Talk:Libertarianism/Archive 7
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- Talk:Libertarianism/Archive
- Talk:Libertarian, discussion for a page which has been merged with this article.
I ain't no libertarian, but
Who is Michael Berumen? He is a businessman who owns a security firm in Southern California, and he may be decent and honorable, but is this really appropriate for an encyclopedia article?CSTAR 17:43, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
P.S. Please check other pages CSTAR 18:02, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
And what makes it "appropriate?" There are far less interesting and important things here. I thought this was supposed to be an open forum for disseminating information. Apparently not.
- Yes, there's lots of useless information in wikipedia and much of it gets eventually removed. This is a corrective mechanism which works best when there is a community of individuals that cares about a topic --- such as this one (I don't much care for libertarianism, but others clearly do) and economics. Nobody prevented you from proposing the contributions you made and having them thoroughly examined by lots of critical people. I am not ideologically a libertarian, but it is important that a useful and accurate representation of libertarianism be available on Wikipedia. Berumen's views might still be important to you and others; there are certainly forums available to discuss his views. But that forum is not here. And your final contribution on Michael Berumen does seem a little too melodramatic. Why not just say he is a Southern California businessman and CEO who wrote a book? I don't know, but that might fly? CSTAR 21:44, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Looks to me like a case of self-advertisement. The anonymous user who created the article on Berumen has been busy spreading his name throughout various articles; this is the sum total of his editing activity. It appears these references are simply tributes to his own ego. Ubernetizen 19:12, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
An admirer of his, to be sure, but I am not MB, and I do not know him. I rather suspect he'd be appalled at all of this. I thought this was a good medium for mentioning important ideas, or at least ideas that I thought were important, simple as that. By the way, one who goes to the trouble of his views known as much as you do in these pages, even putting his picture out there, certainly ought not to be throwing stones about egos, or should I say, Uberegos. Logicmaster.
- You should say whatever you feel like. If my comments left an open wound that's unfortunate, but the conclusion reached was not unwarranted. With respect to your other concerns, in an effort to keep the article to a manageable length the list represents only notable, preeminent individuals. I don't think Berumen qualifies at this juncture. If you disagree, you can try building a consensus here. Ubernetizen 19:14, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I disagree, one most certainly ought not to say whatever one feels. Perhaps you are correct about Beruman, perhaps not; time might tell. How amusing, though, even ironic, to promote consensus as a means of adjudicating ideas on a libertarian page in an encylopedia that purpots to be open. A majority, after all, once thought the world to be flat. I shall withdraw the article.
Really? The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993 edition): "Consensus 1. Agreement to or unity of or of opinion, testimony, etc.; the majority view, a collective opinion; (an agreement by differnt parties to) a shared body of views." logicmaster
The dictionary simply sets forth the standard meanings and usages of words. It is not uncommon for a single word to have multiple, different, even conflicting meanings. For example, inhuman means "callous, unfeeling, merciless," referring generally to an act of a human, in contrast to its other meaning, "not human." The meanings of consensus would seem related....agreement in opinion among many. The point is, according to arguably the best arbiter of usage and meaning in the English language: consensus does in fact mean a majority view, among other things. lm
- Just so there's no misunderstanding, I don't think anyone is saying you need to eliminate the article you've created for him, it's only his listing on the libertarian page (and possibly others?) that's at issue here. Cheers. Ubernetizen 21:46, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Political Spectrum
Mihnea, some of your edits in this section seem like a passive insertion of POV. Specifically, the article previously stated that libertarians "propose a propose a two-dimensional space with personal freedom on one Cartesian axis and economic freedom on the other." Inserting the modifier what they call in front of each proposed label seems both redundant and an attempt to cast doubt on those concepts or the group employing them. Similarly with putting what they see as in front of liberty and autonomy. Those words mean specific things in this context and I find these edits to be a bit calumnious (at the very least prejudicial), especially in light of the fact that you don't seem to see a need for inserting them in places like this: "...socialists who believe that economic regulation is necessary for personal freedom."
I might add that if we followed this pattern across the board, most articles would lose a significant degree of clarity in their slide toward an over-modified, indefinite mess. Every imaginable concept can be put in quotations and prefaced with "what they call". It's not a good practice. The concepts in question each have their own articles and disambigs; I think the proper thing to do is to make sure that there are links to them so that readers can make up their own minds. Ubernetizen 20:20, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
We have a many/most thing going on here, which I don't particularly feel strongly about, so we can just standardize on one I guess. The other edits are still unnecessary and carry a prejudicial taint IMO. I think we can take it for granted that libertarians (like any other group) employ concepts such as freedom, rights, etc., "as they see them", so pointing this out in the manner you have is of questionable utility. Furthermore, the article already touches upon these differences in several places. If you want to add a section that identifies every important concept on whose definition libertarians and other ideological groups deviate, knock yourself out. Personally, I think it's easier just to link to the articles about those concepts, which already do this. Ubernetizen 17:30, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Moderation is in the eye of the beholder
I removed "moderate" in discussing the degree to which modern liberals would use government. Some would certainly be "moderate," some would not. The article goes on to explain that some libertarians seek to differentiate themselves from liberals who are inclined towards a welfare state, etc., which involves degrees that might not be so moderate. Nowadays, some who would describe themselves as liberal would also say they are socialists, which would imply something more than moderate interference.icut4u
On the future of this article
Certainly, the recent additions by GreenPartyActivist/PoliticalNerd require a lot of NPOV work. However, his or her edits bring up a more significant point. So far, this article has specifically been about capitalistic libertarianism, with a disambiguation notice at the top for other meanings, but we have now introduced a fair amount of information about libertarian socialism and left-anarchism as well (so far none about philosophical libertarianism, don't know why). So, we should have a clear sense of what this article is supposed to be about. I invite suggestions. - Nat Krause 07:27, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nat Kraus - They were extreme pov and changed the articles focus from libertarians to market anarchists. I removed them for the moment until we decide how to work everything out. The majority of what they were posting seemed to be pov critiques on market anarchists instead of adding info about socialism libertarians. and looking at what greenpartyadvocate was doing with libertarian vs libertarianism it's obvious he was trying to mess with the actual Definitions of the words - Chuck
ok...
Is it too much too much to actually add real, hard facts about classical liberalism, classical libertarians, and measures of political ideology into this article? If you want to add more information and facts from the capitalist libertarian perspective, then go ahead and add it. You can't just delete information because it doesn't support your view. The only valid reason to delete information are because 1) It is false or very misleading and 2) It is redundant or isn't relevant to the article.
None of the stuff you just deleted meets those criteria. If you know of rebutals to that information, then by all means add them into the article. Don't shut down debate by whitewashing the article of anything which will raise questions though. It is not supposed to be a one-way street for a single ideology. You'll notice that I didn't delete anything that the capitalist libertarians wrote, though I did go through and clarify which libertarian each section was talking about.
Also, it is very misleading to simply call yourself a "libertarian" when you are a right-wing market libertarian (it completely ignores the original meaning of the word "libertarian") just as it would be misleading for a classical libertarian to describe themselves as a "libertarian" (many people would think they were a right-wing libertarian). You need to be clear about which kind of libertarian you are talking about at all times: Classical/anarchist libertarian or capitalist/market libertarian. From now on, everyone editing this article needs to be consistant about using the correct libertarian terms. Just saying "Libertarian" is too vague and will lead to confusion. It also ignores the history of the word libertarian- you know the people who coined and used the term for almost 90 years before it was hijacked by a completely different ideology circa 1960.
Nat Kraus had stated in the discussion about "Libertarian" that everything was going to be moved to this article since "Libertarian" is a noun which describes those who subscribe to "Libertarianism".
Since this one is getting long, if you guys want, we can break up the article on libertarians into several sections. Here's what I would propose. Tell me what you think.
-Libertarian (etymology, general meaning, variations)
-Classical Libertarianism (and capitalist critiques of classical libertarianism)
-Market Libertarianism (US Libertarian Party & its views , critiques of market libertarianism)
-Libertarians and Classical Liberalism
-Libertarianism on the political spectrum
Again, I want this article to be a two-way street (or 3 or 4 or 5 way), not a one-way street. You can't delete facts just because they raise questions about a particular view. You can (and should!) add a rebutal, though. -PoliticalNerd
- Nat Krause: The article was split up, albeit not exactly along the lines you describe, and your edits have been moving in the opposite direction. What you call classical libertarianism already has an article called libertarian socialism. What you call market libertarianism had an article called libertarianism. Now, we are starting off the latter article with a bunch of information about the former.
__________________________________________
... You and green party activist are trying to hi-jack the term, This is an encyclopedia go search google for libertarian, Does anybody at all nowadays use libertarian for another term besides market libertarians (and btw what you posted about market libertarians was also was wrong, go read F.A. Hayek or Milton Friedman)
Taking up half an encyclopedia entry with a meaning that nobody uses it for is counter-productive, feel free to link to another term and write your stuff there(probly in the libertarian socalist entry which is already linked to) but libertarian now has it’s current definition, that’s the one we should use.. Plus you and green party guy turned the entire entry into a critique about market libertarians not being libertarians.
Let me just put an analogy here: starve use to mean to die of cold in old English, it'd be like taking up half the starve entry with stuff about dying of cold is the real meaning
One More thing to edit: the entire opinion that classical liberalism != contemporary libertarianism is a point of view, most assuredly not a neutral one, I've seen arguments on both sides of the spectrum. If you want to start mentioning classical liberalism you're going to need to put in a some critics believe that classical liberalism does not equal libertarianism, not just state it as fact.
And yet another edit:
I keep on relooking at the article and coming up with more things I want to add to this discussion, let me quote something you added:
"Today the wealthy use an insitution that is technically independant of the state- the corporation- to tyranize, while in classical times they used the state itself, which also chartered and ran corporations."
