Portal:Libertarianism

Introduction

Libertarianism (from French: libertaire, lit. 'libertarian'; or from Latin: libertas, lit. 'freedom') is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the non-aggression principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.

Libertarianism has been broadly shaped by liberal ideas. Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. (Full article...)

Selected article

Left-libertarianism (or left-wing libertarianism) names several related, but distinct approaches to political and social theory which stress both individual freedom and social equality. In its classical usage, libertarianism is a synonym for anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics, e.g. libertarian socialism, which includes anarchism and libertarian Marxism, among others.

Left-libertarianism can also refer to political positions associated with academic philosophers Hillel Steiner, Philippe Van Parijs and Peter Vallentyne that combine self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. While maintaining full respect for personal property, they are skeptical of or fully against private property, arguing that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights and maintain that natural resources (land, oil, gold and vegetation) should be held in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Those left-libertarians who support private property do so under the condition that recompense is offered to the local community. Many schools of thought are communist, advocating the eventual replacement of money with labor vouchers or decentralized planning.

On the other hand, left-wing market anarchism, which includes Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's mutualism and Samuel Edward Konkin III's agorism, appeals to left-wing concerns such as egalitarianism, gender and sexuality, class, immigration and environmentalism within the paradigm of a socialist free market. In the United States, the word "libertarian" has become associated with right-libertarianism after Murray Rothbard and Karl Hess reached out to the New Left in the 1960s. However, until then political usage of the word was associated exclusively with anti-capitalism and in most parts of the world such an association still predominates.

...Archive

Selected quote

“

My idea of a perfect government is one guy who sits in a small room at a desk, and the only thing he's allowed to decide is who to nuke. The man is chosen based on some kind of IQ test, and maybe also a physical tournament, like a decathlon. And women are brought to him, maybe...when he desires them.

”

— Ron Swanson (2009)
Parks and Recreation (Season 1)

Selected picture

The porcupine is used to represent libertarianism in the United States because it is a defensive animal that does not harm anyone who leaves it alone and for this reason many right-libertarian groups and publications, including the Free State Project, use the porcupine for a mascot

General images

The following are images from various libertarianism-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Tea Party movement protest in Washington, D.C., September 2009 (from Libertarianism)
Image 217 August 1860 edition of Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social, a libertarian communist publication in New York City (from Libertarianism)
Image 3Spanish anarchist militiawomen during the 1936 Revolution (from Libertarianism)
Image 4Murray Bookchin, American libertarian socialist theorist and proponent of libertarian municipalism and communalism (from Libertarianism)
Image 5Former congressman Ron Paul, a self-described libertarian, whose presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 garnered significant support from youth and libertarian Republicans (from Libertarianism)
Image 6Gary Chartier, a left-libertarian of the free-market anti-capitalist school (from Left-libertarianism)
Image 7Members of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo marching in Madrid in 2010 (from Libertarianism)
Image 8The Nolan Chart, created by American libertarian David Nolan, expands the left–right line into a two-dimensional chart classifying the political spectrum by degrees of personal and economic freedom. (from Libertarianism)
Image 9Sébastien Faure, prominent French theorist of libertarian communism as well as atheist and freethought militant (from Libertarianism)
Image 10Thomas Paine, whose theory of property showed a libertarian concern with the unequal distribution of resources under statism (from Libertarianism)
Image 11A diagram of the typology of beliefs in libertarianism (both left and right, respectively) (from Libertarianism)
Image 12Murray Bookchin, a left-libertarian (formerly) of the social anarchist school (from Left-libertarianism)
Image 13The Political Compass: the green quadrant represents left-libertarianism and the purple right-libertarianism (from Libertarianism)
Image 14John Locke, regarded as the father of liberalism (from Libertarianism)

Selected biography -

Stossel in 2025

John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, political activist, and pundit. He is known for his career as a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network, and Reason TV.

Stossel's style combines reporting and commentary. It reflects a "small L" libertarian political philosophy and views on economics which are largely supportive of the free market. He began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV, was a consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City, and then joined ABC News as a consumer editor and reporter on Good Morning America. Stossel became an ABC News correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program 20/20, and later became a co-anchor. In October 2009, Stossel left ABC News to join the Fox Business Network. He hosted a weekly news show on Fox Business, Stossel, from December 2009 to December 2016. In 2019, Stossel launched StosselTV, an online channel distributed on social media. (Full article...)