Portal:Libertarianism

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Introduction

Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, itself from the Latin: libertas, lit. 'freedom') is a political philosophy that holds freedom and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians conceive of freedom in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, so long as it does not involve violating the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.

Libertarians advocate for the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. (Full article...)

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Libertarian Marxism refers to a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism, known as left communism, emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism and its derivatives, such as Stalinism and Maoism.

Libertarian Marxism is also often critical of reformist positions, such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France, emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation. Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.

Libertarian Marxism includes such currents as council communism, De Leonism, Socialisme ou Barbarie, Lettrism/Situationism and workerism/autonomism and parts of the New Left. Libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on both post-left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Anton Pannekoek, Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, E. P. Thompson, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Negri, Cornelius Castoriadis, Maurice Brinton, Guy Debord, Daniel Guérin, Fredy Perlman, Ernesto Screpanti and Raoul Vaneigem.

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“

I remember the occasion when a fellow graduate student at Columbia from Sweden wanted to take me downtown to a restaurant for a Swedish meal and introduced me to the Swedish drink aquavit. This was a restaurant at which this Swedish fellow had been getting aquavit all during Prohibition; they had been selling it to him. And this was just after the repeal of Prohibition. We went there and he asked them for some aquavit. They said, "Oh, no, we haven't gotten our license yet." And finally, he talked to them in Swedish and persuaded them to take us into the back where they gave us a glass of aquavit apiece. Now that shows the absurdity of it.

Prohibition was repealed in 1933 when I was 21 years old, so was a teenager during most of Prohibition. Alcohol was readily available. Bootlegging was common. Any idea that alcohol prohibition was keeping people from drinking was absurd. There were speakeasies all over the place. But more than that. We had this spectacle of Al Capone, of the hijackings, of the gang wars...

Anybody with two eyes could see that this was a bad deal, that you were doing more harm than good. In addition, I became an economist. And as an economist, I came to recognize the importance of markets and of free choice and of consumer sovereignty and came to discover the harm that was done when you interfered with them. The laws against drugs were passed in 1914, but there was no very great enforcement of it.

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— Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
America's Drug Forum (1991)

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General images

The following are images from various libertarianism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Sébastien Faure, prominent French theorist of libertarian communism as well as atheist and freethought militant (from Libertarianism)
Image 2Thomas Paine, whose theory of property showed a libertarian concern with the unequal distribution of resources under statism (from Libertarianism)
Image 3Members of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo marching in Madrid in 2010 (from Libertarianism)
Image 4Former congressman Ron Paul, a self-described libertarian, whose presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 garnered significant support from youth and libertarian Republicans (from Libertarianism)
Image 5The Political Compass: the green quadrant represents left-libertarianism and the purple right-libertarianism (from Libertarianism)
Image 617 August 1860 edition of Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social, a libertarian communist publication in New York City (from Libertarianism)
Image 7Murray Bookchin, a left-libertarian of the social anarchist school (from Left-libertarianism)
Image 8Murray Bookchin, American libertarian socialist theorist and proponent of libertarian municipalism and communalism (from Libertarianism)
Image 9John Locke, regarded as the father of liberalism (from Libertarianism)
Image 10Gary Chartier, a left-libertarian of the free-market anti-capitalist school (from Left-libertarianism)
Image 11A diagram of the typology of beliefs in libertarianism (both left and right, respectively) (from Libertarianism)
Image 12Spanish anarchist militiawomen during the 1936 Revolution (from Libertarianism)
Image 13The Nolan Chart, created by American libertarian David Nolan, expands the left–right line into a two-dimensional chart classifying the political spectrum by degrees of personal and economic freedom. (from Libertarianism)
Image 14Tea Party movement protest in Washington, D.C., September 2009 (from Libertarianism)

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Paul in 2023

Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, physician, and retired politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977, and again from 1979 to 1985, as well as for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States, first as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988, and then as a candidate for the Republican Party in 2008 and 2012.

A self-described constitutionalist, Paul is a critic of several of the federal government's policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and tax policy, as well as the military–industrial complex, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act and the NSA surveillance programs. In 1976, Paul formed the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), and in 1985 was named the first chairman of the conservative PAC Citizens for a Sound Economy, both free-market groups focused on limited government. He has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement, a fiscally conservative political movement started in 2007 and popularized in 2009 that is largely against most matters of interventionism. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Lysander Spooner Adam Smith Frédéric Bastiat Murray Bookchin Murray Rothbard Ayn Rand Mary Ruwart Milton Friedman Noam Chomsky Lew Rockwell Walter Block Steve Kubby Hans-Hermann Hoppe Randy Barnett John Stossel Nicholas Sarwark Gary Johnson Jo Jorgensen