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Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. (2025). 9780415250696 ISBN 9780415250696 (2025). 9780190228637 ISBN 9780190228637 Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the non-aggression principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.
Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose authority, state power, , militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing Economic system and .
Schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and non-state power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish these various forms of libertarianism.Long, Joseph. W (1996). "Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class". Social Philosophy and Policy. 15 (2): 310. "When I speak of 'libertarianism' ... I mean all three of these very different movements. It might be protested that LibCap libertarian, LibSoc libertarian and LibPop libertarian are too different from one another to be treated as aspects of a single point of view. But they do share a common—or at least an overlapping—intellectual ancestry."Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. London: SAGE Publications. p. 1006 . . "There exist three major camps in libertarian thought: right-libertarianism, socialist libertarianism, and left-libertarianism; the extent to which these represent distinct ideologies as opposed to variations on a theme is contested by scholars." Scholars have identified distinct libertarian perspectives on the nature of property and capital, typically delineating them along left–right or socialist–capitalist axes. Libertarianism has been broadly shaped by Liberalism ideas.
The use of the term libertarian to describe a new set of political positions has been traced to the French cognate libertaire, coined in a letter French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque wrote to mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857.Marshall, Peter (2009). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. p. 641. "The word 'libertarian' has long been associated with anarchism, and has been used repeatedly throughout this work. The term originally denoted a person who upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the will; in this sense, Godwin was not a 'libertarian', but a 'necessitarian'. It came however to be applied to anyone who approved of liberty in general. In anarchist circles, it was first used by Joseph Déjacque as the title of his anarchist journal Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social published in New York in 1858. At the end of the last century, the anarchist Sebastien Faure took up the word, to stress the difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists". Déjacque also used the term for his anarchist publication Le Libertaire, Journal du mouvement social ( Libertarian: Journal of Social Movement) which was printed from 9 June 1858 to 4 February 1861 in New York City.Woodcock, George (1962). Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Meridian Books. p. 280. "He called himself a "social poet," and published two volumes of heavily didactic verse—Lazaréennes and Les Pyrénées Nivelées. In New York, from 1858 to 1861, he edited an anarchist paper entitled Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social, in whose pages he printed as a serial his vision of the anarchist Utopia, entitled L'Humanisphére." Sébastien Faure, another French libertarian communist, began publishing a new Le Libertaire in the mid-1890s while France's Third Republic enacted the so-called villainous laws ( lois scélérates) which banned anarchist publications in France. Libertarianism has frequently been used to refer to anarchism and libertarian socialism.Ward, Colin (2004). Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 62. "For a century, anarchists have used the word 'libertarian' as a synonym for 'anarchist', both as a noun and an adjective. The celebrated anarchist journal Le Libertaire was founded in 1896. However, much more recently the word has been appropriated by various American free-market philosophers ...."
In the United States, the term libertarian was popularized by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker around the late 1870s and early 1880s.Comegna, Anthony; Gomez, Camillo (3 October 2018). "Libertarianism, Then and Now" . Libertarianism. Cato Institute. "... Benjamin Tucker was the first American to really start using the term 'libertarian' as a self-identifier somewhere in the late 1870s or early 1880s." Retrieved 3 August 2020. Libertarianism as a synonym for liberalism was popularized in May 1955 by writer Dean Russell, a colleague of Leonard Read and a classical liberal himself. Russell justified the choice of the term as follows:
Subsequently, many Americans with classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians. One person who popularized the term libertarian in this sense was Murray Rothbard, who began publishing libertarian works in the 1960s.Paul Cantor, The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty Vs. Authority in American Film and TV, University Press of Kentucky, 2012, p. 353, n. 2. Rothbard described this modern use of the words overtly as a "capture" from his enemies, writing 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".
In the 1970s, Robert Nozick was responsible for popularizing this usage of the term in academic and philosophical circles outside the United States,Steven Teles; Kenney, Daniel A. (2008). "Spreading the Word: The diffusion of American Conservatism in Europe and beyond". In Steinmo, Sven. Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the 21st Century Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–169. especially with the publication of Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), a response to social liberal John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971). "National Book Award: 1975 – Philosophy and Religion" (1975). National Book Foundation. Retrieved 9 September 2011. In the book, Nozick proposed a minimal state on the grounds that it was an inevitable phenomenon which could arise without violating individual rights.Schaefer, David Lewis (30 April 2008). "Robert Nozick and the Coast of Utopia" . The New York Sun. Retrieved 26 June 2019.
According to common United States meanings of conservative and liberal, libertarianism in the United States has been described as conservative on economic issues (economic liberalism and fiscal conservatism) and liberal on personal freedom (civil libertarianism and cultural liberalism).Boaz, David; Kirby, David (18 October 2006). "The Libertarian Vote" . Cato Institute. Retrieved 10 February 2020. It is also often associated with a foreign policy of non-interventionism.Edward A. Olsen (2002). US National Defense for the Twenty-First Century: The Grand Exit Strategy. Taylor & Francis. p. 182 . .
While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources. Left-libertarian ideologies include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist and New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school. Some variants of libertarianism, such as anarcho-capitalism, have been labeled as far-right or radical right by some scholars. (2025). 9780521703055, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521703055 (2025). 9780195376692, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195376692
Those sometimes called "right-libertarians", usually by leftists or by other libertarians with more left-leaning ideologies, often reject the label due to its association with conservatism and right-wing politics and simply describe themselves as libertarians. However, some, particularly those who describe themselves as paleo-libertarians, agree with their placement on the political right. Meanwhile, some proponents of free-market anti-capitalism in the United States consciously label themselves as left-libertarians and see themselves as part of a broad libertarian left.
