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> libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not tran

> libertarianism, which is literally to let everyone be themselves No, it isn't. Its core is to enforce private property rights? That will very likely not translate into "letting everyone be themselves".

sgregnt 5y ago
AFAIK The core is freedom, i.e. a lack of coercion of any kind. If, to be yourself, you need to claim someone else property, then Libertrarians would say it goes against the core principles of liberty, because to execute this claim you exercise coertion. But as long as you do not exert coercion on no one else, you're free to be yourself anyway you like.
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  There nothing "freedom" about some sole family owning the only water supply generation after generation or whatever dystopian scenario that libertarianism likely would bring about. In practice it's just a dismantling of democracy in favour of feudalistic power through wealth and property.
  - lovich 5y ago
    No don’t you see, by virtue of the free market, someone will innovate around the need for water! Then they will hold a monopoly over necessary resources for a few generations until someone innovates around them. You have to realize it’s a good thing to see others go without just to make sure I never have to share my excess wealth /s
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    That's a nice strawman you've got. I think what you're describing is anarchy.
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      What exactly in essentially removing the state but keeping private property precludes this scenario?
    - vidarh 5y ago
      The origin of libertarianism is Dejacque, who considered Proudhon of "property is theft" fame to be a "moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian" for not going far enough. He was an anarcho-communist and the first publisher of libertarian political texts. Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger, and e.g. people like Rothbard very intentionally tried to find common ground between what he saw as the anti-authoritarian parts of the left and the right, but was largely rebuffed by the left, where left-libertarians, many of whom are anarchists, saw the right-libertarian obsession with property rights as fundamentally incompatible with the goal of maximising liberty.
      - infamia 5y ago
        > Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger How can you make this claim when Frederick Bastiat was a contemporary of Dejacque's? Many of today's leading libertarian-minded thinkers (Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc.) consider Bastiat core to their beliefs and you can hear Bastiat's writings echoed in their works.
        vidarh 5y ago
        I can make this claim because Dejacque was the first to use the term to describe an ideology (here is the very first use [1], and here's a page on Dejacque's newspaper Le Libertaire[2]), and because when the term was introduced into right-wing anti-authoritarianism it was with explicit knowledge that it was co-opting the term as it had then been used for a century by the left. Libertarianism as such was founded as a rejection of "moderate" anarchism, and a more extensive rejection of authority than that of Proudhon, along with an absolute rejection of property rights as oppressive. That he was later adopted by some right-wing libertarians does not mean he invented libertarianism. Many people toyed with similar ideas. Dejacque was the person who gave it a name and promoted it as an explicit ideology. You'll also not that Bastiat did not take things nearly as far as Dejacque did. E.g. Bastiat argued in Justice and Fraternity even for limited state provided welfare, so he did not even go as far as many right-libertarians. But whatever the size, he argues for a state, not the total dismantling of the state, which was the origin of libertarianism. As such, Bastiat looks libertarian to right-libertarians because they took left-wing libertarianism and gutted the commitment to liberty of Dejacque to add in state restrictions on liberty to enable property, and in doing so shifted the ideology far to the right. But he's far less libertarian by its original definition than e.g. an anarchist like Proudhon. To left-libertarians he's just another statist. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Libertaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Libertaire
    - idroveatrain 5y ago
      If it's not evident, the conception and enforcement of private property writ large is established by governmental coercion. Thus monopolization really only occurs through that force, and is also the predominate competitor for monopolization. You've got a silly proconception that mankind is endemically neurotic. Virtually every interaction you make throughout the day is self-organized, I'd conjecture the vast majority of it is done without direct, indirect, or conditioned coercion, and unsupervised. Multiply this by 7bn. That is to say that most all hierarchical authority isn't even preventative, and is almost exclusively reactionary, which further extends into reasoning that the "order" promised by the institutions is largely illusory outside of the directives offered, which could just as well be derived through any other system.
  - Geee 5y ago
    Dystopia? The wealthiest and most successful nations are built on the principles of classical liberalism / libertarianism.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      On which of them? Classical liberalism and libertarianism, be it left- or right-libertarianism are nothing alike.
      - Geee 5y ago
        Libertarianism upholds the same principles of individual liberties. Libertarianism is also the closest thing to what's called liberalism internationally. In the US, liberalism was renamed to libertarianism.
        handrous 5y ago
        You'd have to be using these terms in a non-standard way, for that to be true. Some common forms of libertarianism are under the umbrella of liberalism, or part of its family, if you like, but they are not identical.
        Geee 5y ago
        This explains the connection to classical liberalism and the confusion of these terms pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States#Mid-20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_S... You see that historically libertarianism follows directly from classical liberalism. They just changed the name.
        handrous 5y ago
