Talk:Libertarianism/Archive 42

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The use of the "right" prefix

As we have seen, the term "right-libertarianism" is rather controversial. The proper context needs to be provided for readers regarding those who employ it and their reasons for doing so. This cannot all be accomplished in the lede. I have attempted to remedy this situation and user Davide King has repeatedly reverted my edits. In the current last sentence of the lede, a new employment of the term "libertarian" is described. The sources provided do not employ "right" as a prefix, but just "libertarian". JLMadrigal @ 11:44, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@JLMadrigal: Please, stop editing it and discuss it here. It isn't "rather controversial" in reliable sources. I just added the sources that use right-libertarian. You also don't seem concered with Left-libertarian ideologies include anarchist schools of thought alongside many other anti-paternalist, New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism as well as American left-libertarianism such as geolibertarianism, left-wing market anarchism and the Steiner–Vallentyne school. They generally don't refer as left-libertarian either. We decided to make Libertarianism broad (there's already Libertarianism in the United States for what you're searching for) and therefore we use left-libertarian and right-libertarian, even if both may call thesmelves simply libertarians. This is a categorisation supported by many reliable sources and since Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism are still here to stay, they should be mentioned in the lead that way.--Davide King (talk) 13:37, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
Since this use of the term "right" is at odds with common use - which typically implies nationalism, religiosity, and restrictions on personal liberties (which the ideology in question vehemently opposes) - it is inevitably confusing to the average reader. Thus a clear explanation of such nuanced usage is required early on. JLMadrigal @ 04:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
@JLMadrigal: Ugh, how many times I have to repeat you that the term doesn't imply that but merely that it's to the right of the libertarian movement; whether you agree or not with socialism on the left and capitalism on the right, that's the way political scientists have put it. You're also again conflating libertarianism in the United States with right-libertarianism as a whole; not all libertarianism in the United States is right-libertarian, so I don't see your issue beside "I don't like it". Also the same is done with left-libertarianism and left-libertarians but I don't see you moaning about that.--Davide King (talk) 18:47, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Request for Comment Regarding the Use of the Prefix "Right-" to Describe Proponents of Libertarian So-Called "Capitalist" Economics

A discussion that has been taking place for quite some time, and that had been nearly settled - originally on the "right-libertarian" talk page, and now on this discussion site - has stalled due to two editors (one of which was recently banned from editing - no doubt for similar conduct). It involves the confusing use of the term "right-libertarian" to describe an ideology that is admittedly not identified with the political right. Self-described "left-libertarians" have a nuanced definition of "capitalism" that distinguishes it from the "free-market" with which the group in question identifies. The "right-libertarian" page was to be renamed with a term that is more understandable, and this page was to incorporate a clarification of the usage of the term. JLMadrigal @ 20:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  • I'll take the question as to be whether to call the form of libertarianism common in the US and other similar forms that at least tacitly accept capitalism "Right-libertarian". IMO the answer should be NO. The first reason is that it violates wp:CommonName. It is not called that where it is practiced, and it is also not the common name where it isn't practiced. The only place that term is used is in a small circle of writers who are centric on forms of libertarianism which reject capitalism and define forms of libertarianism which accept capitalism through the lens of their own form. The numbers of participants in capitalist-accepting form of libertarians are huge. Polls have it that 27% of the US votes that way, and 23% self-identifies as such. For the practitioners, "right-libertarian" is not only not the common name, it is an oxymoron, naming it after a political group (the "right") which about 1/2 of their ideology is diametrically opposed to. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 21:58, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @North8000: No one is saying, nor me nor anyone else, to rename Libertarianism in the United States to Right-libertarianism in the United States. I already explained that not all libertarianism in the United States is right-libertarian and that JLMadrigal is conflating libertarianism in the United States with right-libertarianism as a whole and viceversa. I'm honestly tired of this when there're clearly reliable sources that support the current consensus and other users that also found no issues with it back in July.--Davide King (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @North8000: Once again, what you're referring to when you say "Polls have it that 27% of the US votes that way, and 23% self-identifies as such" is already discussed in Libertarianism in the United Statesǃ Libertarianism in the United States refers to that; right-libertarianism refers to another thing, hence why they're separated.--Davide King (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I think that a lot of discussion at the right-libertarian article has established that the current topic is the form which is most-practiced in the US. My point in brining up the numbers/prevalence here is realted to my CommonName argument. If I'm not mistaken, I think that you would agree with this statement(?) North8000 (talk) 22:34, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @North8000: There's no consensus to do what you and JLMadrigal support. @Pfhorrest: and I are opposed to that. Whatever our differences, Pfhorrest, @The Four Deuces: and I seem to agree on right-libertarianism. All the users that opposed the move back in July also agree with this position; @Velociraptor888: also opposed your proposals. You're clearly in minority, but JLMadrigal acts like it's a majority in support of its own proposal. I think you and JLMadrigal simply have a wrong understanding of the matter. Despite being more prominent and known than left-libertarianism in the United States, right-libertarianism is still a minority within libertarianism in the United States, whose majority is closer to classical liberalism or a more radical variant of it, exampled by the Libertarian Party, rather than Nozick's minarchism or Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism. Right-libertarianism refers to the Rothbard–Nozick libertarianism that has expanded worldwide and not just to libertarianism in the United States as you may think. This would include many libertarian parties that have been founded worldwide but that called themselves libertarians because they saw their own country's classical liberal party as not liberal and anti-statist enough. Also I repeat that while self-identification is important, it's not everything, especially when libertarianism is so broad to identify two or more vastly different libertarians as libertarian. Nazis identified themselves as national-socialists, but political sources and reliable source refers to them as German fascism. Many populists also don't identify with either the left and the right, but that doesn't stop political scientists and reliable sources from identifying and labelling them as right-wing populists instead. I think Libertarianism should be like Populism, with a main article like this and two sub-articles like Left-libertarianism (Left-wing populism) and Right-libertarianism (Right-wing populism). Wikipedia bases itself on reliable sources and verifiabily, so self-labelling isn't enough to justify the removal of a prefix, especially when it's done to distinguish different strands of libertarians. All of JLMadrigal's proposals are biased in favor of its own brand of libertarianism because, besides a minority in the United States, left-libertarians don't label themselves as such either, but it doesn't care. Indeed, all of this was a compromise so as not having to decide who was the true libertarian (so Libertarianism includes both and we also have Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism that refers more to a specific strand of libertarianism).--Davide King (talk) 23:50, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I repeat that you're confusing right-libertarianism for libertarianism in the United States and viceversa. Your numbers don't mean much, especially when it's been established by a similar poll that many people who identify as libertarian don't even know what the word means. Wikipedia works by reliable sources, not merely numbers or polls like that. Either way, I repeat that what you're referring to when you say "Polls have it that 27% of the US votes that way, and 23% self-identifies as such" is libertarianism in the United States; right-libertarianism doesn't necessarely refer to that.--Davide King (talk) 23:50, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about that, besides PhilLiberty, who has also made other questionable and POV-pushing edits. Either way, you didn't include the ones who rejected the move and found nothing wrong with the current title back in July.--Davide King (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • JLMadrigal, I need to make a clarification. I'm not opposed to term right-libertarianism. I'm opposed to Left- and Right-libertarianism being separate articles. Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 12:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I’m away for the holiday weekend so can’t comment at length but I wanted to point any editors new to here to the extensive rebuttals to North and Madrigal’s arguments above.
Also this RFC seems improperly worded (you’re supposed to neutrality frame the debate and Madrigal has not done so) and in the wrong list (this should be under political science or philosophy, not economy companies etc). —Pfhorrest (talk) 04:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Since the core of the debate is the nuanced interpretation of the word "capitalism", and whether an economic interpretation of free markets can be readily separated from it, I am soliciting experts in the field of economics. While political views of the libertarians in question regarding personal liberty clearly fall to the left on a standard political chart, and while such positioning clearly disallows positioning it to the right, further supporting revision of the title, the main issue is economic more than political. Libertarians in general - including those described - tend to be apolitical or antipolitical, and seek nonpolitical (primarily economic) solutions to social problems. JLMadrigal @ 06:30, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Pfhorrest: I absolutely agree about the way this RfC has been worded. I would also say that this isn't a decision that can be based merely on personal thoughts and opinions but rather on what reliable sources say. As far as I'm aware, reliable sources support the current naming and consensus. @JLMadrigal: This comment clearly show your bias in seeing capitalism as the free market when this isn't supported by facts nor by the Capitalism lead.--Davide King (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I also reitarate my results:
  1. Right-libertarianism — common name (Google Scholar results 38.500; left libertarianism is at 32.700)
  2. Libertarianism (common U.S. meaning) — more approprate as a proposal for Libertarianism in the United States, which is prefered due to not having disambiguation and consistency with similar articles such as Conservatism, Liberalism, Modern liberalism and Progressivism in the United States (Google Scholar results 44.900, but conflated as they're about what's talked in Libertarianism in the United States)
  3. Libertarianism (U.S. usage) — as above (Google Scholar 10.200)
  4. Libertarianism (common U.S. usage) — as above (Google Scholar 28.600)
  5. Modern libertarianism — biased as modern libertarianism include much more than that (Google Scholar 32.700)
  6. Libertarian capitalism — the less worse title, but still less common than right-libertarianism, although it could be a separate article discussing laissez-faire capitalism (Google Scholar 32.700)
  7. Contemporary libertarianism — biased as contemporany libertarianism include much more than that (Google Scholar 30.900)
  8. Mainstream libertarianism — biased as it's only the mainstream in the United States (Google Scholar 14.400)
  9. American libertarianism — already redirects to Libertarianism in the United States and rightfully so; still, the article should be about this form internationally and nore just in the United States (Google Scholar 35.600)
  10. American-style libertarianism — not the worst option; indeed the International Alliance of Libertarian Parties is what I'd describe as American-style libertarianism since the parties themselves were based off the American Libertarian Party; still biased as American libertarianism also includes left-libertarianism (Google Scholar 3.810 as American-style libertarianism and 16.300 as American style libertarianism)
  11. Negative-rights libertarianism — it seems to overlap with Natural-rights libertarianism (Google Scholar 3.960 as negative-rights libertarianism; 23.000 as negative rights libertarianism)
  12. Laissez-faire libertarianism — it'd be like calling socialism Social-ownership socialism, or calling communism Common-ownership communism (Google Scholar 19.500)
  13. Free-market libertarianism — see above (Google Scholar 26.100)
  14. Center-north libertarianism — found not a single use of this term (Google Scholar 107; not one that actually refers to it)
  15. Libertarian (political typology) — the article isn't about a voter demographic; it should be a separate article and titled Libertarian (U.S. political typology) to clarify it what type of libertarin it refers to (Google Scholar 18.000)
  16. Libertarian — should just redirect to Libertarianism; we also already have Libertarianism (disambiguation), if you want this proposed page to be similar to a disambiguation page that explains the terms (Google Scholar 166.000; false results as it can refers to anything related to libertarianism).

All in all, all these terms are mainly related to Libertarianism in the United States (hence why some of them may have much higher results when searching on Google) and not refer to the specific concept of right-libertarianism (not all Libertarianism in the United States is right-libertarianism). So I'd give only right-libertarianism "good idea" and all the rest "bad idea". And surprise, surprise, right-libertarianism has the most results on Google Scholar, even more than names that referred to libertarianism in broad terms.

