From Wikipedia, not dunking on you, I just thought this was a very clear explanation of why right-wing libertarianism is the anomaly:
In the mid-19th century,[10] libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[11] especially social anarchists,[12] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists.[13][14]
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 or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property in the means of production as a barrier to freedom and liberty.[19] While all libertarians support some level of individual rights, left-libertarians differ by supporting an egalitarian redistribution of natural resources.[20] Left-libertarian[26] 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.[30]
I don’t know who wrote that Wikipedia article but it’s really really wrong. Libertarian as a leftist idea actually surfaces in the early to mid 20th century, at the same time as the mostly unrelated right wing libertarianism. They had maybe a decade head start on using the term. It really gets going around 1920 when leftist political philosophers start trying to synthesize lessons from all of the different sections of communism.
The mid 19th century is Karl Marx. The citations mostly talk about anarchism. One of them expressly says to call yourself a whole ass anarchist. So as best as I can tell this is a case where left and right wing editors have gone back and forth on the page with little oversight from political historians and left us with a page that doesn’t reflect reality.
The word “Libertaire” (french for left-wing libertarian, the amercian libertarian is called “Libertarien”) was created in 1857 to differentiate from “Libéral” (which could be seen as an equivalent to nowadays liberals). In France it is still used as a synonym for ‘Anarchist’, though it has a wider sense, since it describes any left-wing movement that opposes authority/power (so libertarian communists that do not accept the “anarchist” label are still included in the “Libertaire” label).
The Wikipedia page seems well written from what I know.
@LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net Good luck in your reclaming of the word. There are parts of the world and languages in which it is still a powerful and unifying word for anti-authoritarian left, english language can still evolve this way !
That’s great. In one language. France also calls potatoes ground apples. But we don’t directly translate it. We use the words from the thinkers of communism. Which are Communism, Socialism, and Anarchy.
In French it goes back to antinomianism. In English it goes back to the free will debates in religion and political philosophy.
It hasn’t been a standardized label used by political thinkers until the early 1900’s though. The Wikipedia article is just plain wrong unless it’s the French language page. Which it isn’t.
I mean, do you really think political theories, especially ones that promotes international unity, developed themselves separately in each country? If you really wanted to use words from the thinkers of communism, you should at least know that :
a good part of them were french
a good majority of them lived in france at some point
a huge majority of them were from Europe and traveled across many countries to avoid political repression
In fact, terms you actually use for anarchy, socialism and communism are both directly translated from french and influenced by philosophies elaborated in France. It does not even matter that it’s France specifically. England and Germany both have a huge role in this, Switzerland has a great role in the development of anarchist theories. Spain had a lot of influence on the notion of Libertaire. Russia and China of course brought a lot to the communist theories though mostly not for the better. All of these countries influenced each other, it is still the case.
Libertaire/libertarian was never a standardized label and still isnt, but it was used and not only in France, since half the 19th century. Just because it’s english language does not mean it should only analyze the political theory of english-speaking country. Without this analysis you cannot understand half the anarchist history of at least France and Spain.
Just because a word has evolved to a specific sense does not mean we should forget its previous meaning, nor does it mean it cant evolve back.
I understand the international nature. But English is very much the language of the world and outside of Lemmy I have found zero sources to support a 19th century use of Libertarianism or Libertarian in any formal manner. I’ve seen a lot of Mutualist and Anarchist.
Unless you have sources where they actually label themselves libertarians, as in “call me a libertarian”, (like they do for anarchist) then all the of internationalism in the world doesn’t matter.
There are writers and thinkers from the early to mid 20th century that claim libertarianism. And that’s generally an attempt to unify the 10 different kinds of anti statist leftists that exist at the end of the 19th century. Both the pages available for Libertarian Communists, and Libertarian Socialists identify roots in the 1800’s, but do not claim their ideology actually started in the 1800s. And it only takes a look at the writers they claim originated them to see they were writing from about 1910 to 1950.
