Talk:Libertarianism/Archive 29

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Dispute

Wow, you guys still haven't got anything done. From what I see, this is about as disagreeable as it was when I stopped commenting here. What exactly are your problems now?

Honestly, there might not be any hope for this page ever being good. Toa Nidhiki05 23:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think / haven't seen any underlying clash of views. It seems to be a people dynamics thing combined with this being a very complex/difficult topic to cover. North8000 (talk) 23:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Whatever it is, it is obviously not ending anytime soon. :( Toa Nidhiki05 23:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Excess of opinion. Reluctance to do the dirty work of researching and referencing. Sigh. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that there are several people who are experts on this and have really read a lot of references. (yourself included, me not included). We need those folks to start summarizing and simplifying and creating summarization type material. I don't think that anything coherent is going to arise out of the references without that. North8000 (talk) 01:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Please ignore rehashed objections shot down in RfC's already

This article could use a lot of productive effort. Seems like a huge waste of time to engage in interminable back-and-forths rehashing the same old topics with editors who cannot accept the advisement of the community. I recommend pouring those efforts into less futile tasks. We've already gotten large improvements in the last month. If we focus our energies on important material, we could have this article in pretty good shape rather quickly and with a minimum of fuss. BigK HeX (talk) 20:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you follow your own advice and address the concerns I've expressed about lack of sourcing for specific claims made in the article instead of pontificating about the supposed desires of those asking the pointed questions you refuse to answer. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• Any challenge of verifiability about any statement should be answered the same way, no matter who makes the challenge: support for the statement should be provided, period. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:18, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

One of the problems with having to fight general moves to delete for so long is I have continued to not take some complaints seriously. So now when I actually went to check the ref for the first time in months I did see there is a problem, one that has not been clearly enough articulated for me to understand:

^ a b c d e f g Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). "Introduction to Chomsky's Social Theory". In Carlos Peregrín Otero (Editor). Radical priorities. Noam Chomsky (Book Author) (Expanded 3rd ed.). Oakland, California, USA: AK Press. pp. 9–48. [verification needed- just added by me]

The problem is that we really need specific page numbers for each of the 7 (a-g) uses of this book. Note that "Introduction to Chomsky's Social Theory". isn't even on pp. 9-48. So evidently there has been a problem, if very poorly articulated.

How about changing title of this section to something like: "Trying to communicate issues better."  :-) (Or at least something SHORT) CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Well .. honestly, this is about shutting down wholly non-productive communication. Look at how much effort is wasted in that "unhyphenated thread" due to ridiculous claims of material supposedly not being supported by sources, when NO ONE here has agreed that the inline cites fail to support the material, especially given that this is a rehash of objections already shot down in an RfC. BigK HeX (talk) 21:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the chapter is specific enough for the material in question, but I do agree that different uses of the material oftentimes require different cites to capture the pages correctly; however, in this case, I believe the same cite is actually applicable to all of the current uses. BigK HeX (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Carol that we need specific page numbers for each of the uses of this book. But I also agree with BigK that if the same quote suffices to support each of the uses, that's fine too. The problem is that there is nothing in the current cite that shows how anything in the book supports any of the uses, much less how it support the statement in question. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol says, ""Introduction to Chomsky's Social Theory". isn't even on pp. 9-48"

I just double-checked and those pages are correct according to the version of the book I've read. Someone else put the version into the citation. It might be wrong. I'll check. BigK HeX (talk) 22:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Just double checked. It is the third edition, so it is correct, as far as I can tell. BigK HeX (talk) 22:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I searched the chapter title again and it didn't show it as starting on page 386 (I guess I misread page "3 of 6"). Anyway, pages 9-48 is just too much to ask people to search through, especially when there are people asking repeatedly for more specifics. Yes, it's a pain, but the best thing to do is to to have the first ref be the full ref, with the specific page number(s) you mean, and books google links. And the same for all other uses, ie, Carlos Peregrín Otero. "Introduction to Chomsky's Social Theory", p. 33. AND quote what it says. That should end controversy...

Per Wikipedia:PROVEIT#cite_note-1: When there is dispute about whether a piece of text is fully supported by a given source, direct quotes and other relevant details from the source should be provided to other editors as a courtesy.

I note the author has other references outside that chapter to libertarianism, Hayek, etc that also look interesting, though I did not investigate them. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"That should end controversy..."

What's the controversy? That one editor continues to claim that there "isn't evidence" that there are libertarians who oppose private property, even after an RfC which shot down his objection already?

Do YOU believe that the assertion that "there are libertarians who oppose private property rights" is not verifiable (given the multiple cites throughout the article and within that particular sentence)?? BigK HeX (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It's just a courtesy to narrow down the number of pages a person has to read to verify something. When I decided to try to verify one thing and saw all those pages and all those times the book was referenced (I only remembered one ref from someone else from way back when and I think it had a quote), I started throwing up my hands and tearing out my hair. Of course, those who are complaining could list for themselves all the things the book allegedly refs and go through all 39 pages and put "unverified" next to everything they could not fine and then someone else would have to go through and quote why it proves the point anyway. Either way, someone do the work and stop complaining about it :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@CarolMooreDC. There was this question:

Do YOU believe that the assertion that "there are libertarians who oppose private property rights" is not verifiable (given the multiple cites throughout the article and within that particular sentence)?? BigK HeX (talk) 00:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) BigK, please stop dredging up old disagreements based on your (mistaken) perceptions of what they were about. Nobody in this discussion is claiming "there "isn't evidence" that there are libertarians who oppose private property". Everything I've been posting here has been about specific material in the article and whether it's supported by the cited sources. That is ALL that is at issue, no matter how much you want to make it be about something else (for reasons that are beyond me).

Wikipedia:PROVEIT#cite_note-1 applies to exactly this situation... there IS a dispute about whether a piece of text is full supported by the sources cited for it. All that is necessary to address such concerns, if indeed you believe the source supports it, is to provide that direct quotes, as stated there. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict with dispute section addition)I think that the crux of this is......IMHO, the phrase in question sort of implies the big-tent/taxonomic meaning of "libertarian", but Born2 (I think) is saying that he/she reads it as being in the unhyphenated-libertarianism-as-a-specific-strain context, which would then make the sentence a statement that the unhyphenated-libertarian-as-a-specific-strain word moniker applies to left-libertarians. So while I don't read it the same way that Born2 does, but I think that we're only one word (strain) away from a version that Born2 would be comfortable with........why not just do it and move on? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

He's been perfectly free to post here exactly what text would make him happy. BigK HeX (talk) 00:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that he/she already did, which is what I put in and which we're currently just one word away from. North8000 (talk) 13:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• It's not about making me happy. It's about not making statements that are not supported by the cited sources. Before I can even suggest different wording, I would have to know what quote in the cited sources you're trying to reflect. Maybe it is supported as is. I don't know, because no one has identified the material in the cited sources that purportedly supports the statement in question.

  What is the specific source (quoted material) that supports the claim that there are libertarian groups who "reject private individual ownership in support of communal ownership rights". What are these "libertarian groups" and in what sources are they referred to as groups that are libertarian? --Born2cycle (talk) 22:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

Does the entry have much criticism of "libertarianism"? I think Alan Haworth is a Reliable Source. I like the quote I provide in a blog post where he explains that what some call "libertarianism" should be really known as anti-libertarianism. Where should Haworth's book be cited in the article? -- RLV 209.217.195.171 (talk) 07:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

This is about the fifth time I've said: it used to have an unsourced section that was deleted. Feel free to start a sourced one. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Small Edit explanation

originally the introduction states: Another difference among libertarians is in groups who are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of land and natural resources and those who are opposed to such rights

I've changed this to Another difference among libertarians is in groups who are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of land and natural resources and those who support communal ownership

The former implies that non private property libertarians "deny" certain rights or oppose these rights off the bat by stating that they are indeed "rights", hence I think mine is more balaned, it's small but telling —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.225.236 (talk) 04:38, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a good distinction - assuming you can find a WP:Reliable source that also describes it that way, since I don't think there are any currently doing so in the article. Let us avoid the naughtiness of WP:Original research. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:07, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a fair reading of the existing sources, or at least the SEP source. BigK HeX (talk) 14:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

OP here - is it that I need a source to show that left libertarians support communal ownership? That's somewhat excessive, you don't need a source to say the sky is blue. It's not original research and surely theres been a bunch of refs showing this distinction, I posted 5 just there in the theorists section that briefly mention it, heavily cited. Aeon135 (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

That's not a "sky is blue" statement. You need a reference for just about anything else, especially if you change it from something else that's been there a long time, whether or not that is referenced. Various left libertarians are against various and differing types of property as well as for communalism, so bringing up both issues is warranted. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

• Saying that left libertarians support communal ownership is one thing. But saying there are groups of libertarians who support communal ownership requires a source (English, written relatively recently) that identifies groups who support communal ownership as being (unqualified) libertarian. I've been asking for such a source (and by that I mean specific quoted material that clearly supports this) for over a week, to no avail. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that the wording makes the statement that you are saying needs sourcing. So, I think we read it two different ways. But I still support the clarification in that area which you proposed, which would be a one word change. North8000 (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that the discussed modification makes the statement much farther reaching and possibly wrong/unsour5cable. That essentially says that all left libertarians want "communal ownership" vs. just saying opposed to private ownership.North8000 (talk) 22:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

First, could we please observe usual formatting rules and not put in stars instead of indents except when listing? See Wikipedia:Talk_page#Layout Thanks.

Second, I changed the sentence to: "who are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of land and natural resources and those who reject some aspects of such private individual ownership." I'm sure those sources reflect the range of views that various left libs have on the topic and just saying they reject all is definitely not true. Slightly better wordAnd the article should too.

Thirdly, as I wrote in the edit summary, libertarians can have a pro-property view of how you define ownership of land and natural resources and still think that once that is defined people should be able to -- or even should be encouraged to - choose to own it communally. That's just part of the voluntary nature of libertarianism.

If I can ever get past having to deal with all the bad process and bad behavior issues on Wikipedia (that even occassionally drive me to my own bad behavior), maybe I can finally get around to .... well, I won't make any promises ;-( CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks / nice work. North8000 (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Reconsidering my earlier statements, your latest edit very well may be the more accurate reflection of the various sources available. Thanks, Carol. BigK HeX (talk) 00:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"requires a source (English, written relatively recently) that identifies groups who support communal ownership as being (unqualified) libertarian "

No, it doesn't. As you were informed long-ago by a clear consensus of editors (User:Yworo, myself, User:Fifelfoo, User:John_K, User:Snowded, User:GRuban, User:Variable, User:Jrtayloriv, User:Carolmooredc, and User:Iota).

Keep blatantly ignoring every consensus to beat this dead horse. One day, it's sure to bear fruit, right? BigK HeX (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that reading what they wrote here makes it clear that Born2 is not doing what you are describing. While I'm not reading the text in question the same way Born2 is reading it, what they are saying is that the wording claims that unhyphenated "libertarian" specifies the strain of libertarianism that is left libertarian, and that such claim is unsourced.

You're entitled to your opinion of the situation. I'm confident about mine. In any case, I a bit confused about what you're referring to with "they" and whatever "they" are claiming "is unsourced". But, it's not really a huge deal. BigK HeX (talk) 00:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

BigK, that was rejection of my proposal to remove all references to left libertarianism and libertarianism socialism in this article. Please confirm you understand that that is not at all what I'm asking for here.

I'm not asking to remove references to LL or LS identified as such; I'm asking to remove claims of the existence of libertarian groups (and not qualified as being LL or LS) who "reject some aspects of such private individual ownership" (to use the latest wording), unless a source can be produced that identifies such groups and refers to them as being libertarian (without any LL or LS qualification). --Born2cycle (talk) 01:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

BigK, answering your question, sorry for the ambiguous "they"; it referred to Born2cycle.North8000 (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm a "he", if that helps. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:12, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Me too, if that helps. North8000 (talk) 01:16, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to try a tweak that might settle this so that we can move on. I'm sorry Born2, I can't find anything to fix. I'm going to work on a new section that might help a bit on the concerns that you are expressing. North8000 (talk) 01:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I've repeatedly asserted that there is nothing to "fix" because Born2cycle's tendentiously repeated claim is hardly shared by any editors. As such, I've suggested that we should ignore repetitions of the same basic objection and focus our energies on something that would be productive. BigK HeX (talk) 01:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

OP here, I've now added a smaller phrase saying that most left libertarians support communal ownership instead and added a well researched citation, now let it stick. Aeon135 (talk) 14:36, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Why were these citations removed?

Why were the citations for the various influential libertarian theorists removed? I added at least one to each theorist from various sites including Mutualistfaq.com, infoshop FAQ (which is very well sourced in itself) and various biographical sites. What gives? --Aeon135 (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

This is probably unrelated but a couple of things went awry when I put in the subsection for the talk page this AM. I think my insertion called upon two refs which were already in when I drafted it on the talk page but which somebody removed at some time between then and this AM. North8000 (talk) 18:33, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

==

Merge Left Libertarianism and Libertarian Socialism

agree, disagree? I think it's a no brainer.

I think it would clean the article a bit, and maybe something about anarchism and anarcho capitalism, that "anarchism" has a section and "anarcho capitalism" has another section speaks volumes, good volumes maybe, but atleast we're acknowledging that implcitly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.89.223 (talk) 14:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Been there. Done and undone that. [Added later: by that I meant there already was significant discussion and that change made and undone. Please search archives. Here's a search for relevant terms from box above. Bringing up old issues again and again is really tiresome. Will have to make this comment a template on my talk page.] CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Why exactly did you undo it? Aeon135 (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

carol considers libertarian socialism a minority LL view, even though the most outspoken LL, Noam Chomsky, calls himself a LS. Since it is a minority view of LL, and LL is the lessor known version of Libertarian, should it really be mentioned at all? Darkstar1st (talk) 16:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Aeon13 - Look through archives for past discussions of this issue, per the template at talk of page. DarkStar1st please provide a diff if you are going to quote me since I don't know what you are talking about - or if it really matters. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Undid revision 412088323 by Darkstar1st (talk)mentioning that minority in other part of article fine; not in lead minority views should be minimized, tiny minorities should not be mentioned at all according to wp:weight. i suggest a minority group in a minorty branch of libertarianism qualifies as a tiny minority Darkstar1st (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose In order to suggest this you need a source that says they are the same thing, not just that you think they are the same thing. TFD (talk) 16:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Deal with it later Once we get the main libertarian article fixed up I think that we will be in a better position to deal with the more specialized articles. North8000 (talk) 18:59, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Support - Do we have separate sections for Right-Libertarianism and Libertarian conservatism? No. I see not reason why a minority tenet should be treated any differently. Toa Nidhiki05 21:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Their histories have significant differences. Doesn't seem to be enough overlap to merge them. BigK HeX (talk) 22:06, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose for now because we've done this before, as I mention above. Deal with larger issue of right and left and then see how to subsume things. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose per reasons already cited. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 14:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems upon closer looks that left libertarianism doesn't really make an explicit elimination of the state as part and parcel of the thought, or at least that it includes "let's just avoid the state" anarchism into it's lot.

so forget it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.205.197 (talk) 21:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Not clear is these are two different 78's or the same one.

Can we close this as "no consensus for a merge at this time, and no consensus for ruling it out for the future"? North8000 (talk) 22:05, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

the only other option would be removing libertarian socialism as a sub type of LL, which I think is out of the question given the importance of LS, I don't think it's far reaching to say that most LL are probably LS, what other significant LL ideologies are there asides from LS? I don't think any have had the affect. So I think leave it as it is for now. --Aeon135 (talk) 11:23, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

carol would disagree, she considers ls a minority in ll, and removed my edit about ls wanting to grow the welfare state. Darkstar1st (talk) 11:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

First, finding refs that establish the relationship between LS and LL would help. So would other methods of organization which might not necessitate quite same sectioning, but I won't start now.

Second, Darkstar1st, it seems to me there was some WP:RS info in there about some LL or LS who want some level of statism (especially influenced by Chomsky). Is it still there? It's appropriate to which ever section ref'd to. But it seems to me that it is not the final state desired by most LL/lS, just an interim state. Just like some minarchists and anarco-capitalists who are more gradualist might put up with a little social welfare and a little national defense, as long as it is progressively and fairly quickly being dismantled. (Someones got to make sure ways of clean up the nuclear waste and other govt pollution are financed, after all. Not to mention my social security through the sale of govt assets and land.) I think these issues also and/or instead do belong in that new "tactics" section (better labeled "Strategy and tactics") and I feel inspired to beef that up momentarily (and removed redundant unsourced material).

Third, I could say some things to set Darkstar1st heart just a bit at ease but that would be WP:SOAPBOX so I'll control myself. ;-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

(added later) Go for it. It's a talk page and I don't think that that would be soapboxing. Plus we're been impaired here by acting on wrong assumptions about where people are coming from.  :-) North8000 (talk) 15:41, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

i dont believe anyone thinks you can grow away the government? ll want to accomplish basic services through communal giving, yet need to use the government to "re-educated" us until everyone starts volunteering. return the land to the rightful owners, the people, who will distributed it fairly and without corruption, in a frictionless volunteer society, where everyone does his exact fair share of the work and no more. carol, i know what you were gong to say, George Harrison was my favorite Beatle also. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

You aren't familiar with various pro-property (fast) gradualist strategies by notable libertarians. Will enter them in strategy/tactics section, but right now I'm cleaning up some existing messes. That could take a few days... (esp since just accidentally lost some and have to redo. dang - that's why you always save temp extra copy elsewhere CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Illegitimate Bifurcation?

The header states, "One significant variable between libertarian schools of thought is the degree to which the state should be reduced, with minarchists advocating reduction to just state protection from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and anarchists advocating complete elimination of the state."

The implication of this statement is that libertarians fall into two camps, minarchists (colloquially interpreted as "kind of anarchist") to anarchist (see "anarchist"). My concern is that this page is giving undue weight to the anarchist cause by explicitly devouring and encompassing libertarian ideology into two camps consistent with a common, unifying denominator (at least etymologically) of anarchism. It's not the anarchist LINKS that are concerning to me with regards to objectivity on this page---we all know they are there. It is the domination of anarchism [to a lesser (minarchist) and greater (anarchist) extent] on the header which concerns me. Colloquial interpretations are significant. After all, politics is 100% colloquial.Ddd1600 (talk) 14:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol and BigHex constantly monitor this site more than anyone. They censor posts, even on the discussion page. They believe not in freedom of the person, but in freedom of the people. An establishment which, of course, requires constant repression.Ddd1600 (talk) 14:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

My only "POV" s that this article is an incoherent, confusing mess, a hodge podge of tangents, lacking in any summarizaiotn type statements. Also completely lacking in coverage of the particular forms of libertarianism that are so predominent in particular areas that their title there is simply libertarian/libertarianism. I consider Carol and BigK to be friends (not sure if they would say the same), as experts in this field, major contributors here at the detailed level, as people who have been emerging from being dominated by a warrior mentality here, and as people who have been blockading forward progress of this article. I think that Carol said that she is an anarchist, and I'm not sure about BigK. I wrote the text in question, but it was only an attempt to summarize some things out of the disjointed mess of material that this article consists of. Including that all libertarianism consists of these specialized names that few people have ever heard of, including amongst libertarians. If you have a better idea that is still some type of summary, I'm all for it. North8000 (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with more info on the more popular types of libertarianism being put in the lead - if you can find some refs as to what is. In fact I put back back that info in the lead that had gotten hidden below. If you can find something that fits nice, go for it. If it's no good and not salvageable, it will be reverted. No one is stopping appropriate referenced editing here. And I must get back to doing some again myself. Life and other articles keep intervening. Also, hearing no objections, I'm going to archive a bunch of that old stuff. The bot needs to be 14 days. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Unhyphenated "libertarianism" - second meaning in the US as defining a strain

Trying to bring this discussion several days ago partially to fruition, the "partial" because we only sort of got though it for within the USA. The premise is that beside being the name for the big tent that covers all libertarianism, within the US unhyphenated "libertarian" has a second meaning which is a particular libertarian philosophy. This is just a work space, everybody feel free to modify North8000 (talk) 01:56, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

- - - Beginning of editable work space please feel free to modify. - - -

This would be a new subsection in the "Libertarian philosophies" section. Sufficient sourcing would be located and provided.

"Libertarian" as a particular philosophy in the United States

In the United States, besides being the umbrella term for all types of libertarianism, "libertarian" as a single word term has a second meaning which is the particular strain of libertarianism that is prevalent in the US. The definition by the US Libertarian Party (the third largest political party in the US, and the largest libertarian-named organization in the US) is representative and includes: :

• supporting maximum liberty in both personal and economic matters.
• advocating a much smaller government; one that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.
• support the concept of private property
• embrace individual responsibility
• oppose government bureaucracy and taxes
• promote private charity (vs charity by the state)
• tolerate diverse lifestyles
• support the free market
• defend civil liberties

References

- - - End of editable work space - - - -

Sincerely North8000 (talk) 01:56, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

- - - - End of editable workspace - - - -

Workspace Comments

This is pointless without WP:RS to back even the basic/fundamental premise of this thread. RS have been requested on the significance of this idea about "unhyphenated libertarians" for weeks (or longer) now. BigK HeX (talk) 01:59, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Put workspaces on your personal talk page. This is soapbox. I didn't bother to read it.

Just suggest edits - with refs. (Or do something constructive like checking to see if all the things sourced to Carlos Peregrín Otero in a 37 page span without sufficiently specific page numbers are in fact verifiable.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

BigK, I think that sourcing is pervasive on this......the one word "libertarian" being used to refer to that particular philosophy in the US.

Carol, it is NOT a soapbox, and that is obvious. Time for AGF, especially when it is obvious.

