Is Libertarianism left wing or right wing?

Question

In my country, libertarianism is associated with a pure right political ideology. They held more right wing positions than those who are elected and refered to as "right", or even "far right". For what I see in my feeds in internet, in United States it seems to be similar, or at least they are identified as right wing.

But according to Libertarianism - Wikipedia

Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics

and there is

Left-libertarian ideologies which include anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist, New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school.

and

In the mid-20th century, right-libertarian ideologies such as anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opted the term libertarian . The latter is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States

Is this so? Are there "left wing" and "right wing" libertarians today and libertarianismm originated as a left wing ideology, or are all libertarians are right wing?

Answer 1

The first important thing to notice is that political labels mean different things in different parts of the world and in different points of time.

In contemporary US politics libertarian is usually used to describe a set of political values that advocate liberal social policies with conservative economic policies. This means they don't fit neatly on a left/right spectrum because they (mostly) align with Democrats on social issues and Republicans on economic issues.

Answer 2

Libertarianism is neither Left nor Right-wing. It's on a spectrum opposite of Authoritarianism. So, as you go further towards Authoritarian, you want more and more government control and intervention in society. As you go further in the opposite direction on this spectrum, you want less government control and smaller government.

This means that as a Libertarian, you can lean either left or right on the economic preference scale (as this is generally what left vs. right refers to).

Answer 3

Semantic Drift makes political terms meaningless (or at least greatly diffuses their meaning) over time. This is especially true of -isms. For example, Thomas Jefferson was a Liberal and he would be appalled with the current state of what is called "Liberalism." So you get terms like "Classical Liberal", "Neo Liberal", etc.

With Libertarianism, there are dozens of variants to make the meaning more specific: Libertarian Socialist, Austro-Libertarian, etc.

Without that specificity, there is no clear answer to your question with regard to the left/right dichotomy.

Answer 4

I've seen Libertarian views as quite split, both left and right--and I haven't seen this mentioned in any answer here.

Note: To avoid the almost complete lack of an absolute definition of left/right I'm using contemporary US left & right--for this answer left & right will also be synonymous with contemporary US liberal & conservative.

The overall mantra of Libertarianism is "Hands Off", but this means having two very different points of view:

Socially they tend to be quite Left, far left. Legalization of drugs, free love, whatever. Hippy level stuff... as long as you don't hurt/restrict others.

But on the business side they are synchronized with the right--deregulation, hands-off, buyer be ware. Funny thing is that when it comes to business, they seem to drop the "as long as you don't hurt others" part, or at least don't acknowledge that most business regulations exist because we were countering practices that were actively harming individuals/freedoms.

I also think most people identify strictly with one of these two facets of Libertarianism and kind of ignore, discredit or dis-avow the other part.

Answer 5

Wikipedia is correct that libertarian originally emerged as a left-wing ideology which bears little resemblance to the right-wing ideology now associated with the name. According to right-libertarian Murray Rothbard:

“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over...”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3194162-one-gratifying-aspect-of-our-rise-to-some-prominence-is

As a result modern day left-libertarians tend to avoid the term in favour of "anarchist" or "libertarian socialist".

Answer 6

Neither

Is Libertarianism left wing or right wing?

Neither "left" nor "right" describes libertarian philosophy.

Left-wing versus Right-wing is one-dimensional thinking. Combined with never-ending changes in definitions, this brings endless confusion to political discussions.

Two-dimensional thinking

For clarity and insight, consider the matter in two dimensions: personal freedoms and economic freedoms.

This way of thinking can be quite enlightening. Take for example, understanding the changes in Communist China. The governments there in recent years have been trying to increase, to some degree, economic freedoms while still maintaining strict repression of personal freedoms such as thought and speech. Using these two dimensions you can more clearly compare the phenomena there against other places.

Nolan Chart

This two-dimensional approach was made famous by the Nolan Chart, invented by David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party in the United States.

Various people publish short quizzes with random questions on various issues, to see where a person's political instincts land on the chart.