While the term libertarian had been substantially synonymous with anarchism and seen by many as part of the left,Marshall, Peter (2009). . p. 641 . "For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchism but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent. Some anarchists like Daniel Guérin will call themselves 'libertarian socialists', partly to avoid the negative overtones still associated with anarchism, and partly to stress the place of anarchism within the socialist tradition. Even Marxists of the New Left like E. P. Thompson call themselves 'libertarian' to distinguish themselves from those authoritarian socialists and communists who believe in revolutionary dictatorship and vanguard parties." continuing today as part of the libertarian left in opposition to the moderate left such as social democracy or authoritarian and State socialism socialism, its meaning has evolved during the past half century, with broader adoption by ideologically disparate groups, including some viewed as right-wing by older users of the term. As a term, libertarian can include both the New Left Marxists (who do not associate with a vanguard party) and extreme liberals (primarily concerned with civil liberties) or civil libertarians. Additionally, some libertarians use the term libertarian socialist to avoid anarchism's negative connotations and emphasize its connections with socialism.Guérin, Daniel (1970). . New York City: Monthly Review Press. p. 12. "Anarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State." .
The revival of free-market ideologies during the mid-to-late 20th century came with disagreement over what to call the movement. While many believers in economic freedom prefer the term libertarian, some free-market reject the term's association with the 1960s New Left and its connotations of libertine hedonism. The movement is divided over the use of conservatism as an alternative. Those who seek both economic and social liberty would be known as liberals, but that term developed associations opposite of the limited government, low-taxation, minimal state advocated by the movement. Name variants of the free-market revival movement include classical liberalism, economic liberalism, free-market liberalism and neoliberalism. As a term, libertarian or economic libertarian has the most everyday acceptance to describe a member of the movement, with the latter term being based on both the ideology's importance of economics and its distinction from libertarians of the New Left. While both historical and contemporary libertarianism share general antipathy towards power by government authority, the latter exempts power wielded through free-market capitalism. Historically, libertarians, including Herbert Spencer and Max Stirner, supported the protection of an individual's freedom from powers of government and private ownership. In contrast, while condemning governmental encroachment on personal liberties, modern American libertarians support freedoms based on their agreement with private property rights. The abolition or privatization of amenities or entitlements controlled by the government is a common theme in modern American libertarian writings.
According to modern American libertarian Walter Block, left-libertarians and right-libertarians agree with certain libertarian premises, but "where they differ is in terms of the logical implications of these founding axioms". Although several modern American libertarians reject the political spectrum, especially the left–right political spectrum,Rothbard, Murray (1 March 1971). "The Left and Right Within Libertarianism" . WIN: Peace and Freedom Through Nonviolent Action. 7 (4): 6–10. Retrieved 14 January 2020.Read, Leonard E. (January 1956). "Neither Left Nor Right" . The Freeman. 48 (2): 71–73.Browne, Harry (21 December 1998). "The Libertarian Stand on Abortion" . HarryBrowne.org. Retrieved 14 January 2020.Raimondo, Justin (2000). An Enemy of the State. Chapter 4: "Beyond left and right". Prometheus Books. p. 159.Machan, Tibor R. (2004). "Neither Left Nor Right: Selected Columns" . 522. Hoover Institution Press. . several strands of libertarianism in the United States and right-libertarianism have been described as being right-wing, New RightRobinson, Emily; et al. (2017). "Telling stories about post-war Britain: popular individualism and the 'crisis' of the 1970s" . Twentieth Century British History. 28 (2): 268–304. or radical rightKitschelt, Herbert; McGann, Anthony J. (1997) 1995. '. University of Michigan Press. p. 27 . .Cas Mudde (11 October 2016). The Populist Radical Right: A Reader (1st ed.). Routledge. . and reactionary. While some American libertarians such as Walter Block, Harry Browne, Tibor Machan, Justin Raimondo, Leonard Read and Murray Rothbard deny any association with either the left or right, other American libertarians such as Kevin Carson, Karl Hess,Hess, Karl (18 February 2015). "Anarchism Without Hyphens & The Left/Right Spectrum" . Center for a Stateless Society. Tulsa Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Retrieved 17 March 2020. "The far left, as far as you can get away from the right, would logically represent the opposite tendency and, in fact, has done just that throughout history. The left has been the side of politics and economics that opposes the concentration of power and wealth and, instead, advocates and works toward the distribution of power into the maximum number of hands." and Long, Roderick T. (8 April 2006). "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later" . Mises Institute. Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2020. have written about libertarianism's left-wing opposition to authoritarian rule and argued that libertarianism is fundamentally a left-wing position. Rothbard himself previously made the same point.Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1965). "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty". Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought. 1''' (1): 4–22.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines libertarianism as the Morality view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things. Libertarian historian George Woodcock defines libertarianism as the philosophy that fundamentally doubts authority and advocates transforming society by reform or revolution.George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Llibertarian Ideas and Movements. Petersborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. pp. 11–31, especially p. 18. . Libertarian philosopher Roderick T. Long defines libertarianism as "any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power 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. According to the Libertarian Party, of the United States, libertarianism is the advocacy of either anarchy, or government that is funded voluntarily and limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.Duncan Watts (2002). Understanding American Government and Politics: A Guide for A2 Politics Students. Manchester, England. Manchester University Press. p. 246.
Libertarians argue that some forms of order within society emerge spontaneously from the actions of many different individuals acting independently from one another without any central planning. Proposed examples of systems that evolved through spontaneous order or self-organization include the evolution of life on Earth, language, crystal structure, the Internet, Wikipedia, workers' councils, Horizontalidad, and a free market economy.
