Talk:Libertarianism/Archive 38

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Set of philosophies?

Neither of the cited sources (both Rothbard) supports the claim of the opening sentence, that Libertarianism "is a set of related political philosophies..." --B2C 06:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

How would you phrase it differently? Starting out with Rothbard references for "liberty as the highest political end" does seem a bit obscure (as there are better-known writers on this topic), but the "set of related political philosophies" part of the statement seems to be reasonably well supported through the article.

1. "set" meaning "a number of things of the same kind that belong or are used together" (i.e. political groups all describing themselves as anti-authoritarian)
2. "related" because they oppose state and/or private authority, in some capacity, to one or another extent
3. "political philosophies" because they represent bodies of critical ideas concerning "topics such as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law"

Maybe there is a better way to phrase this? Finx (talk) 08:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I missed it, but I don't see Rothbard describing libertarianism as being comprised of multiple distinct (related or not) philosophies. Beyond that, it doesn't make sense for any -ism to refer to multiple philosophies or belief systems or whatever. Every -ism is a separate and distinct philosophy or belief system.

Is there a better way to phrase it? Is there a way to divide by zero? I think it's unhelpful to have one article about multiple topics, just because they have been given the same name and are related. Each major libertarianism is fundamentally different, because each is based on a different conception of liberty. They're each called "libertarianism" because each upholds some form of "liberty", but since they're based on different concepts of liberty, they are fundamentally different. In particular, Rothbard makes no mention of "libertarian socialism", though he does say socialism has "manifestly failed, politically and economically", yet our article includes LS as part of "libertarianism". That is, Rothbard does not even refer to "libertarian socialism", let alone include it in his conception of "libertarianism".

Put another way, any statement that starts with "Libertarianism is ..." must be referring to one of several uses of the term; which one depends on the context. If the context is Rothbard, that use is not libertarian socialism. The sentence will be nonsensical if "libertarianism" is referring to all uses of the term. Yet that's exactly what we try to do. Worse, we try to cover all philosophies that happen to be named libertarianism in this article, rather than having separate articles about each distinct major flavor of libertarianism.

My major objection is to the inclusion of "libertarian socialism" in this article. Maybe the others are related close enough, but LS is a beast of its own, starting with a different conception of liberty. --B2C 09:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

"I don't see Rothbard describing" - Rothbard didn't describe it that way, it's just an accurate summary of the content of the article. "it doesn't make sense for any -ism to refer to multiple philosophies or belief systems or whatever" - there's a ton of articles describing conflicting ideologies all sharing the same label: criminal justice (restorative vs. retributive), conservatism (divine-right monarchism/theocracy or secular 'progressive conservatism'), socialism (a gamut from Tuckerite individualism to unreconstructed Stalinism). "In particular, Rothbard makes no mention of 'libertarian socialism'" - oh, yes he does:

Rothbard, Murray (2007). The Betrayal of the American Right. Auburn (Ala.): Ludwig von Mises Institute. ISBN 1933550139. One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy[...] 'Libertarians'[...] had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over...

"If the context is Rothbard, that use is not libertarian socialism" - of course not, and Rothbard was well aware, having stated that "capturing" the word for propaganda was a major victory. Libertarianism is, however, a description of any one of a number of political camps promoting themselves anti-authoritarian. That part applies to Rothbard and Kropotkin alike. Whenever discussing history or the core of the ideas, yes, context does matter. "My major objection is to the inclusion of 'libertarian socialism' in this article. Maybe the others are related close enough, but LS is a beast of its own, starting with a different conception of liberty." - So? Is there any basis for that objection other than personal preference? How is this different than highly conflicting ideologies calling themselves conservative, for example?

Just for the sake of it though, let's assume everyone decides this is a special case that needs two articles. Why do you assume so casually that CATO and the USLP should stay and lib-soc is what doesn't belong? Why not the converse? Why not an article describing Dejacque, left communism, the situationist international, insurrectionists, autonomists, platformists, etc, with a little bitty blurb at the top that says "perhaps you're looking for this other recent thing also incidentally labeled libertarian in one or two countries in the world"? It's amazing how the US has so little of the world's population, and yet I've not seen anyone insisting that all this Koch brothers stuff belongs some other place. fi (talk) 10:51, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to be a little more constructive, this has come up before, and my own opinion hasn't changed much. I think this article should make very clear, from the start, that "libertarianism" is not a singular, coherent ideology but a word applied to (and self-applied by) multiple groups with often almost diametrically opposed political views, which can be irreconcilable and antagonistic to one another. I think it's very bad to evade or try to obscure that fact; I just don't think separate articles are necessary to describe what has been called libertarian in the not-quite-two-centuries of that word's political use. There are more detailed articles already available for both Libertarianism in the United States and Libertarian Socialism and even the less prominent groups mentioned here, like Geolibertarians, etc. There is no article tracing the history all "libertarian" groups and movements, indiscriminately, whether or not they all happen to agree. In other words, if there was a notable white-ultra-nationalist group, or a group of puritans calling itself "libertarian" in a socio-economic/political context, then it does warrant coverage here. We should contextualize the best we can and leave it to the historians and anthropologists to comment on why they chose that name. fi (talk) 11:27, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Finx, I mostly agree with what you've said here. We need to be explicit about the differences between these ideologies, but all libertarian philosophies do share commitments to liberty, diminution of government power, and individual autonomy. The consequences and phraseology differ, such as right-libertarians supporting self-ownership, minimal government, and private property. I tried to accomplish this when I first proposed changes to the lead: the first paragraph should explain these shared commitments, the second should explain the differences between the major currents, and anything beyond that should present historical information.

Another point to make is that, some time ago, we decided to minimize coverage of libertarian socialism here because it has its own article with a more thorough treatment. I reduced a lot of this in the changes I made, but the "Libertarian socialism" section was edit warred back into the "History" after the edit was discussed. I think we ought to honor this agreement or work toward a new consensus. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:13, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not all too surprised that editors had a problem with removing libertarian socialism from a more-or-less chronological description of the history of people who use the label. That just gives the impression of erasing it from history. On the other hand, reduction sounds fine to me, where appropriate. I see no reason to duplicate articles, if we can summarize the relevant parts and link instead. The same does apply to "Libertarianism in the United States" by the way. This article just needs more of its own content, with links to main articles where that's appropriate. Other than that, I think we agree. Different people all see themselves as proponents of liberty and clearly disagree about what liberty means. fi (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree, B2C. This article should discuss libertarianism, as the term is commonly used (on both sides of the pond), with a disambig section for other uses. The simple fact is that, regardless of claims to the contrary, major encyclopedias and mainstream media sources use the term libertarianism (logically) to refer to classical liberalism, while fringe and biased sources use it to mean the opposite. And if this article is going to discuss other uses, it should clearly say that the term is being used differently (disambiguate it). Lockean One (talk) 14:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

All of your major encyclopedias are written by classical liberals... you don't think that's a biased sampling of sources??? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:13, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course I do, there are no unbiased sources. But the fact remains that "major encyclopedias" are far more representative of society than the sources used in this article to contradict them. That doesn't mean Wikipedia shouldn't mention them, but it does mean that they are the exception rather than the general rule. The term "libertarianism" is generally used to refer to classical liberalism, biased or not. Lockean One (talk) 00:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

So you would support a reduction but not complete removal of anarchism from this article? Minimize the coverage of libertarian socialism so that classical liberalism has the bulk of the content? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:21, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I have never suggested removal of anarchism (in general), only socialism, and only separation or disambiguation, not actual removal from Wikipedia. In fact, I think "Libertarian Socialism" should be described (separately) in much more detail than it currently is in its own article, since reading it leaves far more unanswered questions than answers. I think "Libertarian Socialism" should be covered separately because it is very different (to say the least), but if it is covered here, it should be differentiated accurately, including disambiguating all the terms that are used differently by socialists than how they are used in common speech or in dictionaries. The former would be far more practical than the latter. Lockean One (talk) 00:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like you do want to remove the common meaning of anarchism (i.e. libertarian socialism) then. I don't agree with that, but I would support a reduction. In fact, that was the consensus before, and I'm just trying to determine whether this decision needs to be revisited. As for terminology, I think we need to use terms in accordance with their meanings in political philosophy, not with what the general populace thinks. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to terms that socialists use differently from their standard meanings, not terms used in political philosophy that are unfamiliar to the general populace. But even the latter shouldn't be used without specifically defining them. It is Wikipedia policy to use standard English. Lockean One (talk) 16:15, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious to know what terms socialists use differently from their standard meanings; honestly, I doubt this claim very much. I do agree that we should be careful to define the terms we use here, but we still should be using the terms accurately (i.e. an article on political philosophy should use terms consistent with the academic field). If we can agree on that much, we can hopefully move on to improving the article. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree about accuracy, but I'd say consistent with standard dictionaries, since the article is intended for a general audience. And any term used differently should be specifically defined. As far as examples, I seem to remember you using the word "wrong" to describe the standard dictionary definition of "private property" specifically because it wasn't the way socialists use the term, although it was exactly the way non-socialists use the term (ie "movable property (as distinguished from real estate) [syn: personal property]" or "land or belongings owned by a person or group and kept for their exclusive use"). How can you say you "doubt that claim very much" when we have already discussed how at least one term is used differently by socialists than in standard dictionaries and by classical liberals. (If I have you confused with another editor, I apologize, I'm too lazy to search for it now) As far as other terms used differently, I'm too lazy (again) to try to list and explain them at the moment, but if you don't recognize "private property" as one of them, there wouldn't be much point, anyway. Lockean One (talk) 05:44, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I stand by my initial objection. None of the cited sources support the opening statement. The word libertarianism is obviously used in various sources to refer to different related philosophies. Some sources like Rothbard acknowledge the different uses of the word. But we don't have articles about words; we have articles about topics. If we can't agree that one of the topics to which "libertarianism" refers is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then there should be a dab page at Libertarianism (like there is at Mercury). But combining libertarian socialism with what is the more prevalent use of the term in the English speaking world today in one article, because both topics share the same name and are both socio-political concepts, makes almost as little sense as incorporating the contents of Mercury (element) and Mercury (planet) into one article at Mercury because they both share the same name and are both scientific concepts.

Such unnatural combinations forces us to use contrived and awkward constructs, like this introductory sentence, which is not only grist for disagreement and conflict, but arguably a violation of WP:NOR. The insistence to keep them combined baffles me. It's totally confusing and unhelpful. --B2C 17:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

More to the point, libertarianism is NOT "a set of related political philosophies...". That's like saying mercury is a set of a concepts. It makes no sense. Mercury is an element. Mercury is not an element. Both sentences are true, depending on which mercury is being used. But the following statement is not true: mercury is and is not an element. That would be using two different meanings of the same word at once. It's nonsensical. And that's what this article is, nosensensical, for the same reason: it's trying to use one word to refer to two (or more) distinct meanings at once.

Now here is a statement that is true: "Libertarianism", the word, like "mercury", is a homonym. All of its meanings are socio-economic philosophies related to some concept of liberty, but essentially they are distinct, and it's impossible to coherently have the word refer to all of the meanings in any particular context. --B2C 17:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Now here is a statement that is true: "Libertarianism", the word, like "mercury", is a homonym.

Quick! Alert the dictionaries, because they all got it wrong! — goethean 17:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Rothbard is correct, that libertarianism is an ideology that supports liberty. They disagree among themselves in how that should be achieved. In the same sense, socialism is an ideology that supports equality, but socialists disagree on what approach to take. In both cases there is a shared history and core literature. TFD (talk) 17:49, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The various types of socialism all have much more in common than do property rights libertarianism and libertarian socialism. The libertarian socialism sense of the word, at least referred to explicitly as just "libertarianism", is so obscure, dictionaries don't even recognize it. --B2C 17:58, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

It's so obscure that it was the only definition for over a century and was used as the exclusive meaning of libertarian by both George Woodcock and Robert Graham? And you really think self-described socialists have more in common? Maybe Benjamin Tucker and Joseph Stalin would have made good dinner pals? fi (talk) 18:29, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Born2cycle, I don't know why you're so baffled by a pretty simple concept. There are, as MisterDub put it, several political camps/ideologies claiming "commitments to liberty, diminution of [state] power, and individual autonomy" - at least three distinct groups. Some of them (like the ones around since Dejacque) claim that the fullest liberty can be achieved by abolishing both capital and state; some of them claim that the fullest liberty can be achieved by curtailing/privatizing state functions through deregulation and devolution into the hands of private enterprise, extending vast or limitless power to capital to do what it does unhindered; some of them claim that the fullest liberty can be achieved if capital is only modified or restricted in a few very particular ways. Respectively, those loose groups are:

1. labor radicals, anarchists (individualists, syndicalists, etc), certain marxists (left communists, council communists - depending on whom you ask, autonomists, etc)
2. various advocates of laissez faire capitalism, typically with links to USLP, CATO (or Reason, AFP or name your favorite Koch-funded NPO), Rand, Rothbard, Hess, Mises and heterodox economics, to some extent Hayek, etc
3. geolibertarians, georgists, a few other not-quite-socialists

There's no homonyms here and it's really not that confusing when explained properly. As the quote above shows (and there's others like it I can provide), when what Ayn Rand described as the new right chose labels like "libertarian" and "anarcho-", it wasn't just some weird coincidence. Some leading figures consciously decided, a bit like Falangist fascists who draped themselves in red and black to mimic anarchist style/rhetoric, that it would be tactically useful to appropriate the language of the left, claiming to do what they claim to do, only better. So, the connection was chosen quite a few decades ago by people like Rothbard and it's really not our call to make. fi (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Those three bullets above make my point. There is no coherent use of the word "libertarianism" that refers to all three meanings. The word is used to refer to each of the three distinct meanings, but not to ALL of them at once. That's a homonym, by definition. Each meaning should have its own article. An article about all three is going to necessarily be incoherent and disjointed, full of awkward and contrived statements, like this one is. --B2C 18:12, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

"There is no coherent use of the word 'libertarianism' that refers to all three meanings." - sure there is. A libertarian is an advocate of social and political/economic liberty. The same way, a socialist is someone who wants socialism, a conservative is someone who wants to preserve traditions and values and a criminal justice activist is someone who wants justice for criminals. People disagree about what those things are exactly and how to achieve them. It doesn't mean that the words become useless, just because people with very different or opposite views both decided to use them. fi (talk) 18:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

FWIW though, I think Mercury-style disambiguation page would at least be kind of funny. "Did you want Libertarianism (political philosophy), Libertarianism (political philosophy) or Libertarianism (political philosophy)?" fi (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

More like

• Anarchism
• Minarchism
• Libertarian socialism
• Geolibertarianism
• Georgism
• Etc.

I'm sorry, but that statement is not coherent. It is meaningless, or at least uselessly ambiguous, because for it to apply to each of the three types of libertarians, the word "liberty", and the phrase "social and political/economic liberty", must be interpreted very differently. It's like saying, "Mercury is a heavy entity comprised of atoms". It's contrived to technically apply to both the element and planet named mercury, but it says nothing with clarity. Neither does your statement. Neither can any statement that attempts to use "libertarian" or "libertarianism" in a way that applies for all uses of those words. And when you try to adhere to such a restriction, not just in one 10-word sentence, but in an entire article, the result is an incoherent mess, like this article is, starting with the opening nonsensical sentence. --B2C 19:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

"the word 'liberty', and the phrase 'social and political/economic liberty', must be interpreted very differently." - yes, and again, the same can be said for conservative, socialist, liberal, etc. We don't have any control over people who redefine the crux of political terms. All an encyclopedic article can do is note, in a disinterested manner, that a wide variety of people refer to themselves (or are referred to) as conservatives. You need a more convincing argument to turn every political label into a giant disambiguation page. There are reasons why all of these different groups call themselves libertarian. They each see themselves as the true advocates of maximum liberty. That's not a band-the-musical-ensemble vs band-the-elastic-loop-of-stretchy-rubber distinction. fi (talk) 19:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Put another way... without a clear definition of "social and political/economic liberty", the following statement is meaningless:

A libertarian is an advocate of social and political/economic liberty.

