Definition of a libertarian?

I sometimes get described as a "libertarian" by Labour MPs, Guardianistas and BBC-types.  I'm not sure how you define a libertarian.

But one thing certainly is true.  I think folk would be better off making decisions for themselves rather than having people like Jacqui Smith do it for them.  I believe local communities are better placed to make public policy than the kind of officials who were supposed to be regulating the banks.

Call that what you like, it's starting to look like common sense.   

Posted on 7 April 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

Are labels useful? Most political labels are vague. I call myself a libertarian but often have profound differences of opinion with other libertarians regarding how we get from where we are to some state of liberty, and what that state of liberty would look like. Or consider that most american "liberals" are socialists, but if you call them socialists they come out in hives.

Labels can be good or bad. They can carry a positive connotation, or stigmatise. Sometimes I call myself a liberal. Sometimes, to avoid libertarian pigeon-holing, I refer to "persons of liberty".

Libertarians in general believe in property rights and maximal personal freedom of choice for the individual. Many define a libertarian polity as one in which the law prohibits "force or fraud", though I of late have come to the conclusion that a better formulation is that a libertarian polity is one in which the law upholds the citizen's right of consent. That entirely avoids collectivist arguments or arguments about whether social circumstance is a form of coercion, for instance.

The point is, for the people you describe, who are opposed en masse to individual freedom and individualism, "libertarian" is a perjorative term, an automatic dismissal like "racist" or "sexist" or "right wing". So what matters is ensuring that the word, in the general mind, is perceived as honourable, not as a perjorative.

The Left are on the run. They've lost the argument outside their own class. This is, though it may not seem so, a good time for liberty, for we are watching those who oppose it collapse into the most dismal failure.

Be libertarian and be proud :)

Posted on 7 April 2009 08:59 by Ian B

Well thats one thing Labour MPs, the Guardian and BBC have got right!

Only a true Libertarian could have authored The Plan.

Posted on 7 April 2009 09:31 by WitteringsFromWitney

Libertarians are pretty close to traditional liberals (the name is a bit of a giveaway). The only difference I can detect is that some libertarians, particularly American ones, treat the free market as an object of worship rather than the most efficient economic system knowm.

As someone who was expelled from the Liberal Democrats officially for supporting more market freedom I think it unfortunate that the name has been kidnapped by people who have little or nothing in common with those who created the term.

Posted on 7 April 2009 11:48 by Neil Craig

"I of late have come to the conclusion that a better formulation is that a libertarian polity is one in which the law upholds the citizen's right of consent."

I'd happily sign up for that

Posted on 7 April 2009 12:10 by DominicJ

I'm not sure if the Liberals ever believed in personal freedom, but they certainly dont anymore.
They're the party of we know whats best, and we'll beat you unless do it.
That "whats best" is different than labours "whats best" isnt really that important.

Posted on 7 April 2009 13:05 by DominicJ

Thanks DominicJ. If you look at such things as slavery, murder, theft, violence, rape or fraud, these are all violations of consent. State enforced data gathering is a denial of my non-consent. Censorship and prohibitions are the denial of my right to consent.

I think it's easier to discuss than "force or fraud".

Posted on 7 April 2009 14:16 by Ian B

in the eighteenth century, libertarians were known as "smugglers".

Posted on 7 April 2009 18:09 by Faith

Not an ignoble history then from an era when Conservtives were considered Irish bandits (the derivation of "Tory"). The Liberals were Scots bandits.

Posted on 7 April 2009 18:32 by Neil Craig

Here's one description of libertarians that makes clear the difference between Ron Paul groupies and classical liberals:

The "libertarians" . . . plagiarize Ayn Rand's principle that no man may initiate the use of physical force, and treat it as a mystically revealed, out-of-context absolute . . . .

In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the "libertarians" are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy. To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one's own future.

Source: Harry Binswanger, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/libertarians.html

Posted on 7 April 2009 20:49 by Valda Redfern

Have you ever read "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" by Henry Thoreau? That's quite a good definition of what a true Libertarian is.

http://www.constitution.org/civ/civildis.htm

Posted on 7 April 2009 21:21 by Simon

"In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason."

Rand had lots of good things to say, but was too tied to a belief in an objective "reason". Like many of her day, she was drawn too far into the concept that everything can be analysed objectively by scientific rationalism. This was the same belief driving the socialists with their technocratic ideology of scientific planning of society, and it's a flawed idea.

The reason free markets and free society work is precisely because they are whimsicial and subjective. The market supplies those products and services people *desire* and does not ask for objective justification. Nobody is asked why they like peanut butter more than jam. Nobody must explain why they like going to church. An attempt to force everyone to be "rational" by some objective standard misses the point of human existence, which is inherently whimsical and subjective.

Free society and markets constantly adapt to the desires of their constituents, and order results. This is not chaos. It is human life.

We do not prefer capitalism on the basis of reason- although reason does tell us that it is the best system. We do so because one man's preference for peanut butter sandwiches and church on sunday morning is nobody else's damned business.

Posted on 8 April 2009 10:14 by Ian B

Actually Neil, the term "Tory" dates from the sixteenth-century Exclusion Crisis when it was said that "A Tory is a creature with an English face, a French heart, and an Irish conscience." (quoted in Winston S. Churchill, The New World) This refers to the era when Charles II & James II were pensioners on the bounty of Louis XIV & taking orders from Versailles...kind of like taking orders from the EU nowadays. naturally, Whigs thought that anyone supporting the Stuarts also supported their Francophile policy. The Irish "tory" bandits were real bandits, whereas the Scotch presbyterian "Whiggamores" were outlaws because they were meeting secretly to hold Presbyterian services, contrary to the laws which then imposed Episcopalianism on Scotland.

Posted on 8 April 2009 16:51 by Faith

sorry....when referring to the Exclusion Crisis of the 1680s i meant, of course, to say SEVENTEENTH century.

Posted on 8 April 2009 17:00 by Faith

@Neil Craig
I thought Mr Clegg was supposed to be pushing the Lib-Dems back towards Liberalism?

Posted on 8 April 2009 17:12 by Dave B

Dave B,

I think saying the Lib-Dems are moving back towards liberalism is a bit like saying somebody in East Anglia, walking very very slowly in a vaguely westerly direction, is on their way to the USA.

Posted on 8 April 2009 19:14 by Ian B

According to Wikipedia, <i>"The word libertarian is an antonym of authoritarian."</i>

That seems pretty clear to me, mate. Both you and Dan are pretty damn libertarian, as far as I am concerned.

DK

Posted on 9 April 2009 09:36 by Devil's Kitchen

All hail Wikipedia

Which you must admit, is fairly libertarian, and has become the first place people check for, anything.

Posted on 9 April 2009 14:17 by DominicJ

All hail Wikipedia

Which you must admit, is fairly libertarian, and has become the first place people check for, anything.

Posted on 9 April 2009 14:17 by DominicJ

Comment would be far too long for here so wrought about it elsewhere:

http://jerubbaalsvent.blogspot.com/2009/04/libertarianism.html

the main take home message is that Libertarianism is less about political horse-trading about how much you or what the political class should loot (page 340 in Atlas Shrugged and counting) and more on whether something is "just" or not (Bastiat's "The Law" is something you need to pick up next Dougy).

Also you dont appear to comment yourself in your articles - that is more confusing than your comment policy, which is fairly crystal.

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