Right-libertarianism is the common name; other names proposed here either refer to libertarianism in the United States or are biased and irrelevant in comparision. Although I can respect North8000's opinions and proposals while disagreeing with them, JLMadrigal's are based in I don't like it rather than reliable sources. JLMadrigal is only concerned about right-libertarianism and isn't concerned with left-libertarianism, which is just as oxymoronic as right-libertarianism, since libertarianism originated as a left-wing philosophy and movement that has now over 150 years of history, which for JLMadrigal don't matter.--Davide King (talk) 12:01, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

When we were headed towards a resolution, it was simply that, and very different than my opinions at the beginning of that lengthy discussion. This RFC isn't about that, it is a narrower question regarding the "right-libertarian" term. North8000 (talk) 12:36, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

What resolution? There can't be no resolution without also considering the users who saw nothing wrong with the title back in July, or Velociraptor888, who also saw nothing wrong with the title and opposed the merge; nor without considering all the reliable sources that support it. So what's this new discussion even about? It's simply JLMadrigal again not liking that we use right-libertarian; but not caring about the same being applied to left-libertarian.--Davide King (talk) 12:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
We had settled on Option 16 "Libertarian". "Libertarianism" describes a range of political philosophies, while "libertarian" describes those who identify with the most common use of the term, and typically don't have a political agenda - other than freedom from politics and politicians. These are distinct topics. Although we had a majority, the title dispute is more a question of having an accurate and understandable title and article. While so-called "left-libertarians" have strong opinions on the way things should be, minarchists and anarcho-capitalists tend to concur that markets left to themselves tend to autocorrect - thus tend to oppose politics in general. JLMadrigal @ 13:33, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
"We" who exactly? That surely doesn't include me or all other users that see nothing wrong with the term. It wasn't a decision based on reliable sources (what Wikipedia is based on, along with verifiability) but merely on personal opinions. Anarchists and other left-libertarian and libertarian socialists also tend to oppose politics in general; and classical liberals also tend to concur that markets left to themselves tend to autocorrect, so what's your point?--Davide King (talk) 13:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Libertarianism is about libertarianism in broad terms, including both left-libertarianism, right-libertarianism and libertarianism in the United States; Left-libertarianism is about anarchism/libertarian socialism, socialist libertarianism and other anti-capitalist and egalitarian, if not socialist, left-leaning philosophies such as Georgism, the Steiner–Vallentyne school and American left-libertarianism such as Carson–Long and other left-Rothbardian libertarians; Right-libertarianism is about Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism and Nozick's minarchism (whether you agree with this doesn't matter as that's what reliable sources refer to); and Libertarianism in the United States is about American libertarianism in broad terms, including classical liberals (fiscally conservative/economical liberal and cultural liberal/progressive), left-libertarians such as the Steiner–Vallentyne school and Carson–Long and other left-Rothbardian libertarians; centrist/mainstream libertarians; and right-libertarians, the libertarians that are culturally conservative. What do you disagree with any of this, JLMadrigal?--Davide King (talk) 13:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Here is the tally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Right-libertarianism#Results
We had decided that "libertarian" is a common political typology used by voters, pollsters, and individuals, and that "libertarianism" refers more generally to the range of political ideologies and agendas so identified. We decided to keep and rename the article, with few changes, and keep a "right-libertarianism" page for the purpose of disambiguation. JLMadrigal @ 14:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
That tally doesn't include mine and other users that already saw nothing wrong with right-libertarianism. I'm not opposed to a libertarian political typology such as Libertarian (political typology) or Libertarian (U.S. political typology), or a Libertarian disambiguation page. What I'm opposed to is renaming Right-libertarianism or deleting/merging Right-libertarianism and Left-libertarianism.--Davide King (talk) 14:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Case in point. You describe "right-libertarians" as "the libertarians that are culturally conservative". That is Libertarian conservatism, which already has its own article. JLMadrigal @ 15:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
No, I was saying that in the United States right-libertarianism refers to culturally conservative libertarians such as with paleolibertarianism whereas outside of the United States it refers to Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism and Nozick's minarchism.--Davide King (talk) 15:32, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
That tally was conducted in a method completely made up and independent of Wikipedia procedures and does not at all reflect consensus as Wikipedia policy means it. There has been clear ongoing dispute here this entire time and you can’t just pretend there was consensus because you want to announce that you’ve won. —Pfhorrest (talk) 17:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
@Pfhorrest: 100% this. Now JLMadrigal has been spamming this message to many users, but as perfectly told and explained by Pfhorrest before:
So JLMadrigal can take all the users it wants, but what matters is what reliable sources say, not our own personal opinions, especially in such a contentious situation. I'd be happy too if this wole thing just dropped. You're free to create a libertarian political typology such as Libertarian (political typology) or Libertarian (U.S. political typology), or a Libertarian disambiguation page; perhaps we should do the same for other ideologies too. That's why we have Libertarianism and Libertarianism in the United States, that was a perfect compromise/solution. And JLMadrigal continues to show its bias in saying that [t]he term is primarily used in a derogatory way and by self-described "left-libertarians" which just isn't true and was already established when a move was rejected back in July 2019. Or when it says that regarding the use of the term "right libertarian" to describe libertarians that do not oppose free markets, and that do not make a clear distinction between laissez-faire capitalism and advocacy of free markets, conflating free markets and capitalism, ignoring all the anti-capitalist and socialist, free-market history. Or the ice on the cake, when it says that [t]he individuals described in that article, and in the poorly-titled right-libertarianism article do not typically identify with the political right - or the political for that matter. The Right- in right-libertarianism doesn't refer to right-wing politics, although some reliable sources see it as part of it and not in contradiction with principles as stated in Right-wing politics, like seeing hierarchy and inequality as natural or inevitable, etc.; it mainly refers to the right-wing of the libertarian movement and that's what many reliable sources refer too. Futhermore, it's also wrong to say that they don't identify with the political right; on certain issues, whether culturally, economically or socially, some libertarians do (Hans-Herman Hoppe and Lew Rockwell). Later in his life, Rothbard himself became associated to right-wing populism with his paleolibertarianism. I already explained why self-labelling isn't always everything.
This is no longer good faith but an I don't like based on ideologic grounds; and it doesn't seem to stop until it gets what it wants, hence why this whole diatribe has been going on and on for months and months; and it continues even now, when as far as I'm aware sources support the current consensus.--Davide King (talk) 05:29, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Sourcess overwhelmingly call the topic of the article libertarianism. There are Wikipedia issues with trying to use that name. We are trying to figure out how to name the article given those challenges. North8000 (talk) 13:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
Sources that differentiate between types of "libertarianism" overwhelmingly call this type "right-libertarianism". Again, like "association football", which is overwhelmingly just called "football", except when distinguishing it from other types of "football", where it is overwhelmingly called "association football". But please, try to find any other sourced name for this type of libertarianism as distinguished from others. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: Could you please clarify that and what exactly kind of libertarianism are you referring to? If you're referring to right-libertarianism, it's already stated in the lead that This position is contrasted with that of left-libertarianism, to which it is often compared, hence the name; and that reliable sources call it that name (the common name, as can be seen in the Google Scholar research above); reliable sources also refer to certain libertarians, who may simply label themselves libertarians (then again, many so-called left-libertarians also simply call themelves libertarians too, so why the double standard?), as right-libertarians. Nazis call themselves National Socialists, but reliable sources refer to them as fascists and we do the same on Wikipedia too; we also note that they simply call themselves libertarians and wikilink to Libertarianism in the United States. Once again, you seem to be confusing Right-libertarianism with Libertarianism in the United States. Sourcess overwhelmingly call the topic of the article libertarianism; that's correct and that's why we have Libertarianism in the United States; Right-libertarianism doesn't refer just to libertarianism in the United States, but to the expanding of a certain strand of American libertarianism that has expanded worldwide and which I believe should be talked about more in the article, yet we're still discussing this when, as told by Pfhorrest, this isn't following Wikipedia's guidelines or procedures; and we could have used all this time to improve the article. If you're referring to libertarianism as Libertarianism, then you seem to ignore all its pre-20th century's history.--Davide King (talk) 21:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@Davide King: This topic has fractured all over the place and has also jumped out of the article in question. The "what I'm referring to" is a broader chicken-and-egg question about whether the article should exist and what it's topic should be. And, on that topic, I was going by the "consensus on the early phases" from the extensive work at the article, a finding that was different than what I had suggested. For better or worse, the current phase is an RFC on whether or not to title that article "right libertarianism". I don't consider this RFC to be any big solution, it's just one question. My comment above had the narrow purpose of showing that your implied claim that going by sources supports use of the "right libertarian" term is not correct. If one is going to raise the "use in sources" aspect of article naming, it is simply "use in sources", not "use in sources vastly narrowed by selective qualifiers". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:44, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: That could be because Wikipedia's guidelines weren't followed. I don't understand why all the users who opposed the move back in July 2019 and also saw nothing wrong with the current title shouldn't be considered. Right-libertarianism is the Rothbard–Nozick school. Then show me your sources and let's compare them. And what do you mean by vastly narrowed by selective qualifiers?--Davide King (talk) 00:03, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
What I meant is that wp:RS = nearly everything that is published. That would mean all references to what is the topic of the article. And I think that it's a reasonable guess that about 99.99% of all mentiopns of such call it one-word "libertarianism" or "libertarian". Answering your question the "vastly narrowed by selective qualifiers" might be "just writers that are also talking about left libertarianism and seeing it through the lens of giving it a name that distinguishes it from left libertarianism". To use my earlier analogy, for someone who writes about cannibalism, they'd probably want to name the article on Europen culture as "non cannibalistic culture" and to only use sources who are trying to make that distinction. :-) North8000 (talk) 03:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC).
@North8000: I still don't get your anti-cannibalism example; honestly, @Pfhorrest: gave better examples, sorry. Anti-capitalism has been a defining feature of libertarianism until the 1970s, when capitalism was being positvely used as free market. Libertarianism literally originated as a communist ideology that rejected all authority and hierarchies, including that of market and property, although then it became used to refer to anarchism as a whole. So yeah, I would still say anti-capitalism is a defining aspect of libertarianism. The problem is that libertarianism is also used to refer to liberal ideologies that are opposed to American liberalism and thus libertarian is simply a renaming on that, so that's why you see classical liberals like Locke or Smith wrongly called libertarians or libertarian theorists when in the rest of the world they're simply called liberals because libertarian still means anarchism, anti-capitalism, libertarian socialism and social anarchism. You and JLMadrigal simply have an American-centric view of libertarianism, when this is the English Wikipedia, not the American Wikipedia. Do you disagree with any of the sources in the article? Do you have better ones or that disagree with the current ones? Show them.
Anyway, why don't you actually show some of these sources? You can't just say that it's a reasonable guess that about 99.99% of all mentiopns of such call it one-word "libertarianism" or "libertarian", it would be original research. As stated by Pfhorrest, sources differentiate between types of libertarianism and don't call them all just libertarianism exactly to distinguish each one, so I don't see what's the problem with all that; only in the United States do left-libertarians call themselves as such but in the rest of the world they simply call themeslves libertarians, so why you and JLMadrigal seem only concerned about right-libertarians not being called libertarians when the same is also done for left-libertarians?--Davide King (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
Davide, doing a good job at responding to all of that would require a book rather than a post. So just a few notes instead. First I need to correct you on one item. "wp:original research" is what Wikipedia calls it when you put normal conversation into article space. Elsewhere (such as in article talk pages) it's just called normal, fully legitimate conversation.
Libertarianism is an English word which has different (but overlapping) meanings in the US vs Europe. The vast majority of people who self-identify as such are in the US (roughly 70 million people) and thus the vast majority of use of the term in wp:RS's (for numbers think every printed and on-line US newspaper and magazine, or think about numbers of usage of the word "liberal" in European publications) is single-word libertarian or libertarianism. This is not an argument for a US-centric view, but it is an argument against a Eurocentric view / analyzing/describing it through a European lens, which IMO is the basis of most of the statements and arguments in your post. BTW one compromise might be to keep the title but make it just an article about the term. Who uses it, and what the meanings are in that usage. Many arguments could support that. In addition to the above, an additional argument would be that anything beyond that would be duplication of material that is already in other articles. North8000 (talk) 13:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: Still, I'm curious to see your sources. That's exactly why we have both Libertarianism and Libertarianism in the United States. Numbers don't mean much, especially if they're based on polls, one of each was how over 20% self-identified libertarians don't know what the word means. You also seem to not include all the anarchists and libertarian socialists who are libertarians too and have been ever since the 19th century, still are today; and this isn't Eurocentric either. One could just as easily say that 80–90% of Americans are liberals, including conservatives, liberals, libertarians et all; or I could just as easily argue that this should be mainly about the anti-capitalist, libertarian and socialist left because in the United States it's still well within the liberal tradition, just opposed to social liberalism. So why do you think mine is through European lens rathn just through factual lens? I still think you see libertarianism as what we describe in Libertarianism in the United States. Anyway, what's the point in making about the term? We don't do the same about Liberalism or any other ideologies, I just don't see how this is so different, but I stay open minded and to listen your proposal. How would that version look like? What would you remove, what would you add in terms of sections? Could you make a saandbox about it? Thank you.--Davide King (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
P.S. @North8000: The American sources that refers to libertarianism in the United States rather than libertarianism in broad terms and outside it, we use/add them to Libertarianism in the United States rather than here, beside the United States section; furthermore, there're many sources that don't use the way you describe it, so I don't see the issue with that. Conservatism and Liberalism are about the ideology in broad terms and we have Conservatism in the Unted States and Liberalism in the United States to talk about it through American lens, so I don't see why with Libertarianism and Libertarianism in the United States should be any different.--Davide King (talk) 21:13, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
Again, lots of big topics there. I'll make a few comments and then try to respond more thoroughly on your questions about my compromise proposal. The context of me bringing up numbers here are one of the areas where they are relevant in Wikipedia which is prevalence of use in wp:RS's being a guiding factor in naming and article naming. Regarding the purpose of making it an article about the term, one short term purpose is of course, a compromise to settle this debate. But I also see it as a part of a big picture solution to optimize coverage of libertarianism in Wikipedia. The thought process starts with considering libertarianism to consist of philosophies,ideologies, phenomena, happennings, organizations, and including those over history. And so I'd advocate that the primary and "most legitimate" coverage about libertarianism be centric on those things. I'll call those the "group 1" articles. Then there are articles where the topic or term is really a mere "lens" looking at all of those things. Whether it be an attempted taxonomy scheme, (e.g. right-libertarian), talking about a concept of a fusion between philosophies or between philosophies (most of the compound names like Libertarian Republican, Libertarian Socialist) where the only thing that is unique to the article is the "lens".....everything seen through the lens is already in one of the "Group 1" articles. So the latter articles would acknowledge that they are about the lens, not everything that is seen through the lens. For the "right libertarian" article, we'd start by looking at the sources that really, really really use the term which I suspect will be authors trying to create some organizational and terminology system to deal with the herd of cats that libertarianism is. Then the article would cover their efforts, terminology, and varying definitions of the terminology. But not cover the "group 1" topics seen through the lens. I think that a good analogy is if we had a dogs article, and articles on each breed of dog, and then made a "big dogs" article, it would acknowledge that "big dogs" it's just an organizational lens with varying meanings. North8000 (talk) 22:46, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: Could you please show me a table or a sandbox about it? For instance, what articles would you put in group 1 and other groups? Still, I don't get your dog example; why not just make a political one? Libertarianism should be like Populism, with Libertarianism being its main page as it is now, Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism like Left-wing populism and Right-wing populism and all other Libertarian articles, if they're notable, otherwhise we can merge all them in Libertarian schools of thought or something like that, so we would have Libertarianism, Left-libertarianism, Right-libertarianism (which could inslude also Libertarianism in South Africa and Libertarianism in the United Kingdom since it's mainly about American-style libertarianism exported there), several notable Libertarian articles like Libertarian paternalism or Libertarian socialism and the others Libertarian articles like Natural-rights libertarianism, Neo-libertarianism, etc. or merge the latter into Libertarianism in the United States or Libertarian schools of thought. One thing to note is that Libertarian socialism is within Libertarianism whereas Libertarian Democrat, Libertarian Republican, Libertarian conservatism, etc. are mainly within Libertarianism in the United States.--Davide King (talk) 07:58, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
What I had in mind was to propose a framework which is a more thorough version of that in my most recent post. (BTW I've been sporadically / vaguely talking about it at the libertarian project for about 6 years but that is a lonely place....thanks for being here to start to change that, even if we disagree) At the individual articles we'd let the editors most knowledgeable on the topic apply the framework. So my idea does not include per-ordaining the outcome for any particular title/article. I'm planning to propose that more thoroughly but don't know when to do that given that we are in the middle of this RFC.North8000 (talk) 14:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Lead - Routledge etc