But if you clearly define "social and political/economic liberty", then you're referring to one of the types of libertarians, not all of them. In other words, you simply moved the ambiguity from "libertarian" to "liberty". --B2C 19:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The world is a complicated place. If every concept was clearly and uncontroversially defined, there would be little need for disinterest or neutrality. fi (talk) 19:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The concept of "liberty" has been understood since antiquity, and is clearly defined in dictionaries all around the world. It basically means "freedom of action" or "freedom from restriction". The only controversy is created by those who choose to use such a commonly understood term to refer to a completely different (and far more vague) concept. Lockean One (talk) 00:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

That is not true. There is a conservative view of freedom where only a loyal subject of the king can be free. ~

That's a non sequitur. Your conclusion "that is not true" does not logically follow from that observation. Lockean One (talk) 15:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not really freedom. — goethean 15:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Your sarcastic "No true Scotsman" analogy is way off the mark and way off topic. My comments above were about the meaning of the term "liberty" not what is or isn't "really freedom". Lockean One (talk) 00:00, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

You said that the concept of liberty has been understood since antiquity. But my point is that there are different conceptions of liberty, and when writers in antiquity wrote about liberty, they did not have the same conception as the average member of the Libertarian Party USA today. In modern times, Frank S. Meyer drew a distinction between Liberty which he espoused, and libertinism, which he said Rothbard and others supported. TFD (talk) 16:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

LOL, again, I was referring to the meaning of the term "liberty", not which liberties are supported (or not) by whom. The meaning of the term itself, ie "freedom of action". The same exact meaning of the term used by both "writers in antiquity" and the Libertarian Party, even if they disagree about what specific liberties should be supported. Lockean One (talk) 16:32, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

ROFL, defining liberty as freedom is a tautology. Freedom and liberty are synonyms, but one derives from German while the other derives from Latin. TFD (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Just to give one example.

Democracy and aristocracy alike belong to the stage where some are free, despotism to that where one is free, and monarchy to that in which all are free.

— Bertrand Russell, describing Hegel's philosophy, A History of Western Philosophy, p667

Please don't "guess" at things like this just because something sounds right to you ideologically. fi (talk) 19:52, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Please be civil and stop making false statements about other editors. Your incessant falsehoods and personal attacks are disruptive and violate several Wikipedia policies. If you choose to delete your comments above, you may delete this post as well. Lockean One (talk) 06:11, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The point is that although classical writers wrote about liberty or freedom they did not mean what the average member of the Libertarian Party USA means by the term. TFD (talk) 06:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they did, assuming you mean classical liberal writers. They used the term "liberty" to mean "freedom of action". The Libertarian Party uses it to mean "freedom of action". They may disagree about which particular actions people should have the freedom to perform, but not the meaning of the term itself. Are you confusing multiple referents with multiple definitions? Lockean One (talk) 08:11, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

By classical I meant people writing in classical history not during the classical period of liberalism. You are the one who said "The concept of "liberty" has been understood since antiquity...." We are talking about Plato and Aristotle, not Malthus and Ricardo. And to say liberty=freedom is a tautology. It is like saying the US is defined as the USA. TFD (talk) 08:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

LOL, Plato and Aristotle also used the term liberty to mean "freedom of action". And liberty=freedom is not a tautology. They are synonyms when used in the same sense, but not in "every possible interpretation". The term freedom (unlike liberty) is often used to refer to a mere absence of something, ie "freedom from cancer", "freedom from head lice", "freedom from want", "freedom from vaginal dryness", etc. The term liberty, as used by Plato and Aristotle, did not refer to those latter types of freedom, they referred to freedom of action. Lockean One (talk) 20:03, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

ROFLOL Be very interested to know where you got your info. The English words liberty and freedom both translate into the Classical Greek word eleutheria. Aristotle would not have defined "eleutheria" as "eleutheria of action", because as the author of Logic he would have identified its circularity. And Plato's model of freedom was the Republic, complete with a rigid class system ruled by a philosopher king and aristocrats. Incidentally, your examples are extremely vulgar. TFD (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

LOL, you seem confused about what the term "tautology" means. It does not mean "can be translated into the same Greek word". And it doesn't mean that two terms can be or often are used as synonyms. It means that terms are necessarily interchangeable under every possible interpretation, which is clearly false, since no one ever says "liberty of action" ("of action" would be redundant with "liberty", but not with "freedom"). Perhaps less obvious in this context is that the term freedom, unlike liberty, may also refer to a concept in math and physics (degrees of freedom, an objects freedom to rotate, etc). Freedom=liberty is simply and obviously not a tautology, and it has nothing to do with Aristotle or how the words translate into other languages.

And you are absolutely right about how Aristotle would have used the word (eleutheria). He would have used it to mean liberty, not to refer to a kitchen sink being free of dirty dishes (less vulgar?). Nor would he have used it to refer to asymptotic freedom. Regardless, none of this has anything to do with the issue at hand, and I regret participating in this sidetracking. Lockean One (talk) 02:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Not commenting on your overall post, but translation does not necessarily mean "the same meaning"; at its best it essentially means "the word in the language with he closest meaning". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:05, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Certainly the way classical writers envisioned the world differed from ours. But the point is they had only one word for freedom/liberty. TFD (talk) 21:27, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and that single word was used to mean the same thing classical liberals mean when they use the term "liberty". It meant freedom of action, not freedom from cooties, systolic freedom, or any other kind of freedom. Lockean One (talk) 02:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

And other than demonstrating that Lockean One knows as little about history as he does about political science, this thread is completely off-topic. — goethean 21:44, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Please be civil and refrain from such personal attacks. If you would like to delete the above post, you may delete this one as well. Lockean One (talk) 02:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Saying you're incompetent is not a personal attack. It's a value judgment on your competence, which matters here. No one called you a gaudy dresser. If you're angry that people are complaining about your competence, try being less useless/clueless/incompetent. fi (talk) 07:19, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The only relevant fact in all of the above sidetracking (including my regretful participation in it) is that socialists (rightly or wrongly) use the term "liberty" differently than classical liberals. By the socialist definition, classical liberals are anti-liberty and vice versa. Can we seriously not just agree on that instead of sidetracking the issue into oblivion? Lockean One (talk) 03:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The issue is about free market libertarianism and socialist libertarianism, not classical liberalism and socialism. TFD (talk) 03:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I won't be getting dragged into another irrelevant sidetracking this soon. How gullible do you think I am? You gotta give it more time than that. Lockean One (talk) 03:53, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Right, so, once again, absolutely everything Lockean One has decided to share with us is flimsy personal opinions that honestly don't hold up to any halfway serious investigation. I've already provided two dozen examples of important, pre-capitalist, classical liberal writers that argued against neoliberal principles, which somehow went unnoticed. More importantly, we can drop it because nobody cares, as this isn't the article about classical liberalism and the connection between classical liberalism and the CATO institute (a few ideologues and politicians claiming it) is about like the connection between Archimedes and Ross Perot. If you want to cite that someone made it, great. We can also cite that a whole slew of scholars think that's basically a joke. Either way, I don't see what there is to discuss. fi (talk) 07:03, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Again, please be civil and stop making false statements about other editors. Your incessant falsehoods and personal attacks are disruptive and violate several Wikipedia policies. If you choose to delete your comments above, you may delete this post as well. Lockean One (talk) 07:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Then report it on ANI and stop spamming the talk page with your copy-pasta, for probably the twentieth time now. If you think questioning your competence is a serious offense, report it already. fi (talk) 07:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

If you have a problem with my "copy-pasta", you are free to delete it in each case, just like it says, along with the uncivil post it refers to. If you don't want to delete your uncivil post along with my "copy-pasta", then don't. And if you want it on ANI you are free to put it on ANI, too. (FYI, this same issue with Goethean is already on Only's user talk page, if you're interested.) Lockean One (talk) 07:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

improve or remove note 6 and citation 67 Alexander Berkman

Berkman (1929). The revolution abolishes private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and with it goes capitalistic business. Personal possession remains only in the things you use. Thus, your watch is your own, but the watch factory belongs to the people. and Berkman, Alexander (1929). What Is Communist Anarchism? Vanguard Press..

• is a text from 1929 really the best source?
• is Alexander Berkman a libertarian socialist? Does his cited text even use the term? his wikipedia page contains neither libertarian or socialist. (other than the series box). unless objection, i suggest we tag the material. Darkstar1st (talk) 11:14, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

1. Good, informative quotes don't expire.
2. Alexander Berkman was, as the title of his work implies, a communist anarchist (i.e. libertarian communist, libertarian socialist, or just libertarian).

I guess I'm a bit confused by this... what are you trying to accomplish here? Why does the quote need improvement? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 13:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Berkman's Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism (a.k.a. "What Is Communist Anarchism?") could be argued to be either a primary or secondary source, but either one seems perfectly appropriate as there is no interpretation of the quoted material. And yes, anarchist communism and libertarian communism are more or less synonymous. Communists are socialists categorically, as communism is a subset of socialism. fi (talk) 14:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

What liberties do LibSocs advocate as a distinguishing feature?

"Libsocs don't advocate the elimination of property, they merely advocate a change in who controls and manages property." No. This sentence couldn't be more wrong if you tried. It's quite clear that you don't understand libertarian socialism, ... so why do you continue to make blatantly false remarks about it? Please, either educate yourself on the topic or stop your crusade. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

So you now agree to remove this from the article: "...others wish to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management"? Since whoever wrote it obviously "doesn't understand LibSoc"? Nice job derailing this section with nonsense, though. Lockean One (talk) 16:42, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

No, the problem you fail to understand is that usufruct (the common ownership and management of the means of production) isn't the same thing as property. I recommend reading Proudhon's What is Property? to better understand the difference between possession and proprietorship. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Nice job derailing this section with nonsense. At least Goethean tried to answer my question honestly. Lockean One (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Are you kidding me?! I said the same thing goethean did, just in far more detail. I guess I wrongly assumed this section was an earnest attempt on your part to understand libertarian socialism. I'll be sure not to make the same mistake again. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I was referring to your silly denial that property is property, as well as the monstrous waste of space you took up below spouting socialist propaganda designed to deceive morons.

"Property - something at the disposal of a person, a group of persons, or the community or public: The secret of the invention became common property." If you refuse to speak standard English, at least don't interpret my failure to adopt the language of socialism as ignorance.

And it was a mistake on your part to interpret my question as "an attempt to understand LibSoc". I said nothing of any such "attempt". And I hope that your promise to stop making such mistakes is earnest, since they serve no purpose other than derailing discussions. Lockean One (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It appears that you're asking how socialism can be viewed as an economic system that either produces, or is at least consistent with, liberty. I imagine much of the problem is your incorrect association of capitalism with free exchange and socialism with elitist control over the economy; however, I must stress that these are not the definitions of these terms. Capitalism and socialism only differ by which entities control the means of production.

In a capitalist society, private entities own the means of production, permitting the owners, i.e. capitalists, to gain wealth without an input of labor. This wealth is produced by the laborers whom the capitalist wants to pay the least possible wages in order to maximize profits, resulting in the continued privilege of the propertied class and exclusion of the laborers from the natural resources required for production. Most importantly, the exclusionary nature of private property divorces people from the means of subsistence, forcing the masses to sell their labor to hierarchical organizations, a situation socialists (as well as early Republicans) call wage slavery. Capitalism is also inefficient regarding the organization of industries, as nonessential industries receive labor from those who would not otherwise contribute any except that a wage is the only available path to obtain one's basic needs. Private property can even trump individual autonomy, such as when trespassing justifies violence (see, for example, squatting).

Socialism claims to ameliorate, if not cure, these ailments by eradicating private property. Usufructuaries possess natural resources through their continued use, instead of owning them by claim alone. Laborers then receive full remuneration for their work, under conditions they find agreeable, which is why socialism is often viewed as a movement for workers' rights. Industry in a socialist society is organized to prioritize human needs, and people can decide for themselves if they wish to provide labor above and beyond this minimum. Libertarian socialism, as opposed to the authoritarian socialism of Marx and its descendents (Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism), seeks the establishment of a socialist society without a state or vanguard party to initially control and steer the economy toward full communism. Libertarians don't believe in authority from above—"No gods, no masters!"—and therefore demand non-hierarchical organization; socialism is merely the manifestation of this declaration of personal autonomy in the economic realm.

To quickly summarize, socialism, i.e. the end of inherently aggressive, capitalist relations, represents the individual liberties for which libertarian socialists advocate as a distinguishing feature. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:17, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

No, that wasn't at all what I was asking. It's pretty entertaining, though. Especially this nonsense: "Capitalism and socialism only differ by which entities control the means of production." That's a good one! Lockean One (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

You ask a question, and then mock someone for answering it politely and extensively. Stop acting like a child. — goethean 16:52, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I mocked propaganda that was in dire need of mocking, not someone for trying to answer my question honestly. Notice that I didn't mock your response above. Lockean One (talk) 21:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that info, MisterDub. North8000 (talk) 16:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

We are venturing into OR. We cannot write an article based on personal opinions, but need sources. TFD (talk) 16:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It would seem that if "emphasis on primacy of individual liberty" is a defining characteristic of libertarianism, that would be a reasonable criterion for inclusion. But I see no mention in this article of any specific individual liberties that LibSocs advocate as a distinguishing feature, ie that others wish to restrict or prohibit.

Can anyone cite any? Lockean One (talk) 04:31, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Freedom from property (i.e. from being excluded from the use of things and places), freedom from want, freedom from starvation, from the rat-like dependence on the law of supply and demand.[1] — goethean 12:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course, but none of those are distinguishing features, ie opposed by non-Libsocs, which was the relevant part of my question. And none of those are "freedom of action" or "freedom from restraint", except the first one, but Libsocs don't advocate the elimination of property, they merely advocate a change in who controls and manages property. Lockean One (talk) 16:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

-- -- I'm not sure if it's a faux pas or not, but I collapsed the off-topic discussion and moved it up above this section, in order to facilitate further discussion. I think it's IAW with Wikipedia Talk page guidelines. If not, or if someone wants to continue it, it can be uncollapsed. -- --

And Goethean (or others), if you could clarify: By "freedom from property", are you referring only to people having access to unused/unoccupied property, or having access to and freedom to use any property (or any productive property), including that which is occupied/in use (which would be restricted by LibSoc as well)? I just want to make sure I didn't misinterpret your post.

If the former, I agree that would be an example of an individual liberty advocated by LibSocs, even if it's also advocated by many non-socialists. And I think it's worthy of more discussion in this article, and I'll try to work up a draft of various positions on it when I get some time to review some sources. Lockean One (talk) 07:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This talk page is not the place to discuss your personal views. TFD (talk) 07:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Really? Ya don't say? So glad to have you to lecture me on Wikipedia policy. Otherwise, I would have thought this page was the place to discuss article content instead of the place for disruptive and misguided lecturing. Thanks for setting me straight. And for being so constructive with your comments. Lockean One (talk) 07:37, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

You are not discussing article content, you are treating the page as a blog where you pontificate about what the term libertarian means. Your tone btw is offensive. TFD (talk) 07:50, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and collapsed all the other off topic discussion, because some of it was apparently accidentally left out. fi (talk) 09:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Good idea, it was just getting derailed with nonsense again. And the only relevant part (freedom to access/use property that is unused/unoccupied) should have a new section anyway later on. Lockean One (talk) 19:02, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

|}

Copy

I think the Tea party section should be copy-pasted to the Libertarian Republican page for two reasons. First the tea party does not hold mainstream libertarian views, hence i think it confuses people when you give so much coverage to them. Secondly, they are primarily affiliated with the GOP and we already have such an article. Isn't that what spin-off pages are for? Cinemwallz44 (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Do you have sources supporting these claims? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:10, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

What claims are you referring to? As far as I can tell, Cinemwallz44 wasn't suggesting adding any content, just moving already sourced content. Lockean One (talk) 00:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

I think "cut-pasted" would be better. Lockean One (talk) 00:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thats what i meat, cut and paste it. That section should not be on this article. Cinemwallz44 (talk) 00:27, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

@Misterdub Just read on the page link and its plainly obvious. Cinemwallz44 (talk) 00:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

You mean like this? "Many political scientists and political pundits who have not examined the data wrongly conclude the Tea Party is the GOP's base of extreme fiscal and social conservatives. Instead, examination of nationwide survey data reveals the Tea Party has at least two major groups: one libertarian leaning and the other socially conservative." (source) I have reinstated the material until a time that someone can actually provide an argument for its removal. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:22, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It is not from a reliable source. TFD (talk) 19:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Why is it not a reliable source? It is one of two sources currently used to support the same claim in the Tea Party movement article, the other being "Libertarian Roots of the Tea Party." -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:25, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

reason.com is basically a right-wing opinion magazine rather than a news source. TFD (talk) 06:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

the correct place to challenge existing sources is the RS noticeboard, plz move your comments there. Darkstar1st (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Collapsed extended discussion.

Capitalism related sentence There has been more back and forward over this sentence. One note (because a recent edit summary seemed to have forgotten this) is that the version that is in there as of this writing was an unconsensused change. Folks were trying to war it in and it had been in for a few hours when the article got locked. We should go to the last stable version while we work on it. North8000 (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Just to be clear, this is about that statement with the thirty-two reliable book sources supporting the wording "advocate laissez faire capitalism"? fi (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC) As discussed, few or none of those support what is implied by that statement which is that it is a tenet of strands of libertarianism. And taken literally, it is is a content-free sky-is blue statement, like saying that some libertarians like apple pie or that some libertarians are child molesters. And your cites do support the later (content-free literal meaning), but that does not mean that a statement which has a conflict between it's false implied meaning (and how it will be read) and it's literal meaning should be in there. North8000 (talk) 13:34, 6 April 2014 (UTC) As discussed, it doesn't matter in the slightest what you think is a tenet and what you think is an inextricably logical "consequence of tenets." All sources unambiguously said, in those words, neoliberal/right-wing libertarians advocate laissez faire capitalism. Explicit meaning; no implied meaning; nothing to discuss. fi (talk) 13:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Removing content that portrays LibSocs as dimwits. Can we at least remove the obvious self-contradictions and incoherent statements in the LibSoc sections (and LibSoc article)? The fact that some sources support statements that unfairly make all LibSocs look like idiots doesn't automatically require this article to do so. After all, verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, particularly if the content serves no useful purpose. I'll even try to find better sources myself for better content if there is a consensus to do so, under the assumption that not all LibSocs are that dimwitted. As an example, the article simultaneously says LibSocs promote free association, but seek to abolish wage-labor. Another, it says LibSocs oppose authoritarian control of means of production, but believe that all means of production should be controlled politically by "worker coops", etc. That's just a couple of examples, I won't list them all here. And just to try to preempt the predictable "you just don't understand LibSoc" response, Wikipedia policy requires standard English, so while those examples might not be self-contradictions if non-standard definitions of terms are used and explicitly stated, they are obviously self-contradictions in standard English. Lockean One (talk) 07:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC) What is a LibSoc? TFD (talk) 07:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC) it is an Acronym you dimwit. Darkstar1st (talk) 08:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC) It's quite possible that those conflicts are inherent in any actual implementation of the the philosophy or any realistic approach to implementing it. Even if so, that should not prevent coverage of it. North8000 (talk) 10:01, 5 April 2014 (UTC) I was only referring to self-contradictions within the article, ie by Wikipedia, not implementation related conflicts. Lockean One (talk) 22:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC) This is not your blog. fi (talk) 22:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC) They are discussing specific article content. How did you invent the "blog" insult out of that? North8000 (talk) 23:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC) Like others have already tried to explain to you and the editor above, Wikipedia is not the place to pontificate on the contradictions your perceive in pro-capitalist or socialist political views. fi (talk) 04:07, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Well degenerating into mis-fired insults and ad-hominem attacks while avoiding the specifics of what I said says a lot about your argument. North8000 (talk) 16:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Lockean One - stop removing my talk page posts. They were made for a reason. This is not the forum for your polemics. fi (talk) 05:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Fine, leave your disruptive and uncivil posts for all to see. Lockean One (talk) 05:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC) Well, if there's no interest in this, so be it. I certainly won't fight an uphill battle against consensus just to keep LibSocs from being unfairly portrayed as dimwits, even if many don't deserve it. Lockean One (talk) 05:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Proposing partial rewrite of lead

A few reasons why:

• to make some things clearer and remove ambiguity
• to address some of the concerns brought up, like conflation of disparate political views
• to fix the overall choppiness and improve the flow a little

This is my draft:

Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free") is a set of diverse political philosophies that affirm to uphold liberty as the highest political end while emphasizing freedom of choice, the primacy of individual judgment, political freedom and voluntary association. It is an antonym of authoritarianism. Libertarians share a skepticism of authority but diverge on the extent, scope and focus of their opposition. Various schools of libertarianism offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, sometimes calling to restrict or even to wholly dissolve pervasive institutions. While minarchists propose a centralized government limited in function to protecting individuals and property from certain transgressions, anarchists propose to completely eliminate the state as an illegitimate political system. Although some libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and private property rights, such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources, others urge to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management (see libertarian socialism).

Additional reference, if needed:

for the very nature of the libertarian attitude -- its rejection of dogma, its deliberate avoidance of rigidly systematic theory, and, above all, its stress on extreme freedom of choice and on the primacy of the individual judgment

— George Woodcock, Anarchism : A History Of Libertarian Ideas And Movements (p 16)

Is this on the right track at all? fi (talk) 13:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The changes are fine by me. I put the two versions side-by-side at User:Goethean/lib. If you use the Woodcock, you will want to use the entire sentence. But it is not necessary. — goethean 16:06, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Why "affirm to uphold" rather than "uphold"? Nevermind; I get it. — goethean 16:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I think either would work fine, but I used "affirm" to put some distance between the narrative and the libertarians, since various groups point to one another, on account of conflicting views, and claim that the other does not "truly" uphold liberty. Maybe there's a more graceful to do that. fi (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

That's what I surmised. It's fine. — goethean 00:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Mostly pretty good except for the "advocate capitalism". North8000 (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it is good. I question though the term "set of", which implies they have similarities but are unrelated. We would not say for example that socialism is a set of diverse political philosophies, although the U.K. Labour Party and Khmer Rouge are about as far apart as one could imagine. TFD (talk) 00:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe "libertarianism refers to several political philosophies..."? I've tried using refers/describes the opening sentence of other articles and the main objection, as I understand it, has been that it's too focused on semantics instead of just saying what something is. I don't think it would be a problem in this case, but maybe someone else does? fi (talk) 00:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Finx, first of all, I want to thank you for composing a well-thought-out proposal; even at first glance, I'd say it's an improvement. A few comments:

• I think it may be best to remove the adjective diverse before "political philosophies" in the first sentence, leaving "Libertarianism is a set of political philosophies"; sometimes less is more.
• I would remove affirm from the first sentence; I understand what you're trying to do, but I don't think it's necessary to imply ignorance, cognitive dissonance, or incompetence of (some?) libertarians who merely claim to uphold liberty.
• Do we really need the statement about libertarianism and authoritarianism being antonyms this soon in the lead? Honestly, I think it ought to be removed from the lead entirely... perhaps moved to the "Etymology" section.
• The third sentence says libertarians differ on "extent, scope, and focus"... aren't extent and scope synonyms? I'd simply remove one of these terms to escape this redundancy.
• The rest of your proposal looks fine, though I would prefer we didn't treat minarchism/anarchism and capitalism/socialism separately, as if one could reach into a grab bag of characteristics, pull anything out, and call the resulting combination libertarianism. I think this approach tends to obfuscate rather than elucidate the intricacies of libertarian philosophies, which can be better explained by distinguishing the common schools of libertarian thought, i.e. libertarian socialism (libertarianism as the anarchist wing of socialism), anarcho-capitalism (libertarianism as private property enforced by private DROs), and neo-classical liberalism (libertarianism as private property enforced by a minimal state).

I assume this proposal is intended to replace only the first paragraph in the current lead, but I think the rest of the lead is in worse shape... possibly even worthy of deletion. I still think we ought to organize the lead into three paragraphs: the first details common commitments, the second describes prominent schools of thought (remedying the clarity issues in my last bullet point above), and the third presents historical and etymological information. Maybe consensus is that we should work on the lead piece by piece, but I feel a more coherent introduction can be attained by addressing the lead in its entirety. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Pretty much agreed on everything but not too clear on your last point about minarchism/anarchism and capitalism/socialism -- did you want to move the distinctions down to the body? I think they're useful, because it's the first question on everyone's mind. Also, I see "extent" and "scope" as somewhat different - e.g. some libertarians are not concerned with (or dismiss the significance of) private power/capital (scope) where some libertarians want to abolish the state instead of reducing it (extent). However, it's a little wordsmithy. I just couldn't think of another way to condense that. Maybe TFD and B2C also have a point on "set of philosophies" - though I'm not sure how to avoid that phrasing. I also wanted to take a second look at your earlier proposal to see if we maybe there's something to combine here. Would it be okay to start a sandbox for this? fi (talk) 22:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, I think I understand what you're saying about the minarchist-anarchist capitalist-socialist distinctions. I'll try to rephrase it. fi (talk) 22:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I apologize if I was not clear; please let me know if you need clarification. I agree with you about the "set of philosophies"... it's not the best phrasing, but I think it's an accurate statement given the rest of the article, and better than saying "Libertarianism refers to..." (which is more like language for a DABPAGE). Yes, it would be okay to start a sandbox of this. I have resurrected my earlier proposal and put it in my sandbox for now, but feel free to copy it elsewhere. Or you can edit my sandbox if you'd like... whichever tickles your fancy. Thanks again for the proposal and constructive discussion! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Update: I have imported your proposal into my sandbox and made some changes to it (per my comments above). Again, feel free to edit or copy as you like. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:33, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Nice work overall. I don't think that economic systems aren't even on the short list for folks coming to this article, and regarding non-left libertarianism, they are not even germane. North8000 (talk) 23:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The fact that Rothbard's particular group of right-wing followers decided to call themselves anarcho-capitalists aside, dozens of sources say very clearly that they are germane and central. Please provide some credible sources that say otherwise. fi (talk) 23:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

This time I was commenting more on the discussion item rather than on the proposed edit. North8000 (talk) 00:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Could you try to be moderately intelligible? — goethean 01:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'll ignore the insult and answer anyway. Earlier in the discussion "because it's the first question on everyone's mind." was said about capitalism/socialism. I was responding to that discussion point with "economic systems aren't even on the short list for folks coming to this article" (with a typo which I fixed here) .....I think Finx missed that (and thus I pointed it out) as they were arguing the "advocate capitalism" item. North8000 (talk) 01:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

You have again failed to engage in this discussion in a meaningful, productive way. Finx has responded that the term "capitalism" is part of Rothbard's description of his own libertarian philosophy, and that there are many sources which connect capitalism to libertarianism. He invited you to back up your claim (I don't think that economic systems aren't even on the short list for folks coming to this article, and regarding non-left libertarianism, they are not even germane.) with sources. In response, you give us vague inscrutable nonsense about "discussion items". If you don't have anything productive to contribute to the conversation, may I suggest that you stop talking? — goethean 01:57, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Well since you responded while "missing" or ignoring the obvious on what I said, I think that this particular thread is not going anywhere productive and we might as well end it. The subject was what people come to this article for, and there are not sources that cover what people come to the Wikipedia libertarianism article for. North8000 (talk) 02:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

North8000, I did misunderstand what you were saying, but the point stands. fi (talk) 02:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. That last post was talking about Goethean's post but thanks. 'Nuff said. BTW, if the above change went forward even with that issue, it would be fine with me (and nice work), I was mainly looking to point out that support of the change does not include / indicate support of that one word. North8000 (talk) 11:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe there's a connection between the fact that nobody can understand what you are talking about and the fact that you insist in speaking in inscrutable generalities rather than simply saying what you mean. — goethean 12:25, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain Finx is still working on this, as he has edited my sandbox recently, but just want to reiterate that this discussion is not dead. It will pick up again once Finx (or anyone else) is ready to submit a proposal. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Neo-classical liberalism

Anyone object to renaming the Neo-classical liberalism section "Classical Liberalism"? "Neo-classical liberalism" redirects there anyway, and it seems obvious from the sources that it's use is uncommon compared to "classical liberalism", and the latter is commonly used broadly to include the former, not the other way around.

Also, how about organizing the (classically) liberal philosophies under something like "economic liberalism" instead of "laissez-faire capitalism" since it would be a more logical organizational scheme given the actual philosophies according to the cited sources.

And, in case it's not obvious from my user name, this is the former Lockean One. I might get blocked again, but it won't be for trying to hide that. Lockean Redux (talk) 05:01, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

There are substantial differences between post-war neo-classical liberalism and classical economics as advocated by Ricardo and others. Mises and Hayek for example were more influenced by Menger than Mill. TFD (talk) 05:29, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on whether the section titled "Neo-classical liberalism" should be renamed; I think neo-classical liberalism is more accurate than merely classical liberalism, but I'll accept either. As for the section titled "Laissez-faire capitalism," I'd honestly rather just get rid of it, as it serves no purpose. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:48, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Did both, I agree that the "Laissez-faire capitalism" stub served no purpose. Lockean Redux (talk) 05:47, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I object for reasons I've already provided about two or three dozen times. Please check the archives. When were you unbanned? I thought this was conditional on a topic ban from libertarianism and anything related? fi (talk) 06:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Either way, I changed it to "economic liberalism" which you seem to be okay with. It's broad enough that there's not really any question about accuracy: advocates for free markets and private property, standing opposed to what's presently called "social liberalism" - seems to fit. fi (talk) 06:37, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, I changed the pic from Hayek to Locke, just because it matches my user name. It has nothing to do with Locke being better known historically or a better fit for the section, so I hope nobody objects. If so, they can change it back. Lockean Redux (talk) 07:10, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Neo-classical liberalism would be better than Austrian/Chicago schools. The reason I suggested the change was because Neo-classical liberalism redirects to the classical liberalism article, which includes discussion of Hayek and neo-classical liberalism. Lockean Redux (talk) 07:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Disputed and innacurate

I have made some changes, first the sources that say that some libertarians ares no capitalists it is innacurate for this article. Libertarian is an adjective, libertarianism is a sustantive. When you use sources that mention libertarian socialism you are not talking about the term libertarianism. That is the confusion, in many times the part interested in include libertarian socialist ideology in libertarianism they don't offer sources that link libertarian socialism with libertarianism. The answer is that followers of both different ideologys don't share the name of the ideology, only share the adjective for name them as followers. If you check the sources you could see that. The only source used for suggest that libertarianism is no only private property ideology is when Standford source says that a few group in libertarianism don't follow a complete homestead principle, but that isn't a group that reject markets.

The another problem is that even if we accept that there are two libertarianism (something that I say is wrong in the above phragraph), one libertarianism is a main tendency a shoul have primacy in extension . Because is the one that really use that name, the another one use another name and have its one article and shoul be reduced to a second little place in the narration of this article.

I suggest, quit the parts that talk about libertarian socialism in this article, an make another article called Libertarian about the uses of that word that could include both the use of libertarian in libertarian socialism and libertarianism. The term libertarianism isn't really disputed.

