Talk:Left-libertarianism

Archives of previous discussions: Talk:Left-libertarianism/Archive 1 (2008-2012)

Henry George was not a libertarian

To include the claim that Henry George was a left-libertarian is wrong, is NPOV, is co opting and hence is a kind of vandalism/intellectual theft.

I've got nothing against the idea of Single Tax. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.185.204 (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Left-libertarianism as catch all?

Just cleaned up Libertarianism article and stuck all of the following under Libertarianism#Left_libertarianism: Left libertarianism, Libertarian Marxism, Libertarian socialism and Libertarian communism are all phrases which activists with a variety of perspectives have applied to their views.

That does summarize the following paragraphs, but I don't have a source for the statement itself, though haven't looked that hard yet. Any thoughts? Sources? I'd like to put something similar in this article if it is true and maybe a much shorter summary of what is in that section now. CarolMooreDC 20:45, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Attempted Deletion of Material on Left-wing Market Anarchism, etc.

I object in the strongest terms to the recent efforts by User:Somedifferentstuff to delete massive amounts of text related to left-wing market anarchism and individualist anarchism, which were carried out without any discussion whatever here on Talk, and which are hard to distinguish from deliberate vandalism. Edit notes attempt to delete entire multi-paragraph sections of the article on the basis of complaints about sources in the first sentence (issues which could be resolved simply by referring to printed discussions, such as the book Markets Not Capitalism [2011], from Minor Compositions/Autonomedia), even though claims throughout the section are then referenced to books, magazines, and publications from academic presses. The eradication of the section is then described as being a simple deletion of "unsourced material." It is hard to know what to make of this; it looks uncomfortably like deliberate misdirection from an editor who wants to conceal the extent and the motivations of the deletions being made. In any case, the section on left-wing market anarchism clearly is relevant to contemporary printed usage of the term "left-libertarianism," and clearly belongs in this article. Radgeek (talk) 19:21, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

First, don't do blanket reverts, I edited many different sections of the article. Second, I explained in my edit summary the removal of left-wing market anarchism from the article. That section was linked to the main article for Free-market anarchism which does not list Left-wing market anarchism anywhere in that article, meaning it carries little to zero weight. Also, the first and most important sentence of the section (which qualifies its inclusion) was cited to a blog. (See the unacceptable source here [1].) Lastly, that section was poor in terms of layout and the article as a whole looks much cleaner now. If you can come up with an appropriate source for the first sentence we can discuss possibly adding back the first paragraph. The rest of the section would need to be discussed piece by piece in regards to relevance. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Somedifferentstuff writes:

"I explained in my edit summary the removal of left-wing market anarchism from the article."

Your first major deletion of content related to left-wing market anarchism, here, deleted 11 paragraphs of text, totaling 14,075 bytes, with no discussion whatever on the Talk: page, and with no discussion whatever of your reasons for deleting this much material other than the single word "Cleanup." Some content similar to some of what you deleted was later re-added when you rewrote the section on mutualism; the content contained in the discussions of Hodgskin, Tucker, Agorism, etc. was not re-added, nor did you make any attempt to discuss this with other editors or to justify your deletions.

Your second major deletion of content, which eliminated the left-wing market anarchism section entirely, here, half an hour later, deleted 3 paragraphs of text, including all the remaining discussion of left-wing market anarchism, amounting to a deletion of 5,703 bytes was also carried out without any discussion or justification on the Talk: page, and was explained in your edit note with nothing more than the following: "Removed section. The first sentence is sourced to a blog. The second is tagged." As I will discuss below, this is a wild irrelevancy, but even if it were clearly on point, if you think that this is anything like an explanation or an adequate discussion for deleting not only those two sentences, but deleting the entire section of the article, totaling 14 paragraphs and nearly 20KB, and thus deleting an entire sense of the term from being mentioned at all, then I can only say that this is far beyond WP:CAUTIOUS and you are going to have to get used to people responding with reverts when you destroy that much content.