Carol and all. I put the workspace here so that it could be a collaborative effort to develop this, and so that people can see where it's coming from. This method has worked well in lots of other articles. If a few people want it moved I will, but those were my reasons for putting it here. North8000 (talk) 02:32, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why you think this meaning is specific to the U.S. Every major English speaking country, including England, Australia and Canada, has groups, political parties and/or organizations identified in reliable sources as being "libertarian" (without qualification) that ascribe to the same fundamental philosophy as does the U.S. LP. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

First, if this is a proposal just about the U.S. in belongs in Libertarianism in the United States.

However, it's more like an educational discussion. WP:Soapbox says to avoid: Wikipedia:Soapbox#Wikipedia_is_not_a_publisher_of_original_thought:... (3) Personal essays that state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the opinion of experts).... This is not a proposal for organization and sectioning (which can be more general) or for a paragraph (which should have refs) but for a discussion of personal opinions so you can have a better understanding of the topic. That's fine, but it belongs on your talk page and you can invite people to engage with you there.

By the way, check out the (only barely on some articles) exaggerated and very funny The Independent article Wikipedia: This is a man's world. Deja vu?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:02, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Born2 you could be right. I have to plead ignorance on that. And I didn't mean to imply that such was unique to the US. It's just that such is a sure thing and heavily sourced for the US so I thought I'd start there. Fiferloo seems very knowlegable. What she/he wrote was hard to understand but seemed to imply that there were more than one "second meaning" for unhyphenated libertarian in Australia/New Zealand/ England. North8000 (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol, I'll have to read that article. Amongst my Wikipedia email friends it's about 50/50. North8000 (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Refs not very good: LP is good about itself in paragraph about it but not to define encyclopedically; need quotes from second source; theadvocates is an advocacy site and good to mention it as one and its position, or relevance in history, but again not to define libertarianism encyclopedically. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree that it needs need more and better refs. As an aside, I was thinking that the significance of theadvocates is that a big box (the "are you a libertarian" box) in the prime real estate (upper left) of the USLP home page sends people there. North8000 (talk) 15:57, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I added one

Although Born2 and Darkstar would probably argue that the above is too narrow (just USA) and too timid, and Carol and BigK would probably at least argue that it needs work, I do believe that it is an important start / step forward on one of the main challenges of this article and plan to put it in. I'm committed to try to help to improve this article, and I see it's main problems as being too confusing and not explanatory enough. Most importantly,its challenge is that it has been a listing of even the rarest "trees", but no material on their prevalence in the forest or on the forest. (But still cover the individual trees) But there has been some progress in this area.

On the second topic, there are a lot of libertarian experts here, with sources to back up what they know. I won't start naming names because I'd forget someone, but basically all of the regular contributors here. I would encourage all of them to start writing stuff, whether it goes in by friendly B/ BRD, or drafts in talk, but keeping the reader in mind who needs summary, simplifying and and explanatory type content. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a draft of something to put in article??

You know, it helps a lot if you explain your "workspace" was actually something you want to put in the article and not just more personal exploration of what libertarianism means to you. "Workspace" is an ambiguous term. "Draft of something I want to put in the Libertarian philosophies section of the article" is not. Now that I understand that's what you wanted to do let me say, at best Redundant to material in Overview and in history. Plus it's inappropriate because it's not really a philosophical difference from things mentioned above. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

First, what else could this be a draft on the talk page of an article be for. Second, your removal of it is violating the RFC result that you and BigK kept bringin up. Third, this was discussed (meaning of unhyphenated libertarianism extensively.) Fourth it is not redundant. Nowhere is this discussed as a strain, which it is. This is important to the forward progress to the article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• It's WP:edit warring to put something back in without more discussion, especially when serious concerns raised. Why not revert?
• After the article was closed in Sept someone (you or Born2Cycle?) started a separate page of such generalized discussions; given the history of extremely generalized discussions on this page and lack of clarity on what you were proposing, that's what it looked like you were doing and I would have made those comments and I'm sure others would have agreed, if you had made your intentions clear.
• I made the observation that you don't mean "un-hypenated libertarianism," you mean "libertarianism without an adjective" and your failure to understand that difference made the whole discussion confusing and easy to discount.
• "Strain"? That's just a synonym of variety, type, form. Creating you own "strain" called "Libertarian" as a particular philosophy in the United States is what is called WP:Original research. I'm sure someone will explain it to you here; if not there's the original research noticeboard. Meanwhile I'll tag it as Original Research for a starter. CarolMooreDC (talk) 01:29, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Plus, at the very beginning of it and since day one it says "This would be a new subsection in the 'Libertarian philosophies' section." So this, plus being a draft (with references) on the talk page of the article. How could it be any clearer? Hire a sky writer?  :)

Having it out for review in the talk pages for 6 days puts it pretty far away from a surprised, undiscussed unilateral insertion. That's about as high as it gets in this article. Sometimes people try for a double standard...saying that a requirement is everybody unanimously explicitly say to put it in....such is non-existent in WP, doubly so here.

Back then when you said "I made the observation that you don't mean 'un-hypenated libertarianism,' you mean 'libertarianism without an adjective' " you were correct and it was a good clarification, but it was not new news. That was the meaning in the discussion all along.

This is such "Paris is the Capital of France" plus sourced material that I can't understand your position on it. Probably the one flaw in it is that it limits itself to the US....the same is probably true in some other places, but that is what is most sure-fire and sourced at this point. I have some concern that it might be because this strand excludes anarchist objectives and I believe that you said that you are an anarchist.

The material is clearly a condensation from the sources, not a synthesis, and probably doesn't even have the (OK) reach of summarization. I dispute the tag, but don't plan to take it off until this section and talk evolves to make it more explicitly clear that it is not OR/synthesis. It's not perfect.

I'm not hung up on the "strain" word....I change it to one of those words that you mentioned.

Most importantly I think that the new material is very important help (possibly even a middle-ground rosetta stone) to some of the ongoing issues and shortcomings of the article. Since this article is both important and has hope (because I don't see any huge underlying POV wars at work here) I have bee "sticking with" this article and feel that said addition, or something evolved from it is very important for the forward progress of the article, to the point where taking a little heat from you and proceeding with this is necessary sacrifice for forward progress. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:17, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

CarolMooreDC says, "at best Redundant to material in Overview and in history. Plus it's inappropriate because it's not really a philosophical difference from things mentioned above. "

This captures my feelings on the matter. I don't even see how anything in the draft differentiates from the material we already have covered in the article. BigK HeX (talk) 17:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry North8000. I really do feel the proposed material is inappropriate as encyclopedic content. The current draft really does seem like more your personal understanding of Libertarianism than actual RS viewpoints. You might have a topic with great potential, but currently it doesn't seem to have the sourcing that differentiates "Libertarianism a a particular philosophy in the United States" from material we already have on Libertarianism, namely the minarchist, right-libertarian aspects already covered. BigK HeX (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it needs work (in WP that means development, not immediate deletion) but it IS a particular strand, both self- and RS-identified as just single word "libertarian". And this is a very different meaning than libertarian/libertarianism the umbrella term which you are referring to as being the same/covered elsewhere. For example the umbrella term meaning includes anarchist, the strand term meaning does not. Also the umbrella term meaning includes those opposed to private property, the strand term meaning does not. I was going to say let's have a RFC, but we already did, the one that you and Carol have been referring to for months. The decided result was to cover all significant forms with coverage is RS's. North8000 (talk) 19:11, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I do get your point that there needs to be some differentiation earlier on in the article, like in the history section where there's far too much about development in US all of which has just been copied to Libertarianism in the United States. So I put the link there. Since I originally wrote most of it, I don't have a problem with appropriate cutting back of the material. At that point I'll make it a more obvious link to the "in the united states" article. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like some good thoughts, but which do not address what I wrote. Also further removing the heading from the forms section moves this even further away from a resolution. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:31, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The most prevalent strands of libertarianism are called simply "libertarianism" or "libertarian" The deleted section had ample sources supporting the listed strand. Removing it violates both wp:npov / wp:undue and also the results of the specific RFC on this in the fall. The section needs to go back in. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The deleted material was WP:OR, that suggested that the Libertarian Party of the US was basically a strand of Libertarianism, and that it was somehow significant and different from the aspects already covered.BigK HeX (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

If that's how you interpreted it, and presuming that you are not being disingenuous, then I need reword it because that is not how it was intended. North8000 (talk) 14:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

It needs far more than just a rewording. Being that even right-libertarian references to "libertarianism" even within the the United States is pretty non-specific (ranging from anarcho-capitalism to minarchism to fusionism), I don't see how your material can be NPOV, but I wish you the best in your research. BigK HeX (talk) 19:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I meant that it was not just a statement about the USLP. All of the sources indicate that the single word in the US defines a form as described. This is independent of the "umbrella" meaning of the term. It doesn't need more research (although more sources on this are pervasive....) it needs what happens here to be in accordance with the decision from RFC on this topic last fall. North8000 (talk) 22:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

As CarolMoore has already opined, I believe as well that "'Libertarianism' as a philosophy in the US" is already covered in the article. Not to diminish your efforts, but the current state of your recent attempt just looks like a lot of redundant aspects but presented in such a way that it serves to add a distinct POV spin and makes dubious (possibly WP:OR) conclusions. If you think the sourcing truly supports material along these lines, then I encourage you to keep working and to provide more of these "pervasive sources". BigK HeX (talk) 23:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

What POV do you think it has / promotes? North8000 (talk) 00:27, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

That the libertarianism of the LPUSA captures the essence of libertarianism in the US. Your material is pretty promotional about the views of the LPUSA. BigK HeX (talk) 01:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I do think that its platform and definition and do depict the common form of single word Libertarianism in the US. To argue against that you would need to essentially argue that that common form either advocates anarchism, or is against private property. But I am certainly am no shill for the USLP. I think that mis-directing libertarian energy towards the impossible task of trying to be a third party (as it has done) is the worst thing that has happened to libertarianism in the US. North8000 (talk) 03:52, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Before anyone has to argue against something, you need to establish it as something more than your personal viewpoint in the first place. Of course, this is the crux of the issue with the new material. Best wishes, as you continue to build on this proposal. BigK HeX (talk) 06:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Jesse Walker in Reason comments on Sheldon Richman's recent article on "left-libertarianism." Found in a news google search. As I've mentioned before various versions of "left libertarianism" that are more antiproperty also have shown up in news stories over last 10 years. Do a news archive search. I personally get annoyed about it sometimes since I'd like to cut out the left/right business, but it is a WP:RS fact and WP:RS facts are what Wikipedia is all about. Get that through your head and your life will be so much brighter!! :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, so now we have "left-libertarians" who are pro-property, who have no fundamental philosophical difference from "right-libertarians", just a higher emphasis on everyday people vs. big business/the bosses. But only to the extent of the sequence of steps (regarding big business) towards the same end. Where's my decoder ring ?!! North8000 (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The latter is what most of the Left-libertarianism article has turned into. Yes, it's complicated, but not impossible to comprehend and communicate. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

On the main topic, some of the most widely held forms of libertarianism are (not surprisingly when they are pervasive in their geographic area) called simply "libertarianism". They need to be covered in this article! We have the unusual forms covered, no way is it correct to stifle coverage of the more widespread forms. North8000 (talk) 12:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Still waiting on your sources about these other "pervasive" "forms" of libertarianism. BigK HeX (talk) 12:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The deleted insertion was already very well sourced on this. Right now I'm working on developing it to meet an even (incorrectly) higher standard. This business of "delete immediately (instead of developing) if not perfect and quintuple-sourced and much-more-explicitly-sourced-then-the-norm on day one" is not right. But there's no hurry as this overall situation progresses, which I think that it ever-so-slowly is. North8000 (talk) 13:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Infoshop.org not WP:RS/ See alsos

While I don't have a problem with the content of the relevant edit at this diff, know that per this discussion (where compared to a Mises blog by an intern). (Unless it was some well known person and that was the only place it was published and we were sure it was an accurate copy of what they wrote.) Note I did defend actual anarchist publishers.

I also have a problem with removing the topics article. It's easy enough to add stuff and reorganize it, but it's not that bad a list. Also libertarianism related links should be next, as well as political ones. Why bother with socialism/capitalism and all the other economic views that might flourish in a libertarian society. How about we discuss?? CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:37, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Infoshop and the Anarchist FAQ contained within are not reliable sources. They're as reliable as the unreviewed material coming out of Mises. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

With Mises, it depends on who writes it - an intern or a professor. If a professor or well known writer puts something on those sites, fine.

Meanwhile, that list of theorists is totally confusing without time context. So do I have to put on birth-death dates and order them by birth date or does someone else want to? :-) Plus more refs, please. More refs. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

You made me chuckle Carol, I imagined Colin Ward publishing opinion on Infoshop :). An editor has apparently found that AK Press has published a reviewed book volume of the Anarchist FAQ. To my eyes the editorial review of AK indicates that the physical publication is an RS. Admittedly only an RS of opinion, and not quite as masterful as Ward's Anarchism but useful as a strong structured opinion available to readers. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:50, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's some links so we don't have to search them out ourselves, for starters. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

[1] It was a Valentine's Day gift from my wife. KLP (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

So heres a crazy suggestion from me, and I've been a contributor for the anarchism pages for awhile and today was the first time I'd been here (I made a single add in the theorists section adding non american libertarians to the list, tut tut) and it didn't take me long to think; gee, how much better would this article be if it were all deleted? I'd certainly support it and I can see a lot of folks here hate the article, in fact it might be the only consensus; everyone hates it, mostly because it's either a whitewash of the first libertarians who were all socialists that gives greater space then necessary to the admitedly fringe worthy objectivism and anarcho-capitalism that have never been socially significant Or, alterniteivly, it's crime is in mentioning socialist anarchists at all in the same paragraph as the libertarian party, since everyone knows..that is, Americans know..that libertarianism might have meant anti statist socialism before the 70's but it doesn't anymore so Proudhon can suck it, lest we even begin on libertarian marxists.

See that's the problem with those two halfs, the less historically important one is also populated by rich people and leaders, the one that had revolutions was made up of poor people and the oppressed, so which one are we gonna give extra attention to?

So a new article, or at least a revised one, should be made that does not deal with whichever tendency has been more influential or larger, nor should it even note that there are even two halfs to the whole, but to be written in the style of a less pretentious and broad ideology article, or to atleast stop implying that libertarianism started with The Fountainhead. 78.16.225.236 (talk) 04:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Having worked on the article for a while I can tell you that a lot of such people/sources/ideas have been suggested on the talk page and WP:RS even linked here, but insufficient contributions to the page. Of course, they all really need WP:Reliable sources. If the info is in the person's article, than the ref should be there too. And if list gets long enough, you get debates about who is most notable. Also, they should be in chrono order by birth, since that order confusing. A brief intro on how they've influenced different and similar libertarian movements might be too much, unless down by eschewing excess verbiage. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:12, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that that the main problem with the article is that it is very confusing, and lacking "forest for the trees" type summaries. It has improved some, but has a long way to go. North8000 (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

(added later) Not that those summaries are easy to make on this difficult / hard to pin down topic.North8000 (talk) 12:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

(insert) I think they are easy to make but people keep nitpicking them. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Carol, you (and several other people here) know this topic 10 times better than I do. Yet, in 6 months the only person I saw write anything simple or as a summary here is me. Maybe it needs a dummy like me to see what this article needs.  :-) Please write!North8000 (talk) 22:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

That may or may not be true, but it has been discouraging editing here for reasons discussed ad nauseum. So it's easy to go off on other less frustrating or more challenging tangents, especially since the article is only annoying and not insidious or infuriating - or even interesting and in need of constructive work - like others I end up working on instead. Obviously not as annoying to me as to you. :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

(added later) I'd call it promising, important and frustrating rather than annoying. The "promising" is because I don't think that there the underlying real-world POV differences here which doom other articles where such is the the case. The "frustrating" is that, despite that, a few people are still approaching this as a war-in-progress and blockading progress in important areas. A war with nothing to fight over. :-) North8000 (talk) 13:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

OP author here, I have a question that could certainly help at least in regard to the left libertarian questions; is An Anarchist FAQ considered a reputable and legit source? I ask because I've seen it used plenty on the anarchist articles, or at least as a tool for other refs since the FAQ heavily cites aswell, but I've also seen it get struck down, perhaps suggesting not that it isn't reputable, but that it is controversal given how harshly it states that there is no other libertarianism other then left libertarianism. I can think of a dozen statements in the article that it could be used as a ref if I wasn't in the mind that using it would have me crucified at the alter of Rand, the below section "small edit" dealing with a line from the intro is by me and the faq would be perfect as a source on the communal ownership claim, even if that's a given. Although, maybe it would be better if we forgot about refs for now and gave the article a more "summary" feel, wikipedia is a beginners guide to everything but not much beyond that, there are parts that go beyond "these are the basics of libertarianism".

So I'm going to start thinking about that and post what I have in mind and see..

Aeon135 (talk) 13:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Since this article is about libertarianism it's fine to use sources about anarchism if they also describe the philosophy as "libertarianism." Just using libertarian as an adjective can be debatable since, for example, it's also used to describe more limited goals like civil liberties or drug legalization.

Also, FYI, I think Bookchin is a significant intellectual as well as active influence, at least in American left libertarian/libertarian socialism, including on Green movements. In my 30 years of experience he was far more mentioned that Chomsky as far as being an influence. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I've brought back bookchin, you're correct and yes, Chomsky really has no place in anything politicaly theoretical since he's almost exclusively a critic, he seems to actually dislike talking about anarchism, or at least shys away from it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeon135 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

"Chomsky really has no place in anything politicaly theoretical since he's almost exclusively a critic" What? This is an absurd statement - as if criticism wasn't at the core of political theory... Regardless, it's my first visit to this page and this is looking like y'all might need a few more editors in here; frankly, the bickering between he left and right is unnecessary and counterproductive. An honest assessment is that libertarianism is self-applied by left anarchists, right anarchists, and minarchists - at least. I don't really think it's dependent upon where in the English speaking world one is (which, folks, besides areas outside the US, UK, NZ, and Aus... includes much of the Caribbean and Africa) - as a long time anarchist in the US, I frequently hear left anarchists self-label as libertarian, though less so in the past decade or so because of the right's pretty thorough appropriation of that term in the US (as others have noted)... Anyway, I'll come back in a couple days with more sources, and maybe a couple more editors so we can work this out. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 14:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The more WP:RS info, better organized, the better. One of these days I'll have to read that oft-referenced Chomsky article. More, updated, info on the current usage of "libertarianism" in - English speaking and worldwide - would help. Obviously word usage does evolve, especially in politics. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Libertarianism originated from Anarchy.

Anarchy, from the greeks, without ruler. Libertarian, from the late enlightenment era free-thinkers several millennium later, freedom from determinism. Free-thinkers could have simply called themselves anarchist if they sought to live sans state. instead they created a term to describe life not already decided.

• Does life inside a state need follow a pre-determined route?
• How can anarchy be a school of libertarian, if all libertarians originated from anarchy?
• How are anarchist libertarian different from anarchist? Darkstar1st (talk) 14:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

There are people who place a very high priority on personal freedom and want to implement that to a great degree. Amongst them, there are a relatively few people who want to totally eliminate the state, and lots of people who want to massively reduce the state. And, within these folks, there are some splits on closely related issues (private property, whether big business is the enemy)

And then there is to total random walk of authors, philosophers trying to label them, name them, categorize them, etc. Whole transient naming and categorization systems that exist only only in the eye of the beholder. And a few folks here who figure that if it isn't this "random walk", it doesn't belong in the article. North8000 (talk) 15:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Most important question of all:

Why do you think this is a forum for answering your questions on libertarianism? You'll have to conduct your informal research somewhere other than article talk pages, per WP:NOT#FORUM. BigK HeX (talk) 17:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

consequentialist libertarianism, deontological libertarianism, contractarian libertarianism, rights-theorist libertarianism, libertarian socialism

could any of these be considered tiny minorities? if so they should be removed according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Darkstar1st (talk) 03:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

All look like significant groupings to me. BigK HeX (talk) 05:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

First, rights-theorist and deontological libertarianism are pretty much the same. Also, my guess is libertarian socialism is a variation on consequentialist libertarianism, even if they don't use that terminology. If they use any terminology to justify their ethics, it would be helpful to add it. In general I have a problem with dividing libertarians up by which ethical theory they embrace, especially since many are just as glad to take them all without parsing the differences. Also I not contractarianism is not listed as a theory under Ethics. A job for someone who actually does editing on articles. CarolMooreDC 14:16, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course, I think we've long-ago put to bed any notion that we're limited to labels that self-proclaimed libertarians embrace. The deontological/consequentialist groupings are pretty big concepts in the RS, IMO. Probably big enough for a significant block of text, and a blurb in the lede. BigK HeX (talk) 14:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

They all look fairly significant to me aswell, and the suggestion that libertarian socialism isn't significant is laughable, that's where libertarianism originates. 78.16.205.197 (talk) 21:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Libertarian socialism is the smallest of the 3 sub-groups of left-libertarian, which is the lessor known version of libertarianism, according to the sep. tiny minorities should not be covered at all, according to wp:undue. Darkstar1st (talk) 13:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if that is true or not. Your evidence being? Here's the search of left libertarian on news.google.archives. Spend a few hours looking at the first 50 article summaries or articles and count off if they are more pro propert or more anti property or more indeterminate "left libertarians," and then we can talk. Find a few new WP:RS too. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

carol it appears a fools errand as either way, ls is one of 3 minorities, of the minority ll. according to wpudue, a minority of a minority has no place in the article. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you mean anarcho-capitalists or anarchist?

the lead says anarchist, but the overview says anarcho-capitalists. are they the same thing, if not, what is the difference? i suggest we settle on one term, or remove the redundant passage in the overview section. Darkstar1st (talk) 19:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

No. This has been explained repeatedly, already. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

provide diffs fifelfoo Darkstar1st (talk) 21:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Do your own search through the talk pages. People aren't going to humor you asking the same type of question every few months. BigK HeX (talk) 21:51, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

with minarchists advocating reduction to just state protection from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud, and anarchists advocating complete elimination of the state. in the lede, then in the next section, the term anarchist is replaced Minarchists advocate a minimal state, while anarcho-capitalists believe aggression should be countered without the state. if the terms are not synonymous, they should not be interchanged here. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

It's fine as it is for people who bother to read the passage. BigK HeX (talk) 23:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Reads perfectly fine to me. Don't see any problem with it. Yworo (talk) 02:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• The FORUM and IDHT conduct above has been mentioned at ANI. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is 99% not directed at Fiflfoo. Let's not start again going running to noticeboards over the littlest/mildest things. In the past, such "running" has been the most frequent method of warring at this article...NOT saying that such is the case here. And this article has had far too much warring for the sake of warring. I'm sick and tired of all of the acrimony at this article! North8000 (talk) 04:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't ready to go there, but can understand why others might be. WP:Soapbox about people's opinions and questions regarding general views, and vague references to some problem in the text that we would be forced to have to figure out for ourselves have been the problem. Maybe Darkstar has a point about some problem in the lead and overview, but since he doesn't bother to clearly state it til challenged a couple times, one rolls ones eyes and says: "here he goes again."

