I’ve come to the conclusion lately that the libertarian ideology really is just liberalism at its core. It’s just one of the branches of the ideology. Those of us who follow the libertarian ideals are really liberals. Yes, I’m a liberal in the true sense. Statists use the term liberalism because they think that it’s the government’s role to provide people with things and in doing so they forget that despite how well-meaning their intentions are they forget that government programs always lead to coersion and things they don’t want. How can we create an awareness to the public as to what liberalism is and what it isn’t? People seem to think that libertarianism is a crazy idea. However, I doubt they would be able to smear true liberalism.
How would we do this? I mean, I know the anarchists here probably won’t think it’s that big of a deal but I think it matters when you have to always say that your ideas are classical liberal all the time so people know what you mean. It would be a lot easier if you could just say you’re a liberal and have everyone understand what that means without the confusion of the modern liberalism that has taken place.
You can start where everyone starts. Education. Until you can get past making 3 or 4 threads a month on semantics, you’re never going to progress. Instead of worrying about labels, I suggest you get familiar with ideas. Specifically economic education, which is the weakness of many confused ideological libertarians.
It can be a little irritating the way in which ‘liberal’ is used nowadays in the US but it is really of little importance. Labels only serve to reinforce existing conceptions that people have–I, and I suspect many here, want to challenge those conceptions. I don’t care about what philosophies are considered ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, ‘anarchist’, whatever. As, libertystudent says, what is important are the ideas.
Totally agree with Liberty student. The big difference between a liberal - I am european so I use the term for what it really means- and the rest is that he understands that education is to a liberal what location is to a real estate agent, vital.
Thanks for the advice Liberty Student. I’ve been meaning to educate myself on all of the ideas about liberalism. I haven’t gotten around to it though lately because I’ve been mainly trying to figure out how the federal reserve works. I know that being against centralization of the money markets, or, of the money supply is only one of the ideas that liberals are against. I’m not an economist or anything… it’s just taken me months to finally get a grasp about how the fed works. Since I learned about the austrian business cycle I’ve been trying to figure out what the fed has done. Now, I feel ready to tackle other areas with true liberal thought. I agree with you that education is key.
I disagree. True liberalism isn’t about statism. It’s agaisnt control. I’m not all for anarcho-capitalism. That isn’t for me. I would be more in favor of a non-coercive voluntary limited government. The ideas of liberalism have become mutated into something else. Now it is essentially just thought of as socialism.
There isn’t such a thing as true liberalism, just look at the big names: Adam Smith, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Nicolas de Condorcet, Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Hobbes, and Thomas Paine. There beliefs were very different, yet all still believed in the state.
Many of the formulations of “classical liberalism” such as private property, natural rights, self-ownership, and contract formation are all components of modern strands of libertarianism but to say libertarianism is classical liberalism overlooks the very complicated history of both traditions.
Also, non-coercive government is anarcho-capitalism.