How about stop being such an attention whore and turning every thread into a discussion about your views on whatever.
They weren’t Bolsheviks.
Well, I have no insight into the original question. I can say why I call myself a left-libertarian, though. Essentially, I believe that libertarianism (defined as NAP or something like that) is necessary for a free society, but not sufficient. To be free, a society has to be libertarian and, in my opinion, culturally leftist - that is, have things like tolerance for diversity and make it possible to pursue non-monetary values. So I’m a libertarian because of the first part, and add on left- because of the second claim. Of course, I don’t think that it’s acceptable to use non-libertarian means to get those ends. Libertarianism comes first, which is why left is the modifier on it, not libertarian-leftist.
Where you do (and others) get the idea that libertarianism is only about economic (monetary) freedom?
When we say that you own your life, your liberty and your property, this goes just as much for economic matters as it goes for the exchange of any other values.
I don’t get that idea Nielsio. NAP is of course not just about economic freedom, and I don’t think I’ve suggested otherwise. However, it doesn’t include things like not being homophobic or racist, which are clearly compatible with libertarianism.
Now, you might be referring to the fact that one of the leftist values I identified is the option of pursuing options in life that don’t maximize monetary income. It is true that libertarianism does not guarantee such a world. It is possible for such an arrangement to come about in libertopia that there is not sufficient arable land to buy for me to live, and that food is very expensive.
- It really pisses off left libertarians when you bring this fact up (“let’s just say they are both bad”, this works with monarchy vs democracy as well)
And I do love pissing off left-libertarians. Though, as they tend to be economically retarded in addition to being philosophically retarded, they are even more annoying to talk to than Libertarians.
- they have awesome uniforms, this is just a fact
Yes, in fact this is probably something that appeals to me about them: the assertive and aesthetic identarianism, the futurism. I have something of a Heidegger or Ernst Junger feeling about this: there is something to be said for an entire nation basically saying, “F*** you!” to the world and dressing up in midnight black gear with skulls on it, even if their reasons for doing so were ultimately silly.
The fact that the capitalists and entrepreneurs, faced with the alternative of Communism or Nazism, chose the latter, does not require any further explanation. They preferred to live as shop managers under Hitler than to be “liquidated” as “bourgeois” by Stalin. Capitalists don’t like to be killed any more than other people do.
Mises, as usual, was right.
Is that against the rules?
Nope.
Libertarian was actually a moniker created in revolutionary France to identify a movement of proto-communists, so ‘left-libertarians’ are probably ideologically closer to their philosophical progenitors, from what I’ve read in various places. As such, I now consider myself a reactionary liberal in the same sense that Mr Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn did. In Liberty or Equality he explained how the term liberal shares two different meanings:
The American/Anglo-Saxon definition identifies someone who is obsessed with rights, levelling society and all the various strains of leftist thought.
The Continental European definition instead refers to someone who is a traditionalist, a believer in the natural order and deeply suspicious of a managerial, democratic government.
I used to think that libertarianism was being subverted by left-wingers, but now I suspect it was their baby all along.
The zeal of the convert then.
“You’re right. Of course, I’m not a libertarian. I’m an amoralist with a preference for traditionalist or customary property orders who defend themselves with extreme prejudice and absolute ruthlessness. Libertarians are nothing but the antiquated branch of the Progressive movements, which is to say one of the many splinter groups from Atheistic Calvinism born in the American Revolution. Revolution is chaos.”
What are your reasons for preferring the traditionalist order over the hypothetical spontaneous order in a libertarian society as predicted by praxeology?