"First, don't do blanket reverts"

You have no basis whatever to complain about this and no standing to issue demands when you summarily delete 20KB of content and erase entire senses of the article without more discussion than "Cleanup," a brief mention of sourcing issues with two sentences, etc. Nor when you respond to my reversion by blanket-reverting, thus destroying edits which directly dealt with exactly the sourcing issues that you claimed were motivating your edits. If you're going to be WP:BOLD, you're going to get some reverts in response. If you don't like this, try and take it up on the Talk page.

"I edited many different sections of the article."

The edits you made after the reversion that I reverted to consisted of: (1) changing the size of the photo of Henry George, (2) re-inserting material about Mutualism under the heading of "Libertarian Socialism," (3) fiddling with the section headings of this sub-section, (4) removing an "Improve Section" tag, (5) changing the header level for "Libertarian communism," and (6) deleting subsidiary mentions of left-wing market anarchism elsewhere in the article after you removed the section on it. Of these, the only significant constructive edit which is not contingent on the deletion of left-wing market anarchism from the article, is edit (2), which I directly addressed by re-incorporating a significant amount of your edit into the text here, in one of my edits which you wiped out with your own revert.

"That section was linked to the main article for Free-market anarchism which does not list Left-wing market anarchism anywhere in that article, meaning it carries little to zero weight."

I do not know what could possibly justify this inference. Free-market anarchism does not include the phrase "left-wing market anarchism" in it. It does explicitly discuss the positions discussed under the "left-wing market anarchist" section: see for example the discussions of agorism, and of Tuckerite individualists. The section on left-wing market anarchism in this article easily satisfies the criteria listed for discussion of a viewpoint: it is easy to name prominent adherents -- for example, Tucker, Spooner, Hodgskin, Voltairine de Cleyre, Kevin Carson, Roderick Long, Gary Chartier, etc. WP:WEIGHT is in any case a policy about the relationship between a viewpoint under discussion and the subject of the article it appears in, not some kind of guideline for comparing the discussion of a viewpoint and other, more general articles that it links to. (Free-market anarchism links to Laissez-faire, which does not discuss free market anarchism at all, or even allude to the ideas except by way of a "See also" link.)

"Also, the first and most important sentence of the section ..."

Here is the sentence in question: Another contemporary school that self-identifies as “left-libertarian” stresses the value of radically free – or “freed” – markets.

If you actually think that this is the "most important sentence of the section," then I can only say that that is not a sane reading of the section. Every sentence following it in the paragraph is more important to the content of the section; in particular: T"his strand of left-libertarianism tends to be rooted either in the Mutualist economics conceptutalized by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, classical American individualist anarchism, or in a left-wing interpretation or extension of the thought of Murray Rothbard. It is typically linked with the thought of scholars including Kevin Carson,[61] Roderick T. Long,[62] Charles Johnson,[63] Brad Spangler,[64] Samuel Edward Konkin III,[65] Sheldon Richman,[66] Chris Matthew Sciabarra,[67] and Gary Chartier.[68]"

". . . was cited to a blog."

The footnote is explicit that the reference to the blog post is for the limited purpose of pointing to the usage of the phrase "freed markets." (Here is the footnote: "For 'freed market,' see William Gillis, 'The Freed Market.'") It is not intended as a citation to justify the statement that "Another contemporary school that self-identifies as 'left-libertarian' stresses the value of radically free... markets." That statement is justified, on any minimally careful reading of the paragraph, by the citations at the end of the paragraph, which directly cite examples of the view in a series of books, magazines, and academic press titles from Ashgate, Pennsylvania State University Press, and Cambridge University Press. There is in fact no sourcing problem at all, since (as I stated on this Talk page and as I demonstrated in a subsequent edit which you reverted), the minor point that the blog was being cited for (the origin of the phrase "freed markets") can in any case be sourced in print in the collection Markets Not Capitalism. But even if it could not be, it's hard to see any reason why this issue would be treated as a reason to justify deleting not only the first sentence, but the subsequent 14 paragraphs of text and all mentions of a view which was repeatedly sourced elsewhere in that section. It's hard to know what even to make of this complaint other than as an opportunistic excuse to delete a view that you'd rather not see represented in this article; but if so, that kind of POV has no place in editing this article.

