Libertarians are a funny bunch. Lots of info below.
Origins, background, values, effects, and defects of libertarianism.
web.inter.nl.net
Free spirits, the ambitious, ex-socialists, drug users, and sexual eccentrics often find an attractive political philosophy in libertarianism, the idea that ind
www.theamericanconservative.com
'Why libertarians are wrong' They donât appreciate that the political crisis could come sooner than the economic one'
Libertarians take for granted the conditions of the 20th century. They donât appreciate that the political crisis could come sooner than the economic one
spectator.us
Libertarians are united by opposition to government, but when it comes to planning a new society they are deeply divided
aeon.co
Nice criticisms, mostly coming from a somewhat conservative perspective, though I see you call yourself a liberal/progressive. Nothing wrong with that. The second article is perhaps easiest to âget.â I enjoyed reading it, and at least skimmed all of your other links.
I never waste much effort debating âLibertarians.â I just donât take them seriously. As your first article explains, they are really only influential here in the USA as a crackpot philosophy where old colonial and post-colonial âpioneer spiritâ mythologies of freedom, rebellion, exaggerated belief in individual rights absolutism, and apologies for or ignorance of how unfettered corporate power really works in society, get all mixed up in a stew of anti-government fanaticism and even Cold War anti-communism.
Ayn Rand âObjectivismâ is only one cult version of Libertarianism, of course, and hardly the most influential, though even Federal Reserve chieftains have been know to celebrate her. Ayn Randâs books are as terrible and adolescent as social philosophy as they are as literature. Libertarian theory would be funny if it werenât also dangerous when used by powerful men to defend special interests.
Most Libertarian âtheoryâ really is something like a âMarxist / Utopianian Philosophy of the American Rightâ â but it lacks any historical analysis of society. Marxism â as wrong as its assumptions and historical predictions proved to be, as totalitarian as âMarxistsâ like Stalin and Mao were â at least provided a methodology and historical analysis that could be usefully checked against real world developments.
As a critique of capitalism, if not as a guide to revolutionizing society, âscientific socialistâ Marxism was provocative, novel and intellectually & politically important in the second half of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. Today, in the 21st Century, neither âleftâ nor ârightâ have much in the way of philosophical systems to rely on. But extraordinary national and international contradictions continue to plague our increasingly
state capitalist world.
