View source for Introduction To Libertarianism

[[Category:Mike Huben]]
[[Category:Basics|100]]
[[Category:Descriptions Of Libertarianism|100]]

{{DES | des = The big picture of libertarianism.  Three realms of libertarianism and its place in politics.}}

==What Is Libertarianism?==

Libertarianism is a cacaphony of political ideas united only by a rhetoric of [[liberty]] and [[freedom]].  On this website, libertarianism refers only to the right-wing, capitalist versions.  At this point, libertarian ideas have entered the mainstream media and are unavoidable.  Some further description of the cacophony is available at [[What Is Libertarianism?]]

At the core of libertarianism is [[Crony Capitalism|crony capitalism]], embodied by the Kochs and some other oligarchs. This gives it the support of the wealthy and the major corporations. It is dressed up with [[Wall Street, Corporatists, Neoliberals And Plutocrats|neoliberalism]] to justify exploitation and to attract right-wing intellectual support.  It includes assorted popular pseudophilosophy about liberty (including racism) to attact the useful idiots and distract from the crony capitalism, but this pseudophilosophy ALWAYS takes second place to concentration of wealth by capitalists.

==What Libertarianism Is NOT Considered On This Website?==
[[Left-Libertarian and Anarchist Criticism|Left-wing libertarianism]]'s exist (mutualist, socialist, anarchist, etc.), but they are comparatively tiny and not big problems the way right-libertarianism is.  The criticisms here are not aimed at authors such as Proudhon, Chomsky, and Carson; not because they are above criticism, but because they would need different criticisms.  

[[Human Rights and Civil Liberties|Civil libertarianism]], such as the activities of the ACLU, is also excluded and does not fixate on capitalism the way right-libertarianism does.

Nor are we discussing the ancient, nondeterministic, philosophical libertarianism concept that means free will.

== Three Realms of Libertarianism.==

Libertarianism can be divided into three major realms.  (There might be unimportant others.)

===[[Political Libertarianism]]===
Political libertarianism is the libertarianism that we are exposed to through the media, a mass market astroturf libertarianism.

Political libertarianism, like the media, is part of the [[Class War|class war]] controlled top-down by [[plutocracy|plutocrats]] and operated for the benefit of plutocrats.  It is not about "[[liberty]]" or "[[freedom]]": it is about ownership.  The plutocrats want to convince the populace that: 
* Ownership of the vast majority of the world's wealth by plutocrats is legitimate and untouchable.
* Changing that distribution will result in assorted horrors for everybody, including loss of liberty and freedom.
The plutocrats objective is political change to get more wealth and prevent losing any wealth to taxation or other liabilities.  This is part of a process of [[Privatization of Power|privatization of power]] through [[Crony Capitalism|crony capitalism]] and massive deregulation.

Political libertarianism is dominated by [[Public Relations|public relations]] programs that have been around since at least the 1930's, reacting to [[Progressivism]].  The [[Mount Pelerin Society]] in the 1950's catalyzed a great expansion of these programs.  The [[Charles and David Koch|Koch brothers]] have largely organized or controlled the libertarian public relations programs, and they scored their first big successes in the 1980's under Reagan.  Without the billions of dollars pumped into public relations programs, right-wing political libertarianism would be just another fringe political belief as small as left-libertarianism.

In an effort to recruit to the cause, political libertarianism has long emphasized protecting the existing advantages of privileged whites.

For more on this, see the [[Political Libertarianism]] index.
===[[Issues|Individualistic Libertarianism]]===
Individualistic libertarianism is what the targets of political libertarianism believe.  This is a huge morass of conflicting ideas with only one constant: the political libertarian idea that ownership should be sacred.  Ask a libertarian what part of ownership they would give up to achieve any other social end, and they will say no part.  It doesn't matter if some socialistic government (such as roads or defense) would benefit the lives of everybody; they despise it because it conflicts with their property, no matter how meager.

Individualistic libertarians are in large part shaped by the propaganda organs of Political Libertarianism.  For example, the [[Libertarian Party]], the [[Cato Institute]], [[Reason Magazine]] and many other sources are parts of the [[Kochtopus]], a huge number of organizations and publications founded, funded, or controlled by [[Charles and David Koch]] over roughly 40 years.  These in turn direct recruits to a number of [[Fundamental Libertarian Books|fundamental books]] that help indoctrinate the important propaganda themes.

Individualistic libertarianism is bottom-up: it is not controlled directly by political libertarians beyond manipulation by propaganda.  These useful idiots can be relied upon to inject libertarian viewpoints into discussions that are not controlled by the mass media.  They are as welcome as door-to-door evangelists from another religion.

Individualistic libertarianism ranges from the honorable and sincere to the vile and repulsive, with stops along the way for the immature, foolish, and intemperate.  You've got your government haters, racists, sexists, pederasts, conspiracy theorists, tax evaders, exploiters and other socially repulsive types generously represented in this category.  Especially because they are rejected by mainstream parties for obnoxious views.  That's not entirely bad, as Noam Chomsky has observed: libertarians have great tolerance of diverse views as long as they denounce government and promote private property.

For more on this, see the [[Issues]] index.

===[[Philosophy|Libertarian Philosophy]]===

Libertarian philosophy is mostly corrupt: much of it is funded by plutocrats to provide ideas, materials and formal credentials for their public relations campaigns.  [[Hayek]], for example, never held an academic position that wasn't funded by plutocrats.  [[Milton Friedman]] and [[Robert Nozick]] might seem exceptions to this funding generalization, until you consider what class Harvard and the [[Chicago Economics|University Of Chicago]] serve (both are private universities relying on wealthy funders.).

Libertarian philosophy, even when not corrupt, has also in large part been subverted by two generations of promotion of [[Libertarian Propaganda Terms|libertarian propaganda terms]].  Hayek described this totalitarian practice as [[The_Road_to_Serfdom/Perversion_Of_Language|the complete perversion of language]], and most libertarian philosophy is the victim of political libertarian subversion of English terms such as [[freedom]], [[liberty]], [[Free Market|free market]], [[Classical Liberal|classical liberal]] and many others.

Libertarian philosophy, like most moral philosophy, is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball Calvinball]. Rules are made up as you go. Assumptions are added as needed to get the desired results. Every conclusion can be reversed by the addition of a sufficiently potent assumption. The fancy name for this is defeasible argument. The result is that libertarian philosophy is a post-hoc intellectual excuse for previously chosen positions. It can also serve as a quick introduction of where selected assumptions can lead, with the caveat that with minor tweaks the entirely opposite results can hold.
For more on this, see the [[Philosophy]] index.

==Why Is Libertarianism Important?==
For the same reason why Fascism is important: it is a noxious ideology that would lead to great repression and suffering.  It is an ideology that would roll back the [[Progressivism|progressive]] and [[Social Democracy|social democratic]] policies that have diminished poverty and brought about the largest [[Middle Class|middle classes]] the world has ever known.  It is an ideology that would diminish [[democracy]] and promote [[plutocracy]].
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