the state based on the belief that states are aggressive entities which steal property (through taxation and expropriation), initiate aggression, are a compulsory monopoly on the use of force, use their coercive powers to benefit some businesses and individuals at the expense of others, create monopolies, restrict trade and restrict personal freedoms via drug laws, compulsory education, conscription, laws on food and morality and the like. The embrace of unfettered capitalism leads to considerable tension between anarcho-capitalists and many social anarchists that view capitalism and its market as just another authority. Anti-capitalist anarchists generally consider anarcho-capitalism a contradiction in terms and vice versa.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/10 The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism. Its name derives from the identity of its founders and early supporters, who were citizens of the old Austrian Habsburg Empire, including Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. Currently, adherents of the Austrian School can come from any part of the world, but they are often referred to simply as Austrian economists and their work as Austrian economics.
The Austrian School was influential in the late 19th and early 20th century. Austrian contributions to mainstream economic thought include involvement in the development of the neoclassical theory of value and the subjective theory of value on which it is based as well as contributions to the "economic calculation debate" which concerns the allocative properties of a centrally planned economy versus a decentralized free market economy. From the middle of the 20th century onwards, it has been considered outside the mainstream, with notable criticisms related to the Austrian School leveled by economists such as Bryan Caplan, Jeffrey Sachs and Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman. Followers of the Austrian School are now most frequently associated with American libertarian political perspectives that emanate from such bodies as the Ludwig von Mises Institute and George Mason University in the United States.
Austrian School principles advocate strict adherence to methodological individualism—analyzing human action exclusively from the perspective of an individual agent. Austrian economists also argue that mathematical models and statistics are an unreliable means of analyzing and testing economic theory and advocate deriving economic theory logically from basic principles of human action, a method they term "praxeology". Additionally, whereas experimental research and natural experiments are often used in mainstream economics, Austrian economists contend that testability in economics is virtually impossible since it relies on human actors who cannot be placed in a lab setting without altering their would-be actions. Mainstream economists are generally critical of methodologies used by modern Austrian economists—in particular, a primary Austrian School method of deriving theories has been criticized by mainstream economists as a priori "non-empirical" analysis and differing from the practices of scientific theorizing as widely conducted in economics.
Austrian School economists generally hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of an evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy. They advocate the strict enforcement of voluntary contractual agreements between economic agents and hold that commercial transactions should be subject to the smallest possible imposition of coercive forces. In particular, they argue for an extremely limited role for government and the smallest possible amount of government intervention in the economy.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/11 The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is one of the oldest free market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murry Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement. FEE promotes, researches and promulgates free market, classical liberal and libertarian ideas through its monthly magazine The Freeman as well as through pamphlets, lectures and academic sponsorship. It also publishes reprints of classic libertarian texts and arranges seminars for American public figures.
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The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remained president and CEO for 35 years until 2012, when he was replaced by John A. Allison; and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest privately held company (after Cargill) by revenue in the United States.
The Institute's stated mission is "to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace" by striving "to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government". Cato scholars conduct policy research on a broad range of public policy issues and produce books, studies, op-eds and blog posts. They are also frequent guests in the media.
Cato scholars were critical of George W. Bush's Republican administration (2001–2009) on several issues, including the Iraq War, civil liberties, education, agriculture, energy policy and excessive government spending. On other issues, most notably health care, Social Security, global warming, tax policy and immigration, Cato scholars praised Bush administration initiatives. During the 2008 presidential election, Cato scholars criticized both major-party candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.
The Cato Institute was named the fifth-ranked think tank in the world for 2009 in a study of leading think tanks by James G. McGann, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania, based on a criterion of excellence in "producing rigorous and relevant research, publications and programs in one or more substantive areas of research". It has been called "Washington's premier libertarian think tank".
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The Mises Institute, short name for Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics (LvMI), is a libertarian academic organization based in Auburn, Alabama and engaged in research and scholarship in the fields of economics, philosophy and political economy. Its scholarship is inspired by the work of Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Anarcho-capitalist thinkers such as Murray Rothbard have also had a strong influence on the Institute's work. The Institute is funded entirely through private donations.
The Institute does not consider itself a traditional think tank. While it has working relationships with individuals such as United States Representative Ron Paul and organizations like the Foundation for Economic Education, it does not seek to implement public policy. It has no formal affiliation with any political party (including the Libertarian Party), nor does it receive funding from any. The Institute also has a formal policy of not accepting contract work from corporations or other organizations.
The Institute's official motto is Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito, which comes from Virgil's Aeneid, Book VI; the motto means "do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it". Early in his life, Mises chose this sentence to be his guiding principle in life. It is prominently displayed throughout the Institute's campus, on their website and on memorabilia.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/14 The Independent Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Oakland, California.
Founded in 1986 by David J. Theroux, the Institute sponsors studies of major political, social, economic, legal, environmental and foreign policy issues. It has more than 140 research fellows. The Institute was originally established in San Francisco and was re-located in 1989 to Oakland. In 2006, the Institute opened an office in Washington, D.C. Its symbol is a lighthouse, chosen because of its symbolism of how services commonly regarded as public goods can be privately owned and operated. The Institute is organized into six centers which address the full range of public policy issues.
The results of the Institute's work are published as books and other publications and form the basis for numerous conferences and media programs. Books are published by such publishers as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Palgrave, University of Michigan Press and New York University Press. In addition, the Institute publishes a quarterly journal, Independent Review, edited by the economist and historian Robert Higgs.
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Bureaucrash is a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian think tank based in Washington D.C. It is an international network of activists with the common goals of decreasing the scope of government and increasing individual freedom. Bureaucrash itself is not only non-partisan, but shows a certain amount of disdain for the political system through features on its website such as "Politricks" and "Mock the Vote."
Recent actions have taken the form of holding counter-demonstrations at key progressive events and filming themselves either with provocative placards, or interacting with the attendees. Actions have included demonstrating at the premier of the movie Sicko to protest against socialized healthcare, picketing the World Health Organization conference with the message that capitalism saves lives and painting The Yes Men on a failed attempt to target into the Cato Institute.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/16 The Free State Project (FSP) is a political movement founded in 2001 to get at least 20,000 libertarian-leaning people to move to New Hampshire in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas.
Those who join the FSP sign a statement of intent to move to New Hampshire within five years of the group reaching 20,000 participants or some other move trigger. Those who move to New Hampshire in advance of the FSP reaching 20,000 participants are referred to as "early movers". As of February 2016, 1,909 people had moved to the state, with 20,000 having signed the FSP's statement of intent.
The FSP is a social movement generally based upon decentralized decision making. While there is a control group that performs various activities, most of the FSP's activities depend upon volunteers to promote the FSP in their own way.
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Portal:Libertarianism/Selected article/17 Students for Liberty (SFL) seeks to support student groups that hold a wide-range of philosophical beliefs that all share an underlying dedication to liberty with resources like leadership training, literature, grants and speakers. Forming after a meeting where students exchanged ideas from their own experiences with liberty advocating student groups, SFL quickly expanded with new programs and an exponentially growing network of affiliated student groups. Gene Healy with the Cato Institute includes the organization in the limited-government movement.
Organized after the success of a conference, the largest program of the organization is conferences in the form of an annual international conference as well as various regional conferences. The organization experienced rapid growth since its inception in 2008. The network now includes 429 student organizations around the world. The rapid expansion is encouraged and supported by current students involved in the Campus Coordinators Program.
SFL seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of liberty and civil society with several evolving programs that focus on student rights events, lectures, literature, an academic journal for student work and an alumni network.