What is a left libertarian?

[I Shrugged]

Oh, I know I could look it up.  But on the surface, it seems an impossible contradiction.  Maybe neither right nor left should be used as modifiers of libertarianism.  So I'm guessing, it's someone who believes in being left alone and leaving alone, other than having government tax heavily and provide lots of redistribution, enforcement, etc.?  I mean come on, that's impossible.

What well-known person is a left libertarian?

[Pointedstick]

Moda?

Libertarianism isn't really about being left alone. It's a political ideology concerning what sorts of things government should do. I tend to see libertarianism itself as a contradiction (as opposed to anarchism) given that if the state exists at all it necessarily has to oppress someone. So applying the left- or right- prefix to someone's libertarianism would determine in which way the person's political contradictions skew. For example, a left libertarian might support market-based pollution control laws, and a right-libertarian might not support open borders until welfare was eliminated first.

Someone who just wants to be left alone in a general sort of way would be more of a non-political loner. Someone who just wants to be left alone politically-speaking would be an anarchist.

[moda0306]

I'd say if you had to simplify it, "left libertarianism" is built on a couple of different principles.

1) Strong support for social freedoms and civil liberties.

2) Questioning if-not disagreeing with capitalist property norm assumptions.

I think the first part is pretty self-explanatory.  The second is much less intuitive with how we tend to talk about "liberty" today.


The second principle is built on certain anarchistic/communistic property norm beliefs.  Essentially, they consider capitalist property norms to NOT be indicative of "freedom."  Put in "moda terms," just because people can claim a bunch of land and resources as their own just by being able to land on it and build a fence around it (or support a government defending "your property" with guns), doesn't mean "liberty" is taking place. 

If you see my quote from Thomas Paine in my signature, you'll get another way to put some of that questioning of capitalist property norms.

The biggest trick capitalists (for all their good arguments/points/ideas) played on society is convincing them that laissez faire capitalism is synonymous with freedom as a matter of logical fact, instead of as a matter of rich debate. 

[moda0306]

Desert,

We only accept brisket as contributions to get around campaign finance laws.  Must be delivered in person to our Minnesota branch.

[MachineGhost]

What well-known person is a left libertarian?

Noam Chomsky.

Basically, left libertarians are the larval form of anarcho-socialists.

I wonder...  is there a centrist anarcho position between socialist and capitalists?

[Libertarian666]

What well-known person is a left libertarian?

Noam Chomsky.

Basically, left libertarians are the larval form of anarcho-socialists.

I wonder...  is there a centrist anarcho position between socialist and capitalists?

Maybe this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International

[I Shrugged]

All the Marxist-libertarian concepts are lunacy.  Can't they remember the soviet revolution and all that came after?  That's what I figure left libertarianism is about, more or less.  I must be off base, because they can't be that stupid.

At least regular libertarianism worked in its short heyday, until democracy allowed people to vote themselves other people's money.  I can't see how left libertarianism would work at all.  From wikipedia, about Chomsky:

Chomsky is critical of both the American state capitalist system[154] and the authoritarian branches of socialism. He argues that libertarian socialist values are the proper extension of classical liberalism to an advanced industrial context,[155] and that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of communities and work places.

About libertarian socialism:

Libertarian socialism (sometimes called social anarchism,[1][2] left-libertarianism[3][4] and socialist libertarianism[5]) is a group of political philosophies within the socialist movement that reject the view of socialism as state ownership or command of the means of production[6] within a more general criticism of the state form itself[7][8] as well as of wage labour relationships within the workplace.[9] Instead it emphasizes workers' self management of the workplace[10] and decentralized structures of political government[11] asserting that a society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian institutions that control certain means of production and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and economic elite.[12] Libertarian socialists generally place their hopes in decentralized means of direct democracy and federal or confederal associations[13] such as libertarian municipalism, citizens' assemblies, trade unions, and workers' councils.[14][15]

[MachineGhost]

Another one I remember is Mikhail Bakunin.  Though he was technically a true anarchist unlike Marx.  Marx was just a statist whackjob.

A lot of "left libertarian" concepts have been slowly merging with capitalism under the guise of "conscious capitalism" or "social entrepreneurism" so that society evolves away from the anal obsession with envy/greed and Friedman's shareholder profit.

[MachineGhost]

A true prophet, he was.

[quote=Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy (1873)]They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship [of the proletariat] -- their dictatorship, of course -- can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.[/quote]