Right-libertarianism
Encyclopedia
Right-libertarianism names several related libertarian
political philosophies which support capitalism
. The term is typically used to differentiate privatist
based forms of libertarianism from Left-libertarianism
; which generally supports forms of economic democracy
and egalitarianism
.
writes that libertarianism is not a "right-wing" doctrine in the context of the typical left-right political spectrum
; however, he notes that the term right-libertarian has come to be used to describe libertarians with certain views on property rights which can be contrasted against a group of libertarians who are labeled as left-libertarian
.
Lawrence and Charlotte Becker state that it most often refers to the political position that because natural resources are originally unowned, they therefore may be appropriated at-will by private parties without the consent of, or owing to, others. Samuel Edward Konkin III
defined the term "right-libertarianism" as an "activist, organization, publication or tendency which supports parliamentarianism
exclusively as a strategy for reducing or abolishing the state
, typically opposes counter-economics
, either opposes the Libertarian Party
or works to drag it right and prefers coalitions with supposedly 'free-market
' conservatives
."
Anarcho-capitalist
views have also been described as a "right wing" form of libertarianism by several authors.
Some market-oriented libertarians like Leonard Read
, Harry Browne
and Walter Block
deny any association with both the political right and left. Others like Sheldon Richman
, Karl Hess
, Roderick Long
and Kevin Carson have written about libertarianism's opposition to authoritarian rule being in concert with the original meaning of "left wing."
" has been used to describe individuals also identified as libertarian. Such individuals include Albert Jay Nock
, a number of other intellectuals frequently seen as forebears of modern market-oriented libertarianism—including Frank Chodorov
, Garet Garrett
, Isabel Paterson
, Rose Wilder Lane
, and, perhaps, John T. Flynn
Old Right thinkers opposed the rise of the managerial state
during the Progressive era and its expansion in connection with the New Deal
and the Fair Deal
. They also challenged imperialism and military interventionism. "Old Right" was a label about which many or most of these figures might have been skeptical; most thought of themselves, effectively, as classical liberals
, and Chodorov famously wrote: "As for me, I will punch anyone who calls me a conservative in the nose. I am a radical." The thinkers associated with the Old Right were not identified with the social conservatism
of thinkers associated with later movements often identified as part of the right, and their resistance to the state—which amounted to anarchism in Chodorov's case.
Lew Rockwell
and Jeffrey Tucker
identified the Old Right as not only anti-authoritarian but also culturally conservative. They deliberately distanced their brand of libertarianism from classical liberalism. And they affirmed, for instance, that "[v]igorous social authority—as embodied in the family, church, and other mediating institutions—is a bedrock of the virtuous society" and that "[t]he egalitarian ethic is morally reprehensible and destructive of private property and social authority."
Murray Rothbard
was strongly influenced by the Old Right's opposition to the managerial state and, if anything, more unequivocally anti-war and anti-imperialist than his Old Right forebears and mentors. Already a radical classical liberal and anti-interventionist, Rothbard became an anarchist
during his time as a student at Columbia University
. By the 1960s, Rothbard had become the doyen of modern American market-oriented libertarianism, for a few years building a relationship between libertarians and the budding New Left
.
Walter Block
identifies Hans-Hermann Hoppe
, Edward Feser, and Ron Paul
as expositors of libertarian positions on the right.
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political philosophies which support capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. The term is typically used to differentiate privatist
Privatism
Privatism is a generic term describing any belief that people have a right to the private ownership of certain things. There are many degrees of privatism, from the advocacy of limited private property over specific kinds of items to the advocacy of unrestricted private property over everything;...
based forms of libertarianism from Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.-Schools of thought:...
; which generally supports forms of economic democracy
Economic democracy
Economic democracy is a socioeconomic philosophy that suggests a shift in decision-making power from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a larger majority of public stakeholders...
and egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
.
Terminology
Anthony Gregory maintains that right-libertarianism can refer to "any number of varying and at times mutually exclusive political orientations." Peter VallentynePeter Vallentyne
Peter Vallentyne is Florence G. Kline Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He holds dual citizenship in the United States and Canada....
writes that libertarianism is not a "right-wing" doctrine in the context of the typical left-right political spectrum
Political spectrum
A political spectrum is a way of modeling different political positions by placing them upon one or more geometric axes symbolizing independent political dimensions....