As a matter of fact, after checking text to see he wasn't just misconstruing it, I can see there does need to be a clearer distinction between anarchists (left and right) and minimal statists (which includes "right" minarchists and "left" libertarian municipalists). Sophisticated changes that need constructive discussions, not answers of six new threads with 10 word descriptions and a lot of opinions and "questions" that are just opinions, all inferring the same POV - dump the anarchists and leftists. CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Carol I agree, including that Darkstar is overly brief/not explanatory enough. But that isn't a huge issue to go reporting people over. North8000 (talk) 11:46, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

It's clearly disruptive and has been so in the past. I believe that for the good of the article, either an WP:RFC/U or a topic ban should be pursued. Yworo (talk) 14:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

when making the comparison between the 2 sides of libertarianism(according to lede), minarchist and anarchist, some readers get confused when in the next section the term is altered to anarcho-capitalist. are the terms synonymous, if so, why not pick one, if not why not pick the correct one? Darkstar1st (talk) 14:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Darkstar1st's goal is not collaboration or problem solving but deleting what you don't like, despite WP:RS. That's disruptive. So who wants to do the RfC/User. You'll have more than enough backing on this and a number of other articles. Please.... CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Getting a topic ban might be easier in this case. For that all one would have to do is post with a suitable heading (e.g. Proposed topic ban for User:Darkstar1st for all articles relating to Libertarianism) on AN/I, give a list of reasons along with links to each and every archived AN/I thread concerning the issue. Then involved users can indicate support or oppose for the topic ban, and admins or other users will also review the data and possibly decide to support or oppose. Just the number of times and amount of space and bandwidth it has taken up on AN/I should be enough to get quite a few admins on board. I think someone who has been here all the time should do it, I've not been involved with this article for months. You or BigK HeX could certainly start that process pretty easily. Ultimately, if the topic ban is opposed, an RFC/U could still be opened to pursue different remedies... Yworo (talk) 22:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

whipping up all of the above out a few low key statements which is all that there has been in several months could very well backfire. showing the accusers to be the actual warriors, and we would hate to lose you! :-) Despite your Darkstar fixation, you all know this topic well and could help a lot if you would just start writing instead of fixating/attacking.  :-) North8000 (talk) 23:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Really the situation is not that different from the one with User:BlueRobe, who is now well and truly indefinitely blocked. Seeking a topic ban is a lot milder than seeking an indefinite block or full ban, and would recognized that User:Darkstar1st has perfectly fine potential as an editor outside topics on which he has a POV issue. Yworo (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

North8000: Do you know want to know what would help the article? For the tendentious POV pushing from THE SAME PEOPLE to end. You're free to excuse it, if you like, but that doesn't mean it's not there and blatantly so. BigK HeX (talk) 23:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That ANI approach would be better. How about we just lay back a couple weeks, get more contemporaneous evidence - since article reopened, and go for it. Assuming this doesn't end up with a topic - or at least article - ban. I'll start my own list. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear on something which the current context does not make clear. IMHO the main "people" problem at this article is that there is a group who still fighting a long-over and now-non-existent war. And the the massive overreactions to Darkstar's occasional & mild posts, and formenting witch hunt against him/her are symptoms of that. And so I am not saying that Darkstar is making stupendous contributions to the article. As a secondary matter, I oppose unjustified witchunts, but my primary focuse has been ending that warfare mentality.

This article is a (now slightly improved) incoherent, confusing mess and is dead in the water. The problem has nothign to do with Darkstar. You all have expertise which I respect very highly. Why don't you just try WRITING something instead of fixating on Darkstar and a long-over war?  :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I would like to second North8000's opinion on the issue. Darkstar has done nothing, and I mean nothing, near the extent of what BlueRobe did. A topic ban is really little more than censorship in this case. Darkstar is not disruptive, and this 'witch hunt' against him is unfounded and ridiculous. Toa Nidhiki05 16:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Post traumatic stress disorder. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

proposed rewording

Another difference among libertarians is in groups who are supportive of private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources and those who reject private individual ownership and often support communal ownership instead. These are often grouped as right-libertarians and left-libertarians respectively. revised as: Most libertarians support private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources, but some reject private individual ownership in favor of communal ownership. These are often grouped as right-libertarians and left-libertarians respectively. if you oppose the change, please state why. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

No sourcing for worldwide population statistics. Bad punctuation between comparative clauses. Failure to account for those who reject private ownership in some cases but not others (Mutualists, Georgists). Fifelfoo (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

sep is my source, "right libertarian is the better well known." Darkstar1st (talk) 23:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

neither version addresses mutualist or georgist, i fixed the punctuation, thx! Darkstar1st (talk) 23:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the punctuation improvements. I'm quite happy to accept "better known" as deriving from existing sources. However, the proposed change goes further than public knowledge, and goes to "most" as in a population group. Impact on public consciousness and number of libertarians of different kinds are different claims requiring separate evidence (even if found in the same source).

Regarding restricted pro-property libertarians, there's no reason why we can't improve the phrasing at this point. "but some reject private individual ownership over these items, including those who reject private ownership all together, favoring communal ownership of economic items either partially or absolutely." ? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

fair enough, but i will wait for more input before making the change if at all. my fear is the reader will assume the martini is equal parts gin and vermouth. my edit is an attempt to highlight the better known when given an either or. — Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

This is just questionable conflation of two ideas. Two sentences later the fact that "right" libertarianism is more well known is covered with three references. There's not good reason for squeezing two thoughts into one sentence. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

"The better known libertarianism supports..." ", but some libertarianisms reject…, including those that reject…"? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Giving us, "The better known libertarianism supports private property rights in the ownership of unappropriated land and natural resources. However, some libertarianisms reject private individual ownership over these items—including those who reject private ownership all together—instead favoring communal ownership of economic items either partially or absolutely. The former libertarianism is often described as right-libertarianism, and the later libertarianisms are often described as left-libertarianism." Fifelfoo (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

sounds good to me Fife Darkstar1st (talk) 00:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Nice improvement. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'd still like to see the specific quotes you all are getting that sentence from in Carlos Peregrín Otero (2003). "Introduction to Chomsky's Social Theory". In Carlos Peregrín Otero (Editor). Radical priorities. Noam Chomsky (Book Author) (Expanded 3rd ed.). Oakland, California, USA: AK Press. pp. 15–37. CarolMooreDC (talk) 02:31, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Carol, I'm not the original author of that passage, or citer, but the cited material appears at pp. 24-6 covering libertarianism as self-expressive emancipation (a corellate of "self-ownership" at a broad enough level, ie: without regard to property) and thus libertarianism (for Chomsky per Otero) being necessarily anti-state. The stuff on in Chomsky's views as a major intellectual of libertarianism being necessarily anti-property is p. 26 per Otero's reading of Chomsky. I have taken the liberty of correcting citation 3 for this paragraph only. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Both Vallentyne passages are quoted. Why not an actual quote? At least you've narrowed down the pages. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If you want to transcribe a quote from Google Books, go ahead. I've verified that the page ranges I noted verify the text immediately preceeding the quote. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Expand proposal: Anarcho-capitalism and Minarchism in section "Libertarian philosophies"

Both Anarcho-capitalism and Minarchism in the section "Libertarian philosophies" are one paragraph long. The average length of sections in Libertarian philosophies is 3 paragraphs long. I propose that editors mine the Main Articles of Anarcho-capitalism and Minarchism for a further two paragraphs each of high quality reliable sourced content each to expand these sections on the basis of WEIGHT. What do editors think of this proposal? Fifelfoo (talk) 00:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Anarcho-capitalism seems like a rare bird to be expanding (?).

The expansion / rework of Minarchism would be a good place to start tackling a wording issue with some of these sections. Some of these are philosophical views on one question, and such a philosophy on one question is not enough to create a "group name". E.G. Minarchism is an attribute of the common brand of US Libertarianism, but "Minarchist" does not fully specify such, nor is it the name for those folks. Just as "4 legger" is not the name for elephants, but is an attribute of them. North8000 (talk) 02:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this is a problematic element. Both "Minarchism" and "Libertarian Conservatism" could be distinguished as elements of the "United States electoralist Libertarian movement" ie: namely the USLP, its splits, splinters, fellow travellers and "broadly aligned intellectuals". The electoralism of both USLP and non-USLP elected Libertarian Conservatives differentiates them from the relatively electorally indifferent US anarchocapitalists? But collating the two sections closely together would encourage a better description of the views of the minarchistic electoralist US Libertarian movement, both in its USLP and its Conservative forms. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking more in baby steps like choice of words. Like avoiding words that imply that Minarchist is the "group name" for people. North8000 (talk) 03:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

We could just title one section "The United States Libertarian Party and related parties and movements" instead of "minarchism", explain early on that in terms of the minarchist/anarchist classification the USLP is predominantly minarchist, and use "Libertarian conservatism" for what it currently is? Putting a suitable variety of Main Article links under the heading? Fifelfoo (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Huge and important topic I'd like to talk about in proper depth, but am both RW and WP buried at the moment and can't do it justice at the moment. But I'm cool with your proposed edit either way. North8000 (talk) 17:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Reorder proposal: Libertarian philosophies

Justification for a reorder generally: The section Libertarian philosophies currently has a random order. It is incumbent upon us to present the section in an intellectually coherent order.

Justification for reordering on the basis below: Given the sourcing we currently have we ought to by placing the "best known" libertarianisms towards the top. As a result I propose that we reorder this section from

• Libertarian philosophies
  1. Individualism
  2. Libertarian conservatism
  3. Left-libertarianism
  4. Anarchism
  5. Libertarian socialism
  6. Anarcho-capitalism
  7. Minarchism
  8. Geolibertarianism

To:

• Libertarian philosophies
  1. Individualism
  2. Minarchism
  3. Libertarian conservatism
  4. Anarcho-capitalism
  5. Anarchism
  6. Left-libertarianism
  7. Libertarian socialism
  8. Geolibertarianism

This groups the philosophies using the foundational and apolitical construct of Individualism first. Individualism is a core enlightenment principle and is present in both right and left libertarianisms. Secondly, it presents Right Libertarianism in order of public knowledge. Minarchism and Libertarian conservatism are presented next to one another as deeply related US movements, anarcho-capitalism follows. Then this is followed by the bridging item of Anarchism generally which deals with both right (anarcho-capitalism) and left (anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist) tendencies. This is followed by general Left-libertarianism as a key structural grouping, and followed in order of public knowledge by Libertarian socialism and geolibertarianism (Georgism).

Thoughts from other editors on the general and specific proposal? Fifelfoo (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. North8000 (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems fine. BigK HeX (talk) 05:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Good! Go for it...--  Novus  Orator  06:52, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What I don't get here is why there are two separate sections for 'Left-Libertarianism' and 'Libertarian Socialism', two minority tenents (of which Libertarian Socialism is an ideology under LL), but not ones for the majority tenent of 'Right-Libertarianism'. Toa Nidhiki05 15:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It's marginally better. I've described my alternative before and will again when finish current round of clean up edits plus creating/beefing up couple relevant articles so have material to bring here. Back to working on it this week, assuming more wiki emergencies like last 6 weeks allow. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Point of Unknowns galore for location, author when there are only editors, web article "page," etc.?

Not to go all DS1 in the title but... Who cares what the location is? And if there is no AUTHOR, only editors, why put that? And do we really need chapters too? And page numbers for online articles? Unless you intend to go through and fill in the blanks yourself, of course, and soon, I don't get the point. It's fine for info that SHOULD be there to motivate people. Your time would be better spent referencing stuff than making it look like the article has crap references because every little unnecessary detail isn't filled in. Certainly seems like something to consult with people about first. Articles with all those superfluos unknowns hanging in there after all the real stuff is ref'd will never make WP:FA and WP:GA. And WP:A doesn't mean demand refs for the unref-able. Also, I'm going to continue to ref in my usual style. Feel free to put into your style, but how about squashing the unnecessary unknowns - or filling in the blanks. Thanks.

Finally, note that you have actually removed reference information - I first noticed it with Hamowy, which had the publisher and date. Now it doesn't. It really is your responsibility to go back through and check for all such errors and put back ALL the information you removed from every footnote where you did so. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you Carol, there is absolutely no precedent for filling in fields with "[unknown]". If page numbers are needed, they can be requested with the {{pn}} template. Location is not in any way a required field, and only applies to books in any case. You are correct that if fields that can be filled in are missing, they should simply be filled in, not replaced with "[unknown]". Where they are actually not specified in the source, there is no need for filler in the cite. In addition, somehow the edit removes all the citation numbers from the references section, leaving just the "^". That's a serious degeneration in the article quality. Numbered citation in the article should correspond to numbered footnotes in the references section. The fact that some misguided work took a lot of time is not a valid reason to insist that it be kept. Yworo (talk) 16:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Luckily it only was done yesterday and caught immediately so it's an easy roll back now. But I do have some (noncontroversial) material I'd like to put in soon, so the sooner the better. CarolMooreDC (talk)

Done... Yworo (talk) 17:09, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

And it is a bloody controversial edit. Thanks guys. I put about three days straight into identifying serious citation failures which require fixing to make this approachable to 2c in FAC. And I can't revert because you reverted over me. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Location is a required field for books, most of this article is googlebooks snippet hunted. This edition which Carol destroyed had none of the numbering issues which Yworo claims existed in my reversion to that edition. I am deeply upset with both of you failing in the D section of BRD. One hour of US peak time is not sufficient time to gain consensus. About three quarters of the unknowns can be filled in from references located elsewhere in the article, which you both could have observed. This version is less useful to work from because of the extreme timecost in identifying unknowns. I propose that you roll back to here and reimplemented the intervening changes (except Yworo's destruction of the Otero source's authorship data). Fifelfoo (talk) 21:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Taking on a big project like that before getting opinions usually not a good idea, esp. since people can be fussy about footnote formatting, be it for more or less. Also, I'm in middle of cleaning up whole history section as I talked about in October or November so it's frustrating to see all the refs changing and have to redo everything. Now I have to wait til this is over before making people happy who've complained about me not editing. Not to mention I'm annoyed to see missing ref material. Sometimes people start some big projects and don't finish it. If you announced your intent and went one section or set of refs at a time and actually filled in the blanks, that would be much better. So what is the status? I'm afraid to upload my almost finished revisions now. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:34, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The ref state as I left it is almost exactly the way as it was in November, with only egregiously unreliable material snipped. Somebody has come through sprinkling LewRockwell garbage like the summer fairy since I provided line item detail of what citations needed improvement where. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the Summer Fairy deserves a kick in the pantaloons for the following citations, ""The history guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History"" """Humanism" on Encyclopedia Britannica". The poor quality of citations in this article is like a pro publica cloaca. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate Fifelfoo's work in the refs, but I did think that the "Unknown" bit was somewhat overkill, even though it may indeed have made completing the refs easier. BigK HeX (talk) 22:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• By the way, a number of the so called "web" citations, are actually books, articles, periodical articles, news articles or items in collection (serial or otherwise) merely in online format. They aren't web pages. And thus require publisher, location, location within text (even if given as Paragraph starting "Foo..."). Fifelfoo (talk) 22:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Multiple citations in single footnotes

I am unclear why there are several footnotes which include multiple citations within them. A citation should have a direct statement supporting the assertion being made in the article. Therefore there is rarely need for more than one citation. We can't cite something by giving multiple examples: that's original research. It's typically obvious when the citations are individually appended. Putting multiple citations into a single footnote seems to be disguising that original research is being done. Yworo (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That may be true, depending on example. An example where I don't think it is a problem is if you say "many libertarians don't like to be called right wing" and you only have one person who says generally that "many" don't; adding a couple more who say that helps support it. Especially when you have editors wanting to get rid of whole sentence for "lack of references." (And deleting WP:RS info from "the other side" always has been a big problem in this article.) CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The Born2cycle/Darkstar1st/BlueRobe/Xerographica crowd kept ignoring single citations, so I compiled a bunch that said the same thing for that "LeftRight" citation block. Even NOW, editors in that crowd still seem to ignore them. It is a bordering on citation-overkill, but they are all valid and they probably are better kept given that the vocal minority STILL likes to challenge the material. BigK HeX (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

International Encyclopedia of Public Policy

The entry for this citation claimed this book was published by Oxford University Press, presumably based on the claim made on this page. However, the book is not listed on the OUP website. Worldcat shows an "International encyclopedia of public policy and administration", but the title doesn't match and it's edited by a Jay M Shafritz and published by a Westview Press (I can also find this on Amazon). There's this entry on WorldCat, which seems to match title and editor, but it's not published by Oxford, and it only seems to be available in two Slovenian libraries, and the ISBNs claimed here in a PDF of the supposed book are completely bogus: two correspond to other books, plus something published in 2008 (or 2009) would have been assigned ISBN-13s, not ISBN-10s. Also, the PDF gives a publication date 2009 rather than 2008, plus this PDF seems to be "page proofs". I have serious doubts that this is a reliable source. It appears to be an eBook making false claims to have registered ISBNs and has probably never seen the light of day in printed form. Yworo (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It's rather complicated for me to figure out right now, but I did find this google books return. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I did find out that GPERU stands for "General Practice Education and Research Unit", but that name was changed to "Northern Territory General Practice Education" and publishes Medical Exam study books. It looks to me like this guy's deal with Oxford fell through (if he ever had one) and he is self-publishing electronically instead! If it is self-published, then it's not a reliable source. I'd say we should just find a better reference to support this and dump this dubious one. Yworo (talk) 18:44, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay, it's actually Global Political Economy Research Unit, its website is hosted on homestead.com, a free hosting service, and it's clearly a self-publishing operation. I'll remove the citation and add citation-needed. Yworo (talk) 18:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

What a little brat. Currently Australian practice is to put a final draft as sent to publisher into an institutional repository; which is what this looked like. Its tempting to suggest this is a case of academic dishonesty. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

It looked that way to me too, but not knowing all the details of what happened, who know? Yworo (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Someone else dumped this into the citations a while back, I remember locating the "work" off what was available in the web link only, and then locating the claimed containing work based off the PDF, but obviously the deal fell through and/or never existed. There you go. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Outline of libertarianism article needs AfD/or merge/redirect

Meanwhile speaking of emergencies, I just discovered this article which used to be topics in or something til USer:The Transhumanist changed name yesterday. I've recommended speedy AfD. Who's good at that? CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

My response to your post at the project page was:

This article is a few years old, there's no rush as we sort though the mess of libertarian article.

Someone could argue that the preface to the Libertarianism article "This article is about the political philosophy" defines a narrower scope and shows that an overview article is certainly not a fork. BTW, I think that that preface is a bad idea and inaccurate and should be deleted, which would resolve this question. North8000 (talk) 17:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Haven't we had this discussion on making this article a disambiguation page OR creating an overview article, which failed when brought to the larger community?

Specifically:

• This August 27, 2010 RfC rejecting just making it about Right wing libertarianism,
• This September 9, 2010 rejected Requested move to "Libertarianism (Forms of)".
• This September 9, 2010 rejected Requested move to "Libertarianism (Word)".
• This September 18 rejected proposal to revert to the 2005 version which does not include material on left libertarianism
• This rejected September 30, 2010 proposal to "remove all references to any ideology never referred to as just "libertarianism" without qualification in English WP:RS."

Redirection is just the easiest until someone can convince the whole community it's needed. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Carol, please don't incorrectly put words in my mouth. And none of that stuff that followed relates to what I said. I don't even see how it relates to those thing which you claimed I said but didn't. To briefly recap, the first line says that this article is (only) about the philosophy. (I'd like to delete this line, and now will try doing so.) The article that you are discussing is about libertarianism overall, not just the philosophy. How can a broader topic be a fork of a narrower topic? My only thought on that other article is "there's some question, and no rush". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems unencyclopedic. That's the kind of thing that the categories are for. BigK HeX (talk) 20:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I was responding to the overall fact that someone else is trying to create an article that is redundant at best; I don't know what their motivation is. Maybe they don't know this article exists. Not to mention that what isn't redundant to this article is redundant to List of basic libertarianism topics. I've put a merge to this article tag here, though there's not much of anything to merge except maybe one or two see alsos. CarolMooreDC (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, see WP:OUTLINE, there's a separate project to create outlines of various complex topics. I don't think it should be deleted, but is yet another "article" to keep an eye on. Yworo (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I guess if it's a nascent project then it could be helpful. I'll wait until there's a broader community discussion regarding these "outlines" ... at the moment, my feeling is that they are violating WP:NOT. BigK HeX (talk) 22:22, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Not sure "trying to create an article" is an accurate description. It has been around since 2008. North8000 (talk) 03:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

First, it was around since 2008 as something else. On the 2nd it was turned into part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines as Yworo pointed out. So I just played with it to make it comport more with this article, though still needs work. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Scope statement (in disambig line) at the beginning

It says "This article is about the political philosophy". If it's only about the political philosophy, were is the overall libertarian article? Carol's bringing up of the article to delete brought this question to the fore. I looked at "This article is about the political philosophy" and said that this article is not limited to philosophy (and, as a sidebar, if it was, such would invalidate Carol's statement that a [overview] article about libertarianism is a fork from this.) And trying to replace that with a new scope statement for this article looked like a bottomless pit that I did not want to enter. So I deleted the "wrong" statement without replacing it. I also indicated that I had absolutely no problem with "R" in BRD if someone did not agree. Yworo reverted, now on to "D".

