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:: In general, I believe there should be no criticism sections; I dislike articles that read like propaganda for each user's favorite cause and then lump all of the criticisms in the end. Obviously, I understand why this happens, but in this case I feel strongly the section should at the very least be renamed, since it is misleading users into believe it offers up any serious criticism of left-libertarianism.
:: In general, I believe there should be no criticism sections; I dislike articles that read like propaganda for each user's favorite cause and then lump all of the criticisms in the end. Obviously, I understand why this happens, but in this case I feel strongly the section should at the very least be renamed, since it is misleading users into believe it offers up any serious criticism of left-libertarianism.
:: There are other things that could be done, but I am aware of how wikipedia works and as such will refrain from doing things unless people with different opinions comment ] (]) 23:54, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
:: There are other things that could be done, but I am aware of how wikipedia works and as such will refrain from doing things unless people with different opinions comment. ] (]) 23:54, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
Q: Are libertarianism and socialism mutually exclusive?
A: No. Libertarians believe liberty consists of personal autonomy, and they justify a strong distrust of the state upon this foundation. Socialism is a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. Although socialism is commonly associated with the planned economies proffered by Marxism-Leninism and other "authoritarian socialists," libertarian socialism rejects economic direction from a central authority such as the state. Thus, libertarianism and anarchism have been synonyms since the 1890s, and other equivalents include libertarian socialism, socialist anarchism, and left-libertarianism. The libertarianism of the 19th century had two strong currents, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, both of which fall under the umbrella of libertarian socialism and were explicitly anti-capitalist.
In the 20th century, members of the Old Right in the United States such as Albert Jay Nock and H. L. Mencken began identifying as libertarians to declare their commitment to individualism and distance themselves from liberals who supported welfare capitalism. Some libertarians (e.g. Murray Rothbard, who popularized the libertarian philosophy anarcho-capitalism) were explicitly influenced by the American individualist anarchists, but most were "a rather automatic product of the American environment." This modern American libertarianism is also referred to as right-libertarianism.
Q: What is right-libertarianism? What is left-libertarianism?
Q: How are all these political philosophies related? Which ones are closely related or inclusive?
A: Some labels and qualifiers are typically used to group together multiple political movements or ideologies or distance them from others. Below is a rough and simplified visual representation of how many of the political camps described in the article (i.e. groups that have either identified or been described as libertarian) relate to one another, without any regard to their affinity for one another, their prominence or their significance.
Libertarian classification diagram
Libertarianism diagram
References
Badie, Bertrand; Berg-Schlosser, Dirk; Morlino, Leonardo (2011). International Encyclopedia of Political Science. SAGE Publications, Inc. p. 2456. ISBN 978-1412959636. "Socialist systems are those regimes based on the economic and political theory of socialism, which advocates public ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources."
Sacco, Nicola and Vanzetti, Bartolomeo (1928). The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti. New York: Octagon Books. p. 274. "After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference—the fundamental one—between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government."
Nettlau, Max (1996). A Short History of Anarchism (in English, translated). London:Freedom Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-900384-89-9. OCLC37529250.
Guérin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. New York:Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-0853451754. "Some contemporary anarchists have tried to clear up the misunderstanding by adopting a more explicit term: they align themselves with libertarian socialism or communism."
Ostergaard, Geoffrey. "Anarchism". The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Blackwell Publishing. p. 14.
^ Bookchin, Murray and Biehl, Janet (1997). The Murray Bookchin Reader. New York:Cassell. p. 170.
Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Oakland:PM Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-60486-064-1. " emerged at the end of the eighteenth century in its modern form as a response partly to the rise of centalized States and nationalism, and partly to industrialization and capital. Anarchism thus took up the dual challenge of overthrowing both Capital and the State."
^ Chartier, Gary. Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Minor Compositions. pp. 4-5. ISBN 978-1570272424. "The anticapitalism of the 'first wave' individualists was obvious to them and to many of their contemporaries."
DeLeon, David (1978). The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism.Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. "only a few individuals like Murray Rothbard, in Power and Market, and some article writers were influenced by . Most had not evolved consciously from this tradition; they had been a rather automatic product of the American environment."
^ Goodway, David (2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool:Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."