The lead section contains the following text Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists, especially social anarchists, which is currently sourced to The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy. p. 227. "In its oldest sense, [left-libertarianism] is a synonym either for anarchism in general or social anarchism in particular." The source text appears in a "Terminological Note" at the end of the Chapter on Anarchism.
I see a multiple issues in using this source to support this text. i) We ignore the section of the source which covers "Libertarianism". (discussed in the Talk section above); ii) this is a terminological note, not the core of the source; iii) the source text discusses "left-libertarianism", not "libertarianism"; iv) the source discusses the etymology of the term "left-libertarianism", not the history of "libertarianism" (that is, it discusses the word, not the thing; we engage in form of reification when we conflate the two).
Thoughts? - 00:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

The source has been replaced with a reference to the same work. p. 223. "In the meantime, anarchist theories of a more communist or collectivist character had been developing as well. One important pioneer is French anarcho-communists Joseph Déjacque (1821–1864), who [...] appears to have been the first thinker to adopt the term "libertarian" for this position; hence "libertarianism" initially denoted a communist rather than a free-market ideology." This source also has issues i), iv) and v) this is a passing mention in a source primarily about another topic. For mine, issue iv) appears to be significant, and I will make edits to bring the source and article content into alignment. - Ryk72 talk 01:44, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Merging left- and right-libertarian distinction to one place

I'm thinking that possibly the only solution to the ongoing dispute about the very existence of an article called Right-libertarianism may be to either merge that article and Left-libertarianism into a single article discussing the distinction between Left and right libertarianism, similar to articles like Positive and negative rights, Claim rights and liberty rights, etc; or else to merge both of those articles into a subsection of this article discussing that distinction, the way that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Libertarianism] does. --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