While left-libertarians advocate for social freedom, right-libertarians also value social that support capitalist conditions. They reject institutions that oppose this framework, arguing that such interventions unnecessarily coerce individuals and violate their economic freedom. "About the Libertarian Party" . Libertarian Party. "Libertarians strongly oppose any government interference into their personal, family, and business decisions. Essentially, we believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit as long as they do no harm to another". Retrieved 2 May 2020. Anarcho-capitalists seek the elimination of the state in favor of privately funded security services while minarchists defend night-watchman states which maintain only those functions of government necessary to safeguard natural rights, understood in terms of self-ownership or autonomy. Libertarian-authoritarianism has been associated with right-libertarianism, due to its broader critique of democracy, its power, and its laws.
There are a number of different left-libertarian positions on the state, which can range from advocating for its Anti-statism to advocating for a more decentralized and limited government with social ownership of the economy.Marshall, Peter (2009) 1991. (POLS ed.). Oakland, California: PM Press. p. 641. "Left libertarianism can therefore range from the decentralist who wishes to limit and devolve State power, to the syndicalist who wants to abolish it altogether. It can even encompass the Fabians and the social democrats who wish to socialize the economy but who still see a limited role for the State." . According to Sheldon Richman of the Independent Institute, other left-libertarians "prefer that corporate privileges be repealed before the regulatory restrictions on how those privileges may be exercised".
Neo-libertarianism combines "the libertarian's moral commitment to negative liberty with a procedure that selects principles for restricting liberty on the basis of a unanimous agreement in which everyone's particular interests receive a fair hearing".Sterba, James (2013). The Pursuit of Justice. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 66. . Neo-libertarianism has its roots at least as far back as 1980 when it was first described by the American philosopher James Sterba of the University of Notre Dame. Sterba observed that libertarianism advocates for a government that does no more than protection against force, fraud, theft, enforcement of contracts and other so-called negative liberties as contrasted with positive liberties by Isaiah Berlin. Sterba contrasted this with the older libertarian ideal of a night watchman state or minarchism. Sterba held that it is "obviously impossible for everyone in society to be guaranteed complete liberty as defined by this ideal: after all, people's actual wants as well as their conceivable wants can come into serious conflict. ... It is also impossible for everyone in society to be completely free from the interference of other persons."Sterba, James (1980). Justice: Alternative Political Perspectives. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing Company. p. 175. . In 2013, Sterba wrote, "I shall show that moral commitment to an ideal of 'negative' liberty, which does not lead to a night-watchman state, but instead requires sufficient government to provide each person in society with the relatively high minimum of liberty that persons using John Rawls' decision procedure would select. The political program actually justified by an ideal of negative liberty I shall call Neo-Libertarianism."Sterba, James (2013). The Pursuit of Justice. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 52. .
Libertarian populism combines libertarian and populist politics. According to Jesse Walker, writing in the libertarian magazine Reason, libertarian populists oppose "big government" while also opposing "other large, centralized institutions" and advocate "taking an axe to the thicket of corporate subsidies, favors, and bailouts, clearing our way to an economy where businesses that can't make money serving customers don't have the option of wringing profits from the taxpayers instead".
According to polls, approximately one in four Americans self-identify as libertarian. "Gallup Database: 2006 Survey Results" . Gallup. Retrieved 23 December 2019.Kiley, Jocelyn (25 August 2014). "In Search of Libertarians" . Pew Research Center. "14% say the term libertarian describes them well; 77% of those know the definition (11% of total), while 23% do not (3% of total)."Becker, Amanda (30 April 2015). "Americans don't like big government – but like many programs: poll" . Retrieved 31 October 2019.Boaz, David (10 February 2016). "Gallup Finds More Libertarians in the Electorate" . Retrieved 31 October 2019. While most members of this group are not necessarily ideologically driven, the term libertarian is commonly used to describe the form of libertarianism widely practiced in the United States and is the common meaning of the word libertarianism in the U.S. This form is often named liberalism elsewhere such as in Europe, where liberalism has a different common meaning than in the United States. In some academic circles, this form is called right-libertarianism as a complement to left-libertarianism, with acceptance of capitalism or the private ownership of land as being the distinguishing feature.
Early Christian sects such as the Waldensians displayed libertarian attitudes. In 17th-century England, libertarian ideas began to take modern form in the writings of the Levellers and John Locke. In the middle of that century, opponents of royal power began to be called Whigs, or sometimes simply Opposition or Country, as opposed to Court writers.Boaz, David (7 March 2007). "A Note on Labels: Why 'Libertarian'?". Libertarianism.org. Cato Institute. Retrieved 4 July 2013.
During the 18th century and Age of Enlightenment, Liberalism ideas flourished in Europe and North America.Garbooshian, Adrina Michelle (2006). The Concept of Human Dignity in the French and American Enlightenments: Religion, Virtue, Liberty. ProQuest. p. 472. . "Influenced by Locke and Smith, certain segments of society affirmed classical liberalism, with a libertarian bent."Cantor, Paul A. (2012). The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty Vs. Authority in American Film and TV. University Press of Kentucky. p. xiii .
. "[T]he roots of libertarianism lie in [...] the classical liberal tradition".
Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas., ed. (1994). ''Noam Chomsky: Critical Assessments, Volumes 2–3''. Taylor & Francis. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MRdIAV5IVgoC&dq=enlightenment+influence+socialists+libertarians&pg=PA617 p. 617] . . For philosopher Roderick T. Long, libertarians "share a common—or at least an overlapping—intellectual ancestry. [Libertarians] [...] claim the seventeenth century English Levellers and the eighteenth century French [[Encyclopedists]] among their ideological forebears; and [...] usually share an admiration for [[Thomas Jefferson]] and [[Thomas Paine]]."
