I like any political map that triangulates liberals from the left and right.
And I love any one that properly omits libertarians.
I am getting more and more confused.
Liberty ≈ Freedom.
Liberal is someone beliveing in something adjacent to freedom. Libertarian is someone believing in something adjecent to freedom.
But I only hear bad things about liberals, alright I already knew 'Merricans are stupid, they get angry about a word while not even being autistic. But I also somethymes hear about libertarians. what the fuck is that supposed to be, especially compared to its namely cousin?
Well I know I’m not being entirely fair to the poor, old 'Murricans, there surely is something they all know about their system, that has not yet reached me. Still calling someone by one of your core tenets ('Murrica, land of the free, home to lady liberty…) and believing that to be an unterstandible slur sure is weird.
Sorry, Bud. The names are mostly just advertisements and not necessarily useful for understanding the underlying philosophy.
American Liberalism (capital ‘L’) is fluid over time at best in its philosophy, and is actively shifting to further elitist interests from a less charitable perspective. It often prioritises corporations over people and cherry picks which cases of violence are or aren’t acceptable by the state.
American Libertarianism (again, capital ‘L’) is Anarcho-capitalism, which believes the world would be a better place if the state was bordering on non-existent, and companies were allowed to operate completely unregulated.
Libertarianism isn’t nearly as extreme as anarcho capitalism. It argues for minimal government where possible, but still supports governments providing military and law enforcement, emergency services, etc. The libertarian party, for example, is basically what Republicans were pre-trump on fiscal and economic issues, but without any desire to restrict stuff like gay marriage or marijuana. A libertarian is as much an anarcho capitalist as a socialist is a communist (they’re not).
Libertarian has two different meanings, depending on who you talk two.
In the modern day, and unless they qualify it, “libertarianism = anarcho-capitalism”.
Classical libertarianism (sometimes left libertarianism, or libertarian socialism) is more akin to anarcho-syndicalism. Advocacy for ownership of the means of production via trade unions and the like, with the goal of obsoleting the state and capitalism, that kinda thing.
EDIT: Also, capital-L “Liberalism” in the US is more than a little bit of a departure from liberalism. It’s mostly evolved into a meaningless pejorative the far right uses against the center-left (and when I say that, I’m talking about center-left from an American perspective, so really more center-right)
what the fuck am I talking about?
well im confused. so what do you wanna do about it?
