Talk:Libertarianism/scope

Should the scope of the Wikipedia article entitled Libertarianism include the political philosophy known as libertarian socialism or left-libertarianism?

Argument in favor of including LL

• Scholarly definitions in HQRS include a major literature of broad definitions. (Long, Widerquist, Sapon and Robino)
• Scholarly definitions in HQRS only consider libertarian socialism to be a libertarianism (Cox)

Contributors to this section

• Fifelfoo (talk) 00:00, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Argument in opposition of including LL

1. In the 2005 version of this article, libertarian socialism was not mentioned in the article.

2. There's more than enough reliable sources to justify excluding any ideologies that advocate abolishing the state (this needs support).

3. Private ownership of the means of production (capitalism) is a defining tenet of libertarianism . It's also a defining tenet of conservatism and liberalism. Articles on political ideologies should be organized by defining tenets...not labels.

Contributors to this section

• --Xerographica (talk) 17:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
• --Born2cycle (talk) 22:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Rebuttal to argument in opposition of including LL

Contributors to this section

Should the scope of the Wikipedia article entitled Libertarianism include the political philosophy known as anarcho-capitalism?

Argument in favor of including A-C

The term minarchism is used to distinguish libertarians that believe a minimal government is required by civilized society from the anarcho-capitalists who believe civilized anarchy is possible.

Contributors to this section

• Born2cycle (talk) 22:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Rebuttal to argument in favor of including A-C

Editing this section is pending completion of the argument in favor

Argument in opposition of including A-C

1. There's more than enough reliable sources to justify excluding any ideologies that advocate abolishing the state (this needs support).

2. Trying to needlessly turn this article into a book on libertarianism is counter-productive. NOTE: Is this a persuasive point? Is comparing it to a book, fair? What does that mean?

Contributors to this section

• --Xerographica (talk) 16:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
• --Born2cycle (talk) 22:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Argument in favor of reducing LL and A-C

Coverage of various uses of the term that are covered in the article should receive coverage commensurate to the amount of relative usage there is for each use in English. As such [this needs to be shown], the current coverage of LL and A-C needs to be reduced.

So much coverage is given in this article to offbeat definitions of Libertarianism, so little to the common forms of Libertarianism that the article is a confusing, uninformative mess. And no coverage is given to the tenets in common to 90% or 99% of Libertarians. Yet the topic is complex enough that s "disambiguation article" is needed instead of a disambiguation page, and I think that this is it. (this paragraph by North8000 (talk) 10:54, 23 September 2010 (UTC)North8000 (talk) 20:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Contributors to this section

--Born2cycle (talk) 23:13, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

North8000 (talk) 11:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Sources for including LL

Roderick T. Long defines libertarianism as "any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power [either "total or merely substantial"] from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals", whether "voluntary association" takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives.

Most left libertarians support some form of income redistribution on the grounds of a claim by each individual to be entitled to an equal share of natural resources, including Georgist supporters of a single tax. Some claim it is standard for left-libertarians to support substantial redistributive welfare programs.

• Sapon, Vladimir; Robino, Sam (2010). "Right and Left Wings in Libertarianism". Canadian Social Science. 5 (6).

For examples of philosophical literature describing the left/right variations of libertarianism, see:

• Bevir, Mark. Encyclopedia of Political Theory. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2010. page 811;
• Vallentyne, Peter (September 5, 2002). "Libertarianism". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Retrieved March 5, 2010. in addition to the better-known version of libertarianism—right-libertarianism—there is also a version known as 'left-libertarianism' {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help);
• Christiano, Thomas, and John P. Christman. Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy. Contemporary debates in philosophy, 11. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. page 121;
• Lawrence C. Becker, Charlotte B. Becker. Encyclopedia of ethics, Volume 3 Encyclopedia of Ethics, Charlotte B. Becker, ISBN , page 1562;
• Paul, Ellen F. Liberalism: Old and New. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. page 187; and
• Sapon, Vladimir; Robino, Sam (2010). "Right and Left Wings in Libertarianism". Canadian Social Science. 5 (6).