Hamowy, Ronald. "Left Libertarianism." The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. p. 288
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North's general thoughts
My efforts on libertarian articles over 10 years have been more as a facilitator than someone with strong opinions on the topics being discussed. This expanded into be a sort of mediator years ago when there were range wars at Libertarianism. The decision back then for the article is I think a good one for all of the libertarian articles which to cover all significant aspects of libertarianism. Contentious articles are usually fueled by some real-world contest/battle being played out in Misplaced Pages. Thank goodness I don't think that we have that here. I think that most or all participants want to simply do the best thing. The biggest challenge, probably uniquely strong here is that people have learned this topic and sources have covered this topic through fundamentally different frameworks and even different languages amongst the English languages. The latter refers to the words "libertarianism" and "liberal" having very different (but partially overlapping) meanings in the US vs. Europe. So here are some of those different lenses:
Fundamentally different English languages spoken in Europe vs. the US on political science terms like "libertarianism" and "liberal"
The numerically largest form of libertarianism is a large vague phenomena in the US, with 23% of Americans identifying as libertarians and 27% with libertarian voting pattern. It is not useful to try to define it as a philosophical strand. Operating in areas of libertarian where it is useful to dedine them primarily as philosophical strands creates a lens or bias. Even less useful to apply a foreign lens to it. For example, defining US libertarianism as being a pro-capitalism ideology is like defining European conservative ideology as one that is anti-canibalism.
It's pretty cool that we have so many conversations going on regarding coverage of libertarianism. It also presents a challenge that if we're talking about a zillion things at once we might not get anything done. Possibly the work we were doing at Right-libertarianism is now jammed up. Perhaps we should focus on a large scale general outline for libertarianism articles, while putting the above described "lenses" aside.
Keep and enhance articles about the strands of libertarianism with genuine unique names that have more or less consistent meanings.
Deprecate all of the other "two word" libertarianism articles into short articles about those terms and who uses those terms. So, if you have a "dogs" article, and 200 articles about the breeds of dogs, the "big dogs" article would be about the meanings and usage of the term "big dogs", not duplicate coverage about 100 breeds of dogs that somebody considers to be big.
Use this just as a general guide, there will be exceptions and special cases.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: Numerical numbers are worthless. For over one hundred year, libertarian has been used in relation of anarchism and libertarian socialism; and it continues these days in most countries. We could also just easily say that 90% of Americans are liberals because conservatism, liberalism and modern liberalism are all variants of liberalism. I also don't understand your example in "defining US libertarianism as being a pro-capitalism ideology is like defining European conservative ideology as one that is anti-canibalism." While not all libertarianism is a "pro-capitalism ideology", some libertarianisms indeed are. Could you also more clear and give example of articles about "the strands of libertarianism with genuine unique names that have more or less consistent meanings" as well as the "two word" libertarianism articles" you keep referencing to, but without giving any example? Because there may be some that could be merged into a Libertarian schools of thought articles, but Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism aren't some of them. Could you also please make more political pertinents examples? Should we also delete democratic socialism, social democracy, social liberalism, classical liberalism, conservative liberalism, national conservatism, social conservatism, liberal conservatism et all other "two word" political related articles? Should we merge all of them in socialism, liberalism and conservatism articles? Most of these "two word" libertarianism articles don't refer to Libertarianism but rather to a specific strand of it, hence they have their articles. However, we could put them all in Libertarian schools of thought. Articles like Consequentialist libertarianism, Natural-rights libertarianism, Neoclassical liberalism and Neo-libertarianism are all short and could be included in the Libertarian shools of thought. I just disagree with deleting or merging Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism.--Davide King (talk) 10:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC) --Davide King (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
I think that I should reword my proposal for more clarity and fine-tuning, but your question points to a misread of something important that I did include. The likely fate of targeted articles isn't limited to "merge";just as likely would be to reduce the articles to be primarily about the term and it's usage. The reductions will invariably be material that is duplicated from other articles that are in the main plan anyway. Regarding the specific ones that you ask about, my proposal would just be setting the criteria framework between the two possibilities. Persons who know those terms/topics better than I (typically the main editors at those articles) would make the decision based on those criteria. North8000 (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the "I don't understand your example". "Anti-canibalism" is not a defining aspect of European conservatism, they merely tacitly accept anti-canibalims as the norm. If another strand of conservatism somewhere in the world advocates cannibalism, is not a reason to define European conservatism ideology as "anti-canibalism". Analogously, common American libertarianism tacitly accepts capitalism. Analogously, the fact that a different strand of libertarianism may oppose capitalism is not a reason to say that "pro-capitalism" or "anti-canibalism" are planks of the common US version. North8000 (talk) 19:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Davide King: You said, "For over one hundred year, libertarian has been used in relation of anarchism and libertarian socialism". But I wonder how true that really is. You mention a span of time, but you don't say how common the usage during that period actually was. The article contains material in the section Etymology which refers to "In the United States, libertarian was popularized by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker around the late 1870s and early 1880s. Libertarianism as a synonym for liberalism was popularized in May 1955 by writer Dean Russell, a colleague of Leonard Read and a classical liberal himself." Presumably, that 70-year span is contained in the "...for over one hundred years" that you are referring to. But, how much actual usage did the term "libertarianism" get during that 70 year period? Is it possible that 'the left' almost entirely abandoned their usage of "libertarianism" and "libertarian" during that time? Riverine721 (talk) 04:02, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
This article is a mess
Why this article mixes up "Libertarianism" and "Libertarian socialism" in a giant, incompatible and intelligible mess? These two are utterly different concepts, with no points of convergence, and they even stem from very different philosophical schools, with very little influence one on the other. Their only similarity starts and ends with the use of the word "libertarian" somewhere in their self-descriptive names, and little more. As a result, this article is almost unreadable; the orthography is correct, the grammar is correct, but nevertheless unreadable.