John Locke greatly influenced both libertarianism and the modern world in his writings published before and after the English Revolution of 1688, especially A Letter Concerning Toleration (1667), Two Treatises of Government (1689) and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). In the text of 1689, he established the basis of liberal political theory, i.e. that people's rights existed before government; that the purpose of government is to protect personal and property rights; that people may dissolve governments that do not do so; and that representative government is the best form to protect rights.Boaz, David (2010). The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to Milton Friedman. Simon & Schuster. p. 123 . .
The United States Declaration of Independence was inspired by Locke in its statement: "To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."Rothbard, Murray (1973) 2006. "The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism" . In . LewRockwell.com. Retrieved 10 December 2019. According to American historian Bernard Bailyn, during and after the American Revolution, "the major themes of eighteenth-century libertarianism were brought to realization" in , bills of rights, and limits on legislative and executive powers, including limits on starting wars.
According to Murray Rothbard, the libertarian creed emerged from the liberal challenges to an "absolute central State and a king ruling by divine right on top of an older, restrictive web of feudal land monopolies and urban guild controls and restrictions" as well as the mercantilism of a bureaucratic warfaring state allied with privileged merchants. The object of liberals was individual liberty in the economy, in personal freedoms and civil liberty, separation of state and religion and peace as an alternative to imperial aggrandizement. He cites Locke's contemporaries, the Levellers, who held similar views. Also influential were the English Cato's Letters during the early 1700s, reprinted eagerly by American colonists who already were free of European aristocracy and feudal land monopolies.
In January 1776, only two years after coming to America from England, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense calling for independence for the colonies.Sprading, Charles T. (1913) 1995. Liberty and the Great Libertarians. Mises Institute. p. 74 . . Paine promoted liberal ideas in clear and concise language that allowed the general public to understand the debates among the political elites.Hoffman, David C. (Fall 2006). "Paine and Prejudice: Rhetorical Leadership through Perceptual Framing in Common Sense". Rhetoric and Public Affairs. 9 (3): 373–410. Common Sense was immensely popular in disseminating these ideas,Pauline Maier (1997). American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York City: Knopf. pp. 90–91. selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Paine would later write the Rights of Man and The Age of Reason and participate in the French Revolution. Paine's theory of property showed a "libertarian concern" with the unequal distribution of resources under statism.
In 1793, William Godwin wrote a libertarian philosophical treatise titled Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness which criticized ideas of human rights and of society by contract based on vague promises. He took liberalism to its logical anarchic conclusion by rejecting all political institutions, law, government and apparatus of coercion as well as all political protest and insurrection. Instead of institutionalized justice, Godwin proposed that people influence one another to moral goodness through informal reasoned persuasion, including in the associations they joined as this would facilitate happiness.
Anarchist communist philosopher Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe himself as a libertarian in an 1857 letter.Joseph Déjacque, "De l'être-humain mâle et femelle–Lettre à P.J. Proudhon" (1857). Unlike mutualist anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, he argued that "it is not the product of his or her labor that the worker has a right to, but to the satisfaction of his or her needs, whatever may be their nature".Robert Graham, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas – Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939), Black Rose Books, 2005 According to anarchist historian Max Nettlau, the first use of the term libertarian communism was in November 1880, when a French anarchist congress employed it to identify its doctrines more clearly. The French anarchist journalist Sébastien Faure started the weekly paper Le Libertaire ( The Libertarian) in 1895.
The revolutionary wave of 1917–1923 saw the active participation of anarchists in Russia and Europe. Russian anarchists participated alongside the in both the February and October 1917 revolutions. However, Bolsheviks in central Russia quickly began to imprison or drive underground the libertarian anarchists. Many fled to Ukraine. After the anarchist Makhnovshchina helped stave off the White movement during the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks turned on the Makkhnovists and contributed to the schism between the anarcho-syndicalists and the Communists.
With the rise of fascism in Europe between the 1920s and the 1930s, anarchists began to fight fascists in Italy,Holbrow, Marnie, "Daring but Divided" ( Socialist Review, November 2002). in France during the February 1934 riotsBerry, David. "Fascism or Revolution." Le Libertaire. August 1936. and in Spain where the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) boycott of elections led to a right-wing victory and its later participation in voting in 1936 helped bring the popular front back to power. This led to a ruling class attempted coup and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, p. 46, . Gruppo Comunista Anarchico di Firenze held that during the early twentieth century, the terms libertarian communism and anarchist communism became synonymous within the international anarchist movement as a result of the close connection they had in Spain (anarchism in Spain), with libertarian communism becoming the prevalent term.Gruppo Comunista Anarchico di Firenze (October 1979). "Anarchist Communism & Libertarian Communism" . L'informatore di parte. 4.
Libertarian socialism reached its apex of popularity with the Spanish Revolution of 1936, during which libertarian socialists led "the largest and most successful revolution against capitalism to ever take place in any industrial economy". During the revolution, the means of production were brought under workers' control and worker cooperatives formed the basis for the new economy. According to Gaston Leval, the CNT established an agrarian federation in the Levante that encompassed 78% of Spain's most arable land. The regional federation was populated by 1,650,000 people, 40% of whom lived on the region's 900 agrarian collectives, which were self-organised by peasant unions. Although industrial and agricultural production was at its highest in the anarchist-controlled areas of the Spanish Republic, and the anarchist militias displayed the strongest military discipline, liberals and communists alike blamed the "sectarian" libertarian socialists for the defeat of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. These charges have been disputed by contemporary libertarian socialists, such as Robin Hahnel and Noam Chomsky, who have accused such claims of lacking substantial evidence.