One more thing. Why don't use the disputed template if this is a very disputed article? --Mabel Velástegui (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2014 (UTC)\

Actually, libertarians were the anti-statist wing of socialism, also known as anarchists. There are many sources in the article illustrating that libertarianism and anarchism are synonyms, as well as Rothbard's admission that he and his fellow capitalists had "taken it over", that libertarian "had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety". I'd also be interested in sources claiming that the main tendency is capitalist. Such claims were recently removed from the article because they lacked sources, after stagnating with "citation needed" templates for some time.

Feel free to use the disputed template. I believe I may have unintentionally removed it when I reverted your first edits; I apologize. We are currently working on a new lead in the section above that I hope will address the issue you've raised here. Your participation is welcomed. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:14, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

That is what I'm talking about. The term libertarian is the one shared, but not the term libertarianism. Only in Wikipedia there is a debate about this. There is not a main publication that have another important use of libertarianism that one of laissez faire ideology. We can't interpretate that because libertarian is the adjective shared also the term libertarianism "should be" the same case. In the world not always we find "logic", and here is a case, we only should write about what we see not what we supose. And all this dispute is around a suposition, but the reality is that some libertarians are followers of libertarian socialism and other libertarians are followers of libertarianism. There name of the ideology is not shared, and if there is case is not so relevant. --Mabel Velástegui (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Like I said, there are many sources in the article illustrating that libertarianism and anarchism are synonyms. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 02:34, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Nope. The anticapitalist ism is covered by the sources. A few examples:

• Woodcock, George (2011). Anarchism : a history of libertarian ideas and movements. p. 473. ISBN 1258115271. these may have been modest achievements in comparison with the great revolutionary aims of the anarchist mement in its most optimistic periods, but they showed a concrete aspect of libertarianism that at least sketched out an alternative to the totalitarian way

• Goodway, David (2012). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. PM Press. p. 4. ISBN 1604866675.

• Miller, Wilbur R. (2012). The social history of crime and punishment in America. An encyclopedia. 5 vols. London: Sage Publications. p. 1007. ISBN 1412988764. There exist three major camps in libertarian thought: right-libertarianism, socialist libertarianism, and ...

• Left-Libertarianism: Libertarian Socialism, Mutualism, Georgism, Geolibertarianism, Social Capitalism, Agorism. ISBN 1156777925.

Each source mentions "libertarianism" to describe libertarian socialism, not neoliberal/pro-capitalist libertarianism. Actually, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think 'capitalist libertarianism' is even mentioned in Woodcock's book, seeing as how it wasn't really... a thing back then. It's getting pretty tedious citing the same sources again and again. Can we add this stuff to the FAQ maybe? fi (talk) 05:57, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and it's also not really disputed that libertarian socialism is historically and geographically the "main tendency" of libertarianism. I mean, people dispute it on here for some silly reason, but it's very clear what the all the evidence says. There is some hilarious ping-pong double-cognate confusion in French though. "Libertaire" is the where the English cognate "libertarian" comes from (meaning anarchist/anti-state-socialist) and now there's a brand new French reverse-cognate called "libertarianisme" (neoliberalism). Needless to say, English (perhaps unfortunately) has no such distinction. fi (talk) 06:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Removing disputed template, because claims above are clearly wrong. If someone wants the references in the article, let me know where to cram them in. fi (talk) 06:24, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Finx, I think you're right, we should amend the FAQ to state some of these things clearly; I was not pleased with the vague text that basically just restates Wikipedia policy. We ought to have clear questions with clear answers, supported by any necessary reliable sources. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe that relevance needs more sources than an isolated line in one or two books. That is what I understand of the use of Wikipedia. Where is the source that says "libertarianism is a term refered to anarchism" o usually refered? Libertarian was a synonymous of anarchist, yeah, and also means free market/free association advocate, but that word is not the problem. The question is where is a relevant source/deep analysis that mention that the word "libertarianism" have been commonly used in another way than for ideology and movement of free market/free association advocates? Also note that left-libertarianism is not the same that libertarian socialism. If the use of the word "libertarianism" is not proved to been used in a notorius way for another movement some sections in the article should be deleted or reduced because its little relevance in this article. For now, the beginning don't mention that the mayority of sources, persons, organizations that use libertarianism (US and the World) for them are free market advocates. That should be clear for the readers. --Mabel Velástegui (talk) 21:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Mabel, I have reverted all of your edits except the disputed tag on the "Libertarian socialism" section. There are many sources that illustrate that libertarianism refers to left-wing, anti-private property anarchism: Peter Marshall's Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, Colin Ward's Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction, George Woodcock's Anarchism, and I can find others if you need. And left-libertarianism is used as a synonym for libertarian socialism, but also refers to Georgist (or similar) conceptions of private property with remuneration to the local community. I have again removed the claim that the central tendency of libertarianism is laissez-faire capitalism because—as I stated previously—such claims were removed for being completely unsubstantiated. If you would like this claim reinstated, please provide a source to support it. Thank you! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Then according to this logic by user Mabel Velástegui in wikipedia we will have to also make a distinction between those who call themselves or that get called "socialists" and of "socialism" itself. Those who call themselves "conservatives" from "conservatism" itself. It is obvious that those who call themselves and who are called "libertarian(s)" will have to be dealt within an article called "libertarianism". But other users have also provided the description of "libertarianism" also used for libertarian socialists. Then i think User Mabel Velástegui is just overplaying with words. Also lets remember that this description of "libertarian" for advocates of right wing laissez faire capitalism is mostly centered in the USA since these people in the rest of the world are called and tend to call themselves "liberals". Then since we are not writing the US right wing wikipedia we also have to take into account non US uses of the words libertarian and libertarianism and it happens that in the rest of the world, and a sense which has even existed within the US itself (check Libertarian Labor Review, Libertarian LeagueCommon Struggle – Libertarian Communist Federation), that "libertarian" and "libertarianism" tend to be associated with anarchism. So we are working with sources and with logic here. The issue here of worldwide relevance is important since we find in this article that the right libertarianism sections all deal only with the United States while the libertarian socialist references deal with phenomena in almost all continents. So is in this way that we are avoiding here also Wikipedia:Systemic bias.

"Also note that left-libertarianism is not the same that libertarian socialism"

The recent tendency that call itself "left libertarianism" around writers such as Philippe Van Parijs, Michael Otsuka and others is mostly a phenomenon of academics and book writers. The same can be said about anarchocapitalism if we decide to take something from right libertarianism. On the other hand libertarian socialism is a world wide tendency which exists since the 19th century and which has been present in a big part of the revolutions around the world since then and in some cases such as the Paris Commune and the Spanish Revolution of 1936 even had a central rol in it mobilizing the most numbers of people. So this is why libertarian socialism will have to have more space than this small tendency of writers called left libertarianism and more space here than anarchocapitalism. Anyway i will say that the word "left libertarianism" will end up being absorved within a more general consideration of libertarian socialism or itself libertarian socialism is identified logically also as left libertarianism. In fact this is what has happened in the general discussions of the wikipedia "left libertarianism" article as anyone can see and which, by the way, i have not participated in at all. But in fact in the US there is something called "Alliance of the Libertarian Left" and it includes mutualists. Mutualism is a strong base of anarchist thought in general and Pierre Joseph Proudhon a classic central anarchist thinker. As such also a central libertarian socialist thinker. Also another important mutualist, Benjamin Tucker, will appear in most general works of anarchism as an important reference of "individualist anarchism" and it is mentioned also within the "libertarian socialism" article since he also self identified as "anarchistic socialist". Then this is why libertarian socialism and left libertarianism can be seen and have been seen as synonyms. Check:

• Bookchin, Murray and Janet Biehl. The Murray Bookchin Reader. Cassell, 1997. p. 170 ISBN 0-304-33873-7
• Hicks, Steven V. and Daniel E. Shannon. The American journal of economics and sociolology. Blackwell Pub, 2003. p. 612. --Eduen (talk) 20:40, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

As i have continued to research on "left libertarianism" i find the following self-identifications of key "left libertarians" with socialism. Quoting a well sourced affirmation from the wikipedia "left libertarianism" article:

Gary Chartier has joined Kevin Carson, Charles Johnson, and others (echoing the language of Benjamin Tucker and Thomas Hodgskin) in maintaining that, because of its heritage and its emancipatory goals and potential, radical market anarchism should be seen—by its proponents and by others—as part of the socialist tradition, and that market anarchists can and should call themselves "socialists."See Gary Chartier, "Advocates of Freed Markets Should Oppose Capitalism," "Free-Market Anti-Capitalism?" session, annual conference, Association of Private Enterprise Education (Cæsar's Palace, Las Vegas, NV, April 13, 2010); Gary Chartier, "Advocates of Freed Markets Should Embrace 'Anti-Capitalism'"; Gary Chartier, Socialist Ends, Market Means: Five Essays. Cp. Tucker, "Socialism."

As such these authors should be seen as libertarian socialists.--Eduen (talk) 00:40, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

This article needs a good, thorough de-classical-liberalism-ing

The matter-of-fact descriptions of mid-20th-century laissez faire and heterodox economists in this article as "classical liberals" are sprouting up like weeds all over the place. They should be removed, because these are not NPOV statements. They are problematic, and it's clearly disputed that the ultra-capitalist ideological factions have any more claim to "classical liberalism" than the anticapitalist ones.

Here are just the first few sources that come to mind:

• Encirclement – Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy (central focus is contradictions between neoliberal doctrines and classical liberalism - summarizes the dispute and offers a lot of further references)

• World Literature Today (Volume 76, Issue 2 ed.). University of Michigan. 2002. p. 33. But it is precisely these institutional controls that are being undermined, with dedicated determination, in the social policies of the past twenty years, misnamed "neoliberal": They are hardly "new" and would shock the founders of classical liberalism.

• Barsamian, David (1998). The common good (1. print. ed.). Monroe, ME: Odonian Press. p. 6. ISBN 1878825089. The idea that great wealth and democracy can't exist side by side runs right up through the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, including major figures like de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, Jefferson and others. It was more or less assumed. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

• Barsamian, David (1996). Class Warfare (1. print. ed.). Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press. p. 21. ISBN 1567510930. This is true of classical liberalism in general. The founders of classical liberalism, people like Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who is one of the great exponents of classical liberalism, and who inspired John Stuart Mill -- they were what we would call libertarian socialists, at least that ïs the way I read them. For example, Humboldt, like Smith, says, Consider a craftsman who builds some beautiful thing. Humboldt says if he does it under external coercion, like pay, for wages, we may admire what he does but we despise what he is. On the other hand, if he does it out of his own free, creative expression of himself, under free will, not under external coercion of wage labor, then we also admire what he is because he's a human being. He said any decent socioeconomic system will be based on the assumption that people have the freedom to inquire and create -- since that's the fundamental nature of humans -- in free association with others, but certainly not under the kinds of external constraints that came to be called capitalism.

There are also numerous anticapitalist readings of the works of Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Wilhelm von Humboldt, etc. They're not fanciful, esoteric interpretations either.

If we are to describe this "rebirth of classical liberalism" without an ideological narrative, it should be described as a claim not a fact. If needed, I can provide more references of a broad range of people saying the claim is bunk. I've raised this objection several times now and it's never actually been answered or refuted, so unless someone wants to explain to me how it's NPOV to keep claiming "classical liberalism" for CATO and company, I will just start removing these claims one by one and referencing them all to the ignored discussion sections. fi (talk) 07:45, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

And (although it ought to go without saying) just so this doesn't go off on some tangent about who's right and who's wrong - I am not trying to establish the veracity of the claim. It obviously doesn't matter what any of us think about it. I am only pointing out that there are (at least) two different opinions on this among reputable academics and that they obviously don't agree. fi (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean we get to replace that pic of Hayek with one of Locke? Seriously, every legitimate English encyclopedia on both sides of the pond uses the term "libertarianism" exclusively as a synonym for classical liberalism. And "CATO and company" clearly meet the definition of classical liberals according to Stanford EOP, Encyclopedia Britannica, Princeton, and every other reliable source imaginable. Lockean Redux (talk) 08:51, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I would suggest you cite and quote relevant sources instead of continuing the rhetorical slap-fighting and hand waving that got you banned the first time, or your sockpuppet is going right back to the noticeboards for what might be an IP ban. fi (talk) 08:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know that we need to remove this claim; I'd say we need to present it appropriately. It is explicitly stated in reliable sources that libertarianism (the capitalist variety) is a continuation or radicalization of classical liberalism. I think the term neo-classical liberalism is more accurate, given the criticisms leveled against right-libertarians as illustrated by Finx above. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:24, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with including the claim as a claim, only as a verifiable fact. So long as the statement is that A, B & C consider, let's say, CATO's libertarianism (i.e. Mises/Hayek/Rothbard/whomever) a direct and faithful extension/rebirth of true classical liberal principles, while X, Y, & Z consider it to be a something remote, strange and utterly contradictory to that tradition, that's a fair description. It still bothers a little how few and far between the sources using the words "neo-classical liberalism" are. A book search yields barely a handful of results published in the 20th century and it's not entirely clear that they're all referencing the same thing. "Neoliberalism," although it has been used to describe two different things and its academic use has been criticized by some for a number of different reasons, returns a lot more in the way of results. Several sources claim they are interchangeable. fi (talk) 03:18, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with how you want to present the claims of classical liberalism. And if you prefer neoliberal, that's fine by me; it makes sense to use the more common term. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 05:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

We're talking about the common meanings of the terms. It's widespread use is in the US, and that is simply because in the US we have corrupted the meaning of "liberal/liberalism" and need another term to make the distinction. And it accepts capitalism, (and accepts it as a norm) but capitalism is generally not a tenet of it. North8000 (talk) 10:38, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

But "libertarianism" is not "a direct and faithful extension/rebirth of true classical liberal principles." Menger (the Austrian economist) for example opposed the labor theory of value. Spencer in "The New Toryism" complained about classical liberalism for passing child labor laws among other things. Friedman accepted the welfare state. Malthus is long forgotten, and modern libertarians no longer speak of utilitarianism. Slavery is no longer considered acceptable. But it should not come as a surprise that an ideology developed from the late 19th century to the late 20the century would differ from an ideology developed in the early 19th century. TFD (talk) 06:52, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, and think that all of those are also valid meanings of classical liberalism. I was speaking about a very common current meaning. North8000 (talk) 18:31, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I will clearly agree that classical liberalism should not be made to be the same as advocacy for laissez faire capitalism. For example Thomas Paine in his main theorectical book Agrarian Justice suggest measures such as agrarian reform and a sort of basic income scheme. On the other hand From David Ricardo there emerged something called Ricardian socialism led by Thomas Hodgskin, a major early english socialist. Adding on the issue of the classical liberal labour theory of value i will add that the labour theory of value is shared by Adam Smith, libertarian socialist Pierre Joseph Proudhon and even Karl Marx. Benjamin Tucker puts it this way:

"The economic principles of Modern Socialism are a logical deduction from the principle laid down by Adam Smith in the early chapters of his “Wealth of Nations,” — namely, that labor is the true measure of price. But Adam Smith, after stating this principle most clearly and concisely, immediately abandoned all further consideration of it to devote himself to showing what actually does measure price, and how, therefore, wealth is at present distributed. Since his day nearly all the political economists have followed his example by confining their function to the description of society as it is, in its industrial and commercial phases. Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be. Half a century or more after Smith enunciated the principle above stated, Socialism picked it up where he had dropped it, and in following it to its logical conclusions, made it the basis of a new economic philosophy.

