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view · edit Frequently asked questions 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? A: Right-libertarianism refers to those libertarian ideologies that extoll private property without recompense paid by the owner to the local community, and includes anarcho-capitalism and laissez-faire, minarchist liberalism. This is contrasted with left-libertarianism, which either rejects private property, or accepts it only under the condition that the local community is compensated for the exclusionary effects thereof (e.g. a land value tax). Left-libertarianism includes libertarian socialism, left-wing market anarchism, and geolibertarianism. 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 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. OCLC 37529250. 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." Burns, Jennifer (2009). Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York:Oxford University Press. p. 309. ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7. 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 Foldvary, Fred E. "Geoism and Libertarianism". The Progress Report. Progress.org. Retrieved 2013-03-26.

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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 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)

The founders of the U.S. Libertarian Party (Nolan, Rothbard and Hess) took the name, writings and symbols of libertarianism and made one adjustment: private property was essential to freedom. They were not original in that, since individualist anarchism had done that 100 years before. I don't see why we cannot have an article about this broad intellectual movement. TFD (talk) 03:42, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Me neither, so do you agree with what I said in my previous comment? Can we start by implementing those changes that will, I would argue, improve the quality of this article? Yurolib (talk) 05:53, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I think TFD is saying that there's enough similarity between the original (left) libertarianism and the newer (right) libertarianism -- i.e. that right-libertarianism is just a recent and not even especially novel twist on the same old libertarianism that's been around for centuries -- that one article talking about the entire movement as a unified whole and not emphasizing one branch over the other, like we have now, is a sensible thing to have. If that's correct then I agree with it.

Talking about left-libertarianism before right-libertarianism makes sense historically, and if there is undue length of coverage of one rather than the other, you need to show what information is inappropriate for one or missing for the other. Looking at the lead now I don't see anything that is clearly undue information about left-libertarianism or anything obviously missing about right-libertarianism.

If there is material critical of left-libertarianism that we're missing here, it should be added to the Criticism section, rather than that section being renamed specifically as a section critical of right-libertarianism. Or, all criticism should be integrated throughout the article. In any case, strong oppose to renaming that section, it makes it look like Misplaced Pages is targeting right-libertarianism specifically and giving left-libertarianism a pass. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Worrying about simple bias/balance between two "sides" is not my dance. My bigger worry is that this article fails to inform the readers and that it confuses the readers. The biggest root cause of how it misses the mark (in addition to the "tower of babel situation described above) is that it really isn't a libertarianism article, it's a "libertarian philosophies" article. And as a unintended result of our "big compromise" about 10 years ago, to a certain extent a portion of it is a list of obscure libertarian philosophies where (flippantly speaking) they have no practitioners and the only "source" is the guy who invented it. Not that they shouldn't be covered, but they are flooding this article.North8000 (talk) 13:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The emphasis on so-called “left-libertarianism” is absurd. I made a substantial revision to the first paragraph. I would describe libertarianism as a right-wing ideology based on principles of personal and economic freedom. The article seems to be referring to some kind of syndicalism. Concise language emphasizing concepts like property and the market would be more coherent. Junius Fertilis (talk) 12:38, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Junius Fertilis: While I disagree with your overly narrow characterization of libertarianism, I think that your edits are fine and welcome your participation. This article does need some work and fixes.North8000 (talk) 13:19, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Right Libertarianism

The first half of this article is extremely based on fringe right-libertarian ideas, it even has a section on the 'NAP', lol. Libertarianism only means Right Libertarianism to a small amount of right-wing extremists in north america and their satellites, I think this should be changed. Thoughts? SP00KYtalk 13:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

That would take a book to answer, starting with and centered on terminology. (and right now I only have 3 Wiki minutes) Since about 95% of self-identifyiong libertarians are in the US, one could say that an emphasis there is due. But when you throw in philosophy and historical coverage, I think that the overall article should be about 50/50. But the European word for mainstream US libertarianism isn't "libertarianism" it's "liberal" which makes things really complicated. BTW, in US English, the term "right libertarian" is self-conflicting / an oxy-moron and doesn't exist. Also a look at the archives of this article, (including many claims the exact opposite of yours) particularly the range war about 10 years ago would be very informative. In short, this is an article about two completely different topics both of which are called "libertarianism" which overlap too much to separate. Well, there's the end of my 3 available wikiminutes. :-) North8000 (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Incoherent "history" section