I feel that the reason given in Yworo's edit summary (that the article is about libertarianism, not Libertarianism) is structurally flawed. "libertarianism" (deliberate lower case) covers everything libertarian related, including Libertarian, the practice of libertarianism, organizations, movements, publications, think tanks. (i.e. Libertarianism is a subset of libertarianism)

So the question is, what is the scope of this article?.....libertarianism overall, or just the political philosophy? As long as we pick one, either is fine with me. But the inconsistency of claiming that this is THE libertarianism article, but then saying it's only about the philosophy is not. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Libertarianism_(disambiguation) covers civil libertarianism and metaphysics. There is no overall article because civil libertarianism, the metaphysics, and the political practices are topically unrelated to political libertarianism. The reason why the disambiguation says "philosophy" is because for a long time a section of editors wished to avoid dealing with the concrete politics of libertarianism in practice: parliamentary parties and think tanks on the right (they kind of resent the Boys from Chicago linkages); and Makhno, Spain, Enrages in the Sorbonne in 1968 on the left. The better disambiguation would be "ideological political movements" as civil libertarianism has no ideology as such. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:03, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The hatnote is functional. While this article mentions Libertarian political parties, it is not about them. The hatnote allows one to find the articles about the political parties more quickly. This is not at all unusual and in fact is true of the other articles on political ideologies, to wit:

• Liberalism, "This article discusses the ideology of liberalism. Local differences in its meaning are listed in Liberalism worldwide. For other uses, see Liberal (disambiguation)."
• Conservatism, "This article is about conservatism as a political and social philosophy. For other uses, see Conservatism (disambiguation)."
• Socialism, "This article is about socialism as an economic system and political philosophy. For socialism as a specific stage of socioeconomic development in Marxist theory, see Socialism (Marxism)."
• Authoritarianism, "This article is about authoritarianism in political science and organizational studies. For authoritarianism in psychology, see Authoritarian personality."
• Constitutionalism, "'Constitutionalist' redirects here. For parties called Constitutionalist see Constitution Party."

We are simply following the same structure as the articles about these other -isms. You are going to have to come up with some good convincing reasons why the structure and scope of all these other articles isn't appropriate for this article. However, if you think the word "ideology" would be better than "political philosophy", you might have a point. Yworo (talk) 23:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

You make good points. Though I suppose that one way that libertarian is different than most of those examples is that "libertarian" (or hyphenated variants of it) is the primary political identity / name of the the individuals who have that philosophy. The other thing that your examples point out is that that is just a disambig line, which an attempts to say what the article is about. It does not carry weight of defining the article; the article is still free to (and does) cover other libertarian topics. This makes it less of an issue. North8000 (talk) 03:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Libertarian movement stuff was removed for a year or so, perhaps for reasons you mention. There even was a very poorly written Libertarian_movement article into which remove stuff may or may not have been merged. That now redirects to Libertarianism in the United States but could be unredirected and rewritten with all that material as longer article. That's fine with me if others want to do the work. However, some history about how ideology and activism have intertwined also are necessary in this article. (More comprehensive/somewhat streamlined/cleaned up version of which I'm going to put in when I see what's happened to relevant footnotes in last 24 hours and fix everything.) Who wants to do the work of putting Libertarian Movement in shape?

I'm willing to help on any general or US libertarian topics. Y'all know about the ways I do and don't help. That said, I think that the Libertarian articles need an overall review/plan. That said, we must recognize that the one word title one = most general = this one is inherently and should be the broadest in scope. North8000 (talk) 16:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Libertarianism Today By Jacob H. Huebert

i will add some material from Libertarianism Today By Jacob H. Huebert and Are Liberty and Equality Compatible? By Jan Narveson, James P. Sterba unless anyone objects. Darkstar1st (talk) 15:25, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

How much where is always nice to say. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

no need if it is rejected as a rs Darkstar1st (talk) 15:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

since no one has objected to the use as a rs, i will start adding material. page 143, libertarianism is not compatible with egalitarianism. egalitarianism demands a uniformity that libertarianism denies be legitimately imposed. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Publisher, location, date? If it is OUP etc, characterise it as a simple statement. If they're Chomsky / Mises grade in a serious commercial press, attribute it to the intellectual concerned. And please: publication, location, date. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Cambridge University Press, 2010 Darkstar1st (talk) 21:34, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Narveson actually begins that passage, "Thus I argue in this essay that libertarianism' is not compatible with egalitarianism...." Do you understand the difference between someone saying that they are arguing something and reporting a statement as a fact? TFD (talk) 22:14, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

yes. does that mean you would not support its inclusion? Darkstar1st (talk) 22:22, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably not. When you are reporting the views of individuals, they must be reported as their views, not as facts. But there is also the issue of WP:NPOV - you would need to demonstate the degree of acceptance of the view that Narveson argues. TFD (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is my take on the thing - this man is an academic, making him a RS. I have no problem with you adding something like 'Jacob H. Hubert argues that libertarianism and egalitarianism are incompatible', along with the reasoning he uses. However, a pointed statement such as 'Libertarianism is not compatible with egalitarianism' is not appropriate, given the source. Toa Nidhiki05 22:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Toa (and TFD's sentiments). BigK HeX (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

good idea, ill ad the attribution to the author in addition to the normal footnote. Darkstar1st (talk) 22:38, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I would question using Huebert's book. While it is well-written and from a reputable publisher, and the author is a law professor, the book was written as a U.S. libertarian manifesto, rather than as an academic treatise. Huebert btw says that Rothbard pulled together the strands of libertarianism, including individualist anarchism, but he is not interested in explaining the history of libertarianism, or describing other streams of libertarianism. When you strip out the author's own opinions, what is left is more easily sourced to standard academic writing, TFD (talk) 03:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

question it why? what specific qualification has the book not met? Darkstar1st (talk) 08:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

you have given your opinion of the book as a manifesto, and pointed out chapters omitted which you would have included being the author, but you have not given the reason it is not rs. why would a wikipedian strip out the authors words from his own book? unless a specific wprule can be cited, i will disregard your opinion of the work and include the material from this well-written work from a reputable publisher. Darkstar1st (talk) 12:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of Rockwell/Transaction/Some Self-published material

OK, we now have deletionism from the other direction. As numerous WP:RSNoticeboard threads show, LewRockwell.com is acceptable if it publishes an expert in his area of expertise (note Thomas DiLorenzo is an economist). Similarly as WP:RSNoticeboard threads opine, Transaction publishers are largely acceptable, even though it does publish a lot of trashy Daniel Pipes stuff. Self-published material can be used if it's about person's own views; Harry Browne on right vs left being most memorable deletion; others will have to be looked at more carefully.

I've left Fifelfoo a note on the 4RR he did on March 3rd in his hurry to change and/or delete references. (I don't know if moving from diff to diff in Wikipedia has become slower or it's my service, but it can be annoying having to go through all of those changes; so it's helpful to say in advance you intend to delete all references of a certain type so we can discuss it.] Anyway, the main ones that were of interest to me were in the history section. So I'll put back anything I think is righteous, there or elsewhere and we can discuss if you have a problem with it. CarolMooreDC (talk) 16:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I remember there being some ambiguity in the DiLorenzo ref I saw. It seemed as if the statement were describing the Austrian School, which would have been OK as a ref. But, I think the full sentence said something about Austrian School having some significant impact or some such ... can't remember exactly. I don't think it could've supported the full sentence, if that was the intent of the ref. BigK HeX (talk) 16:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I haven't seen enough back-and-forth for ANYONE to have reached 4RR. Are you sure about that? BigK HeX (talk) 16:45, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Fifelfoo. There are many writers who publish both academic and partisan writing, and the their credentials should not give their partisan writing special status. TFD (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the exception which allows the use of self-published material by notable individuals only applies to writings within their field(s) of expertise. Yworo (talk) 19:23, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't know about this particular one, but a good metric overall for inclusion of sources is where we think RSNoticeboard would end up if it were submitted. Which is reliability of the source with respect to supporting the particular text which cited it. Rather than a literal interpretation of wp:ver which would eliminate > 50% of the sources in WP. WP is unrealistically strict in some areas, and missing criteria (objectivity and knowledge on the item at hand) (= too lenient) in others. Consensus such as at the noticeboard is what saves WP from WP:VER. And, of course, to everyone here, it should be applied consistently regardless of which side of the table one is on at the moment. All IMHO. North8000 (talk) 17:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I notice that when an editor inserted comments including from an article by Sean Wilentz into the Tea Party Movement, you wrote, "This new standard being hatched in this article will change the face of Wikipedia. Anything that one or two editorialists say about about someone or something is now to be included in articles."[2] Wilentz is a leading historian of American conservatism and was writing in The New Yorker.[3] TFD (talk) 21:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Everything which I wish to say has been said already. Everything cited to LewRockwell prior to this diff was either also cited to a higher reliability source in addition to Rockwell, or a work of non-notable opinion, or in the case of Rothbard's opinion on the role of conservatism: not seriously requiring a citation, and deserving a citation from a higher quality source, like Rothbard in the original, or a historian of conservatism in the US. Transaction is a poison press—usually Transaction is reprinting other works, but cannot be guaranteed to have transmitted the work intact and invarient. Works originally, and only, published in Transaction ought not to be used. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:40, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

TFD, your quote of me doesn't seem applicable to this case. First I said "Don't know about this particular one", and you are speaking as if I had weighed in on this one. Second, here, I was promoting using knowledge-and-objectivity-regarding-the-item-that-sourced-it as a metric. If Joe blow states that Obama kicks dogs, such is a solid source for the statement "Joe blow asserts that Obama kicks dogs" but not a good source for the statement "Obama kicks dogs". What I was lamenting where you quoted me was not a sourcing issue. It was about a bad precedent which policies that are weak in that area allowed. I was basically saying that even if RS's covered what Joe Blow said, it still should be kept out of the Obama article. The best reason for exclusion is that the material is about what Joe Blow said, not about Obama. North8000 (talk) 22:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Have read the above and will revert or opine should I find something problematic that I think should not be removed. Or maybe I'll be too pissed off at the insults to whoever to edit here again. Let the article stand as it is with all the notes on the refs. Why I waste my time trying to improve it? I'll spend the weekend creating a far more important articles in the scope of human evolution, one strangely and suspiciously missing from wikipedia. You'll know it when you see it. I threw up my version of history. Do with it as you please. I'm unwatching the article as of now. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

24's addition to the lead

24's addition to the lead has problems but might shake things up a little in a direction that we need. I originally moved it to the overview section where it could be worked on with less urgency, but this further complicated a ref syntax problem which 24... introduced and so I reverted myself, and then (I think) I fixed the ref syntax problem. Then I decided to stop there while we consider this. North8000 (talk) 19:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Given I'm the trained monkey on references... fixed. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

What do you think about 24's now-deleted material (aside from it's obvious bugs)? I was think that once the "we" and US centric 4th amendment stuff was taken out, it might be the statement of common tenets that is lacking or too obscure in the article. North8000 (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops, it's not deleted by you, it's moved by BigK. North8000 (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

We need to have a generic statement, supported by reliable sources, that covers the common (ie: Enlightenment origin) features of all libertarianisms, anarchist and minarchistic. Socialist and capitalistic, and don't forget the mutualists. "Libertarians stand for individual self-expression in economic, social and political terms. They support the inviolability of the individual, either through a concept of self-ownership or human dignity. They seek to correct the social relationships between people through minimising law and the need for law." Buh, sounds too generic. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:41, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Agree, we need that. IMHO "generic" = common tenets = fine. If anything, what you wrote might be a bit ethereal. I think that we need the word "freedom" in there. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Recent fracas over deletion / addition of "see also" Links

I haven't added or deleted but IMHO these internal links should be in the article somewhere. Both are wp:notable, real world notable, and relevant. Plus this article is very short on material on the real world practice of Libertarianism. Sincerley, North8000 (talk) 21:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

If we did that, we'd have to include a link to every regionally notable magazine and website that claims to follow a strain of Libertarianism in the world. Otherwise If we don't universalize it, we as all the other editors have said are giving wp:undue weight to media of regional and narrow importance in a general global thread. That isn't how policy goes.-Freepsbane (talk) 22:50, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that their numbers makes them big/significant (from a Libertarian standpoint) on a world scale. North8000 (talk) 23:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

There's plenty of European and Latin American, anti statist liberal and syndicalism publications and organizations of similar size. Unless if we’re going to turn it into a list article, it still is as other editors have said, a textbook case of undue weight and Americentrism in a global article.-Freepsbane (talk) 00:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is confusing because it lacks material on libertarianism in practice, and also more weighting by predominance in practice (past or present). A part of the roots of that problem is lack of such material and sourcing for it. With a circulation of 60,000 (huge in the libertarian world) and a 43 year history, I think that reason magazine is such, and a baby step towards selectively growing such material. (Not so much is evident on LewRockwell.com) If those ones that you speak of are libertarian related and of similar size (or even 1/2 that size) I think that we should work those in as well. Can start as "see also" and eventually as a sentence or two in new sections covering practice of Libertarianism. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes there are from an international standpoint many organisations and media older than it, and larger. You have to keep in mind that it's something that originated in europe after the Revolutions of '48, so of course there will be a large body of entities even more notable. Unless if we are to create a page to catalogue them, I can't see a list of mags and orgs going here.-Freepsbane (talk) 01:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

What would you say are some of the largest libertarian media and organizations in the world? (besides USLP)? (BTW, I am not personally overly concerned about the particular links debated here) North8000 (talk) 02:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

What do we start with? Are you looking for contemporary "Liberal" organizations? There's several major parties like that around, the liberal label in much of the world outside of the US is associated with libertarian/libertarian-light type ideologies(going as far as the Austrian Economic School and all). Or are we looking for Anarchist and Anarcho-syndicalist groups? There's many prominent organizations that have been important historically and most of these liberal and anarchist groups have their own publications, many of them significant in their own right. And then there's historical figures like Emma Goldman(I think she might have been one of the first in the US to use the libertarian label but don't quote me here) and Oscar Wilde who are seen as important figures in developing the movement and had their own publications supporting it. Some sort of page for all these groups, the ones you mentioned included wouldn't be a bad idea. It probably should be in a different page though. Freepsbane (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As a preface, I'm not debating you, I'm trying to learn something from an expert (you) for the good of the article. As another preface, in the USA, the meaning of "Liberal" includes higher taxes and larger government, so we have to translate that term whenever used. I meant just pick a few organizaitons and publications that come to mind as some of the largest in the worlds that specifically and primarily identify themselves as libertarian. North8000 (talk) 10:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The Reason and LewRockwell links seem less appropriate for this page than they would on Libertarianism in the United States. Ultimately though, I'm largely ambivalent on their presence here. BigK HeX (talk) 05:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there a consensus seeming to form anywhere on this matter? Due to constant disruptive editing on this page, it's usually been best to establish a persuasive consensus even on trivial matters such as the "See Also" links. BigK HeX (talk) 05:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the only person with a strong opinion towards keeping those 2 specific links is now not blocked. I was more just using it as an opportunity for discussion towards what this article needs overall.

The articles linked are on specific publications on topics related to libertarianism. However, being on a publication related to libertarianism is by no means the same as being on libertarianism. They are by no means unrelated to the subject of the article, but they are tangential rather than directly on the subject. They are therefore not suitable to be linked. In addition, both of them appear in the Bibliography section and repeatedly in the references, so it is not necessary to repeat them in a "see also" section as well. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Good points. As an aside, I was not involved in the edit war, but was the one who started this discussion, after it had already had about a dozen reverts. North8000 (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Which was probably the right thing to do, thanks. Oh and I'm hardly an expert so what I say really has no more merit than what you say.-Freepsbane (talk) 14:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

We all have our areas. I sense that you know libertarianism outside of the USA much better than I do, hence my question. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If the circumstance is as JamesBWatson describes, then it is definitely unusual to have those links in "See Also" and I would support their removal. BigK HeX (talk) 15:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that they're gone already. I think that the only person with a strong opinion towards keeping those 2 specific links is blocked. I was more just using it as an opportunity for discussion towards what this article needs overall. North8000 (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Further evolution of the article or trio of articles

What do you think about the following line of thought (which could set direction for the future)

This article (in the context of being the top level libertarianism article) somewhat "depends" on the terms and articles "Right libertarian" and "Left libertarian". Yet, when you read those two articles, the gist of them (albeit in two very different way) is that neither of those terms identifies a strand or strand of libertarianism:

• In the case of left Libertarianism, the case is that the term (or closely akin terms) has been widely used in real life. But those uses consist mostly of people attaching it as an adjective to other philosophies, often just for the panach of having the word "libertarian" in there, without having anything to do with libertarian philosophies. The other case is where there are persons who are libertarians, but somewhat "left" leaning in areas which the common tenets of libertarianism are silent on. Living in the USA, it took me a while to learn that while the term "left libertarian" is an oxymoron in the US (where the meaning of "left/liberal" includes larger role for government and higher taxes) such is not universally the case outside of the US, where "liberal" means something different. In short, the term (and closely akin terms) is widely used in the real world a self-identification of a philosophy or political beliefs, but the disparity and randomness of the ways that it used is such that the term does not identify a political philosophy, or related set of political philosophies.

• In the case of right libertarianism, the article basically says term does not exist. More specifically, that there is no political movement or philosophy that identifies itself as "right libertarian". It looks like the few places that it has been used has been by authors to only organize material. Again, by the meaning of "right" in the US, the term is an oxymoron in the US, as "right" and libertarian views conflict on a wide range of issues (basically all of the social freedom ones)

I'm the person who, months ago, based on discussion, put in that right/left libertarianism differed on the topic of private ownership of natural resources. I suppose that this is vaguely true of the philosophies sometimes identified with those terms, but false in that it implies that left/right libertarianism exist as terms which identify philosophies/political beliefs.

So one might argue that the right and left libertarian articles should not exist. I think that it's good that they do exist, if only to address what those terms do and don't mean. But I do advocate that they should no longer be relied on as the location for coverage of libertarian philosophies / schools of thought. And that in this article, these terms should be de-emphasized, possibly explaining the limitations of these terms.

In the long run, I think that removing or de-emphasizing this "false crutch" would force this article to do a better job of covering libertarianism. Possibly leading to spawning new "sub articles" with better titles and coverage of subsets of libertarianism, or to better and more organized linking to other libertarian articles in Wikipedia where they exist.

What say you?

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:50, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, I think you are missing the point. Ideological families share history, ethos and terminology yet may be very different from one another. Tony Blair and Pol Pot were both socialists for example, yet Blair was far closer to both strands of libertarianism than he was to the KR. It may be that you assume that the underlying beliefs of libertarianism are shared by everyone and therefore cannot see it as a distinct political family. TFD (talk) 03:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not following. The main conclusion of what I wrote is that the terms "right libertarian" and "left libertarian" are not useful with respect to identifying/naming a strand or group of strands of libertarianism. My main proposed "result" is to have this article depend less upon those terms. North8000 (talk) 12:18, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

In hindsight I forgot to say thanks to The Four Deuces for one of the few signs of life here. I plan to edit this article to de-emphasize the terms "right libertarianism" and 'left libertarianism" and the reliance of the article one them. If there are objections, discuss, and please feel free to revert me. What this article most needs is positive discussion and collaboration amongst all of you brilliant people who have visited this article and are probably watching it. 23:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

agree rs say libertarians reject right/left, ex: is a pot smoking peacenik who also owns a small business and frustrated by excessive red tape/tax left or right? libertarian has elements of both, thus is neither exclusively. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:43, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Agree - Toa Nidhiki05 14:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I sort of did it. This included moving 2 sentences from the lead into the overview section. Lead is now a bit short. We should work on adding summaries of other material in the article into the lead. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As long as this programme of editing doesn't remove appropriate weight from libertarian socialism nor the minority school of geoists / georgists / etc, then I am happy to leave this in North8000's hands. The terms are not a commonplace in the scholarly RS, which generally moves to discussing objects of specific interest as rapidly as possible, for example, one rarely talks of Right Libertarianism academically when one could simply talk about the USLP. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much for that vote of confidence! But I would rather have guidance by all of the experts who I assume are monitoring this page, including yourself. I think that a good way to combine what I'm good at and that would be for me to raise stuff on the talk page for discussions and moving forward. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Ethical Foundations

"Libertarians can broadly be characterized as holding four ethical views. The main divide is between " It would be a good idea to state those four ethical views before speaking about the divide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.251.34 (talk) 19:47, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• I believed I fixed this, thanks for requesting an increase in clear prose. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:24, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Philosophies

Much of what we list under "philosophies" is philosophies with respect to only a particular issue. For example, per those definitions, a libertarian that I know is a minarchist, a libertarian constitutionalist, individualist, (and probably 5 more libertarian "nouns") but would identify themselves as simply a libertarian. But each of those items is just a viewpoint on a question/issue, none is broad enough to cause them to be an overall name for their libertarianism. But then other listed philosophies might also be overall names.