You didn't even attribute this to anyone, you just stated this as fact, which shows your true intentions in editing the entry. You can't state that the wealthy use a corporation to tyrannize in a neutral encyclopedia entry.
-chuck
Chuck,
First of all, there are still left-libertarians that use the term libertarian to describe themselves. Since they usually don't have a political party to affiliate with, they are not as well known as the right-libertarians. There's a guy in my city whose a big advocate for the legalization of marijuana. He runs in every election for various officies as a (small 'l') libertarian. He is definetly NOT a market libertarian though. He is a classical libertarian.
- Nat Krause: Some people do still use "libertarian" that way -- when I was in college you could still get copies of Libertarian Labor Review in the hippy bookstore -- but they are increasingly few in the English-speaking world. Out of deference to the older meaning, we have a disclaimer in the very first line of the article pointing to libertarian socialism.
I am familiar with Friedman and Hayeck. I just have one question for you- have you ever studied any of the classical liberal thinkers? Locke, Jefferson, Smith, Paine, Rosseau, etc?
Smith, unlike today's right-wing libertarians, did not see a business market economy as a good thing (he never used the term capitalism, or laissez faire for that matter), he merely saw it as the least of possible evils- a neccessary evil. He loathed businessmen as well, and made many stern warnings against the danger of corporations and big business. His other major book besides The Wealth of Nations was the Theory of Moral Sentiments.
The entire idea of social saftey nets and the welfare state was invented by Thomas Paine. Read "The Age of Reason" sometime.
Locke's major emphasis was on democracy, not private property. Jefferson was a big fan of Locke, but proceeded (in the Declaration of Indpendance) to change Locke's phrase of "life, liberty, and property" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", because the entire institution of private property was already being recognized by the classical liberals as a danger to liberty and democracy. Jefferson also advocated progressive taxation, and in a letter to James Madison reffered to the rising "aristocracy of our monied corporations."
Jean Jacques Rosseau made vicious attacks on private property and aristocracy. His writings are in many ways the predecessor to Socialism. He was also a classical liberal.
- Nat Krause: Is this stuff important? Where exactly do you think that modern libertarianism did come from? It seems clear that it came from at least a segment of classical liberalism, i.e. Bastiat, Say, along with Smith, Locke, Jefferson, etc. when they were in a good mood. You are busily outlining the other strands of classical liberal thought that it did not come from. Just how relevant is this? And Rousseau, good lord, why would anyone want to be associated with Rousseau?
So I'd really like to know where right-wing "libertarians" (truth be told, they actually aren't even libertarians, they are Neoliberals) get the idea that somehow they are "classical liberals". Nothing could be further from the truth. Classical liberalism refers specifically to the historical political thinkers of the liberal enlightenment of the 18th century. Classical liberalism does not exist today outside of the history books. Today we live in a totally different society with a different POLITICAL ECONOMY, and different social and political conditions.
However, that does not negate the influence and tradition of the classical liberal ideology. If you would study the rise of mass movements such as Socialism and Anarchism during the 19th century, and the response of liberals and liberalism to it, you would quickly realize that liberalism was far from some pro-capital, crush-all-labor-uprisings-because-they-threaten-the-free-market ideology. The liberals were the ones that were more willing to listen to the will of the people, and be laisezz-faire in regards to the POLITY- the state of the politics. Thats what democracy is, and that is what classical liberalism is about.
I myself am not a Democrat, but the Democrats today indeed carry much of the political tradition of classical liberals in America. After all, it was Jefferson himself that founded the Democratic party. Talking about the rise of the Republican party (which was actually partially founded by Communists, the rest were radical liberals) and its eventual takeover by Wall Street, and the class politics that followed are a totally different topic which we won't get into here.
The fact is that the term libertarian is often misued in the United States. I would like this article to be academically accurate, and I'm sorry if my critiques of market-libertarianism hit a nerve with you, but they are the truth. As I have already stated, feel free to add your own rebutals backed up by facts. I will definetly remove that one you mentioned because it doesn't fall under the NPOV. However, the entire page in its current state does not either.
-PoliticalNerd
- You cannot overturn the common meaning of a word just because you think it is being "misused". And your critiques have no place in this article...if you want to include a reference to views expressed in some published work, fine, but this is NOT a soapbox for disseminating your own. Ubernetizen 22:37, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
see this is what I don't get, it seems like you think the entry is false because libertarians use to believe that they were called liberals, so now all democrats/greens should be considered libertarians, and libertarians should be called market libertarians? There already exists the term liberal. today libertarian obviously means market libertarians in English speaking countries; Like I said look at google and amazon.com for the word libertarian it's all market libertarian-related books, in fact the only people I can find that use the word otherwise are ones that are obviously anti-current libertarians and don't want them to have it. We're not going to include inaccurate definitions of word just because you like that political philosophy better.
I also don't think unless an idea has been 100 percent proven to be untrue(even with nazism), that an encylopedia entry should be almost entirly criticisms of that idea. an entry is for basically defining what the poltical theory means, the link to criqtues of libertarnism exists for criticsims of the theory.
oh and you didn't so much as critique market libertarniasm as critquie the fact that they use the word libertarian.
-chuck
This article really needs to be split up into multiple entries if you're going to cover all the topics from a NPOV. The way it stands now, it is nothing more than a recruiting tool for the US Libertarian Party.
Problems with this article
In regards to both the NPOV and significant omissions.
First off, whats up with this quote- "These classical liberal thinkers therefore came to call themselves libertarians; and from the United States the term has spread to the rest of the world."
We have already been over this. Classical liberalism refers specifically to the thinkers of the liberal enlightenment of the 17th century. 20th century is not CLASSICAL, so no 20th century thinker can rightly claim the label "classical liberal". The correct term is Neoliberal.
- I can't believe this stuff and what follows are really the biggest problems you could come up with. As for the quote above, who cares? Just two sentences earlier, we defined "these classical liberals" as "20th century thinkers who saw themselves as continuing the classical liberal tradition of the previous century." Then the next sentence talks about a different group of modern liberals. What else do you propose to say? "Neoliberals" doesn't work because we are trying to distinguish them from a different group which is also "neo". - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In addition, it is pure propoganda to claim, It has few commonalities with modern "new" or "welfare" liberalism or socialism. To begin with, Liberalism is not the same thing as Socialism.
- a) the sentence says "liberalism or socialism"; b) the very next sentence goes on to explain purportedly idiosyncratic usage of the word socialism by libertarians. - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Socialism is a specific political tradition that grew out of the radical labor union movements of the 19th century. In addition, there is nothing "new" about "modern welfare" liberalism.
- So, it's modern but not new? The article goes so far as to put "new" in scare quotes for you anyway. Regardless of your theories explained below, "new liberalism" is one of the things that political scientists call it, and it's the name of the relevant Wikipedia article. If political scientists called in rhinoceros liberalism, then this article would say "rhinoceros" or "welfare" liberalism. It has nothing to do with this article. - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It is the same political tradition as inherited from the liberalism of the late 18th and early 19th century. The welfare state was simply an adaptation that liberalism made to changes in the political economy and polity during the early 20th century. It is entirely accurate to say that liberalism was influenced by Socialism in doing this, but they are still entirely distinct ideologies and traditions. It also fails to mention the many, many, MANY areas in which right-wing libertarianism comes out in stark opposition to the tenents, ideals, and views of the classical liberals.
It also leaves gapping holes with regards to classical libertarians. The word libertarian is not exclusive to the right-wing economic views of the United States Libertarian Party, even within the United States. The term was in fact hijacked by the right-wingers. Emma Goldman, the most famous American anarchist, often refered to herself as a libertarian half a century before Friedman, Nolan, et al came along. The simple fact that this article fails to deal with classical liberatianism and still refer to itself as simply "libertarianism" (no modifiers) is reason enough to call foul. Why, must I ask, does "libertarian socialism" relegated to a seperate entry, but "libertarian capitalism" isn't?
If anything, libertarian socialism is a FAR MORE libertarian ideology than libertarian capitalism and thus should rightly claim the title "libertarian".
In addition, it fails to mention the serious shortcomings of the Nolan chart,
- It says this The validity of the Nolan Chart is disputed by many non-libertarians. Socialists, modern liberals and conservatives often argue that the libertarian definition of "freedom" is flawed or incorrect. In addition, the placement of Communism and Fascism so close together is controversial, and some critics may see this as evidence for their view that the Nolan Chart is overly simplistic. For more information, see main article: Nolan Chart What more do you want? - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
and makes misleading claims about the Whigs (the Whigs were the party opposed to royal power. Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, was a Whig)
- I don't get it. Where does the article say that the Whigs supported royal power? - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Something needs to be done about this article, but as soon as I tried injecting some truth into it, the right-wingers starting whining and deleted everything. This article cannot stay in this manner and claim to follow the NPOV. It either needs to be 1) made into an entry which is explicitly about right-wing libertarianism
- We had already settled on 1. The article begins by saying, that is, the very first line of the article says: This article deals with libertarianism as understood in the United States. For a discussion of the meaning of the term libertarian that is traditional in continental Europe, see libertarian socialism. - Nat Krause 15:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
or 2) edited to include classical libertarianism, differences with classical liberalism, and deficiencies of the Nolan Chart.
Your choice. I think just changing the title to "Right-wing Libertarianism" would be easiest (there are still a few edits that would need to be made) If we did that, the Libertarian article could just be a page that links to the various pages on different types of libertarians.
