Talk:Libertarianism/OverviewDraft2
This is an (incomplete) attempt to:
- Identify a number of tertiary sources that provide a high-level overview of libertarianism;
- Identify key tenets of libertarianism;
- Apply weighting to those tenets, based on the frequency with which they occur in the tertiary sources identified;
- Identify "key thinkers" within libertarianism.
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*{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/339321/libertarianism|title=Britannica article: Libertarianism|editor-last=Boaz|editor-first=David|year=2010|ref=harv}}
Add citations to the Citations section using this form:
<ref name="eb-1">{{harv|Boaz|2010}} ...complete freedom of action, provided their actions do not infringe on the freedom of others.</ref>
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To do[edit]
- Initial run-through of tertiary sources
- Complete Boaz - only one editor has worked on it, it will need to be checked by other editors.
- Complete Vallentyne - this section is clearly incomplete, and will need to be...
- completed by other editors.
- checked by other editors.
- Identify further tertiary sources and add them to the Bibliography section.
- Work on further tertiary sources, adding citations to the Citations section and prose/quotes to new sections (in the same way as had been done for Boaz and Vallentyne). At this stage it is sufficient to simply identify tenets used by that one source. Weighting will be done later, when all sources have been completed. There is no need to consider, at this stage, whether tenets used by different sources are identical.
- Identify "thinkers", discussed by each tertiary source. Add them to the Thinkers section with citations for each source that discusses the "thinker".
- Consider which tenets are equivalent, i.e. different sources will express the same thing in different ways. This will probably be the most interesting part, and may require input from, e.g. WikiProject Philosophy. Assemble tenets in Tenets section with citations for each source that discusses the tenet.
Initial run-through of tertiary sources[edit]
Britannica (Boaz)[edit]
- Primacy of individual liberty.[1]
- Harm principle.[5]
- May be thought of as a form of liberalism. [6]
- A distrust of government rooted in anarchism.[7][8]
- All acts of aggression against the rights of others are unjust.[10]
- ...including government censorship, conscription, price controls.[11]
- Spontaneous order.[12]
- Property Rights [16]
- Law: generally applicable, publicly known. Not arbitrary.[17]
- Even "anarchist libertarians" believe in law and law enforcement to protect individual rights.[18]
- Typically believe some government is essential.[19]
- Society (apropos of conflict): natural harmony arises from a just society.[22]
Stanford (Vallentyne)[edit]
- Individuals "own" themselves, can acquire property.[26]
- Sometimes: Negative liberty: right to "the absence of forcible interference from other agents when one attempts to do things".[27]
- Sometimes the "negative liberty" view is equated with "self-ownership".[28]
IEP (Zwolinski)[edit]
- "libertarians are generally united by a rough agreement..."
- robust property rights.[29]
- Versions of libertarianism
- Most well known version[30]
- Nozickean minarchism
- scope of government: police, courts and military[31]
- Other theories considered by some to be libertarian[32]
Thinkers[edit]
This section is currently barely used. Add citations for further tertiary sources. Add additional "thinkers" as they're encountered in sources.
- Hume. [40]
- Jefferson. [6]
- Locke.[41][6]
- Mill. [40][6]
- Nozick.[30]
- Rand.[42][30]
- Rothbard.[21]
- Smith. [40][6]
- Spencer. [43]
- Spooner.[21]
- Thoreau.[42]
Libertarian Organizations[edit]
US Libertarian Party[edit]
- maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters
- a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence
- private property
- embrace individual responsibility
- oppose government bureaucracy and taxes
- tolerate diverse lifestyles
- support the free market
- defend civil liberties
Source: Libertarian Party Platform
Common Tenets[edit]
- Minimize or eliminate governmental restrictions on individual freedom and liberty
- Reduce or eliminate taxes
- A much smaller government, but some government is essential.
- A large reduction in governmental power over individuals
This section not currently used. It will be filled in once all sources have been worked through.
- Tenet #1. Discussed by source #x in the form "example quote here",Citation here by source #y in the form "example quote here"Citation here and by source #z in the form "example quote here".Citation here
- Tenet #2. Source #a considers a this tenet to be fundamental: "example quote here",Citation here while source #b considers only a limited form of this tenet: "example quote here",Citation here.
- Tenet #3. etc.
Draft of new overview section[edit]
This is raw material only, not a draft
Organizations of Libertarians may include members with disparate Libertarian philosophies held together by common purposes or tenets.
Common tenets. Difference between Libertarians are often defined by how far they would take these tenets. For example, under reduction of taxes, some may advocate reduction to zero, i.e. elimination. North8000 (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
1. Minimize or eliminate governmental restrictions on individual freedom and liberty
2. Reduce or eliminate taxes
3. A much smaller government, but some government is essential.
4. A large reduction in governmental power over individuals
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarianism, political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarians embrace individualism insofar as they attach supreme value to the rights and freedoms of individuals.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) all libertarians agree that individual rights are imprescriptible—i.e., that they are not granted (and thus cannot be legitimately taken away) by governments or by any other human agency.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Another aspect of the individualism of libertarians is their belief that the individual, rather than the group or the state, is the basic unit in terms of which a legal order should be understood.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) complete freedom of action, provided their actions do not infringe on the freedom of others
- ^ a b c d e (Boaz 2010) [Libertarianism] may be understood as a form of liberalism, the political philosophy associated with the English philosophers John Locke and John Stuart Mill, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, and the American statesman Thomas Jefferson.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarianism’s distrust of government is rooted in 19th-century anarchism
- ^ (Boaz 2010) A fundamental characteristic of libertarian thinking is a deep skepticism of government power.