        Classical liberalism is a retrospective name for one thread of liberalism. It does not—and this is important—encompass all liberals before some date, but one branch, influenced by a set of thinkers and writers who are also counted among the influences of other branches. It has its own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism and the broader thread, in context, is traced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism One point that may make the distinction clear is that in this sentence, from the article you linked: "During the mid-20th century, many with Old Right or classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians." The "Old Right" were opponents of Roosevelt, who himself sits at the base of the branch of what the "Liberalism" entry calls "Modern Liberalism"—but both are under the tent of liberalism, as were others then and earlier whose views did not line up with libertarianism. Liberalism was not renamed libertarianism, even just in the US, and that's certainly not what's meant by liberalism internationally.
- vidarh 5y ago
  Property rights themselves depends on the use of coercion to deny others access and use. It's a core inconsistency of right-libertarianism that the artificial creation of property rights are taken as an exception that is elevated to something almost holy. But because of the coercive nature of property rights, there isn't a country on earth that doesn't have huge carveouts to reduce their applicability. Ranging from zoning, to regulations of what you can do on your land to access rights and easements. Some more than others. E.g. in Norway where I grew up, a private property owner can't deny you access to walk through forests or other non-urban land, nor can they deny you the right to forage or camp, as long as you're a certain distance from dwellings, as such restrictions have always been seen as undue restrictions on the liberties of the public to the point where it was for a long time the only uncodified area of Norwegian law, as it was seen as so inherently obvious it didn't need to be. Sweden has similar rights in their constitution. But left-libertarians reject property rights entirely because they see it as entirely incompatible with liberty to apply coercion to exercise a claim of land at all by denying others access.
- notacoward 5y ago
  > lack of coercion of any kind In practice, it means lack of government coercion because that's the easiest kind to oppose. Weaken government too much, and other forms of coercion will come to the fore. Changing that would require changing human nature though, so most libertarians prefer to turn a blind eye to it.
  - sgregnt 5y ago
    I'm not sure why you think government is easier to oppose. Or what it has to do with the core principles of Libertarianism. In any case, of cause, the reality is much more complicated, if there is a dispute over property rights or a form of coercion you go to court to decide who is right and who is wrong. Libertarianism is not anarchism. At the same time, in spite of all the complications of the real world, there is a clear difference in ideology between libertarianism and social democracy, for example. And one can claim the difference stems from the core principle where the two worldviews differ in certain values.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      Ah yes, the one form of coercion libertarians endorse - via the courts. I'm just not even going to address all the reasons that can't work and/or just changes the details of coercion. Others have done so, more or less eloquently, zillions of times. It always falls on intentionally deaf ears. Good day.
beerandt 5y ago
Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor. Or the exact opposite of slavery.
- zzzeek 5y ago
  the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    Where does domination in your example come from exactly? To dominate requires the initiation of force or coercion. Slavery is a primary feature of a state that violates rights, not one that enshrines them.
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      The only "safe guard" libertarianism brings to the table here is that a person must sign on the dotted line first. Not exactly rock solid when you also allow and encourages the inevitable concentration of wealth through private property at the same time. Private property IS coercion.
      - Dracophoenix 5y ago
        Your safeguard is the choice to act or not act. That's a feature of a free individual. Not a bug. Choices don't become invalid or "wrong" because some people have been wildly successful with theirs while others haven't. What exactly makes wealth such a sticking point in these arguments against libertarianism? It's not considered wrong to be "too" intelligent, or "too" handsome, or "too" strong. But for some reason using these qualities and abilities to obtain money, supposedly in excess of some "moral number" like $1B, results in being "too" wealthy and thus "wrong". Wealth and private property are a representation of value earned through choices made. I would think that one would want more value in his life not less. In a free market, value is generated by choosing to vote with one's dollar, gold bar, or bitcoin. Private property is NOT coercion. Coercion implies you own nothing and owe everything.
zpeti 5y ago
If a group wants to organise a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. If everyone is making that choice freely. So freedom is the core. What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  > What you are talking about is more Austrian economics. No, it's just the what libertarianism means 99 times out of a 100 when talking on HN or well, just Americans in general.
- knightofmars 5y ago
  >If a group wants to organize a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
- ip26 5y ago
  Big L Libertarians in the US go hard on Austrian economics. As a result, if you ask Americans what they think of libertarianism (as you suggest), they’ll mostly be thinking about adherents to Mises & Cato.
vidarh 5y ago
Right wing libertarianism obsesses over property rights. The original left wing libertarianism rejects property rights as incompatible with maximising liberty. Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  yup, exactly. Unfortunately the original meaning is almost never what's meant by libertarianism.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    It's part of why I like to bring it up. It's a toss-up whether it makes people really upset, make them refuse to accept it, or get them to learn something new, but occasionally it makes people think critically about how property rights relate to liberty. Incidentally I think everyone should read Dejacque's open letter to Proudhon [1], irrespective of their political views - it's just one of the most poetically written political texts I've read (and his first use of the term libertarianism). Also somewhat relevant to the discussion here as an early example of a form of wokeness - Dejacque criticising an ally on the left for not going far enough in throwing off the social order Proudhon was ostensibly challenging by failing to stand up equally for women. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...