-Political Nerd
We've been through this, words change their meaning look at every other encyclopedia/dictionary in the English language, none of them cover libertarian as you want to cover it. Simply because libertarians today are what this article describes as libertarians(hence in this discussion I'm no longer using the term right-wing libertarian or market libertarian)
You're obviously a far left person that doesn't believe libertarians should have a name about freedom. I mean come on, what is this that you're using to defend your reasons " If anything, libertarian socialism is a FAR MORE libertarian ideology" there's no objective way you can argue that, that is your personal ideology. Libertarian socialism gets a separate entry because it's not the major definition of the word.
What you are doing is equivalent to someone trying to hijack the liberal entry and just make it entirely about libertarianism or calling it left-wing liberalism
I also changed the section about socialism and liberalism to give it a source, Hayek made all those connections in The Road To Serfdom. And just re-looking at this book, it was written in 1940(American publication in 1944) and consistently uses the term liberal to describe the beliefs of libertarians today free-markets and limited government(heck, in the forward to the 1994 edition it even has a page about when he uses liberalism it’s not in the twisted sense of the word today which is "almost the opposite meaning of the orginal liberalism term"), might you know when you believe that libertarians took over the term liberal and started using it for themselves? because it's at least before 1940.
Again you completely ignored Nat Krause: where exactly do you think modern libertarianism came from? I don't think it's a poltical idelogy that was invented in the 1960's (btw what liberals described as corporations back in the 18th century are not anything like our corporations today, i think you are again trying to play with definations there)
-chuck
Chuck-
And Hayeck is a right-wing libertarian. He and von Mises were among those that erroneously equated fascism with socialism.
- Along with the fascists themselves I guess. Fascism was a marriage of socialism and nationalism. Read the source texts written by those in the Italian and German fascist movements. Ubernetizen 22:05, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And yes, Libertarian Socialism IS a far more libertarian ideology than libertarian capitalism by any scientific measure, for the simple reason that it opposes ALL authority. See for yourself- http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/analysis2.html
You'll notice this part-
"The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples law of the jungle right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism (libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner."
So yea, libertarian socialism is far more libertarian than libertarian capitalism. Thats a fact, its not just my opinion.
- My opinion is that someone who claims his blatantly POV opinions are scientific fact should not be surprised when his contributions are edited out of an encyclopedia. - Nat Krause 15:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I second that, Nat. Ubernetizen 22:06, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Modern right-wing libertarianism originates from the marginalist school of thought during the mid 19th century. Basically the whole purpose of it was to whitewash popular perceptions of Smith, discredit his underlying theory of value and economics, and undermine the rising currents of radical movements in the working class. The mariginalist school was heavily funded by the wealthy corporate aristocracy and was most definetly considered a conservative ideology in its day. It wasn't until the mid-20th century that its ancestors began calling themselves "libertarian".
Again, I'm not playing with any definitions. It is your side that has been doing that since the 1800s. Whatever happened to the "political" in political economy, or to the "polity" in politics? These were all things the classical liberals spoke of, but the conservative reaction to labor radicalism eliminated them from the vocabulary of political discourse.
If you want to know the differences between corporations 200 years ago and today, its simple. Back then, a corporation was kept on a tight leash and chartered for a specific purpose to serve the public interest. One corporation could not own another. Any important decisions were made democratically by the share holders, while today they are made by secret boards. Corporations were also considered an extension of the government- a "republic within a republic" as Hobbes put it. But most importantly, today corporations are legally personified- they are considered to have the legal rights of an individual. In 1800, only a person could be considered a person by the law (though of course, many people weren't considered a person- thats a different topic)
And again, the word libertarian, even today, is not exclusive to the right-wing brand. I know of a guy who regularily runs for city officies and describes himself as a libertarian- he's not a market libertarian though. Just because these libertarians don't have an organized political party officially recognized by the FEC doesn't mean that their ideology is irrelevent, as you seem to think. This article as it stands is a one-sided ideological soapbox. It needs to be changed. If someone doesn't fix it, I will.
"And Hayeck is a right-wing libertarian. He and von Mises were among those that erroneously equated fascism with socialism."
He's pretty much been shown as being right with that belief, The road to serfdom is generally considered to be an accurate book to everyone except the far left, which you seem to obviously be considering all your views on corporations and other such. Also as the article states, ayn rand did not consider herself a libertarian
- Moreover, neither Rand nor Milton Friedman are "anarchists" in any sense of the word, contrary to what this website says. - Nat Krause 15:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I also have heavy issues with your poltical compass link, I read through it and it's obviously a page built on anti-corporation http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/faq.html take a look at #16 there. Plus just out of my own curiosity here: how in the world can someone possibly place on the bottom right corner of that scale? it looks like a scale created just to place libertarians closer to authororian and greens closer to liberty. Plus even the page you linked is full of innaccurcies about the libertarian party and such.
Anyway your such a radical that sees the world thourgh shaded glasses that the only way to compromise is to take this up to higher discussions, my view is simple typical North Americans nowadays see libertarian as what this article says they are(back-ed up by the fact that every other encylopedia/dictonary follows that markert libertarans are libertarians) what you are talking about is anarchy/anarchists. If you change the page we're just going to get in an edit war so I suggest we go to Wikipedia:Requests for comment.(which I've done)
Seriously...
Do you need to keep calling me "far left", "radical", and trashing the political compass? The political compass is a non-ideological group. http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/faq.html#why In addition, Hayeck is only considered to be right by the right-wing libertarians. Fascism and socialism are VERY different (read the article on Fascism, and don't even think about defacing it with more of your "far-right" ideological crap)
I think that last post of yours only demonstrates your close-mindedness and ideological rigidity. I am not here to trash right-wing libertarians, I am here to make this article neutral and include all libertarian persepctives. The term libertarian is NOT universally understood today to mean right-wing libertarian, so why do you keep insisting that it is.
You guys are clearly intent on shutting down any libertarian perspectives that do not fit your narrow right-wing ideological view, and I am going to take this up with the webmasters if it continues.
- I'm not sure which webmasters these are that you are planning on taking things up with. You may wish refer to this. - Nat Krause 15:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
-Political Nerd
"The term libertarian is NOT universally understood today to mean right-wing libertarian, so why do you keep insisting that it is."
Let me go to google here: "Libertarian socialist": 8700, "libertarian capitalist": 570, "right-wing libertarian": 2,040. In English-speaking countries libertarian = capitalist libertarian to the majority of people. libertarian socialists must add on socialist to differnate themselves, this is why we add a link to libertarian socialist. Every other dictonary-enclyopedia also refers to libertarians as the proper term. when people look up libertarian they are going to be looking up based on the majority opinion of to what libertarianism is; talking about right-wing libertarniasm vs left, will just confuse people and make them wonder why this is the only place they've heard of capatalist libertarianism vs regular.
you want to add in something about previous users of the word or something... okay, but It's unacceptable to change the entire article to replace the world libertarianism with right-wing libertarianism. as libertarian now means right-wing libertarianism.
Check amazon.com : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=pd_kk_sr_1/103-0962038-5756664?index=blended&field-keywords=libertarianism all thoese books are right-wing, I've looked thourgh several pages of books and failed to see a single-left wing libertarniasm book.
Check google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=libertarianism&spell=1 (heh even the critique page doesn't refer to it as right-wing libertarnaiasm)
and I think that pretty much sums up my case well here, I'm done and hopefully other people can weigh in on this issue.
-chuck
- Agreed, Chuck. Libertarianism, as CURRENTLY understood in the U.S., means something pretty specific. There are fringe groups who have combined the term libertarian with all sorts of modifiers (e.g., "socialist", etc.) but these are not the norm. What GP and PoliticalNerd call "market" or "right-wing" libertarianism is BY FAR the predominant interpretation. The article should reflect this, and a mere mention of and link to these other ideological permutations should be sufficient here.
- I am very troubled by the apparent desires of some to put their own personal beliefs about libertarianism, about what it is or isn't, ahead of the overwhelming consensus of (a) public opinion, and (b) all contemporary libertarian theorists/authors of any prominence. Ubernetizen 22:25, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Note: Majority does not mean all
I think the results of the google search only confirm what I am saying. There are more then 2,000 examples of "right-wing libertarian" and "libertarian capitalist".
- Not that google is the end-all-and-be-all definitive answer, but there are over 200,000 entries for "libertarianism" and over 1,000,000 for "libertarian", so none of these qualified terms in very substantial at all relatively. - Nat Krause 15:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, that is not as many as libertarian socialist, but that doesn't negate the fact that libertarian has more than one meaning. Just because the right-wing view is currently in the majority does not mean it is the only one, as this page would have you believe.
- It's true that it would have you believe that, if you missed the prominent explanation in the first sentence of the article. - Nat Krause 15:44, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Again, this is an example of ideological manipulation and distortion of truth by the capitalist "libertarians". They have become quite adept at doing that over the course of the last 150 years, since they first began claiming that wealth can exist without labor- all it takes is "marginal utility".
This is an encyclopedia, and as such, it must include all views and be acedemically accurate and honest. This article as it stands is one-sided and uses misleading defenitions. I am going to edit and clarify it when I have the chance. -political nerd
Don't. Instead put a disambiguation page which links to Libertarianism (Left-wing) and Libertarianism (Right-wing) or whatever the pages will be called. There is no need for either side's exclusive claims to the name to be deemed correct in this case. Slizor 19:21, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)
PS: Google is Americo-centric. "Libertarianism" is an American ideology. Do I need to spell it out?
Exactly, I agree with Slizor, and that is what I have been trying to say. This page just claims libertarian in the right-wing sense as if all libertarians are that type. It needs to be clear that these are right-wing libertarians it is talking about. It also needs to stop falsely claiming the label of "classical liberal", and needs to include more than just token problems with the Nolan Chart.