  • I actually like both of those ideas (but the first one would probably not fly from a guideline standpoint). But I think that you jumping to putting those specific templates all over the place is out of process. There is a substantial thorough discussion going on (with differing opinions but I wouldn't call it a dispute) and that isn't the way to handle that it was coming to a conclusion that you didn't like. North8000 (talk) 17:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I support merging pages "Right-libertarianism" and "Left-libertarianism" into the article "Libertarianism". "Entities should not be multiplied without necessity". Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 02:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Very strong oppose. Two different, distinct, and notable concepts, that would be like merging left-wing politics and right-wing politics. Velociraptor888 15:09, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • We are not creating articles "Left liberalism" and "Right liberalism" or "Left socialism" and "Right socialism". In this case, in my opinion, it should be similar. Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 16:08, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: I have to disagree with your example, although I understand/respect it. Left liberalism is specifically used as synonym for social liberalism, especially in Germany. A more pertinent example would be that of Populism which also has Left-wing populism and Right-wing populism. Libertarianism is similar in this regard; populism is "the people vs. the elite", but who is the people and who is the elite; for left-wing populist, "the people" is the working and lower classes and "the elite" is the ruling capitalist and moneyed class; for right-wing populists, "the people" is the middle class and "the elite" is the "left-wing" and "globalist" class, which would also include social liberals and social democrats even if they're closer to the center than the left. Likewise, left and right libertarianism have different meaning of the word liberty and what it means to be free. Thus, I agree with @Velociraptor888: that these are "Two different, distinct, and notable concepts", although they may share a name and some very broad similarities, that warrant separate articles, so I strongly oppose the merger proposal.--Davide King (talk) 06:14, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Davide King, I would support merging pages "Left-wing populism" and "Right-wing populism" into the article "Populism". The concepts left-wing and right-wing are not scientific. Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 06:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: What do you mean "The concepts left-wing and right-wing" aren't scientific? Left-wing populism (30,703 bytes) and Right-wing populism (146,669 bytes) are clearly "[t]wo different, distinct, and notable concepts" and Populism is 137,164 bytes; it would be too big to merge all of it, which is one another reason why I oppose this merging.--Davide King (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
And pages "Left-wing populism" and "Right-wing populism", in my opinion, need to be shortened.
Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 16:15, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: I don't think that's a good reason to get rid of it or not discussing them. I also disagree and actually think Left-wing populism should be expanded to better explain its differences from right-wing populism, have a Definition or even History section like in Right-wing populism, rather than just describing it by country or political parties. Anyway, I suggest you to open a discussion there about it.--Davide King (talk) 00:15, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: I have sympathy for you and I don't necessarely disagree, but I think the issue is that, like left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism, left-wing populism and right-wing populism are considered by reliable sources as "[t]wo different, distinct, and notable concepts" and thus worthy of having their own article.--Davide King (talk) 00:53, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: I don't think "materialism" is really a relevant criterion here since we're talking about a social topic, where lots of things under discussion are social constructs and fuzzy contentious abstract concepts. I get your point that what exactly constitutes left and right in a political sense is a bit fuzzy and contentious, but there are notable, scholarly senses of the terms that are used in the relevant fields and that's good enough for encyclopedic purposes. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Гармонический Мир: I don't think there's a strict, or even single, definition for any political philosophy, yet Wikipedia uses a definition on what reliable sources generally agree with. There're "lots of things under discussion [that] are social constructs and fuzzy contentious abstract concepts", yet they're still discussed about and have some generally agreed definition that we put on Wikipedia as that's what reliable sources generally agree with. Also, it's my understanding that Wikipedia doesn't represent the truth, or any objective truth, but rather verifiabilty based on reliable sources; and isn't a dictionary.--Davide King (talk) 02:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Velociraptor888:To be clear, although I proposed the merger, I actually prefer the status quo of separate articles. The merger is a proposed compromise between the status quo and the months of ongoing attempts to make it so there is no article called Right-libertarianism in one way or another. My preferences, in descending order, would be:
  1. Maintain the status quo of two separate articles on Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism, as equal sub-articles of Libertarianism.
  2. Merge the two articles into one article discussing the differences across the spectrum of Left and right libertarianism, akin to similar comparison articles like Negative and positive rights, still serving as a sub-article of Libertarianism.
  3. Merge the two articles into a section of Libertarianism, akin to how the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Libertarianism does it.
On a tangential note, I just noticed when Googling for that last link that Debates within libertarianism exists, which should maybe be part of this conversation. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:25, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Pfhorrest: I support maintaining the status quo, per your reasons stated here. Also as stated here, "it would be too big to merge all of it, which is one another reason why I oppose this merging"; and I agree with Velociraptor888's reason that these are clearly "[t]wo different, distinct, and notable concepts" and thus worthy of two articles.
Debates within libertarianism should probably be moved to Debates within libertarianism in the United States since issues such as abortion, capital punishment, foreign affairs, LGBT rights and immigration are non-issues for left-libertarians, especially anarchists. Perhaps we could create Libertarian schools of thought akin Anarchist schools of thought. There're really many libertarian schools or libertarian or libertarianism articles that start or end with these words.--Davide King (talk) 14:13, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't be opposed to turning Libertarian communism into an article that include anarcho-communism, council communism, left communism and libertarian Marxism as well as moving Anarcho-communism's Anarcho-communism#Early precursors and Anarcho-communism#Joseph Déjacque and the Revolutions of 1848 to Libertarian communism and talk about how it was the first form of libertarianism. Indeed, it's mainly in th 19th century that both communism and socialism became libertarians; before they were mainly based on the state, compulsion, or religious notion, although some libertarian thoughts were always present. I think this could be discussed. Also, it's my understanding that while anarcho-communism is the most prominent libertarian communist current and that libertarian communism is also used to refer specifically to that, it's not the only libertarian form of communism. Just like libertarian socialism arose within the anarchist movement opposing state socialism and being used as synonym for anarchism but later expanding into including non-anarchist libertarian socialism and libertarian Marxism and communism.--Davide King (talk) 14:22, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Davide King, if we keep the article "Right-libertarianism", then there will always be those who want to rename it. We will spend time on such discussions instead of improving the articles. Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 15:10, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Гармонический Мир I understand your concerns, but that's not a good reason to do that (just like I appreciate @Pfhorrest: and attempts at compromise, but disagree with the proposal). We have had and still have an asburd number of posts of people asking Fascism to be referred to as a left-wing ideology, or Nazism as a socialist ideology, but we don't do that just because "there will always be those who want to [change] it". Reliable sources say that Fascism is a right-wing ideology, mainly associated to the far-right; that Nazism isn't socialism but a form of German fascism; and that Left-libertarianism and Right-libertariaism are "[t]wo different, distinct, and notable concepts" and thus worthy of havig their own articles.--Davide King (talk) 15:28, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Fascism/Nazism is another issue. I don't support the views of pro-capitalist libertarians, but I can't say that they are fascists. Yours sincerely, Гармонический Мир (talk) 17:08, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Гармонический Мир I never said they're fascist; I meant to say that just because "there will always be those who want to rename [Right-libertarianism], it's not a good reason to delete or merge it.--Davide King (talk) 21:30, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • IMO the issue with many of these "two word" titles is that they are both redundant, and also just two word sequences with no consistent meaning. It's like we have an article on "dogs", and then articles on all of the breeds of dogs. Then somebody creates Big dogs and Small dogs articles. Each person who works up an organizational scheme for categorizing dogs based on size has a different meaning for "big" and "small". But more importantly, they are just covering dog material that is already in the other articles. So it is relevant that there could be a lot of material on big dogs, nor that there are a log of google hits on the "big dog" two word sequence. My thought is that the only thing that really needs covering is the terms themselves and usage of the terms. This could be vial vastly reduced articles, or merging each into a few sentences in the main libertarianism article. North8000 (talk) 20:20, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @North8000: Social democracy, social liberalism, conservative liberalism, etc. are all "two word" titles. Just because it's a word, it doesn't mean that what it means has no relevance or notabily; and they point is that they aren't just a term, they're real thing; it's just the left and the right have a different understanding of libertarianism, just like populism, of which we also have Left-wing populism and Right-wing populism and similar sub-articles, so I don't understand the relavance of your dogs example. Perhaps the issue is that there're a consisent meaning, it's just that you disagree with it. As I stated here, you seem to understand right-libertarianism as "[w]hat could be termed centrist or mainstream libertarianism, i.e. fiscal conservatives and cultural liberals who identify as libertarian", when this is what's discussed in Libertarianism in the United States and right-libertarianism refers to a similar but different and more specific thing.--Davide King (talk) 21:30, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I support merging pages "Right-libertarianism" and "Left-libertarianism" into the article "Libertarianism". That seems to be the only way to get rid of the POV article Right-libertarianism. PhilLiberty (talk) 18:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @PhilLiberty: It was already established here that there was nothing wrong with Right-libertarianism, so supportting the merge based on that premise is false.--Davide King (talk) 18:36, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I oppose merging left-libertarianism with right-libertarianism as they are two obviously distinct schools of thought. Although I would be open to discuss merging left-libertarianism with libertarian socialism. Grnrchst (talk) 11:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Grnrchst: Thanks for your comment. I'd oppose that for the simple fact that left-libertarianism is broader than that and has been used to refer to philosophies that may not fit libertarian socialism (indeed, the whole left–right libertarianism isn't based on socialism–capitalism but on egalitarianism regarding natural resources). Just like anarchism is the main wing of libertarian socialism or social anarchism is the main wing of anarchism, libertarian socialism is the main wing of left-libertarianism but by no means it.--Davide King (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Davide King: I agree with your assessment. As I said, I'm open to discussing it, I wasn't necesarrily proposing it. Grnrchst (talk) 15:26, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Leftovers

Hypothetical question: If left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism were to be theoretically merged into libertarianism, what content/sourcing would we be excluding for it to fit? Put another way, what sourcing/content specific to each of the left-/right- variants would not fit within the main article? My understanding is that these two variants should function as summary style splits from the parent article, but I'm not seeing what granularity we gain when the articles are separate. czar 01:40, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing - Libertarianism & Anarchism

On review of the sourcing used in the article, I notice that there are a number of instances taken from sections or chapters of sources which have a primary topic of "anarchism". e.g. The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy; The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Those sources also appear to have separate sections on "libertarianism", which are not used. Why is this so? - Ryk72 talk 21:22, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I also notice a number of other sources whose primary topic is "anarchism", not "libertarianism". Some of these do not seem particularly reliable. e.g. Cuban Anarchism, which is explicitly a "tribute" to Cuban Anarchists. - Ryk72 talk 21:24, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@Ryk72: Thanks for your comments. As established by other sources, libertarian and libertarianism have been used as a synonym for anarchism and libertarian socialism. As for the source, left-libertarianim has also been used as a way to describe 19th century, classical libertarianism (i.e. anarchism) that is now classified as left-libertarianism and in that case it's referring to this; it just calls it left-libertarianism to distinguish it from right-libertarianism and then use the term left-libertarianism to refer to modern libertarian ideologies that are seen as part of this broad left-libertarianism. I don't know if I explained it well, let me know.--Davide King (talk) 21:36, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Appreciate the reply. I'm not certain, unfortunately, that that does explain things well. That the terms "libertarian" or "libertarianism" were used as a euphemism for "anarchism" may well be true; but to combine this with sources which primarily describe "anarchism", and ignore the portions of those sources which describe "libertarianism" (whatever that may be), and then use this combination as the basis for the article seems like synthesis. Probably worth discussing the use of the Routledge source in a separate section; which I've started, below. - Ryk72 talk 00:11, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
@Ryk72: Thanks again for your concers and comments. Anarchism and libertarianism, especially left-libertarianism, are interrelated. As far as I understand it, even if it use left-libertarianism in that case, it supports that phrasing and it's using left-libertarianism simply to distinguish it from right-libertarianism but I don't think there's really any controversy that libertarianism began as a left-wing and anarchist, communist thing/movement that by the late 19th century came to involve all anarchism, by the 20th century also libertarian communism/Marxism and non-anarchist libertarian socialism and by the mid-20th century also what has been called right-libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism, minarchism et all). I admit I'm not an expert with source/sourcing, so I could be wrong but I think the reason why is that is that libertarianism in that case is referring to what we have in Libertarianism in the United States. So what we do for Liberalism and Modern liberalism in the United States, the same is done for libertarianism, i.e. sources may simply say liberalism or libertarianism but it's made clear which tradition they're actually referring to.--Davide King (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
If a source says that Roquefort was developed in France, it is not for us to say that this applies to all cheese. It does not matter whether we personally consider there to be a controversy that libertarianism began as a left-wing and anarchist, communist thing/movement... or not; what matters is what reliable sources say, and we do not (yet?) have a reliable source which says such. We are, however, wandering blithely past the sections of sources which deal with "Libertarianism", in order to source the content of this article to sections of sources which do not (directly?) deal with "Libertarianism". That is not what policy says we should do. - Ryk72 talk 04:15, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Neologism tag. Do not remove until resolved.

I have inserted a neologism tag on the top of the article to inform readers about the RFC and the controversy surrounding the use of "right-libertarianism". Do not remove this template until the issue is resolved. JLMadrigal @ 02:57, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or in larger society. To support an article about a particular term or concept, we must cite what reliable secondary sources say about the term or concept, not just sources that use the term (see use–mention distinction). An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position, which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy.

Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic, or use the term within other articles.