; however, he notes that the term right-libertarian has come to be used to describe libertarians with certain views on property rights which can be contrasted against a group of libertarians who are labeled as left-libertarian
Left-libertarianism
Left-libertarianism names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.-Schools of thought:...
.
Lawrence and Charlotte Becker state that it most often refers to the political position that because natural resources are originally unowned, they therefore may be appropriated at-will by private parties without the consent of, or owing to, others. Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III
Samuel Edward Konkin III was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and a proponent of the political philosophy which he called agorism. Agorism is a leftward evolution of anarcho-capitalism, and subset of market anarchism...
defined the term "right-libertarianism" as an "activist, organization, publication or tendency which supports parliamentarianism
Parliamentary system
A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the ministers of the executive branch get their democratic legitimacy from the legislature and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined....
exclusively as a strategy for reducing or abolishing the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
, typically opposes counter-economics
Counter-economics
Counter-economics is a term originally used by Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman, libertarian activists and theorists. Konkin defined it as "the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State." The term is short for "counter-establishment economics"...
, either opposes the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
or works to drag it right and prefers coalitions with supposedly 'free-market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
' conservatives
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
."
Anarcho-capitalist
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...
views have also been described as a "right wing" form of libertarianism by several authors.
Some market-oriented libertarians like Leonard Read
Leonard Read
Leonard E. Read was an American economist and the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, which was the first modern free market think tank in the United States....
, Harry Browne
Harry Browne
Harry Browne was an American libertarian writer, politician, and free-market investment analyst. He ran for President of the United States as the nominee of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000....
and Walter Block
Walter Block
Walter Edward Block is a free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School of economics.-Personal history and education:...
deny any association with both the political right and left. Others like Sheldon Richman
Sheldon Richman
Sheldon Richman is an American political writer and academic, best known for his advocacy of libertarianism.He is the editor of The Freeman, a magazine published by The Foundation for Economic Education, a Senior Fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, a Research Fellow at The Independent...
, Karl Hess
Karl Hess
Karl Hess was an American national-level speechwriter and author. He was also a political philosopher, editor, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister, atheist, and libertarian activist...
, Roderick Long
Roderick Long
Roderick Tracy Long is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and libertarian anarchist blogger. He also serves as a senior scholar for the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an editor of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, director and president of the Molinari Institute, and an advisory panel...
and Kevin Carson have written about libertarianism's opposition to authoritarian rule being in concert with the original meaning of "left wing."
Individuals labeled "right-libertarian"
The term "Old RightOld Right (United States)
The Old Right was a conservative faction in the United States that opposed both New Deal domestic programs and U.S. entry into World War II. Many members of this faction were associated with the Republicans of the interwar years led by Robert Taft, but some were Democrats...
" has been used to describe individuals also identified as libertarian. Such individuals include Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock
Albert Jay Nock was an influential United States libertarian author, educational theorist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century.- Life and work :...
, a number of other intellectuals frequently seen as forebears of modern market-oriented libertarianism—including Frank Chodorov
Frank Chodorov
Frank Chodorov was an American member of the Old Right, a group of libertarian thinkers who were non-interventionist in foreign policy and anti–New Deal...
, Garet Garrett
Garet Garrett
Garet Garrett , born Edward Peter Garrett, was an American journalist and author who was noted for his criticisms of the New Deal and U.S. involvement in the Second World War.-Overview:...
, Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson
Isabel Paterson was a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism...
, Rose Wilder Lane
Rose Wilder Lane
Rose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, and political theorist...
, and, perhaps, John T. Flynn
John T. Flynn
John Thomas Flynn was an American journalist best known for his opposition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and to American entry into World War II.-Career:...
Old Right thinkers opposed the rise of the managerial state
Managerial state
Managerial state is a paleoconservative concept used in critiquing modern social democracy in Western countries. The term takes a pejorative context as a manifestation of Western decline. Theorists Samuel T. Francis and Paul Gottfried say this is an ongoing regime that remains in power,...
during the Progressive era and its expansion in connection with the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and the Fair Deal
Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was the term given to an ambitious set of proposals put forward by United States President Harry S. Truman to the United States Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. The term, however, has also been used to describe the domestic reform agenda of the Truman...