Usage in English evaluations

The purpose of this section is to evaluate usage of the relevant terms, libertarian and libertarianism, in English. As is often done to resolve disambiguation and primary topic issues, the google test is a useful tool in such an endeavor. In each test, each hit is evaluated to see if usage of the term includes or excludes left-libertarianism, or if it's indeterminate.

KEY:

• RL (right-libertarianism or minarchism),
• LL (left-libertarianism or libertarian socialism),
• A-C (anarcho-capitalism),
• BL (so-called broad libertarianism, current topic of this article - inclusive of RL, LL and AC), or
• ??? (indeterminate).

Please note that we're not looking at what each site advocates but at what it means when it uses the term in question; some of these are even sites that are critical of libertarianism (it's useful to determine what they are criticizing... RL, A-C, RL+A-C, LL, RL+A-C+LL?

Wikipedia hits, and Wikipedia-derived hits, are ignored.

libertarian

• Top 20 "libertarian -wikipedia" hits at google.com search

For each link, how is the term libertarian used?

1. www.libertarianism.com/

   RL/A-C

   "Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property"

   "Some libertarians are “minarchists” ... Others are “anarcho-capitalists”" [1]

2. www.libertarianism.com/pop_celebrity/trey-parker

   RL "South Park even gives an occasional insider's nod to libertarianism; one show featured a policeman saying he's "never reading again" after tackling Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged."

3. www.lp.org/

   RL "Each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and property." introduction

4. www.theihs.org/node/504

   RL (quoting Boaz) "Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property-rights that people have naturally, before governments are created. "

5. www.libertarianism.org/ (website for David Boaz' book entitled "Libertarianism : A Primer"

   RL "Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property" [2]

6. world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html A critique of libertarianism

   RL/A-C "the two major flavors are anarcho-capitalists (who want to eliminate political governments) and minarchists (who want to minimize government.) There are many more subtle flavorings, such as Austrian and Chicago economic schools, gold-bug, space cadets, Old-Right, paleo-libertarians, classical liberals, hard money, the Libertarian Party, influences from Ayn Rand, and others. " [3]

   Note that all of the "subtle flavorings" fall within one of the two "major flavors", and that LL is not included explicitly or implicitly.

7. sethf.com/essays/major/libstupid.php A critique of libertarianism

   RL " Each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and property. Government's only role is to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud." [4]

8. web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/libertarian.html A critique of libertarianism

   RL "[Libertarianism] is a development of classic liberalism, and not a separate category from it. It is specifically associated with the United States, and to a lesser extent with Britain and its former 'white colonies' (Canada, Australia, New Zealand). ... libertarians generally believe that market forces override individual liberty" [5]

9. www.catb.org/esr/faqs/libertarianism.html

   RL/A-C About 3/4 are "minarchists" ... The other 1/4 (including the author of this FAQ) are out-and-out anarchists... [6] Stronger property rights and a smaller government would weaken the power elite [7]

10. Libertarianism:A Primer, by David Boaz at books.google.com

    RL. See #5 above.

11. Libertarianism:A Primer, by David Boaz at amazon.com

    RL. See #5 above.

12. www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/339321/libertarianism

    RL/A-C.

    Libertarianism’s distrust of government is rooted in 19th-century anarchism.

    These rights include the rights to life, liberty, private property, ... [8]

13. www.missouri.edu/~philrnj/nozick.html

    RL/A-C?

    "The absolute property rights sought by libertarians, it seems, must be established in some other way." [9] NOTE: LLs do not seek absolute property rights, so LLs are excluded from the meaning of "libertarians" as used here.

14. community.livejournal.com/libertarianism

    indeterminate

    NOTE: web forum commentary

15. dictionary.reference.com/browse/libertarian

    indeterminate

    NOTE: Very vague: a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct

16. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PaN9M4WwHw (Milton Friedman on Libertarianism)

    RL/A-C? "a libertarian wants the smallest, least intrusive government that is consistent with a maximum of freedom for each individual to follow his own ways, his own values, as long as he doesn't interfere with anyone else doing the same".

    NOTE: This is what Friedman calls, "consequentialist libertarianism", to which he subscribes. Friedman also discusses what he refers to as "The extreme version of libertarianism", or the "Ayn Rand type of libertarianism", which has one central principle: "it is immoral to initiate force on anyone else".