During the autumn of 1931, the "Manifesto of the 30" was published by militants of the anarchist trade union CNT and among those who signed it there was the CNT General Secretary (1922–1923) Joan Peiro, Ángel Pestaña CNT (General Secretary in 1929) and Juan Lopez Sanchez. They were called treintismo and they were calling for libertarian possibilism which advocated achieving libertarian socialist ends with participation inside structures of contemporary parliamentary democracy.Jesus Ruiz. Posibilismo libertario. Felix Morga, Alcalde de Najera (1891–1936). El Najerilla-Najera. 2003. In 1932, they established the Syndicalist Party, which participated in the 1936 Spanish general elections and proceeded to be a part of the leftist coalition of parties known as the Popular Front obtaining two congressmen (Pestaña and Benito Pabon). In 1938, Horacio Prieto, general secretary of the CNT, proposed that the Iberian Anarchist Federation transform itself into the Libertarian Socialist Party and that it participate in the national elections.Renof, Israël Renof (May 1968). Possibilisme libertaire (PDF). Noir et Rouge. 41: 16–23.
The Manifesto of Libertarian Communism was written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one of the key texts of the anarchist-communist current known as platformism. In 1968, the International of Anarchist Federations was founded during an international anarchist conference in Carrara, Italy to advance libertarian solidarity. It wanted to form "a strong and organized workers movement, agreeing with the libertarian ideas". London Federation of Anarchists involvement in Carrara conference, 1968 International Institute of Social History. Retrieved 19 January 2010. Short history of the IAF-IFA A-infos news project, Accessed 19 January 2010. In the United States, the Libertarian League was founded in New York City in 1954 as a left-libertarian political organization building on the Libertarian Book Club. by Paul Avrich. AK Press. 2005. pp. 471–472. Members included Sam Dolgoff,Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, AK Press, p. 419. Russell Blackwell, Dave Van Ronk, Enrico Arrigoni Anarchist Voices: An Oral History Of Anarchism In America by Paul Avrich. AK Press. 2005. and Murray Bookchin.
In Australia, the Sydney Push was a predominantly left-wing intellectual subculture in Sydney from the late 1940s to the early 1970s which became associated with the label Sydney libertarianism. Well known associates of the Push include Jim Baker, John Flaus, Harry Hooton, Margaret Fink, Sasha Soldatow,A 1970s associate, subject of David Marr's A spirit gone to another place The Sydney Morning Herald obituary, 9 September 2006. Lex Banning, Eva Cox, Richard Appleton, Paddy McGuinness, David Makinson, Germaine Greer, Clive James, Robert Hughes, Frank Moorhouse and Lillian Roxon. Amongst the key intellectual figures in Push debates were philosophers David J. Ivison, George Molnar, Roelof Smilde, Darcy Waters and Jim Baker, as recorded in Baker's memoir Sydney Libertarians and the Push, published in the libertarian Broadsheet in 1975.Baker, A. J. (2 February 1998). "Sydney Libertarianism and the Push". Takver's Initiatives. . Archived from the original 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Neale Morison memorial site. Retrieved 2 May 2020. An understanding of libertarian values and social theory can be obtained from their publications, a few of which are available online. "Sydney Libertarianism" at the Marxists Internet Archive.
In 1969, French platformist anarcho-communist Daniel Guérin published an essay in 1969 called "Libertarian Marxism?" in which he dealt with the debate between Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin at the First International. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Marx and Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France.Ernesto Screpanti, Libertarian communism: Marx Engels and the Political Economy of Freedom, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2007.
During this time period, the term "libertarian" became used by growing numbers of people to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. This libertarianism, a revival of classical liberalism in the United States, occurred due to other American liberals abandoning classical liberalism and embracing progressivism and economic interventionism in the early 20th century after the Great Depression and with the New Deal.
H. L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock were the first prominent figures in the United States to describe themselves as libertarian as synonym for liberal. They believed that Franklin D. Roosevelt had co-opted the word liberal for his New Deal policies which they opposed and used libertarian to signify their allegiance to classical liberalism, individualism and limited government.
According to David Boaz, in 1943 three women "published books that could be said to have given birth to the modern libertarian movement".Boaz, David (1997). The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Readings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman. New York: Free Press. p. 31. Isabel Paterson's The God of the Machine, Rose Wilder Lane's The Discovery of Freedom and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead each promoted individualism and capitalism. None of the three used the term libertarianism to describe their beliefs and Rand specifically rejected the label, criticizing the burgeoning American libertarian movement as the "hippies of the right". Rand accused libertarians of plagiarizing ideas related to her own philosophy of Objectivism and yet viciously attacking other aspects of it.
In 1946, Leonard E. Read founded the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), an American nonprofit educational organization which promotes the principles of laissez-faire economics, private property and limited government. According to Gary North, the FEE is the "granddaddy of all libertarian organizations".Galles, Gary (2013). Apostle of Peace: The Radical Mind of Leonard Read. Laissez Faire Books. .
Karl Hess, a speechwriter for Barry Goldwater and primary author of the Republican Party's 1960 and 1964 Party platform, became disillusioned with traditional politics following the 1964 presidential campaign in which Goldwater lost to Lyndon B. Johnson. He and his friend Murray Rothbard, an Austrian School economist, founded the journal , which was published from 1965 to 1968, with George Resch and Leonard P. Liggio. In 1969, they edited The Libertarian Forum which Hess left in 1971.Halle, Roland; Ladue, Peter (1980). Karl Hess: Toward Liberty. Direct Cinema, Ltd. M16.