- ^ a b (Boaz 2010) Typical libertarians oppose not only the income tax and other government impositions but also programs seen by many as beneficial, such as social security and the postal service
- ^ (Boaz 2010) According to the principle that libertarians call the nonaggression axiom, all acts of aggression against the rights of others—whether committed by individuals or by governments—are unjust.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) This prohibition entails that governments may not engage in censorship, military conscription, price controls, confiscation of property, or any other type of intervention that curtails the voluntary and peaceful exercise of an individual’s rights.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarians hold that some forms of order in society arise naturally and spontaneously from the actions of thousands or millions of individuals.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarians, however, maintain that the most important aspects of human society—such as language, law, customs, money, and markets—develop by themselves, without conscious direction.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) According to libertarians, free markets are among the most important (but not the only) examples of spontaneous order.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarians also maintain that self-help, mutual aid, charity, and economic growth do more to alleviate poverty than government social-welfare programs.
- ^ (Boaz 2010)libertarian tradition often seems to stress private property and free markets at the expense of other principles
- ^ (Boaz 2010) ... individuals should be governed by generally applicable and publicly known laws and not by the arbitrary decisions of kings, presidents, or bureaucrats. Such laws should protect the freedom of all individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways and should not aim at any particular result or outcome.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Even those who describe themselves as “anarchist libertarians,” however, believe in a system of law and law enforcement to protect individual rights.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Although most libertarians believe that some form of government is essential for protecting liberty, they also maintain that government is an inherently dangerous institution whose power must be strictly circumscribed.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Thus, libertarians advocate limiting and dividing government power through a written constitution and a system of checks and balances.
- ^ a b c (Boaz 2010) Some American libertarians, such as Lysander Spooner and Murray Rothbard, have opposed all forms of government.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Libertarians hold that there is a natural harmony of interests among peaceful, productive individuals in a just society.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) ... libertarians claim that, over time, all individuals prosper from the operation of a free market, and conflict is thus not a necessary or inevitable part of a social order.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) When governments begin to distribute rewards on the basis of political pressure, however, individuals and groups will engage in wasteful and even violent conflict to gain benefits at the expense of others.
- ^ a b (Boaz 2010) Defensive or retaliatory violence may be justified, but, according to libertarians, violence is not valuable in itself, nor does it produce any additional benefits beyond the defense of life and liberty.
- ^ (Vallentyne 2010) Libertarianism, in the strict sense, is the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.
- ^ (Vallentyne 2010) Libertarianism is sometimes identified with the principle that each agent has a right to maximum equal empirical negative liberty, where empirical negative liberty is the absence of forcible interference from other agents when one attempts to do things.
- ^ (Vallentyne 2010) It is usually claimed that this view is equivalent to above "self-ownership" version of libertarianism. Kagan (1994), however, has cogently argued that the former (depending on the interpretation) either leads to radical pacifism (the use of force is never permissible) or is compatible with a wide range of views in addition to the above "self-ownership" libertarianism. I shall not, however, attempt to assess this issue here. Instead, I shall simply focus on the above "self-ownership" version of libertarianism.
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty
- ^ a b c (Zwolinski 2008) most well-known version of this conclusion finds expression in the so-called “minimal state” theories of Robert Nozick, Ayn Rand, and others
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) states may legitimately provide police, courts, and a military, but nothing more
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) There is no single theory that can be safely identified as the libertarian theory, and probably no single principle or set of principles on which all libertarians can agree. Nevertheless, there is a certain family resemblance among libertarian theories that can serve as a framework for analysis..... libertarians believe that most, if not all, of the activities currently undertaken by states should be either abandoned or transferred into private hands. The most well-known version...finds expression in the so-called "minimal state" theories...to be distinguished from two closely related groups, who favor a smaller or greater role for government, and who may...label themselves "libertarian." On one hand are so-called anarcho-capitalists..... On the other hand are those who generally identify themselves as classical liberals. emphasis added
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) Libertarian advocates of a strictly minimal state are to be distinguished from two closely related groups
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) On one hand are so-called anarcho-capitalists who believe that even the minimal state is too large
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) respect for individual rights requires the abolition of government altogether
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008)provision of protective services by private markets
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008)On the other hand are those who generally identify themselves as classical liberals
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008) share libertarians’ confidence in free markets
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008)are more willing to allow greater room for coercive activity on the part of the state so as to allow, say, state provision of public goods or even limited tax-funded welfare transfers
- ^ a b c (Zwolinski 2008) [Consequentialist Libertarianism] draws its influence from David Hume, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill
- ^ (Zwolinski 2008)John Locke‘s political thought is generally recognized as the most important historical influence on contemporary natural rights versions of libertarianism
- ^ a b (Boaz 2010) Among the thinkers embraced by libertarians are Henry David Thoreau and Ayn Rand.
- ^ (Boaz 2010) Meanwhile, however, classical liberals such as the English philosopher Herbert Spencer insisted that the welfare of the poor and the middle classes would be best served by free markets and minimal government.
Bibliography[edit]
- Boaz, David, ed. (2010). "Britannica article: Libertarianism".
{{cite web}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Vallentyne, Peter, ed. (2010). "Stanford article: Libertarianism".
{{cite web}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Zwolinski, Matt, ed. (2008). "IEP article: Libertarianism".
{{cite web}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help)