In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary#Neologisms

JLMadrigal @ 13:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

  • That all pertains to articles about neologisms. This is not an article about a neologism. "Right-libertarian" is not a neologism, but even if it were, this is not an article about that term, you just object to the use of the term in this article, despite its use in reliable sources. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
  • The term "right-libertarianism" is a neologism - a relatively new term used to describe a POV about a topic through the lens of that POV. None of your so-called "reliable sources" describe the use of the term. They all take it as a given. Furthermore, if you read the template guide, you will note that this template can refer to an article title or sections within an article. BTW, you can't remove templates without consensus. JLMadrigal @ 00:49, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • According to Google Ngrams, the term "right-libertarian" is almost exactly the same age as the Libertarian Party (1972 vs 1971). What a coincidence, since the term was only coined to refer to the new kind of "libertarianism" that that party promotes, and prior to the rise of that there was no need to distinguish between left- or right-libertarianism. ("Left-libertarian", in contrast, is a much newer term, but I don't see you complaining about the use of that term on this article, or anywhere else). --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:28, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Ahh, so you concede that "libertarian" is the most common term to describe the ideology in question, and that the use of the term "libertarian" has already been expanded to include advocacy of a free marketplace - or as leftists call it, "capitalism". The only folks who "need" to use the "right" prefix advocate economic collectivism, AKA command economies, which have categorically been demonstrated to be anathema to economic liberty, AKA a "libertarian" society. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/command-economy.asp
So which template do you prefer? JLMadrigal @ 11:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • That's some pretty bad-faith strawmanning you've got going there, and a nice demonstration that you haven't actually been reading anything I've been saying for all of these months. Nobody has contested that both kinds of libertarians (left and right) generally just call themselves "libertarians"; the question at hand is how to distinguish the two kinds from each other, given that they both use the same name, and the only terminology for distinguishing them I've seen in any sources is "left-" and "right-". Also, if you check the Ngrams for "Libertarian", you'll notice that that that term is way, way older than the Libertarian Party or the works of Rothbard etc, further emphasizing that it has never been exclusive to their ideology and that what's now called "left-libertarianism" to distinguish it from them is the original sense of the term.
In other words, Ngrams for "libertarian", "right-libertarian", and "left-libertarian" highlight the evolution of the terminology and ideologies we've been trying to get through to you this whole time: "libertarian" was for a century or more a term for a kind of socialism, until in the mid-20th century it was coopted for a kind of capitalism, immediately after which the original libertarians started calling that new kind "right-libertarianism" to distinguish it from themselves, and then eventually a decade or more later started calling themselves "left-libertarians" to distinguish themselves from the increasingly popular association of "libertarianism" with right-libertarianism.
Also, you've apparently not heard anything I've tried to teach you about what left-libertarians believe, as you continue to mischaracterize them and their disagreements with right-libertarians. All libertarians, left and right, favor free markets and oppose command economies. But "free market" ≠ "capitalism", and "command economy" ≠ "socialism". Left-libertarians support free markets but oppose capitalism, and support socialism but oppose command economies. Right-libertarians, as you demonstrate, generally can't tell the difference between them, and if they can, think that if capitalism is an inevitable result of a free market then that's fine, if the only way to socialism is a command economy. Left-libertarians don't think that's true: they aim for a free market without capitalism, and socialism without a command economy. I've said all of this several times before here, to you specifically. It would be nice if you listened for once. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I was just going to write that you clearly misrepresented Pfhorrest and that Pfhorrest didn't concede what you were referring to, but Pfhorrest already replied about it and also made other points I fully agree with. Just one thing I would like to add is that there's prominent trend within libertarianism that rejects free markets and property as authority/hierarchy and advocate some form of decentralised, non-compulsary and voluntary planned economy. Indeed, libertarian was coined to mean a form of anarchism that was opposed to markets and property as unjust or unnecesary authority and hirerachy. By the 1890s, it was associated to all anarchism, but mainly with social anarchism (rather than individualist anarchism, although individualist anarchists also used it). It's only certain American libertarians who regard themselves as individualist anarchists that use the term in that relation.--Davide King (talk) 21:28, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I trust that you know this subject better than me, but I think at least for the purposes of this discussion (or the intended meaning of my previous comment), a free market just means "non-compulsary and voluntary", or the opposite of a command economy; it doesn't have to be propertarian, which seems to be the distinction you're making. I am curious if you know of better terminology for an economy that is not a command economy but isn't necessarily propertarian. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:55, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, that's not really the definition I know being used, but I understand what you're saying and I don't disagree with anything you have said, just that there're forms of libertarianism that reject the market, whether free or not. I would consider propertarian mainly right-libertarianism since most forms of libertarianism are based either on use and possession property rights or on communism. I would redirect you to Decentralized planning (economics). In such a society, I think the law of value would no longer exist and the sell or exchange of commodities wouldn't either, just like money. There would be calculation in kind based on its use value rather than exchange value and production would be based on use and not on profit, or to be sold and exchanged on a market.
  • This is why Marxist–Leninist et similia states are seen as state capitalists, or simply capitalist, i.e. they all retained the capitalist mode of production and capitalist social relations, whether their form of capitalism was liberal or statist. This is also because socialism and communism are seen as synonymous by its proponents, with socialism being lower communism (like Lenin and Amadeo Bordiga argued) but still communism (no state, no classes, no money, no law of value; the only difference is that distribution would be based on contribution whereas in communism, with the higher development and efficiency, it would be based on needs. I think it was Stalin and his supporters who first widened the definition so as to say the Soviet Union had achieved socialism (I don't remember any Marxist–Leninist et similia state arguing that it had reached socialism, let alone communism; I think only Stalin did that with the 1936 Soviet Constitution and in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR), so in their view socialism still includes the law of value and commodity exchange (if others did too, their socialism was based on the Stalinist definition, which critics would argue is just state capitalism).
  • Anyway, another thing I wanted to say but forgot to add in my previous message is that both individualist and social anarchists largerly agree on the ends; their main arguments and debates was on the means and whether their means would reach their ends. Just like most anarcho-syndicalism or collecvist anarchists, many mutualists advocate communism as their ends but differ in their means and so on.--Davide King (talk) 04:20, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Allrightythen. I hope we can at least agree on a template for the dispute. "The factual accuracy of part of this article is disputed. The dispute is about a generalized use of the term "right-libertarianism" to describe all libertarianism that is not "left-libertarian"." Does that describe the dispute? JLMadrigal @ 14:23, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that it's proper. Plus it will give us a nudge to resolve this particular debate. North8000 (talk) 14:52, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@JLMadrigal: @Pfhorrest: @North8000: I think it actually needs to be justified. Is the dispute based on Wikipedia guidelines or simply a POV? JLMadrigal ad North8000 has so far not being able to put up reliable sources or arguments to justify the change from a long-standing consensus. For what it's worth, this was already discussed years ago and I'm sure I can find similar discussions as well. It's also based on a false premise as right-libertarianism isn't used to describe all libertarianism that is not "left-libertarian" but mainly anarcho-capitalism, minarchism and conservative/right-wing variants. Many libertarian philosophies may not fall in either or they may be considered part of both by various sources. The Steiner–Vallentyne school may as well be the right-wing of left-libertariaism or the left-wing of right-libertarianism, so it isn't so easy; and the concepts of left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism are easily found, compared and discussed in reliable sources.--Davide King (talk) 19:18, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
David, I thought I had made the point to the sky-is-blue point. Prevalance of use in wp:RS is the standard, which is pretty much everything that is published. Libertarianism, and mentions in sources exists in massively greater numbers in the US, and in those sources, and they don't use the term right libertarian. They use "libertarian". If you want me to provide you with the 10 or 100 examples of which word gets used in wp:rs's but I thought that it would be obvious. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:41, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
OK, here's a start. I used google to look for sources and, ignoring Wikipedia and it's mirrors, here we go from the top of the list. So this is a sampling of the first sources, NOT a selection:
North8000 (talk) 19:58, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Then I googled "Right-libertarian". The first 5 hits were Wikipedia articles. Then there was a blog with someone giving their explanation of "right-libertarian". The next 14 had no use of the term "right libertarian" they were hits on libertarianism with the word "right" (as in "rights") also somewhere in the title or early in the article.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: Thank you for your response. However, you fail to understand that most of these sources refer to Libertarianism in the United States (they would be used there, or here when talking about libertarianism in the United States), that's why they use simply libertarianism because that's the most prominent view; but alas that's libertarianism in the United States, not libertarianism as a whole. So yeah, both you and JLMadrigal seem to confuse Libertarianism for what we have in Libertarianism in the United States. Also, Google searches aren't the most indicative; Google Scholar is. Left-libertarianism refers to libertarian socialism and egalitarian libertarianism whereas right-libertarianism refers to anarcho-capitalism, minarchism and other more conservative/right-wing variants. In the United States, left-libertarianism refers to free-market anti-capitalism whereas right-libertarianism refers to culturally conservative libertarianism.--Davide King (talk) 21:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
No, I know all of that and I'm not confusing anything. In fact, you are making my point rather than refuting it. The subject of the article the the form of libertarianism that is far more present in the United states. And the relevant question is: do wp:rs's predominantly use "right-libertarian" to refer to it? And wp:rs's means practically every publication that refers to the subject. And the result was a resounding NO. Of the perhaps 1,000 references to the subject form of libertarianism, sources used "right-libertarian" 3 times and something else the other 997 times. .003 fails the test by miles for prevalent usage in sources. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:44, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: How does that make your point? Maybe the problem is the way Right-libertarianism currently is; it should be more globalised, for instance merging Libertarianism in South Africa and Libertarianism in the United Kingdom into it. Libertarianism in the United States and Right-libertarianism aren't exactly the same thing, although there's some overlap. The thing is that so-called socially liberals and fiscally conservatives libertarians are really just liberals who call themselves libertarians due naming issues; and they make the majority of libertarianism in the United States. So your questions are wrong because I have never said that sources refer to libertarianism in the United States as right-libertarianism. Reliable sources refer to right-libertarianis as a set of philosophies that includes anarcho-capitalism, minarchism and other coservative/right-wing variants. Even if what you said is true, we include many articles about topics that the average person may have never hear about, but that doesn't mean they should be deleted. I disagree that wp:rs's means practically every publication that refers to the subject; not every publication is reliable, although sources defined as not reliable may be used in certain cases.--Davide King (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm here more to contribute than to "win", and so I won't repeat my assertions, including the onest that we seem to have started going in circles on. But I will address a few narrower points in your post. For better or worse, wp:RS includes nearly every published source. One could debate that should not be so. But for the purposes of addressing article naming, it's I think a fine guide in additional to being the official guide. It's really talking about prevalence in the hundreds of millions of mentions in every day sources, not looking for the handful of people who are trying to come up with names to divide libertarianism into. Second, I've not been advocating deleting the article. My original idea, and the one that I proposed again would be to reduce it to an article about the term. In the extensive work done in talk the group decided to rename the article (but not what to rename it to) and so I was following that consensus rather than my original idea. But with that decided-on part seemingly forgotten, that "article about the term" is looking good again. Finally, just in case I didn't do a good job of saying it, I really think that you are seeing this through two lenses. One lens is European in the sense that you keep asserting that, where European English conflicts with elsewhere that the European meaning is the correct one. E.G that American libertarians is an incorrect name for liberals. I think that that second lens is subtler......that of European academics trying to come up with names trying to group philosophies, and who see libertarianism as something that is thoroughly defined as philosophies (as it is in Europe) vs. across the pond where it is a giant vague phenomena which isn't, other than having a few general tenets. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: As stated by Pfhorrest, that wasn't really following the guidelines, so I don't think there's any actual consensus to rename it. Either way, if you don't want to merge and make it mainly about the term as it is now, then I don't see what other compliants or chages you want to apply. I think the issue has been solved by removing part from Libertarianism in the United States that made me wrongly appear like it was the exact same thing (so now it seems to be only JLMadrigal that wants to delete or rename the page, or that has problems with right-libertarianism). I think both Left- and Right-libertarianism needs a new, from the scratch History section that isn't copied from other articles specifically about them (for instance, the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and its predessors, the history of the libertarian spectrum, what movements identified as left or right did, etc.) and maybe a section that talks about the libertarian left and right in general terms, perhaps discussion their relation with the New Left and the New right, respectively. Either way, I'm not using or seeing through any lens, I'm simply what what reliable sources have been saying, namely that American libertarianism, liberalism and conservatism are all part of the liberal tradition/school, although by no means all libertarianism is (some strands of left-libertarianism are well within the anarchist/libertarian socialist one, which already came out from liberalism itself and has been strongly beenn influenced by it but ultimately rejected it or went beyond it). I also think this discussion should be at Talk:Right-libertarianism since that seems to be the main issue. We can't remove left-libertarian and right-libertarian refernces and namings as long as there're articles about them, so why should we simply remove right-libertarian from the lead liek JLMadrigal is proposing? And I think they both should remain.--Davide King (talk) 14:55, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm away for the holidays so barely able to participate here but some quick comments.
The new template is far less objectionable but still not correct. There isn't a dispute about factual accuracy but rather about neutral phrasing. Also, as Davide already pointed out, nobody's claiming that right-libertarianism is just anything that isn't left-libertarianism, just that there are left and right sides of a spectrum of libertarian views.
Also as Davide points out above, there really was no consensus as wiki policy means the term to rename the article. If anything, there was a more proper consensus months ago to not rename the article.
Everything else I have to say is just stuff I've already said a million times before. It doesn't matter if almost all sources talking about "football" mean soccer, that doesn't mean that the article Football should be about that rather than about the whole varieties of things called football, or that there's anything wrong with the name "Association football" to distinguish soccer from other varieties of football, if that's what reliable sources making such a distinction, as we need to do, predominantly use. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:46, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