Are some other libertarian philosophies important enough to add to this list. How about self-ownership? Others? North8000 (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

In order to balance the "Descriptions by prominent libertarians" section, think we could add a more left-leaning viewpoint? I popped in a decent descriptive quote by Chomsky (there's a couple gems in that interview); if anybody's not happy with the form, please feel free to change it. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 03:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Cool. Based on your offer about form I took the square brackets out from around the "..." s. North8000 (talk) 10:57, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I added self-ownership to philosophies section North8000 (talk) 11:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Good Source on the Diversity of Libertarian Thought(s)/Schools

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=81672&hilit=libertarianism+corporate#p3931450

The forum is that of nationstates.net, a free web-based (somewhat slanted/spun/editorial) government simulator game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.142.3.202 (talk) 03:22, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Great game, but not RS... :) DigitalHoodoo (talk) 03:33, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Left Libertarians

Fifelfoo, With your last change (removing the "Some" qualifier from "Some Left libertarians support some form of income redistribution..." IMHO you essentially changed it to say that that applies to all left-libertartians, i.e. to everybody called a left-libertarian under the numerous definitions. Do you think that that is correct? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

• Widerquist supports a unilateral. So then I went out and searched on "Gerald F. Gaus, Chandran Kukathas, ed (2004). Handbook of Political Theory. Sage Publications Inc.. p. 128." at p. 128. This is actually
  • Eric Mack and Gerald F Gauss "Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition" in Gerald F. Gaus, Chandran Kukathas, ed (2004). Handbook of Political Theory. Sage Publications Inc. pp. 115–130.
  • Mack and Gauss specifically use "most".
  • However, we're in copyright violation.. they read "thus uphold some form of substantial income redistribution on the grounds of a claim by each to an equal share in natural resources" (Mack and Gaus, 2004, 128), we read "some form of income redistribution on the grounds of a claim by each individual to be entitled to an equal share of natural resources" which is a pathetically close paraphrase at best. Given that this is attributed, and short, let's not go through the formal copyvio rigmarole, and paraphrase adequately while attribute correctly.
  • As such I've arbitrated these different claims with the softer claim in Mack and Gauss. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Cool. Not just on my question, but also on overall confirming/strengthening the article in this area. North8000 (talk) 10:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

On another note, earlier, many months ago, based on other editors and their sources (NOT based on my own knowledge) I put in the part where it said right/left often meant views for/against private ownership of natural resources. I'm assuming that both meanings are sometimes right. Should a mention that "left" sometimes means redistribution of natural resource wealth be added to that? Seems a bit counterintuitive, as I would think the only mechanism capable of re-distributing would be a more powerful government, but I guess the existence of other possible methods could be assumed. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:25, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the Georgist and pseudo-Georgist arguments for redistribution; I expect they see universal resource rent and democratic government expenditure on commonweals to not be an imposition on liberty as they view resources to be commonweals rather than the results of personal activity. If the category of "left libertarianism" is used in its broad sense, as opposed to its pro-market sense, libertarian socialists derive their justification of a redistributive argument from the thoroughly democratised society of producers not being a government in the sense of both monopoly on force and instrument of class oppression—this action is described a free economic interaction between peers, solidarity, not a tax. The Widerquist articles are better here. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:51, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I added a bit on this under left-libertarian in the "overview" section. North8000 (talk) 15:51, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Separating libertarians from anarchists?

This is drawn from Robert Nozick's discussion of libertarianism (Anarchy, State and Utopia) where libertarianism is born from, but opposed to, anarchy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.205.19 (talk) 08:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

agree this article has long suffered from trying to combine too many different thought into one term. Darkstar1st (talk) 10:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

A big topic here. I only have a few minutes for WP today and tomorrow and then I'm off the grid for a week. Sorry that I can't really participate until after that. Darkstar is a brilliant person, and may be right, but IMHO this article with its current scope provides a place to cover, explain and clarify all of these important questions. North8000 (talk) 10:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Nozick's opinion ought to be noted, weighted, and discussed alongside Ward's etc. etc. etc. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:20, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

121.45..., if you're still here do you want to write something on that? North8000 (talk) 10:31, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

pathetic

this is pathetic. this page has obviously been hijacked and controlled by a small group of so called left libertarians (Still very much arguable whether such a philosophy can exist) and places FAR too much emphasis on these left varieties of libertarianism rather than just listing it as a variant in the variants section) given the political reality today.

and dont give me that "its only in the US that so called right libertarianism is what 99.9999% of people will associate with libertarianism" because i am from australia and know that that claim is bullshit. even in europe all the classical liberal or libertarian parties are considered right wing.

guys i know you have your own ideology but sabotaging and hindering the progress of this article to the extent that it does not correspond with reality is just not the right thing to do.

this could be a decent article, on what is a very imporant and topical issue today, but instead it is totally unrepresentative drivel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 13:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that this article may be just describing every species of trees without describing the forest. The article has had a painful past and then a rather calm last 6 months. I've been the most heavy editor since then, and I'm certainly no left libertarian, whatever that is. There has been a decision to include coverage of the trees, but perhaps you can stick around and help also cover the forest. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:29, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

On wikipedia we have three important concepts in relation to this article:

1. No original research: what comes from our own minds, we do not write. We are encyclopaedists, not researchers.
2. Weighting in high quality reliable sources: our sources represent the weight present in the highest quality reliable sources. In this article it is problematic because for every Internet encyclopaedia of philosophy, there is a Colin Ward. The highest quality sources are in disagreement, and with the exception of a few left capitalist libertarians, do not even speak to each other.
3. An absence of synthesis: we do not look at the divergent sources and create a new understanding by synthesis of what actually exists

North8000 has been carrying much of the weight here, as they have put the time and effort in using these policy criteria. I feel very confident that they have a good editorial handle on the article; especially as North8000 refers matters to the editorial community, and has been receiving agreement and praise in their editing these past months. It is a refreshing change from previous editorial climates. Fifelfoo_m (talk) 14:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

last year i deleted the redirect from Libertarian, which send traffic to the libertarianism article. within hours, the wikipedia.org/libertarianism dropped off the top result on google, replaced by wikipedia.org/Libertarian. it was clear to me then the majority of people searching for the term are not searching for libertarianism a confusing history of pro-property/anti-property, pro welfare state/anti-welfare state, etc, but actually trying to learn about the current widely understood definition of Libertarian. the redirect was replaced, and within hours, the google results changed back. since it was obvious most people trust wp, proof by it being the top result, the manipulation of this page is also impacting google results, a great disservice to the wp 5 pillars. i suggest we separate this page from Libertarian again, and let the searches decide what they are trying to find. Darkstar1st (talk) 16:19, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Making a separate page for Libertarian versus Libertarianism seems like a counter-intuitive solution to me. Why don't instead you work on expanding Libertarianism in the United States or Right-libertarianism? If those pages are improved sufficiently to get a lot of links and hits, Google should automatically give them a higher ranking, hence positive feedback and they will get even more links and hits, rendering this issue moot. –CWenger (^ • @) 17:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

people are typing the term Libertarian into Google the most, thus they are searching for that term, not the others you mentioned and not libertarianISM. it is a dis-service to redirect that term to libertarianism. Darkstar1st (talk) 17:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

So I think that the "forest" that is not getting covered here is the current common meaning of "libertarianism". For content I'm 100% on board with wp:ver/wp:nor for content, but feel that it does not restrict the content development process. E.G., in successful articles, the editors decide (based on their knowledge from hundreds of sources) that the moon is made of rock and dust, put that in the article, put in a source that supports that, and ignore / leave out statement and the source that says it is made of green cheese. I think that we should try to do that in this article to add a few prominent sentences on the common current meaning of libertarianism. I.E. the editors determine (and I'm talking 99% agreement, not 51%) what the common meaning of libertarianism is, say that in a few prominent sentences in the article, and source that by a few decent sources. I hope Fifeloo doesn't withdraw the compliment and trout smack me for saying this. :-) :-) North8000 (talk) 18:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Then you could make an argument that Libertarianism should be moved to Libertarian. But you'd have to provide some sources that they should be fundamentally different articles. That sounds like a textbook WP:POVFORK. –CWenger (^ • @) 18:47, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Your povfork comment is a comment about your idea, not about mine. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Huh? –CWenger (^ • @) 19:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

wp:povfork refers to a separate article. So I meant that that was a comment about "Then you could make an argument that Libertarianism should be moved to Libertarian" rather than my idea which was to add a few sentences to this article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I should have been clearer. I do not support splitting Libertarian and Libertarianism, as that would be a POV fork. I think the best solution is expanding Libertarianism in the United States or Right-libertarianism. –CWenger (^ • @) 20:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

expanding those articles is fine, but look at republican, and republicanism. this article does the exact opposite. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:25, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Republican is a disambiguation page... –CWenger (^ • @) 20:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

apologies, i meant the google results, not WP. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Without getting into it, I think that one of those two other articles is on a non-existent topic, the other is a name that nobody is going to search by, and presupposes that the most common meaning is unique to the US. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I also would oppose splitting libertarian from libertarianism as they are the same word. Also, an article on libertarianism in the US is stupid because as an australian i can tell you, 'libertarian' refering to right libertarian is NOT a us phenomenon. it is the same in australia, and about a year ago on this page i posted the names of all the classical liberal or libertarian parties in europe, which are all considered to be RIGHT WING parties over there. So these 'left libertarians' may go on with this idea that right libertarianism is a us only phenomenon to make their own ideology able to be showcased more prevalently but it is simply NOT the case. Basically what this article has done is to privelage both 'left' and right libertarianism in the text to the extent that they misleadingly look like the ideology is divided into two equally important or prevalent groups. gives people a very distorted idea. it would be like writing an article on Qing dynasty china, and making half the article about one little event that happened over one year where some italian missionaries came to visit. I am sorry but all evidence in this day and age supports the fact that so calleed left libertarianism, without skewing the whole article and making it useless and misleading to the readers, should have maybe one paragraph in the variants of libertarianism section, or a couple of sentences in the history section, or to be moved completely into anarchism, which is the mainstream name for this 'left libertarianism' (which is an oxymoron might i along with 99.9999% sans several editors on this page say). I know some of you have your ideology which you wish to defend but i wouldnt go making half the article on conservatism about 'paleoconservatism' when it is only one small unknown variant. Makes a mockery of wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 00:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• We don't take your word as an Australian. Comparing your word to You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship (1982) Brisbane : Libertarian Socialist Organisation ; Melbourne : Libertarian Workers for a Self-managed Society ; Clayton, Vic. : Monash Anarchist Society ; North Adelaide : Adelaide Libertarian Socialists; demonstrates that the literature is in part against your contention in Australian useage. Takver's commentary as a public intellectual is also relevant here. Right libertarianism is not an exclusive US phenomena, but, neither is Libertarianism as in Libertarian Socialism a European specific phenomena, and Libertarianism as in Left (georgist) Libertarianism is a predominantly US phenomena. You need to provide sources to support your WEIGHT argument; sources which overcome Colin Ward. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:45, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Published by "the libertarian socialist organisation" and "monash anarchist society"? Sounds more like propaganda from the particular long-dead extremist ideological groups themselves. Anything BUT respectable, reliable sources. More like completely obscure and very questionable. Published in 1982? Is that how far back you have to go to find any sort of 'left libertarian' movement in Australia? dear me then. and TAKVER, this source you just love to use. i have been to that website, and it has about the standing of a blog. it is the writings (although it looks to have been largely dead since the late 90s) of one guy with a beard, who even has his own little introducing himself section, and can be attributed no more reliability than the writings of some basement-dwelling teenager on a blog. How any of those sources, particularly "takver" constitute reliable in the slightest is beyond me. I may as well start up my own little site, write whatever I feel like, and then use that as a 'reliable source' on wikipedia! And no, left libertarianism is not an exclusively european phenomenon, because as a i said, when i look at the various proclaimed classical liberal or libertarian parties of europe they are all considered in their countries to be on the right of the political spectrum! I would be more inclined to call it a highly insiginificant and exclusively dustbins of history-consigned phenomenon! I have looked at your page and it is clear you very much have an ideology that you feel you need to defend, given that there is such a minute number of people subscibing to it or even knowing of it, however trying to skew the article and in effect making it unusable by the public doesnt do anyone any favours. PS. It says in this article itself, that the definition of libertarianism necessarily corresponds with minimising govt. There is just no way that any ideology that opposes private property can coincide with this end. it is an oxymoron. "left" on the political spectrum = MORE govt, redistribution, artificial govt protection of trade unions and disrespect of the rights of a business owner to do whatever he wants with that business and thus his property rights, etc. so you may want to call yourself a libertarian rather than an anarchist or more accurately a socialist (collectivism, the exact opposite of libertarianism) but logically this does not follow through in any way. I think you and everyone else on this page knows very well that if you all left this page to be edited freely without reverting it would very quickly turn into an article about "right" libertarianism, reflecting the by far and away very nearly entirely dominant view of the public today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 02:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

• Please sign your comments, cease soapboxing, and cease making personal attacks such as "I have looked at your page and it is clear you very much have an ideology that you feel you need to defend". You are also displaying a battle ground mentality. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with Fifelfoo. There is no place on Wikipedia for any of this, particularly questioning the motives of another editor. –CWenger (^ • @) 04:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

IMHO job one is keeping nastiness out of here. Saruman, IMHO you might have some valid points in there, but IMHO such is overshadowed / occluded by the nastiness of your posts. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

is there a left-libertarian subset of right-libertarianism?

Curious usage of "left-libertarian" here in a Reason magazine article:

On the other hand, the Ron Paul of Liberty Defined seems in many ways designed to antagonize the standard right wing while emphasizing areas of affinity with the progressive left. This is not some centrist “liberaltarian” project of selling liberty to pundits and intellectuals of the Democratic mainstream. Ever the rebel, Ron Paul sounds more like a “left-libertarian,” reaching out to the far reaches of the progressive left and the downtrodden to challenge concentrations of statist power. [4]

Do we have this sense of left-libertarian covered in the article? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:59, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Editorials in Reason are not good sources for analysis. TFD (talk) 22:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Huh? The premier libertarian magazine in the U.S. is not a reliable source for typical English usage of libertarian terminology? Some obscure French-Canadian academic work is a better source? I think not. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

tfd, wp does not delineate the publication from the author as a good or not good medium for the rs. the rs here is Doherty, whose text has stained the pages of The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, Spin, National Review, The Weekly Standard, San Francisco Chronicle and dozens of other publications. He has been a commentator on hundreds of radio and TV shows, including Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor and CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck Show. did you have any other objections to the source? Darkstar1st (talk) 07:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that that materials / source is as good as any. Which I think will lead us toward the inevitable conclusion. "Left libertarian" and similar terms are used so diversely and inconsistently that they do not denote any particular strain, and are not very useful terms. Trying to define them is like herding cats. The term "Right libertarian" has different but equally large problems. I have been slightly de-emphasizing the right and left libertarian terms in my edits at the article and IMHO that is a good direction. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

We're supposed to take the article drawn from from multiple academic sources and rewrite it to define terms as written in a single editorial opinion piece? lol BigK HeX (talk) 19:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It may be a good primary source for what some libertarians believe, but is not a good secondary source for explaining libertarianism. However, since we are not conducting original research, we are best to ignore it, unless it comes to the attention of the academic community. We do not write articles on communism based on Communist magazine editorials, or articles on evangelicals based on their magazines. TFD (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

tfd, you continue to confuse the medium(reason) with the rs(Doherty). a rs could write his thoughts in grape juice on the side of a zebra and it would still be a rs. Darkstar1st (talk) 21:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Umm ... no. BigK HeX (talk) 21:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, it doesn't take reading beyond the first paragraph of WP:RS to see how misguided your interpretation of policy appears to be. "The word 'source' as used on Wikipedia has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, book), the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), and the publisher of the work (The New York Times, Cambridge University Press). All three can affect reliability." BigK HeX (talk) 21:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

But, even more specifically from RS: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces are reliable for attributed statements as to the opinion of the author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." This supports TFD's position far more than it would yours. BigK HeX (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, the terms "left" and "right" are not useful here regarding defining strains of libertarianism or characterizing libertarianism. North8000 (talk) 23:00, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, as you are likely aware, numerous academic references indicate that left-libertarian and right-libertarian are useful terms. BigK HeX (talk) 14:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

(added later) Well, yes and no. See my first paragraph in the "overall thoughts" section below. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:16, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I suppose then that this example, like so many others, especially taken all together, again illustrates so clearly that there is no standard/consistent usage of the meanings of the terms "right-libertarianism" and "left-libertarianism" among reliable sources. I would add that that goes for plain "libertarianism" as well.

I've said this before but it's been a while so give me a break... this is why I believe this article, like many other articles, would be greatly improved if the topic of the article was restricted to the most common use of the term which is the title of the article rather than broadly and confusingly covering all topics to which the term is used to refer in reliable sources, even if those topics are similar and/or related.

I am more convinced than ever that Libertarianism should either be a dab page or a much shorter introductory article consisting of only one or two sentence descriptions of each use of "libertarianism" and a link to comprehensive article about that use.

No reliable source combines all uses of "libertarianism" into one and covers all those topics in one article, not even a dictionary. I suggests it's a violation of WP:NOR for us to do it. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Again, libertarianism has a specific meaning found in reliable sources. Left and right libertarianism are two sides of the same ideology, the same with conservatism, liberalism and socialism. Critics say Thatcher was really a liberal, the Lib Dems are really Tories, etc. TFD (talk) 04:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. Libertarianism has a number of specific meanings found among reliable sources, not just one. That is, any one source relies on one specific meaning, but the meaning used by one source like, say, Boaz can differ substantially from that used by another, like Chomsky. In some sources the particular ideology referred to as libertarianism in that source is described in terms of having left and right variants, but there is even less agreement in RS about how that distinction is made than there is about the meaning of libertarianism.

Pretending these major differences and distinctions don't exist and trying to write an article accordingly necessarily results in an incomprehensible hodgepodge that this article is today. May God help the poor student trying to learn and understand any particular meaning of libertarianism from this article. --Born2cycle (talk) 07:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No, libertarians agree on core principles, specifically individual freedom. Where they differ is how that is best achieved, for example, whether private ownership of land restricts or enhances personal freedom. These core principles distinguish libertarianism from other ideological families, for example, conservatism and socialism, which consider order and equality respectively as core principals. One could of course argue that the socialism of Pol Pot and Tony Blair have different meanings, and no one would argue that "major differences and distinctions don't exist" or that one or both of them are not true socialists. TFD (talk) 13:52, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Core principles! Now we're talking! Your argument is very well taken, TFD, but for one crucial point.

A key defining core principle of what is today the predominant form of libertarianism is the right of individuals to own property. That is, a political system without private property is not libertarian per the predominant usage of the term, by definition.

In other words, the ideology which Chomsky and other so-called left-libertarians refer to as "libertarianism" is not merely a variant of what Boaz defines as libertarianism. Rather, according to Boaz' usage, the LL conception is not libertarianism. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

While some libertarians believe in the right to own land, it is because they believe that right is essential in order for people to be free, not as an end in itself. However, in the 21st century, wealth typically is represented by capital, as in capitalism, not land, and there are restrictions on land ownership that do not exist for other types of property. The issue you are arguing is anachronistic and belongs to a pre-capitalist age. Note that no libertarians today object to writs of execution being issued against land for unpaid debt, although that has been allowed in the U.S. since 1732. TFD (talk) 19:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It is not for us to decide why libertarians who believe in the right to own land believe in that right. Regardless of why, this is how Boaz defines it: "Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property—rights that people have naturally, before governments are created." By that definition, to not to defend each person's right to property is just as fundamentally not libertarianism as is not to defend each person's right to life and liberty.

In contrast, consider a right that is not fundamental to libertarianism, like each woman's right to choose to have an abortion. There are libertarians who believe women have that right (at least up to a certain point in the pregnancy), and others who prioritize the unborn human life's right to life over that. Generally, neither side argues the other is not libertarian, because neither side sees this right as fundamental to libertarianism. Even a pro-life libertarian like Ron Paul who believes the right to life is consistent with the fundamental tenets of libertarianism is not going to argue that someone who does not recognize the unborn's right to life is not a libertarian; the right to property is fundamental to libertarianism as it is predominantly used in English today.

