Is there a difference? The Wikipedia articles on the two terms are certainly very different.
A lot of different meanings are used. I for one use classical liberal as a more general term; of which libertarianism is a part. Other use them as synonyms; other use them as really distinctive terms. So I don’t think there is really a clear and cut answer to it.
Classical Liberals include minarchists, although libertarian arguably does as well. I would say it really breaks down into CL’s being economically libertarian, while social libertrainism is not a prerequisite.
I’m inclined to regard libertarianism as the development of classical liberalism during the 20th Century.
Historically, liberalism had accepted the necessity of the state as the protector of peace and property, while still holding to the view that it was a necessary evil. And while political decentralization had always been advocated by liberals, some in the nineteenth century broke from this, and advocated national states to advance the liberal cause, most notably in Germany.
Classical liberalism is descended from this mindsight, or at least that’s how I see it given historical context. Libertarianism is, to me, anyway, more of a system of ethics derived from the non-aggression principle and extended to form a political philosophy. It is more radical and sees the state as even more dangererous than liberals saw it.
While some would disagree, I see it this way: classical liberalism = control the state to maximize liberty, libertarianism = get rid of the state to maximize liberty. Libertarians may be seen as classical liberals who, given the advantage of time and historical perspective, have come to the conclusion that limited government is an impossibility.
Classical liberal means “the old meaning of liberalism”, which is the European meaning of liberalism, which is a tradition of negative rights under the state model.
Libertarian is also the negative rights idea, but appears a bit more of a general statement.
Simply put: Liberals believe that the state should be kept as small as possible. Libertarians believe that the state should be abolished.
“Government is not, as some people like to say, a necessary evil; it is not an evil, but a means, the only means available to make peaceful human coexistence possible. But it is the opposite of liberty.” – Ludwig von Mises, Liberty and Property
/facepalm
Ludwig von Mises was a classical liberal, and your point is?
Classical liberalism was less consistent and had no core principles except vaguely defined things like tolerance,equality etc.Sometimes by sheer accident Classical liberals came out with rather good across the board positions e.g. Richard Cobden,Bastiat etc whereas others did not.It’s hard to tell when/where classical liberalism becomes libertarian since it’s somewhat blurry and older figures considered classical liberal e.g. Herbert spencer where more libertarian than for example ‘old right’ figures such as say Rose Wilder Lane who lacked a core principle to guide her positions(and was closer to classical liberalism)
As I said, I believe that that libertarianism advocates total or partial anarchy (minarchism) , whereas liberalism doesn’t. Therefore I don’t think it is possible, nor fair, to identify past liberals with libertarianism; a much fairer characterisation would be one dealing with deceased anarchists.
It still beats having wrong principles, no?