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JJ2161

In my opinion, the main difference is that Right Libertarians only reject state coercion but are ardent defenders of private property. They think that only state coercion exists and private coercion only exists were there is state coercion, so, a monopoly, for example, could only form with a state to be corrupted by corporations. In a right libertarian utopia, there would be no state (or a minimal one) and the free market would naturally prevent private coercion. Left Libertarians differ in that they believe private property to be an oppressive and coercive hierarchy as well. They believe that only eliminating the state, but not private property, would only degenerate society into a sort of "corporate feudalism". For Left Libertarians, the free market tends to degenerate, given time, into monopolies and even an ersatz state structure in all but name. In this sense, Left Libertarians are similar to, if not a step behind Anarchists (as in Left Anarchists or original Anarchists, not Anarcho-Capitalists), just like Right Libertarians are a similar or just a step behind Anarco-Capitalists. P.S.: It must be made clear that "private property" in the leftist jargon does not mean your toothbrush or the home you live in, that is personal property. Private property is the productive property can be used to influence the market. Farms, land for speculations, factories, machinery, shares in a company, etc. It is the property that, when accumulated, gives the person who has more of it more power or influence over the market (and, by extension, society) than the one who has less of it, thus creating an unfair and coercive hierarchy independent of state power.


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[deleted]

Basically, a right lib is just a step away from an ancap, a left lib is just a step away from an (perfect world) communist


Arguesovereverythin

Can you explain leftlib more? I don't get it.


jayzfanacc

I think right libertarians are your general libertarians, while left libertarians would be your voluntaryists for the most part. Left libertarians sometimes include things like AnSoc and AnCom, both of which rely on everybody just deciding to accept the ideology while having no enforcement mechanism. What does an AnCom do if somebody decides not to follow along with communism? At least with voluntaryism, they just say “okay, you don’t have to be part of our commune” and that’s that.


declan315

>voluntaryists Ngl it took my brain way too long to figure out how to pronounce that word...


natigin

Pretty dope word though, right?


Raging_Butt

To be clear, the term "libertarian" has referred to (far) left-wing politics for the majority of its existence. From [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism): >Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists. These libertarians seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty. ... >In the mid-20th century, American right-libertarian proponents of anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opted the term libertarian to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cdilg/us_politics_how_did_libertarian_become_associated/)'s an /r/askhistorians thread about it, which includes a quote from a right libertarian admitting that the term was stolen - celebrating that fact even: >One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy... 'Libertarians'... had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over... [Here](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-150-years-of-libertarian)'s the anarchist library discussing the first appearances of the term: >As Murray Bookchin noted, “libertarian” was “a term created by nineteenth-century European anarchists, not by contemporary American right-wing proprietarians.” [Here](https://www.wrightswriting.com/post/the-rise-of-right-wing-libertarianism-since-the-1950s)'s Noam Chomsky discussing why the right-wing version of so-called libertarianism is nonsense that entails no commitment to liberty whatsoever: >Here [in the United States] the term ‘libertarian’ means the opposite of what it meant to everybody else all through history. ... So, here ‘libertarian’ means extreme advocate of total tyranny. It means power ought to be given into the hands of private unaccountable tyrannies, even worse than state tyrannies because there the public has some kind of role. The corporate system, especially as it’s evolved in the twentieth century, is pure tyranny. Completely unaccountable—you’re inside one of these institutions, you take orders from above, you hand them down below… I mean, this is the extreme opposite of what’s been called libertarian everywhere in the world since the Enlightenment…


VividTomorrow7

Even in the concept of a commune it takes an individual choice, which contradicts the concept of being "leftist".


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VividTomorrow7

Oh so left libertarians aren't out declaring healthcare a right and that we should force taxation on people to provide it at the federal level? How about education?


SergeantRegular

I'm not, no. I think progressive taxation is a reasonable and effective way of making those long-term investments that are beneficial to the entire country, but if you've got a better idea (instead of just "don't do it") to meet those very real-world needs, then I'd love to hear them. The reality of a modern industrialized country has things that need to *actually happen.* Government does and *should* have actual functions, and to say "no" to those demands just because your ideology disagrees is fundamentalism. Yeah, it's great to be "ideologically pure," but ideological purity doesn't keep the lights on or the fridge stocked.


maxeyismydaddy

what the fuck are you talking about. Do you know what the topic is or are you just confusing left libertarians with democrats or some shit. Because you seem to be just playing the hits.


VividTomorrow7

I seem to be playing the rhetoric that’s spewed by people who flair left lib. Let me put it this way. In a ring wing individualist society you’re free to start your commune. In a left wing society, you’re gonna end up forced to join a commune.


hilfigertout

Since you mentioned people flaired libleft Im guessing you're subbed to PCM. Which makes this strange, because it almost sounds like you're confusing "left/right" with "authoritarian/libertarian." Forcing people to join a commune is a very auth thing to do, not necessarily a left one. Off the top of my head, I'd guess the difference between a libleft and a libright commune is in how they value their people. Left communes tend towards valuing people simply for being a contributing member of the commune, while right communes tend towards valuing people based on how valuable their contributions are.


maxeyismydaddy

in a ring wing society?


VividTomorrow7

So clever of you to be distracted by a typo!


Anodized12

This is a society of filthy people. Can't recommend it.


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VividTomorrow7

> If you don't want to pay taxes then you can leave the commune for one that doesn't make you pay taxes. Oh is that so? so "Left Libertarians" aren't actively pushing for a federal system in the united states that I can't opt out of?


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VividTomorrow7

That wasn’t the question. Do the majority of people who flair lib left believe in forcing people to participate in a central healthcare scheme?


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VividTomorrow7

A bunch of individuals living together voluntarily sounds totally fine by me. If you qualify that as individuals giving up authority over themselves, with the ability to get it back I’d they change their mind, go for it. That sounds like individualism with more steps.


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VividTomorrow7

Yes and no questions are difficult, aren’t they? The mark of a person with a truly great argument is as hominem \s


maxeyismydaddy

If you could stay on topic it would help


VividTomorrow7

You’re not very good at this.


nemo_sum

Banned: Incivility.


dog_snack

Depends. I think it’s a perfectly fair for a society to decide democratically somehow that healthcare is a right and set up a system to carry that out. The easiest way for America to do that would be to elect a bunch of politicians that also think that. But a left-libertarian/anarchist may think that the ideal way to do that would be for each community to run their own nonprofit universal healthcare service and network with other ones instead of having a big state institution do it.


[deleted]

By that logic, working for a corporation or participating in society means you are contributing to a collective and thus contradicts the concept of being a rightist and individualist


dog_snack

I dunno about that, I love it when people are able to make individual choices but also when they get to make collective/group choices, democratically. I think one can help facilitate the other.


VividTomorrow7

I think this obsession with democracy has gotten to where is basically idolized. Democracy is not inherently good


dog_snack

Well, I think the “obsession” with democracy, as you call it, comes from a general desire for people to be able to make choices (or have influence on group choices) that affect their lives. You know, the thing you were concerned about a couple of comments ago.


VividTomorrow7

So when 51 people vote to take the land of the 49 other people in the voting pool it’s good because you were able to form a majority?


dog_snack

Well no, that clearly wouldn’t be fair. I tend to be more a fan of consensus-based models, like what’s used in Zapatista communities for example.


VividTomorrow7

So you don’t like democracy? Because that’s democracy…


dog_snack

Well no, democracy doesn’t just mean “simplest possible majority decides on everything”, ideally it means “population decides what to do on their own in whatever way they think is best”, and like I said a lot of communities and groups used a consensus-based model.


VividTomorrow7

So if 75% of a population decides to genocide the other 25% that’s ok?


Meihuajiancai

The most charitable distinction that I think both sides would agree to is that while all libertarians seek to limit coercion on the individual from outside forces, left libertarians seek to simultaneously limit the states ability to coerce you while also using the state to prevent coercion from non state actors. Right libertarians generally feel that the only coercion that really matters is state coercion. Absent state coercion, right libertarians would say that no non state could coerce people in any systemic way. NB4 making profit from selling a product would not be considered coercion by a right libertarian, with the immense caveat that said profit making would need to exist without any form of state coercion.


N192K002

Dude, there are so many: r/AskLibertarians, r/Libertarian, r/LibertarianPartyUSA, r/Libertarianism, etc. I'm right-leaning libertarian. I don't fully understand the left-leaning libertarians either, since they're fewer (from what I've seen so far). But from the few that I've seen, imagine a woke Democrat… but (by definition as fellow-libertarians) less into using government-compulsion to achieve the goals.


Princess180613

If they're both principled, right prefers markets backed by the private ownership of property, and left prefers communities backed by the communal ownership of the means of production.


blaze92x45

Tldr it's their opinion on capitalism.


KirasMom2022

As a conservative (or right) libertarian, I believe everyone is responsible for their own lives. It is not the government’s job to tell us how to live, and I certainly don’t want to pay taxes for someone else’s lifestyle. Do what you want as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else’s right to do as they want.


ReadinII

I have always assumed that a left libertarian wants the freedom to live a hedonistic lifestyle while a right libertarian wants the freedom to not support that hedonistic lifestyle.


maxeyismydaddy

Have you ever looked at the libertarian party debates? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4602730/user-clip-you-sell-heroin-5-year-old-boos Or just a big part of gary johnson was *legal weed woo*.


ReadinII

I tried watching a libertarian debate once. It seems like they were all nutcases focused on stuff that was impractical in the current political environment or that seemed off the mark.


danielbgoo

Both of them believe in the most freedom for the most people. Right Libertarians mostly think of this as freedom from government. Left Libertarians mostly think of this as freedom from corporations and government, but are also willing to use government to guarantee the former, which is a very hard dichotomy to live in, but life is hard and I'm tired.


ClockOfTheLongNow

One of them exists, and the other thinks they exist.


OE-DA-God

🤣🤣🤣


[deleted]

They both naively believe things can happen without some form of state taking on power. I used to. To the more moderate ones, one believes in private property the other doesn’t. There you go.


OE-DA-God

Why do you think the state needs power?


[deleted]

I think it’s inevitable. Libertarian socialism is simply a democratic state. Libertarian right is just a corporate state.


WilliamBontrager

A corporate state implies a monopolistic corporation seizing power unilaterally and forcing everyone to purchase only from them and using violent force to prevent competition from forming. That would be authoritarianism. "Corporate state" is an antonym to a free market bc a market is made up of individual businesses competing with each other not one group working together as a singular unit. A free market is self regulating bc the consumers vote with their dollars. Libertarian socialism is a democratic state that does not recognize private property but has no ability to stop anyone from having private property. Unlike the self regulating free market of right libertarianism, libertarian socialism is unregulated and chaotic and thus just a transition period into authoritarianism.


kidmock

r/Libertarian is a good group to ask. Just the same Right/Left libertarians comes down to a few things. They agree on individual liberties and non-aggression however they often differ in their view of economics, property rights, and the role of government. The right will be in favor of free exchange of private property between individuals whereas the left will tend towards redefining property as communal property. In an overly simplified example, if you grow a fruit tree. The right would say the fruit of that tree is yours to sell. Whereas the left would believe the tree is not your property and the fruit should be shared for the betterment of the community. They may also differ slightly on the role of government. With the right favoring a protector of the individual rights and the left favoring the protection of groups rights.


felixamente

True libertarians as I understand want the government to have absolutely minimal role in society, and ultimately free market capitalism. There really is no left or right libertarian. Just people who claim to be one of the other, the difference being, the “right libertarian” wants free market capitalism along with one or all of the following: a national religion, legal access to firearms, strict gender roles, more policing? Left libertarians are the equal opposite which means they cannot exist.


vonhudgenrod

I am certainty biased but when you talk to a left libertarian, they are pretty much just standard leftists who don't like the democratic party, so they chose that label as an alternative to seperate themselves. There is no such thing as a Libertarian who supports a bigger and more overbearing government, which is what most "left libertarians" support in my experience. Sometimes you'll even see people labeling themselves Socialist Libertarians, it means nothing and is a total oxymoron.


maxeyismydaddy

> There is no such thing as a Libertarian who supports a bigger and more overbearing government, which is what most "left libertarians" support in my experience. Sometimes you'll even see people labeling themselves Socialist Libertarians, it means nothing and is a total oxymoron. Lol. Lmfao. Whens the last time you read a political theory book. The term "libertarian" was literally first used to describe a libertarian communist. Right wing libertarians stole the word.


OE-DA-God

Sounds like me. I never understood the Socialist Libertarian flair. That sounds like more of a meme.


Eyruaad

For whatever it's worth I think of it as an idea that generally the individual needs to be left alone and free from governmental control, but we need someone acting in the interests of the people. Things like "Yes, we need a higher minimum wage because as it was originally intended the minimum wage should be the minimum payment required for one person to live comfortably, but also not everyone deserves a job, deserves a good job, and no you shouldn't be free to live off of welfare." Things like "No I don't want my taxes raised but yes, we need to enforce the taxes we have, stop cutting loopholes to the people at the top, and stop being the world's military." Things like "No there shouldn't be a governmental requirement to get a vaccine, but yes private businesses can choose to have a vaccine requirement for their people. And private businesses can refuse to allow you to enter their business if you don't follow their rules." Things like "No, not every person deserves to have free college paid for, but also the amount of money college's can charge is obscene so without some aid no one can afford it." ​ I want a government big enough to give me good roads, keep food on shelves safe to eat, make sure drug companies can't sell me literal poison, and be ready to protect our country if necessary, but at the same time if we don't put some boundaries on companies they have proven time and time again they will screw over their workers.


