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As someone who follows politics very closely, i found the term "Libertarian-Socialists" borderline oxymoronic. I am upset to learn that it is in fact a well doc

As someone who follows politics very closely, i found the term "Libertarian-Socialists" borderline oxymoronic. I am upset to learn that it is in fact a well documented philosophy. How i would love to have a political debate with a self-proclaimed member of this way of thinking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

mattrepl 13y ago
Noam Chomsky calls himself a libertarian-socialist and explains why it is not a contradiction in terms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
rodgerd 13y ago
Talk to Noam Chomksy, then. It's the label he was identifying with last time I heard him interviewed.
rancor 13y ago
In my opinion, it revolves around the idea that Capital in the Marxist sense intrinsically represents a restriction on the liberty of others. In a moderate sense, this mostly means that the accumulation of Capital can and should be restricted, counter to conventional Libertarian thought which holds this as an unassailable right. HTH :)
- agent00f 13y ago
  > conventional Libertarian Given that 'Murican "libertarian" is entirely different that what it means anywhere else in the world, it's inaccurate to call it conventional.
steveklabnik 13y ago
> The use of the word "libertarian" to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, libertaire, which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[26] Hence libertarian has been used by some as a synonym for anarchism since the 1890s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology
pessimizer 13y ago
I think that it's largely a way for Anarcho-Syndicalists to describe ourselves without using an anachronistic word like Syndicalist:) If it helps, I find "liberty" as associated with "property rights" crazy. Totally ordered property rights are a symptom of a completely overarching state. The idea that people who are repulsed by aggressive force support land ownership rights and think that works is weird.
- zanny 13y ago
  I consider myself pretty far anarcho-libertarian in many things (especially the removal of the exclusive use of force from any way humans organize) but I just can't pitch a world where you don't own anything and can't claim something as yours. As long as we exist in a world of scarcity we need some means of claiming something as ours, especially if we spend our time to acquire it without harming others. Likewise, the only way I can think to facilitate the concept of private property (including land - I don't prescribe to the ideology that since you can't pick up the dirt to the core of the planet and the air some distance over your head, plus the coordinates and area of that portion of the planets surface and move it it can't belong to you) is to have some kind of collaborative agreement between all parties in good faith to not do business with anyone that actively violates any member parties property rights, and you need to depend on that collaborative organization to have enough economic influence to keep people from robbing them. But likewise, if they have sufficient economic influence to manipulate behavior, you are pretty much at a borderline government because they can act in self interest to harm others for their own benefit since others depend on their economic productivity. So how do you not "own" anything and have a functioning interaction between peoples? How could someone walk up to me, take the computer I just placed on a table (through no altercation of force, which is more cut and dry - party A engaged in violence against B, and must be ostracized by the group - who owns what is more nebulous - but even who initiates violence can be a conflated argument) and walk away with it, and I lose that possession but have no recourse to claim its mine. I mean, I could go and pick up someone elses laptop, but I "lost" anything I put into the work on mine (without distributed backups or something, which also aren't "mine"), and the party I take the laptop from will lose any input they impart on theirs. I don't see how you can have productivity without ownership, but you can't enforce ownership without either violence or a collective entity power enough economically to influence behavior to their whims, which is no better than most governments. They end up acting in their own self interest, which often means witch hunts.
JonnieCache 13y ago
Socialism just means worker/community ownership of the means of production. It doesn't necessitate an all-powerful state, as far as I'm aware that's largely an idea made up to scare people into compliance with capitalism.
PeterBB 13y ago
Not that it matters at all, but socialists were using the word "libertarian" long before the American free-market liberals picked it up.
yk 13y ago
The term "libertarian socialist" is only an oxymoron, if you use "socialist" as libertarians do. Libertarians use the term usually to mean a coercive collectivist government, which is only part of some socialist schools. (Mainly the Stalinist-Leninist one the Soviet Union did ascribe to.) On the other hand, the central ideas of Marxism is ( translated to libertarian language), that the relationship between a worker and his employer is a coercive one and that the worker may (will) not be able to choose a non coercive employer. So Libertarian and Marxists thought, both try to limit coercion, and therefore the ideologies are actually quite compatible.