The Nolan Chart is a simple x-y chart, with one axis showing an increasing range of freedoms of personal nature, and the other axis showing in increasing range of economic freedoms.

This chart can be divided into quadrants. The true right-wingers will land in the quadrant of higher liberty for economic matters, but lower liberty for personal matters. The true left-wingers will land in the opposite quadrant: higher liberty for personal matters but lower liberty for economic matters.

The authoritarian types land in the extreme quadrant, lower liberty for both personal and economic liberty. Within that quadrant, the Communist folks tend towards a bit more freedom for personal matters than economic. The Fascist folks land towards the other side of the quadrant, a bit more freedoms for economic matters. But both are in the same quadrant of authoritarianism, believing in using the coercive force of a government to largely control both aspects of people's lives.

The extreme tip of the authoritarian quadrant would be slave-trading/human-trafficking.

Libertarian folks land in the last of the four quadrants, seeking to maximize freedoms in both aspects, personal and economic.

The true anarchists are at the extreme tip of the freedoms quadrant, believing in no government at all, absolute freedoms on both axes. Libertarians, in contrast, believe in a minimal government necessary to preserving individual liberty, such as enforcing contracts and prosecuting real crimes such as fraud and violence (but not victimless "crime").

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In my country, libertarianism is associated with a pure right political ideology.

When squashing the two-dimensions into one, such absurdities result.

Are there "left wing" and "right wing" libertarians

No.

Some of the nuances you cite about various kinds of libertarians can be understood as merely moving around within that libertarian quadrant on the Nolan Chart. At some point, distinguishing these nuances becomes mere quibbling. The bigger picture is that with regard to "Left" and "Right", all libertarians:

• Agree with both when they promote freedoms in their usual domains (personal on the Left, economic on the Right)
• Disagree with both when they enact more restrictions on freedoms, with libertarians always seeking ways to maximize freedoms as much as is practicable on both personal and economic issues.

Many politicians and people in the media find it advantageous to confuse these matters. But understanding the tenets of libertarian thought can be as simple as reading the Libertarian pledge signed when one joins the US Libertarian Party:

"I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals."

Answer 7

The reason why you might not have heard much of [self-described] left-libertarian parties is that most such parties (at least in Western Europe) call[ed] themselves "ecologist" (or a variation thereof) or sometimes "New Left". (As a recap: left-libertarians diverge from right-libertarians on how unappropriated [natural] resources should be divided.)

In general, New Left parties are the oldest subgroup; they have attracted electoral support in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The newer left-libertarian parties appeared in the late 1970s; they are the ecology or "green" parties of Austria, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and West Germany. Despite their names, these parties are not narrow environmentalist pressure groups, but address the entire range of left-libertarian demands.

Also an interesting factoid (from that 1980s paper) is that such parties were more likely to appear in countries with higher per capita income, which is why you've probably not seen them much in Argentina. Another correlate is higher [existing] public expenditure, which explains why they didn't show up much in the US.

There a much more recent article that for Argentina identifies/discusses ASL (Acción Socialista Libertaria/Libertarian Socialist Action) [founded in 2015] as part of this group.

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If you're curious, how European left-libertarian parties manage to distinguish themselves on one particular issue of recent relevance, namely non-standard employment (NSE):

Left parties in our four states fall into three categories: left-socialist, left-libertarian and social democratic. First, each country had a small left-socialist party in the period of analysis: IU in Spain, PCF/FDG in France, Die Linke in Germany and SA/SEL in Italy. These voice strong, categorical criticism of NSE as precarious. The main countermeasure they propose is to re-regulate NSE. This policy solution often also speaks to concerns by labour market insiders, for example, when Die Linke framed NSE in terms of ‘low-cost competition’ (Die Linke, 2013, p. 6). Secondly, the Green parties in France and Germany can be categorized as left-libertarian. In Germany, the Greens made NSE one of the main topics of their manifestos before other parties did. The French Greens did not put NSE at the forefront of their agenda to the same extent, but emphasized it within their labour market chapter. Both parties stressed more than others the need for better social protection of non-standard workers. This policy directly and unambiguously supports atypical employees while raising costs for standard workers (in form of taxes or social insurance contributions). Thirdly, each country in our sample has a major centre-left party that can be loosely described as social democratic: PSOE in Spain, PS in France, SPD in Germany and PD in Italy. Here, emphasis and criticism of NSE is expressed more mutedly than among the smaller left-wing parties. Also, there is some variation that can tentatively be accounted for by socio-economic context and issue competition. In Spain, the incidence of temporary employment was so high that the PSOE had little choice but to make it a core issue. In France, the PS’s role as opposition party and the persistence of NSE help explain its salience in the manifestos. In Germany, greater attention to NSE by the SPD came during opposition and against a backdrop of relatively low unemployment. Finally, the relatively low attention the PD dedicated to NSE may be explained by its (semi-)governmental responsibility.