Equally unnecessary, and even artificial, is the use of "left libertarianism" (which is essentially a duplication of the "libertarian socialism" article) and "right-wing libertarianism" as two separate articles, furthermore using the quasi-obsolete political terms left and right. This almost seems as a botch attempt to deconstruct the term "libertarian" via divide-and-conquer. The reality is that "Libertarianism" refers to what is described in the "right-wing libertarianism" article, and "left-wing libertarianism" is actually "libertarian socialism," which has its own article already and which the left-wing libertarianism article is a reverberation of. It seems impossible to understand why (and how) this article has achieved such level of degradation. I propose that this article to be eliminated and the term "Libertarianism" be reconstituted into what currently is the "right-wing libertarianism" article. Ajñavidya (talk) 07:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Yet another right-libertarian who wants to claim the term "libertarianism" entirely for their variety, despite the fact that right-libertarianism self-admittedly (read the article! and its references) co-opted the term that previously referred to libertarian socialism. Yawn.
There are two things that both claim the term "libertarianism" as rightfully their name and their name alone, that despite their differences also have significant commonalities, and this article is about all of that, not about either one of them alone, with both of them having their own articles to talk about themselves alone. We've been over this a million times before; read up the talk page(s). --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
As a veteran and attempted moderator of these discussion going back over 10 years....Agree that left and right libertarianism (especially right libertarianism) articles should not exist, or be whacked to short articles on those problematic terms. And those should certainly not be embedded at the top of this article, which I didn't notice until now. Aside from the posited motivations, I start by agreeing with Pfhorrest. Next I'll note that one complexity in this area is rather than being a political clash, the issues here have fueled by a Tower of Babel type situation where certain terms have two very different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic, and the organization of political groups and their terms is also fundamentally different. North8000 (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
There's another underlying dichotomy which has added complexity. Much of libertarianism is about political philosophies and this article treats it as if were only about political philosophies. And maybe has been going into the weeds by treating the creators of philosophies as sources on them, thus losing the "overview" goal. But the form of libertarianism which dwarfs all others is not a specific political philosophy, it is something practiced or self-identified by maybe 80 million Americans which simply prioritizes more freedom and less government, which often straddles the two main political parties. And so, someone comes to this article trying to learn more about the most gigantic form of libertarianism, and they find little or nothing here. And the little that they do find here is confused by trying to view and describe it through the lens of specific philosophies. And this "missing or hidden coverage" has been an ongoing source of angst with this article. North8000 (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Do reliable sources discuss libertarianism, left and right, as one phenomenon or ideological tradition? Our article liberalism describes many forms of liberalism, including classical (old) liberalism, social (modern) liberalism, anarchism, feminist liberalism and other varieties. This is the type of situation where tertiary sources are helpful for evaluating WEIGHT. Sources I found:
Which supports the premise that Britannica should never be trusted for political articles. 09:23, 17 September 2021 (UTC)Dimadick (talk)
Incoherent and undue weight on the topics of left as opposed to right libertarianism
The vast majority of references to libertarianism on both mainstream media and offline, in the real world, pertain to right-libertarianism. This seems to be true regardless of country, whether it is North America, South America, or Europe. I haven't checked Africa, Asia and Oceania but Im pretty sure of what the result is going to be.
Yet in the lead, there's a paragraph of length 892 chars given to left-libertarianism, and 492 chars given to right libertarianism, which comes afterwards. My guess is the users in favor of that are going to argue that left-libertarianism "came first", but that only justifies the relative position of the paragraph. The disparity in the sizes of the paragraphs in the lead is absurd given the relevance of each topic.