    These quotes are all from the first two minutes of the interview and both are essentially minarchism. One might argue that anarcho-capitalism is not excluded, at least not from the "extreme version", but certainly there is no room for "libertarian socialism" or "left-libertarianism" with its constraints on owning private property in this conception of libertarianism.

17. www.mondopolitico.com/ideologies/libertarianism/whatislibertarianism.htm

    BL "One will find self-styled libertarians who believe that there must be a government and those who wish to do away with government altogether. One will find libertarians who believe in a natural and inalienable right of private property for every individual, but also libertarians who reject such a right and believe all property should be held communally." [10]

18. www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1074&loc=r

    RL

    Another David Boaz piece.

    "Libertarianism is a political philosophy that advocates individual liberty and limited, constitutional government. ... Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property—rights they believe that people have naturally, before governments are created. "

19. www.zompist.com/libertos.html "What's wrong with libertarianism"

    RL/A-C

    Clearly a critque of Rothbard, Rockwell, Rand, von Mises... i.e., RL and maybe A-C, but definitely not LL ("[For libertarians], "property is sacred" [11]).

20. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libertarianism

    indeterminate

    Just as vague as the other dictionary: "an advocate of the doctrine of free will".

• "libertarian" at google.co.uk
• "libertarian" at google.com.au
• "libertarian" at news.google.com
• "libertarian" at books.google.com
• "libertarian" at site:.edu
• google.ie
• google.co.nz
• google.co.in/
• www.google.ca/

libertarianism

1. "libertarianism" at google.com
2. "libertarianism" at google.co.uk
3. "libertarianism" at google.com.au
4. "libertarianism" at news.google.com
5. "libertarianism" at books.google.com
6. "libertarianism" at site:.edu

Relevant google hit counts

• google.com "libertarian" About 4,800,000 results
• google.com "libertarian -meaninglessterm" About 36,300,000 results
• google.com "libertarian -wikipedia" About 7,950,000 results
• google.com libertarian -meaninglessterm -wikipedia About 35,800,000 results
• google.com "libertarian" -"libertarian socialism" -"left-libertarian" -wikipedia About 35,200,000 results
• google.com "libertarianism -wikipedia" About 763,000 results
• google.com "left-libertarian -wikipedia" About 34,700 results
• google.com "left-libertarianism -wikipedia" About 11,500 results
• google.com left-libertarianism -meaninglessterm -wikipedia About 148,000 results
• google.com "libertarian socialism" -wikipedia About 27,200 results

Google Scholar hit counts

• Libertarianism Results 1 - 10 of about 35,700.
• libertarian Results 1 - 10 of about 75,600.
• "Libertarian socialism" Results 1 - 10 of about 614
• Left-libertarian Results 1 - 10 of about 1,630
• Left-libertarianism Results 1 - 10 of about 462.
• Anarcho-capitalism Results 1 - 10 of about 553.

Contributors to English usage evaluation section

--Born2cycle (talk) 23:40, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

While it's a good idea to do it if only to get if off this page, it's a bad idea if anyone thinks it will lead to making the article pov by removing content some editors don't like. Please see:

• This August 27 RfC rejecting just making it about Right wing libertarianism,
• This September 3 successful RfC for removing a tag saying that the article lacked a “single coherent topic” (because it did not have the desired single POV,
• This September 9 rejected Requested move to "Libertarianism (word)".
• This September 9 rejected Requested move to "Libertarianism (Forms of)".
• This rejected proposal to revert to the 2005 version which does not include material they do not like does not go to broader community; currently 5 for and 5 against. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I also have reservations about this. Left-libertarianism should definitely be covered; the question is how much. If this were to be put to a vote, I would honestly vote 'yes'.

Also, how can the last one be 'rejected' if it is not even finished? It certainly was not DOA. Toa Nidhiki05 21:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't the topic of Talk:Libertarianism/scope be:

Should the scope of the Wikipedia article entitled Libertarianism include the political philosophies known as libertarian socialism (or left-libertarianism) and anarcho-capitalism?

