Political philosophy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Right-libertarianism,[1][2][3][4] also known as libertarian capitalism,[5] or right-wing libertarianism,[1][6] is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property.[7] The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital[8] from left-libertarianism, a variant of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to property and income.[9] In contrast to socialist libertarianism,[3] right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism.[1] Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties,[1] especially natural law,[10] negative rights,[11] the non-aggression principle,[12] and a significant transformation of the modern welfare state.[13]
Right-libertarian political thought is characterized by the strict priority given to liberty, with the need to maximize the realm of individual freedom and minimize the scope of public authority.[14] Right-libertarians typically see the state as the principal threat to liberty. This anti-statism differs from anarchist doctrines in that it is based upon strong individualism that places less emphasis on human sociability or cooperation.[2][14][15] Right-libertarian philosophy is also rooted in the ideas of individual rights and laissez-faire economics. The right-libertarian theory of individual rights generally follows the homestead principle and the labor theory of property, stressing self-ownership and that people have an absolute right to the property that their labor produces.[14] Economically, right-libertarians make no distinction between capitalism and free markets and view any attempt to dictate the market process as counterproductive, emphasizing the mechanisms and self-regulating nature of the market whilst portraying government intervention and attempts to redistribute wealth as invariably unnecessary and counter-productive.[14] Although all right-libertarians oppose government intervention, there is a division between anarcho-capitalists, who view the state as an unnecessary evil and want property rights protected without statutory law through market-generated tort, contract and property law; and minarchists, who support the need for a minimal state, often referred to as a night-watchman state, to provide its citizens with courts, military, and police.[16]
Like libertarians of all varieties, right-libertarians refer to themselves simply as libertarians.[2][16][6] Being the most common type of libertarianism in the United States,[3] right-libertarianism has become the most common referent of libertarianism.[17][18]
People described as being left-libertarian or right-libertarian generally tend to call themselves simply libertarians and refer to their philosophy as libertarianism. In light of this, some authors and political scientists classify the forms of libertarianism into two groups,[19][20] namely left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism,[1][2][16][3][6] to distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital.[8]
The term libertarian was first used by late Enlightenment freethinkers, referring to those who believed in free will, as opposed to necessity, a now-disused philosophy that posited a kind of determinism.[21] The word libertarian is first recorded in 1789 coined by the British historian William Belsham, in a discussion against free will from the author's deterministic point of view.[22][23] This debate between libertarianism in a philosophical-metaphysical sense and determinism would continue into the early nineteenth century, especially in the field of Protestant theology.[24] The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, in English, attests to this ancient use of the word libertarian by describing its meaning as "an advocate of the doctrine of free will "and, taking a broad definition, also says that he is" a person who holds the principles of individual freedom especially in thought and action ".[25]
Many decades later, libertarian was a term used by the French libertarian communist Joseph Déjacque[26][27][28][29][30] to mean a form of left-wing politics that has been frequently used to refer to anarchism[2][31][26][27] and libertarian socialism[32] since the mid- to late 19th century.[33][34] With the modern development of right-libertarian ideologies such as anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opting[35][36][37] the term libertarian in the mid-20th century to instead advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources,[38] the terms left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism have been used more often as to differentiate between the two.[2][16] Socialist libertarianism[39] has been included within a broad left-libertarianism[40][41][42] while right-libertarianism mainly refers to laissez-faire capitalism such as Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism and Robert Nozick's minarchism.[2][16][6]
Right-libertarianism has been described as combining individual freedom and opposition to the state, with strong support for free markets and private property. Property rights have been the issue that has divided libertarian philosophies. According to Jennifer Carlson, right-libertarianism is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States. Right-libertarians "see strong private property rights as the basis for freedom and thus are—to quote the title of Brian Doherty's text on libertarianism in the United States—"Radicals for Capitalism".[3]
Herbert Kitschelt and Anthony J. McGann contrast right-libertarianism—"a strategy that combines pro-market positions with opposition to hierarchical authority, support of unconventional political participation, and endorsement of feminism and of environmentalism"—with right-authoritarianism.[43][44]