This seems to have been done independently by three different men, of three different nationalities, in three different languages: Josiah Warren, an American; Pierre J. Proudhon, a Frenchman; Karl Marx, a German Jew. That Warren and Proudhon arrived at their conclusions singly and unaided is certain; but whether Marx was not largely indebted to Proudhon for his economic ideas is questionable. However this may be, Marx’s presentation of the ideas was in so many respects peculiarly his own that he is fairly entitled to the credit of originality. That the work of this interesting trio should have been done so nearly simultaneously would seem to indicate that Socialism was in the air, and that the time was ripe and the conditions favorable for the appearance of this new school of thought. So far as priority of time is concerned, the credit seems to belong to Warren, the American, — a fact which should be noted by the stump orators who are so fond of declaiming against Socialism as an imported article. Of the purest revolutionary blood, too, this Warren, for he descended from the Warren who fell at Bunker Hill. Benjamin Tucker. Individual Liberty''--Eduen (talk) 18:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Since the article´s historical section begins with precedents of libertarianism which did not call themselves libertarian i will argue that anglo liberalism is not the only source of libertarian ideals in the modern period in the western world. There is also the tradition of reinassance humanism and of baroque libertinism which should be mentioned briefly before anglo classic liberalism. These tend to inform latin countries and even some anglo ones such as the case of english libertinism. It is clear that these also tend to be less or non economicistic at all unlike classical liberalism which tends to be economicistic. As it stands now the "age of enlightenement" section is not talking about the enlightenment era but of anglo classic liberalism. The enlightenement is about anglo but also french personalities such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and the atheist philosopher Baron d'Holbach and about the French Revolution. As it stands now, this section can be accused of anglocentrism.--Eduen (talk) 07:46, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

REadding individualist anarchism for many reasons

As i check the discussions in this article i don´t see a reason for deleting information on individualist anarchism. On the other hand the US centered small bizarrerely named "anarchocapitalism" gets two sections at the beginning and in history. So i had to bring back individualist anarchism also since it deals with european and even latin american individualists as well as the amercian individualist anarchists Benjamin tucker and Josiah Warren who were amazingly being left out of this article.--Eduen (talk) 08:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any sources which explicitly tie that content to libertarianism. — goethean 14:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but... WHY?!?!?!?! Consensus on this page was to minimize coverage of anarchism, and I did so by removing this section as well as the section titled "Libertarian socialism," which was edit-warred back into the article. Is no one going to keep to this consensus?! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Can there be something more libertarian than something that names itself "individualist anarchism". Clearly user Goethean doesn´t know very much about the subject of this article. Individualist anarchism was included before but someone took it out and clearly without givng reasons as i check the talk archives. User Goethean, please inform yourself by visiting the main "individualist anarchism" article. But also let´s keep in mind that right wing libertarianism is a very US centric tendency since these people in the rest of the world call themselves and are called "liberals". I hope the goal here is not to keep this article US centric. We have to face the fact that libertarianism dealing with pro capitalist right wing economics will have to deal mostly with the US only since only there these people tend to call themselves that way while in the rest of the world when speaking about "libertarian" will bring to mind anarchism in all its internal diversity. If the US users editing this page want to have an article centered on the US they can very well go expand the Libertarianism in the United States article.--Eduen (talk) 22:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate that you have resorted to insults. Is there a reliable source which explicitly connects individualist anarchism to libertarianism? — goethean 01:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Where have i insulted anyone? relax and inform yourself better about individualist anarchism--Eduen (talk) 14:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I removed the section after proposing it on the Talk page, in a section titled "Propose mass changes." The reason for the change, as I stated in the aforementioned section as well as my earlier comment, was consensus on this page arrived at the decision to minimize coverage of anarchism. If this is no longer the case, we need to arrive at a new consensus, after which we can reinstate the material. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:00, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I think the ancap sections need reduction too and the other neoliberal sections some trimming and overall improvement. That was my understanding earlier. I assumed the agreement was that there is no need for redundancy, so we're keeping stuff to a minimum if readers can be directed to a more thorough article on some particular political camp. On top of that there's issues of undue weight, and "anarcho-capitalism" is definitely one of those things that gets exponentially more attention on internet forums than anywhere else in the physical world. I think there's enough citations already saying individualist anarchism fits into the libertarian mold, but if we're talking about Tucker, Spooner and Yarros it also happens to fall under libertarian socialism. Just something to keep in mind; we really don't have to break it into a million different sections. It should be easy enough to work a few sentences into the libertarian socialist section. fi (talk) 02:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, now that I look at it, ancap has already been trimmed back a bit, or at least looks that way. There's a few out of place references and one or two pretty bombastic claims that may or may not warrant inclusion (e.g. Rothbard 'founding' pro-capitalist libertarianism), but overall it's not all too bad. fi (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I Support reducing the size of mention of "anarchocapitalism". In fact i will suggest that we choose to give it a section either in the philosophy section or in the history section but not in both. And clearly naming it "private property anarchism" is not fair since that section deals completely on "anarchocapitalism". Just in case some did not notice this.--Eduen (talk) 14:18, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

The two sections for anarcho-capitalism present different accounts: one is in the "Philosophy" section because it gives information about what anarcho-capitalism is, the other is in the "History" section as it details the historical development and promotion of the philosophy; this seems appropriate. Moreover, I don't see a strong justification for removing either section, though a reduction may be appropriate. They were given distinct names to avoid issues with the HTML anchor tags in the main navigation, not to hide the fact that it's about anarcho-capitalism (and private-property anarchism is a synonym anyway). Eduen, I humbly request that you assume good faith of your fellow editors. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:00, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

If "HTML anchor tags" suggest not having the same thing twice then we might need to pay attention to that and think that we might be mentioning something too much. But the fact is that as someone pointed out before this "anarchocapitalism" seems to be mostly a phenomenon of the web with no noticeable outside presence and a very recent phenomenon mostly located in the US only. So giving this thing too much space will go againts Wikipedia:Due_weight#Undue_weight: "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship...We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit them where including them would unduly legitimize them, and otherwise describe them in their proper context with respect to established scholarship and the beliefs of the greater world." In fact the mention of Gustav de Molinari is almost totally conjectural since he is everywhere identified as a liberal economist and not as a "anarchocapitalist". Also his mention here is unsourced and this "anarchocapitalism" seems to depend on a single author, Rothbard. Someone might even suggest that a single author does not even qualify too much as "history" since "history" will clearly mean wider influence as a social movement. So i think we should not be overmentioning that point of view as much as we are doing in this article.--Eduen (talk) 21:50, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I would support a reduction in content, but honestly, I don't think anarcho-capitalism is over-represented. I think the existing content could use some improvement and welcome those with appropriate sources to do so. Perhaps we should add a template to the sections requesting this? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:48, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Reduction of anarcho-capitalism material is fine by me as long as it is still covered. Also think that it looks like there is sufficient linkage to include short coverage of individualist anarchism. But we did agree to somewhat minimize coverage of anarchism here. North8000 (talk) 11:21, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, are we going to discuss these changes, or are you just going to put them in regardless of what others say? I've reverted the addition of individualist anarchism until a consensus is reached. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 13:53, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

¿Is there anyone here that doubts individualist anarchism is libertarianism? This doubt is really amazing to me but as to address the strange doubts of someone around here check these sources where individualist anarchism is discussed in self-described "libertarian" contexts as part of their thought [2][3][[4][5][6]. But lets also remember that Tucker, Spooner, Warren and Pearl Andrews were all dealt with within the historical book on anarchism by the canadian George Woodcock titled Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements. And Murray Bookchin also manifests "It was in times of severe social repression and deadening social quiescence that individualist anarchists came to the foreground of libertarian activity -- and then primarily as terrorists. In France, Spain, and the United States, individualistic anarchists committed acts of terrorism that gave anarchism its reputation as a violently sinister conspiracy"[7] in his Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm.--Eduen (talk) 01:56, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, please pay attention. I have never claimed that individualist anarchism is not libertarianism; that is not the issue. I said that consensus was to minimize coverage of anarchism, and the addition of that material contradicts this consensus. If you want this material reinstated, please seek a new consensus first. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I will argue that not dealing with individualist anarchism in a libertarianism article is not having a real libertarianism article.--Eduen (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

No one is saying otherwise. Please pay attention: the consensus was to minimize coverage of anarchism, not exclude certain (and important) subgroups. At this time, adding a large section about anarchism violates consensus. If you feel the current coverage of anarchism omits individualist anarchism, feel free to improve that section while keeping it minimized. If you want to add that section back in its entirety, please seek a new consensus first. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, what MisterDub said. North8000 (talk) 00:36, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, if that is the case i propose adding a single paragraph on individualist anarchism within the libertarian socialism section.--Eduen (talk) 18:17, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

What is overcovered in this article is libertarian socialism. This one is not a form of libertarianism. There a confusion between the use of the word libertarian and the word libertarianism. The word libertarianism have a priority and almost unique use (number and relevance of sources prove it). Please be clear for the readers.Mabel Velástegui (talk) 21:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I answered you in the section for this particular discussion of yours. In this section please stick to the subject of it.--Eduen (talk) 00:06, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Since there are not objections after waiting for them for a few days i will proceed to add a paragraph on individualist anarchism within the libertarian socialism historical section.--Eduen (talk) 22:48, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't even see your proposal until today; I think I lost it amongst the other discussions. That said, I think the change is fine. I tweaked a couple things (terms should be italicized per WP:MoS and I reverted the change of anarcho-capitalism to economic liberalism, as economic liberalism was already represented by the last item in that list, the continuation or radicalization of classical liberalism), but most of it remains intact. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Civil libertarianism

I have noticed that this article does not discuss something central to any libertarian position and which either left or right wing variants will share. The centrality of civil libertarianism. The reason why for example the article on libertarian socialism has a section at the beginning on Libertarian_socialism#Civil_liberties_and_individual_freedom. This is why libertarians are associated everywhere with drug depenalization, pro sex views and free love, pro gay views, anti censorship views and freethought. I suggest adding a section on this right at the intro of philosophy since it is something all scholls of libertarianism follow. Then a subtitle of "variants" can lead to difference between economic liberalism and libertarian socialism in which we could leave things as they are now.--Eduen (talk) 04:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I agree. I think we need to make clear that the core of libertarianianism is personal autonomy and the resulting support for civil liberties. I think the lead should reflect this as well. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 03:59, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

On the surface at least, much of civil libertarianism is effectively incompatible with libertarian socialism, since it opposes the private production of goods and services necessary for many civil liberties to exist in a meaningful way. For example, opposing the private production and ownership of newspapers, printing presses, ink, etc, effectively constitutes censorship. And obviously the same would apply to drugs and many other civil liberties. Without going on and on with examples, many civil liberties are dependent on private property rights to exist in a meaningful way. I'm not saying it shouldn't be discussed in the article, just that it would open up a big can of worms that would need to be addressed. Al Bunker (talk) 09:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Al Bunker, libertarian socialism is by no means incompatible with civil liberties; I'd sure like to know where you got such ridiculous information. Perhaps you didn't notice the link Eduen posted to the libertarian socialism article? -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and that's where I got my information (among other sources). It says that they oppose privately owned means of production. Printing presses are means of production. So are the facilities that manufacture them, as well as ink, paper, and other goods and services needed to exercise freedom of the press. The same goes for freedom of religion, drugs, etc. Drugs, drug paraphernalia, bibles, churches, religious objects, etc require means of production to produce them. Which part do you dispute or need sourcing for? Al Bunker (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

The OR, i.e. everything but your first statement. Please also remember that Wikipedia is built on verifiability, so please present reliable sources. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Please be more specific, since none of what I said is OR. OR means no source exists, not merely that a source wasn't cited. Obvious statements not likely to be challenged like "Paris is the capital of France" or "facilities used to manufacture products are means of production" do not need sources cited, and neither does any talk page content. (Perhaps you should read policies before citing them). Despite having no obligation to do so according to the very policy you cite, if you would care to be specific about exactly what you dispute, I will try to accommodate you. But no, I won't track down and cite sources to support "everything but my first statement" or anything else that vague. Al Bunker (talk) 20:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

OR refers to putting things into article space. If it were in article space, about 95% of what is properly discussed on talk pages would be "OR"; that is not a defect with talk page points. North8000 (talk) 20:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk page content gets put into article namespace, so WP:OR remains a relevant policy (obviously). Claims that require attribution are: "much of civil libertarianism is effectively incompatible with libertarian socialism," "opposing the private production and ownership of newspapers, printing presses, ink, etc, effectively constitutes censorship," and "many civil liberties are dependent on private property rights." -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

It's still not clear exactly what aspect of those statements you dispute, since I see nothing about them that is not self-evident based on that article and civil liberties. But I'll provide a couple of sources that refer to restricting private ownership/control of newspapers as censorship: 1, 2. I'll also add the WP article on censorship, which has examples of it, including restricting the possession of related equipment. Unless you can better clarify why you dispute those statements, I don't know what else I can add, except that I haven't suggested actually adding those statements to the article. Doing so would only insult the intelligence of the reader by unnecessarily stating the obvious, and my whole point was that it would be obvious to any intelligent reader, not that the article should actually point it out. That's why I called discussing civil liberties in this article a "can of worms". Al Bunker (talk) 23:23, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I strongly agree. And while Al Bunker might be right, I think that such is a side debate. North8000 (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the article discussing civil libertarianism, I agree completely. I'm just pointing out that it's not central to all the ideologies discussed in this article, and it contradicts at least one of them, assuming that commonly recognized civil liberties are included. It's hardly a "side debate" in this context that libertarian socialists oppose the private production of goods and services necessary to exercise many civil liberties. Al Bunker (talk) 12:04, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't mean to downplay the importance of your point. I just meant that what Eduen said is still an expressed tenet.North8000 (talk) 12:56, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

To what user Al Bunker has said i can only respond that much of contemporary worldwide legislation on civil liberties and individual rights was campaigned by left wing activists and in some cases libertarian socialists and anarchists as can be seen in articles such as anarchism and LGBTI rights, free love, Socialism and LGBT rights and Anarchism and issues related to love and sex. As far as publications i suggest this user to think about how are contemporary libertarian socialist managed? They tend to rely on sales and fundraisings just like most political publications although i know of the case of the anarchist book publishing enterprise AK Press which sees itself and functions in the form of a worker´s cooperative. In fact i have just found out that the main early male gay rights organization in the US, the Mattachine Society was in its early phases an organization with an important marxist influence and even had a major personality of the US Communist Party, Harry Hay as one of its members. Meanwhile the Republican Party, the party where US "minarchists" tend to act and rely on was leading the witch hunt and very un-libertarian campaign of McCarthyism. Later the two names more associated with minarchist economics, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were both social and moral conservatives. Now as far as " And obviously the same would apply to drugs and many other civil liberties" i really don´t think this user has managed to present a real argument. It is the case that non leninist left wing parties to the left of social democracy in Western Europe all tend to argue for depenalization of drugs and in fact in Uruguay a left wing government has been the one who has depenalized marihuana and it is also because the uruguayan president Jose Mujica is an open agnostic. On the other hand right wing libertarians tend to be stuck with their close relationships with conservatives, as it happens in the USA with the Republican Party. Right libertarians just have too much of an alliance with religious conservatives in order to matter really in issues of civil libertarianism and on issues of drugs and sex. Everywhere in order to depenalize drugs, allow for same sex marriages, depenalize abortion and in order to enact separation of church and state the parties who will tend to do that are clearly center left to left wing parties who in general tend to be secular while the right wing tends to be composed of religious moralistic and authoritarian conservatives. And in fact anarchists tend to be anti-religious or anti-christian in general and Bakunin in his God and the State even went as far as to praise Satan openly. A popular US counterculture and civil libertarian author, Robert Anton Wilson, an author who wrote extensively on the virtues of sex and drugs and who was also an ocultist follower of english libertine Aleister Crowley regarded himself as a libertarian socialist and was also a follower of pro sex freudian marxist Wilhelm Reich. Lysander Spooner, US anti-slavery activist and civil libertarian who wrote in the XIX century a book called Vices are not crimes was a member of the socialist First Workers international of Bakunin and Marx. Oscar Wilde, activist for gay rights and someone who was jailed for homosexual acts wrote an article called The Soul of Man under Socialism where he argues that "individualism" needs socialism in order to realize itself. A big name in early british LGBTI activism, Edward Carpenter was also a big name in british socialism and in the Fabian society. The writer of the french best seller Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is the anarchist follower of the economics of Proudhon, the philosopher Michel Onfray. The issue here is sovereignty over one´s body and mind, not property whether private or common or state or whatever.--Eduen (talk) 09:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how any of that addresses or contradicts what I said, and I agree with most of it. And of course I didn't offer a complete argument about drugs, since it seemed self-evident that "depenalizing" drugs (and other products) is only once piece of the pie, the other being a right to manufacture and distribute them independently of any political system. Al Bunker (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Left-libertarianism Section

A recent edit by MisterDub removed my addition to this section of the phrase "in their original unimproved states", referring to examples of natural resources. The cited source uses the phrase "in their original (humanly unimproved) states":

"Natural resources are those things that have no moral standing (e.g., are not sentient) and have not been transformed by any non-divine agent. Thus, land, seas, air, minerals, and so forth in their original (humanly unimproved) states are natural resources, whereas such things as chairs, buildings, and land cleared for farming are not."