sgregnt 5y ago

AFAIK The core is freedom, i.e. a lack of coercion of any kind. If, to be yourself, you need to claim someone else property, then Libertrarians would say it goes against the core principles of liberty, because to execute this claim you exercise coertion. But as long as you do not exert coercion on no one else, you're free to be yourself anyway you like.

cloudfifty 5y ago
There nothing "freedom" about some sole family owning the only water supply generation after generation or whatever dystopian scenario that libertarianism likely would bring about. In practice it's just a dismantling of democracy in favour of feudalistic power through wealth and property.
- lovich 5y ago
  No don’t you see, by virtue of the free market, someone will innovate around the need for water! Then they will hold a monopoly over necessary resources for a few generations until someone innovates around them. You have to realize it’s a good thing to see others go without just to make sure I never have to share my excess wealth /s
- vlunkr 5y ago
  That's a nice strawman you've got. I think what you're describing is anarchy.
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    What exactly in essentially removing the state but keeping private property precludes this scenario?
  - vidarh 5y ago
    The origin of libertarianism is Dejacque, who considered Proudhon of "property is theft" fame to be a "moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian" for not going far enough. He was an anarcho-communist and the first publisher of libertarian political texts. Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger, and e.g. people like Rothbard very intentionally tried to find common ground between what he saw as the anti-authoritarian parts of the left and the right, but was largely rebuffed by the left, where left-libertarians, many of whom are anarchists, saw the right-libertarian obsession with property rights as fundamentally incompatible with the goal of maximising liberty.
    - infamia 5y ago
      > Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger How can you make this claim when Frederick Bastiat was a contemporary of Dejacque's? Many of today's leading libertarian-minded thinkers (Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc.) consider Bastiat core to their beliefs and you can hear Bastiat's writings echoed in their works.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        I can make this claim because Dejacque was the first to use the term to describe an ideology (here is the very first use [1], and here's a page on Dejacque's newspaper Le Libertaire[2]), and because when the term was introduced into right-wing anti-authoritarianism it was with explicit knowledge that it was co-opting the term as it had then been used for a century by the left. Libertarianism as such was founded as a rejection of "moderate" anarchism, and a more extensive rejection of authority than that of Proudhon, along with an absolute rejection of property rights as oppressive. That he was later adopted by some right-wing libertarians does not mean he invented libertarianism. Many people toyed with similar ideas. Dejacque was the person who gave it a name and promoted it as an explicit ideology. You'll also not that Bastiat did not take things nearly as far as Dejacque did. E.g. Bastiat argued in Justice and Fraternity even for limited state provided welfare, so he did not even go as far as many right-libertarians. But whatever the size, he argues for a state, not the total dismantling of the state, which was the origin of libertarianism. As such, Bastiat looks libertarian to right-libertarians because they took left-wing libertarianism and gutted the commitment to liberty of Dejacque to add in state restrictions on liberty to enable property, and in doing so shifted the ideology far to the right. But he's far less libertarian by its original definition than e.g. an anarchist like Proudhon. To left-libertarians he's just another statist. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Libertaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Libertaire
  - idroveatrain 5y ago
    If it's not evident, the conception and enforcement of private property writ large is established by governmental coercion. Thus monopolization really only occurs through that force, and is also the predominate competitor for monopolization. You've got a silly proconception that mankind is endemically neurotic. Virtually every interaction you make throughout the day is self-organized, I'd conjecture the vast majority of it is done without direct, indirect, or conditioned coercion, and unsupervised. Multiply this by 7bn. That is to say that most all hierarchical authority isn't even preventative, and is almost exclusively reactionary, which further extends into reasoning that the "order" promised by the institutions is largely illusory outside of the directives offered, which could just as well be derived through any other system.