The Vietnam War split the uneasy alliance between the growing numbers of American libertarians, on the one hand, and conservatives who believed in limiting liberty to uphold moral virtues on the other. Libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and as well as organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In 1969 and 1970, Hess joined with others, including Murray Rothbard, Robert LeFevre, Dana Rohrabacher, Samuel Edward Konkin III and former SDS leader Carl Oglesby to speak at two conferences which brought together activists from both the New Left and the Old Right in what was emerging as a nascent libertarian movement. Rothbard ultimately broke with the left, allying himself with the burgeoning paleoconservative movement.Raimondo, Justin (2001). An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard. Amherst: Prometheus. pp. 277–278.Doherty, Brian (2007). Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. New York: Public Affairs. pp. 562–565. He criticized the tendency of these libertarians to appeal to free spirits,' to people who don't want to push other people around, and who don't want to be pushed around themselves" in contrast to "the bulk of Americans" who "might well be tight-assed conformists, who want to stamp out drugs in their vicinity, kick out people with strange dress habits, etc.". Rothbard emphasized that this was relevant as a matter of strategy as the failure to pitch the libertarian message to Middle America might result in the loss of "the tight-assed majority".Rothbard, Murray (5 June 1986). "Letter to David Bergland". Rothbard emphasized that this was relevant as a matter of strategy, writing that the failure to pitch the libertarian message to Middle America might result in the loss of "the tight-assed majority".Raimondo, Justin (2001). An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard. Amherst: Prometheus. pp. 263–264. This left-libertarian tradition has been carried to the present day by Konkin's ,Konkin, Samuel Edward III. "The New Libertarian Manifesto". . Retrieved 10 February 2020. contemporary mutualists such as Kevin Carson,Carson, Kevin A. (2008). Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective. Charleston, SC: BookSurge. Roderick T. Long (2008). "An Interview With Roderick Long" . and others such as Gary ChartierChartier, Gary (2009). Economic Justice and Natural Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Charles W. JohnsonJohnson, Charles W. (2008). "Liberty, Equality, Solidarity: Toward a Dialectical Anarchism" . Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? In Long, Roderick T.; Machan, Tibor. Aldershot: Ashgate pp. 155–188.Chartier, Gary; Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. Brooklyn: Minor Compositions/Autonomedia. pp. 1–16. Sheldon Richman,Richman, Sheldon (3 February 2011). "Libertarian Left: Free-market anti-capitalism, the unknown ideal". The American Conservative. . Retrieved 5 March 2012. Chris Matthew SciabarraSciabarra, Chris Matthew (2000). Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. and Brad Spangler.Spangler, Brad (15 September 2006). "Market Anarchism as Stigmergic Socialism".
In 1971, a small group led by David Nolan formed the Libertarian Party, which has run a presidential candidate every election year since 1972. Other libertarian organizations, such as the Center for Libertarian Studies and the Cato Institute, were also formed in the 1970s. International Society for Individual Liberty Freedom Network list. Philosopher John Hospers, a one-time member of Rand's inner circle, proposed a non-initiation of force principle to unite the movement. This statement later became a required "pledge" for members of the Libertarian Party. Hospers became the LP's first presidential candidate in 1972.
Modern libertarianism gained significant recognition in academia with the publication of Harvard University professor Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia in 1974, for which he received a National Book Award in 1975.National Book Foundation. "National Book Awards: 1975 – Philosophy and Religion". In response to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Nozick's book supported a minimal state (also called a nightwatchman state by Nozick) on the grounds that the ultraminimal state arises without violating individual rightsSchaefer, David Lewis (30 April 2008). "Robert Nozick and the Coast of Utopia" . The New York Sun. and the transition from an ultraminimal state to a minimal state is morally obligated to occur.
In the early 1970s, Rothbard wrote: "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."Rothbard, Murray. (2009). The Betrayal of the American Right. Ludwig von Mises Institute. . The project of spreading libertarian ideals in the United States has been so successful that some Americans who do not identify as libertarian seem to hold libertarian views. Since the resurgence of neoliberalism in the 1970s, this modern American libertarianism has spread beyond North America via think tanks and political parties.Steven Teles; Kenney, Daniel A. (2008). "Spreading the Word: The diffusion of American Conservatism in Europe and Beyond". In Steinmo, Sven (2007). Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-First Century . Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–169.Gregory, Anthony (24 April 2007). "Real World Politics and Radical Libertarianism". LewRockwell.com.
In a 1975 interview with Reason, California Governor Ronald Reagan appealed to libertarians when he stated to "believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism".Klausner, Manuel (July 1975). "Inside Ronald Reagan" . Reason. Retrieved May 2, 2020. Libertarian Republican Ron Paul supported Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, being one of the first elected officials in the nation to support his campaign and actively campaigned for Reagan in 1976 and 1980. However, Paul quickly became disillusioned with the Reagan administration's policies after Reagan's election in 1980 and later recalled being the only Republican to vote against Reagan budget proposals in 1981. In the 1980s, libertarians such as Paul and RothbardRothbard, Murray (1984). "The Reagan Phenomenon" . Free Life: The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance. Libertarian Alliance. '4 (1): 1–7. Retrieved September 20, 2020 – via the Mises Institute.Riggenbach, Jeff (February 5, 2011). "The Reagan Fraud — and After" . Mises Institute. Retrieved September 20, 2020. criticized President Reagan, Reaganomics and policies of the Reagan administration for, among other reasons, having turned the United States' big trade deficit into debt and the United States became a debtor nation for the first time since World War I under the Reagan administration.Kilborn, Peter T. (September 17, 1985). "U.S. Turns Into Debtor Nation" . The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2020.Johnston, Oswald (September 17, 1985). "Big Trade Deficit Turns U.S. Into Debtor Nation : First Time Since 1914" . Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 2, 2020. Rothbard argued that the presidency of Reagan has been "a disaster for libertarianism in the United States"Weltch, Matt (September 9, 2011). "Rothbard on Reagan in Reason" . Reason. Reason Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2020. and Paul described Reagan himself as "a dramatic failure".