Mark Bevir holds that there are three types of libertarianism, namely left, right and consequentialist libertarianism as promoted by Friedrich Hayek.[45]
According to contemporary American libertarian Walter Block, left-libertarians and right-libertarians agree with certain libertarian premises, but "where [they] differ is in terms of the logical implications of these founding axioms".[46] Although some libertarians may reject the political spectrum, especially the left–right political spectrum,[1] right-libertarianism and several right-oriented strands of libertarianism in the United States have been described as being right-wing,[47] New Right,[48][49][50][51] radical right[43][44] and reactionary.[13][52]
American libertarian activist and politician David Nolan, the principal founder of the Libertarian Party, developed what is now known as the Nolan Chart to replace the traditional left-right political spectrum. The Nolan Chart has been used by several modern American libertarians and right-libertarians who reject the traditional political spectrum for its lack of inclusivity and see themselves as north-of-center. It is used in an effort to quantify typical libertarian views that support both free markets and social liberties and reject what they see as restrictions on economic and personal freedom imposed by the left and the right, respectively,[53] although this latter point has been criticized.[54] Other libertarians reject the separation of personal and economic liberty or argue that the Nolan Chart gives no weight to foreign policy.[55]
Since the resurgence of neoliberalism in the 1970s, right-libertarianism has spread beyond North America via think tanks and political parties.[56][57][58] In the United States, libertarianism is increasingly viewed as this capitalist free-market position.[2][16][6][3]
As a term, right-libertarianism is used by some political analysts, academics and media sources, especially in the United States, to describe the libertarian philosophy which is supportive of free-market capitalism and strong right to property, in addition to supporting limited government and self-ownership,[59] being contrasted with left-wing views which do not support the former. In most of the world, this particular political position is mostly known as classical liberalism, economic liberalism and neoliberalism.[60] It is mainly associated with right-wing politics, support for free markets and private ownership of capital goods. Furthermore, it is usually contrasted with similar ideologies such as social democracy and social liberalism which generally favor alternative forms of capitalism such as mixed economies, state capitalism and welfare capitalism.[61][62]
Peter Vallentyne writes that libertarianism, defined as being about self-ownership, is not a right-wing doctrine in the context of the typical left–right political spectrum because on social issues it tends to be left-wing, opposing laws restricting consensual sexual relationships between or drug use by adults as well as laws imposing religious views or practices and compulsory military service. He defines right-libertarianism as holding that unowned natural resources "may be appropriated by the first person who discovers them, mixes her labor with them, or merely claims them—without the consent of others, and with little or no payment to them". He contrasts this with left-libertarianism, where such "unappropriated natural resources belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner".[18] Similarly, Charlotte and Lawrence Becker maintain that right-libertarianism most often refers to the political position that because natural resources are originally unowned, they may be appropriated at will by private parties without the consent of, or owing to, others.[63]
Samuel Edward Konkin III, who characterized agorism as a form of left-libertarianism[64][65] and strategic branch of left-wing market anarchism,[66] defined 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".[67]
Anthony Gregory maintains that libertarianism "can refer to any number of varying and at times mutually exclusive political orientations". While holding that the important distinction for libertarians is not left or right, but whether they are "government apologists who use libertarian rhetoric to defend state aggression", he describes right-libertarianism as having and maintaining interest in economic freedom, preferring a conservative lifestyle, viewing private business as a "great victim of the state" and favoring a non-interventionist foreign policy, sharing the Old Right's "opposition to empire".[68]
Murray Rothbard, whose writings and personal influence helped create some strands of right-libertarianism,[69] wrote about the Old Right in the United States, a loose coalition of individuals formed in the 1930s to oppose the New Deal at home and military interventionism abroad, that they "did not describe or think of themselves as conservatives: they wanted to repeal and overthrow, not conserve".[70] Bill Kauffman has also written about such "old right libertarians".[71] Peter Marshall dates right-libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism in particular back to the Old Right and as being popularized again by the New Right.[50]