- Geee 5y ago
  Dystopia? The wealthiest and most successful nations are built on the principles of classical liberalism / libertarianism.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    On which of them? Classical liberalism and libertarianism, be it left- or right-libertarianism are nothing alike.
    - Geee 5y ago
      Libertarianism upholds the same principles of individual liberties. Libertarianism is also the closest thing to what's called liberalism internationally. In the US, liberalism was renamed to libertarianism.
      - handrous 5y ago
        You'd have to be using these terms in a non-standard way, for that to be true. Some common forms of libertarianism are under the umbrella of liberalism, or part of its family, if you like, but they are not identical.
        Geee 5y ago
        This explains the connection to classical liberalism and the confusion of these terms pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States#Mid-20th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_S... You see that historically libertarianism follows directly from classical liberalism. They just changed the name.
        handrous 5y ago
        Classical liberalism is a retrospective name for one thread of liberalism. It does not—and this is important—encompass all liberals before some date, but one branch, influenced by a set of thinkers and writers who are also counted among the influences of other branches. It has its own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism and the broader thread, in context, is traced here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism One point that may make the distinction clear is that in this sentence, from the article you linked: "During the mid-20th century, many with Old Right or classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians." The "Old Right" were opponents of Roosevelt, who himself sits at the base of the branch of what the "Liberalism" entry calls "Modern Liberalism"—but both are under the tent of liberalism, as were others then and earlier whose views did not line up with libertarianism. Liberalism was not renamed libertarianism, even just in the US, and that's certainly not what's meant by liberalism internationally.
vidarh 5y ago
Property rights themselves depends on the use of coercion to deny others access and use. It's a core inconsistency of right-libertarianism that the artificial creation of property rights are taken as an exception that is elevated to something almost holy. But because of the coercive nature of property rights, there isn't a country on earth that doesn't have huge carveouts to reduce their applicability. Ranging from zoning, to regulations of what you can do on your land to access rights and easements. Some more than others. E.g. in Norway where I grew up, a private property owner can't deny you access to walk through forests or other non-urban land, nor can they deny you the right to forage or camp, as long as you're a certain distance from dwellings, as such restrictions have always been seen as undue restrictions on the liberties of the public to the point where it was for a long time the only uncodified area of Norwegian law, as it was seen as so inherently obvious it didn't need to be. Sweden has similar rights in their constitution. But left-libertarians reject property rights entirely because they see it as entirely incompatible with liberty to apply coercion to exercise a claim of land at all by denying others access.
notacoward 5y ago
> lack of coercion of any kind In practice, it means lack of government coercion because that's the easiest kind to oppose. Weaken government too much, and other forms of coercion will come to the fore. Changing that would require changing human nature though, so most libertarians prefer to turn a blind eye to it.
- sgregnt 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you think government is easier to oppose. Or what it has to do with the core principles of Libertarianism. In any case, of cause, the reality is much more complicated, if there is a dispute over property rights or a form of coercion you go to court to decide who is right and who is wrong. Libertarianism is not anarchism. At the same time, in spite of all the complications of the real world, there is a clear difference in ideology between libertarianism and social democracy, for example. And one can claim the difference stems from the core principle where the two worldviews differ in certain values.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    Ah yes, the one form of coercion libertarians endorse - via the courts. I'm just not even going to address all the reasons that can't work and/or just changes the details of coercion. Others have done so, more or less eloquently, zillions of times. It always falls on intentionally deaf ears. Good day.