Since the 1970s, this classical liberal form of libertarianism has spread beyond the United States,Steven Teles; Kenney, Daniel A. "Spreading the Word: The Diffusion of American Conservatism in Europe and Beyond". In Kopsten, Jeffrey; Steinmo, Sven, eds. (2007). Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–169. with libertarian or right-libertarian parties being established in the United Kingdom, Israel, South Africa,Staden, Martin (2 December 2015). "Remembering the Founder of SA Libertarianism, Dr. Marc Swanepoel" . Rational Standard. Retrieved 20 September 2020. Argentina, and many other countries.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, which caused many people to give up on Marxism or state socialism, libertarian socialism grew in popularity and influence, alongside left-wing anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization and alter-globalisation movements. Around the turn of the 21st century, libertarian socialism grew in popularity and influence as part of the anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements. Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. Some anarchist factions at these protests engaged in rioting, property destruction and violent confrontations with police. These actions were precipitated by ad hoc, leaderless, anonymous cadres known as and other organizational tactics pioneered in this time include security culture, affinity groups and the use of decentralized technologies such as the Internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at WTO conference in Seattle in 1999. For English anarchist scholar Simon Critchley, "contemporary anarchism can be seen as a powerful critique of the pseudo-libertarianism of contemporary neo-liberalism. One might say that contemporary anarchism is about responsibility, whether sexual, ecological or socio-economic; it flows from an experience of conscience about the manifold ways in which the West ravages the rest; it is an ethical outrage at the yawning inequality, impoverishment and disenfranchisment that is so palpable locally and globally". Infinitely Demanding by Simon Critchley. Verso Books. 2007. p. 125. This might also have been motivated by "the collapse of 'really existing socialism' and the capitulation to neo-liberalism of Western social democracy".Chamsy el- Ojeili. Beyond post-socialism. Dialogues with the far-left. Palgrave Macmillan. 2015. p. 7.
Since the end of the Cold War, there have been at least two major experiments in libertarian socialism: the Zapatista uprising in Mexico, during which the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) enabled the formation of a self-governing autonomous territory in the Mexican state of Chiapas; and the Rojava Revolution in Syria, which established the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) as a "libertarian socialist alternative to the colonially established state boundaries in the Middle East."
In 2022, former student activist and self-described libertarian socialist Gabriel Boric became head of state of Chile after winning the 2021 Chilean presidential election with the italic=no coalition.
In 2001, an American political migration movement, called the Free State Project, was founded to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire, was selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. As of May 2022, approximately 6,232 participants have moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project.
2009 saw the rise of the Tea Party, an American political movement known for advocating reductions in the United States national debt and federal budget deficits by reducing government spending, as well as cutting taxes. This movement had a significant libertarian component despite having contrasts with libertarian values and views in some areas such as free trade, immigration, nationalism and social issues. A 2011 Reason-Rupe poll found that among those who self-identified as Tea Party supporters, 41 percent leaned libertarian and 59 percent socially conservative.Ekins, Emily (26 September 2011). "Is Half the Tea Party Libertarian?" Reason. 26 September 2011. Named after the Boston Tea Party, it also contained populist elements. By 2016, Politico noted that the Tea Party movement was essentially completely dead; however, the article noted that the movement seemed to die in part because some of its ideas had been absorbed by the mainstream Republican Party.
In 2012, anti-war and pro-drug liberalization presidential candidates such as Libertarian Republican Ron Paul and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson raised millions of dollars and garnered millions of votes despite opposition to their obtaining ballot access by both Democrats and Republicans.Raimondo, Justin (6 November 2012). "Election 2012: Ron Paul's Revenge!" Antiwar.com. Retrieved 7 November 2012. The 2012 Libertarian National Convention saw Johnson and Jim Gray being nominated as the 2012 presidential ticket for the Libertarian Party, resulting in the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since 2000 and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number. Johnson received 1% of the popular vote, amounting to more than 1.2 million votes. Johnson has expressed a desire to win at least 5 percent of the vote so that the Libertarian Party candidates could get equal ballot access and federal funding, thus subsequently ending the two-party system.Texas Politics Today, 2013–2014 Edition – p. 121, William Maxwell, Ernest Crain, Adolfo Santos – 2013. The 2016 Libertarian National Convention saw Johnson and Bill Weld nominated as the 2016 presidential ticket and resulted in the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since 1996 and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number. Johnson received 3% of the popular vote, amounting to more than 4.3 million votes. Following the 2022 Libertarian National Convention, the Mises Caucus, a paleolibertarian faction, became the dominant faction on the Libertarian National Committee. Right-wing libertarian ideals are also prominent in far-right American militia movement associated with extremist anti-government ideas.
Chicago school of economics economist Milton Friedman made the distinction between being part of the American Libertarian Party and "a libertarian with a small 'l'", where he held libertarian values but belonged to the American Republican Party., Interview with Peter Jaworski. The Journal, Queen's University, March 15, 2002 – Issue 37, Volume 129
In November 2023, Milei was elected as the world's first self-identified Libertarian head of state after winning an upset landslide in that year's Argentine general election as the leader of the libertarian La Libertad Avanza coalition.
Milei's libertarian platform represents a radical departure from traditional Argentine politics. His economic proposals included substantial government spending reduction, elimination of numerous federal agencies, and promoting currency competition through free market mechanisms. The intellectual foundations of Milei's libertarianism draw from classical liberal thinkers like Milton Friedman and Murray Rothbard, emphasizing individual economic freedom and minimal state intervention.
Critics have accused libertarianism of promoting "atomistic" individualism that ignores the role of groups and communities in shaping an individual's identity. Libertarians have responded by denying that they promote this form of individualism, arguing that recognition and protection of individualism does not mean the rejection of community living. Libertarians also argue that they are simply against individuals' being forced to have ties with communities and that individuals should be allowed to sever ties with communities they dislike and form new communities instead.