Among all other parties, centrist and right-wing, none raised NSE as a major topic of their overall electoral programme. In 10 out of 15 non-left manifestos analysed, it was only a minor issue within their labour market chapters.

Note that is consistent with left-libertarian positions of using taxes to fund more than just the "night-watchman government", but also other things like pollution (e.g. carbon taxes) or unemployment, construed more broadly now to apply to non-standard employment (instead of proposing to regulate it out of existence as less libertarian left-wing parties do).

Answer 8

Drew Campo said it best:

Libertarianism is neither Left nor Right-wing. It's ... Anti-Authoritarian.

But there's really no one-size-fits-all definition for any "-ism" that's guaranteed to encompass all views for every individual who claims.

Answer 9

Recall where the terms "left wing" and "right wing" originated. It was a chance seating arrangement in a hall during the French Revolution. The folks who were against the current social order would sit on the Speaker's left. The Monarchists on his right.

So the original meaning of "left wing" was a group of people who wanted to crush the monarchy and take their stuff. The original meaning of "right wing" was monarchist. In most circumstances, this isn't a useful division these days. It's also not obvious how any of this connects to modern leftist thought, since Marx was not even born until some time after this.

The terms have had a very large amount of stretching and deliberate obfuscation. Collectivists of various sorts regularly pull a move where they attach "social-" or "left-" to a thing that is perceived as good, and so try to make "social" acquire that good opinion. "Social" justice, which is actually not justice at all, as an example. Justice is necessarily an individual thing, since individuals are the entities that make moral choice. Membership in a group does not automatically make you good or bad, particularly when it is in regard to people and events you had no connection with.

The origins of modern Libertarianism are strongly in the writings of John Locke. That is, they are what is now called "classical liberal" and very much what some of the founding fathers of the USA were trying to achieve. Recall Patrick Henry's famous quote: "Give me liberty, or give me death!" This is very much what libertarianism originally meant.

Many people have pointed out that politics cannot really be described properly with a single parameter such as left-vs-right. It needs, at a minimum, two. Jerry Pournelle (yes, the science fiction author) produced one reasonably cogent version. His two parameters were rationalism/irrationalism and anarchy/state control. Other people have made various other political compass divisions. All of them that I have seen have some issues, but the idea is necessary.

Libertarians generally want less government control. They tend, though not as strongly, to prefer rational thought in contrast to instinct or prejudice. In many political compass divisions this puts them all by themselves in one corner. Depending on how you arrange such a compass, the left-wing folk are another corner, either horizontally across or diagonally across. The right-wing folk are usually in yet another corner.

Though some such tests put the communists and fascists in the same corner. This is part of what I was referring to when I said political compass tests usually have problems. If you can't distinguish communists from fascists, maybe your test needs another parameter. Although, in Weimar Germany, many people would flip back and forth between membership in the communist party and the NAZI party. So it might not be entirely without merit to suggest there is some overlap between the two.

Answer 10

Both. Libertarianism in modern terms is very multi-faceted. In general it is the philosophy of minimal regulation, small government, and minimal legislation, and as such is usually actually more conservative than liberal. But that's an oversimplification if one intends to descend into a breakdown of opinions based on the usage of the label rather than its philosophical roots alone.