-Political Nerd
Libertarian Socialism=Orwellian Newspeak
Nothing could be more inimical to liberty than to expropriate a person's fairly acquired property, including his labor, an extension of the property a person has in himself, or to prevent him from using or exchanging his property as he sees fit, assuming he does so without harming others. No ideology that would steal a person's property or his labor ought to characterize itself as allied with liberty. And as for authority, I would agree, one ought to look upon it with great suspicion, especially the monopoloy power of governments. Corporate monopolies are undesirable, too, but they tend not to last long in open markets. icut4u 02:50, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Just for the record, Orwell was definitely not a libertarian socialist. He was a Marx-influenced state socialist with libertarian inclinations that were constantly in a state of tension with his socialist ideas. And I do not agree that "Libertarian Socialism" is newspeak; it's actually a quite old usage, meaning roughly the same thing as leftwing anarchism. Certainly, in my opinion, it's deeply flawed, but from the encyclopedia's perspective, it's as valid an ideology as any other. - Nat Krause 05:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nat, my own take on Orwell is that he was primarily concerned about the abuse of power in any economic or political arrangement. He can be forgiven for his naievete on economic theory. His difficulty reminds me of Bertrand Russell's struggles with reconciling liberty and socialism (of course, he detested both Marxism and it's variant, Lenninism). In any case, while I would not quibble with the issue of its longstanding usage, a useful lexicological and historical point, I would still say the meaning of the two concepts remain utterly incompatible, which is very much an aspect of newspeak. I do not disagree that it might have a place in an encyclopedia, but I would respectfully submit that it is not appropriate for this particular article. But it is not important enough for me to carry on about it. icut4u 06:24, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
George Orwell was a Libertarian Socialist
Thats right. He was. Orwell was a leftist. See for yourself- http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jorwell.htm http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/libLeftBooks.html
(scroll down)
In addition, you said- "Nothing could be more inimical to liberty than to expropriate a person's fairly acquired property, including his labor". If this is the case, then how can you support the capitalist economic system and be a libertarian? The whole basis of capitalism is that those who control capital expropriate a profit by paying those who labor to create wealth less than the value of their labor. If the laborers were paid the real value of their labor, there would be no profit. Again, this goes back to the marginalist school of thought which negated Smith's claim that labor was the root of all value, and instead claims that the subjective marginal utility to the owner is what creates value. Your above statement about labor actually seems to support Smith's theory, so that would make you at odds with capitalist libertarianism.
And lets be clear about something- Adam Smith was not a capitalist and did not advocate capitalism. He never used the term capitalism in any of his works, though he did refer to the social classes of "labor" and "capital". Smith advocated the abolishment of merchantalism. This was actually the basis of his labor theory of value, because he believed, contrary to the merchantalists, that labor and not gold was the way that economic wealth should be measured. It was the marginalists and right-wing neoliberals, as most exmplified by von Mises, who wanted to go back to the merchantalist belief that gold was relevant to economic value.
In my view, there is nothing libertarian about capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on exploitation of laborers, an entrenched class system, economic dictatorships otherwise known as corporations, and authoritarian relations where the state as controlled by the bosses surpress the working class from resisting the system which holds them down. Now you may disagree, but the fact is that the use of the word libertian to describe the socialist variant is almost a century older than the use of libertarian to describe the capitalist variant.
You right-wing libertarians are only proving how brainwashed and uninformed you are. It does not surprise me, however. It is typical of all right-wingers, regardless of their particular orientation.
Let me ask you something, do you even know what Socialism is, and how it is supposed to be created according to Marx? Do you know what historical materialism or class struggle are?
And no, I am not a socialist. I am more along the lines of Social Democracy to Liberalism than Socialism. BUT AT LEAST I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT!! That is alot better than any of the other people that have posted here can say.
-Political Nerd
- "The whole basis of capitalism is that those who control capital expropriate a profit by paying those who labor to create wealth less than the value of their labor." Laborers enter into a voluntary contract with their employers - that hardly constitutes an "expropriation" or "exploitation". The fact is that capital (and the successful, productive use of same) is more scarce and thus more valuable than is labor - if it were the other way around, the laborers would be paying the owners of capital a fixed wage and taking home the profits. I could go on, but this is not the place to debate these issues or your confessed contempt for the free marketplace. Suffice it to say that your opinion of yourself as expressed in your last two sentences is a bit on the charitable side, and provides inadequate justification for infusing the article with your POV. Ubernetizen 05:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Ad hominem after ad hominem
I did not say that I subscribed to Orwell's entire weltanschauung, or anyone else's for that matter, though I do agree with his trenchant analysis of statism...I meant only to suggest that his descpritive word "newspeak" characterizes the frequent misuse of the word liberty and its various derivitives. I am quite familiar with Marx's Kapital and his labor theory of value (which is mistaken from the get go). And, I, for one, am no right winger, for unlike right wingers and left wingers, I do not feel compelled to tell others how they ought to order their lives, and I certainly do not want them telling me how to arrange mine. I have no use for ideologues or true believers of any stripe. When they tire of civil argument, they resort to invective, rage, and name calling, some of which has been evident here, and when they have the power, they like to put people who disagree with them in camps. icut4u 04:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hello
First off, all the libertarians that have posted here, save me, are right-wingers, so don't try denying that you're not left or right. If you subscribe to Friedman, Hayeck, von Mises, etc... then you are a right-wing libertarian. I happen to believe that the capitalist marketplace is an incredibly authoritarian institution, so I would question how "libertarian" these thinkers really are. That fact is that the term libertarian does not only refer to the right-wing brand.
In addition, it is not me who is injecting political views into this article. As it stands, this article is a one-sided ideological rant on the part of the right-wing libertarians, and completely ignores the libertarians who describe themselves as anti-authoritarian or anarchist. It does not even come close to the NPOV, and completely ignores the gapping holes in many of the claims made, most importantly the Nolan Chart and the horribly erroneous claim that right-wing libertarianism is the same thing as classical liberalism.
You don't have to agree with the views I have expressed regarding capitalism within this discussion thread, but you cannot continue manipulating the content of this article to suit your own ends. The word libertarian is not exclusive to the capitalist brand, and everytime you whitewash this article to remove any information which doesn't fit your views, it only proves how bent you are on the ideological agenda that so many of your stripe are fanatical about. STOP IT!
As I have said upthread, the only valid reason to delete information is because 1) It is false or misleading or 2) It is irrelevant or redudant. None of the information that I have added to this article meets either of these criteria. If you have a rebutal to the facts I added, then by all means add your information in as well, and point out that it is the rebutal to the criticism. But you cannot just go around deleting perfectly valid information because it raises questions about your particular viewpoint.
- I am not trying to deny that I am right or left....I am denying it. Moreover, I am not a libertarian. I subcribe to no overarching view of the world that purports to have all of the answers. I do not need a religion. And I would suggest that you have added very few facts to rebutt, so do not flatter yourself. You are intent on convincing people of your POV with quaint phrases from the Marxist playbook of the 60s in an article that is merely supposed to describe libertarianism viz. as the theory is commonly, though perhaps not exclusively, understood. As is the case with most true believers, right or left, you simply cannot stand it when others disagree with you. Deal with it.icut4u 16:11, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Quaint phrases from the Marxist playbook of the 60s..." Whats that supposed to refer to? Can you point out a specific phrase from me that is from the Marxist playbook of the 1960s? I have quoted Jefferson and Smith. What is so Marxist about that? That sounds more like Liberalism to me than Marxism.
I happen to agree with you that it is a mistake to subscribe to an overarching view of the world that purports to have all the answers. That, in my opinion, is one of the problems with both right-wing libertarianism and Marxism.
Judging from what has been going on here, it is the right-wing libertarians who can't deal with it when others disagree. I have been trying to neutralize this article so that it deals with all libertarian views, but they have continually reversed my changes without any valid reason.
-PoliticalNerd
IMPORTANT: Please read this before making any changes
I have left Libertarianism intact instead of having a seperate article for Market Libertarianism. I hope this makes the right-wing libertarians happy, since they seem to turn into a vicious pack of wolves everytime I change anything.
PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING I HAVE ADDED! I have carefully gone through and added information carefully, and maintained a NPOV throughout. There is absolutely nothing in this article that warrants removal. IF YOU WANT TO ADD MORE INFORMATION, THEN BY ALL MEANS DO SO! But please do not delete any of the new information, as I have not deleted anything.
-PoliticalNerd
- These amateurish edits are appallingly biased. It is an embarrassment and ought not to be allowed to stand. icut4you is correct: you simply cannot tolerate disagreement and you are obviously contemptuous of anyone who thinks differently, so you call them names. And I have news for you, a good many libertarians do not defend their acceptance of capitalism on utilitarian or economic grounds (what is most efficient), but on moral grounds, and that is because they think it is wrong to take someone else's property. In other words, they are not libertarians because of capitalism, but they accept capitalism because liberty requires it. You really need your own article where you can set forth your own views. Ockham 16:32, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Why is it everything you quote for your arguments is from the political compass? Just because something says it's non-ideological doesn't mean it is, swift boat veterans for truth also say they are a non-ideological non-political group. As I stated before, the poltical compass seems to actually be a bit biased, It is absoulty impossible to be far-right and libertarian on that chart, Michael badnarik is bloody on the borderline between authoritarian and libertarian, not too mention that page seems to have a different interperation of neo-liberal and libertarian then the rest of the world Chuck F 03:33, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Excuse me
Excuse me, but I am not the one engaging in censorship here. Who is it that cannot tolerate other viewpoints?
I challenge you to find specific examples of what is "amateurish" or biased about anything I wrote. Don't delete anything until you can back up your claims with specific examples.
The arguements that have been put forth by opponents of including all libertarian views so far are completely deviod of any substance. The only semi-valid arguement I have seen so far is that libertarian in the United States usually refers to the right-wing form, so the article should only speak about that view. No arguement whatsoever has been put forth about why my additions about classical liberalism and the Nolan Chart should not be included.