This isn’t some semantic thing. Some people want to believe libertarianism came from the first international itself, but from what I’ve read Proudhon never identified as a libertarian.
Understanding where ideologies have been and where they’re going is really important. So people trying to muddle the waters to claim some kind of moral superiority is dangerous and a sign of someone bound more by rhetoric than facts.
Okay, so I think we all agree on the “facts are more important than rethorics” point, especially here among fellow leftists (? I think you are) where we can take time to explain things.
So I really am confused as to where the “some kind of moral superiority” part comes from. I looked back at the previous comments and really saw nowhere where I could have been claiming moral superirity. If this is my tone that seemed condescending, I apologize.
Anyway, since you asked for examples of use of the libertarian label, I propose you a bit of the “french” history of the word Libertaire during the second half of the 19th century :
First occurence in a writing is 1857, by Joseph Déjacque, in a letter against Proudhon. It is used to differentiate from “liberal”, which was considered by Déjacque as not enough attached to liberty. In details, he opposed the Proudhon’s conservatism on the matter of sexuality and gender.
Déjacque then creates a newspaper that he calls Le Libertaire. This newspaper is published in New York, so that is a good example of the international aspect of philosophy. It’s not in english, however it is tied to the US. I roughly translated a part of the first article : “[Le Libertaire] has one superior ideal : the Liberty, in every matter and for everyone. It does not accept any other authority than the authority of progress. In every matter and for everyone, it seeks the abolition of all slavery in all of its shapes, the emanciaption of all flesh and of all intellect.”
This title was used by 3 others newspaper before 1900 : in Algiers (1892), in Brussels (1893) and Paris (1895). The last version was published by Sébastien Faure, who is an important anarchist in France at that time.
The word has been used around anarchist theories by various authors : Charles Malato associates it with Bakounin and anti-marxist communism in 1891, Elisée Reclus stands against the use of “libertaire” though “some of us are prone to call themselves that way” in 1896 and Kropotkine that says in 1896 that he “believe[s] that modern socialism is meant to take a step toward libertarian communism”.
During the villainous laws of 1893, the word libertaire seems to have been vastly used as a synonym for anarchist, to escape censorship. It seems there has been a debate among anarchists on the use of this term, as we saw with Reclus before.
Now, this seems enough to me to say that left libertarianism originates in the second half of the 19th century, where it is mixed amongst various theories, though mostly anarchism and anti-authoritarian communism.
If we disagree, I think we in reality do not disagree on the fact but on the definition of one or more words in the sentence above, OR that the fact that it’s in french is still blocking you. I will try to prevent such disagreements but please point out what does not satisfy you if I can’t accomplish this myself.
If we disagree on the “originates”, maybe it’s because you consider that without a kind of manifesto such as the Communist manifesto, a movment cannot be said to have “originated” or to be “born”. It is strange to me to consider that a philosophy cannot originate before an official manifesto, because not all philosophies have such a clear start (socialism for example), and communism itself started before the communist manifesto.
If we disagree on the “second half of the 19th century”, I’m not really sure why
If we disagree on the “mixed amongst various theories”, I can understand that you would search for a clear “libertarian” philosophy, that is clearly separated from anarchism, communism and socialism. I would argue that it is of course impossible to find such a thing, since it is still nowadays deeply tied to anarchism. I would add that anarchism and communism and socialism are themselves mixed together (or at least that anarchism is mostly communism which is a variation of socialism). If you still think that if it cannot be separated from anarchism, it should not be considered another philosophy, then just consider “left libertarianism” to be synonym for “anarchism” and everything should be fine.
If we disagree on the french part, I would just say that we cannot skip a part of anarchist history just because it’s not in english : it existed and it should be possible to talk about it in english as well. If we disagree on that point, I would be very curious to hear why.
Sorry for this very long and late response, I tried to think of most possibilities we could disagree, because I really am confused as to why we are not on the same side since we seem to use the same methods.
