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<!-- you can have any number of categories here --> [[Category:Anonymous]] [[Category:160 Years of Libertarian]] [[Category:Libertarian Hypocrisy]] {{DES | des = An excerpt from {{Link|160 Years of Libertarian}} that describes the theft of the term "libertarian" from anarchists and socialist by right wing propertarians.|show=}} <!-- insert wiki page text here --> So, just as all anarchists are socialists but not all socialists anarchists, by the 100th anniversary of Déjacque coining the phrase the situation was that while all anarchists were libertarians, not all libertarians were anarchists -- but all were left-wing. Over the next 60 years this would change to such a degree that in America -- and, to a lesser degree, Britain -- “libertarian” now refers to the exact opposite of what it used to mean. Murray Rothbard, a founder of the so-called “libertarian” right, sheds light on how this process started: :“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence [in the late 1950s] is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy […] ‘Libertarians’ […] had long been simply a polite word for left-wing [sic!] anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over, and more properly from the view of etymology; since we were proponents of individual liberty and therefore of the individual’s right to his property.” (''[[The Betrayal of the American Right]]'', 83) Let us recall what this “proponent” of “the individual’s right to his property” had to say about names and labels: :“Every individual in the free society has a right to ownership of his own self and to the exclusive use of his own property. Included in his property is his name, the linguistic label which is uniquely his and is identified with him. A name is an essential part of a man’s identity and therefore of his property […] defense of person and property […] involves the defense of each person’s particular name or trademark against the fraud of forgery or imposture.” (''[[Man, Economy, and State]]'', 670-1) This “means the outlawing” of someone taking another’s name and pretending to be them as this would be “abusing the property right” of someone to “his unique name and individuality”. Likewise, “the use by some other chocolate firm of the Hershey label would be an equivalent of an invasive act of fraud and forgery.” This was because a “name, as we have seen, is a unique identifying label for a person (or a group >of persons acting co-operatively), and is therefore an attribute of the ''person'' and his energy” and so “is an attribute of a labour factor.” (671, 679) If someone “inherited or purchased” something which had been stolen then the thing “properly reverts back” to the original creator “or his descendants ''without'' compensation to the existing possessor of the criminally-derived ‘title.’ Thus, if a current title to property is criminal in origin, and the victim or his heir can be found, then the title should immediately revert to the latter.” (''[[The Ethics of Liberty]]'', 56) The hypocrisy is obvious. According ''to his own ideology'', Rothbard admitted to conducting “an invasive act of fraud and forgery” against “the individual’s right to his property.” Thus, if they had ''any'' actual principles beyond fetishising property and being shrills for the economically powerful, his latter-day followers would stop using the term they stole and let the modern descendants of Joseph Déjacque -- “anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety” -- use what is rightly theirs. It could be objected that anarchists do not accept Rothbard’s views of property. True, we advocate ''use'' rights rather than ''property'' rights: and we were still ''using'' the term “libertarian” -- in America, for example, the communist-anarchist ''Libertarian League'' was active between 1954 and 1965 (Sam Dolgoff, ''[[Fragments]]'', 74, 89). Yet Rothbard considers his prejudices and desires as a “natural law” and inherent in our “nature” as human beings. So, presumably like gravity, his “natural law” applies even ''if we do not believe in it'' -- unless he views, as those expropriating native tribes did, socialists as somehow less than human (but, then, his “natural law” -- unlike gravity -- needs private police to enforce it….). So we know when and why the term “libertarian” was appropriated by the right – they saw it being used by the left and simply decided to steal it. Originally, this theft was on the fringes of political discourse but the appropriated usage has mostly displaced the original one in the United States – for example, Sam Dolgoff helped found the ''Libertarian Labor Review'' in 1986 but by 1999 this was renamed to ''Anarcho-Syndicalist Review'' to avoid its sellers having to continuously explain the origins and real meaning of libertarian! How did they succeed in turning “libertarian” into its exact opposite? Partly, by the funding received by Big Business keen to secure its position, power and privileges in wider society: wealth skews the outcome in the so-called “marketplace of ideas” as in any capitalist market. Partly, by that most un-libertarian of tactics: the creation of a political party -- the Libertarian Party -- seeking to be elected to political office. So if, for genuine anarchists, property is theft for Rothbard theft is apparently property -- just as he made an exception for the expropriation of the land from native peoples, so he made an exception for the term he wished to call his ideology. We should not be surprised by this hypocrisy for it mirrors the real history of capitalism -- unlike Rothbard’s just-so stories of his imaginary idealised capitalism which has existed nowhere other than inside his fevered brow. <!-- DPL has problems with categories that have a single quote in them. 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