Stop censoring this article please.
-Political Nerd.
- I have not changed a thing of yours. I would not waste my time trying to convince you of anything. After all, as you point out incessently, you know everything. As for the Marxist playbook stuff that you denied "capitalism is based on exploitation of labor" "entrenched class system" "economic dictatorship otherwise known as corporations," ad nauseum....all similar to the rhetoric of wide-eyed college students in the 60s who fell under the spell of a few authors and professors, but who thought very little. I know, I was one of them, and your rants are very familiar to me. Again, you should simply produce your own article....Political Nerd's Views on Right-winged Libertarianism,--- etc) and leave this one alone.Ockham
- PoliticalNerd, your changes are hopelessly POV and much of it simply does not belong in this article (e.g., discussions of labor theory of value and marginal utility, etc). This is not the place to advance your views; go start a blog or as Ockham suggests your own article. Go wild on the Libertarian Socialism entry or whatever, but stop using this article as your personal mouthpiece. Again, if you add something here that is based on published works or factual information (something relevant and substantive), fine, but injecting your own beliefs and your own bias will not do. You cannot hijack this article and turn it into PoliticalNerd's Treatise On Libertarianism. Ubernetizen 19:43, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Thats RIGHT-WING libertarianism, Ubernetizen, and I've tried changing this article to include the view of left-wing libertarians, but it was promptly deleted. Then I tried making it a seperate article on Market Libertarianism so that it was not falsely making sole claim to the term "libertarian", but again it was promptly reverted. Then I tried clarifying that there is more than one type of libertarianism, but that this article deals with the right-wing brand, and again it is being reverted. I keep making efforts to further compromise with you guys, but nothing is good enough for you. You will not be satisfied unless the article is a one-way ideological platform for right-wing libertarianism. Also, what gives on the deletions of my additions to the classical liberalism and Nolan Chart sections? -Political Nerd
The word Markert libertarianism doesn't exist besides for people who have tried to con the term to try and newspeak attack present-day libertarians. it'd be as if I started a trend calling modern democracts, commie democracts then changing the the use of the word democracts in the democrats entry to commie democracts. Don't try and change entire defentions of words/create new ones and get rid of the pov plus the stuff that is entirly illrelevant and then your edits will go over better Chuck F 20:04, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- So should I just change "market libertarinaism" to "right-wing libertarianism"? Or to be even more accurate, the correct term is "NeoLiberal". In fact, calling Neoliberals "Libertarians" is newspeak. The trend of calling NeoLiberals "Libertarians" is no different than calling democrats "commie democrats". The only difference is that the Neoliberals were successful at conning their way into people calling them "libertarians", but "commie democrats" was never so successful. -PoliticalNerd
- PN, "libertarian" in its present usage means something specific. Your views belong on the Libertarian-Socialist article or on another if you prefer to call it something else. They are fringe. If I approached the communism article the way you have approached this one and started wholesale editing and ranting about "Right-Wing and Left-Wing Communism", I'd be laughed off. We're talking about views that are not in any conceivable sense mainstream; that warrant a mention and a link from this page and no more. As it is, again, you're putting your own personal beliefs about libertarianism, about what it is or isn't, ahead of the overwhelming consensus of (a) public opinion, and (b) all contemporary libertarian theorists/authors of any prominence. Get over yourself. In my opinion your additions concerning the origins and past usage of the term libertarian have some merit, but that's about it. Since your contributions here are highly controversial, I think the proper Wiki-spirited thing to do would be to present proposed changes here for discussion and debate instead of insisting on a revert war. Ubernetizen 20:30, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Whose to judge "mainstream" and "fringe". Noam Chomsky is pretty mainstream in that he is widely read and well known, and he is a libertarian- a classical libertarian. There are plenty of anarchist-libertarian publications and books, they just are underground so you don't often see them in the mainstream media culture. But here's the important thing: I HAVE NOT INSERTED A SINGLE VIEW OF MY OWN INTO THAT ARTICLE. If you can find ONE, just ONE example of me inserting my own view in, then go ahead and quote it here, then delete it. But the article as it stands is totally FACTUAL and NPOV. Just because it doesn't give right-wing libertarianism a free pass to promote its particular variant of libertarianism as the sole truth about libertarians doesn't mean it is wrong. -PoliticalNerd
Here are a few examples where you've inserted views of your own, picked at random. They aren't necessarily the only or even the best examples. Let's start with this one:
- Market Libertarianism refers to the capitalist form of libertarianism, and in political science is known as market liberalism, or an extreme form of Neoliberalism. Its adherents may also be described as right-wing libertarians or capitalist libertarians.
This is absolutely false. "Market liberalism" describes an approach to economics; libertarianism on the other hand is a complete ideology. "Neoliberalism" is a term chiefly used by leftists decrying Reaganomics and Thatcherism and does not describe truly laissez-faire markets but rather state intervention in the form of Keynesian policies and a post-Bretton Woods international economic order - libertarians (as commonly understood) advocate markets free of all state intervention, which differentiates them from neoliberalists, "extreme" or otherwise. It doesn't matter what libertarianism "may be" called...this is passive POV.
- Well, according to this site (which is completely non-ideological) Neoliberalism describes right-wing economics http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/analysis2.html
- Finding a website that agrees with you is not research. Ubernetizen
- Take it up with the political compass. I think they know what they are talking about a lot better than either of us since they are experts in the field. Unlike most of the sites you probably read, they have no ideological baggage or agenda. You might also want to read this from their FAQ- http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/faq.html#libandleft
- FAQ: You can't be libertarian and left wing
- A: This is almost exclusively an American response, overlooking the undoubtedly libertarian tradition of European anarcho-syndicalism. It was, after all, the important French anarchist thinker Proudhon who declared that property is theft.
- Sounds like important information for the Anarchism article. Not this one. Ubernetizen
- On the other side of the Atlantic, the likes of Emma Goldman were identified as libertarians long before the term was adopted by some economic rightwingers. And what about the libertarian collectives of the mid-late 1800s and 1960s?
- What about them? We're in the 21st century. Ubernetizen
- Americans like Noam Chomsky can claim the label 'libertarian socialist' with the same validity that Milton Friedman can be considered a 'libertarian capitalist'.
- Milton Friedman is commonly referred to simply as a libertarian. There is a reason for that. Chomsky can claim whatever label he wants, but I've never heard him referred to as a libertarian by anyone. Ubernetizen
- The assumption that Social Darwinism delivers more social freedom is questionable. The welfare states of, for example, Sweden and The Netherlands, abolished capital punishment decades ago and are at the forefront of progressive legislation for women, gays and ethnic minorities - not to mention anti-censorship. Such established social democracies consistently score highest in the widely respected Freedom House annual survey on civil liberties. Their detailed checklist can be viewed at http://www.worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm . Similar social developments would presumably be envied by genuine libertarians in socially conservative countries - even if their taxes are lower.
- Interestingly, many economic libertarians express to us their support for or indifference towards capital punishment; yet the execution of certain citizens is a far stronger assertion of state power than taxation
- It might be noted that market libertarianism is not as incredibly libertarian, in the sense of anti-authoritarian, as it is incredibly economically right-wing. Most right-wing libertarians would argue, in opposition to classical left-wing libertarians, that this is only natural since most human societies have some forms of authority. The question for a right-wing libertarian is if one is able to freely choose which authority one submits too.
This is passive POV in "It might be noted" clothing (from the same factory as "It may be argued"). This is YOUR PERSONAL interpretation and it is in no way widely accepted. This entire paragraph is something like a thesis statement and does not belong in an encyclopedia.
- Again, this is not POV, this is fact. Left-wing libertarians oppose authority in all its forms, while right-wing libertarians only oppose authority coming from the traditional nation-state. See that same link above- The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples law of the jungle right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism (libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.
- So called "Left-wing libertarians" are very careless with the use of the word "authority"...by your rationale they would also reject the authority of nature. But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that you're just offering more POV to support the original statements. Ubernetizen
- So I would challenge you to find a non-ideological, objective source which claims that right-wing libertarianism is more libertarian than left-wing libertarianism. We are talking about politics here. Any authority that creates authoritarianism is neccisarily a political authority. Nature is not an authority, by almost any definition of the word. It has no purpose, intentions, goals, or wants to control another individual. Any human authority does.
- I think the consensus on this issue is self-evident. Ubernetizen
- Unlike the classical liberals, modern libertarians tend to be very pro-business. They generally view the very wealthy as having earned their place, while the classical liberals were often skeptical of the rich, businessmen, and corporations seeing them as aristocrats with desires to tyranize the people ... The modern understanding of private property by libertarians is also much different than the way classical liberals understood it. In the classical times, the right to private property was a means by which farming peasents freed themselves from oppressive feudal landlords, and not to justify very large accumulations of private property in a few hands.
Libertarians are not pro-business per se, but pro-liberty. The above reads like an Op-Ed column chock full of apocryphal declarations, and adding a sprinkling of favorable quotes doesn't excuse it.
- Thank you for pointing this out. You are right about this one. I will change that ASAP.
- In addition, the Nolan chart fails to account for varying degrees of authoritarianism and libertarianism that are exclusively on the left or right...
All blatant POV. Another thesis statement.
- I will fix that one too. - PoliticalNerd
Ubernetizen 00:13, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What does that have to do with the article?
I made every effort to be neutral when writing the article. If you want to read my personal views, read this discussion thread. The article is all facts, it does not contain anything that is my opinion. All those quotes you just posted are from the discussion thread.
Once again, if you're going to delete things, please delete specific statements which are either 1) untrue or misleading, 2) irrelevant or redundant. All you have done is conitually reverse the things I have added. Feel free to add your own information that is factual and relevant to the topic, but do not delete facts just because you don't like them.