. They also challenged imperialism and military interventionism. "Old Right" was a label about which many or most of these figures might have been skeptical; most thought of themselves, effectively, as classical liberals
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
, and Chodorov famously wrote: "As for me, I will punch anyone who calls me a conservative in the nose. I am a radical." The thinkers associated with the Old Right were not identified with the social conservatism
Social conservatism
Social Conservatism is primarily a political, and usually morally influenced, ideology that focuses on the preservation of what are seen as traditional values. Social conservatism is a form of authoritarianism often associated with the position that the federal government should have a greater role...
of thinkers associated with later movements often identified as part of the right, and their resistance to the state—which amounted to anarchism in Chodorov's case.
Lew Rockwell
Lew Rockwell
Llewellyn Harrison "Lew" Rockwell, Jr. is an American libertarian political commentator, activist, proponent of the Austrian School of economics, and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.-Life and work:...
and Jeffrey Tucker
Jeffrey Tucker
Jeffrey Albert Tucker is the publisher and executive editor of Laissez Faire Books. He is past editorial vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and past editor for the institute's website, Mises.org...
identified the Old Right as not only anti-authoritarian but also culturally conservative. They deliberately distanced their brand of libertarianism from classical liberalism. And they affirmed, for instance, that "[v]igorous social authority—as embodied in the family, church, and other mediating institutions—is a bedrock of the virtuous society" and that "[t]he egalitarian ethic is morally reprehensible and destructive of private property and social authority."
Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American author and economist of the Austrian School who helped define capitalist libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism." Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the...
was strongly influenced by the Old Right's opposition to the managerial state and, if anything, more unequivocally anti-war and anti-imperialist than his Old Right forebears and mentors. Already a radical classical liberal and anti-interventionist, Rothbard became an anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
during his time as a student at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. By the 1960s, Rothbard had become the doyen of modern American market-oriented libertarianism, for a few years building a relationship between libertarians and the budding New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
.
Walter Block
Walter Block
Walter Edward Block is a free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School of economics.-Personal history and education:...
identifies Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian School economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition, and a Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.-Academic career:...
, Edward Feser, and Ron Paul
Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...
as expositors of libertarian positions on the right.
See also
- Republican Liberty CaucusRepublican Liberty CaucusThe Republican Liberty Caucus is a political action organization dedicated to promoting the ideals of individual liberty, limited government and free market economics within the Republican Party in the United States. It is part of the libertarian wing of the Republican Party...
- Libertarian RepublicanLibertarian RepublicanA libertarian Republican is a person who subscribes to libertarian philosophy while typically voting for and being involved with the United States Republican Party.Sometimes the terms republitarian or liberty Republican are used as well...
- Libertarian conservative
- Economic liberalismEconomic liberalismEconomic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...
- MinarchismMinarchismMinarchism has been variously defined by sources. It is a libertarian capitalist political philosophy. In the strictest sense, it maintains that the state is necessary and that its only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and...
- MonetarismMonetarismMonetarism is a tendency in economic thought that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. It is the view within monetary economics that variation in the money supply has major influences on national output in the short run and the price level over...
- Negative libertyNegative libertyNegative liberty is defined as freedom from interference by other people, and is set in contrast to positive liberty, which is defined as an individual's freedom from inhibitions of the social structure within the society such as classism, sexism or racism and is primarily concerned with the...
- Positive libertyPositive libertyPositive liberty is defined as having the power and resources to fulfill one's own potential ; as opposed to negative liberty, which is freedom from external restraint...
- Open economyOpen economyAn open economy is an economy in which there are economic activities between domestic community and outside, e.g. people, including businesses, can trade in goods and services with other people and businesses in the international community, and flow of funds as investment across the border...
- PropertarianismPropertarianismThe term propertarianism has been used to describe various views regarding private property. Those holding positive views on property rights may be described as propertarian. Conversely, others opposed to private property may be described as non-propertarian or...
- PrivatismPrivatismPrivatism is a generic term describing any belief that people have a right to the private ownership of certain things. There are many degrees of privatism, from the advocacy of limited private property over specific kinds of items to the advocacy of unrestricted private property over everything;...