Difference between revisions of "What Is Libertarianism?"

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[[Category:Descriptions Of Libertarianism|100]]
 
[[Category:Descriptions Of Libertarianism|100]]
{{DES | des = Twenty views of the big picture of libertarianism.}}
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{{DES | des = 24 views of the big picture of libertarianism.}}
 
It's obvious that definitions of libertarianism by opponents are prone to bias.  By the same standard, self-serving definitions by  proponents are also prone to bias.  Because libertarianism is diverse and complex, the simple solution is to present multiple viewpoints, each true to some degree, to construct a picture of the whole.  The story of [[Blind men and an elephant]] illustrates how ridiculous clinging to a single viewpoint can be, and how building a more realistic picture would require critical acceptance of multiple viewpoints.  Viewpoints of proponents of libertarianism are well known; here are some viewpoints of opponents.
 
It's obvious that definitions of libertarianism by opponents are prone to bias.  By the same standard, self-serving definitions by  proponents are also prone to bias.  Because libertarianism is diverse and complex, the simple solution is to present multiple viewpoints, each true to some degree, to construct a picture of the whole.  The story of [[Blind men and an elephant]] illustrates how ridiculous clinging to a single viewpoint can be, and how building a more realistic picture would require critical acceptance of multiple viewpoints.  Viewpoints of proponents of libertarianism are well known; here are some viewpoints of opponents.
 
== A Rhetoric Of Liberty ==
 
== A Rhetoric Of Liberty ==
Libertarianism is united only by a rhetoric of liberty.  "Liberty" is the central [[glittering generality]] of libertarian propaganda.
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Libertarianism is united only by a rhetoric of liberty.  "Liberty" is the central [[Fallacies_Of_Philosophy#Glittering_Generalities_Of_Propaganda|glittering generality]] of libertarian propaganda.
  
 
Who can reject "liberty"?  That makes it a powerful rhetorical tool; as long as you don't start getting specific.  Different people have different ideas of liberty, and can divide over those issues.  The defense against attempts to get specific is "equal liberty", but that rhetoric also begs important questions.  If we all had equal liberty to kill each other, would we want such liberty?
 
Who can reject "liberty"?  That makes it a powerful rhetorical tool; as long as you don't start getting specific.  Different people have different ideas of liberty, and can divide over those issues.  The defense against attempts to get specific is "equal liberty", but that rhetoric also begs important questions.  If we all had equal liberty to kill each other, would we want such liberty?
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Because "he who pays the piper calls the tunes", the result is that libertarianism has benefitted major corporations and billionaires far more than it has benefitted the middle-class pot smoker (now approaching lower class.)
 
Because "he who pays the piper calls the tunes", the result is that libertarianism has benefitted major corporations and billionaires far more than it has benefitted the middle-class pot smoker (now approaching lower class.)
  
== A Catspaw For Corporations ==
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== A Catspaw For Plutocrats And Their Corporations ==
 
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.  And those authors would be looking for new jobs, as we've seen so often from think-tanks.  Professional libertarians tend to be reliant on right-wing welfare: corporate-funded employment by think-tanks, lobbying and astroturf organizations.
 
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.  And those authors would be looking for new jobs, as we've seen so often from think-tanks.  Professional libertarians tend to be reliant on right-wing welfare: corporate-funded employment by think-tanks, lobbying and astroturf organizations.
  
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== A Left-Anarchist Movement ==
 
== A Left-Anarchist Movement ==
Long ago, [[150 years of Libertarian||libertarianism everywhere meant left-anarchism]].  It is only since the 1970's that the word has come to mean right-wing supporters of capitalism in the United States.  Europeans who are very familiar with lfet-anarchism under that name can get very confused by the right-capitalist usage.  Much like soccer versus football.
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Long ago, [[Libertarian (propaganda sense)||libertarianism everywhere meant left-anarchism]].  It is only since the 1950's that the word has come to mean right-wing supporters of capitalism in the United States.  Europeans who are very familiar with lfet-anarchism under that name can get very confused by the right-capitalist usage.  Much like soccer versus football.
  