Also, is it just me, or does left-libertarian show up before right-libertarian in the article almost every single time they are juxtaposed (I counted one ocasion where this isn't true)? This might sound like a quibble, but it really isn't given the rest of the article.
Why is it that, in the contemporary libertarianism section, libertarian socialism shows up before right libertarianism? Why is the entry on libertarian socialism longer than the entry on right libertarianism? This is a ridiculous distribution of the weight given to each topic on the article, in my opinion, and I have trouble believing this fits wikipedia guidelines.
In a sense, this article seems to acknowledge that right libertarianism is the most important perspective, too bad it does that in the Criticism section, which is entirely dedicated to criticizing right-libertarianism, to the point where it should be renamed as such. Is there no criticism of left libertarianism? How about more esoteric things like libertarian socialism? One would expect there to be ample criticism of these; directly proportional to their relevance as ideologies in the mainstream. If there is no criticism, could it be its just not that relevant of a position? If there is, where is it?
I know I can't be the only reader that has these concerns about this article, and I wish I could discuss these things with other users. I intend to make changes to this article but figured it would be better if I just gathered a few opinions first before starting with that. Yurolib (talk) 10:39, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree that it is a mess. (I've been sort of a referee here for I'd guess 10 years.) But I don't think that the problems arise from one "side" vs. another. There are some big fundamental challenges which make this difficult to cover. One is that besides there being different types of libertarianism, there are different meanings to words on the two sides of the pond. So at the heart of it, the libertarianism-in-practice which dwarfs all others is the common US form with somewhere about 70 million US folks self-idfentifying as such, without any detailed philosophy (for example, unlike the US Libertarian party). Basically a vague emphasis on personal liberty, and having smaller and less intrusive government. Basically like what is also called classical liberalism in the US (no relation to the common meaning of "liberal" in the US) which is roughly the meaning of "liberal" in Europe. And then the term "right libertarian" exists in Europe while it is an oxymoron in the US. Another issue is that this article, doesn't really proportionately cover libertarianism in practice, instead it mostly covers libertarian philosophies. So the largest form sort of gets lost and confused in an article that is overwhelmingly structured around philosophies at the expense of "in practice" or movements. I've considered that a way to pare and focus the philosophies is to go more by secondary sources. Right now, we often treat the guy who invented it as a "source" and then give it coverage in this (top level) article based just on that, even if nobody actually practices it. I've also thought that if we moved more toward the Wikipedian format of putting the (sourced) material in the body and then truly made the lead more of a summary that the lead could be much more coherent and informative. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:49, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
I think this discussion should start on solid principles. I think there is very little point in pretending that wikipedia articles are not the representation of the current score of an ongoing debate between different users with different perspectives, this has been acknowledged previously in academic literature, which has looked into this phenomenon. In the truest sense, this is all wikipedia articles are in the end. They look what they look like, and they link to what they link because of that. One can acknowledge these facts and still have a civilized discussion. In fact, I believe acknowledging these facts is a precursor towards having an intelligent and productive conversation here.
Still, there are relatively neutral ways one could use to better inform readers who happen to click on this article of what libertarianism in practice means nowadays, when used colloquially by the vast majority of people. Even a simple clarification in the lead that this is about the philosophies that have been called libertarianism and does not weigh them in the article in accordance with their importance nowadays would go a long way in making sure the people who click on this article dont get the impression that when the average person talks about libertarianism they are referring to things like socialism. I feel very strongly this article will mislead any readers in that direction, which wikipedia should strive not to do.
Another thing that could perhaps be done, is renaming the Criticism section to Criticism of Right-Libertarianism or something like that, since in practice it is almost exclusively dedicated to doing that. There is a single sentence criticizing libertarianism that also applies left-libertarianism. There is no criticism exclusive to left-libertarianism. There is no criticism of the stronger form of anti-property left-libertarian philosophies like socialist libertarianism. These ideologies get off virtually "scot-free" of criticism, to which I ask again, why? Has no one seriously offered any criticism of these?
In general, I believe there should be no criticism sections; I dislike articles that read like propaganda for each user's favorite cause and then lump all of the criticisms in the end. Obviously, I understand why this happens, but in this case I feel strongly the section should at the very least be renamed, since it is misleading users into believe it offers up any serious criticism of left-libertarianism.
There are other things that could be done, but I am aware of how wikipedia works and as such will refrain from doing things unless people with different opinions comment. Yurolib (talk) 23:54, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
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