Omitting the "in their original unimproved states" clearly changes the meaning of the phrase.

In addition, the word "merely" was removed in the context of "merely claiming" natural resources generating property rights, when omitting the term "merely" (used in the source) obviously changes the meaning of the phrase.

The word "some libertarians" was also replaced by the previous term "those libertarians" ("Those left-libertarians who support the private appropriation of natural resources do so under the condition that recompense is offered to society for their value") despite the fact that the cited source lists that position as only one of four main positions of such left-libertarians.

Can I get some input from other editors on fixing the section to match the meaning of the cited source by:

1. Adding "in their original unimproved states" or something similar to the examples of natural resources.
2. Adding "merely" to "claiming natural resources" in the context of being insufficient to have property rights.
3. Replacing "those left-libertarians" with "some left-libertarians" to accurate reflect the cited source.

Al Bunker (talk) 03:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Al Bunker, the left-libertarianism article doesn't rely upon a single source, nor does its summary here. You might notice that in trying to make the section conform to the source you prefer, you've distanced the copy from another, more authoritative source. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Really? Which source is "distant" from my recommendations above, and how so? That doesn't even make any sense given the nature of the above changes. Al Bunker (talk) 19:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Please see Jan Narveson and David Trenchard's "Left Libertarianism" entry in Ronald Hamowy's The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism: "Left libertarians embrace the view that all natural resources, land, oil, gold, trees, and so on should be held collectively." You'll notice that you changed the list of natural resources from an exact representation of this tertiary source to one from a primary source. Honestly, I thought your entire edit was for the worse, but instead of reverting, I decided it best to clean up the poor prose. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The "in their original unimproved state" clearly does not contradict either source, and distinguishes natural resources from products of labor to avoid confusion. While I realize that the term "natural resources" should be self-explanatory, the Steiner and Vallentyne source explains the difference for a reason. Obviously, we disagree, I think the current version is a complete basket case. Even if the sources do contradict each other, my wording is inclusive of both, while yours excludes many left-libertarians. Hopefully others will offer their input. Al Bunker (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Al Bunker, I think you have it backward: the current phrasing accurately describes the different left-libertarian ideologies, whereas your proposal excludes one of the most popular left-libertarian ideologies, i.e. libertarian socialism. If you'll notice, the "Left-Libertarian" section here is the lead from the Left-libertarianism article, which accurately reflects the multitude of sources therein. Please recognize that this section does not only deal with the Steiner-Vallentyne variant, nor is it supported by a single source. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:02, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

No, it doesn't accurately describe either libertarian socialism or Steiner-Vallentyne left-libertarianism, nor could it without doing so separately. Again, hopefully others will offer some input. Al Bunker (talk) 21:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully we will stay aware that the "Steiner and Vallentyne school" is a small group of recent anglo authors and academics who stay "anglo" in their lockeanism while libertarian socialism is a worldwide movement of movements about two centuries old which in some places reached and movilized millions. A big part of libertarian socialism adheres to theories and views wholly outside lockean problematics and so theories like anarcho-communism, anarcho-collectivism, marxism, british traditions of socialism and french syndicalism simply have too much developed on their own outside of that and mostly from the XIX century onwards, meaning a long time from Locke´s XVII century. So we have to give the right amount of relevance to each view and at some point we have to reduce the amount of "lockeanism" in this article.--Eduen (talk) 06:49, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

While Steiner-Vallentyne left-libertarianism is a small group, Lockean libertarianism is not, and constitute the bulk of people who identify as libertarians. The problem with this (left-libertarianism) section is that Lockean left-libertarianism is being combined/conflated with socialism in a way that misrepresents both. Eduen, would you at least agree that libertarian socialism needs to be discussed separately from, and not conflated with, Lockean left-libertarianism and Lockean libertarianism in general? Al Bunker (talk) 22:37, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I suggest user Al Bunker to check the article Left-libertarianism. in it in the intro the only position that can be said more or less as a whole "lockean" is this "Steiner and Vallentyne school". The other 3 might have some lockean influences but they are too weak, unclear if not non-existent. As far as "left wing market anarchism" the main book compilation which has come out to represent it is Chartier, Gary; Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Brooklyn, NY:Minor Compositions/Autonomedia. This compilation states in its back cover that "It introduces an eye-opening approach to radical social thought, rooted equally in libertarian socialism and market anarchism" while a main theorist of it, Kevin Carson has said that "But there has always been a market-oriented strand of libertarian socialism that emphasizes voluntary cooperation between producers. And markets, properly understood, have always been about cooperation. As a commenter at Reason magazine’s Hit&Run blog, remarking on Jesse Walker’s link to the Kelly article, put it: “every trade is a cooperative act.” In fact, it’s a fairly common observation among market anarchists that genuinely free markets have the most legitimate claim to the label “socialism.”"."Socialism: A Perfectly Good Word Rehabilitated" by Kevin Carson at website of Center for a Stateless Society. So in this way left wing market anarchism has to be considered a part of libertarian socialism and as far as its main theoretical influences they have the mutualism of Proudhon and american individualist anarchism as well as the ricardian socialist Thomas Hodgskin. As such lockeanism is not a main influence of it. Left wing politics and the socialist movement anyway are more or less the same thing or in fact two forms of saying the same thing. Anyone can check both articles (socialism and left wing politics) to confim this. This is why libertarian socialists of anarchist and libertarian marxist origins have also been called "left libertarians". An example of this is the british book Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool University Press. 2006 ISBN 1-84631-025-3. William Morris was a marxist who supported the Socialist League (UK, 1885) which at some point came to be dominated by anarchists and because of that and other reasons he is considered a libertarian marxist. Colin Ward is an english anarcho-communist. So as to conclude i will argue from all of these considerations that "left libertarianism" and "libertarian socialism" can be considered to be more or less the same thing.--Eduen (talk) 08:03, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

That's an awful lot of off-point discussion to not even answer the question I asked. I'm not so important that you need to go to all that trouble to avoid answering my question, you could have just ignored it. Al Bunker (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

New lead per April 6, 2014 proposal

The lead has been replaced with a rewrite I proposed here about a month and a half ago, with a few of changes made since its draft version. It's mostly a combination of that early proposal and some of MisterDub's amended proposal. It may need further revision, but the feedback was mostly positive, so I went ahead and edited it in. The sandbox currently showing the revisions can be found here. Some garbage, marginal or ambiguous references along with references only tenuously related to statements they are meant to support have been removed; some new ones were added. I bundled a little bit of mundane house-keeping with the edit, so I hope that isn't a problem. fi (talk) 06:40, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Finx. I think it looks pretty good, but would like to see either a reduction or combination of the multiple citations supporting a single claim (e.g. the 9 references that support the claim that "present-day libertarians advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights." Unless someone says otherwise, I will remove these excessive citations. Thanks again for your contribution! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:10, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm perfectly fine with that. It proved to be surprisingly contentious, so I added the lot just to be thorough. If someone can pick out the better ones, all the better. fi (talk) 03:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The only caveat that comes to mind is that I think the lead references shouldn't be, for example, exclusively from neoliberal or communist sources unless particularly appropriate. If a statement is meant to describe "libertarianism" broadly, Kropotkin's Britannica article is a pretty important piece of history, but it also makes sense to cite Nock or someone like that if the purpose is show that they're both describing a common feature, however superficial. Otherwise, we end up relying on material from a perspective confined to its own particular bubble. Right now there's a couple of unsourced statements -- e.g. lib-soc abolition of capital, dissolution of private property in MOP (over just the manner in which resources are acquired). Of course, the references are right there in the linked article, but this comes up often enough that I think it'll just end up in the lead again in a few weeks when somebody inevitably contests it. I'll comb through it again when I have a moment and maybe put just a few back in to balance it a bit. Granted, more than three is getting pretty ridiculous. fi (talk) 03:50, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Sounds great, Finx. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:54, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

"combination of economic and cultural liberalism"

I wonder if "cultural liberalism" is appropriate to describe US right wing libertarianism and if maybe there's a better substitute. Some material seems to go against this, such as Rothbard and Rockwell's promotion of so-called 'paleolibertarianism' which boasted to promote cultural conservatism, modeled after Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and senator Joseph McCarthy. Maybe "combination of economic liberalism and devolution" would work better? fi (talk) 21:35, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, I'd probably just remove "cultural liberalism" and leave it at: "... in the United States it has has since come to describe economic liberalism more so than radical, anti-capitalist egalitarianism." Maybe someone with more experience in right-libertarianism will have a better solution though. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Classical Liberalism or Neoliberalism

Somebody has recently changed 'Classical Liberalism' to 'Neoliberalism'. I tried changing it back yesterday, but someone has changed it again. So I thought I should put it up for discussion. I disagree that the correct name for the form of right-libertarianism expressed by the likes of Hayek and Friedman is neoliberalism. As far as I can see, neoliberalism originally refered to a mixed market approach, later coming to be used as a sort of insult against free-market ideologies in general. It is doubtful whether anybody would self-identify as neoliberal. I know there is some degree of confusion surrounding the term classical liberalism due to the fact that it can be used to describe either a specific form free-market liberalism or all pre-20th century liberalism. However, I think that this is still the best term to use. In fact, if you look at the article on Hayek, it says in the introduction that he is best known for his defence of classical liberalism.

Perhaps one other solution would be to create an article on 'neo-classical liberalism' to discuss classical liberal ideology as espoused post 1900, so that the classical liberalism article can focus solely on pre-1900 liberalism. Although admittedly this would be quite a work intensive option and I personally don't have enough knowledge to create it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.71.207.195 (talk) 12:44, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have the time to search through the archives right at this moment, but I've offered probably a dozen of references where notable academic sources see the ideologies described there as almost an extreme opposite of mainstream, central classical liberal principles. There are those that disagree, and many of the actors saw themselves as defending classical liberalism, but whoever is right or wrong, there is a ton of references classing it as "neoliberalism" and a highly disputed, controversial claim that it's a faithful rebirth of classical liberalism. "L'Encirclement" is a documentary film goes over this, for example. As you said, the "mixed market" neoliberalism you describe above is basically a homonym for a different economic school of thought. The dominant meaning today was borrowed from Latin American scholarship to describe everything from the Chicago Boys to more radical heterodox economists like Mises. fi (talk) 02:18, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and regarding whether anyone self-identifies that way, I don't see why it matters, because their feelings about it is not really a consideration. For example, nobody self-identifies as a charlatan, but there's a wikipedia article on it anyway. Right now, the article makes no objective claims about whether this distinct movement geared specifically in favor of economic liberalism and against social liberalism has any rightful claim to call itself a continuation of John Locke and Adam Smith, etc. I think this is the correct approach, because it's outside the scope of this article to determine that, and really out of the scope of Wikipedia all together. fi (talk) 02:27, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I think "neo-classical liberalism" is the best term. Menger rejected many of the classical liberal assumptions, such as the labor theory of value and the iron law of wages, while the term neoliberalism refers to a specific form of neo-classical liberalism that accepts some of the reforms of social liberalism, such as welfare and interventionism, although on a reduced scale. The term "neo-liberalism" is today associated with the paradigm followed by politicians from Thatcher and Blair to Reagan and Obama - much wider than the term libertarian. TFD (talk) 04:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

fi, I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm not really commenting on whether or not the ideology in question is a faithful continuation of the old classical liberalism. I simply want to determine the most accurate name for said ideology. It doesn't need to be the same as the old classical liberalism in order to be also called classical liberalism; in much the same way that neoliberalism seems to have two completely opposing meanings. The main reason that I favour using classical liberalism rather than neoliberalism is simply that neoliberalism is a term with negative connotations, and is always used as a pejorative. Its a non-neutral term and as such I don't think its really suitable for an encyclopedia.

TFD, I agree that neo-classical liberalism is probably the best term. I'll change the title of the section for neo-classical liberalsim for now, with links to both classical liberalism and neoliberalism. -- unsigned comment by 152.71.207.195

"Old classical liberalism" is redundant. "Classical" means old. Furthermore, if a group of people call their movement "the Enlightenment" today, we don't start calling the historical phenomenon "the Old Enlightenment." As we've discussed earlier on a few occasions, "neo-classical liberalism" is so poorly sourced in 20th century literature that it's practically non-existent, especially compared with "neoliberalism"; and of the few sources that actually use the words "neo-classical liberalism" many (if not most) of them just describe it as a synonym for the latter. You both might have very valid points, or maybe not, but I just don't see what it matters. We aren't acting as historians here; we're just writing an encyclopedia article based on reliable sources. fi (talk) 13:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

And again, please explain why it matters if a term takes on negative connotations or is typically used in the pejorative. We have articles on racists, charlatans, quacks and extremists, but few people would ever identify as any of those either. It's not a criterion that we have to please someone. It's sufficient that a word is most commonly used to describe a particular trend. If they have a problem with that label, that's their problem, not mine. fi (talk) 13:12, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

There is ambiguity in the use of most terms related to liberalism. What is important is that we try to reduce ambiguity. The term "neo-liberal" has come to refer to the new liberal paradigm that became accepted by all Western governments of all political persuasions since the 1970s, although the term itself did not come into wide use until the 1990s. While the term is often derogatory, it is not always. The problem is that there are numerous terms to describe it - liberalism, conservatism, Chicago School, Thatcherism, Reaganomics, Rogernomics, etc. And libertarians reject much of that paradigm, even though it was greatly influenced by Mises and Hayek.

There is agreement however that all these people subscribe to "neoclassical economics."

There is an article by Ellen Grigsby called "Neoclassical liberals" in Sage's 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook, pp. 596-604.[8] She sees Spencer and Sumner as early examples and Nozick and the U.S. Libertarian Party as later examples. While it may be an uncommon term, it is at least a clear one. TFD (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

TFD (talk) 15:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how it's a clear one. In fact, it seems to be so obscure and muddy that it didn't even warrant its own Wikipedia page, which was very quickly removed. I'm seeing orders of magnitude more literature referencing neoliberlism than "neo-classical liberalism" and probably most of the ones discussing the latter say they're using it as a synonym for the former. Why not just call it "neoclassical economics" and be done with it, already? If that reduces ambiguity, great. Let's do it. We're certainly not coining the term, as it's already widely used. I don't think derogatory use is a persuasive argument, on the other hand. "Anarchist" is used as an insult pretty much universally outside the anarchist movement. Do we care, for our purposes?