Individuals who are seen in this Old Right libertarian tradition[70][72][73] include Frank Chodorov,[74][75] John T. Flynn,[76][77] Garet Garrett,[78][79] Rose Wilder Lane,[80][81] H. L. Mencken,[82] Albert Jay Nock[83][84][85] and Isabel Paterson.[86][87] What those thinkers had in common was opposition to the rise of the managerial state during the Progressive Era and its expansion in connection with the New Deal and the Fair Deal whilst challenging imperialism and military interventionism.[88] However, Old Right was a label about which many or most of these figures might have been skeptical as most thought of themselves effectively as classical liberals rather than the national defense and social conservatism of thinkers associated with the later movement conservatism, with Chodorov famously writing: "As for me, I will punch anyone who calls me a conservative in the nose. I am a radical".[89][90][91] Their opposition and resistance to the state approached philosophical anarchism with Nock and amounted to statelessness in Chodorov's case.[71] On the other hand, Lew Rockwell and Jeffrey Tucker identifies the Old Right as being culturally conservative, arguing 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".[92]
While libertarian was popularized by the libertarian socialist Benjamin Tucker around the late 1870s and early 1880s,[93] H. L. Mencken and Albert Jay Nock were the first prominent figures in the United States to describe themselves as libertarian as a synonym for liberal. They believed that 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 classical liberalism, individualism and limited government.[94]
In the 1960s, Rothbard started publishing Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought, believing that the left–right political spectrum had gone "entirely askew" since conservatives were sometimes more statist than liberals and tried to reach out to leftists and go beyond left and right.[95] In 1971, Rothbard wrote about right-libertarianism which he described as supporting free trade, property rights and self-ownership.[1] Rothbard would later describe it as anarcho-capitalism[96][97][98] and paleolibertarianism.[99][100]
Right-libertarianism developed in the United States in the mid-20th century from the works of European liberal writers such as John Locke, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises and is the most popular conception of libertarianism in the United States today.[3][101] It is commonly referred to as a continuation or radicalization of classical liberalism.[21][102] The most important of these early right-libertarian philosophers were modern American libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard.[2]
While they share the left-libertarian advocacy for social freedom, right-libertarians value capitalism while rejecting institutions that intervene the free market on the grounds that such interventions represent unnecessary coercion of individuals and therefore a violation of their economic freedom.[103] Anarcho-capitalists[104][105] seek complete elimination of the state in favor of private defense agencies while minarchists defend night-watchman states which maintain only those functions of government necessary to safeguard natural rights, understood in terms of self-ownership or autonomy.[106]
Right-libertarians are economic liberals of either the Austrian School (majority) or the Chicago school of economics (minority) and support laissez-faire capitalism which they define as the free market in opposition to state capitalism and interventionism.[107] Right-libertarianism and its individualism have been discussed as part of the New Right[50][51] in relation to neoliberalism and Thatcherism.[49] In the 20th century, New Right liberal conservatism influenced by right-libertarianism marginalized other forms of conservatism.[108]
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes right-libertarian philosophy as follows:
Libertarianism is often thought of as 'right-wing' doctrine. This, however, is mistaken for at least two reasons. First, on social—rather than economic—issues, libertarianism tends to be 'left-wing'. It opposes laws that restrict consensual and private sexual relationships between adults (e.g., gay-sex, non-marital sex, and deviant sex), laws that restrict drug use, laws that impose religious views or practices on individuals, and compulsory military service. Second, in addition to the better-known version of libertarianism—right-libertarianism—, there is also a version known as 'left-libertarianism. Both endorse full self-ownership, but they differ with respect to the powers agents have to appropriate unappropriated natural resources (land, air, water, etc.).[18]
While associated with free-market capitalism, right-libertarianism is not opposed in principle to voluntary egalitarianism and socialism.[109][110] However, right-libertarians believe that their advocated economic system would prove superior and that people would prefer it to socialism.[111][112] For Nozick, it does not imply support of capitalism, but merely that capitalism is compatible with libertarianism,[113] something which is rejected by anti-capitalist libertarians.[114][115][116][117]
According to Stephen Metcalf, Nozick expressed serious misgivings about capitalism, going so far as to reject much of the foundations of the theory on the grounds that personal freedom can sometimes only be fully actualized via a collectivist politics and that wealth is at times justly redistributed via taxation to protect the freedom of the many from the potential tyranny of an overly selfish and powerful few.[118] Nozick suggested that citizens who are opposed to wealth redistribution which fund programs they object to should be able to opt-out by supporting alternative government-approved charities with an added 5% surcharge.[119] Nonetheless, Nozick did not stop from self-identifying as a libertarian in a broad sense[120] and Julian Sanchez has argued that his views simply became more nuanced.[121]