You seem to be trying to treat the right to property with respect to libertarianism similar to the way I just treated the right to choose/right to life. But this is not what the predominant use of libertarianism means. It's just not. And trying to explain it as if it is not only confusing, it's not supported in sources that interpret libertarianism in the way it is predominantly understood in English today. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Good comparison. Libertarians believe in the right to ownership of the fruits of one's labor and security of the person, but disagree on how this is best achieved. That is not what we have decided but what sources say. The point is they are arguing from the same principles. Cf conservative and socialist arguments on the same topics, which use different principles. TFD (talk) 22:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

A variation of your statement, "Libertarians disagree on whether owning private property should be every person's right", may be true or false. Its veracity depends on which meaning of the term "libertarian" is being used. If we use the most predominant form of the term in English, then it's false, because there is no disagreement among libertarians about that. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Templates

This is a big complicated situation that we are working on, where every section is imperfect. I don't think that article-level and section-level templates help the process much and I'd prefer we don't have those. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• I have to agree with North8000. The editorial community of this page is quite engaged with the text of the article, and the broad deficiencies. Template tagging would be more useful if the article had a disengaged editorial community, or no editors. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

The regional bias objections raised in the templates do seem rather valid. I don't think we need the "big flashing neon sign" style template, but some sort of notation that there is a problem and keeping the relevant article-needs-attention categories wouldn't hurt. BigK HeX (talk) 02:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Weight and 80.3.168.89's recent edits

80.3.168.89's recent edits, while valid, change the weight balance in the article. The current weight balance has been the result of exhaustive discussions. Would someone like to reduce and incorporate the IP's edits into other appropriate and already existing article sections (Libertarian Marxism is a kind of Libertarian Socialism, along with anarchism, syndicalism, fabianism, etc.) Fifelfoo (talk) 02:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Agree that such is needed. I'd like to do it but right now I do not have the expertise to do that. North8000 (talk) 10:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I gave it a go, see what you think. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Thanks, Fifelfoo. BigK HeX (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Cool! North8000 (talk) 17:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

should Libertarian lead to a disamb like Democrat or Republican?

redirecting Libertarian to libertarianism, would be like redirecting Democrat to democracy. the current redirect may be confusing some who are seeking the Libertarian as a member of a political party. in the section above several parties are mentioned, why not have a disambiguation page and let the reader decide if he would like to learn about libertarianism, instead of the term he searched. Darkstar1st (talk) 10:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Again, clarifying, you are talking about Libertarian, not libertarianism. Of course libertarianism should be listed on that page. North8000 (talk) 10:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

correct, basically coping the style of the other two terms. Darkstar1st (talk) 10:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's draft it here. North8000 (talk) 00:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Bad idea. Readers are unlikely to type in "Libertarian" when they are lookign for the LP disambiguation page. TFD (talk) 01:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

(added later) My two thoughts are that there are a lot of people who will type it in for different purposes. E.G. current libertarian practice. A disambig page would give them choices to sort it out instead of putting everybody in one particular place. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

tdf, are you suggesting we should undo the Democrat and Republican and disambiguation article also? it seems to be a good idea for the other 2? Darkstar1st (talk) 08:00, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

here is the edit request and draft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Libertarian#Edit_request_from_Darkstar1st.2C_14_June_2011 Darkstar1st (talk) 08:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Democrat and Republican are not ideologies, but we are not discussing them. TFD (talk) 21:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Libertarianism, as known in this article, is a actually better described as a political philosophy. from the wp: Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics Darkstar1st (talk) 09:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Then there is no parallel between the articles. TFD (talk) 02:49, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

if you cant see the similarity in Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian, the 3 largest political parties in the usa, then we are finished here. come to my talk page if you wish to continue, i fear our convo here may or may not be teetering on the verge of absurdity. Darkstar1st (talk) 06:00, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

You just said that Libertarianism is a political philosophy while Republicanism is an ideology - that means they are different categories. But your description is wrong. We do not say that Republicans and Democrats have the same ideology as Communists, fascists and others who support republics. TFD (talk) 11:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Either way, I think that the disambig page accomodates a larger percentage of the people who type in "Libertarian" and gives people who do so some relevant choices vs. pre-deciding what they meant. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 11:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

tfd, i copied those words from the wp:articles. here is more, Democracy is a political concept. does that make Republicanism and Democracy are now different categories also? Darkstar1st (talk) 11:49, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK took a stab at doing a rewrite

[5] Welp ... got tired of the bickering, so I thought I'd try some work on the article. Feel free to rip that edit about. BigK HeX (talk) 20:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like that revert didn't take long. I'm satisfied that I gave it a shot. BigK HeX (talk) 20:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I went backed and looked at it. I think the intro you had was an improvement, but it still has the main problem I discuss below. The overview is only slightly better, still dominated by a coverage of discussing differences. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:13, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the overview in my attempt was still too weighty on the various differences (and I didn't even cover the deontological libertarian vs. consequentialist libertarian camps). In the end, a complete article will have that material residing somewhere though. IMO, the overview needs to pull more from the sources in order to be more thoroughly fleshed out. I'm not really up for expending much more effort on editing the article as most changes are reverted. BigK HeX (talk) 01:01, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Criticisms revert

Pretty obviously this text touches absolutely none of the material that's been under contention. If a revert of this reincorporated text is felt to be necessary, I expect that editors will note actual reasons for their edit, as opposed to just being disruptive. Thanks. BigK HeX (talk) 20:50, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree "discuss first" is not a good reason to revert. However, per WP:BRD, a more helpful comment explicitly stating an objection is strongly recommended, not required. The appropriate next step after BR is still D; it's BRD not BRRD... --Born2cycle (talk) 21:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

left libertarians believe they have the right to exist, or the right to not have their drinking water poisoned, and that right libertarians do not believe this

Do Libertarians really poison other people water? wouldn't a Libertarian use the harm principle to have the nightwatchman arrest one who poisons drinking water or ones who makes others stop existing? Are property rights really the same as the right to destroy other peoples property? this is the major problem with the left/right morass. both are inaccurate misleading terms that have no place in this article. example, a right libertarian is pro-pot, and left-libertarian is anti-tax, doesn't sound very left or right to me. i live downstream of socialist europe on the banks of the Danube, a river so polluted by "the left", the city draws its drinking water from other sources. Darkstar1st (talk) 05:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

You care to re-write this? As a coherent comment for improving the article, perhaps? BigK HeX (talk) 05:57, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Please refer to WP:SOAPBOX and WP:FORUM. The purpose of this page is to improve the article by referring to reliable sources. If you wish to ask general questions about a topic, I suggest using the WP:Reference desk. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:09, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Overall thoughts

Born2, nice to see you back!!! I mostly agree with you on the problems with the article, but not as much on the solution. I think that we're wrestling with two different "axises" / metrics. One is to what extent a term has meaning / is useful/used in defining a strand. I think that "right" and "left" are particularly weak in that area. "Left" is actually used to a degree worth noting, but it's use is so inconsistent and random that I don't think it really has a definition, or a core set of definitions. "Right" appears to be barely even used, and when it is just something like an ad hoc organizational tool for a book rather than being a used name for a strand.

I think that the situation is different with the word "libertarian". I think that if one looks at all of the significantly held strands of libertarianism, they consistently have a core tenet of greater individual freedom which inevitably and implicitly means greater individual freedom from government which inevitably and implicitly means smaller government. I think that that is a or the defining characteristic of the word. From there you have variations in the degree (down to zero government, also called anarchists) to those who want to do it by being the government (USLP). And various ways of approaching various dilemmas (property rights) and some spin by how they lean or where they "come from": on the right left political spectrum.....(the nuances make that be not be the oxymoron that it looks like.)

The second axis/metric is prevalence in movements, practice, organizations, parties, past and present. If a strand existed only in the minds of two philosophers/writers, and was never a movement, then it probably shouldn't have been in the article. The fact that these folks are more likely to have written their thoughts down probably would tend to skew the article their way if we somehow feel that a good article will spontaneously arise from sources. On the flip side, if a zillion people consider themselves to be libertarian in some vague sense (all typically embracing the "more freedom from government" tenet) it's much harder to find sources that try to write about them, and so I think they have been massively under-covered in the article.

On the other hand, if "Kryptonian Libertarianism" is a widely used but meaningless term, I'd like to be able to find that out in Wikipedia, which means a sentence or two on it rather than omitting it. Ditto for a strand that is or was significantly practiced, even if off the main track. I've long thought that one way to improve the article in this respect is to start more coverage on libertarianism in practice and libertarian movements, past and present. In several ways, I think that this would eventually nudge the article to be more oriented towards prevalence, which addresses some of your concerns.

Also, I think that the lead and overview sections have been evolving a bit towards statements of common tenets, and, as long as we can keep a pleasant, collaborative atmosphere (as we have now) I think that folks are open to further evolution there.

As wp:ver/ wp:nor are policies for content, not for the process of development of content, I do not consider it un-wikipedian to have discussions here to develop content that we know is sourcable. If something has a 90+% consensus, it will be sourcable. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi North, thank you for your thoughtful comment. In addition to what I said above to TFD, I don't disagree that all forms of libertarianism share the "core tenet of greater individual freedom which inevitably and implicitly means greater individual freedom from government which inevitably and implicitly means smaller government" - but that tenet alone does define libertarianism in the way it is predominantly used in English today. The right to property must be there too, or it's not libertarianism in that sense. And since that is the predominant use today, it's a disservice to our readers to convey otherwise. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that it would be useful for the article to clarify this discussion and take it further. Is your main point that currently in the English speaking world ("libertarian" being an English word) nearly all people who call themselves simply "libertarian" are in favor of property rights (including of land and natural resources). And, if so, what changes would you propose? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not only nearly all people who call themselves libertarian but nearly everyone who use the term libertarianism, whether they associate with it or not, is referring to a political system for which property rights are fundamental, therefore that philosophy is the primary topic for libertarianism by definition and, so, should be the topic of this article. Other uses of the term, including the academic/general use which is the current topic should be covered in a separate article, linked via hatnote link at the top. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm agreement with you on the problem here, but could you also be amenable to a plan which does not fully remove those items from this article? Aside from keeping the peace and following the RFC from 10 months ago, one could argue that if there is a different definition of libertarianism or libertarian philosophy, it should be at least more briefly mentioned here. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

10 months later, and he's still beating the "primary topic" dead horse.... BigK HeX (talk) 19:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's just mellow out and have some fun here. :-) North8000 (talk) 20:18, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I am mellow and having fun pointing out dead horses and WP:IDHT. BigK HeX (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:CCC --Born2cycle (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Born2, I don't think that going that far is a realistic possibility. Lets head for some middle ground. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Born2Cycle, if you believe that only libertarianisms who support freehold land ownership should be called libertartarian the what do we call this article or left-libertarianism? What about left-libertarians who support land ownership? TFD (talk) 01:01, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

How about some evidence as the the prevalence of left libertarians today. If the claim is that it should keep more than one paragraph in the variations (or historical variations) section, and stay in the intro/throughout the article, some evidence of its prevalence today is really needed in order to keep it. Where are the left libertarian parties worldwide? Previously last year I'd pointed out (right) libertarian parties in the USA, Australia, UK, Canada, and all through Europe. I am interested to see the 'left libertarian' parties that those proposing it remain in the article can find. Also some concrete evidence of a significant left libertarian movement existing today. Saying something about that minor stream is fine, but really, it has to be backed up with evidence of its prevalence today or it is merely misleading and irrelevant and best confined to a few sentences in the history section. This was a featured article when it used the accepted definition! It seems that this article is basically trapped - between the general public, usability to the public, not being misleading to the readers, and relevance to modern situations -- and the prospect of going against the consensus of the several 'left libertarians' on wikipedia, who by all evidence provided probably make up most of the people remaining in the world holding these views. A deadlock situation, it would seem to be. As 'nasty' as that may sound - it is the truth. Saruman-the-white (talk) 04:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There may not be left libertarian "parties" (the political party not being a mode of organising particularly congruent with left libertarianism, obviously), but there are plenty of examples of significant and notable individuals, groups and publications that defines themselves as libertarian and are widely accepted as such that do not hold private property rights as a core tenet. Just as a few more or less random examples, we have the hugely influential intellectual Noam Chomsky, who describes himself as libertarian; we have the late Murray Bookchin, fairly influential and also defines himself as a libertarian; we have the major anti-capitalist group the WOMBLES, the L in which stands for "libertarian"; we have websites like Libcom (stands for 2Libertarian communism", Free Earth "Independent Libertarian Website", Young Libertarian Socialists and Liberty Action; we have the recent revival of guild socialism. And remember Wikipedia is not just about the English-speaking world. We have the global International Libertarian Solidarity network, in including French group Alternative Libertaire, I believe one of the largest anarchist groups in France; the influential Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges Fontenis, who was in the group Communiste Libertaire; we have in the Spanish speaking world the Federación Iberica de Juventudes Libertarias, a major player in Spanish republican history (in Spain, Isaac Puente's Libertarian Communism was an influential pamphlet, and Buenaventura Durruti defined himself as a libertarian communist); in Latin America we have groups like Argentine Libertarian Federation (newspaper: El Libertario), Cuba's Cuban Libertarian Movement and Venezuela's Commission of Anarchist Relations (newspaper: El Libertario); and in the Russian-speaking world the main anarchist movement remains the platformist, who follow the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists. And that's without even entering the world of blogs, such as La Revue Gauche, Libsoc. Is that enough examples? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, signs of life here, and from a lot of really smart people. Please stick around. North8000

sec break

I think that the middle ground and the Rosetta stone to other issues here is to vet and weight strands and philosophies by actual practice / movements, membership in organizations etc. past and present.

So if a philosopher writes something which credibly purports to be about what a non-trivial amount of others believe, then that leans towards being a source and coverage in the article. If they just write about their visualization/definition of libtertarianism, they they are nothing more than a primary source on nothing more than what is in their brain, and such could be de-weighted or left out. North8000 (talk) 10:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

No one is denying that such uses of libertarian exist at all. The issue is about whether they are relatively obscure uses, atypical of the predominant use in English today. Chomsky is clearly using the term in an unusual manner (compared to typical English use today, which he concedes), and so is Bookchin. The other examples, as best as I can tell, are derived from non-English usage. Anything else? --Born2cycle (talk) 16:13, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes I think individual philosophers should not be included outright given that they repsent themselves and themselves only. I think, to be honest, the only way around this is to make this a very broad, general, brief article outlining what BOTH agree upon, without mentioning the left/right issue apart from one section where we can have links to both. That is the only way it can be coherent. As it is now, with the immense ideological and fundamental differences between the two 'streams' (still not conceeding that being anti-capitalist or anti-property are anything but the polar opposite of libertarian and are as authoritarian as you can get) I think the article is about as useful and and clear as an article about both Queen Victoria of England, and the Australian state of victoria, or Abbott and Costello the comedy duo, and Abbott and Costello the Australian conservative politicans - trying to give details on two subjects that whilst sharing part of a name are as different as different could be and have no place being discussed together in the same article. May as well write an article about socialism and free-market conservatism trying to purport that they are parts of the same philosophy. It simply cannot be improved with both being in here. General, short, with links to both is the only way to go. Saruman-the-white (talk) 11:12, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Nice analogies and I'm not opposed to general, short and with links. But I think, Saruman, you are over-emphasising the difference between the two broad currents of libertarianism. Both are primarily about personal freedom and a minimal state. Both call themselves libertarian, and I would say (tho I can't evidence this) that libertarians on both sides of the divide recognise the other side as libertarians too. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. North8000 (talk) 12:13, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I would like some evidence that anyone who describes himself as libertarian besides Chomsky, characterizes Chomsky's views as being libertarian.

To the contrary, in this source we have "Noam Chomsky (2002: 200) has described a libertarian society as “a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it". That's a typical use of "libertarian" in the sense that is predominant in English today, which is clearly exclusive of what Chomsky advocates. To write about the meaning of libertarianism that is inclusive of Chomsky, as this article currently does, is to use the term in a manner that is unconventional in typical English use today. It cannot be that such a relatively obscure use of libertarianism is the primary topic for the term. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

For reference, the original Chomsky text is quoted in full here http://www.distantocean.com/2008/04/chomsky-on-libe.html He describes Rothbard's "consistent libertarianism" in these terms, but his main point is that what is called "libertarianism" in the US, rothbard etc, is not "real" libertarianism. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

First, he notes this his usage (what he refers to as "real" libertarianism) is distinct from "'libertarianism' in the US". Further, what he then said was "in the US" is now predominant usage in the English speaking world, whether he likes it or not, and it is a disservice to our readers, and contrary to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, to cover Chomsky's "real libertarianism" or anything other topic other than the predominant use of "libertarianism" in our article entitled libertarianism. If we can't get consensus on the point about this usage being the primary topic, then I would agree to making Libertarianism a dab page. But to make Libertarianism about this relatively obscure watered-down "general" all-inclusive meaning which has very little use in the English world is without basis. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about Chomsky, and don't want to defend him. More importantly, tho, is Wikipedia meant to be about primary usages of words in the English-speaking world (and, remember, the USA is not the whole of the English-speaking world!)? Check out WP:CSB. I don't think there is any reason to say that globally the narrower right-libertarian definition of libertarianism captures the variety of the movement. In Latin America and Europe, it certainly doesn't. Wikipedia should reflect that. I also think this narrow definition is historically shallow, as it is only since the 1950s or so that it right-libertarianism was the more prominent definition in the US. 17:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)BobFromBrockley (talk)

Bobfrombrockley, how would we find out the current meanings in the English speaking world? And (this isn't as unwikipedian as it sounds) is there anybody here who cares to say they are from England, Australia, Canada or some other big English-speaking country that can tell us what the common meaning there is? North8000 (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Those are completely fair questions which I can't pretend to answer properly. I'm from England, and call myself a libertarian socialist, and have moved around the edges of the anarchist and anti-capitalist scenes, and it is simply my strong impression, which I cannot evidence, that here the anti-propertarian type of libertarianism is unproblematically thought of as a type of libertarianism. I hate Chomsky, by the way, but I am sure most people who call themselves libertarian would have no trouble with identifying him as libertarian. That's totally not WP-appropriate evidence, of course, but just an impression. [User:Bobfrombrockley|BobFromBrockley]]

Why do we care about "the english speaking world", again? Certainly, the article wouldn't be limited to only the English-speaking world's conception of the term. BigK HeX (talk) 19:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Bob, article titles in this English WP are supposed to reflect usage in the English-speaking world. "Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources." (WP:TITLE nutshell). Later in WP:TITLE: "Article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by.", and "a good title should convey what the subject is actually called in English.". Also: "[Wikipedia] uses the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources". I don't see how WP:CSB is relevant here; systematically biasing towards English usage in titling articles in the English WP is intentional.

Whatever movements there might be in Latin America or elsewhere and referred to as "libertarian" in non-English languages is not relevant to this article unless they are also referred to as being "libertarian" in English, in the same sense as the word is used predominantly in English.

If this was about usage in the U.S. vs. other English speaking countries, that would be one thing, but use of the term to refer to what is sometimes termed as "propertian libertarianism" or "right-libertarianism" (in contexts where it is useful to contrast with "libertarian socialism") is predominant in all English-speaking countries.

Two points of caution. First "right-libertarianism" and "left-libertarianism" are often used to distinguish varieties of propertian libertarianism. For example, Karl Hess is categorized as both an anarcho-capitalist and a left-libertarian. But that use of "left-libertarian" is very different from when libertarian socialists like Chomsky are said to be "left-libertarian". It think it's very confusing and unhelpful to combine all concepts associated with a term in one article just because they are labeled by the same term. Each article should be about a distinct topic.

Second, not all Canadian sources are English sources. Beware especially of academic papers written in Quebec universities where a translation from a French use of "libertarian" can easily go unnoticed and unchanged in the English version, but does not represent typical English usage. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Just a sidebar comment. I assume that there are some English Wikipedia guidelines that say to cover based on English-speaking areas, but in this case, I doubt there is an exact translation of the term. I'm starting to think that we might need translations even between English-speaking countries. I only recently learned (on this talk page) that "liberal" here in the US means something completely different than elsewhere. :-) North8000 (talk) 18:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

All good points. I don't know what to think now! Only thing to add is distinction between what article's title should be, as in WP:TITLE and article's content which needs to be not one country centric BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we should discuss here to determine the main common meaningS of "libertarian" in the major English speaking countries and cover those here. Ditto for historical, if that is different. Source both. Then reduce the other stuff to very brief mentions. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:17, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Imposing some artificial limitation of focusing on certain countries sounds like the opposite of striving for NPOV. BigK HeX (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I really don't have any POV here, just trying to learn and have the article move forward. I only picked English because I suspect that this multi-meaninged English term has no precise equivalent word in other languages. And I picked just those 3-4 countries only as a pragmatic way to make the task do-able. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Re: "Bob, article titles in this English WP are supposed to reflect usage in the English-speaking world."

What is your point? The article title is readily recognizable English, and the article content is appropriate as beat to death in many RFCs. You can re-fight this lost battle if you choose, but it's highly likely that nothing you do will ever change this "Libertarianism" article to some sort of "Libertarianism of the US Libertarian Party" article. BigK HeX (talk) 20:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

My point with that statement was to answer Bob's question, " is Wikipedia meant to be about primary usages of words in the English-speaking world (and, remember, the USA is not the whole of the English-speaking world!)?"

I suggest the Libertarianism (capital L) of the US Libertarian Party is not the most common usage of the term even in the US, much less in the English speaking world, so I don't know why you said that.

What I do think this article should be about is the libertarianism (small-l) of the US LP party, the Cato institute, Ron Paul, Karl Hell, the von Mises institute, Murray Rothbard, and the various libertarian organizations and parties that use libertarian in the their name (not coupled with socialism or social) throughout the English speaking world... --Born2cycle (talk) 22:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: "What I do think this article should be about is the libertarianism (small-l) of the US LP party, the Cato institute..."

I'm well aware that you think that. Your opinion is important, but the overwhelming consensus against you is even more important. The multiple RFCs are strong evidence that this article WILL BE about the sweep of libertarianism, a single concept which numerous RS write as including libertarianism as conceived by "libertarian socialists" and "left-libertarians". If you want to work on "the small-l libertarianism of the USLP, Cato.." etc, then I invite you yet again to take up work on Libertarianism in the United States, instead of trying to disregard consensus and put that content here at the article for "Libertarianism".

To clarify my above comment, I'll say again that the article here is simply not going to have the content of "Small-l Libertarianism of the US Libertarian Party". We have numerous academic RS showing that the article here should NOT be written in such a manner, so any further attempts to effect such a transformation likely would be futile. BigK HeX (talk) 22:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

The sources are pretty clear. So, even if it might sound like the concept may be from some foreign land, or even if we just don't like it, Wikipedia articles reflect the literature.

• Bevir, Mark, ed. (2010). "Libertarianism". Encyclopedia of Political Theory. SAGE. p. 811.
• Vallentyne, Peter (September 5, 2002). "Libertarianism". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Retrieved March 5, 2010. in addition to the better-known version of libertarianism—right-libertarianism—there is also a version known as 'left-libertarianism' {{cite encyclopedia}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help);
• Eric Mack (2009). "Individualism and Libertarianism Rights". In Thomas Christiano and John P. Christman (ed.). Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy. Contemporary debates in philosophy [Series]. Vol. 11. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 121. Sometimes two versions of libertarianism are identified - 'right' libertarianism which combines self-ownership and (at least almost) unrestricted private ownership of extra-personal material - and 'left libertarianism' - which combines self-ownership and some form of egalitarian ownership of (At least natural) extra-personal material
• Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker. "Self-ownership". In Charlotte B. Becker (ed.). Encyclopedia of ethics, Volume 3. Encyclopedia of Ethics. p. 1562.
• Ellen F. Paul (2007). Liberalism: Old and New. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 187.
• Sapon, Vladimir; Robino, Sam (2010). "Right and Left Wings in Libertarianism". Canadian Social Science. 5 (6).
• Roderick T. Long (1998). "Towards a Libertarian Theory of Class". Social Philosophy and Policy. 15 (2): 303–349: at pp. 304–308.