This history section may need some bold restructuring, as it is currently an incoherent mess. Rather than providing a broad, chronological overview of the history of libertarianism, it's broken up into subsections that cover different wings of libertarian thought. So while it starts with its origins in classical liberalism during the 17th and 18th centuries, which is a fair enough introduction; it then has an "anarchism" section which focuses mostly on the French Revolution; then a "libertarian socialism" section, which stretches from the 1840s to the 1970s; then an "Individualist anarchism in the United States" section, which jumps back to the 1820s and goes on to 1900; then it moves on to an uncited, meandering and incoherent spiel about Geoism; then it finally ends with a section about libertarianism in the post-WWII United States.

This is less a section about the history of libertarianism than it is a random series of peeks at different subsects of libertarianism, with little-to-no connection between them. Perhaps some of this can be incorporated into a different section about the variants of libertarianism, but currently it makes for an ill-conceived history section. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:13, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Issues with the article

@North8000: You've talked about how this article has some issues, including more of a focus on philosophy and practice. Are there any other issues with the article and if so, how can they be fixed? How can the article be fixed to reflect the ideology's implementations in practice alongside the philosophy? X-Editor (talk) 05:00, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

That's complicated question. Just quick shooting from the hip:

• Seek out material on current libertarian practice and current libertarian self-identification, current organizations, institutions & publication(s) and dramatically expand on that
• Reduce the coverage of specialized philosophies
• Make the lead be more a summary of the article.
• Try for more coherent organized writing in the larger more complex areas such as libertarianism in the US
• Increase simplified "overview" type coverage, especially of the dramatically different meanings of the terms on the two sides of the pond and the terms with equivalent meaning on the other side of the pond.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: How would you make the lead more of a summary of the article? Otherwise, I think you've answered all my questions. X-Editor (talk) 16:20, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

In the end it would be a summary of the revised body of the article and so to some extent the problems/fixes are the same as for the body. But also right now it's too loaded with / dependent on obscure and/or questionable philosophical-strand terms, too focused on history and historical subjective "ownership" of terms (although history is important), too focused on obscure philosophy terms vs. common meanings of common libertarian terms. North8000 (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the history section should be split off into its own article called History of Libertarianism once the history section is simplified, because simplifying would lose a lot of valuable content that should still be on Misplaced Pages. X-Editor (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that we don't want to lose anything that is in the article (except possibly commentary type stuff). But also note that I was only talking about the lead. Overall, I don't think that history takes up too much space in this article other than it needs some organizing / tightening up I think that obscure libertarian philosophies and related obscure terminology takes up too much space. Overabundance of such actually be a minus. I originally tried to learn libertarianism by learning those terms and a taxonomy of those terms and it took me many years to figure out that it was a waste of time.....that I was just trying to learn the obscure creations and created terms of individual philosophers. North8000 (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd disagree with splitting the history section in its current state. The subsections titled "Anarchism" and "Individualist anarchism in the United States" literally don't mention the words "libertarian" or "libertarianism" a single time. These would be better off merged into their own respective articles (History of anarchism and Individualist anarchism in the United States), because it's currently unclear how they relate to the subject at all. Grnrchst (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@Grnrchst: You're right, I've removed the sections. X-Editor (talk) 21:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: The geolibertarianism section in particular needs to be shortened a lot and needs actual sources. X-Editor (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Cool. Evolution of the article is invited. But before anyone goes off the deep end we need to understand that we need to understand that we are speaking two different languages here about two different topics which have enough overlap that they need to be in the same article. Here is your translation table for the common meanings:

And, for our European friends, a major part of the meaning of "liberal" in the US includes favoring expansion of social programs and taxes to pay for them. So everybody, please recognize this and don't (based on terminologies) say that the other half of the article is all wrong.

North8000 (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

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