Many flavors and ideologies claim roots in libertarianism. However, many people are selective about which aspects they intend to minimize government involvement in--otherwise, libertarianism would be a single cohesive platform, but clearly it's not, or at least, nominal libertarianism contains multiple factions.

People who are libertarian with respect to economy and self-reliance (laissez-faire, free market capitalism, minimal taxes, right to bear arms) tend to be more conservative, since this is a core principle of conservatism.

People who call themselves libertarian on "social" issues (same-sex marriage, abortion, drug use) tend to be more liberal, since these are stances frequently embraced by the Left.

Stances on each issue matter a great deal, but the above priorities are approximately correct. These aren't necessarily the exact right categories to divide on, but it's a start. Depending on the definitions of each wing "Left-wing" and "Right-wing", it might not be possible to pigeonhole every libertarian into one of these camps.

One can take a libertarian stance on schooling, for example, which could be considered both a social issue and a matter of self-reliance. If the stance is pro-self-reliance, it's highly likely that the person is more conservative.

This can appear to be somewhat nuanced at first, and there is no better way to find out what libertarians think than by talking with and listening to people who call themselves libertarians and asking their stances and observing their behaviors.

You can find people who claim an admixture of both sides, or additional issue categories not touched upon here.

anarchist schools of thought, alongside many other anti-paternalist, New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as geolibertarianism, green politics, market-oriented left-libertarianism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school.

I generally don't find these to be very convincing as libertarians platforms, since many of them seek to use the power of centralized government in an attempt to eradicate the ideas that they oppose (although I'm not thoroughly familiar with all of them). Economic egalitarianism, for example, directly opposes laissez-faire by focusing on income inequality as the central issue. Probably the most sincere prominent modern figure I know of whose sentiment and actions truly radiate liberty-centric, small/no government ideals and laissez-faire is anarcho-capitalist Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain.com, the world's largest philosophy show.

In a nutshell, it seems like the central challenge in defining libertarianism would be to define what is the acceptable range of government involvement in citizens' lives? What are its duties, and what ought to be prohibited? In other words, provide a full description of the small pen that government is free to roam within. Following the philosophy of libertarianism, that would probably be easier than to describe than any attempt to enumerate all of the rights of citizens.

Pens of widely differing dimensions or on totally different grounds run a risk of representing two totally mutually exclusive opinions about the nature of libertarianism.

Answer 11

There are several problems with the question. Classical left/right separation accords to social positions, not to economic positions. There's an attempt into separating this outdated separation into a plane called the political compass. In this system, libertarian isn't left or right, but orthogonal to it, meaning it's something different. There is however one possibility to set liberal/libertarian positions on a left/right scale, and that's combining it with whose liberty is fought for. Liberty for the people tends to be (economically) left-wing, while freedom for economy and companies tends to be (economically) right-wing. But economic left and right is different from the classical social left and right.

Answer 12

On one hand left & right varies from country to country and time to time, and can therefore mean various things. On the other hand there is one main thread that goes through most of them: The promotion of government control vs private control. In other words: Collectivism vs Individualism. The left tends to be the side which promotes more government control, the right tends to be the side which promotes less government control.

This means the proper abstract spectrum would be (from left to right):
[Communists] [Socialists/Social Democrats] [Nationalists] [Conservatives] [Libertarians] [Anarchists]

Where do Fascists and National Socialists fit on that spectrum? Well, certainly not near Libertarians. As deep collectivists and authoritarians they find their place on the left, even though it is common knowledge that they aren't. But that has to do more with Marxist leaning academics trying to defend Communism by trying to place it as the opposite of Fascism, even though both ideologies have a lot of similarities (for example both fundamentally oppose Libertarianism, just as vice versa).
As such, one could argue the label "right wing", "alt right", "far right" also serve the purpose to undermine Libertarian (pro free market, pro individual liberty) positions by insinuating that a reduction of socialism is equal to the rise of Fascism.

