Difference between revisions of "What Is Libertarianism?"

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[[Category:Basics|400]]
 
[[Category:Basics|400]]
 
{{DES | des = Several views of the big picture of libertarianism.}}
 
{{DES | des = Several views of the big picture of libertarianism.}}
== A Rightwing Populist Movement ==
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== A Rightwing Populist Movement In Miniature ==
 
While libertarians may profess socially left ideas such as freedom of choice, their right-conservatism becomes obvious if you ask them what parts of the right-wing economic agenda they'd be willing to sacrifice to realize their left social goals. They just won't give up their opposition to government and taxation, nor will they give up their allegiance to absolute property. No matter what social goals you propose in exchange. (This is a generalization -- of course some individual exceptions occur.)
 
While libertarians may profess socially left ideas such as freedom of choice, their right-conservatism becomes obvious if you ask them what parts of the right-wing economic agenda they'd be willing to sacrifice to realize their left social goals. They just won't give up their opposition to government and taxation, nor will they give up their allegiance to absolute property. No matter what social goals you propose in exchange. (This is a generalization -- of course some individual exceptions occur.)
 
== A Catspaw For Corporations ==
 
== A Catspaw For Corporations ==
A great deal of libertarian literature can be viewed as written by corporate catspaws. Sure they can throw in the occasional socially liberal complaint about warmongering to genuflect towards the purported ideology, but they do NOT bite the corporate hand that feeds them. Otherwise they'd be pointing out that corporations are government creations of special privilege, and asking that they be abolished the way they ask that public schools be abolished.
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A great deal of libertarian literature is written by corporate hirelings. Sure they can throw in the occasional socially liberal complaint about warmongering to genuflect towards the purported ideology, but they do NOT bite the corporate hand that feeds them. Otherwise they'd be pointing out that corporations are government creations of special privilege, and asking that they be abolished the way they ask that public schools be abolished.
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== A Philosophical Fairytale ==
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There are three dominant libertarian fairytales.  They are natural rights, Nozickian night-watchman state, and Objectivism.  All three are non-positivist: they are not founded on observable facts and just plain make stuff up that contradicts what's known of reality.  Each has produced large, complicated apologetics that attempt to explain away their myriad failings.  Like science, they create models, but unlike science their models cannot be validated because they presume the unobservable.
 
== Snarky Definitions ==
 
== Snarky Definitions ==

Revision as of 09:58, 20 September 2010