View source for Diversity In Libertarianism

{{Under Construction | [[Category:What Is Wrong With Libertarianism|100]]}}


{{DES | des = Libertarianism is diverse.  Libertarianism can be left or right, rationalist or antirationalist, essentialist or pragmatist, hardcore or soft core, based on rights or liberty or values, using Austrian or Chicago or other economics, statist or anarchist, political or philosophical, etc.  No argument can truly be representative of all libertarianisms.  Discussions will be incoherent if they change from one libertarianism to another without noticing.  And there is no true, correct libertarianism: that would be an essentialist fallacy.  These problems can be avoided if arguments are focussed on one specific libertarian viewpoint at a time.}}Part of [[What Is Wrong With Libertarianism]].

{{QuoteOne|David Friedman/two libertarians}}
Libertarianism is like a shopping cart, full of different items.  You've got libertines, gun loons, tax protesters, entrepreneurs, Austrians, Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, Georgists, corporate shills... the list is extensive.

Libertarianism is united only by a rhetoric of liberty.  Liberty is the central [[Fallacies_Of_Philosophy#Glittering_Generalities_Of_Propaganda|glittering generality]] of their propaganda.  Liberty is vague enough to justify any atrocity.  We routinely see libertarians living up to Barry Goldwater's "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."  It's not even the same liberty to all of them.

It would be nice if there was a simple dismissal of libertarianism, but there are so many different kinds that no one argument could apply.

== Fundamental Philosophical Diversity ==
* non-Objectivist vs. Objectivist
* rationalist vs. antirationalist
* essentialist vs. pragmatist
* deontological vs. teleological
* primacy of liberty or rights
* hardcore vs soft core
* left vs. right vs. socialist
* anarcho-capitalist vs. minarchist vs paleolibertarian

== Economic Theory Diversity ==
* Chicago School
* Virginia School (George Mason University Economics Department, Public Choice Theory)
* Austrian School
* Hayekian Weirdness

== Diversity of Positions ==
* Libertarian Party
* LP reform
* Hayekians
* Miseans
* Buchananites
* Friedmanites
* David Friedmanites
* Blockheads
* Rothbardites
* Rawlsekians
* Liberaltarians

== Diversity on Issues ==
* abortion, for and against
* UBI, for and against
* mandatory [[vaccination]], for and against

More Stuff:
metaphysical (the original use) versus political
normative (versus positive) theoryleft and right
    4 types in "Utopia"
    rationalist vs. antirationalist
    essentialist vs. pragmatist libertarians
        http://www.davidbrin.com/libertarianarticle2.html
    "Justice For The Here And Now", Sterba
        distinguishes Spencerian and Lockean libertarians, based on primacy of
        liberty or rights.  Shows how either results in requirement for basic
        positive rights.
        Rebuts Machan, Rasmussen, Hospers, Mack, and Narvesson.
    Basis of desires versus liberty.
        "Both Hayek and Rothbard maintain that, in societies like
        theirs, the desirable always concords with liberty (or maximal
        liberty). Rothbard achieved this concordance by molding his
        sensibilities about the desirable to fit his definition of
        liberty. Hayek achieved this concordance by molding his
        definition of liberty to fit his sensibilities about the
        desirable.
        http://www.vaz1.net/bill/anarchism/library/MereLibertarianism.html
    D Friedman hardcore vs soft core
        ideologues versus preferences (gut)
        http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2008/08/two-paths-for-libertarian-party.html
    Right, left, and other
        http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/
        Radical right libertarians -- such as Rothbard (1978, 1982) and Kirzner (1978)
        Lockean right-libertarians -- such as Nozick (1974)
        Georgist libertarianism -- as developed, for example, by George (1879, 1892) and Steiner (1977, 1980, 1981, 1994)
        ethical libertarianism
        political libertarianism
        philosophical libertarianism (free will)
        left/right/socialist (Karl Widerquist's encyclopedia article)
    value vs right (Narvesson)
        http://www.againstpolitics.com/libertarianism/
        (1) that liberty is the sole value to be promoted by governments and
        individuals (sometimes called the "teleological" version of
        libertarianism) and
        (2) that liberty is our sole right (sometimes called "deontological"
        libertarianism; this is the view that the word "libertarianism",
        unqualified, is generally taken to stand for nowadays.)
    "the right" versus "the good"?
    rights theory, consequentialist, human flourishing
        http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_07_28.shtml#1091184329
    Primary division of libertarians:
        consequentialists (Hume, Hayek, Epstein, Rand)
        natural rights (Nozick, etc.)
        see http://www.reason.com/9903/bk.ls.fuzzy.html
    LP vs non-LP
    LP vs LP reform
    Austrian vs. Chicago economics
    Rawlsekians
        http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/jul/28/00024//
        Rawls' liberty principle appeals to the so-called Rawlsekians, a group

        http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/jul/28/00024//
        Rawls' liberty principle appeals to the so-called Rawlsekians, a group
        of young libertarians who want to combine the views of Rawls with those
        of Friedrich Hayek, but Rawls himself was no Hayekian.
    So you can see, libertarianism can attract two types of people:
        1- Those that are libertarian because they agree with the libertarian means of minimal government.
        2- Those that are libertarian because they believe that libertarian means will produce the end result that they desire.
        http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/27/15718/5328

Samuel Freeman does a good job of showing how libertarian ideas of property differ
from liberal ideas in his "Illiberal Libertarians: Why Libertarianism Is Not a
Liberal View" paper, Philosophy & Public
Affairs, Vol. 30 n. 2. Locke is neither libertarian nor liberal on property
on this account, and I think that's the right interpretation.)
Classification of liberals.
        Having no conception of a political society, libertarians have no
        conception of the common good, those basic interests of each individual
        that according to liberals are to be maintained for the sake of justice
        by the impartial exercise of public political power. (page 149;
        footnote omitted)
        "that libertarianism's resemblance to liberalism is superficial; in the
        end, libertarians reject essential liberal institutions. Correctly
        understood, libertarianism resembles a view that liberalism historically
        defined itself against, the doctrine of private political power that
        underlies feudalism. Like feudalism, libertarianism conceives of
        justified political power as based in a network of private contracts.
        It rejects the idea, essential to liberalism, that political power is
        a public power, to be impartially exercised for the common good."
1 classical liberals:   laissez fair, but allows redistribution to preserve mkts
        allow's property-owner's state (p123)
2 high liberals:        philosophical liberalism and institutions
3 libertarians
Locke's Second Treatise par. 73, 120, 138, 139 show government has authority to
regulate, tax, and burden property for the common good.
Liberalism (classical or high) has 6 institutional features (p123):
        1. the public recognition and legal enforcement of basic rights and
           liberties equally provided for all citizens
        2. some account of equality of opportunity with open careers and
           positions
        3. a central role assigned to efficient markets in allocating
           productive resources
        4. government's role in the production of public goods
        5. government's duty to provide a social minimum
        6. the public nature of political authority

"the right" versus "the good".
"The right" in this sense is what Robyn Eckersley defines as "the idea that
the common structure of political action should constrain and limit what
elected governments may decide in the name of the state, what citizens may do
in pursuit of their own conceptions of the good life and what economic actors
may do in pursuit of economic gain."

Blends:
"[[liberaltarians]]"