Log in
I'm looking at a revert war between IP addresses here. What gives? Create an account for what you're doing; show us which if either of you intends to stick around. Jdavidb 19:39, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
My apologies, Jdavidb. My computer logs me out periodically. PoliticalNerd
Revert War
I've reached my limit of 3 reverts in 24 hours. I hope others will look closely at this issue and take some action. The article probably needs to be protected, as Political Nerd has made it clear he has no intention of stopping. Ubernetizen 21:12, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Political Nerd is not interested in anything but "hearing" himself. It is pointless to argue with any religious zealot. They simply cannot live in peace unless others agree with them, or they capitualte out of exhaustion. That is why, as someone already said, they are the kinds of people who put others in camps. In this respect (as well as others), Mises and Hayek were on the mark in equating Nazism and socialism...indeed, all statist arrangements led by zealots. Ockham 21:25, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- "Statist" is the word your camp uses to label everyone you disagree with. I have met enough of your type to know this. I am not a religious zealot. In my experience, it is your ideology which has this tendancy. Unlike Socialists, I still basically believe in a market economy, but unlike the Neoliberals (and in many ways like Smith) I believe that the market should be social market, not a capital market. And unlike Anarchists, I do believe that a state is a neccessary evil, but I believe that it should be as decentralized and democratic as possible. I also believe very strongly in nonviolence and human rights. How are any of those signs of a religious zealot? I think you guys just have a hard time admitting that the word "libertarian" has more than one meaning! - Political Nerd
- Young fellow, as I suspect you are, I could care less what you believe, it is irrelevant; you just go on and on with eclectic nonsense gathered from here and there, without much coherency, intent on showing others what you know..or think you know. The time you have on your hands certainly shows that you are not a member of the exploited working class that you seek to protect. The fact is, you want to tell people how they should live their lives so that they might attain paradise...your paradise....and avoid sin, which is to disagree with you and the scriptures important to you. You are as full of religious zeal as any right-wing fundamenatlist. This article is supposed to describe libertarianism, and, as someone said before, that would mean taking into account the consensus view, the common usage and understandings of libertarians. It does not mean that one has to agree with libertarianism, only that the prevailing views of its major proponents are fairly representated. Instead you see it as an opportunity to write a polemic. Ockham 05:48, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC) has left the building.
- What makes you think I'm young? Perhaps you are just old. I mean 32 is young compared to roughly half the population...
- And are you implying that Chomsky is not a "libertarian"? Maybe you need to rethink what the word libertarian really means... Thats kind of my point- libertarian means more than one thing depending on who you talk to. After all, who could disagree with the idea of liberty?
-Political Nerd
Now that I have neutralized my additions, I think its high time your camp does the same
Here are a number of things, in no particular order, which are not NPOV.
Libertarians believe that individuals should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon what they believe to be the equal rights of others. In this respect they agree with many other modern political ideologies. The difference arises from the definition of "rights". For libertarians, there are no "positive rights" (such as to food or shelter or health care), only "negative rights" (such as to not be assaulted, abused, robbed or censored), including the right to personal property. Libertarians further believe that the only legitimate use of force, whether public or private, is to protect these rights.
The whole thing about negative and positive rights is definetly POV. Based on this definition of positive rights, private property would also be a positive right. No one is entitled to privately control/own anything outside themselves (especially land), until they or the state are able to use force and coercin to keep others from using it. Perhaps I should rephrase that- creation and protection of private property is a positive right, and attempts to protect it infringe on the rights of others. Private property does not exist until a person decides to stake off a fence and call the land their own- thus the expression "Property is Theft." (That phrase comes from one of the very first libertarians in all of the history of political thought- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon)
But most importantly, it sets up a straw man of positive rights to knock down. Positive liberty is the conception that freedom is based on ones automony and ability to do what one wishes. Positive liberty is NOT "food or shelter or health care", it is the ability to get those things if one so chooses without sacraficing inordinate amounts of personal liberty.
This needs to be fixed.
In the US some libertarians feel conservative and some conservatives feel libertarian, because both groups claim as theirs the ideology of the founding fathers of the USA. Still, it is possible to distinguish quite neatly two different and often opposite traditions, and it is only a matter of terminology when confusion occurs.
This is a POV. I believe that conservatives and right-wing libertarians actually come out of the same tradition, though there has been somewhat of a divergence in recent years. For most intents and purposes the history books back me up on this. It was conservatives that usually imposed harsh reactions on the radical labor union movements of the 19th century, and they used the economic rationalizations that later became right-wing libertarianism. Conservatism and right-wing libertarianism are very much the same tradition, just that conservatives are the political (electoral) side and right-wing libertarians are the intellectual/academic side. Of course, there are disagreements, but all political traditions have internal disagreements.
As an example, many libertarians hold that personal liberties (such as privacy and freedom of speech) are inseparable from economic liberties (such as the freedom to trade, labor, or invest). They make this point to contrast themselves with socialists who believe that economic regulation is necessary for personal freedom and personal well-being
It depends which type of socialist you are talking about. Libertarian socialists don't believe in any regulation whatsoever, including regulation from private property laws, corporate charters, bosses, managers, CEO's, patriarchs (dominant male, head of household) etc... So again, this is POV.
It is a chief point for many libertarians that rights vest originally in individuals and never in groups such as nations, races, religions, classes, or cultures. This conception holds it as nonsensical to say (for instance) that a wrong can be done to a class or a race in the absence of specific wrongs done to individual members of that group. It also undercuts rhetorical expressions such as, "The government has the right to ...", since under this formulation "the government" has no original rights but only those duties with which it has been lawfully entrusted under the citizens' rights.
Yea, that is hardcore POV. It also contradicts itself because it creates a class called "citizens".
Indeed, libertarians consider that no organization, including government, can have any right except those that are voluntarily delegated to it by its members -- which implies that these members must have had these rights to delegate them to begin with. Thus, according to libertarians, taxation and regulation are at best necessary evils, and where unnecessary are simply evil. Government spending and regulations should be reduced insofar as they replace voluntary private spending with involuntary public spending
POV! In fact, paying income taxes IS voluntary. If you don't like it, then stop using United States currency. Invent your own currency.
Plus, the members of the United States HAVE voluntarily delegated the power to collect taxes to the government. So this statement isn't only POV, its dead wrong-
Article XVI. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Proposal and Ratification
The sixteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the Sixty-first Congress on the 12th of July, 1909, and was declared, in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated the 25th of February, 1913, to have been ratified by 36 of the 48 States. The dates of ratification were: Alabama, August 10, 1909; Kentucky, February 8, 1910; South Carolina, February 19, 1910; Illinois, March 1, 1910; Mississippi, March 7, 1910; Oklahoma, March 10, 1910; Maryland, April 8, 1910; Georgia, August 3, 1910; Texas, August 16, 1910; Ohio, January 19, 1911; Idaho, January 20, 1911; Oregon, January 23, 1911; Washington, January 26, 1911; Montana, January 30, 1911; Indiana, January 30, 1911; California, January 31, 1911; Nevada, January 31, 1911; South Dakota, February 3, 1911; Nebraska, February 9, 1911; North Carolina, February 11, 1911; Colorado, February 15, 1911; North Dakota, February 17, 1911; Kansas, February 18, 1911; Michigan, February 23, 1911; Iowa, February 24, 1911; Missouri, March 16, 1911; Maine, March 31, 1911; Tennessee, April 7, 1911; Arkansas, April 22, 1911 (after having rejected it earlier); Wisconsin, May 26, 1911; New York, July 12, 1911; Arizona, April 6, 1912; Minnesota, June 11, 1912; Louisiana, June 28, 1912; West Virginia, January 31, 1913; New Mexico, February 3, 1913.
Ratification was completed on February 3, 1913.
The amendment was subsequently ratified by Massachusetts, March 4, 1913; New Hampshire, March 7, 1913 (after having rejected it on March 2, 1911).
For libertarians, government's main imperative should be Laissez-faire -- "Hands off!" -- except to protect the individual rights recognized by libertarianism
Laisezz Faire does not mean "hands off". Its a French phrase that means "to leave alone" or "to let be". In fact, much of its original definition revolves around political laisezz faire, or letting the people decide the way that society should be run- aka democracy. If there was a major labor strike, a laisezz faire government would let the strikers and the boss work things out on their own. If that ment the workers would seize control of the factory, so be it. Private property would not be immune to the polity, or the will of the people.
So again, this is POV.
Libertarians believe in minimizing the responsibilities of citizens towards the government, which directly results in minimizing the responsibilities of the government towards its citizens.
I actually tend to agree with that statement, but it is still most definetly a POV.
The minarchists believe that a "minimal" or a "night-watchman" state is necessary to guarantee property rights and civil liberties, and is to be used for that purpose only. For them, the proper functions of government might include the maintenance of the courts, the police, the military, and perhaps a few other vital functions (e.g., roads). While they are technically statists since they support the existence of a government, they would resent the connotations usually attached to this term.
I don't actually have a problem with that passage, I just think its funny because it only proves my point that you guys use the term "statist" as a perjorative to label anyone with whom you disagree.
Minarchists consider that they are realists, while anarcho-capitalists are utopian to believe that governments can be wholly done without. Anarcho-capitalists consider that they are realists, and that minarchists are utopian to believe that a state monopoly of violence can be contained within any reasonable limits.
I have had this debate with other right-wing libertarians, and that is definetly a POV. The state does not in fact have a monopoly on force, or even legal use of force for that matter. Legal use of force is defined by the state itself and only has legitimacy so long as the people do not overthrow it- so really legality comes back to the people, aka the polity, aka democracy. In an area of wilderness with no state presence, anyone can claim to be the state and institute a monopoly of force. In fact, isn't the existence of private property a monopoly of force over that property?