BigK HeX (talk) 22:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• This was an interesting and productive discussion; but, it has not changed my position on two issues: scope and weight. I believe the article is correctly scoped as dealing with the post-enlightenment ideologies primarily concerned with human liberty as being constructed through the minimisation or abolition of the state. Secondly, this has not changed my opinion regarding weight: pro-capitalists and Georgist positions are still poorly explained in some sections of the article and are lacking weight due to the omission of clear narratives and responses to objects of vital importance to other libertarians (such as Tactics. Someone can find a HQRS on pro-cap libertarian's use of think tanks and parliamentary parties, surely). I'd like to congratulate editors on not revisiting past negative collegial behaviours. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

North8000, as I have said before I am from Australia and the 'right libertarianism' meaning is the one that is known here at least since the mid 1980s (cannot vouch for before that as i paid no interest). The vast majority of people would be unaware of any left libertarianism. the only party in australia defining itself as libertarian is of the free-market, right wing variety. Also the nation's largest right wing 'online community'/thinktank Menzies House defines itself as being for 'conservative, centre right and libertarian thinkers'. In addition the most prominent and well known conservative publication Quadrant, when taking a perspective identified to be libertarian, is very much of the (far) right variety. I know the user fifelfoo, from the city of newcastle, posted some pamphlet-type materials from the 70s and 80s regarding two student libertarian socialist movements, plus one blog-type homepage of one individual that seems not to have been updated much since the 90s and of course does not meet standards of credibility for wikipedia. The 70s/early 80s student materials do suggest some movement, however small and obscure, did once exist, but evidently not any more, or a more recent source would have been used, and the obscurity does not bode well for use on wikipedia. So in short, the meaning of the word as it stands in Australia is most clear indeed. Cannot speak for the UK or Canada but I was able to find right libertarian parties in those nations also, and was not able to find any left parties. Past that I cannot speak for those countries however. But as it stands the weighting of this article is misleading for Australians in this day and age, as it is for americans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saruman-the-white (talk • contribs) 03:35, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Sign your posts please. As I've mentioned your impressions are limited. "Libertarianism" in the Australian media is used as a shorthand for "Civil Libertarianism." The vast majority of Australians are unaware of any libertarianism. Observing the self-characterisation of Menzies House, or Quadrant (which have both characterised themselves in many ways, at many times) is as reputable as observing the self-characterisation of the LSO. Consider, for example, the use of the world "libertarian" in Bramble and Minns (2004) "Who's Streets" in Social Movement Studies author's deposit copy, UQ Library which is a consistent use in terms of anti-capitalist libertarians. "We sought to ensure that our subjects were reasonably representative of the variety of political tendencies involved in organising the movement. … about one-half of the total number of anticapitalist activists involved were members of political organisations involving a high level of agreement and a generally common set of politics. … and three libertarian groupings – the Autonomous Web of Liberation (AWOL), Love and Rage, and Revolutionary Action (RA)." (Author's print, 4) ; "Those who described themselves as socialist or Marxist tended to remember the alliances as operated primarily by majority vote; libertarians, anarchists and autonomists stressed the attempt to find consensus and to vote only as a last resort. … Libertarians complained particularly of sectarianism between the competing organised groups, and bickering … AWOL (Autonomous Web of Liberation), the broad libertarian group based in Melbourne," (5) (Bramble's Trotsyist organisation has published vehement criticism of libertarian forces within the left). Your characterisation of use in Australia is limited by your lack of reference to reliable sources in any depth. The Weighting of the article is quite adequate in terms of libertarians by their position on capitalism: both exist, both form organisations, neither has any strategic social influence. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

To continue, while not denying that "Libertarianism" also means a pro-property movement derived primarily from 1960s and 1970s insights by US based theorists (Archer (2009) "Dole bludgers" Labour History 96); it continues to mean another thing, a thing received in the 1870s and 1880s from European theorists, and reinforced by trade unionist tacticians from the US in the 1900s and 1910s: an anti-property movement. (Mason (2010) "No Arms" Australian Historical Studies 41; Swank and others (2006) Legislative, and Government Strength of Political Parties by Ideological Group in Capitalist Democracies, 1950-2006: A Database. Marquette University; Mason (2010) "Women" Labour History 99; Tregenza (2010) "Political Theory in Australia" PSA Conference 2010 Edinburgh). Fifelfoo (talk) 04:12, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no dispute about the existence of both meanings (as made obvious by this citation as well as those provided by BigK above). The issues are:

1. how related are the two meanings,
2. how common are their respective usages in the English speaking world,
3. whether both topics should be covered in the same article, and, if not,
4. which is the primary topic which should be covered at Libertarianism?

As to (1), I note that Fifelfoo's source recognizes that the "pro-property" meaning is derived (i.e., originated) "primarily from 1960s and 1970s insights by US based theorists", strongly indicating that that meaning is separate from "the other thing" it means. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:26, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to find academic literature on those answers and incorporate the material into the article. Of course, "how common are their respective usages in the English speaking world" is an entirely irrelevant factor regarding inclusion in the article, but if you find the answers they could be worth noting in the Wiki article. The English wiki only means the information is delivered in English -- NOT that it is only concerned about "the English speaking world". WORLDWIDE coverage of topics throughout Wikipedia is an undisputed standard. I doubt you'll be able to get that standard changed just because it might help in your mission to eliminate "left libertarianism", "libertarian socialism", and "anarchocapitalism" from the article. Again, it highly doubtful that this article at "Libertarianism" will ever read as if it were "Small-l Libertarianism of the US Libertarian Party". BigK HeX (talk) 22:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

sec break 2

I have no interest in incorporating anything into the current nonsensical article which conflates multiple meanings into an incomprehensible mess. The usage now predominant in English originated in the U.S., but it's inaccurate to characterize it as "small-l Libertarianism of the US Libertarian Party". That usage now predominates in the English-speaking world. The distinct meanings do have some elements in common (they are both political philosophies known as "libertarianism" which prioritize individual liberty), but they are too different, especially at the fundamental level with respect to whether property rights are essential, to be covered coherently in the same article. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:05, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

they are too different, especially at the fundamental level with respect to whether property rights are essential, to be covered coherently in the same article. -- They can be covered in the same article; namely, in an article whose central topic is the political/moral theory known as libertarianism. This theory aims to protect individual liberties by minimizing or abolishing oppressive statist/social structures. The U.S. Libertarian Party has its OWN article, that is summarized here; libertarian socialism has its own article, which should be summarized here. There is nothing irrational or illogical about this -- the political theory is the central topic, and the U.S. political party's and libertarian socialist' ideologies are sub-topics. I don't really understand how people could argue otherwise. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point if you characterize one of the topics as "the U.S. political party's". Rather, it is much more than that. It is the meaning predominately intended by the term libertarianism in all of the English speaking world today. That term is extremely rarely used to refer to "libertarian socialism", or to the political/moral theory which "aims to protect individual liberties by minimizing or abolishing oppressive statist/social structures". In fact, that definition is not libertarianism, but libertarian socialism. Libertarianism, in its predominate use, does not recognize oppression from "social structures", much less attempt to minimize or abolish that. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

This is not a dictionary. The terms liberalism and conservatism mean different things to different people, but we do not re-write the articles. TFD (talk) 00:01, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

There are no distinct and specific political philosophies for which the terms "liberalism" or "conservatism" are predominately used in English to refer to. There is a distinct and specific political philosophy for which the term "libertarianism" is predominately used in English to refer to. That's a big difference. It's why we have Rose (the flower) and the related (even same etymology) but distinct Rose (color). --Born2cycle (talk) 00:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess you have never heard of anyone described as a liberal or conservative. In fact these terms are more widespread than "libertarian". Incidentally colors and flowers are different categories - what libertarians are flowers? 01:22, 15 June 2011 (UTC)TFD (talk)

Of course I've heard of people described as a liberal or conservative. What did I say that made you think I didn't? Are you even reading my words? What kind of discussion is this?

The huge difference is that describing someone as "liberal" or "conservative" is not saying anything very specific about that person's political views. But saying someone is a "libertarian" is saying something much more specific about their political views, not the least of which is that the person strongly believes in property rights. That fact is not at all conveyed by the current content of this article. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: "saying someone is a "libertarian" is saying something much more specific about their political views, not the least of which is that the person strongly believes in property rights"

You know why that isn't conveyed exclusively as you wish it were? Oh, only because RS say differently from what you assert. Given a choice between basing the article on notable ideas within the academic literature and the layman opinion of a Wikipedia editor, we go with the RS every time. You're fighting a long-lost battle. BigK HeX (talk) 03:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Notwithstanding that 'born2cycle' is entirely right, and despite the fact that I can find, upon searching libertarian-related materials from the US, Australia, Canada and even the UK, political parties, major publications, think tanks, organisations, etc and left libertatianism only turned up very obscure and largely very dated materials indeed --- I believe this article as akin to writing an article on both left and right forms of the 'authoritarian' end of the spectrum. Conservatism and socialism (liberalism to those who have corrupted the use of that term). It is exactly the same principle. Both left and right ends of the spectrum of the authoritarian plain. We are attempting to write an article with both left and right ends of the libertarian plain. It will NEVER work. Sans about one shared ideal, the maximisation of individual liberty, they are completely distinct - just as distinct as conservatism and socialism. This is an article about two distinct things and this is observable in the fact that just about everything says 'in left libertarianism blah blah blah, whereas in right libertarianism blah blah blah'. Despite the fact that one variant accounts for 99% of coverage and followers in the world today and the other 1% or most likely less, if there is to be coverage of both the current and the historical variant on wiki, they HAVE to be 2 seperate articles. This article can have a brief intro saying it is a group of political ideologies supporting the maximisation of indiv lib but with extreme differences between variants, left lib being prominent in the past, and right lib being by far the dominant var in recent times. Then a history section - that can trace it from its founding, influences of anarchy, the whole left lib issue, and its transistion to right lib. then a list of different variants with links to main articles, each with a brief description underneath --- then each of these variants can have a lengthy, coherent, USABLE, and quality article about them that is not anything like this disjointed useless mess. I think we are gradually realising that this is the only thing to be done. Saruman-the-white (talk) 07:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: "they are completely distinct"

The most well-known academic RS (along with numerous other RS) disagree with you. The article is fine covering the variants, and will continue to do so (according to the multiple indications of consensus). The article is far from "useless" even if it does not agree with editors' preferred POVs.

Moreover, the English Wikipedia's coverage of topics is NOT limited to the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. It's quite telling that editors are trying to propose such unprecedented constraints for one single article, antithetical to the NPOV worldwide treatment given to topics throughout the entire encyclopedia. BigK HeX (talk) 13:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK, not sure if you were referring to me, but to restate, I brought "English" only because it's an English word which probably does't have a one-to-one translation in other languages. So "English speaking" would mean "everywhere that the word is used". And me picking those 4 countries was a shortcut to get started / make some forward progress. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Some academics view "libertarianism" in the umbrella/general sense. Others view it as a much more specific philosophy which definitely includes property rights. This more specific view reflects the predominant use of "libertarian" and "libertarianism" in English today. There used to be a quote about it, but it got moved to from the intro to the overview here [6], and later removed (haven't found exact edit yet).

David Boaz, libertarian writer and vice president of the Cato Institute, writes that, "Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others" and that, "Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property—rights that people have naturally, before governments are created."

I suggest it was a violation of WP:NPOV to remove this, but the more important point is that this specific use of "libertarianism" is incongruous with the general/broad view that this article is about.

I also want to add that the common use of "libertarianism" to refer to something else in non-English languages is relevant to the question of whether that something else needs to be covered in WP, not whether it needs to be covered in an article titled Libertarianism. --Born2cycle (talk) 15:23, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The supposedly "non-English" uses are covered exactly where the RS suggest they be covered -- here at the Libertarianism article, where the sourcing and multiple RFCs indicate they will forever stay. BigK HeX (talk) 15:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Your certitude about the future of this article conveys a violation of WP:OWN, BigK. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:36, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I believe his certitude conveys an awareness of the results of the repeated discussions we've already had about this exact same issue. I think people are ready to start improving the article, and are tired of wasting time arguing about what the article should focus on, which has been rehashed ad nauseum, each time with the same conclusion. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 16:56, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK, "non-English uses" of what word? This is an important question. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:50, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Ready to improve, Jr? I've abstained for almost a year and there have been 100s of edits and the article is only worse. Not much worse I must admit, but that is because it was already incomprehensible. That's an inevitable result when you to try to combine the writings of disparate philosophies as if they are one just because they are homographs. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:14, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The reason the article is still in bad shape is because a handful of obsessive editors who have refused to allow the majority of the content to be moved out to sub-articles like right-libertarianism or libertarian socialism, and to just cover what this article should actually be about -- namely, the political philosophy that encompasses both. Unfortunately, we've been stuck for a year arguing about whether to make this article only focus on right-wing libertarianism, and edit warring trying to keep disruptive editors from forcing this. The result is an article that focuses mostly on the aspects of each of these philosophies that makes them different (i.e. we have an article that is both about libertarian socialism and right-wing libertarianism), rather than a coherent article that focuses on what they hold in common. If we moved most of the stuff about property rights, etc. into sub-articles, and just focused on libertarianism here (with a brief summary of the property rights debate between right and left libertarians), we would have a very coherent article. I'll say that in my opinion, the article has improved greatly from where it was a year ago. Still terrible? Yes. But far less terrible. So I have to disagree with you that it has gotten worse. And by the way, nobody is arguing that they should be mentioned in the same article because they are homeographs, so I don't know who you're talking to there. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 17:24, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been probably the main editor for the last 6 months. Although I'm very influenced by the history of this article, and also by being cautious, folks have been giving me a pretty free hand. I'm smart in some ways, but I don't have the expertise in / perspective on libertarianism outside of the US and in other eras to confidently make the changes that need to be made. Also, it is very hard for me to find sources that make the "big picture" statements that some are talking about here. Also, I think that truly significant aspects of libertarianism should be at least briefly covered here, even if they are not the most prevalent one. There are a lot of experts (myself not included) participating here. Wish we could just put our heads together to make this article better. North8000 (talk) 17:38, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the "homograph" comment was directed at you, User:Jrtayloriv. Despite multiple RS to the contrary (including the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Born2cycle has been advocating the notion that all libertarianism outside of right-libertarianism all share only about as much as Orange (fruit) does with Orange (color). He persists long after the community disagreed in September 2010. BigK HeX (talk) 17:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

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As far as I know, no one disputes the fact that in the 1960s "libertarian" and "libertarianism" were fairly obscure terms in the U.S., and people called "liberals" in other English speaking countries were looking for a term to refer to themselves and their liberty-centered philosophy other than "liberals" and "liberalism" because by then those terms in the U.S. tended to mean supporting the use of government power to bring about various societal changes, even if the liberty of some was compromised in the process. So they came up with or borrowed the then-obscure term "libertian" and "libertarianism" to refer to what is also sometimes known as Classical liberalism. But this philosophy was totally distinct from the then-existing meaning of "libertarian" and "libertarianism" as it was primarily used in other countries and other languages. The net result was two distinct philosophies both using the label "libertarian" and "libertarianism" - thus each is a homograph of the other. No, they're not quite as different as Orange (color) and Orange (fruit), but, like Suraman says, "Sans about one shared ideal, the maximisation of individual liberty, they are completely distinct ". To try to write about whjat both share in common in one article is almost as non-sensical as trying to write about what Orange (color) and Orange (fruit) share in common.

That said, perhaps this problem can be solved by renaming (and rewriting) Classical liberalism and/or neoliberalism to something like Libertarianism (classical liberalism). But if this article is supposed to be only about what all philosophies that share the libertarianism label have in common, it should be very, very short. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:03, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Or you can just stop coming up with odd naming schemes merely as a route in trying to hijack the Libertarianism title as the base of your proposed right-libertarian POVFORK...? BigK HeX (talk) 22:52, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Are y'all saying that, taking a broad look over time and geography, the the two most common meanings of libertarianism are, roughly speaking, 1. classical liberalism and 2. current US style libertarianism, ala the USLP? And, if so, what is the main difference between them? North8000 (talk) 20:55, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

No. I'm saying:

1. Classical liberalism and "US system libertarianism" are synonyms for essentially the same philosophy (limited government, liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, owning property and free markets, or as Boaz says, "defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property—rights that people have naturally, before governments are created.") which is most commonly known as "libertarianism" in the English speaking world today (not just the U.S.), but is sometimes referred to as right-libertarianism to differentiate from (2) below.

   This philosophy (1) has variants sometimes referred to as right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism (e.g., "Karl Hess is a left-libertarian"), but also includes an extreme flavor which is anarchistic (sometimes called anarcho-capitalism). Minarchism is used to refer to the variant of this philosophy that is not the anarcho-capitalism extreme. Other variants of this philosophy includes Austrian School and Chicago School. The use of left-libertarianism as a variant of this philosophy is very different from the use of left-libertarianism as a synonym for libertarian socialism (2).

   There should be one article about this philosophy, which could easily start from Classical liberalism and borrow from the articles about the various variants which would be sub-articles of this article.

   I also believe this philosophy is the primary topic for libertarianism (that is, when people enter "libertarian" or "libertarianism" in the search box, they are much more likely to be seeking an article about this philosophy than an article about any other topic), and so really should be at Libertarianism, but I doubt there is consensus on that point. That's why I suggested Libertarianism (classical liberalism) above, because libertarianism is its most common name, and, if we're going to have something else at Libertarianism, "classical liberalism" is probably the most useful disambiguator.

2. There is also the political philosophy now most commonly known as libertarian socialism or left-libertarianism (not to be confused with the left-libertarianism that is the variant of classical-liberalism (1)) but is sometimes in English, and often in non-English, also referred to as just libertarianism. This philosophy eschews the individual's right to owning property, and is tolerant of using government force to achieve what it views as noble ends, and is thus fundamentally different from (1).

What those two philosophies have in common is very little, and yet that's what editors are currently trying to mash into one topic in this article. As Saruman says, "It will NEVER work." What's perhaps most confusing is the use of left- and right- prefixes with "libertarianism" to distinguish (1) from (2) in some sources as well as to to distinguish variants of (1) in other sources. That's why it's important to look at context when you're reading a source, and understand which sense of the term is intended by the source. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

You demonstrate a marked misunderstanding of what libertarian socialism is (which I now understand is the cause of your confusion about how the two ideologies would be able to go in this article). Libertarian socialists are by no means "tolerant of using government force to achieve what it views as noble ends". In fact, they are completely opposed to the use of violent repression by the government for the same reason that right libertarians are. I think this misunderstanding is stemming from a conflation of "state socialism" (such as Soviet style communism) and libertarian socialism. A strong mistrust of the state (which is believed to be oppressive and unnecessary in general) and promotion of individual liberties are exactly what right and left libertarians have in common; and this philosophy is what this article should be about. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 22:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Noam Chomsky, arguably the quintessential libertarian socialist, is quoted as saying the following in the libertarian socialism article:

I want to work, today, to build a better society for tomorrow – the classical anarchist position, quite different from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc.

If "enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them" is not "[tolerance] of using government force to achieve what it views as noble ends", what is it? In any case, however you characterize/justify that view, it's not consistent with the views of anyone who identifies as a classical liberal or libertarian (1) I have ever encountered or read, but I suggest it is typical of libertarian socialists, as Chomsky's statement exemplifies. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:22, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

And...where in your quote there did Chomsky mention using government force for any of that? BigK HeX (talk) 22:57, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I think he's taking "enforcement" to mean the use of force, which is, in a sense, true -- the government does use force to motivate people to obey the law. But right libertarians believe in enforcing laws as well. I assumed that by "use of force", he meant violent political repression, something that neither left nor right libertarians support, but I seem to have misunderstood him. He was simply making the somewhat tautological statement that people who believe in laws also believe in enforcing them. But I certainly wouldn't have listed support for the enforcement of laws as a difference between left and right libertarians, because it's not. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 23:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, BigK? Jrtaylor, I'm not the only one who read it that way. The sentence that introduces that full quote at Noam Chomsky states, "Chomsky objects to the criticism that anarchism is inconsistent with support for government welfare, stating in part:". Unfortunately, the link is dead and I can't find the original source to verify the full context.

Anyway, who enforces the regulation, provides the health insurance, and supports the systems for people who need them if not the government?

By the way, for an example of the libertarian left that is a variant of libertarianism (1) and not libertarian socialism (supports private property just not corporations), see the Alliance of the Libertarian Left. So let's not conflate libertarian socialists with the libertarian left or left libertarians, not here, nor in our articles.

And of course I'm not saying support for the enforcement of laws is a difference. The distinction is in what kinds of laws are supported by the two philosophies. With few if any exceptions, libertarians(1) support only laws that protect liberties consistent with the Non-aggression principle. That is only laws that prohibit behavior that initiates force against others (e.g., murder, rape, fraud (which protected private property, by the way, robbery) are supported. But libertarian socialists(2) also support laws that, for example, enforce Redistribution of wealth, which violate the property rights of those who have the wealth to start with. The difference between the two philosophies with regard to property rights infuses every aspect of society, making the two resultant societies incomparable. It is truly a f u n d a m e n t a l difference. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:32, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK, in his book "Understanding Power" [7] Chomsky has a chapter subsection entitled "Defending the Welfare State" (p. 344) in which he essentially makes the same point as he does in the quote I cited above. Just in case that heading does not persuade you that he's talking about government, read the last paragraph on p. 346: "Supporting these aspects of the governmental structures just seems to me to be part of a willingness to face some of the complexities of life for what they are...". That's simply not libertarianism in any sense of the word. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:19, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

• "[Chomsky quote]" -- I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate with the Chomsky quote. That Chomsky supports public services like healthcare and education?
• "who enforces the regulation, provides the health insurance, and supports the systems for people who need them if not the government?" -- This is a political discussion better suited to your talk page. I'll respond there momentarily.
• "With few if any exceptions, libertarians(1) support only laws that protect liberties consistent with the Non-aggression principle." -- you are correct, most libertarians, including libertarian socialists believe this.
• "But libertarian socialists(2) also support laws that, for example, enforce Redistribution of wealth, which violate the property rights of those who have the wealth to start with." -- Again, a political discussion better suited to your talk page. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 01:56, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: "That's simply not libertarianism in any sense of the word."