I think we have different standards for the start of an ideology. I’m looking for it’s broad use as a self identification. I freely admit it has it’s roots in the 1800’s, and I admitted above the word was in some use all the way back through the 1400’s with similar meaning. Although it was mostly used against the church until the 1700s. It certainly isn’t just one among many. That was the problem the writers were trying to solve in the early 1900’s when they started identifying as Libertarian Communist/Socialist. They were unifying anarchism, council communism, workerism, and a few others. So the idea wasn’t to be one among many but to bring those ideas into a tent. That’s what was different about the 1890’s and the 1910’s. It went from a word getting thrown around to a specific ideological label.
I didn’t really mean you when I talked about people claiming moral superiority. I was just venting that people are trying to claim it was a coherent ideology contemporary to the very beginning of communism by twisting things around. I also don’t care that you took a day to respond, that just means you put real thought into a conversation that should have some real thought.
Similar to anarchism with a large overlap but I would say it includes other related ideologies as well. To be an anarchist I think you need to be very anti-capitalist and very anti-state. I think left libertarianism needs to be at minimum very skeptical of all authority structures but not necessarily opposed to them in all circumstances.
For myself, I’d like to get to anarchy long term but I see more of a gradual transition happening. So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
Yeah I can see how many people might call me an anarchist but I don’t use that term because there are a small number of annoying gatekeepers and I just don’t care to argue with them. Also, I have significant disagreements with most anarchists—although maybe that’s normal for anarchists 😅
So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
That’s like saying you’re ok with leaving a malignant tumour whose entire purpose is to infect the rest of your body in your brain because it’s easier than having surgery to remove it.
A system that by definition seeks growth at all costs is not a viable partner for change, never mind progress. Never will be.
I’m not viewing them as partners or saying they should be left unchanged. The fight against these structures doesn’t need to be all or nothing.
The cancer metaphor is apt. When a tumor is embedded in vital organs, you don’t simply operate and hope for the best. You pursue other strategies to try to shrink the tumor instead.
Like it or not, billions of people today depend on the state and capitalism to meet their basic needs for survival. While I would like to start taking radical steps to disassemble that dependency, not all elements of the state and capitalism are equally necessary and not all are equally harmful. While there as some elements that are so harmful they need to be stopped as soon as possible (the war machine, coal power, etc.) there are others that are more benign and can be retained while we build alternatives.
In my mind, markets are a great example of such a feature. While today’s markets emphasize growth to meet the needs of the wealthy, it seems quite possible to engineer markets that behave differently. Markets are not inherently evil—they’re merely decentralized optimization algorithms that operate on the knowledge of the masses. But of course if you optimize to satisfy the whims of a tiny minority of people, of course you’ll have a terrible outcome. But can we design markets that optimize for human and ecological well-being? Maybe not perfectly but certainly to a much, much greater extent than today. And as right-libertarians correctly point out, markets, by their decentralized nature, avoid the concentration of power that is necessary in a centrally planned economy.
Long term, I hope that mutual aid will be able to replace most or all market activities. And I certainly support efforts to develop those networks out starting today. But there’s never been a mutual aid network anywhere near the scale we need and there are a lot of potential pitfalls to navigate there. I think it’s smart to pursue multiple strategies and see which works best in a given situation.
What is a leftibertarian in your opinion?
From Wikipedia, not dunking on you, I just thought this was a very clear explanation of why right-wing libertarianism is the anomaly:
I can’t be the only person who had to lookup usufruct right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct
No lol I did too. It’s an interesting concept. And cool that it’s such an old one.
I don’t know who wrote that Wikipedia article but it’s really really wrong. Libertarian as a leftist idea actually surfaces in the early to mid 20th century, at the same time as the mostly unrelated right wing libertarianism. They had maybe a decade head start on using the term. It really gets going around 1920 when leftist political philosophers start trying to synthesize lessons from all of the different sections of communism.