Libertarians feel much more strongly about their common defense of individual liberty, responsibility and property, than about their possible minarchist vs. anarchist differences.
THAT is a point of view, bigtime.
An exposition of utilitarian libertarianism appears in David Friedman's book The Machinery of Freedom, which includes a chapter describing an allegedly highly libertarian culture that existed in Iceland around 800 AD.
I guess this isn't technically POV, but it is a lie of ommission. The Icelandic culture was indeed libertarian, but it was collectivist as well. It was anarchism (democratic libertarian collectives) much the way that Proudhun advocated, not libertarian capialism. Still, this reference should be either mention the anarchist view of Iceland or just be removed.
I suggest one of you go through and correct all these POV errors as I have corrected mine. And please do not do any more than minor edits to my work as I have hardly touched yours.
ITS A GOOD THING FOR YOU THAT (until now) I HAVEN'T HELD YOUR WRITINGS TO THE SAME STANDARDS THAT YOU HOLD MINE!
-Political Nerd
Alright, I just want to rant, so just skip over this if your not interested
Now here's some quotes from a modern day, well known, American left-wing libertarian. So you can't keep claiming that the classical defition of libertarian is irrelevant today.
"Now, the Libertarian Party, is a capitalist party. It's in favor of what I would regard a particular form of authoritarian control. Namely, the kind that comes through private ownership and control, which is an extremely rigid system of domination -- people have to... people can survive, by renting themselves to it, and basically in no other way... I do disagree with them very sharply, and I think that they are not..understanding the fundamental doctrine, that you should be free from domination and control, including the control of the manager and the owner." -Noam Chomsky
"Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else. I should add, however, that I find myself in substantial agreement with people who consider themselves anarcho-capitalists on a whole range of issues; and for some years, was able to write only in their journals. And I also admire their commitment to rationality -- which is rare -- though I do not think they see the consequences of the doctrines they espouse, or their profound moral failings." -Noam Chomsky
Anarcho-capitalism is not libertarianism Chuck F 03:41, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"that's why if you look at the *ideology* of the founding fathers -- not what they actually *believed* -- but at the doctrines that they professed, which is something quite different, they were opposed to centers of power and authority. In the 18th century that meant they were opposed to the feudal system, and the absolutist state and the church and so on.
"Now those very same doctrines apply to the 19th century and the 20th century and they should, if we take them seriously, make us opposed to the patterns of authority and domination that exist now -- like for example corporate capitalism, which is a system of authoritarian control that Jefferson never dreamt* of. Or the powerful 20th century state linked* to the corporate elite, which, again, is a system of power and domination on a scale that, say, Jefferson couldn't have imagined. But the same *principles* would lead us to be opposed to them." -Chomsky
"An essential feature of a decent society, and an almost defining feature of a democratic society, is relative equality of outcome -- not opportunity, but outcome. Without that you can't seriously talk about a democratic state... These concepts of the common good have a long life. They lie right at the core of classical liberalism, of Enlightenment thinking... Like Aristotle, [Adam] Smith understood that the common good will require substantial intervention to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by distribution of public revenues." -Noam Chomsky
"There isn't much point arguing about the word 'libertarian.' It would make about as much sense to argue with an unreconstructed Stalinist about the word 'democracy' -- recall that they called what they'd constructed 'peoples' democracies. The weird offshoot of ultra-right individualist anarchism that is called 'libertarian' here happens to amount to advocacy of perhaps the worst kind of imaginable tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny. If they want to call that 'libertarian,' fine; after all, Stalin called his system 'democratic.' But why bother arguing about it?" -Noam Chomsky
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." -Thomas Jefferson
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." -Adam Smith
"In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence, or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the produce, than three times an equal number of artisans, who, under their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The artisan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building." -Adam Smith, first draft of Wealth Of Nations
"Liberalism is not socialism, and never will be... Liberalism has its own history and its own tradition. Socialism has its own formulas and aims. Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely, by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks, and shall seek more in the future, to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly." -Winston Churchill, 1908
"The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all." -G. K. Chesterton
"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state ....[As Henry Home (Lord Kames) has written, a goal of taxation should be to] 'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the poor and burdening the rich." -Adam Smith
"On the conservative side, today's libertarianism is far more dogmatic and devoid of qualification than the liberalism of Adam Smith or J.S. Mill. Like Marxism, libertarianism is a utopian worldview based on an economic-determinist vision of history. Unlike Marxism, libertarianism is highly specific in its predictions about the transition to the utopian world order, rendering it vulnerable to fact." -Michael Lind, The American Prospect, Dec. 1, 1994
"[What Hayek] does not see, or will not admit, [is] that a return to "free" competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the State. The trouble with competitions is that somebody wins them. Professor Hayek denies that free capitalism necessarily leads to monopoly, but in practice that is where it has led, and since the vast majority of people would far rather have State regimentation than slumps and unemployment, the drift towards collectivism is bound to continue if popular opinion has any say in the matter." -George Orwell, in a 1944 review of "The Road to Serfdom"
"The question whether the state should or should not "act" or "interfere" poses an altogether false alternative, and the term "laissez faire" is a highly ambiguous and misleading description of the principles on which a liberal policy is based. Of course, every state must act and every action of the state interferes with something or other. [...] The state controlling weights and measures (or preventing fraud and deception in any other way) is certainly acting, while the state permitting the use of violence, for example by strike pickets, is inactive. Yet it is in the first case that the state observes liberal principles and in the second that it does not." -Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom"
A Vast Improvement
Thank goodness this article is no longer a screed for Marxism seen through a Chomsky-colored lens. The recent editors did good work, but we owe it to Ubernetizen for his intrepid perserverance in manning the barricades against this attack with fact and reason.icut4u 04:38, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I'm curious why you guys have decided to consistantly insult and call me names as well as whine about my additions, but have refused to even discuss the seriuos POV problems with the old article. Aside from one discussion post in which one of your members pointed out 4 specific problems he had with my additions (only two of them were valid, and I did fix those), your discussion posts have amounted to mob-like scorning. They are completely deviod of any intelligent arguements or serious debate about the meaning of the word libertarian. Instead of calling my view "Marxist", which it is not, why don't you discuss the issue at hand- the meaning(s) of the word libertarian?
- In addition, I have pointed to a whole series of POV problems with the contents of the article in both the new and old variation, but you have totally failed to address them because you know that you have no case. -Political Nerd
Critique of the version proposed by Political Nerd
For sake of argument, here are the problems that I see in Political Nerd's proposed version of the article. There might be a few points I'm missing, and I'm not sure if time will allow me to continue debating the fine points of the article in detail.
- "Market Libertarianism is the form most commonly known in the United States. Its adherents can also be described as right-wing libertarians, or libertarian capitalists.
I think that the pro-market libertarianism is the mostly widely used expression not just in the US but throughout the English-speaking world. Furthermore, the example of the Libertarian Movement Party in Costa Rica indicates that it is also making inroads into other languages.
- Libertarian Socialism, or Classical Libertarianism, is a much older libertarian ideology
This assumes your conspiracy-theory account of the history of libertarianism is correct. If we trace libertarianism back to the classical liberals, which is the traditional interpretation of history, then it is older than libertarian socialism.
- The paragraph beginning "The term libertarian, in the capitalist sense, first came into use in the United States, where," is incoherent.
- These thinkers therefore came to call themselves libertarians.
By saying "these thinkers", you render it unclear whether you are talking about the sui dissant modern classical liberals or about the modern welfare state liberals.
- Market libertarianism places a strong emphasis on private property, free trade, and the economic free market. Its origins may be traced to the mid-19th century school of economic thought known as marginalism, which held that all economic value came from the "utility at the margins" to the owner of the object of value. At that point in time, the marginalist school was considered a conservative ideology.
This is an unsupported and controversial assumption. Many libertarians argue that they had been considered a left-wing school of thought in previous centuries. Moreover, it presupposes that marginalism itself came out of nowhere, instead of having its roots in classical liberal economic theory (although I will agree to stipulate that most of the major English-speaking classical economists, including Adam Smith, supported the labor theory of value). Moreover, it presupposes that the roots of modern libertarianism come exclusively from a school of economics.
- It has been noted by some political analysts such as the Political Compass that market libertarianism is not as incredibly libertarian, in the sense of anti-authoritarian, as it is incredibly economically right-wing. Most right-wing libertarians would argue, in opposition to classical left-wing libertarians, that this is only natural since most human societies have some forms of authority. The question for a right-wing libertarian is if one is able to freely choose which authority one submits too.
The first sentence here is sneaky POV of the "it has been noted" variety, and is poorly worded to boot. The rest of the paragraph is a little misleading. Some libertarians would agree with this wording, but many would quibble with the phrasing. Personally, I don't think it's accurate to say libertarianism involve "submission" to anything (although it allows for religion, of course), but I know what you mean.
- For example, the classical liberal thinker John Stuart Mill was not opposed to the state and saw a role for the state in the delivery of education, maintenance and expansion of public utilities and even in the provision of assistance to the poor; libertarians are often hostile to the state and think its role should be severely restricted or even eliminated. Libertarians also argue that the market can be used to organize all or most aspects of society and have developed rational choice theory accordingly, while classical liberals such as Adam Smith argued there were limitations to the market's utility as a means of social organization. /paragraph/ There are also many important differences in the understanding of authority, class, politics, and the political economy between classical liberals and libertarians. Critics of libertarianism point out that modern libertarians tend to be very pro-business and believe that the rich have earned their place, while the classical liberals were often skeptical of the rich, businessmen, and corporations seeing them as aristocrats with desires to tyranize the people. Perhaps the most important classical liberal of this strain was Thomas Jefferson who advocated for progressive taxation, writing in an 1787 letter, "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." Jefferson also stated in a letter to James Madison, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of the moneyed corporations which already dare to challenge our Government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." He was also very mistrustful of the rich saying, "Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government...I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom."