Critics such as Corey Robin describe this type of libertarianism as fundamentally a reactionary conservative ideology united with more traditionalist conservative thought and goals by a desire to enforce hierarchical power and social relations. Similarly, Nancy MacLean has argued that libertarianism is a radical right ideology that has stood against democracy. According to MacLean, libertarian-leaning Charles Koch and David Koch have used anonymous, dark money campaign contributions, a network of libertarian institutes and lobbying for the appointment of libertarian, pro-business judges to United States federal and state courts to oppose taxes, public education, employee protection laws, environmental protection laws and the New Deal Social Security program.
Conservative philosopher Russell Kirk argued that libertarians "bear no authority, temporal or spiritual" and do not "venerate ancient beliefs and customs, or the natural world, or their country, or the immortal spark in their fellow men". Libertarians have responded by saying that they do venerate these ancient traditions, but are against the law's being used to force individuals to follow them.
Libertarian socialism (1857–1980s)
In the mid-19th century, libertarianism originated as a form of anti-authoritarian and anti-state politics usually seen as being on the left (like socialists and anarchists. (2012). "The Rise of Social Anarchism". In Gaus, Gerald F.; D'Agostino, Fred, eds. The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy. p. 223 . "In the meantime, anarchist theories of a more communist or collectivist character had been developing as well. One important pioneer is French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque (1821–1864), who ... appears to have been the first thinker to adopt the term 'libertarian' for this position; hence 'libertarianism' initially denoted a communist rather than a free-market ideology." especially social anarchists, (2012). "Anarchism". In Gaus, Gerald F.; D'Agostino, Fred, eds. The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy. p. 227 . "In its oldest sense, it is a synonym either for anarchism in general or social anarchism in particular." but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists). Along with seeking to abolish or reduce the power of the State, these libertarians sought to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of Common ownership or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty.
Libertarianism in the United States (1943–1980s)
In the mid-20th century, American proponents of anarcho-capitalism and minarchism began using the term libertarian. Minarchists advocate for night-watchman states which maintain only those functions of government necessary to safeguard natural rights, understood in terms of self-ownership or autonomy, while anarcho-capitalists advocate for the replacement of all state institutions with private alternatives.
Contemporary libertarianism
Contemporary libertarian socialism
A surge of popular interest in libertarian socialism occurred in Western nations during the 1960s and 1970s. Anarchism was influential in the counterculture of the 1960s"Farrell provides a detailed history of the Catholic Workers and their founders Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. He explains that their pacifism, anarchism, and commitment to the downtrodden were one of the important models and inspirations for the 60s. As Farrell puts it, "Catholic Workers identified the issues of the sixties before the Sixties began, and they offered models of protest long before the protest decade." "The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalism" by James J. Farrell ."While not always formally recognized, much of the protest of the sixties was anarchist. Within the nascent women's movement, anarchist principles became so widespread that a political science professor denounced what she saw as "The Tyranny of Structurelessness." Several groups have called themselves "Amazon Anarchists." After the Stonewall Rebellion, the New York Gay Liberation Front based their organization in part on a reading of Murray Bookchin's anarchist writings." "Anarchism" by Charley Shively in Encyclopedia of Homosexuality . p. 52. and anarchists actively participated in the protests of 1968 which included students and workers' revolts."Within the movements of the sixties there was much more receptivity to anarchism-in-fact than had existed in the movements of the thirties ... But the movements of the sixties were driven by concerns that were more compatible with an expressive style of politics, with hostility to authority in general and state power in particular ... By the late sixties, political protest was intertwined with cultural radicalism based on a critique of all authority and all hierarchies of power. Anarchism circulated within the movement along with other radical ideologies. The influence of anarchism was strongest among radical feminists, in the commune movement, and probably in the Weather Underground and elsewhere in the violent fringe of the anti-war movement." "Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement" by Barbara Epstein .
Contemporary libertarianism in the United States
In the United States, polls (circa 2006) found that the views and voting habits of between 10% and 20%, or more, of voting age Americans might be classified as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal, or libertarian". This was based on pollsters' and researchers' defining libertarian views as fiscally conservative and socially liberal (based on the common United States meanings of the terms) and against government intervention in economic affairs and for expansion of personal freedoms. In a 2015 Gallup poll, this figure had risen to 27%. A 2015 Reuters poll found that 23% of American voters self-identified as libertarians, including 32% in the 18–29 age group. Through twenty polls on this topic spanning thirteen years, Gallup found that voters who are libertarian on the political spectrum ranged from 17% to 23% of the United States electorate. However, 11% of respondents in a 2014 Pew Poll both identified as libertarians and understood what the term meant.
(2025). 9780191667824, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191667824
Contemporary libertarianism in the United Kingdom
Contemporary libertarianism in South Africa
Contemporary libertarianism in Argentina
Contemporary libertarianism in Argentina has gained significant prominence, particularly with the rise of Javier Milei and his La Libertad Avanza coalition. The Libertarian Party, founded in 2018, initially attracted young intellectuals and has since evolved into a major political force. Milei, a self-described "liberal libertarian," became the face of this movement, transforming it from an academic discourse into a powerful political phenomenon that culminated in his victory in the 2023 Argentine general election.
Criticism
Criticism of libertarianism includes ethical, economic, environmental, pragmatic and philosophical concerns. These concerns are most commonly voiced by critics on the left and directed against the more right-leaning schools of libertarian thought. Multiple citations:
One such argument is the view that it has no explicit theory of liberty. It has also been argued that laissez-faire capitalism does not necessarily produce the best or most efficient outcome,Liu, Eric; Hanauer, Nick (7 May 2016). "Complexity Economics Shows Us Why Laissez-Faire Economics Always Fails" . Evonomics. Retrieved 10 February 2020. nor does its philosophy of individualism and policies of deregulation prevent the abuse of natural resources.
See also
Bibliography
External links
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