Wittgenstein’s point is exactly mind. These people are using the word ‘libertarian’ in a nonsensical way.
Considering anyone who is not, for whatever reason, at least as radical as Nozick’s ASU is not a libertarian. Even by historical standards this is less libertarian. The word libertarian essentially means ‘anarchist’, but we can make some exception for the gray area of quasi-voluntarist states of the type Nozick and Machan discuss. We can not, however, make exceptions for welfare programs or warfare states. Those are anti-libertarian, and anyone claiming otherwise is just being obstinate.
And if you insist on arbitrarily redefining libertarian to include Republicrats and liberventionist then it becomes useless. What distinguishes a libertarian from a classical liberal and other meddlers is that he is not a statist.
These people can get their own damn word, or use one of the many that already applies: classical liberal, liberal, constitutionalist, conservative. They can even call themselves ‘libertarian-leaning republicans’. Whatever - what they are not is libertarian.
I’m really interested in your ‘historical standards’. Who are these ‘historical standards’? Who created this ‘historical standard’? Can’t you write down a historical narrative that actually supports it?
I’m glad you’ve acknowledged that you are using the word ‘libertarian’ as a synonym for ‘anarchist’ and playing a ‘whoever is not an anarchist and agrees with me on how to get there’ is not a libertarian. I hope you enjoy it.
Oh, and again; what do you think of someone who advocates voting as a way to gain more liberty?
Now; realize that one could write an op ed arguing for a certain governmental policy x and still be an anarchist. If you hàd some knowledge of history, you would have realized why I made the comparison to the Trotskist/Maoist debate. They have the exact same ‘oh, no, they aren’t tr00 because they advocate x’ even though they both want the same goal.
Notice the similarity:
“These people can get their own damn word, or use one of the many that already applies: anarchist, voluntarist, market-anarchist. They can even call themselves ‘anarchist leaning libertarians’. Whatever - what they cannot claim, is that only they are libertarians.”
I’m really interested in your ‘historical standards’. Who are these ‘historical standards’? Who created this ‘historical standard’? Can’t you write down a historical narrative that actually supports it?
I’m glad you’ve acknowledged that you are using the word ‘libertarian’ as a synonym for ‘anarchist’ and playing a ‘whoever is not an anarchist and agrees with me on how to get there’ is not a libertarian. I hope you enjoy it.
Oh, and again; what do you think of someone who advocates voting as a way to gain more liberty?
Now; realize that one could write an op ed arguing for a certain governmental policy x and still be an anarchist. If you hàd some knowledge of history, you would have realized why I made the comparison to the Trotskist/Maoist debate. They have the exact same ‘oh, no, they aren’t tr00 because they advocate x’ even though they both want the same goal.
what do you think of someone who advocates voting as a way to gain more liberty?
I’m indifferent. I don’t much care about strategery, but there is nothing inherently unlibertarian about using the Death Star against the Empire.
Now; realize that one could write an op ed arguing for a certain governmental policy x and still be an anarchist.
You can always try to sit around and hash out a less-evil plan. That isn’t the point. The point is that many of these people positively advocate more restrictive measures - like carbon taxes - and support warfare statism. Anyone who supports the warfare state is not a libertarian, at all, no way, no how.
Until the Libertarian Party gained a large number of statists after the rejection of Rothbard, ‘libertarian’ was synonymous with anarchist or quasi-anarchist. Everyone who was called a libertarian from Godwin to Rothbard was an anarchist or damn close. Some exception for the leftist European libertarians, but that is a different tradition and still often anarchists. These people are not a different tradition; they’re hijacking the word and muddying the waters.
You’re obviously more interested in being snarky and making apologetics than actually adressing the fact that calling them ‘libertarian’ is just as much a distortion of language as calling corporatism ‘capitalism’ is. This conversation is over, at least until someone else wants to actually discuss it.
Either ways, as my views are shared by the founder and several staff members of this website don’t be to offended if I take your ultra-big-tent strategy with a couple handfulls of salt.
Let’s not forget who doesn’t substantiate his claims:
"I’m really interested in your ‘historical standards’. Who are these ‘historical standards’? Who created this ‘historical standard’? Can’t you write down a historical narrative that actually supports it? "
What ‘distortion of language’? Nearly nobody uses the word ‘libertarian’ as you use it. So who’s ‘distorting’ language? Who’s trying to redefine a word because he wants to use it for ‘his’ philosophy and wants to separate it from ‘the’ others?
What’s there to discuss, really? You have a definition x and because of this definition, a lot of people aren’t libertarians whilst the would be libertarians, given another definition. You know; the one generally accepted and all.