The principal problems with the term "right-libertarianism" are that it is not commonly used, and that it implies identification with the political right (social conservatism) - which the described brand of libertarianism certainly doesn't. JLMadrigal @ 12:44, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@JLMadrigal: Not only is that false but it's just further proof you don't understand the topic. There're indeed libertarians who identify with the political right or work within it and who are indeed social or cultural conservatives. That doesn't mean all libertarianism is, it's just a faction/variant/whatever you want to call it.--Davide King (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
In politics, (= talking about government) social conservative advocates increased governmental controls in social areas. This is the opposite of libertarianism. North8000 (talk) 14:57, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
@North8000: [I]ncreased governmental controls in social areas That's not exactly what they advocate. I suggest you check out Paleolibertarianism (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Lew Rockwell et all) to better understand what I'm talking about and referring to.--Davide King (talk) 15:00, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Divide, as mentioned above, the brand of libertarian that identifies with the political right already has an article, Libertarian conservatism. The term "right-libertarianism" as used in this article, and the misnamed "right-libertarianism" article, however, is inappropriately used to describe all self-identified libertarians except for those who still oppose property. JLMadrigal @ 23:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Libertarian conservatism is just an ideology, Right-libertarianism is a set of philosophies. You continue to not understand the topic despite Pfhorrest and I being clear about it; you have a bias towards capitalist private property. Many left-libertarians support property, they just have different views towards it and advocate different property rights, so what you wrote isn't only misleading but outright wrong. Even Marx and Engels wrote: “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.” Communists simply want to socialise property in both production and distribution; socialists mainly production (i.e. non-capitalist property norms, or usufruct). So the division isn't necessarely between propertarians and anti-propertarians.--Davide King (talk) 00:11, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Most libertarians don't want some Marxist bureaucracy dictating what types of property they can and cannot have. On the contrary, they just want to be left alone, and can see through collectivist propaganda. JLMadrigal @ 03:57, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
You continue to demonstrate that not only do you have no idea what you’re talking about but you can’t even understand attempts to explain to you what other people think.
But I guess I’ll give it another try anyway. Anti-propertarian libertarians —- who are not all left-libertarians or all libertarian socialists — are not necessarily collectivist, are anti-bureaucratic, and are definitely not dictating anything to anyone. Rather, they think that nobody should have the authority to dictate who may or not make use of (certain kinds of) things: which is to say they should not have enforceable claims to (certain kinds of) private property. A claim to private property is a claim that you get to dictate who may or may not use something. In the absence of all governance, everything is free for everyone to use, because nothing is prohibited. Propertarians want certain things prohibited that anti-propertarians think should remain permitted. Like walking across some parcel of land, which in the absence of all governance would be permitted of anyone, but a propertarian would have permitted only to one person, designated its owner, and his guests, but prohibited to everyone else. —Pfhorrest (talk) 05:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
That may all look good on paper, Pfhorrest, but hindsight is 2020. In a free-for-all situation, no one can stop a polluter from contaminating (reducing the value of) his property. Thus collectivist countries are cursed with an abundance of every form of contamination - and the bureaucracy necessary to collectivize property. No one can even build a structure with any confidence that his investment will pay off. P2P transfers of property, on the other hand, only require agreements between the immediate parties concerned. I understand Marxist idealism better than you think. But in the realm of libertarianism, antipropertarians have become an anomaly. JLMadrigal @ 13:28, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
You’re arguing that anti-propertarianism is a bad idea, which you’re free to do, but that’s different from misrepresentating what anti-propertarian libertarians believe. They are not necessarily in favor of “collectivism”, and they are against bureaucracy, and definitionally against “collectivized property” because they are against property in general. You can argue that that would lead to pollution etc and so would be a bad idea, but that’s the idea they support nevertheless. Your argument is formally akin to saying there’s no such thing as anarcho-capitalism because capitalism is a form if statism: and real anarchists would say yeah, capitalism is un-anarchist, but would not deny that there are people who are anti-state but pro-capital, just that those people’s ideas are bad. But it’s nevertheless the idea they support. —Pfhorrest (talk) 16:54, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
As correctly pointed out by Pfhorrest, you seem to believe as a ever lasting, natural fact in the tragedy of the commons, even when Elinor Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for demonstrating [...] how local communities were able to [solve the issue] without top-down regulations or privatization. You seem to be taking it as a given that there must be a bureaucracy necessary to collectivize property. You seem to see it only through the lens of capitalist property rights, even when there're many other non-capitalist or anti-capitalist property rights. One could just as easily say that there must be a bureaucracy necessary to privatise property; indeed, that's exactly what we have. Not only just a burueacracy but a full-on state to protect all these rights; you simply cannot possible consider the fact that the propertyless people are coerced into this; you don't consider the state protecting private property rights as using "force" against the propertyless people. One could just as easily say that communism is the true advocate of freedom and property because it actually gives property to everyone; not only that but also the free access to the means of production. You also probably see collectivized property as the forced collectivisation in the Soviet Union. Later in his life, Engels argued that a program should be presented that foresees the development of agricultural cooperatives because "when we gain the power of the state, we will not be able to think of violently expropriating small owners, with or without compensation, as will instead be done with large owners. Our task will be to direct their individual production and their private property into a cooperative regime, without using force, but with example and help". You also seem to believe that from the start everything is or should be private property whereas even liberals like Locke argued that originally it was the commons; that God gave the Earth's resources to mankind. Indeed, what Locke was trying to do is to justify private property. Communists believe common property (free access) should be the norm; you and capitalists believe that it should be private property, even when many other people are actually propertyless. Even then, most communists and socialists aren't actually opposed to individual property, provided there's free access and one own it only for as long as one uses it. You simply assume that a bureaucracy is the only way to manage that; you just cannot think or imagine anything else, ignoring all thinkers and philosophies that have actually proposed solution to problems. You're free to think so, but you aren't free to use that as arguments; Pfhorrest is more neutral and knowledgable, so I suggest you to actaully read and reasearch the topic and then come back because otherwhise it merely looks like an "I don't like it".
Either way, I'm glad you started discussing again back at Talk:Right-libertarianism because that's where it should be discussed. I believe the template here is misleading and it should be removed because the issue seem to be mainly with using right-libertarianism, but as long as Right-libertarianism and Left-libertarianism are here I don't see why we shouldn't use the current wording.--Davide King (talk) 14:25, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
When one person owns something, he has an incentive to care for it and improve its value. When two people own something, the incentive is diminished by 50%. The greater the number of owners, the greater the tragedy. Simple math. Simple economics. Nevertheless, today's libertarians accommodate all views - even collectivism which is rapidly becoming akin to the flat earth minority. These "true believers" are certainly not half of libertarians anymore. They have become the fringe. JLMadrigal @ 01:47, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Well, that certainly doesn't always happen in real lfe, does it? Or was that not real captalism, or not true libertarianism or private propertarianism? Honestly, after this comment I'm done here. You're ideologically blind. I hope Pfhorrest can reply you though.--Davide King (talk) 10:25, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! "Ideologically blind" is the greatest compliment I could ask for. Most libertarians today are also ideologically blind. They don't push ideological agendas - as does the political left - and right. They just want politicians and utopianists to leave them alone. JLMadrigal @ 17:34, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure he meant "blinded by your ideology", not "blind to ideologies", though in effect those are the same -- just like everyone has an accent and those who think they "don't have an accent" are just ignorant of their bias toward their own accent, likewise everyone has an ideology, and those who think they "don't have an ideology" as just ignorant of their bias toward their own ideology. In the case of right-libertarians like you: you "just want politicans and utopianists to leave you alone", except to defend what you consider to be your property, despite others' claims to the contrary. --Pfhorrest (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
I count myself among the bulk of libertarians, who despise the political right (social collectivism) and the political left (economic collectivism), along with the influences of political ideologies (politics) in general, in favor of natural market processes and social interactions. I strive to be politically blind in the same way that markets are colorblind, &c. One can be more ideological or less ideological in the same way that one can be more religious or less religious, &c. JLMadrigal @ 19:45, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
That "natural market processes and social interactions" is where the bias gets baked in -- for you, or for anyone else who appeals to such a thing, even when those people disagree with you. What processes and interactions are "natural"? You have one idea of that, other people have other ideas, and both of those opinions constitutes an ideology. I expect your answer will be "uncoerced", but that just pushes the problem back further -- things that you think are "natural and uncoerced", others will see as the artificial product of coercion (like private ownership of the means of production). "Ideologically neutral" is really just a euphemism for "correct and undistorted", and of course everyone feels like their ideology is neutral, correct and undistorted, otherwise they would think differently -- just like everyone thinks their accent is the neutral, correct and undistorted accent, but nevertheless other people still disagree about that. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:01, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
  • This discussion is now far away from the purpose of the Talk page, which is to discuss potential improvements to the article; it is not a forum for general discussion of the article subject. - Ryk72 talk 21:21, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
  • This is directly relevant to improvement of the article because it's about whether what Madrigal things is a neutral point of view actually is or not. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:27, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
This Talk page is WP:NOTAFORUM for general discussion of the article subject. Focus on content, sources and policies & guidelines. Do not discuss other editors or their beliefs. - Ryk72 talk 01:09, 31 December 2019 (UTC)}}
We are focusing on content. Other editors and their beliefs are directly relevant to that, as the neutrality of this (and related) articles is the principle point of contention, so recognizing bias and how to avoid it is an important part of settling whether the article is actually neutral or not. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
Ryk72, I agree with Pfhorrest. The issue is that the template is used to push a POV and doesn't have an actual basis; it's an ideological POV-pushing that amounts to not liking the name and the user in question was clearly dismissive of both mine and Pfhorrest's attemps at explaining other forms of libertarianism. Either way, I already ended that discussion there and I didn't add anything as soon as you warned us, so I hope we're fine.--Davide King (talk) 15:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The dispute has not been resolved, but the tag has unilaterally been removed because it is supposedly not the correct one. Although it is not accurate to term majority libertarianism as "right-libertarianism", It may technically be something other than "factual" accuracy (although that is disputed as well). The template will thus be replaced to one more to the liking of the disputants - unless edits bringing neutrality to the article (i.e. clarification of the term) - cease to be reverted. JLMadrigal @ 12:43, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I support some sort of a tag to provide an impetus for resolving this. North8000 (talk) 13:41, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
The tag at Right-libertarianism is more than enough and that's where the main issue is. As long as Right-libertarianism exists and reliable sources use this left–right libertarianism categorisation to refer to different variants and distinguish various forms of libertarianism, there's no need to change the current wording or pushing a POV by adding the unnecessary ideologies deemed by some to be which isn't supported by reliable sources.--Davide King (talk) 14:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
I have been forced to reinsert a dispute template. This time I am using a general disputed neutrality tag, which covers all bases. I hope we can resolve this soon. JLMadrigal @ 21:01, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
You have been forced to reinsert a dispute template? So now it's mine and the other two users, who rightly reverted you, fault too? As far as I know, these templates shouldn't be used just because you think something isn't neutral when you just don't like the name and reject any sources I presented to you, either ignoring them or arguing they're biased, etc. You need to give a valid reason and justification for that. As far as I'm aware, there's no consensus to support your proposals and indeed the consensus has been for months to keep the status quo, but you continued dragging this for months, making up new name proposals or tallies, not following the actual Wikipedia guidelines.
I quote you what Aquillion rightly stated here:
As far as I'm concerned, the current template is even worse and misleading because there's no neutrality issue; your simply want us to drop right-libertarian and your main issue isn't at Libertarianism but rather at Right-libertarianism; and as long as Right-libertarianism exists, you will have a problem at Libertarianism because it mentions it.--Davide King (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Davide, JLMadrigal put in a minor (and IMO good) edit to attribute the use of the term (vs. implying it's universality) and you reverted it which let back to this. North8000 (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I've already explained why here. There's already the sourced phrasing Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of libertarianism.[3][4] There's no need to add that; reliable sources support that wording. Just because right-libertarians reject this categorisation, it doesn't mean we should be making sound like the term is never used as JLMadrigal implies. Many right-libertarians consider themselves the true libertarians; the same is for left-libertarians, so why not add that phrasing to left-libertarians too? Or maybe it was just an attempt to show that right-libertarian isn't a real thing, it's just a term used by academics, when it's not true. The simplest and easiest thing to do is to actually use the categorisation by reliable sources, whether they like it or not. It certainly seems to be only right-libertarians to dislike that and no one seems to worry that left-libertarians don't call themselves as such either, but JLMadrigal only cares about making sure right-libertarians aren't called as such, even when reliable sources call them as such. So again, this whole dispute is based on POV, at least regarding JLMadrigal; and so I think templates aren't justified.--Davide King (talk) 22:39, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
North8000 has thoroughly refuted the claim that "right-libertarian" is the common name for the view in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Right-libertarianism#Further_analysis_on_to_what_extent_%22right_libertarian%22_is_term_is/isn't_used_in_wp:reliable_sources_to_refer_to_the_topic_of_this_article JLMadrigal @ 00:03, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Have you even read all that section and the responses? That's clearly not a thoroughly refut[ation], with all due respect. Besides, that's not how Wikipedia works; Wikipedia works by consensus and you continue to ignore all the users who rejected the move back in July and more recently the merge, stating either that right-libertarianism is the common name or that there's nothing wrong with it/it's still the best common name.--Davide King (talk) 01:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Archive 35 ← Archive 40 Archive 41 Archive 42