 
== A Right-Anarchist Movement ==
 
== A Right-Anarchist Movement ==
 
[[Anarchocapitalism]] is a small but very distinctive thread in libertarianism.  It promotes doing away with government entirely, which is about as radical as you can get.  They fanatasize that somehow we would not be like [[Somalia:_The_Libertarian_Paradise|Somalia]] or the [[No Libertarians in the Seventeenth-Century Highlands|Scottish Highlands]] when we do away with central government.
 
[[Anarchocapitalism]] is a small but very distinctive thread in libertarianism.  It promotes doing away with government entirely, which is about as radical as you can get.  They fanatasize that somehow we would not be like [[Somalia:_The_Libertarian_Paradise|Somalia]] or the [[No Libertarians in the Seventeenth-Century Highlands|Scottish Highlands]] when we do away with central government.
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== A Polyphyletic Nightmare ==
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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics Phylogenetics] is the science of evolutionary descent, a major part of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(general) science of taxonomy].  It can apply to more than just biology: it can apply to anything that evolves, such as philosophical ideas.  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphyly Polyphyly] is when a grouping consists of members with multiple ancestral sources, and is considered bad classification.  Adding to the problem is the issue of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticulate_evolution reticulate evolution]: where separate branches combine to make a network of origin.  This is common in political philosophy.  Libertarianism arises from different branches of many philosophies, and is united only in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoplasy homoplasy] of a rhetoric of liberty.
  
 
== A Childish Selfishness ==
 
== A Childish Selfishness ==
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== A Justification of Personal Righteousness ==
 
== A Justification of Personal Righteousness ==
"Which emphasizes the notion of virtue in selfishness and has as its historical genesis the exceptional American experience. As such, it appeals mostly to white American males who are moderately above-average in intelligence, economically secure, independently-minded, and prefer simplistic theoretical constructs for making political and moral decisions. It validates their own affluence/privilege not by group affiliation, but by inherent individual merit; and it likewise superficially validates the poverty and lack of privilege of others not on the basis of group affiliation, but inherent fault. In this it mimics a meritocratic view, which allows the libertarian to congratulate himself on his lack of bigotry; but, in fact, it is a facade behind which his true bigotry hides." [http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/what-is-libertarianism/#comment-1644385 Keith M Ellis
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"Which emphasizes the notion of virtue in selfishness and has as its historical genesis the exceptional American experience. As such, it appeals mostly to white American males who are moderately above-average in intelligence, economically secure, independently-minded, and prefer simplistic theoretical constructs for making political and moral decisions. It validates their own affluence/privilege not by group affiliation, but by inherent individual merit; and it likewise superficially validates the poverty and lack of privilege of others not on the basis of group affiliation, but inherent fault. In this it mimics a meritocratic view, which allows the libertarian to congratulate himself on his lack of bigotry; but, in fact, it is a facade behind which his true bigotry hides." [[Comments at Matt Yglesias' "What Is Libertarianism?"|Keith M Ellis]]
  
 
== A Substitute For Success ==
 
== A Substitute For Success ==
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== A Blinkered Ideology ==
 
== A Blinkered Ideology ==
Libertarianism is often easy to recognize by the things it will not consider.  For example: market failures, public goods, benefits from government, benefits from spending tax money, deadweight costs from private sources, threats to liberty from private sources, rights other than property rights, values other than economic values, social harms from private actions (such as drug usage), climate change, anything but methodological individualism, Keynesianism, etc.  "There are no market failures, only government failures" and other glib excuses or accusations are characteristic of such denialist ideology.
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Libertarianism is often easy to recognize by the things it will not consider.  For example: market failures, public goods, benefits from government, benefits from spending tax money, deadweight costs from private sources, threats to liberty from private sources, rights other than property rights, values other than economic values, social harms from private actions (such as drug usage), climate change, anything but [[Methodological Individualism (propaganda)|methodological individualism]], Keynesianism, etc.  "There are no market failures, only government failures" and other glib excuses or accusations are characteristic of such denialist ideology.
  
 
Shunning these ideas is essential for "consistency" in the beliefs of many libertarians.  If you don't admit contrary data, your theory is unfalsifiable.
 
Shunning these ideas is essential for "consistency" in the beliefs of many libertarians.  If you don't admit contrary data, your theory is unfalsifiable.

Revision as of 20:59, 26 June 2020