My impression was that those favouring a narrow article want one about minarchism (aka "mainstream libertarianism"). Iota (talk) 21:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we should have sections for both arguments. I think if we focus on this, and particularly the usage section, we will find that most uses of the term do not exclude A-C, or are (at worst) indeterminate on that issue, while most uses clearly exclude left-libertarianism (e.g., by mentioning the primacy of property rights). --Born2cycle (talk) 21:33, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done I cloned the LL section to have one about A-C too. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Carolmooredc, regardless of any dispute/agreements I may have with you regarding the appropriate content of the Libertarianism page, I'm getting heartily sick and tired of you and BigK HeX and TFD constantly claiming that consensus exists when, clearly, no consensus has been achieved, as per WP:CONSENSUS. Repeating that claim - over and over and over - does not make it true. Just read the link if you don't know what WP:Consensus means.

The primary reason that the Libertarianism page is stuck so firmly in the mud, and going nowhere, is that there is a substantial divide of opinion among the editors of this page, and one of those groups (your group) has flat-out refused to compromise in any way. BlueRobe (talk) 21:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. If a small group of editors is preventing the content from being improved, it is entirely appropriate to ignore them and move forward. Fell Gleaming^talk 18:23, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Format and Scope Suggestion

A sub page like this is a great structural idea for situations like this. Ideally it should have an "editable" section with succinct points and summaries and another typical talk page section. But I think that you might have narrowed the subject too much. My suggestion would be "Libertarianism article strategic planning and issues". North8000 (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC) The scope would be larger issues which are too big / complex to solve via just editing the article and where the format main article talk page is too transient and voluminous to serve the purpose. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Everything above the #Discussion tag is intended to be the "editable" section with succinct points and summaries; a collaborative effort just like any article. Feel free to add other arguments to the list, preferably using the same structure (argument in favor, rebuttal; argument against, rebuttal). Everything here below #Discussion is intended to be the talk section. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Google methodology

google.com needs to be searched for "libertarianism -wikipedia" at a depth much greater than top 20 hits. tbh, I'd suggesting doing a good 200 in User Space before reporting. In doing so, turn any iGoogle off. And then you need to do it again for google.com show only sites from The United States. Given that Country Specific Googles are going to mirror the international google's international report, they should probably begin simply with "show results from India only" and with "libertarianism -wikipedia". Its also worth noting that google lacks the very useful NEAR term, which makes searches painful. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:02, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to add any type of search to that section that you feel is relevant, especially if you're going to do the legwork. If one search demonstrates something significantly different about usage than another, that can be addressed in the arguments. --Born2cycle (talk) 14:58, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that this is seriously going to be indicative, but it looks like fun, particularly for i18n-ing [internationalising] various sub-articles. My chief theoretical concerns revolve around working out other searches along the "libertarianism * movement / party / protest / riot ... etc" vein to pick up non-parliamentary evidence in non-US (canadian, irish, english-and-scottish-and-welsh, australian, new zealand, indian, minor English speaking) areas. I guess I'm saying I want more adept google searchers to pull at these threads before I pull down 200 Malay site English -wikipedia hits for analysis :) Fifelfoo (talk) 15:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I've adjusted the search above to have -wikipedia be part of it, but I just realized that filters out sites like this:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/libertarianism/

The reason it's excluded is because at the bottom it references the Wikipedia Libertarianism article under "other internet sources", but there is no indication that anything in that piece relied on the WP article.... so, doing so causes us to potentially exclude "good" sources. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I take your point; I guess this is another reason I'm in favour of deeper (200) searches. Also as a note: while "Libertarianism" does not become "Libertarianist" in the adjectival construction, that "Libertarian socialism" does become "Libertarian socialist", so an OR term is needed in that search. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:56, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Even going 200 deep is not going to produce that result as long as -wikipedia is part of the search string. I finally finished determining usage in the first 20... it's quite a bit of work. Doing that for 200, for each search, is unthinkable. With respect to determining usage, I think the first 20 is pretty good, because when people google that's probably all they're going to see.

Why don't you tackle 20 in some other category of search, and then we'll talk about it some more? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)