Mistake with Picture

i fixed the mistake with the picture by removing the tag "thumb". you can thank me in my talk page - Bagel7

This article is primary source about the use of the term

This Wikipedia article is the main source of this original theory that conflates the polisemic term "libertarian" with the non-polisemic term "libertarianism". Where in the common use the anarchists (in the historical and left wing sense) or libertarian socialists use the term "libertarianism" to define their ideology?: In no place, they use anarchism or in last case libertarian socialism but never libertarianism. This article is an original essay where the author(s) expose how they think ideologies should be named and classified but not how they are actually named and classified in the common use. And that common use of libertarianism as a free market capitalism ideology is not only a reality in the US (the supposed US exclusivity of the use is another primary source theory of this Wikipedia article) but in all the American continent at least, you can consult "libertario" or "libertarismo" or "libertarianismo" in Google for Spanish and Portuguese results and what you will get are very predominantly free market capitalist descriptions of the terms (from places like Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and even in Spain that is in Europe). Maybe was just an US social movement in the 70s — like historical anarchism was a particularly French social movement in the 1880s before become international —, but now we are 50 years after that. --Hades7 (talk) 14:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

This was already opened by you and discussed in February 2019. I do not see anything new that has changed. This article includes both capitalist or right and socialist or left libertarian viewpoints. If you are asking us to make Libertarianism only about the American/capitalist/right viewpoint, which is what I seem to gasp from your comment, I do not think that is going to pass. For that free-market capitalist viewpoint, we already have Libertarianism in the United States (specifically about the United States) and Right-libertarianism (internationally). As noted by The Four Deuces in that discussion, modern American libertarianism developed out of 19th century libertarianism and retains some of its tenets, terminology and symbols. Hence it is both historically and philosophically related. This is why we mention both capitalist and socialist libertarian views.
I also agree with Finx's comment that the purpose of the article is to answer the question "what is a libertarian" – and I don't think that making some contrived distinction between "libertarian" and "libertarianism" helps to answer that question clearly. I think you are generally wrong about that as George Woodcock and others used libertarianism, certainly not to refer to the free-market capitalist viewpoint. Another relevant comment by Finx from that discussion which I believe is relevant is that [t]here was a deliberate effort to hijack (or "capture" in the words of Rothbard) pivotal leftist terminology, with considerable success. I don't think we can just remove a syllable and eliminate that issue, somehow. I guess your argument is that socialist libertarians used libertarian rather than libertarianism and so libertarianism should only refer to the free-market capitalist viewpoint, but that is wrong because socialist libertarians have used libertarianism too.--Davide King (talk) 18:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
There wasn't any "libertarianism" in the 19th century. There was an anarchism in that century and not a "libertarianism". Libertarianism is a word and philosophy of the 20th century. This article is creating a use of words and philosophical classification where this Wikipedia article is the primary source. Eventualy this have to change, a primary source article couldn't be preserved forever.
Also, the neutrality of an article not implies equal importance of, in this case, a use of a word - a marginal use couldn't be in the same rank of common use. And, what is the most common use of the word libertarianism? Well, main sources and search point to a capitalist free market ideology and not to historical anarchism. You shouldn't construct an article founded on exceptions. --Hades7 (talk) 23:49, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
I think the comment that [p]olitical descriptions in almost all cases were invented long after the ideologies they described had become established is spot on. I am not sure whether, for example, Locke called himself a liberal, yet he is widely considered to be the father of liberalism. I think the same thing applies to the 19th-century libertarian tradition. Anarchist, libertarian and liberal ideas go back to ancient history (see for example Laozi), but there are clearly timelines about when the actual movement truly developed and formed. I think the 19th-century libertarian tradition cannot simply be put away like that.--Davide King (talk) 00:57, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
The reality is exactly the opposite. The two most serious, comprehensive and noteworthy sources for the article are Graham's "Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas" and Woodcock's "Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements" – neither of which even bothers to mention that marginal Koch-funded, right-wing oddity, explicitly tasked with inverting the meaning of the term, which you want to be the sole focus of the article. You can check for yourself. That should give you some idea how much it actually matters globally, in a broad, historical context, which – protests notwithstanding – does have a clear documentary record spanning over 160 years. fi (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Hades7, first this article is not AN essay by any long shot. It is the product of about 13,000 article space edits plus 15,000 discussion page posts by hundreds of editors over 19 years of evolution, countless discussions and RFC's including a giant range war about a decade ago which I was the pseudo-mediator/moderator on. Most of the debates stemmed from people who figure that they know the one true meaning of libertarianism/libertarian and that all others are mistaken. The result of the rfc's including the mega rfc in particular is to acknowledge that there are widely varying strands of libertarianism and meanings of the term and that we are to cover and try to explain all of the significant ones. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree and I am fine with that. Left-libertarianism, Libertarian socialism, Libertarianism in the United States and Right-libertarianism are See also sub-articles that go in more detail about each libertarian tradition, that is why I support the current structure.--Davide King (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

"Liberal constitutionalism" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Liberal constitutionalism. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 November 9#Liberal constitutionalism until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. (t · c) buidhe 10:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

North's general thoughts

My efforts on libertarian articles over 10 years have been more as a facilitator than someone with strong opinions on the topics being discussed. This expanded into be a sort of mediator years ago when there were range wars at Libertarianism. The decision back then for the article is I think a good one for all of the libertarian articles which to cover all significant aspects of libertarianism. Contentious articles are usually fueled by some real-world contest/battle being played out in Wikipedia. Thank goodness I don't think that we have that here. I think that most or all participants want to simply do the best thing. The biggest challenge, probably uniquely strong here is that people have learned this topic and sources have covered this topic through fundamentally different frameworks and even different languages amongst the English languages. The latter refers to the words "libertarianism" and "liberal" having very different (but partially overlapping) meanings in the US vs. Europe. So here are some of those different lenses:

  • Fundamentally different English languages spoken in Europe vs. the US on political science terms like "libertarianism" and "liberal"
  • The numerically largest form of libertarianism is a large vague phenomena in the US, with 23% of Americans identifying as libertarians and 27% with libertarian voting pattern. It is not useful to try to define it as a philosophical strand. Operating in areas of libertarian where it is useful to dedine them primarily as philosophical strands creates a lens or bias. Even less useful to apply a foreign lens to it. For example, defining US libertarianism as being a pro-capitalism ideology is like defining European conservative ideology as one that is anti-canibalism.

It's pretty cool that we have so many conversations going on regarding coverage of libertarianism. It also presents a challenge that if we're talking about a zillion things at once we might not get anything done. Possibly the work we were doing at Right-libertarianism is now jammed up. Perhaps we should focus on a large scale general outline for libertarianism articles, while putting the above described "lenses" aside.

  1. Top level article: Libertarianism
  2. Keep and enhance articles about the strands of libertarianism with genuine unique names that have more or less consistent meanings.
  3. Deprecate all of the other "two word" libertarianism articles into short articles about those terms and who uses those terms. So, if you have a "dogs" article, and 200 articles about the breeds of dogs, the "big dogs" article would be about the meanings and usage of the term "big dogs", not duplicate coverage about 100 breeds of dogs that somebody considers to be big.

