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36 Non-Libertarian FAQ: What Is Libertarianism?




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This article is from the Libertarian FAQ, by Joe Dehn jwd3@dehnbase.fidonet.org, Robert Bickford rab.AT.daft.com, Mike Huben mhuben@world.std.com and Advocates for Self-Government http://www.self-gov.org/ with numerous contributions by others.

36 Non-Libertarian FAQ: What Is Libertarianism?

It's hard to clearly define libertarianism. "It's a desert topping!" "No,
it's a floor wax!" "Wait-- it's both!" It's a mixture of social philosophy,
economic philosophy, a political party, and more. It would be unjust for me
to try to characterize libertarianism too exactly: libertarians should be
allowed to represent their own positions. At least two FAQs have been
created by libertarians to introduce their positions. But the two major
flavors are anarcho-capitalists (who want to eliminate political
governments) and minarchists (who want to minimize government.) There are
many more subtle flavorings, such as Austrian and Chicago economic schools,
gold-bug, space cadets, Old-Right, paleo-libertarians, classical liberals,
hard money, the Libertarian Party, influences from Ayn Rand, and others. An
interesting survey is in chapter 36 of Marshall's "Demanding the Impossible:
A History of Anarchism", "The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism."

This diversity of libertarian viewpoints can make it quite difficult to have
a coherent discussion with them, because an argument that is valid for or
against one type of libertarianism may not apply to other types. This is a
cause of much argument in alt.politics.libertarian: non-libertarians may
feel that they have rebutted some libertarian point, but some other flavor
libertarian may feel that his "one true libertarianism" doesn't have that
flaw. These sorts of arguments can go on forever because both sides think
they are winning. Thus, if you want to try to reduce the crosstalk, you're
going to have to specify what flavor of libertarianism or which particular
point of libertarianism you are arguing against.

Libertarians are a small group whose beliefs are unknown to and not accepted
by the vast majority. They are utopian because there has never yet been a
libertarian society (though one or two have come close to some libertarian
ideas.) These two facts should not keep us from considering libertarian
ideas seriously, however they do caution us about accepting them for
practical purposes.

 

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