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Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free")[1] is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.[2][3] This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty,[4][5]political freedom, and voluntary association. It is an antonym of authoritarianism.[6] Although libertarians share a skepticism of governmental authority, they diverge on the extent and character of their opposition. Certain schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views on how far the powers of government should be limited and others contend the state should not exist at all. While minarchists propose a state limited in scope to preventing aggression, theft, breach of contract and fraud, anarchists advocate its complete elimination as a political system.[7][8][9][10][11][12] While some libertarians accept laissez-faire capitalism and private property rights, such as in land and natural resources, others oppose capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating their common or cooperative ownership and management (see libertarian socialism).[13][14][15]

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, libertarianism is defined as the moral view that agents initially fully own themselves and have certain moral powers to acquire property rights in external things.[16] Libertarian philosopher Roderick Long defines libertarianism as "any political position that advocates a radical redistribution of power from the coercive state to voluntary associations of free individuals", whether "voluntary association" takes the form of the free market or of communal co-operatives.[17]In the United States, the term libertarianism is often used as a synonym for combined economic and cultural liberalism while outside that country there is a strong tendency to associate libertarianism with anarchism.

Many countries throughout the world have libertarian parties (see list of libertarian political parties).

The term libertarian was first used by late-Enlightenment free-thinkers to refer to the metaphysical belief in free will, as opposed to incompatibilist determinism.[18] The first recorded use was in 1789, when William Belsham wrote about libertarianism in opposition to "necessitarian", i.e. determinist, views.[19][20]

Libertarian as an advocate or defender of liberty, especially in the political and social spheres, was used in the London Packet on 12 February 1796: "Lately marched out of the Prison at Bristol, 450 of the French Libertarians."[21] The word was used also in a political sense in 1802, in a short piece critiquing a poem by "the author of Gebir":

The author's Latin verses, which are rather more intelligible than his English, mark him for a furious Libertarian (if we may coin such a term) and a zealous admirer of France, and her liberty, under Bonaparte; such liberty![22]

The use of the word libertarian to describe a new set of political positions has been traced to the French cognate, libertaire, coined in a scathing letter French libertarian communist Joseph Djacque wrote to mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1857, castigating him for his sexist political views.[23] Djacque also used the term for his anarchist publication Le Libertaire: Journal du Mouvement Social, which was printed from 9 June 1858 to 4 February 1861. In the mid-1890s, Sbastien Faure began publishing a new Le Libertaire while France's Third Republic enacted the lois sclrates ("villainous laws"), which banned anarchist publications in France. Libertarianism has frequently been used as a synonym for anarchism since this time.[24][25][26]

In 1878, Sir John Seeley characterized a libertarian as someone "who can properly be said to defend liberty", by opposing tyranny or "resist[ing] the established government".[27] In 1901, Frederic William Maitland used the term to capture a cultural attitude of support for freedom: "the picture of an editor defending his proof sheets... before an official board of critics is not to our liking... In such matters Englishmen are individualists and libertarians."[28]

With modern use of liberalism in the USA generally referring to social liberalism, some scholars claim that libertarianism has become synonymous with classical liberalism, while others dispute this interpretation.[citation needed]Libertarianism in the United States is associated with "fiscally conservative" and "socially liberal" political views (going by the common meanings of conservative and liberal in the United States),[29][30] and, often, a foreign policy of non-interventionism.[31][32]H. L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock were the first prominent figures in the United States to call themselves libertarians. They believed Franklin D. Roosevelt had co-opted the word liberal for his New Deal policies, which they opposed, and used libertarian to signify their allegiance to individualism and limited government.[33] Mencken wrote in 1923: "My literary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I am, in belief, a libertarian of the most extreme variety."[34]

Since the resurgence of neoliberalism in the 1970s, free-market libertarianism has spread beyond North America via think tanks and political parties,[35][36] with proponents contending that libertarianism is increasingly viewed worldwide as a free market position.[citation needed]

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Libertarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia