Portal:Libertarianism
Introduction
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In the mid-19th century, libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists. These libertarians sought to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty. While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources. Left-libertarian ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school. After the fall of the Soviet Union, libertarian socialism grew in popularity and influence as part of anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti- and alter-globalisation movements. (Full article...)
Selected article
The Austrian School is a heterodox school of economic thought that emphasizes the spontaneous organizing power of the price mechanism. Its name derives from the identity of its founders and early supporters, who were citizens of the old Austrian Habsburg Empire, including Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Ludwig von Mises and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek. Currently, adherents of the Austrian School can come from any part of the world, but they are often referred to simply as Austrian economists and their work as Austrian economics.
The Austrian School was influential in the late 19th and early 20th century. Austrian contributions to mainstream economic thought include involvement in the development of the neoclassical theory of value and the subjective theory of value on which it is based as well as contributions to the "economic calculation debate" which concerns the allocative properties of a centrally planned economy versus a decentralized free market economy. From the middle of the 20th century onwards, it has been considered outside the mainstream, with notable criticisms related to the Austrian School leveled by economists such as Bryan Caplan, Jeffrey Sachs and Nobel laureates Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman. Followers of the Austrian School are now most frequently associated with American libertarian political perspectives that emanate from such bodies as the Ludwig von Mises Institute and George Mason University in the United States.
Austrian School principles advocate strict adherence to methodological individualism—analyzing human action exclusively from the perspective of an individual agent. Austrian economists also argue that mathematical models and statistics are an unreliable means of analyzing and testing economic theory and advocate deriving economic theory logically from basic principles of human action, a method they term "praxeology". Additionally, whereas experimental research and natural experiments are often used in mainstream economics, Austrian economists contend that testability in economics is virtually impossible since it relies on human actors who cannot be placed in a lab setting without altering their would-be actions. Mainstream economists are generally critical of methodologies used by modern Austrian economists—in particular, a primary Austrian School method of deriving theories has been criticized by mainstream economists as a priori "non-empirical" analysis and differing from the practices of scientific theorizing as widely conducted in economics.
Austrian School economists generally hold that the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of an evolving market extremely difficult (or undecidable) and advocate a laissez faire approach to the economy. They advocate the strict enforcement of voluntary contractual agreements between economic agents and hold that commercial transactions should be subject to the smallest possible imposition of coercive forces. In particular, they argue for an extremely limited role for government and the smallest possible amount of government intervention in the economy.
Selected quote
| “ | 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
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Former Congressman Ron Paul, a self-described libertarian, whose presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 garnered significant support from youth and libertarian Republicans (from Libertarianism) -
17 August 1860 edition of Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social, a libertarian communist publication in New York City (from Libertarianism) -
The Political Compass: the green quadrant represents left-libertarianism and the purple right-libertarianism. (from Libertarianism) -
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Tea Party movement protest in Washington, D.C., September 2009 (from Libertarianism) -
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Members of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo marching in Madrid in 2010 (from Libertarianism) -
Gary Chartier, a left-libertarian of the free-market anti-capitalist school (from Left-libertarianism) -
Sébastien Faure, prominent French theorist of libertarian communism as well as atheist and freethought militant (from Libertarianism) -
John Locke, regarded as the father of liberalism (from Libertarianism) -
Thomas Paine, whose theory of property showed a libertarian concern with the redistribution of resources (from Libertarianism) -
The 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) -
Murray Bookchin, American libertarian socialist theorist and proponent of libertarian municipalism and communalism (from Libertarianism) -
A diagram of the typology of beliefs in libertarianism (both left and right, respectively). (from Libertarianism)
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Selected biography -
Jo Jorgensen (born May 1, 1957) is an American libertarian political activist and academic. Jorgensen was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election, in which she finished third in the popular vote with about 1.9 million votes, 1.2% of the national total. She was previously the party's nominee for vice president in the 1996 election, as Harry Browne's running mate. She is a full-time lecturer of psychology at Clemson University. (Full article...)
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