Category Archives: Libertarianism

Earlier this month the New York Times wondered aloud if the libertarian moment had arrived. A good question, to be sure.

To answer it, though, Times reporter Robert Draper sought out not quite the top libertarian thinkers in the world, but instead those people most easily reached within a ten-minute walk from the Capitol or the Empire State Building.

Draper begins with an ex-MTV personality and proceeds from there. None of the people whose work and writing have shaped the libertarian movement, and who have converted so many people to our point of view, make an appearance. Ask the hordes of young kids who are devouring libertarian classics how many of them were introduced to libertarianism, or even slightly influenced, by the figures on whom the Times chooses to rely. You already know the answer.

The movements major thinkers have rather more intellectual heft behind them, which I suspect is why the Times would prefer to keep them from you. Far better for libertarianism to seem like an ill-focused, adolescent rebellion against authority per se, instead of a serious, intellectually exciting school of thought that challenges every last platitude about the State we were taught in its ubiquitous schools.

Economist and historian Bob Higgs shared my impression of the Times article:

Of course, its easy to ridicule libertarians if you focus exclusively on the lifestyle camp. Easy, too, to accuse them of inconsistency, because in truth these particular libertarians are inconsistent. Easy, too, to minimize their impact by concentrating heavily on conventional electoral politics, as if no other form of societal change were conceivable. Easy, too, to ignore completely the only ones the anarchists who cannot be accused of inconsistency or ridiculed for their impotence as players in the conventional political game, a game for which they have only contempt. Finally, its easy, too and a great deal more interesting for general, clueless readers to focus on the hip libertarians.

As Bob points out, the Time reporter says he finds inconsistency among libertarians, because some want to cut only this much, or abolish only those things. But this is what he gets for focusing on the political class and the Beltway brand of libertarianism. Libertarianism is about as consistent a philosophy as a Times reader is likely to encounter. We oppose aggression, period. That means we oppose the State, which amounts to institutionalized aggression.

We have zero interest in public policy, a term that begs every important moral question. To ask what kind of public policy ought to exist in such-and-such area implicitly assumes (1) that private property is subject to majority vote; (2) that people can be expropriated by the State to whatever degree the State considers necessary in order to carry out the public policy in question; (3) that there exists an institution with moral legitimacy that may direct our physical resources and even our lives in particular ways against our wills, even when we are causing no particular harm to anyone.

Still, I note in passing, political consultants are doing their best to make a quick buck on the rising tide of libertarianism. A fundraising email I receive from time to time urges people to get involved in the political process, since simply educating people (contemptuous, condescending quotation marks in original) isnt enough. Instead, theyre told, its more important to spend their time supporting political candidates who occasionally give a decent speech but who otherwise deny libertarian principles on a routine basis, in the spurious hope that once in office, these candidates will throw off their conventional exteriors and announce themselves as libertarians.

The Times, too, thinks primarily about politics, of all things, when assessing whether the libertarian moment has arrived. The article is fixated on the political class. But why conceive of the question so narrowly? Why should we assess the growth and significance of libertarianism on the basis of political metrics alone?

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Is This the Libertarian Moment?

Libertarianism, morality, relationships

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What Is Libertarianism What Does the Libertarian Party Stand For Ron Paul YouTube clip4

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Libertarianism through Thick and Thin
Written by Charles Johnson Read by Stephanie Murphy Edited by Nick Ford Online article: http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/Markets-Not-Capitalism-2011-Chartier-an...

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Ron Manners on his unusual path to libertarianism, writing publications, fighting bureaucracy
after school "When I was I think about sixteen, after high-school, I was working in my father #39;s engineering business and I was unpacking some big crates tha...

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What Is Libertarianism?

There are many ways of saying the same thing, and libertarians often have unique ways of answering the question What is libertarianism? Weve asked many libertarians that question, and below are some of our favorite definitions.