The non-aggression principle (NAP) is often described as the foundation of several present-day libertarian philosophies, including right-libertarianism.[122][123][124][125][126] The NAP is a moral stance which forbids actions that are inconsistent with capitalist private property and property rights. It defines aggression and initiation of force as violation of these rights. The NAP and property rights are closely linked since what constitutes aggression depends on what it is considered to be one's property.[127] The principle has been used rhetorically to oppose policies such as military drafts, taxation and victimless crime laws.[5]
While there is debate on whether right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism or socialist libertarianism "represent distinct ideologies as opposed to variations on a theme", right-libertarianism is most in favor of capitalist private property and property rights.[128] Right-libertarians maintain that unowned natural resources "may be appropriated by the first person who discovers them, mixes his labor with them, or merely claims them—without the consent of others, and with little or no payment to them". This contrasts with left-libertarianism in which "unappropriated natural resources belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner".[129] Right-libertarians believe that natural resources are originally unowned and therefore private parties may appropriate them at will without the consent of, or owing to, others (e.g. a land value tax).[130]
Right-libertarians are also referred to as propertarians because they hold that societies in which private property rights are enforced are the only ones that are both ethical and lead to the best possible outcomes.[131] They generally support free-market capitalism and are not opposed to any concentrations of economic power, provided it occurs through non-coercive means.[132]
There is a debate amongst right-libertarians as to whether or not the state is legitimate. While anarcho-capitalists advocate its abolition, minarchists support minimal states, often referred to as night-watchman states. Minarchists maintain that the state is necessary for the protection of individuals from aggression, breach of contract, fraud and theft. They believe the only legitimate governmental institutions are courts, military and police, although some expand this list to include the executive and legislative branches, fire departments and prisons. These minarchists justify the state on the grounds that it is the logical consequence of adhering to the non-aggression principle.[133][134][135] Some minarchists argue that a state is inevitable, believing anarchy to be futile.[136] Others argue that anarchy is immoral because it implies that the non-aggression principle is optional and not sufficient to enforce the non-aggression principle because the enforcement of laws under anarchy is open to competition.[137][page needed] Another common justification is that private defense agencies and court firms would tend to represent the interests of those who pay them enough.[138]
Right-libertarians such as anarcho-capitalists argue that the state violates the non-aggression principle by its nature because governments use force against those who have not stolen or vandalized private property, assaulted anyone, or committed fraud.[139][140] Others argue that monopolies tend to be corrupt and inefficient and that private defense and court agencies would have to have a good reputation to stay in business. Linda and Morris Tannehill argue that no coercive monopoly of force can arise on a truly free market and that a government's citizenry can desert them in favor of a competent protection and defense agency.[141]
Philosopher Moshe Kroy argues that the disagreement between anarcho-capitalists who adhere to Murray Rothbard's view of human consciousness and the nature of values and minarchists who adhere to Ayn Rand's view of human consciousness and the nature of values over whether or not the state is moral is not due to a disagreement over the correct interpretation of a mutually held ethical stance. He argues that the disagreement between these two groups is instead the result of their disagreement over the nature of human consciousness and that each group is making the correct interpretation of their differing premises. According to Kroy, these two groups are not making any errors with respect to deducing the correct interpretation of any ethical stance because they do not hold the same ethical stance.[142]
The idea of taxation as theft is a viewpoint found in a number of political philosophies. Under this view, government transgresses property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection.[143][144] Right-libertarians see taxation as a violation of the non-aggression principle.[145]
Anarcho-capitalism advocates the elimination of centralized states in favor of capitalism,[146][147][148] contracts, free markets, individual sovereignty, private property, the right-libertarian interpretation of self-ownership and voluntaryism. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market which they describe as a voluntary society.[149][150] In an anarcho-capitalist society, courts, law enforcement and all other security services would be provided by privately funded competitors rather than through taxation and money would be privately and competitively provided in an open market.[151] Under anarcho-capitalism, personal and economic activities would be regulated by private law rather than through politics.[152] Anarcho-capitalists support wage labour[153] and believe that neither protection of person and property nor victim compensation requires a state.[50] Autarchism promotes the principles of individualism, the moral ideology of individual liberty and self-reliance whilst rejecting compulsory government and supporting the elimination of government in favor of ruling oneself to the exclusion of rule by others.