Yet, if we use "neoclassical economics" we'd have to figure out how to reconcile the fact that "neoclassical economics" is said to exclude heterodox schools (as explained in its article, at least), whereas Mises and Hayek -- both champions of right wing American libertarianism described here -- are classed as heterodox economists. I would suggest that just calling it heterodox economics would be most appropriate, if you want the least possible ambiguity, though the page on neoliberalism specifically mentions these economists as central to neoliberal ideology, and I still don't get the problem except hurt feelings. What else can we possibly call it? Fringe neoliberalism? fi (talk) 17:22, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The term neo-liberal has a distinct meaning and is not a synonym for neo-classical liberalism, although it may be used that way in some cases, since it is the predominant form of neo-classical liberalism today. While the expression had been used before (anyone can add "neo" to a word), it developed its current meaning in the 1990s to describe the policies developed by the "New Right" and implimented by governments across the political spectrum. The term is never used to refer to 19th century or early 20th century liberalism, and neoliberalism traces to the Colloque Walter Lippmann and Mont Pelerin Society. And yes U.S. libertarians are in the neoclassical economic tradition of Menger and Mises, even if they are outside the current mainstream. Not that it matters, but the Wikipedia article does not say they are excluded. TFD (talk) 17:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The list of heterodox economists I linked, as well as the articles on neoclassical economics and heterodox economics specifically say they (Mises, Hayek, etc) are excluded, because neoclassical (today, at least) typically describes "mainstream" economics, as opposed to their (again, as of today) fringe, heterodox methodologies. If this is incorrect, it should be corrected and sourced. As of right now, the only sensible alternative I see to neoliberalism is contradicted by the rest of Wikipedia. fi (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

IP, I have no idea what your classical liberalism bit is supposed to mean; most of it is provably wrong:

"Traditional classical liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology belonging to liberalism in which primary emphasis is placed on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government. The philosophy emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization in the 19th century in Europe and the United States."

Classical liberalism is pre-capitalist. It had its roots in the Enlightenment, not "the industrial revolution and urbanization" -- John Locke was six feet under for the better part of a century by the time the industrial revolution reared its head. And I still have no clue whatsoever why this section is (poorly) describing classical liberalism when it should be describing Mises and Hayek. Do you want to describe the paleolithic era too? I get that Hayek wrote what he saw as a defense of classical liberalism. And Ayn Rand wrote what she saw as a defense of Aristotelianism. Who cares? It may be of interest to note that, but doesn't mean you should spend the paragraph describing John Locke and Adam Smith, even if you've got the right century. If there's no compelling reason to keep it, I'm reverting that, whatever we decide to call the whole mess. fi (talk) 01:23, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Classical liberalism is generally seen as having drawn on various writers especially Locke and Smith, but also Ricardo, Malthus, Say and Bentham, but only emerging as a coherent doctrine by the early 19th century. Also, see Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory: The Founding Austrian Vision, "In what senses were the Founding Austrians 'Neoclassical' Economists?" p. 2. "The term 'neoclassical' was initially applied retrospectively and rather loosely to a wide body of literature; the Austrians were only one among several groups of economists of different nationalities to have contributed to that literature."[9] But of course one can define the term more narrowly and say Austrians go beyond neoclassical economics, as the Wikipedia article does, based on the fact that a book about heterodox economics is called Beyond neoclassical economics. Incidentally, one should not necessarily assume that what is written in other Wikipedia articles necessarily correctly represents how terms are generally used.

Anyway the question was whether they are classical liberals or neoliberals and the answer is neither.

TFD (talk) 02:49, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The two of you clearly have more knowledge on the subject than I do so I will leave it for you to decide. By the way fi, I didn't write that second sentence you quoted, it was already there I just moved it a bid. -- unsigned post by 152.71.207.195

TFD, I think you know more about the history of Austrian economics than I do. All I know is that the rest of Wikipedia says (and sources) one thing and this article -- once again -- wants to say the exact opposite. I think that's odd. I mean, we have references all over the place tracing neoliberalism (in the contemporary sense borrowed from Latin American usage) to the influences of these same people who are now hailed as libertarians, plus the more 'moderate' Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys. If you want to call it something else, well, okay, whatever. I'm not seeing the volume of reliable sources I'd expect defining "neo classical liberalism" as anything at all, and fewer still making the distinction that you're making. I'll look into it again, but last time I hardly came up with anything. Is it unreasonable to ask that we just have some consistent standards across WP articles? Can you, or someone else, at least make a "neo classical liberalism" page and sway the consensus that took it down last time for lack of reliable sources? fi (talk) 13:23, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

There is certainly overlap. But libertarianism is an ideology developed by Rothbard, Nolan and Hess that drew on individualist anarchism and incorporated Austrian economics, while neoliberalism is the paradigm pursued by most Communist, Socialist, Liberal and Conservative governments. If there were a key difference, it would be that neoliberals accept a minimal welfare state and believe government intervention is necessary to ensure free markets. Also, libertarians oppose drug laws, the draft, the war on terror and interventionism. TFD (talk) 20:30, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Is there seriously no option other than the borderline coined term "neo-classical liberalism"? Yuck. fi (talk) 18:57, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with TFD that neo-classical liberal may be the best term: the IP is correct that neoliberal is almost always used today as a pejorative, and Finx has explained why the term classical liberal is problematic. Sources like Bryan Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism refer to this right-wing libertarianism as modern American libertarianism, though I think that term carries its own baggage, viz., that the counterpoint ("classical libertarianism"?) is archaic. NPOV concerns have also been expressed about labeling this ideology right-libertarianism or right-wing libertarianism, again because these terms are often used pejoratively by detractors. I think the best possible term to use—at least at this point—is neo-classical liberal. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Contemporary usage - removing garbage sources and confusing statements

Under etymology, this is a statement currently in the article, after its last edit:

Libertarianism in the United States is associated with fiscally conservative and culturally liberal political views (going by the common meanings of conservative and liberal in the United States)

This is its reference:

In the United States it is commonly held that libertarians are economically conservative and socially liberal, and given that conception of libertarianism, the concept of libertarian socialism seems paradoxical.

— Daniel D. Moseley, Debate: Should Libertarians Endorse Basic Income?

Three problems:

• The statement currently in the article is categorically false

No, this libertarianism is not culturally liberal; in fact, some of its most prominent torch-bearers made a point of directing it explicitly against cultual liberalism. For example, as already mentioned above, Rothbard's and Rockwell's promotion of what they dubbed 'paleolibertarianism' was meant to promote cultural conservatism, modeled after Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and senator Joseph McCarthy.

• The referenced statement is also categorically false and conflicts with all other reliable sources

No, libertarians are not associated with social liberalism. If anything, as the article already mentions quite a few times, it was a reaction against social liberalism, where property-rights-fixated individualist opponents of social liberalism apparently sought to distance themselves from the whole liberal label. Since the author either doesn't understand this basic premise or has a fringe, dissenting view, the source is not appropriate here.

• The statement currently in the article doesn't even match the referenced statement

The reference neither mentions cultural liberalism nor fiscal conservatism.

I'm removing this statement and its reference. A better source and a better description are needed. fi (talk) 19:47, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I'd say make the article accurately reflect the source. Your first and last points are accurate, but your second one equivocates social liberalism with socially liberal policies. In the USA in general, liberal refers to social liberalism, and socially liberal refers to the promotion of civil liberties (those that aren't economic in nature). This is counterposed with socially conservative views, which impose traditional, religious values on others. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 19:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I rephrased it to hopefully side-step this whole semantic mess and left the second, better source that puts it in less confusing terms. fi (talk) 20:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I like it. Great work, Finx! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand what you're saying now about social vs. socially, but there's only so much room in those parentheses for subtle semantic nuances and I think the difference was pretty easy to overlook. fi (talk) 20:11, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Philosophy section expanded

All, I have expanded the "Philosophy" section to include actual tenets of libertarian thought, starting from personal autonomy/individual sovereignty/self-ownership, and continuing on to civil liberties, the state, economics, etc. I feel this is a pretty good start, and I know Eduen had mentioned the need for a section on civil liberties here, but it is still missing information. The sections I feel need the most attention are the "Economics" and "Wage labour" sections, as they are lacking in right-libertarian material. I also believe that the Steiner-Vallentyne left-libertarians may be underrepresented, so please feel free to expand these sections.

In making this change, I have also changed the title of our old "Philosophy" section to "Prominent currents." Honestly, I feel this needs a bit of a change too, as it should reflect the tertiary sources that categorize libertarianism into right and left (and sometimes libertarian socialism). I think it might be best to change the subheading "Economic liberalism" to "Right-libertarianism" and move the rest into a section called "Left-libertarianism." I also think it would be appropriate to remove the section titled "Libertarian Marxism" and let "Libertarian socialism" stand for all of these left-libertarian ideologies. I also find it pertinent to remove the "Left-libertarian" section under "Contemporary libertarianism," as my addition has made that information redundant.

I think this article is improving well and just needs a few copy edits and a new lead before we can ask for a Good Article review. Thanks! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I think you might be giving too much undue weight to the small and academicistic current of a few thinkers called "The Steiner-Vallentyne school". Libertarian socialism has been also called "left libertarianism" and it is clearly an older and wider tendency. The Steiner-Vallentyne school should be mentioned since they provide another definition of "left libertarianism" but clearly the terms "socialism" and "left wing politics" overlap so much so as to almost be synonyms.--Eduen (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

At first glance, this looks great. I'll read over it more carefully and maybe try to offer some suggestions as soon as I can. Thanks, MisterDub! fi (talk) 11:59, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I agree. Honestly, I have a hard time understanding the distinguishing features between the "Steiner-Vallentyne school" (which is a rather atrocious, arbitrary title) and Geolibertarianism, both of which should probably be reduced. I am therefore leaving it to others with more knowledge (and sources) to clean up.

Finx, thank you. I'm sure that there is plenty of information dealing with specific libertarian beliefs missing from this section, but I figured this would be a good start. For example, the "Civil liberties" section still needs to address drug use/abuse (which is common to all libertarians), as well as the universal humanitas that often accompanies libertarian socialism. I am planning to get to these later, if no one else beats me to them. I figure I'll let this change settle for a while, then go through the entire article making copy edits and correcting citations before asking for an article review. I think we're nearing our FA status again! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Section "Contemporary libertarianism"

This section seems first highly US centric so as to deserve a banner warning about its US centrism. Second from what i have read the Tea Party movement was mainly composed of conservative elements aligned with the republican party and as such all the religious fundamentalist protestant element as well as the statist right wing support for the Republican Party and its militarism while obviously there was not much actual civil libertarianism such as support for abortion rights or legalization of drugs or support for LGBTI rights but in fact a general conservative outlook. All this is clearly not libertarian or liberal but mostly just plain conservatism but with a more populist component (see right wing populism). So i don´t think this deserves to be in this article. I am allright with mentioning the US libertarian Party since it is clearly an economic liberal party with a civil libertarianism component (in fact a Liberal party in the international sense) but this Tea Party is just a conservative movement and also one with the very unlibertarian characteristic of nationalism which also tends to be a common component of right wing statist politics incluiding fascism as well as british type Tory politics. Clearly non-libertarian stuff.--Eduen (talk) 00:17, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, I agree that the section in question is rather US-centric, but we can certainly change this by adding more international information. As for the Tea Party, I think it ought to stay because there is a significant libertarian (in the neoliberal US sense) presence, as demonstrated by sources. I think this section needs to be cleaned up quite a bit, and I will attempt to do this in the next few days. The Tea Party is really just a loose conglomeration of people who want "fiscal responsibility," which includes both Republicans and right-libertarians. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:32, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

As i read the wikipedia article on this thing it seems to be a movement which is mainly concerned with the budget of the US state and so i have to say it is one of the strangest movements i have read about recently. But on what concern us in this article i ask What is libertarian about that? How exactly are they defending "liberty" there?. But its being aligned mostly with the conservative US party the republican party really makes me think this is clearly out of place in this article since that party, just as any conservative party in the world, defends moralistic intromission in personal choices, tougher police forces, militarism, religious education and institutions, etc . All things which tend to be associated againts libertarianism. Then if they refered themselves as "libertarian movement" or "libertarian" something but it is not the case. And if it contains in itself economic liberals but also conservatives then i can say that May 1968 events in France should also be mentioned in this article since it included anarchists protesting even though it also had maoists there protesting too or for that matter the Russian Revolution itself which had many anarchists bringing down the Tsar even though it also included the Bolcheviks which later went to create the totalitarian statist nightmare of Stalin. It seems to me this is out of place in this article. Maybe it should be mentioned in the "conservatism in the united states" article but not here. There already exists the "Contemporary libertarian organizations section" if there is a need for contemporary libertarianism coverage. Anyway so as to propose an alternative i found this previous version of this article which did a good job in presenting "contemporary libertarianism" well incluiding fact about contemporary US right libertarianism without mentioning this conservative Tea Party movement.--Eduen (talk) 06:49, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Like I said, the sources demonstrate a significant US libertarian component to the Tea Party. The reason your other examples don't get mentioned is because they aren't contemporary--this section is supposed to be about the current affairs of libertarians. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:02, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The Russian Revolution and MAy 68 also had many anarchists organizations yet to call those things "anarchist" will clearly be absurd. Same thing with this Tea Party movement. Following this logic one should not just stop by mentioning the Tea PArty moment as having "a significant US libertarian" but also the REpublican PArty itself even though it contains a significant christian right and more or less protestant fundamentalist sector as well as militaristic, quasi imperialist "neoconservatives" and other highly non libertarian things like that. I could agree on having a small sentence mentioning this Tea PArty movement but to give it an entire section is clearly too much for something which is not wholly "libertarian" but at least half conservative if not more. And also giving it that much space is clearly a huge amount of US centrism. --Eduen (talk) 12:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, feel free to add non-US information to balance the section. As for the Tea Party section, it definitely could be absorbed into the "U.S. Libertarianism" section; I can get to this soon, if you don't beat me to it. Again though, please understand that this information is about contemporary libertarianism as mentioned in reliable sources. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:23, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

NPOV

There has been some concern outside of Wikipedia as to the many recent edits that have involved the term "socialist Libertarian." The entire Occupy section has been completely replaced multiple times and reverted back. My own concern is that this is affecting other sections in this article, not just the Occupy one. WikiWinters (talk) 15:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

WikiWinters, are you suggesting that this article gives undue weight to libertarian socialism in contradistinction with modern American (capitalist) libertarianism? If so, I agree. I think we had previously skewed toward the latter, but that this has been over-corrected, leaving a dearth of encyclopaedic information for right-libertarianism. I am working on bringing more of this material to the article, but I have been extremely busy as of late and proceeding is slow. I was hoping we had some intrepid editors with more knowledge of right-libertarian sources than I who would take up this charge, but this has not yet occurred. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 17:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Yup. WikiWinters (talk) 23:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't looked at the article for quite a while and just skimmed over it. There is WAY too much space devoted to "left libertarianism" (which after 45 years of reading about philosophy and political science I first saw mention of in this article a year or two ago), which is not the main branch of current libertarian thought. In fact, it is much closer to a twig. If someone were to come to this page after reading the recent NYTs article "Has the Libertarian Moment Finally Arrived?" they would be VERY confused. The article is already big and unwieldy, and adding enough material on classic liberalism to balance it out would break the bank. I recommend some wholesale trimming. There are plenty of articles on left libertarianism to act as reference. This main article should be balanced to reflect what is going on in the real world right now. --Paul (talk) 22:27, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

agree Paul. modern english usage is almost entirely devoted to less/smaller government. Darkstar1st (talk) 23:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Paul, please provide a source on how this is not "the main branch of current libertarian thought" and "much closer to a twig." From what I understand there's still a whole lot of socialists around, who are neither parliamentarians nor Leninists. There's people all over the world presently identifying as libertarian socialists, libertarian communists, etc. Have you ruled out ignorance and incompetence as possible reasons for why you aren't familiar with them or "very confused"? fi (talk) 13:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

In Spanish speaking countries is the same, libertarianism means mainly the free market/less state politics. I have included a template of "disputed article" at the top of this one. --Sageo (talk) 03:34, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I have changed the "disputed" template to a "NPOV" template since the conversation has not challenged the factual accuracy of the article, but rather the weight it gives libertarian socialism. I also agree that the "Libertarian socialism" section in the "History" is too large. I stated so when the change was made, but I am only one editor. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 13:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems that user Eduen is behind much of the libertarian socialism content. He has also had the same editing behavior on Spanish Wikipedia's libertarianism page. WikiWinters (talk) 14:06, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

What? I ask user WikiWinter to bring proof of what he has said. For any doubts i send everyone here to the history of editions of the spanish wikipedia article on libertarianism for that and they will see that i have not even edited anything there up to the year 2008. Wikiwinter is lying. As far as user Sageo clearly he is refering to what in spanish speaking countries is called "liberalism" and anyway an old discussion already for this article.--Eduen (talk) 20:48, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

My name is WikiWinters, first off. As for your editing behavior, it's only what has been told to me. There was a post in the group titled "Libertarian" on Facebook, in which the member expressed concerns over the bias and inaccuracy in the content of this page, and the member said your name after he looked in the history. As a native Spanish speaker, he told me that he looked through the history of the equivalent page on Spanish Wikipedia and noticed the same trend. I'm assuming that you have the same name on Spanish Wikipedia. He mentioned behavior that included consistently changing entire sections, particularly the one about the Occupy movement, to describe libertarian socialism. I looked through the history and he is correct. I told him to post on this talk page to express his concerns, but he said that it would be too difficult and time-consuming as he's a native Spanish speaker but "only intermediate at English." I'm simply doing this for him, but I absolutely agree. WikiWinters (talk) 21:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

MisterDub: "are you suggesting that this article gives undue weight to libertarian socialism in contradistinction with modern American (capitalist) libertarianism? If so, I agree." This can be explained by the fact that what is being called here "right libertarianism" in the rest of the world tends to be called economic liberalism, neoliberalism or classical liberalism. So this is why the right libertarian sections here are so US centric and they cannot be otherwise since only there the economic liberals reject the liberal label. If you were to deal with german advocates of laissez faire capitalism you will have to deal with the Free Democratic Party (Germany) which is there associated with liberalism and thus with laissez faire capitalist or neoliberal economic policies or in the international level with the Liberal International.--Eduen (talk) 21:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

User wikiwikters. As anyone can check the previously mentioned history of spanish wikipedia article on "libertarianism" you can only conclude that you have been misinformed as i have not edited that article at all. As far as the occupy Wall Street mention in this article i did not include that here and in fact if you were to ask me on Occupy Wall St. I will tell you that Ocuppy did include some anarchists and had a horizontal form of organization akin to anarchist ideas but that it included too many social democrats, marxist leninist and US Democratic Party supporters for us to be able to associate it too much with anarchism. For who included Occupy Wall St. in this article i guess you can ask user MisterDub.--Eduen (talk) 21:40, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

In Spanish speaking countries "socialismo libertario" is used to describe plenty of alive-and-well political movements, like Zapatismo/EZLN and radical trade unionism. fi (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Replace "Libertarian socialism" section under "History" with "Individualist anarchism"

I suggest this change because we already have a section titled "Rise of anarchism" which covers the anti-capitalist origins of anarchism and to which important innovations in libertarian socialism can be added. Furthermore, individualist anarchism in the United States influenced right-libertarianism both directly—through philosophical anarchist Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken (whose intellectual debt to anarchists such as Stirner, Thoreau, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, and Tucker are evident through their inclusion in his A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources), and anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard—and indirectly, as contributors to the general atmosphere of American individualism. We can then improve the section on right-libertarianism (currently titled "Resurgence of economic liberalism") to bring the article closer to NPOV. I think the title of this section ought to be something akin to "Individualist anarchism in the United States" or simply "Individualist anarchism," as this current of libertarian thought was most prominent in the USA anyway. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

"Individualist anarchism" is not the most prominent branch of libertarianism, and never has been. The most prominent branch is "classical liberal" under which classification you can find Adam Smith, David Hume, John Locke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Taylor Mill, John Stewart Mill, Frederic Bastiat, David Ricardo, F. A. Hayek, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and Milton Friedman. What people today call libertarianism was liberalism in the 19th century. Individualist anarchism is an entirely different thing, has its own article, and only deserves a brief mention here.--Paul (talk) 22:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Paul, I have never said that individualist anarchism was the most prominent branch of libertarianism. It did, however, directly influence modern American libertarianism in the specific ways I have already mentioned. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 13:01, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

sounds good to me. libsoc has always struck me as an oxymoron. how can one co-operative management of the economy while maintaining freedom of choice. it is my choice that you share your tractor, or land, or wrench, it is your choice to say no. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:52, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what we personally think about these ideologies; let's stick with the sources. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 18:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

What is called in this talk page as right-libertarianism is the standard libertarianism. Also exist a left-libertarianim, but this one is not libertarian socialism but another approach to free market / less state ideas. Libertarian socialism have no main afiliation with libertarianism, left o right ones. There aren't sources showing any several consensus about a "same family" or even a shared use of the concept "libertarianism" inside or outside of US. Maybe the confusion is with the term libertarian that have a wider use, but with the term libertarianism there isn't any other several use.--Sageo (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that libertarian socialism could be mention but in a little section that explains that it not use the term libertarianism to refers itself. Also is needed a remove of exposition of this ideas as part of libertariansim definition from the other parts of the article (beginning with the introduction). --Sageo (talk) 20:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

User Sageo is bringing up an old discussion here so we have to deal with it in that way. The use of "libertarian" without any adjectives by anarchists goes as far as the mid 19th century and has continued like that until now and this even happened and happens in the USA. I send user Sageo to archives for all these discussions. As far as the recent use of the "left libertarian" label and its relationships with market ideas i clearly agree with that. But it happens that it is also a form of libertarian socialism as admitted by people like Kevin Carson and Gary Chartier who are just developing and updating the anti capitalist market ideas of Benjamin Tucker and Liberty and also of Proudhon. For more on that check the article "left wing market anarchism". Also "socialism" on itself is not in necessary contradiction with markets on themselves and so anyone can go check the "market socialism" article. Its main contradiction is with capitalism not with markets on themselves. Markets can be capitalist and non capitalist as the existence of agricultural small farms markets and artisan markets show. Even someone like Karl Marx does not equate "markets" with capitalism. For Marx capitalism does not depend only in the existence of a market but also, and perhaps most importantly, in the hegemony of wage labour relationships. One can participate in a market relationship as a self employed person and so that will be a non capitalist situation but within a market. This is the reason why all three Kevin Carson, Gary Chartier and Benjamin tucker himself called themselves "socialists".

User Darkstar: It doesn´t matter if "libertarian socialism" sounds to you as an oxymoron or if you just don´t have the knowledge of something. The historical records show anti-capitalists using the "libertarian" label since the 19th century so we are not measuring here personal opinions of users.

User MisterDub: "I think the title of this section ought to be something akin to "Individualist anarchism in the United States" or simply "Individualist anarchism," as this current of libertarian thought was most prominent in the USA anyway". Hardly the case. Individualist anarchism is strongly associated with Max Stirner, a german and from there it expanded to Spain, France and Italy where there existed many specific individualist anarchist publications and many theorists and activists such as Miguel Gimenez Igualada, Renzo Novatore and Emile Armand among others. Check the individualist anarchism in Europe and the individualist anarchism in France articles.

But also the historical discussion on "libertarianism" cannot limit itself to individualist anarchism. Anyway I remind everyone that individualist anarchism is also an anticapitalist position so it can very well be taken as a form of libertarian socialism ans in fact it is also mentioned in the main libertarian socialism article. Joseph Déjacque was already calling himself "libertarian" in the mid 19th century while discussing with Proudhon and Dejacque was clearly arguing also for communism. So this is the origin of the very old label "libertarian communism" and the reason why it is used even today in the US by an organization like Common Struggle – Libertarian Communist Federation. This is the reason why you cannot take libertarian socialism from the main history section.--Eduen (talk) 21:02, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Sageo, actually there are many comprehensive secondary sources that detail the history of libertarianism/anarchism and include "the standard libertarianism" as a relatively recent, right-wing political movement and philosophy. See for example, Peter Marshall's excellent work Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism or George Woodcock's Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, for example, discusses modern American libertarianism and addresses the specific connections I previously mentioned. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 21:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Eduen, yes, I am aware that I was speaking of relative abundance. And I am of course open to a different title. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 13:01, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Nor am I seeking to "take libertarian socialism from the main history section." I am suggesting that we reduce the libertarian socialist content by paring that section down to only the individualist current, and any important information about social anarchism can be placed in the section titled "Rise of anarchism," where I think it is more appropriate. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't miss the point. We aren't talking about of fringe uses of the term libertarianism, we are talking about the main use, and a live use. For Eduen: it's not necessary to expose your political comments, and don't confuse yourself, I'm not in discussion about who use the term "libertarian" first neither talking about any essentialism of words (Meanings are social practices). Note: the use of the word "libertarian" in something don't make it be the same than libertarianism, that's the point. No main publication makes that confusion, only English Wikipedia, and that is a problem here. --Sageo (talk) 20:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry Sageo but i can´t understand what you are saying. User Mister Dub: It will be actually a fair thing to have more contents of libertarian socialism here due to the fact that it exists all over the world while the rejection of the "liberal" label by economic liberals only occurs in the US and so the treatment of right libertarianism will only deal with the US. And exactly why would you want to only talk about individualist anarchism there? In fact the earliest use of the word libertarian was by the anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque.--Eduen (talk) 23:45, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

This argument continues to recur: U.S. libertarians have no connection with socialist libertarians, it's what most people mean by libertarian so this article should only be about them. However, the founders of the U.S. libertarian movement (Rothbard, Nolan, Hess) saw themselves as continuing the tradition of socialist libertarians with one difference - they thought that libertarian society would be capitalist rather than socialist. Other than that they adopted much of the language of libertarianism. TFD (talk) 00:25, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"Libertarian socialism" is a contradiction in terms, and the presence of this section in this article serves only to promote collectivism with yet another round of sheep's clothing. Socialism, in ALL of its forms, is an assault on liberty, no matter how sophisticated the denial may appear to be. 2601:9:7E00:9F4:995D:6AC3:D556:C084 (talk) 03:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

A lot of editors commenting here need to spend ten minutes actually reading the article. On the proposal of cutting out libertarian socialism from history, I oppose but on narrow grounds. I think it should be trimmed down to roughly the size of every other subsection. There's good content, just way too much of it. By the same token, the more recent right wing stuff that inverted the meaning of "libertarian" doesn't need to be expanded to make 40-some years of any notable history under that label look like 200. In other words I don't see a problem of balance, I see a problem with way too much detail. fi (talk) 13:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Finx and Eduen, I think you both may have misunderstood me. I am not talking about removing libertarian socialism from this article completely. My proposal is to reduce the specific subsection in the "History" section entitled "Libertarian socialism"; the section titled "Rise of anarchism" already deals with libertarian socialism, and we don't need the ludicrous amount of detail currently in the article. What I'd like to see:

1. the "Rise of anarchism" section cover libertarian socialism more generally (it already does this, but is not above improvement)
2. add a new section entitled "Individualist anarchism" (or something along those lines) that discusses the individualist current of libertarianism/anarchism/libertarian socialism, ending with discussion of the American libertarians (this will provide a nice segue into the section detailing the history of modern American libertarianism)
3. move the important content within the "Libertarian socialism" section to more apt sections ("Rise of anarchism" for social anarchism, "Individualist anarchism" for that strain); delete unnecessary content
4. improve the section currently titled "Resurgence of economic liberalism" so it will be an accurate, well-sourced description of the history of modern American libertarianism

— MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with the reduction you're proposing, but individualist anarchism is a relatively minor part of libertarian socialism historically and globally. fi (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

What user Finx says is also something to consider. Which anyway adds to my earlier point that the early self identification with the word "libertarian" by the anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque clearly goes againts an overemphasis on individualist anarchism over the other bigger anarchist currents who have used for self description the word "libertarian" since the 19th century. And the issue of libertarian marxism should also be taken into account which only ended up adding more currents of thought to those who were using the label "libertarian". Organizations and people started calling themselves "libertarian marxist" only by the late 1960s onwards but all of them trace their origins to left communist currents fo the early 20th century. So reducing libertarian socialism to individualist anarchism is , because of this fact, a huge error.--Eduen (talk) 23:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

And, again, no one is saying that. Thanks for not reading! — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:38, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Libertarian Socialism _is_ the "main current" of libertarianism, both globally and in the U.S. It doesn't get as much commercial media attention because capitalists don't want to pay to advertise socialism - go figure. Socialism means worker control over the means of production, an essential to liberty (not an "attack" on it). Individualist anarchism and social anarchism are both tendencies of libertarian socialism. Both are socialist. If you're unfamiliar with Libertarian Socialism and the history of the labor movement in the U.S., then either start reading up on Libertarian Socialists in the U.S. like Emma Goldman, David Graeber, Noam Chomsky et alia, or go edit a page on basket weaving and leave politico economic philosophy to the subject matter experts. The fact that we're using a living language shouldn't excuse anyone's attempts to use Wikipedia as a platform to rewrite that language according to their personal (or their employer's) fancy.98.245.20.31 (talk) 07:21, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Your claim that libertarianism in the USA predominantly refers to anarchism is highly dubious. Do you have sources to justify this? — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

No one is saying that, MisterDumb. Thanks for not reading! The claim is that Libertarian Socialism has always been the main tendency of Libertarianism, not that the Cato institute's misuse of the term is insufficiently peppered throughout commercial media. Rothbard himself admitted to a conscious usurping of the language, as cited in this very article. Again, the fact that we're using a living language should not excuse the use of Wikipedia to rewrite that language. Anyone who is unfamiliar with Libertarian Socialism and the Labor Movement doesn't know anything about politico economic philosophy and should kindly leave this page to the subject matter experts.98.245.22.186 (talk) 22:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, you did say that: "Libertarian Socialism _is_ the 'main current' of libertarianism, both globally and in the U.S." I again kindly request supporting sources. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 22:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, being the "main current" or "tendency" does not in any way equate to "predominantly refers to anarchism." But your requests for sources on something I didn't say, as opposed to your noticeably absent requests for sources on claims *against* socialism does wonders for proving the NPOV problem with this page. Thank you for that.98.245.13.170 (talk) 23:00, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Please pull your head out of your ass long enough to realize that I am a libertarian socialist and am still not trying to remove it from this article. Maybe then you'll actually be able to locate a source that supports your claim that "Libertarian Socialism _is_ the 'main current' of libertarianism, both globally and in the U.S." — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:40, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Well then, comrade, I suggest you begin acting like it. Reading through your revisions and activity on the talk page, it's easy to get the impression that you're running a false flag operation for the Koch brothers. Again, historically speaking, Libertarian Socialism has always been at the forefront, outclassing other tendencies such as Georgism. Just because some rich people are paying organizations like Cato to advertise capitalist "Libertarianism" in a deliberate attempt to usurp the term(as indicated by Rothbard)doesn't mean it's true. For example, suppose a rich Caliph established multiple "think tanks" which all say "Democracy" means having a King. Just because they're publishing doesn't mean it's true.98.245.13.201 (talk) 22:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

That's because I'm not here to promote my beliefs, but to contribute to an academic encyclopaedia. Guess I'm the only one. — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 14:06, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Really? Because it sure looks like you're being paid to do the opposite, and the revisions you support are neither historically factual nor internally consistent. Promoting an admittedly fraudulent use of a term at the expense of academic honesty. tsk tsk.98.245.41.125 (talk) 15:23, 4 September 2014 (UTC)