Libertarianism is, as the name implies, the belief in liberty. Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life and uses his property as long as he simply respects the equal right of others to do the same. Sharon Harris, President, Advocates for Self-Government

The CATO Insistutes David Boaz

Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each persons right to life, liberty, and property rights that people possess naturally, before governments are created. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have themselves used force actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud. David Boaz, Executive Vice President, Cato Institute

Libertarianism is a philosophy. The basic premise of libertarianism is that each individual should be free to do as he or she pleases so long as he or she does not harm others. In the libertarian view, societies and governments infringe on individual liberties whenever they tax wealth, create penalties for victimless crimes, or otherwise attempt to control or regulate individual conduct which harms or benefits no one except the individual who engages in it. definition written by theU.S. Internal Revenue Service, during the process of granting theAdvocates for Self-Governmentstatus as a nonprofit educational organization

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Definitions of Libertarianism - The Advocates for Self ...

The New York Times Magazine recentlywondered at lengthif the long-prophecied Libertarian Moment had finally arrived. Why, just look at the prevailing attitudes in America: openness to same-sex marriage and liberalization of drug laws, aversion to long-term overseas military deployments (wars), and um Obama is unpopular so people hate government regulation now, maybe? Sure. Well, no. As we wrote, libertarianism as a package is going to be a hard sell to the public as long as it dismisses concerns over economic insecurity and insists upon dismantling the regulatory state and large social insurance programs. But hey, its great that libertarians and liberals have common ground on and are making headway in social and criminal justice policy.

Who would be the foot soldiers in this Libertarian Moment thats not really arriving? The usual, well-funded thinkers that have given the movement a disproportionately large voice within debates in Washington, D.C., for decades Reason magazine, the Cato Institute along with a few MTV VJs from the 90s. Also: Rand Paul! Rand Paul is the son of a libertarian and is sort of a libertarian himself and is going to be the next president, after all. And then America will finally be the sexy free-market rock n roll paradise of libertarians imagination. There is a plan, folks.

But any political movement is going to need more than just a few magazines and think tanks and a scion whose political future depends on the extent to which hes willing to water down his libertarianism. Meaning: Libertarianism needs a lot more libertarians. If libertarianism is going to be the wave of the future, a significant portion of the American populace should a) know what libertarianism is and then b) subscribe to it.

Right now that portion is 11 percent not nothing, but also 11 percent. Thats the figure according to Pew of Americans who both say they are libertarian and know the definition of the term.

Youd expect, then, that those who know what libertarianism is and call themselves libertarians would be broadly in favor of the whole ideological package: social liberalism, for lack of a better term, anti-police state, anti-interventionist, and hella anti-economic regulation and so forth small government, all around.

Thats not necessarily the case among those 11 percent, Pew finds. The 11 percent are, indeed, more likely than the public overall to say government aid to the poor does more harm than good by making people too dependent on government assistance, and somewhat more likely than the public overall to say government regulation of business does more harm than good.Theyre also more likely than the public overall to support legalizing marijuana.

But on cops and foreign policy? Self-identified libertarians-who-generally-know-what-libertarianism-is are a little more supportive than the public overall of letting police do whatever the hell they want and bombing everyone all the time (although the foreign policy question is spectacularly vague):

And they are about as likely as others to favor allowing the police to stop and search anyone who fits the general description of a crime suspect (42% of libertarians, 41% of the public).

Similarly, self-described libertarians do not differ a great deal from the public in opinions about foreign policy. Libertarianism is generally associated with a less activist foreign policy, yet a greater share of self-described libertarians (43%) than the public (35%) think it is best for the future of our country to be active in world affairs.

Pew ran another math-y thing to figure out which cluster, or political type, these self-identified libertarians are most closely aligned with. Youll never guess which cluster came out on top! It rhymes with Schmusiness Schmonservatives.

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Libertarians true identity revealed: Rich conservatives OK with gay people, basically

Just what is Libertarianism?

By: Zach Parks

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Just what is Libertarianism? - Video