The mid 19th century is Karl Marx. The citations mostly talk about anarchism. One of them expressly says to call yourself a whole ass anarchist. So as best as I can tell this is a case where left and right wing editors have gone back and forth on the page with little oversight from political historians and left us with a page that doesn’t reflect reality.
The word “Libertaire” (french for left-wing libertarian, the amercian libertarian is called “Libertarien”) was created in 1857 to differentiate from “Libéral” (which could be seen as an equivalent to nowadays liberals). In France it is still used as a synonym for ‘Anarchist’, though it has a wider sense, since it describes any left-wing movement that opposes authority/power (so libertarian communists that do not accept the “anarchist” label are still included in the “Libertaire” label). The Wikipedia page seems well written from what I know.
@LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net Good luck in your reclaming of the word. There are parts of the world and languages in which it is still a powerful and unifying word for anti-authoritarian left, english language can still evolve this way !
That’s great. In one language. France also calls potatoes ground apples. But we don’t directly translate it. We use the words from the thinkers of communism. Which are Communism, Socialism, and Anarchy.
In French it goes back to antinomianism. In English it goes back to the free will debates in religion and political philosophy.
It hasn’t been a standardized label used by political thinkers until the early 1900’s though. The Wikipedia article is just plain wrong unless it’s the French language page. Which it isn’t.
I mean, do you really think political theories, especially ones that promotes international unity, developed themselves separately in each country? If you really wanted to use words from the thinkers of communism, you should at least know that :
In fact, terms you actually use for anarchy, socialism and communism are both directly translated from french and influenced by philosophies elaborated in France. It does not even matter that it’s France specifically. England and Germany both have a huge role in this, Switzerland has a great role in the development of anarchist theories. Spain had a lot of influence on the notion of Libertaire. Russia and China of course brought a lot to the communist theories though mostly not for the better. All of these countries influenced each other, it is still the case.
Libertaire/libertarian was never a standardized label and still isnt, but it was used and not only in France, since half the 19th century. Just because it’s english language does not mean it should only analyze the political theory of english-speaking country. Without this analysis you cannot understand half the anarchist history of at least France and Spain.
Just because a word has evolved to a specific sense does not mean we should forget its previous meaning, nor does it mean it cant evolve back.
I understand the international nature. But English is very much the language of the world and outside of Lemmy I have found zero sources to support a 19th century use of Libertarianism or Libertarian in any formal manner. I’ve seen a lot of Mutualist and Anarchist.
Unless you have sources where they actually label themselves libertarians, as in “call me a libertarian”, (like they do for anarchist) then all the of internationalism in the world doesn’t matter.
There are writers and thinkers from the early to mid 20th century that claim libertarianism. And that’s generally an attempt to unify the 10 different kinds of anti statist leftists that exist at the end of the 19th century. Both the pages available for Libertarian Communists, and Libertarian Socialists identify roots in the 1800’s, but do not claim their ideology actually started in the 1800s. And it only takes a look at the writers they claim originated them to see they were writing from about 1910 to 1950.
This isn’t some semantic thing. Some people want to believe libertarianism came from the first international itself, but from what I’ve read Proudhon never identified as a libertarian.
Understanding where ideologies have been and where they’re going is really important. So people trying to muddle the waters to claim some kind of moral superiority is dangerous and a sign of someone bound more by rhetoric than facts.
Okay, so I think we all agree on the “facts are more important than rethorics” point, especially here among fellow leftists (? I think you are) where we can take time to explain things.
So I really am confused as to where the “some kind of moral superiority” part comes from. I looked back at the previous comments and really saw nowhere where I could have been claiming moral superirity. If this is my tone that seemed condescending, I apologize.
Anyway, since you asked for examples of use of the libertarian label, I propose you a bit of the “french” history of the word Libertaire during the second half of the 19th century :
Now, this seems enough to me to say that left libertarianism originates in the second half of the 19th century, where it is mixed amongst various theories, though mostly anarchism and anti-authoritarian communism.