"If you can come up with an appropriate source for the first sentence we can discuss possibly adding back the first paragraph. The rest of the section would need to be discussed piece by piece in regards to relevance."

This is absurd. I gave you an appropriate source for the usage claim in the first sentence, but you reverted it. Your edits are not a WP:FAITACCOMPLI and I will not accept the demand for "piece by piece" re-negotiation of the very existence of a section on left-wing market anarchism.

If you want to clean up the section on left-wing market anarchism, then by all means clean it up. But this is not cleaning up; it is cleaning out. I agree that many things about this entire article are a mess; but a blanket deletion of the section on left-wing market anarchism is not even remotely an appropriate solution, and worse, your way of carrying out this blanket deletion has been systematically underhanded, misdirecting and destructive of relevant and well-sourced discussions of the viewpoint. The section on left-wing market anarchism clearly is relevant to contemporary printed usage of the term "left-libertarianism," and clearly belongs in this article. Radgeek (talk) 01:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Many changes

All, I figured this page probably doesn't see much editor traffic, so I was bold and made some sweeping changes to the article. I've:

1. created a "Notes" section for citations with quotes or explanations that have multiple citations
2. pulled "Agorism" and "Geolibertarianism" out of the section for market-oriented left-libertarianism and made them top-level sections
3. condensed both the Steiner-Vallentyne and left-wing market anarchism sections into coherent accounts
4. hidden the history of "Left-wing market anarchism" as potentially violating due weight, per a previous discussion (this can be reinstated by uncommenting the text)
5. added "Verify section" template to section called "Similarities with Georgism"
6. removed redundant wikilinks
7. fixed format of citations
8. added a few things to the "See also" section
9. revised lead to accurately reflect these changes

I still need to go through all the references and check that we aren't duplicating them unnecessarily, but I feel this is at least a significant improvement. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:17, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Propose merging with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

Propose merging with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism --Lance W. Haverkamp (talk) 04:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Nolan chart

The following edit was deleted as "biased".

"On the Nolan chart, left-of-center libertarians put a high priority on personal liberties while tending to favor restriction of economic liberties."Q8. What is the Nolan Chart?". nolanchart.com. Retrieved March 5, 2014."

I dispute this claim as the chart is itself libertarian and comparative of the range of libertarian views - including left-libertarianism. JLMadrigal (talk) 14:05, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

There are several issues with your addition. One, you added it to the lede. The lede is intended to summarize the article. Material which is new to the article should never be added to the lede. Two, the material is worded in a highly biased, misleading way. It is clearly written from the POV of a right-libertarian. If you take left-libertarian philosophy seriously, it does not restrict economic liberties. Left-libertarianism support the easing of some restrictions, and the creation of other restrictions, just as right-libertarianism does. This is a widespread misunderstanding, since libertarianism is widely equated with right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism is widely ignored. Third, the Nolan chart website is not such a great source that it needs to be added at all. Great sources are published by publishers known to publish scholarly material, such as university presses. — goethean 14:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with goethean that the addition was POV not only due to the phrasing ("tend to favor restriction of economic liberties."), but also in that it uses a right-libertarian model of classifying political ideologies. The Nolan chart is inherently biased toward right-libertarianism, as it places this libertarianism at the apex of freedom in two dimensions, one of which—the economic dimension—identifies freedom with laissez-faire capitalism. This information would probably work well in the section titled, "The Steiner-Vallentyne school," but I'd seriously question any association of the Nolan chart with the other left-libertarians whose traditions stem more from either American individualist anarchists or libertarian socialists. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The lede is to summarize "left-libertarianism" - which is the subject of the article. If the article fails to discuss left-libertarianism as commonly interpreted in current libertarian circles, it is incomplete, and needs to be updated. The Nolan chart is commonly accepted today among most libertarians as an accurate measure of political views. Although many who consider themselves libertarian, but who are left of center, mistakenly place all advocates of laissez-faire economics on the right, the subject of this article can not be exclusive to their interpretation. Neglect of the discussion makes the article biased. JLMadrigal (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