So what’s there to discuss? There is no discussion absent the ‘correct’ interpretation of the word ‘libertarian’. Since you say that your definition is somehow ‘more correct’, feel free to substantiate it. That’s why I asked the question above. You didn’t respond. So…
Nearly nobody uses the word ‘libertarian’ as you use it.
Except, you know, the entire Mises and LRC staff, Murray Rothbard, Benjamin Tucker. But I guess they’re irrelevant. After all, they don’t have big beltway offices!
Nobody said these people were ‘irrelevant’. I said ‘nearly nobody’ - which is just a quantitative statement. Do you understand the difference? And yes, 'the entire Mises - which is, btw not true. Not the entire Mises staff uses the word libertarian as you do - ‘and the entire LRC staff’ ain’t that many people. How many people is that?Maybe a hundred? Let’s say that’s a thousand people. That’s not that many people, really.
If their is a surge, it is probably from the less than stellar economic activitey coupled with things like the Tea Party, Ron Paul, and things like that. It is an inevitable by-product of libertarianism’s rather quick rise in popularity. Either way it is just a political label, I don’t understand how one could picture it to be a non-hyjackable term. This is the way things are and the way things many things get labeled.
“No true Scotsman” can be a very quixotic game to play.
f their is a surge, it is probably from the less than stellar economic activitey coupled with things like the Tea Party, Ron Paul, and things like that. It is an inevitable by-product of libertarianism’s rather quick rise in popularity. Either way it is just a political label, I don’t understand how one could picture it to be a non-hyjackable term.
That’s no reason we should call them libertarians, because we are obviously different from them. We also have historic and consistency claims to the word. Likewise, if we start accepting that they can be called ‘libertarians’, well, I’m sure as Hell not a libertarian then. Just because some people call tails legs doesn’t mean that tails are legs.
Words of human custom and tradition are probably a little harder to keep a tight definition over than common superficial anatomical terms, this would probably be especially true when such a word leaves a more esoteric origin into a more populist world. It also becomes a bit more difficult to tell people they are using the word wrong. Creeds simply don’t cut the mustard when trying to relate to the world of human action and history is just history it is not the world that is lived today, and the relations one has with the world are different than the ones people had 150 years ago .
It is not a matter of accepting who is or is not a libertarian, it is a matter of employing a useful word at a useful moment. You can’t really control how people catagorize such words. What you can do though, is employ a word for yourself other than “libertarian” to seperate yourself from Cowen or whoever when the need arises.
Perhaps this is exactly the problem. When I use the word ‘libertarian’ I mean ‘a philosophical libertarian’. Political terms, like ‘republican’ or ‘liberal’ mean pretty much nothing; the same thing is happening to ‘libertarian’. But I think the answer would be to stop using meaningless political pseudo-terms - which do not reveal, but instead obscure - and simply stick to talking about substantive philosophy. However, this would preclude arbitrarily changing the meanings of words. An Aristotilian is not a Kantian, wherever they may agree or not they are definitely different; and something which is neither is - neither. The word libertarian should be used in the same way, as a term for a coherent philosophy or set of socio-legal positions; not as some sort of arbitrary blanket term for anyone who thinks the government is wasteful or too big. Deng Xiaoping thought the Chinese government was too big; and I don’t see any evidence that Barr or Cowen are any more libertarian than Deng.
well, OP, you have all the rights to be “offended”, but you still do not own words. Just remember, that to some people doublespeak is first language.
Well, I have no ideas about stopping these people from calling themselves libertarians, martians or coal miners. My objection is that their use of the term is disingenuous and confused; the stupid media I expect to do this because they are the stupid media. However, Tyler Cowen is neither an idiot nor ignorant of the core of libertarianism as an philosophy. He is not a NYT dimwit page-filler, he should know better than to call himself a libertarian. Even people who could by rights claim the libertarian philosophical tradition - Gerald Gaus - are circumspect about using the term.
Or take Boaz. I am sure that Boaz would consider Rothbard a libertarian. What does Boaz believe that Rothbard did? How can they both be libertarians? Boaz wants a smaller - perhaps substantially smaller - government. Well, so did Taft. Was Taft a libertarian? I doubt anyone would claim that. Several substantive points, such as centralism, warfarism, some kinds of welfarism and regulations on businesses (civil rights) Boaz has openly advocated. So, on both a philosophical and strategy level, Boaz has abandoned many of the principles core to libertarianism. Being for a less-powerful state or less socially oppressive state does not make you a libertarian. It can make you anything from a Jeffersonian to a technocrat, but libertarianism is much more than some general preference that the state of Arizona not control marijuana consumption.
It is hard to argue that they have any claim on the term ‘libertarian’ when their own use of it is incoherent like that. They categorize as ‘libertarian’ things which are not related. That’s an incorrect way to use words - ANY words.