This, along with what follows, simply goes into too much detail on a subject which is tangential to the main article. As Chuck F noted, the purpose of this article is not to debate the ties of modern libertarians to Jefferson, Smith, and Rousseau.
- Critics will also make the claim that the modern understanding of private property by libertarians is much different than the way classical liberals understood it. In the classical times, the right to private property was a means by which farming peasents freed themselves from oppressive feudal landlords, and not to justify very large accumulations of private property in a few hands.
The second sentence is clearly POV. Ubernetizen pointed this out before, but you made no significant changes.
- In addition, much of Adam Smith's theory of economic liberalism is inconsistant with the claims of modern libertarians. Rather than viewing the business-based economic market as a positive thing, Smith merely viewed it as the least of possible evils. Smith also viewed businessmen with much suspicion. His most famous quote in regards to this is in The Wealth of Nations, where Smith claimed that businessmen are "an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
The first two sentences make rather sweeping claims that are supported only by a couple of quotes from The Wealth of Nations.
- Smith also saw little useful purpose for corporations in a market economy, having stated in The Wealth of Nations that, "The pretense that corporations are necessary to the better government of the trade is without foundation."
As you have noted, corporations in the 18th century were a different animal than corporations today. Although it is worth noting, as you do in the following passage, that Smith advocated the labor theory of value, while few modern libertarians do.
- Classical libertarians (libertarian socialists) also point out that the Nolan Chart totally fails to account for their ideology. / paragraph / These critics point out that the Nolan chart fails to account for varying degrees of authoritarianism and libertarianism that are exclusively on the left or right. One such example is the difference between Augusto Pinochet who led a brutal fascist dictatorship that was intent on absolute free-market policies, Hitler whose fascist regime used Keynsian policies (government fiscal stimulation of the marketplace) to build Germany's industrial capacity, and George W. Bush whose fiscal policies are closer to Pinochet's than Hitler's but does not practice nearly as authoritarian of social policies as either. On the libertarian end, the Nolan chart would fail to draw a distinction between liberal Social Democracy as practiced in Scandinavia, and classical libertarianism (libertarian socialism)- both would simply appear as a hard left. / paragraph / These critics would argue that a more accurate and scientific chart is the political compass which places left and right on a single axis measuring economics, and authoritarian/libertarian on another. On this scale, classical libertarianism (libertarian socialism) is on the hard left and very bottom corner, while Scandinavian Social Democracy would appear as center-left and somewhat libertarian. Libertarian capitalism as advocated by Nolan is on the hard right and somewhat libertarian position. Hitler would appear as a hard authoritarian and slightly right of center, Pinochet as a hard authoritarian and hard right, and Bush as a soft authoritarian and almost as right as the market libertarians on the economic scale.
I don't really follow this at all. For one thing, this is way too much discussion of the Nolan chart for the libertarianism page; it's just not that important. It should go on the Nolan chart page if anywhere. Further, the only difference I can see between the political compass chart and the Nolan chart is that the former is tipped on its side; both have a social freedom/authority vs. left/right economics axis. Hitler, Pinochet, etc. would appear at approximately the same place on both charts. Also, you attempted to NPOV "the Nolan chart fails to account for varying degrees of authoritarianism and libertarianism that are exclusively on the left or right" by added "these critics point out that", but "point out" is a weasel term for introducing a POV statement. Finally, do you really think that "these critics" of the Nolan chart generally endorse the political compass (especially considering their similarities)? Or even know what it is?
- Both minarchists and anarcho-capitalists differ in their beliefs from the anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-socialists and libertarian socialists, who are usually considered not to be libertarians at all (the feeling is mutual; anarcho-socialists and libertarian socialists claim that capitalism is incompatible with freedom, and thus libertarian/anarcho-capitalists cannot be considered libertarians at all).
This is a needless and distracting redundancy. It's fine to remind the reader of unrelated and opposing viewpoints, but it need not be done at such length.
- The How to become a libertarian essay link that want to add to the page has little substantial value and is no more than a broad parody.
- Nat Krause 14:24, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- "I think that the pro-market libertarianism is the mostly widely used expression not just in the US but throughout the English-speaking world."
I have never heard it used once in Britain to describe this solely US based political tradition.
- Well, there is a UK Libertarian Alliance, although I'm not sure how active it is currently. However, this is not necessarily relevant, because Britain represents less than a fifth of the world's population of native English speakers. - Nat Krause 16:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- "This assumes your conspiracy-theory account of the history of libertarianism is correct. If we trace libertarianism back to the classical liberals, which is the traditional interpretation of history, then it is older than libertarian socialism."
It is certainly not the traditional interpretation of history on this side of the atlantic.
- That's odd. What historians can you cite to that effect? It may be that they have somewhat limited knowledge of the matter, if it is the case, as you suggest, that libertarianism is based solely in the new world. - Nat Krause 16:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Anyhow, stop quibbling about the use of the word - disambiguate and move on. Slizor 15:48, 2004 Sep 12 (UTC)
- The page is already disambiguated. We have been discussing how to disambiguate. - Nat Krause 16:37, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I can say (for sure) that in finland and (most possibly) in other fenno-ugric languages (hungary) as well as other nordic countries (sweden, norway..) the term libertarian means exactly what it means here ("right" libertarianism). The term libertarian socialism is in the finnish wikipedia mainly as an "this is one strange ideology known somewhere in the continent". --Tmh 22:23, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Note: Classical Liberalism is VERY different than right-wing libertarianism
Question: Who first suggested the idea of social saftey nets and the welfare state?
Answer: Thomas Paine, a classical liberal. Read "The Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man"
Question: Who was the first political thinker to criticize the institution of privately controlled property?
Answer: Jean Jacques Rosseau, also a classical liberal
Question: Which classical liberal suggested what today is known as progressive taxation.?
Answer: Thomas Jefferson in a 1785 letter to James Madison
"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right." -Thomas Jefferson
Question: What did classical liberals think of corporations, which in their time were much smaller, less powerful, and much more restricted in their roles and what they were allowed to do?(corporations could not own other corporations, they were limited to do the *specific* tasks set forth in their charters, and they did not have any rights since they were not considered legal persons as they are today)
Answer: See for yourself.
"The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar . . . I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. This issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of the moneyed corporations which already dare to challenge our Government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -Thomas Jefferson THAT SOCIALIST! BURN HIM!!!!!
"Those seeking profits, were they given total freedom, would not be the ones to trust to keep government pure and our rights secure. Indeed, it has always been those seeking wealth who were the source of corruption in government. No other depositories of power have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge…I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom." -Thomas Jefferson
FREEDOM HATER!
"The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They always did...they always will. They will have the same effect here as elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper spheres." -Gouvernor Morris, head of the committee that wrote the final draft of the U.S. Constitution
STOP TRYING TO ATTACK RICH PEOPLE FOR BEING RICH!!!
“To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.” -Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
(you get the idea...)
“[Businessmen are] an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.” -Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. … Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. … Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour.” -Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred of the poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.” -Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
"The pretense that corporations are necessary to the better government of the trade is without foundation." -Adam Smith
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." -Adam Smith
Question: What did the classical liberals think about democracy.
Answer: They were strong (small d) democrats. Their view of private property and free markets was subserviant and secondary to their belief in democracy, equality, and individual dignity and freedom. (To right-wing libertarians today, its just the opposite)
"I am convinced that those societies (such as the Native American peoples) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate." -Thomas Jefferson
hmm...he seems more like a libertarian socialist than a libertarian capitalist, though neither of these ideas existed at the time
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion." -Thomas Jefferson
"Information is the currency of democracy." -Thomas Jefferson
“The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” - Thomas Jefferson
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." -John Stuart Mill
"In the US some libertarians feel conservative and some conservatives feel libertarian" -This article (at least you guys admit your ideology is basically a conservative one)
Question: Why did I make this post?
Because classical liberalism is not the same thing as right-wing libertarianism. Right-wing libertarianism comes out of a more conservative tradition of thinkers such as Alexander Hamilton, Edmund Burke, and the marginalist school of economic thought. Equating right-wing libertarianism and classical liberalism is not only propoganda, it is an out-and-out lie.
-Political Nerd
- By the way, if you knew more about Alexander Hamilton, you wouldn't think he has anything to do with libertarians. - Nat Krause 08:39, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Nor would Edmund Burke, hardly a thoroughgoing capitalist. Not to mention that Plato, Plotinus, Moore, and many others have argued for welfare states and abolilshing private property long before Paine or JJR. I suppose they were "classical liberals," too. icut4u 15:40, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC) Oh, and one other thing, which points to the difficulty of labels, Hamilton not only was not a libertarian of any stripe, I would not call the author of the largest number of Federalist Papers a conservative, either; he was suspicious (not opposed to) of democracy, to be sure, but primarily because the tyrrany of the majority could be used to to suppress liberty. Hamilton, unlike Jefferson, was aredently opposed to slavery, in fact, belonged to an abolitionist society...this is the 18th century, mind you. And, unlike other abolitionists, he believed the black man was equal to the white man in intelligence. He was ahead of his time in many ways. icut4u 19:42, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
My lord dude, this is kinda off the subject of the libertarian page, but your anti-corporation feelings that they shouldn’t exist at all are amazing. I don’t want to debate with you here but I’m curious are you advocating a world where corporations(people voluntary choosing to associate with others) don’t exist at all and local people sells his crops to local community members or just tighter restrictions on corporations or do you think government should be in charge of everything? – Chuck