From Wikipedia, not dunking on you, I just thought this was a very clear explanation of why right-wing libertarianism is the anomaly:
In the mid-19th century,[10] libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[11] especially social anarchists,[12] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists.[13][14]
These libertarians sought to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty.[19] While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources.[20] Left-libertarian[26] ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school.[30]
I can’t be the only person who had to lookup usufruct right?
I don’t know who wrote that Wikipedia article but it’s really really wrong. Libertarian as a leftist idea actually surfaces in the early to mid 20th century, at the same time as the mostly unrelated right wing libertarianism. They had maybe a decade head start on using the term. It really gets going around 1920 when leftist political philosophers start trying to synthesize lessons from all of the different sections of communism.
The mid 19th century is Karl Marx. The citations mostly talk about anarchism. One of them expressly says to call yourself a whole ass anarchist. So as best as I can tell this is a case where left and right wing editors have gone back and forth on the page with little oversight from political historians and left us with a page that doesn’t reflect reality.
The word “Libertaire” (french for left-wing libertarian, the amercian libertarian is called “Libertarien”) was created in 1857 to differentiate from “Libéral” (which could be seen as an equivalent to nowadays liberals). In France it is still used as a synonym for ‘Anarchist’, though it has a wider sense, since it describes any left-wing movement that opposes authority/power (so libertarian communists that do not accept the “anarchist” label are still included in the “Libertaire” label). The Wikipedia page seems well written from what I know.
@LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net Good luck in your reclaming of the word. There are parts of the world and languages in which it is still a powerful and unifying word for anti-authoritarian left, english language can still evolve this way !
Similar to anarchism with a large overlap but I would say it includes other related ideologies as well. To be an anarchist I think you need to be very anti-capitalist and very anti-state. I think left libertarianism needs to be at minimum very skeptical of all authority structures but not necessarily opposed to them in all circumstances.
For myself, I’d like to get to anarchy long term but I see more of a gradual transition happening. So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
That could just mean that you’re an “evolutionary” (as contrasted with “revolutionary”) anarchist.
Yeah I can see how many people might call me an anarchist but I don’t use that term because there are a small number of annoying gatekeepers and I just don’t care to argue with them. Also, I have significant disagreements with most anarchists—although maybe that’s normal for anarchists 😅
So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
That’s like saying you’re ok with leaving a malignant tumour whose entire purpose is to infect the rest of your body in your brain because it’s easier than having surgery to remove it.
A system that by definition seeks growth at all costs is not a viable partner for change, never mind progress. Never will be.
I’m not viewing them as partners or saying they should be left unchanged. The fight against these structures doesn’t need to be all or nothing.
The cancer metaphor is apt. When a tumor is embedded in vital organs, you don’t simply operate and hope for the best. You pursue other strategies to try to shrink the tumor instead.
Like it or not, billions of people today depend on the state and capitalism to meet their basic needs for survival. While I would like to start taking radical steps to disassemble that dependency, not all elements of the state and capitalism are equally necessary and not all are equally harmful. While there as some elements that are so harmful they need to be stopped as soon as possible (the war machine, coal power, etc.) there are others that are more benign and can be retained while we build alternatives.
In my mind, markets are a great example of such a feature. While today’s markets emphasize growth to meet the needs of the wealthy, it seems quite possible to engineer markets that behave differently. Markets are not inherently evil—they’re merely decentralized optimization algorithms that operate on the knowledge of the masses. But of course if you optimize to satisfy the whims of a tiny minority of people, of course you’ll have a terrible outcome. But can we design markets that optimize for human and ecological well-being? Maybe not perfectly but certainly to a much, much greater extent than today. And as right-libertarians correctly point out, markets, by their decentralized nature, avoid the concentration of power that is necessary in a centrally planned economy.
Long term, I hope that mutual aid will be able to replace most or all market activities. And I certainly support efforts to develop those networks out starting today. But there’s never been a mutual aid network anywhere near the scale we need and there are a lot of potential pitfalls to navigate there. I think it’s smart to pursue multiple strategies and see which works best in a given situation.