mattrepl 13y ago

Noam Chomsky calls himself a libertarian-socialist and explains why it is not a contradiction in terms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wriQGI5NGOM

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

rodgerd 13y ago

Talk to Noam Chomksy, then. It's the label he was identifying with last time I heard him interviewed.

rancor 13y ago

In my opinion, it revolves around the idea that Capital in the Marxist sense intrinsically represents a restriction on the liberty of others. In a moderate sense, this mostly means that the accumulation of Capital can and should be restricted, counter to conventional Libertarian thought which holds this as an unassailable right. HTH :)

agent00f 13y ago
> conventional Libertarian Given that 'Murican "libertarian" is entirely different that what it means anywhere else in the world, it's inaccurate to call it conventional.

steveklabnik 13y ago

> The use of the word "libertarian" to describe a set of political positions can be tracked to the French cognate, libertaire, which was coined in 1857 by French anarchist Joseph Déjacque who used the term to distinguish his libertarian communist approach from the mutualism advocated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.[26] Hence libertarian has been used by some as a synonym for anarchism since the 1890s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology

pessimizer 13y ago

I think that it's largely a way for Anarcho-Syndicalists to describe ourselves without using an anachronistic word like Syndicalist:) If it helps, I find "liberty" as associated with "property rights" crazy. Totally ordered property rights are a symptom of a completely overarching state. The idea that people who are repulsed by aggressive force support land ownership rights and think that works is weird.

zanny 13y ago
I consider myself pretty far anarcho-libertarian in many things (especially the removal of the exclusive use of force from any way humans organize) but I just can't pitch a world where you don't own anything and can't claim something as yours. As long as we exist in a world of scarcity we need some means of claiming something as ours, especially if we spend our time to acquire it without harming others. Likewise, the only way I can think to facilitate the concept of private property (including land - I don't prescribe to the ideology that since you can't pick up the dirt to the core of the planet and the air some distance over your head, plus the coordinates and area of that portion of the planets surface and move it it can't belong to you) is to have some kind of collaborative agreement between all parties in good faith to not do business with anyone that actively violates any member parties property rights, and you need to depend on that collaborative organization to have enough economic influence to keep people from robbing them. But likewise, if they have sufficient economic influence to manipulate behavior, you are pretty much at a borderline government because they can act in self interest to harm others for their own benefit since others depend on their economic productivity. So how do you not "own" anything and have a functioning interaction between peoples? How could someone walk up to me, take the computer I just placed on a table (through no altercation of force, which is more cut and dry - party A engaged in violence against B, and must be ostracized by the group - who owns what is more nebulous - but even who initiates violence can be a conflated argument) and walk away with it, and I lose that possession but have no recourse to claim its mine. I mean, I could go and pick up someone elses laptop, but I "lost" anything I put into the work on mine (without distributed backups or something, which also aren't "mine"), and the party I take the laptop from will lose any input they impart on theirs. I don't see how you can have productivity without ownership, but you can't enforce ownership without either violence or a collective entity power enough economically to influence behavior to their whims, which is no better than most governments. They end up acting in their own self interest, which often means witch hunts.

JonnieCache 13y ago

Socialism just means worker/community ownership of the means of production. It doesn't necessitate an all-powerful state, as far as I'm aware that's largely an idea made up to scare people into compliance with capitalism.

PeterBB 13y ago

Not that it matters at all, but socialists were using the word "libertarian" long before the American free-market liberals picked it up.

yk 13y ago

The term "libertarian socialist" is only an oxymoron, if you use "socialist" as libertarians do. Libertarians use the term usually to mean a coercive collectivist government, which is only part of some socialist schools. (Mainly the Stalinist-Leninist one the Soviet Union did ascribe to.) On the other hand, the central ideas of Marxism is ( translated to libertarian language), that the relationship between a worker and his employer is a coercive one and that the worker may (will) not be able to choose a non coercive employer. So Libertarian and Marxists thought, both try to limit coercion, and therefore the ideologies are actually quite compatible.