beerandt 5y ago

Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor. Or the exact opposite of slavery.

zzzeek 5y ago
the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  Where does domination in your example come from exactly? To dominate requires the initiation of force or coercion. Slavery is a primary feature of a state that violates rights, not one that enshrines them.
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    The only "safe guard" libertarianism brings to the table here is that a person must sign on the dotted line first. Not exactly rock solid when you also allow and encourages the inevitable concentration of wealth through private property at the same time. Private property IS coercion.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      Your safeguard is the choice to act or not act. That's a feature of a free individual. Not a bug. Choices don't become invalid or "wrong" because some people have been wildly successful with theirs while others haven't. What exactly makes wealth such a sticking point in these arguments against libertarianism? It's not considered wrong to be "too" intelligent, or "too" handsome, or "too" strong. But for some reason using these qualities and abilities to obtain money, supposedly in excess of some "moral number" like $1B, results in being "too" wealthy and thus "wrong". Wealth and private property are a representation of value earned through choices made. I would think that one would want more value in his life not less. In a free market, value is generated by choosing to vote with one's dollar, gold bar, or bitcoin. Private property is NOT coercion. Coercion implies you own nothing and owe everything.

zpeti 5y ago

If a group wants to organise a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. If everyone is making that choice freely. So freedom is the core. What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.

cloudfifty 5y ago
> What you are talking about is more Austrian economics. No, it's just the what libertarianism means 99 times out of a 100 when talking on HN or well, just Americans in general.
knightofmars 5y ago
>If a group wants to organize a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
ip26 5y ago
Big L Libertarians in the US go hard on Austrian economics. As a result, if you ask Americans what they think of libertarianism (as you suggest), they’ll mostly be thinking about adherents to Mises & Cato.

vidarh 5y ago

Right wing libertarianism obsesses over property rights. The original left wing libertarianism rejects property rights as incompatible with maximising liberty. Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".

cloudfifty 5y ago
yup, exactly. Unfortunately the original meaning is almost never what's meant by libertarianism.
- vidarh 5y ago
  It's part of why I like to bring it up. It's a toss-up whether it makes people really upset, make them refuse to accept it, or get them to learn something new, but occasionally it makes people think critically about how property rights relate to liberty. Incidentally I think everyone should read Dejacque's open letter to Proudhon [1], irrespective of their political views - it's just one of the most poetically written political texts I've read (and his first use of the term libertarianism). Also somewhat relevant to the discussion here as an early example of a form of wokeness - Dejacque criticising an ally on the left for not going far enough in throwing off the social order Proudhon was ostensibly challenging by failing to stand up equally for women. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-the-human-being-male-and-female https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...