The most well-known version of anarcho-capitalism was formulated in the mid-20th century by Austrian School economist and paleolibertarian Murray Rothbard.[154] Widely regarded as its founder,[155] Rothbard combined the free-market approach from the Austrian School with the human rights views and a rejection of the state from 19th-century American individualist anarchists and mutualists such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, although rejecting their anti-capitalism and socialist economics, along with the labor theory of value and the normative implications they derived from it.[156] In Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, exemplified in For a New Liberty, there would first be the implementation of a mutually agreed-upon libertarian "legal code which would be generally accepted and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow".[157] This legal code would recognize contracts, individual sovereignty, private property, self-ownership, and tort law as part of the principle of non-aggression[158] In the tradition following David D. Friedman, exemplified in The Machinery of Freedom, anarcho-capitalists do not rely upon the idea of natural law or natural rights (deontological libertarianism) and follow consequentialist libertarianism, presenting economic justifications for a free-market capitalist society.[159]
While some authors consider anarcho-capitalism a form of individualist anarchism, many others disagree with this as individualist anarchism is largely socialistic.[160][161][162] Rothbard argued that individualist anarchism is different from anarcho-capitalism and other capitalist theories due to the individualist anarchists retaining the labor theory of value and socialist economics.[163] Many anarchist activists and scholars deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism, or that capitalism is compatible with anarchism,[162] regarding it instead as right-libertarian.[2][16][6] Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from anarchists and minarchists. The latter advocate a night-watchman state limited to protecting individuals from aggression and enforcing private property.[137] On the other hand, anarchists support personal property (defined in terms of possession and use, i.e. mutualist usufruct)[164][165] and oppose capital concentration, interest, monopoly, private ownership of productive property such as the means of production (capital, land and the means of labor), profit, rent, usury and wage slavery which are viewed as inherent to capitalism.[166][167] Anarchism's emphasis on anti-capitalism, egalitarianism and for the extension of community and individuality sets it apart from anarcho-capitalism and other types of right-libertarianism.[168][169][170][171]
Ruth Kinna writes that anarcho-capitalism is a term coined by Rothbard to describe "a commitment to unregulated private property and laissez-faire economics, prioritizing the liberty-rights of individuals, unfettered by government regulation, to accumulate, consume and determine the patterns of their lives as they see fit". According to Kinna, anarcho-capitalists "will sometimes label themselves market anarchists because they recognize the negative connotations of 'capitalism'. But the literatures of anarcho-capitalism draw on classical liberal theory, particularly the Austrian School—Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises—rather than recognizable anarchist traditions. Ayn Rand's laissez-faire, anti-government, corporate philosophy—Objectivism—is sometimes associated with anarcho-capitalism".[172] Other scholars similarly associate anarcho-capitalism with anti-state liberal schools such as neo-classical liberalism, radical neoliberalism and right-libertarianism.[2][16][3][6][173] Anarcho-capitalism is usually seen as part of the New Right.[51][174]
Conservative libertarianism combines laissez-faire economics and conservative values. It advocates the greatest possible economic liberty and the least possible government regulation of social life whilst harnessing this to traditionalist conservatism, emphasizing authority and duty.[175]
Conservative libertarianism prioritizes liberty as its main emphasis, promoting free expression, freedom of choice and laissez-faire capitalism to achieve cultural and social conservative ends whilst rejecting liberal social engineering.[176] This can also be understood as promoting civil society through conservative institutions and authority such as education, family, fatherland and religion in the quest of libertarian ends for less state power.[177]
In the United States, conservative libertarianism combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the conservative wing of libertarianism and vice versa. Fusionism combines traditionalist and social conservatism with laissez-faire economics.[178] This is most closely associated with Frank Meyer.[179] Hans-Hermann Hoppe is a cultural conservative right-libertarian, whose belief in the rights of property owners to establish private covenant communities, from which homosexuals and political dissidents may be "physically removed",[180] has proven particularly divisive.[181][182][183][184] Hoppe also garnered controversy due to his support for restrictive limits on immigration which critics argue is at odds with libertarianism.[185]
Within right-libertarian philosophy, minarchism[186] is supportive of a night-watchman state, a model of a state whose only functions are to provide its citizens with courts, military and police, protecting them from aggression, breach of contract, fraud and theft whilst enforcing property laws.[133][134][135] 19th-century Britain has been described by historian Charles Townshend as standard-bearer of this form of government among European countries.[187]
As a term, night-watchman state (German: Nachtwächterstaat) was coined by German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle, an advocate of social-democratic state socialism, to criticize the bourgeois state.[188] Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises, a classical liberal who greatly influenced right-libertarianism, later opined that Lassalle tried to make limited government look ridiculous, but that it was no more ridiculous than governments that concerned themselves with "the preparation of sauerkraut, with the manufacture of trouser buttons, or with the publication of newspapers".[189]
Robert Nozick, a right-libertarian advocate of minarchism, received a National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974),[190] where he argued that only a minimal state limited to the narrow functions of protection against "force, fraud, theft, and administering courts of law" could be justified without violating people's rights.[191][192]
Traditionally, liberalism's primary emphasis was placed on securing the freedom of the individual by limiting the power of the government and maximizing the power of free market forces. As a political philosophy, it advocated civil liberties under the rule of law, with an emphasis on economic freedom. Closely related to economic liberalism, it developed in the early 19th century, emerging as a response to urbanization and to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States.[193][194][195][196] It advocated a limited government and held a belief in laissez-faire economic policy.[194][195][197]
Built on ideas that had already arisen by the end of the 18th century such as selected ideas of John Locke,