Says... who? You?? I suppose you can try to suggest that libertarians don't use the force of law or only use it for purposes that you are personally aware of.

In the end, even if the source did say what you purport that it does [though your understanding is likely dubious], it still stands that your personal layman opinion of what libertarianism is remains rather irrelevant to what the article will contain. You don't have to accept that, but it's almost certain your intransigence will change nothing. BigK HeX (talk) 02:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

This Chomsky quote: "support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc." has caused me to believe now that the ONE area of common ground that I previously states the two ideologies share -- the preference to individual liberty over government control -- is in fact nonexistant! If as somebody said he is the quintessential left-libertarian, that philosophy indeed seems to be the antithesis of even the most broadly excepted (on both sides may I add) tenet of libertariansm and is indeed just plain old socialism with a word stuck in front so that it sounds nicer and less oppressive. BUT, my own views aside; evidently there is going to be a good deal written on both variants. So we need to manage it like this -- the libertarianism article should be used as sort of a broad spectrum, elements of which are found in many and varied ideologies. It should resemble similar broad articles such as authoritarianism (which is indeed its exact opposite and equivalent on the other end of the spectrum) RATHER THAN treating it as some distinct philosophy on its own when it is not. Have some history, a brief overview of where the variants fall, the prevalence of the variants in terms of time and geography, and a list of the variants. This way, this article which has been a warzone for years and can only continue to do so at the expense of its content, will be simple - but link to other articles that can be long, comprehensive, and usable - and actually get somewhere and improve on a regular basis. I had also thought of the classical liberalism/libertarianism issue. As I see it, and as is explained in that article, libertarianism is merely a modern form of classical liberalism, and is widely acknowledged as such. It should be treated as classical liberalism in the late 20th - early 21st centuries. The only reason it goes by a different name was because socialists in the United States, Great Britain and Canada hijacked the term liberal so as to sound better, whilst Australia and some continental European countries retained the original sense, so naturally classical liberals distanced themselves from a term that had come to mean in a great many places the antithesis of what true, original liberalism meant. Anyway, as long as this page remains as a page trying to deal with a particular philosophy rather than just a broad desciptor like authoritarian that contains many distinct philosophies, one thing is sure - this argument will live on with it. Saruman-the-white (talk) 07:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that we are much closer to a resolution and a plan than we think, basically what Saruman just suggested. Let me work on the last area of disagreement:

Born2, I think that you have just written a masterpiece of an explanation of the main strands and terminologies, of libertarianism, (MUCH more informative in that area than the article)the kind of thing that we need to have in this article to help the reader navigate and give perspective. What better place than this article to explain all of this? But you are arguing for a narrower scope which would ban something like you just wrote. How 'bout we keep the scope of the article broad enough to allow explanations such as what you just wrote? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 09:36, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

A masterpiece?? Hardly. It's a confused amateurish contortion of philosophy.

You may favor their POV, but I don't see their confusion assisting in bringing this article to a less contentious state. BigK HeX (talk) 14:30, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: "caused me to believe now that the ONE area of common ground..."

To Saruman and North8000 and any others, I would advise people not to get their education on philosophy (or Chomsky's views) from a talk page soapbox from someone who misunderstands the topic in discussion. BigK HeX (talk) 14:44, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK:

• In case it hasn't been abundantly clear 10 times over, I don't have a POV, I'm just trying to learn and help move this important article forward.
• Discussions like this occur on all complex topics on successful articles. I think that they are necessary and useful. To get a consensus on material and then sourcing for it. I think that "soapbox" is a an overly-nasty and inaccurate mischaracterization. mis-characterization. Doubly so because they were answering a question that was asked. Lets be nice and have some fun here.
• I should have clarified what I meant when I said masterpiece. I don't have the expertise to know if it is correct. Also, nobody challenged anything in it except on one point which Born2 then seemed to support using sourcing. What I was thinking when I said "masterpiece" is that it is the only coherent (attempted) explanation of the terminologies that I have seen in either the article or the talk page in 10 months. We probably have 4-5 people here who could write some clarity into this confusing article, but nobody is doing it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Whatever your POV may be, you have clearly shown favor for Born2cycle's POV push and jumped to his defense at every turn. That's not even really disputable.

You're entitled to your opinion on his soapboxing. I find the term apropos, especially given the above misinformation as well as the long-dead proposals he is pushing. I am being as nice as is warranted, and I'm enjoying my contributions here.

As for coherence .... there's a coherent explanation of the terminology in the article, and it has the advantage of not being as extraordinarily misleading as Born2cycle's. The article text is quite coherent, though it could benefit from more engaging prose and more depth. BigK HeX (talk) 16:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I show favor for Born2'sPOV push? Huh? There is really only specific article content dispute here (whether or not to narrow the scope of the article), and on that topic I am in opposition to Born2. North8000 (talk) 20:11, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

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BigK and Jr, I really don't understand your objection to what I wrote in #sec break 3. Thank you for the treatise about your POV on my talk page, Jr, but I want to know what you disagree with in what I wrote.

First, I explained in terms of (1) and (2) the two distinct philosophies. I said a lot in those two paragraphs, including covering the multiple uses of "left-libertarianism" and "right-libertarianism" in the sources, and the only objection came from Jr who said I display a "marked misunderstanding of what libertarian socialism is". In particular, Jr claims that "Libertarian socialists are by no means 'tolerant of using government force to achieve what it views as noble ends '". That was really the only objection about all that I said. I then supported my claim that at least the quintessential libertarian socialist, Chomsky, is tolerant of using government force "to achieve what it views as noble ends". Then BigK challenged my claim that Chomsky was referring to government, and I supported that too. That's it. After that the only response BigK had was dismissive and insulting ("amatuerish"), but nothing of substance, thus I really don't understand the objection, expect you just don't like it.

And if Jr is trying to say that Chomsky's tolerance of using government to "enforce the regulation, provide the health insurance, and support the needs of those who need it" is not tolerance of government force, how does he think libertarian socialists expect government to obtain the resources to do all this enforcing, regulating and supporting needs without using, or threatening to use, force? I don't see Chomsky or any libertarian socialists (2) supporting getting rid of all mandatory taxes the way libertarians (1) do (another fundamental difference). If sources say otherwise, please enlighten us.

North, if the Libertarianism article clearly and succinctly explained the distinction, and was much shorter than it is now, I would be fine with it, if we also had another article, like Libertarianism (classical liberalism) devoted to (1) (and continued to have Libertarian socialism devoted to (2)). But it also needs to be clear about the term being used today primarily to refer to (1).

Suruman, let's be careful about conflating "left-libertarians" with "libertarian socialists", because "left-libertarianism" has two primary meanings which are quite distinct. It can be a variant of (1) (e.g., Karl Hess) as well as a synonym for libertarian socialists like Chomsky. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

You are contorting Chomsky's aims (and further confusing people who are inclined to agree with you), but moreover, it's not even clear why you are posting those (inaccurate) thoughts on the article talk page. Nothing you've posted so far suggests any changes to the Wiki article. The article talk page is not the place for you to debating your understanding of Chomsky. BigK HeX (talk) 17:33, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

@Born2cycle: The "treatise about my POV" (which was actually describing multiple points of view) on your talk page was a response to the forum-like political questions you asked before, and are repeating here. I was willing to openly discuss these things with you, but article talk pages are not forums for political discussion, and I will not get into it here. If you're not interested in such discusssions, that's fine; but please stop asking off-topic political questions if you don't wish to have people respond to them. As I mentioned on your talk page, the fact that you feel the need to continue asking questions about what libertarian socialists believe indicates the best thing for you to do is go and read about it before you come here to argue about it. I've already answered your question regarding government, force, and resource distribution on your talk page. You have not responded to that, so I can't help you if you are just going to repeat the question. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 17:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and I've also already responded to your Chomsky quote. Since you're just repeating the same question, I'll just copy/paste my previous answer:

I think [Born2cycle] is taking "enforcement" to mean the use of force, which is, in a sense, true -- the government does use force to motivate people to obey the law. But right libertarians believe in enforcing laws as well. I assumed that by "use of force", he meant violent political repression, something that neither left nor right libertarians support, but I seem to have misunderstood him. He was simply making the somewhat tautological statement that people who believe in laws also believe in enforcing them. But I certainly wouldn't have listed support for the enforcement of laws as a difference between left and right libertarians, because it's not.

Anyhow, even this is really not an appropriate discussion here, and belongs on your talk page. If you don't know what the people you're arguing about believe, that is not a problem, but this is not the place for you to ask people about it. This is a place to discuss article improvements. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 17:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that this IS useful for the development of the article. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Folks, the discussion here IS all about what content should be in this article. We can't write about a topic coherently if we don't have a common understanding of it. Jrtaylor, BigK, how did I contort Chomsky's aims? I originally wrote that libertarian socialists like Chomsky are "tolerant of using government force to achieve what it views as noble ends". I then supported this statement with specific quotes from Chomsky. Are you seriously questioning this? Yes, Jrtaylor, the point is that Chomsky supports public services provided by government which obtains the resources it needs by force like healthcare (education of minors is a separate issue for the same reason that libertarians oppose laws that prohibit drugs use and sales among adults, but support laws that prohibit drug sale to minors).

By the way, Chomsky admits that his usage of the term, which is in line with what it meant historically, is a different meaning from what he says it means "in the US".[8]. Chomsky says the different usage "in the US "means eliminating or reducing state controls, mainly controls over private tyrannies.", implying his meaning, libertarian socialism, does not mean that.

This different meaning (Chomsky's words) needs to be clearly explained in the article.

Jrtaylor, I already explained why your interpretation that I was saying the difference is enforcement of laws was wrong, and I can copy/paste that too.

And of course I'm not saying support for the enforcement of laws is a difference. The distinction is in what kinds of laws are supported by the two philosophies. With few if any exceptions, libertarians(1) support only laws that protect liberties consistent with the Non-aggression principle. That is only laws that prohibit behavior that initiates force against others (e.g., murder, rape, fraud (which protected private property, by the way, robbery) are supported. But libertarian socialists(2) also support laws that, for example, enforce Redistribution of wealth, which violate the property rights of those who have the wealth to start with. The difference between the two philosophies with regard to property rights infuses every aspect of society, making the two resultant societies incomparable. It is truly a f u n d a m e n t a l' difference.

--Born2cycle (talk) 18:19, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

well said born. the reader is left confused if a libertarian would take his property to help the less fortunate, or shoot someone stealing his property. Darkstar1st (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

It's worse than that, Darkstar. By mashing these concepts together as "libertarianism", the reader is left confused if a libertarian would justify taking a wealthy stranger's property to help the less fortunate, or would justify shooting someone for taking his property. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

the reader is left confused if a libertarian would justify taking a wealthy stranger's property ... or would justify shooting someone for taking his property -- Not if the article is written properly. If written properly the reader will understand that left libertarians believe that some rights (such as the right to exist, or the right to not have your drinking water poisoned) take priority over property rights, and that right libertarians do not believe this, and place the right to property on the same footing. There is really no grounds for confusion here, if we make clear what right vs. left libertarians believe. What is common, though, is that both groups believe in the minimization or abolition of government and other coercive social structures as a means of protecting human rights/liberties/freedoms (which may or may not include the right to use property in a manner that harms others). -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 19:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing well said about it, since Born2cycle doesn't even understand what he's posting, and has now posted a bunch of inaccurate confusions about Chomsky's aims. BigK HeX (talk) 19:17, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)BigK, please stop with the ad-hominem attacks. In regard to what I've actually said, all you've said is to ask how I know that Chomsky was referring to government, and I answered that. Was that not satisfactory? What is inaccurate or confusing about what I said? Simply say it's "inaccurate confusions", without explaining why you believe it to be so, is not helpful.

Jr, when you refer to "left libertarians" above, are you referring to left libertarians like Hess or libertarian socialists like Chomsky? If you're not clear about your terminology, it's impossible to understand what you're saying. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I haven't made any ad hominem attacks, so apparently you are unclear as to what an ad hominm would be. Calling your assessments confued is pretty directly addressing your relevant contentions, as opposed to making even the slightest comment on your traits as a person. BigK HeX (talk) 20:19, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

So, the phrase, "BigK doesn't even understand what he's posting" is not an attack on you? --Born2cycle (talk) 20:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

• Folks, the discussion here IS all about what content should be in this article. -- This is incorrect. A large part of the discussion is you asking people to explain to you what libertarian socialists believe, complaining when people answer, and then repeating the questions again. This is better suited for your talk page. Or better still would be if you would just go and read about it before you argue about it, so that editors here don't have to take the time to explain it to you.
• We can't write about a topic coherently if we don't have a common understanding of it. -- Agreed. If you would look at what the term libertarianism means, and could grasp the distinction between economic questions like property rights from political questions the role of the state in society, then I think we would have a common understanding that both right and socialist libertarians are libertarians, who differ on the question of property rights while holding similar views on the state. Yes, statist libertarian socialists would have a very different set of laws than statist right libertarians (while in the case of both right and left anarchists, there would be no "laws", per se). But that doesn't imply that they aren't both libertarians. One group is socialist, and the other is capitalist -- both groups are libertarian. Again, you demonstrate a complete inability to distinguish between a person's economic and political views. Libertarianism is a political philosophy, capitalism/socialism are economic philosophies. Some people, while holding similar views about the nature of the state, have very different economic views. What don't you understand about this? -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 19:52, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Jrtaylor, I know what libertarian socialists believe from reading what they write. I haven't asked anyone about that. The only question I asked was rhetorical in response to BigK's challenge to my assertion about Chomsky talking about using government, which I also supported in terms of quotes from his actual writings. I still think you're conflating left libertarianism, when used to distinguish the philosophy of, say, Karl Hess, from that of, say, Hayek, with left libertarianism when it's used to refer to libertarian socialism. It's confusing, and it's not our fault. But we - all editors of this article - need to be aware of the confusion, and read the sources carefully, and be very careful about what we say in the article so that we're clear about what is meant. That means providing appropriate context to explain the context of the source from which each quote comes, etc. This is standard editorial stuff, with some special challenges due to the nature of this topic.

As to your second paragraph, I don't disagree at all, however, you are using "libertarian" in that paragraph in an unconventional - relative to common use in English today - way. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

And it's quite obvious you would need to read more to alleviate your confusion on Chomsky's aims. I did ask about government in your quote, but now I see where your understanding is flawed. In any case, it's uncertain why you're striking up an article talk page debate on libertarian socialism with only half-cocked understandings based on Chomsky quotes ripped out-of-context.

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO CHANGES IN THE ARTICLE? BigK HeX (talk) 20:26, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll end some of the misconceptions and state that Chomsky does not aim to have a redistributive government.

RE: "I don't see Chomsky or any libertarian socialists (2) supporting getting rid of all mandatory taxes the way libertarians (1) do (another fundamental difference). If sources say otherwise, please enlighten us."

Here's your enlightenment, I hope. (Putting aside the implied attempt to disassociate Chomsky from "libertarians") I'll say that not only does Noam Chomsky support getting rid of all mandatory taxes, he goes further than Born2cycle's preferred libertarian viewpoint in that he supports getting rid of ALL government tax revenue. This is the logical consequence of his ultimate anarchist end of getting rid of all legal, recognized government. This anarchism is noted in the very first Chomsky quote that Born2cycle posted.

Born2cycle's confusion seems to stem from Chomsky's roadmap to ending government. IN THE TRANSITION (and only in some temporary transition) towards having no "mandatory taxes" (and indeed no government to impose taxes), Chomsky does advocate using existing government structures to right past wrongs caused by what he believes to be policies inconsistent with libertarianism, and that this would set the stage for his idea of true libertarianism to flourish. Using government is NOT Chomsky's end, and it is horribly misleading to suggest that it is.

I hope that stops these woeful confusions. BigK HeX (talk) 23:47, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I never said Chomsky's aim is to have redistributive government; I said, unlike libertarians (1), he (and other libertarian socialists) are tolerant of it. Thank you for clarifying that during the (indefinitely long - decades? centuries?) "transition period" he actually promotes it, again, unlike libertarians (1). By the way, on this podcast [9], Chomsky " defends taxes as a means to fund the projects that a democratic people has elected to pursue." How libertarian... not! Listen to the first four words of it... "I'm not against taxes". Can he be more clear? To refer to this man as a libertarian is to turn the term inside-out and upside-down. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:05, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Rage all you want, but your personal opinion doesn't create a monopoly on understandings of libertarianism. And for you (as a supporter of the view where libertarians want GOVERNMENT to exist for various purposes) to suggest that libertarians don't support any taxation is pretty asanine and contradictory.

In any case, I'll leave you to beating your dead horse now. BigK HeX (talk) 00:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Rage? Libertarians (1), including minarchists, talk, write, and promote funding government without mandatory taxes, especially not at the federal level. This is exactly what Chomsky actually favors. Did you listen to him? --Born2cycle (talk) 00:41, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

BigK, you said: "I'll say that not only does Noam Chomsky support getting rid of all mandatory taxes, he goes further than Born2cycle's preferred libertarian viewpoint in that he supports getting rid of ALL government tax revenue. This is the logical consequence of his ultimate anarchist end of getting rid of all legal, recognized government." Unfortunately the evidence is stacked against you there. It is most amusing that he proclaims to support healthcare systems, etc AND get rid of taxation. How will this be funded? And then regulation without government. I am sorry but it is not anarchism. On economic and political views not being seperated by some people - this is because they CANNOT be seperated. Such a very large part of politics is made up by economics and economic principles that you cannot seperate the two. Furthermore, somebody would be expected to support the economic policy that supports their political philosophy - one that the kind of thing chomsky speaks of does not support any purported libertarian philosophy. I think I have come to the exact same conclusion that several others have, and that after giving it any scrutiny, anyone in the public today would - which is the oft quotes phrase that 'libertarian socialism' is indeed an oxymoron and is completely nonexistant. I ask what exactly the difference is when compared to regular socialism, and supposedly its that it supports drastically minimising government -- but the ends that it pursues all require force, taxation, govt, etc. and the lib socialist explanation for this is -- "oh, well in those cases.. umm.. the peoples' right to etc etc service overrides all of that". It is a fairytale this purported ideology. A nice word to put in front when the term socialism went out of fashion. I am sure you are aware that mainstream libertarians and the population at large will never be able to recognise the existence of this philosophy - and that you will always stick to your guns and proclaim its existence as a libertarian philosophy. For god's sake, if we each focussed on our own articles, you would be able to write as much unsubstantiated contradication as you wanted, and as many quotes (except for the ones that embarrassingly sound nothing like any variant of libertarianism) from Noam Chomsky and obscure, little-known ideologues as you want! Just think of that! There is little point trying to improve this article as long as libertarianism isnt merged with classical liberalism and the unknown variant with a following of several university professors is outlined in its own nice article. Despite not sounding particularly friendly, you must know in blunt terms the perspective of the mainstream libertarian community on this issue. Saruman-the-white (talk) 02:03, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

There being some "contradiction" only exists in your personal viewpoint. But anyways, if you have any further soapboxes about trying to paint Chomsky's roadmap or transition towards anarchy as being some inseparable component of libertarian socialism, please reserve those your blog or personal user talk page. This article talk page is not a forum for any rants about the supposed oxymoron in what is the well-sourced material on libertarian socialism. It is in the article because the article reflects the understanding of experts, and reliable sources indicate there is a notable view that the communitarian understandings are just as libertarian as the philosophy espoused by the US Libertarian Party, Cato, etc. Feel free to review any of these many such sources: Talk:Libertarianism#LRSOURCES2. Thanks. BigK HeX (talk) 02:31, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Saruman/Born2, let me throw this devils advocate argument at you....( I could be all wrong) what would you say to it? A significant number of people call themselves "libertarian socialists". They have this impossible dream that it's possible to have both of their agendas.....more freedom/less government, and the core socialism stuff (common ownership of the means of production etc.) (They don't ascribe to the directly-bigger-government stuff that Chomskky does) So they hold both beliefs, have not thought through that in the end socialism requires bigger government, a direct conflict with libertarianism. But they exist, have libertarian in their name, and freedom and minimization of government in their agenda, and so should be covered under libertarianism.  ?? ? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:57, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

You seriously think that this philosophy is a hundred+ years older than the right-libertarianism of the 1950's and that all of the advocates in that time simply "didn't think it through" and would actually just throw their hands up in surrender if you told them "in the end socialism requires bigger government"? Seriously??

And, by the way, people who study this stuff for far longer than the few hours that you (along with myself and others on this talk page) may have dedicated to it have written about how, in the end, socialism does not require ANY government. BigK HeX (talk) 03:47, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

This was putative...essentially saying to Born2/Sarman "even if what you said was right, it should still be in this article". I think that answering your first question does not lead to content and so should not be here. But very briefly, it is quite common (and not incredible) to want two things that conflict with each other without resolving that conflict. North8000 (talk) 10:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the attempt, but there's been more than enough misinformation on the talk page. Your hypothetical probably can be taken literally by those you are addressing, which would just add to the misinformation.... BigK HeX (talk) 14:44, 17 June 2011 (UTC)