If we disagree, I think we in reality do not disagree on the fact but on the definition of one or more words in the sentence above, OR that the fact that it’s in french is still blocking you. I will try to prevent such disagreements but please point out what does not satisfy you if I can’t accomplish this myself.
Sorry for this very long and late response, I tried to think of most possibilities we could disagree, because I really am confused as to why we are not on the same side since we seem to use the same methods.
I think we have different standards for the start of an ideology. I’m looking for it’s broad use as a self identification. I freely admit it has it’s roots in the 1800’s, and I admitted above the word was in some use all the way back through the 1400’s with similar meaning. Although it was mostly used against the church until the 1700s. It certainly isn’t just one among many. That was the problem the writers were trying to solve in the early 1900’s when they started identifying as Libertarian Communist/Socialist. They were unifying anarchism, council communism, workerism, and a few others. So the idea wasn’t to be one among many but to bring those ideas into a tent. That’s what was different about the 1890’s and the 1910’s. It went from a word getting thrown around to a specific ideological label.
I didn’t really mean you when I talked about people claiming moral superiority. I was just venting that people are trying to claim it was a coherent ideology contemporary to the very beginning of communism by twisting things around. I also don’t care that you took a day to respond, that just means you put real thought into a conversation that should have some real thought.
Similar to anarchism with a large overlap but I would say it includes other related ideologies as well. To be an anarchist I think you need to be very anti-capitalist and very anti-state. I think left libertarianism needs to be at minimum very skeptical of all authority structures but not necessarily opposed to them in all circumstances.
For myself, I’d like to get to anarchy long term but I see more of a gradual transition happening. So I am OK with retaining some state and capitalist structures as intermediate steps with the long-term goal of eliminating them once we develop superior social systems.
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Yeah I can see how many people might call me an anarchist but I don’t use that term because there are a small number of annoying gatekeepers and I just don’t care to argue with them. Also, I have significant disagreements with most anarchists—although maybe that’s normal for anarchists 😅
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That’s like saying you’re ok with leaving a malignant tumour whose entire purpose is to infect the rest of your body in your brain because it’s easier than having surgery to remove it.
A system that by definition seeks growth at all costs is not a viable partner for change, never mind progress. Never will be.
I’m not viewing them as partners or saying they should be left unchanged. The fight against these structures doesn’t need to be all or nothing.
The cancer metaphor is apt. When a tumor is embedded in vital organs, you don’t simply operate and hope for the best. You pursue other strategies to try to shrink the tumor instead.
Like it or not, billions of people today depend on the state and capitalism to meet their basic needs for survival. While I would like to start taking radical steps to disassemble that dependency, not all elements of the state and capitalism are equally necessary and not all are equally harmful. While there as some elements that are so harmful they need to be stopped as soon as possible (the war machine, coal power, etc.) there are others that are more benign and can be retained while we build alternatives.
In my mind, markets are a great example of such a feature. While today’s markets emphasize growth to meet the needs of the wealthy, it seems quite possible to engineer markets that behave differently. Markets are not inherently evil—they’re merely decentralized optimization algorithms that operate on the knowledge of the masses. But of course if you optimize to satisfy the whims of a tiny minority of people, of course you’ll have a terrible outcome. But can we design markets that optimize for human and ecological well-being? Maybe not perfectly but certainly to a much, much greater extent than today. And as right-libertarians correctly point out, markets, by their decentralized nature, avoid the concentration of power that is necessary in a centrally planned economy.
Long term, I hope that mutual aid will be able to replace most or all market activities. And I certainly support efforts to develop those networks out starting today. But there’s never been a mutual aid network anywhere near the scale we need and there are a lot of potential pitfalls to navigate there. I think it’s smart to pursue multiple strategies and see which works best in a given situation.