One further nuance is that in every society there is an Overton Window. If a given society is already deep in the left spectrum, the range of acceptable parties and views are all on the left. In such a society, there is no place for Libertarians, not even for (actual) Conservatives. Those on the relative right are therefore not even right wing, even though they are labeled as such. The only thing that matters is that the parties rather represent directions which they intend to shift society towards (similar to vectors).

Libertarians are inherently individualists and as such promote individual liberties along with individual responsibility. This has roots beyond mere economics - it's based on the non-aggression principle: Do not initiate force against others. They recognize that governments and states continually infringe on the rights of individuals, including taxation. The less taxes a government has, the smaller it is. The smaller the government, the less impact it has regardless what policies are enacted. Anything that goes towards the "left" would mean it would grow the government and diminishes the prevalence of Libertarianism in the given society. So if it were too "left-wing", it would cease to be Libertarian by the very nature that the state apparatus would grow too much. Anything that would go towards the "right" would decrease state power, and enact the principles of Libertarianism more consequently.

The answer is therefore: Libertarians are, on a proper, abstract spectrum, the true right-wing, possibly even far right.
And the "far right" that is known today are just a different iteration of the left wing, who just oppose (neo-)Marxism, but are still somewhat in favor of socialism. But to be fair, the term "far right" and "alt right" are buzzwords meant to smear ideological opposition as evil by conflating them with Nazis, regardless of what policies they entail.

The other answer is, with the premise that the left-right spectrum is unresolvably convoluted, that their place is outside of it - or rather that the potential stretch of the left-right spectrum decreases as Libertarianism is more enacted, and at the theoretical peak of it (Anarcho-Capitalism), it would shrink to zero (no government, no politics, only individual preference and action matter).

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Edit: The third, more accurate answer is combined with my personal political model: There are 3 main directions of politics, and all views can be mapped on it.

Globalism: Any political pursuit to enact policies which act outside of its borders. Be it expansionism, interventionism, imperialism, open border policies, immigration, financial aid, multiculturalism.
Localism: Any political pursuit to enact policies which act to enforce borders, sovereignty, economic independence, isolationism, and the maintenance of the country's representative culture, tradition and religion.
Libertarianism: Any political pursuit to reduce the power and role of the state and to increase individual liberties along with individual responsibilities.

All three directions are in contradiction to its principles, and all three can be combined. In fact, all existing parties inhabit various degrees above zero of all three.

A key role has the vertical line. The more authoritarian the given society, the more impact the government has (or can have). As you approach Libertarianism (towards to bottom), the less impact any government leaning (left or right) has (be aware, in this context "left" and "right" mean something different than above!). So naturally if you reach Anarchy, there is no political leaning to exert - it's entirely up to the individual what it financially supports or not. Also the vertical line reflects the magnitude of taxation and state debt.

Examples: The Soviet Union started somewhere around the top, and wandered further upwards and towards Globalism. After it engulfed East Europe and ceased its expansion (because it had to), it started to wander slightly towards Localism again.
North Korea is a good example of a country which ended up as a highly isolationist, authoritarian regime, placing it to the top-right.
National Socialism started out on the top-right, and wandered somewhat towards Globalism as it started WWII and pursued the Holocaust as extensively as possible.

Conservatism is placed between Localism and Libertarianism, Social Democracy is placed between the center and the top left, the USA started off at the bottom.

Answer 13

The socio-political aspects and objectives of different doctrines and/or ideologies are usually superficial and insufficient in this analysis. It may seem contradictory that anarchists and neo-liberals define themselves as libertarian, and even appear as proponent of similar form (or the lack) of government. Adam Smith, Marx, and Proudhon talk about freedom, and presented critical views about the function and extent of the government (laissez-fair, an instrument of the dominant class, ultimately to be abolished ... respectively). The resolution of such apparent contradiction lies in the plane of the underlying economic principles of the different doctrines; it is in this plane where we can define which ideology is more or less representative of the purest liberal principles of the 1700 (i.e., to the right, towards Smith)... Libertarianism is an abstraction which may be thought as the extreme and/or utopian form of liberalism or socialism (even communism) respectively.