The Nolan chart is not some kind of great scholarly source. It's a private website created by David Nolan, a Libertarian Party (United States) politician. It is biased. I have to disagree strongly with your assumption that this article needs to be written from the perspective of right-libertarianism. — goethean

JLMadrigal, if you can add this information in a way that doesn't define left-libertarianism from a propertarian perspective, I'd support it. Perhaps you can preface it with a statement of its origin, i.e. that the Nolan chart is a model that is not accepted by all libertarians, especially left-libertarians? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:17, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It appears that he's decided to ignore us and edit war. — goethean 04:14, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I have revised addition as requested by MisterDub, and was reverted by Goethean. JLMadrigal (talk) 13:10, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

I urge you to slow down and think about what you are doing. Now you have created a new section in the article dedicated to the Nolan Chart's description of left-libertarianism, and you have placed at the very top of the article. This article contains a lot of good sources. There is no indication that the Nolan chart deserve this kind of extreme over-representation that you are insisting on. This is poorly-sourced, biased material. Please stop giving it top billing in this article, ahead of good, scholarly material which examines left-libertarianism on its own terms. What you have is a personal website whose importance, reliability, and objectivity is attested to by exactly no one. You really want to argue for the claim that this material is more reliable than the Encyclopedia of Libertarian or scholarly, peer-reviewed journals? — goethean 14:17, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

The Nolan Chart is prominent (not just a web site) I think because it provides an accurate description of the common form / meaning of libertarianism in the US. My gut feel is that it will not be as useful to provide information and context on left-libertarianism. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Goethean, you are encouraged to add and reference academic studies regarding the political orientation of left-libertarianism in relation to other political viewpoints. The new section is useful for readers who need a political backdrop on the subject. JLMadrigal (talk) 14:44, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

@JLMadrigal:, can you quote the exact wording that you are using from the site for the material that you are adding to the article? Thanks. — goethean 15:06, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Is there no reliable source about the Nolan Chart that can be used in this "Political orientation" section? I appreciate JLMadrigal taking my advice into consideration, but I don't think it's appropriate to include this material without an explanation of what it means (what is social freedom? what is economic freedom?), especially since it's a model built by propertarians to promote propertarianism. I looked at the Nolan chart article and noticed that it really doesn't have anything in the way of reliable sources either. I'm almost guessing that there are no academic sources that cover the Nolan chart, perhaps because libertarianism is a minority position. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Additionally, the citation that JLMadrigal provided for his addition to the article has completely failed verification. The cited source simply does not say what he is adding to the article. He is interpreting a chart based on his own ideology. His addition clearly violates WP:OR and WP:V in a big way. Thus my request for him to supply the text from the cited source that he is using for his addition to the article. Given the fact that he first added this poorly sourced and biased material to the lead of the article, and then created a new section dedicated to this Nolan Chart business, it seems that his edits are quite inappropriate and should be reverted. — goethean 18:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, I note that the articles on Liberalism and Conservatism do not mention the Nolan Chart. If JLMadrigal thinks that I am being unfair, I suggest that he attempt to add the material to the lead of those articles and see how long it lasts. — goethean 20:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Murray Rothbard?

Who goes to read a page on Left-libertarianism and thinks "This page lacks Murray Rothbard!". Murray Rothbard and his oxymoronic theory of ""anarcho""-capitalism is as /right-wing libertarian/ as it can be. It does not belong on this page and I think most left-libertarians would agree. I get the same feeling with egoism, individualism, voulentarysm and anything relating to laissez-faire, but Rothbard and anarcho-capitalism is the most preposterous addition in an article attempting to cover /left-libertarian/ ideas.