You can’t be a libertarian leftist
Posted by gunsoverbutter@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 14 comments
I’m sure you all have seen this political spectrum grid. With “economic” on the x axis and “authoritarian / libertarian” on the y axis.
This is absolute nonsense the more you think about it. There is no way you can be a “libertarian leftist”. Leftist by definition, means government force. You can’t have a single leftist ideal without government mandated taxation, extortion, or threats.
Free education? Government has to pay for it through forced taxation.
Free healthcare? Again, forcefully taxing citizens against their will. Plus now the government gets to dictate your level of healthcare based on their whims.
Government welfare? Paid with taxes, against your will. Otherwise it would be charity and done voluntarily.
There’s not a single leftist ideal that can paid for through voluntary contribution and mutual benefit. If it was possible, then it would already be handled voluntarily, and government mandated taxation wouldn’t be necessary.
As much as people want to make the political spectrum a 3D grid, it’s simply not reality. You have a left right spectrum, and every policy either requires more or less government.
The less government you want, the more libertarian you are. If you want policies that require government force (mandates, taxation, economic meddling, etc) then you really aren’t very libertarian.
James_0389@reddit
lol what is the point even of this compass?
The ‘examples’ are just repeating what quadrant they are in…
BorisKamkov@reddit
This kind of theory bs isn't all that useful. Some of my most effective anti-statist friends are leftists, but they get shit done. That can't be said of all leftists of course, but I think what a person does with their anti-gov ideology, no matter what exactly it's called, matters much more than a name we can fight over on the internet
hazbinmay666@reddit
im a anarchist communist doe
SadTumbleweed1567@reddit
Left versus right is a horrible way to frame political dialog because there really aren't good definitions for either.
All of your points center on taxation. Taxation alone doesn't make one an authoritarian. Libertarianism is an umbrella of ideologies which includes classical liberalism; an ideology that fundamentally recognizes the necessity of the state in organizing the societies of men, while also recognizing its destructive potential and seeking to limit it. The objective reality is that the world is organized into states. The state has proven to be the most effective form of government in staving off outside threats to a political society. As libertarians, we all recognize the faults of the state and seek to limit its authority, to keep the political power of the state divided, and to generally have political power retained by the individual.
You mention different types of welfare. There used to exist mutual aid societies in the US. When the Great Depression hit, any nobody had work, the funds of these societies ran dry rather quick. With the programs of the New Deal, those societies never rebuilt. With the general, consistent economic prosperity of the post-World War II United States, maybe that model could have worked barring the recession of the 1970s and of course the Great Recession.
Moving back to the compass itself, the compass test when I last took it doesn't distinguish between a person answering a question about how society should look, and whether that person thinks it is the role of government to enforce that view upon society. So an individual can be religious, and the compass puts them on the right. A person can think that worker cooperatives are more just than the modern shareholder corporation, and the compass puts them on the left. Libertarianism versus authoritarianism is about the use of force by the state, not what somebody thinks an ideal society looks like.
bourbonandpistons@reddit
My favorite people on Reddit are libertarian socialist.
AutoModerator@reddit
Libertarian socialism is an oxymoron. The core tenet of libertarianism is private property beginning with the recognition of ownership of self and your own body and extending to ownership of that which is self-acquired and self-produced with that body.
Socialism and communism deny private property rights, and the right of ownership of what is self-acquired and self-produced.
This means they deny the ownership of self, and someone who does not own themselves is a slave.
Socialism and communism are totally incompatible with libertarianism, and are nothing more than forms of chattel slavery dressed up in pretty words to serve collective masters. Wealth robbery by the collective is just as immoral and unjust as much being robbed at gunpoint by an individual.
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tenpl_sten@reddit
Good bot
b100darrowz@reddit
One of the best bots
Soulr3bl@reddit
Yes I listen to that sub just to understand, I think part of the position of the Libertarian left is that their breed of libertarian philosophy predates modern canonical Von Mises / Rand. But, that's kind of like saying that Slavery is fine because you're a Republican originalist in the spirit of Aristotle.
CattrahM@reddit
There’s not really a name/place for those of us who believe the government should be small and focused but also believe it’s important that the government takes care of its citizens that can’t do for themselves. I guess liberty and humanity struggle to coexist under one governing body.
future_pirate@reddit
Regardless of if you think it's a realistic ideology you could say ancoms are lib left.
AutoModerator@reddit
Anarcho communism is an oxymoron. A system as imbecilic as communism can only remain in place with the force of the state.
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AutoModerator@reddit
Left libertarianism is an oxymoron. There can be no liberty without economic liberty.
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SwarmOfFlies@reddit
Yikes.