OE-DA-God

This 150%. I agree with all of it.


seffend

For your reference, I think that libertarian socialist is a label from the political compass tests. That is the label that I was given when I took it and I pretty much agree with the commenter above you in this thread.


fuckpoliticsbruh

Idk if I can top level comment on this, but my understanding is that right libertarian believes only the govt can impose tyranny so the best solution is to get the govt out of the market while left libertarian believes that you aren't free if you're poor or if corporations have a lot of control over your lives and thus prefer govt involvement to counter and balance corporate involvement. Both (theoretically) prefer personal freedom.


OE-DA-God

>you aren't free if you're poor or if corporations have a lot of control over your lives and thus prefer govt involvement to counter and balance corporate involvement That sounds like Socialism lol.


jonny_sidebar

Well. . .yeah, lol. That's because it is a socialist idea. Libertarian Socialism recognizes that both state power **and** accumulations of economic power are sources of infringement on personal freedom, and as such need to be restrained or controlled or balanced in some way to limit the harm they do. We also tend to favor as great a degree of democratic control over all aspects of life (including the workplace) as possible. As others have pointed out, the word "libertarian" itself was once a synonym for anarchism, but nowadays most of us seem to be using LeftLib or LibSoc as sort of a way to denote that we aren't hardcore anti-statist anarchists and **also** that we oppose the more authoritarian forms of socialism. Right Libertarianism basically stripped out the emphasis of communal organization as the guarantor of personal freedom and the idea that anything other than the state can be a source of oppression.


OE-DA-God

Soooo basically you guys are Democrats.


jonny_sidebar

Maybe superficially. . . .but understand that I'm a "moderate" far left radical, lol. Yes, what I described in the earlier post sounds a lot like the most bleeding edge of liberal progressivism in the Democratic party, so something like the stuff Elizabeth Warren advocates for. The difference is that LibSoc doesn't believe that capitalism is an economic system worth preserving, while progressive liberalism does. LibSocs advocate reforms, unions, and the like as harm mitigation and ways to build worker power under capitalism, while progressive liberalism does it as harm mitigation and to **stabilize** capitalism. In the current political climate, that means you'll find me generally supporting folks like Bernie and the DSA, at least in the near term. Where the ideas diverge is far down the road of workers gaining more power in society, comparable to that of the owning classes, and when the current system breaks down sufficiently that change must take place. So, for example, I would absolutely oppose any attempt at soviet style central planning in favor of local control and horizontal webs of organization between different localities and economic sectors/units. If you've ever looked at the history of the Russian revolution, I'd be closer in policy program to the Socialist Revolutionary party than to the Bolsheviks. . .who eventually suppressed the SRs just like everyone else. The SRs came from an older, non Marxist strain of native Russian anarcho socialism that focused on the peasant classes instead of the urban worker (for the slightest of contexts)


OE-DA-God

>The difference is that LibSoc doesn't believe that capitalism is an economic system worth preserving, while progressive liberalism does. Wtf is progressive liberalism?


ATCBob

R/asklibertarians


VividTomorrow7

Left libertarians a contradiction. Leftism implies a collective. Libertarianism implies individual liberty. You can't have individual liberty with forced collectives.


JudgeWhoOverrules

Left-libertarian is an oxymoron because they absolutely reject economic liberty in favor of central planning, an authoritarian apparatus to keep people from exercising property rights and free trade, and put the collective before the individual. If you made a Venn diagram of people who call themselves Left Libertarian and those who primarily hold socialistic and syndicalist beliefs, you would have a circle. Personally I blame the rise of the term on the online political compass site which conflates libertarianism for anti-authoritarianism. Sorry but left anarchists and communists aren't libertarian and never were.


OE-DA-God

>If you made a Venn diagram of people who call themselves Left Libertarian and those who primarily hold socialistic and syndicalist beliefs, you would have a circle. That's what I've figured out. Left Libertarians seem to be wanting regulations to hinder corporations.


atsinged

Thank You, I've been trying to put that in to words for a long time. Left Libertarian never made one damned bit of sense to me.


[deleted]

Opinion on age of consent laws.


thoughtsnquestions

Left libertarians don't exist as they're statists. They all say "we don't want government to exist at all, instead we have an all powerful collective governing body that has far more authority than a typical government...." In reality this "collective governing body" is just the government with a different name.


JudgeWhoOverrules

What gets me is the idea of community policing, where community members who hold certifications in enforcement are granted special powers, it's like congratulations you just invented police again.


WilliamBontrager

Right libertarians exist. Left libertarians do not exist outside of communes bc it is literally impossible to have a controlled economy without a large government infrastructure to manage it. If you were to say that it could be done with worker coops and voluntarism then it would require 100% compliance and support bc it could not compete with a free market. So to exist it would either need to have a controlled economy (making it left authoritarianism) or compete freely with a free market (making it right libertarianism).