Use this just as a general guide, there will be exceptions and special cases. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:10, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@North8000: Numerical numbers are worthless. For over one hundred year[s], libertarian has been used in relation of [to] anarchism and libertarian socialism; and it continues [to be] these days in most countries. We could also just easily say that 90% of Americans are liberals because conservatism, liberalism [libertarianism] and modern liberalism are all variants of liberalism. I also don't understand your example in "defining US libertarianism as being a pro-capitalism ideology is like defining European conservative ideology as one that is anti-canibalism." While not all libertarianism is a "pro-capitalism ideology", some libertarianisms indeed are. Could you also [be] more clear and give [me] example of articles about "the strands of libertarianism with genuine unique names that have more or less consistent meanings" as well as the "two word" libertarianism articles" you keep referencing to, but without giving any example? Because there may be some that could be merged into a Libertarian schools of thought articles, but Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism aren't some [any] of them. Could you also please make more political pertinents examples? Should we also delete democratic socialism, social democracy, social liberalism, classical liberalism, conservative liberalism, national conservatism, social conservatism, liberal conservatism et all other "two word" political related articles? Should we merge all of them in socialism, liberalism and conservatism articles? Most of these "two word" libertarianism articles don't refer to Libertarianism but rather to a specific strand of it, hence they have their articles. However, we could put them all in Libertarian schools of thought. Articles like Consequentialist libertarianism, Natural-rights libertarianism, Neoclassical liberalism and Neo-libertarianism are all short and could be included in the Libertarian shools of thought. I just disagree with deleting or merging Left-libertarianism and Right-libertarianism.--Davide King (talk) 10:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC) [edited to fix typos]--Davide King (talk) 02:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
I think that I should reword my proposal for more clarity and fine-tuning, but your question points to a misread of something important that I did include. The likely fate of targeted articles isn't limited to "merge";just as likely would be to reduce the articles to be primarily about the term and it's usage. The reductions will invariably be material that is duplicated from other articles that are in the main plan anyway. Regarding the specific ones that you ask about, my proposal would just be setting the criteria framework between the two possibilities. Persons who know those terms/topics better than I (typically the main editors at those articles) would make the decision based on those criteria. North8000 (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the "I don't understand your example". "Anti-canibalism" is not a defining aspect of European conservatism, they merely tacitly accept anti-canibalims as the norm. If another strand of conservatism somewhere in the world advocates cannibalism, is not a reason to define European conservatism ideology as "anti-canibalism". Analogously, common American libertarianism tacitly accepts capitalism. Analogously, the fact that a different strand of libertarianism may oppose capitalism is not a reason to say that "pro-capitalism" or "anti-canibalism" are planks of the common US version. North8000 (talk) 19:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Davide King: You said, "For over one hundred year[s], libertarian has been used in relation of [to] anarchism and libertarian socialism". But I wonder how true that really is. You mention a span of time, but you don't say how common the usage during that period actually was. The article contains material in the section Etymology which refers to "In the United States, libertarian was popularized by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker around the late 1870s and early 1880s.[44] Libertarianism as a synonym for liberalism was popularized in May 1955 by writer Dean Russell, a colleague of Leonard Read and a classical liberal himself." Presumably, that 70-year span is contained in the "...for over one hundred years" that you are referring to. But, how much actual usage did the term "libertarianism" get during that 70 year period? Is it possible that 'the left' almost entirely abandoned their usage of "libertarianism" and "libertarian" during that time? Riverine721 (talk) 04:02, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

This article is a mess

Why this article mixes up "Libertarianism" and "Libertarian socialism" in a giant, incompatible and intelligible mess? These two are utterly different concepts, with no points of convergence, and they even stem from very different philosophical schools, with very little influence one on the other. Their only similarity starts and ends with the use of the word "libertarian" somewhere in their self-descriptive names, and little more. As a result, this article is almost unreadable; the orthography is correct, the grammar is correct, but nevertheless unreadable. Equally unnecessary, and even artificial, is the use of "left libertarianism" (which is essentially a duplication of the "libertarian socialism" article) and "right-wing libertarianism" as two separate articles, furthermore using the quasi-obsolete political terms left and right. This almost seems as a botch attempt to deconstruct the term "libertarian" via divide-and-conquer. The reality is that "Libertarianism" refers to what is described in the "right-wing libertarianism" article, and "left-wing libertarianism" is actually "libertarian socialism," which has its own article already and which the left-wing libertarianism article is a reverberation of. It seems impossible to understand why (and how) this article has achieved such level of degradation. I propose that this article to be eliminated and the term "Libertarianism" be reconstituted into what currently is the "right-wing libertarianism" article. Ajñavidya (talk) 07:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Yet another right-libertarian who wants to claim the term "libertarianism" entirely for their variety, despite the fact that right-libertarianism self-admittedly (read the article! and its references) co-opted the term that previously referred to libertarian socialism. Yawn.
There are two things that both claim the term "libertarianism" as rightfully their name and their name alone, that despite their differences also have significant commonalities, and this article is about all of that, not about either one of them alone, with both of them having their own articles to talk about themselves alone. We've been over this a million times before; read up the talk page(s). --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

As a veteran and attempted moderator of these discussion going back over 10 years....Agree that left and right libertarianism (especially right libertarianism) articles should not exist, or be whacked to short articles on those problematic terms. And those should certainly not be embedded at the top of this article, which I didn't notice until now. Aside from the posited motivations, I start by agreeing with Pfhorrest. Next I'll note that one complexity in this area is rather than being a political clash, the issues here have fueled by a Tower of Babel type situation where certain terms have two very different meanings on the two sides of the Atlantic, and the organization of political groups and their terms is also fundamentally different. North8000 (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

There's another underlying dichotomy which has added complexity. Much of libertarianism is about political philosophies and this article treats it as if were only about political philosophies. And maybe has been going into the weeds by treating the creators of philosophies as sources on them, thus losing the "overview" goal. But the form of libertarianism which dwarfs all others is not a specific political philosophy, it is something practiced or self-identified by maybe 80 million Americans which simply prioritizes more freedom and less government, which often straddles the two main political parties. And so, someone comes to this article trying to learn more about the most gigantic form of libertarianism, and they find little or nothing here. And the little that they do find here is confused by trying to view and describe it through the lens of specific philosophies. And this "missing or hidden coverage" has been an ongoing source of angst with this article. North8000 (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Do reliable sources discuss libertarianism, left and right, as one phenomenon or ideological tradition? Our article liberalism describes many forms of liberalism, including classical (old) liberalism, social (modern) liberalism, anarchism, feminist liberalism and other varieties. This is the type of situation where tertiary sources are helpful for evaluating WEIGHT. Sources I found:
Which supports the premise that Britannica should never be trusted for political articles. 09:23, 17 September 2021 (UTC)Dimadick (talk)

Right Libertarianism

The first half of this article is extremely based on fringe right-libertarian ideas, it even has a section on the 'NAP', lol. Libertarianism only means Right Libertarianism to a small amount of right-wing extremists in north america and their satellites, I think this should be changed. Thoughts? SP00KYtalk 13:55, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

That would take a book to answer, starting with and centered on terminology. (and right now I only have 3 Wiki minutes) Since about 95% of self-identifyiong libertarians are in the US, one could say that an emphasis there is due. But when you throw in philosophy and historical coverage, I think that the overall article should be about 50/50. But the European word for mainstream US libertarianism isn't "libertarianism" it's "liberal" which makes things really complicated. BTW, in US English, the term "right libertarian" is self-conflicting / an oxy-moron and doesn't exist. Also a look at the archives of this article, (including many claims the exact opposite of yours) particularly the range war about 10 years ago would be very informative. In short, this is an article about two completely different topics both of which are called "libertarianism" which overlap too much to separate. Well, there's the end of my 3 available wikiminutes. :-) North8000 (talk) 14:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Incoherent and undue weight on the topics of left as opposed to right libertarianism

The vast majority of references to libertarianism on both mainstream media and offline, in the real world, pertain to right-libertarianism. This seems to be true regardless of country, whether it is North America, South America, or Europe. I haven't checked Africa, Asia and Oceania but Im pretty sure of what the result is going to be.

Yet in the lead, there's a paragraph of length 892 chars given to left-libertarianism, and 492 chars given to right libertarianism, which comes afterwards. My guess is the users in favor of that are going to argue that left-libertarianism "came first", but that only justifies the relative position of the paragraph. The disparity in the sizes of the paragraphs in the lead is absurd given the relevance of each topic.

Also, is it just me, or does left-libertarian show up before right-libertarian in the article almost every single time they are juxtaposed (I counted one ocasion where this isn't true)? This might sound like a quibble, but it really isn't given the rest of the article.

Why is it that, in the contemporary libertarianism section, libertarian socialism shows up before right libertarianism? Why is the entry on libertarian socialism longer than the entry on right libertarianism? This is a ridiculous distribution of the weight given to each topic on the article, in my opinion, and I have trouble believing this fits wikipedia guidelines.

In a sense, this article seems to acknowledge that right libertarianism is the most important perspective, too bad it does that in the Criticism section, which is entirely dedicated to criticizing right-libertarianism, to the point where it should be renamed as such. Is there no criticism of left libertarianism? How about more esoteric things like libertarian socialism? One would expect there to be ample criticism of these; directly proportional to their relevance as ideologies in the mainstream. If there is no criticism, could it be its just not that relevant of a position? If there is, where is it?

I know I can't be the only reader that has these concerns about this article, and I wish I could discuss these things with other users. I intend to make changes to this article but figured it would be better if I just gathered a few opinions first before starting with that. Yurolib (talk) 10:39, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it is a mess. (I've been sort of a referee here for I'd guess 10 years.) But I don't think that the problems arise from one "side" vs. another. There are some big fundamental challenges which make this difficult to cover. One is that besides there being different types of libertarianism, there are different meanings to words on the two sides of the pond. So at the heart of it, the libertarianism-in-practice which dwarfs all others is the common US form with somewhere about 70 million US folks self-idfentifying as such, without any detailed philosophy (for example, unlike the US Libertarian party). Basically a vague emphasis on personal liberty, and having smaller and less intrusive government. Basically like what is also called classical liberalism in the US (no relation to the common meaning of "liberal" in the US) which is roughly the meaning of "liberal" in Europe. And then the term "right libertarian" exists in Europe while it is an oxymoron in the US. Another issue is that this article, doesn't really proportionately cover libertarianism in practice, instead it mostly covers libertarian philosophies. So the largest form sort of gets lost and confused in an article that is overwhelmingly structured around philosophies at the expense of "in practice" or movements. I've considered that a way to pare and focus the philosophies is to go more by secondary sources. Right now, we often treat the guy who invented it as a "source" and then give it coverage in this (top level) article based just on that, even if nobody actually practices it. I've also thought that if we moved more toward the Wikipedian format of putting the (sourced) material in the body and then truly made the lead more of a summary that the lead could be much more coherent and informative. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:49, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
I think this discussion should start on solid principles. I think there is very little point in pretending that wikipedia articles are not the representation of the current score of an ongoing debate between different users with different perspectives, this has been acknowledged previously in academic literature, which has looked into this phenomenon. In the truest sense, this is all wikipedia articles are in the end. They look what they look like, and they link to what they link because of that. One can acknowledge these facts and still have a civilized discussion. In fact, I believe acknowledging these facts is a precursor towards having an intelligent and productive conversation here.
Still, there are relatively neutral ways one could use to better inform readers who happen to click on this article of what libertarianism in practice means nowadays, when used colloquially by the vast majority of people. Even a simple clarification in the lead that this is about the philosophies that have been called libertarianism and does not weigh them in the article in accordance with their importance nowadays would go a long way in making sure the people who click on this article dont get the impression that when the average person talks about libertarianism they are referring to things like socialism. I feel very strongly this article will mislead readers in that direction, which wikipedia should strive not to do.
Another thing that could perhaps be done, is renaming the Criticism section to Criticism of Right-Libertarianism or something like that, since in practice it is almost exclusively dedicated to doing that. There is a single sentence criticizing libertarianism that also applies left-libertarianism. There is no criticism exclusive to left-libertarianism. There is no criticism of the stronger form of anti-property left-libertarian philosophies like socialist libertarianism. These ideologies get off virtually "scot-free" of criticism, to which I ask again, why? Has no one seriously offered any criticism of these?
In general, I believe there should be no criticism sections; I dislike articles that read like propaganda for each user's favorite cause and then lump all of the criticisms in the end. Obviously, I understand why this happens, but in this case I feel strongly the section should at the very least be renamed, since it is misleading users into believe it offers up any serious criticism of left-libertarianism.
There are other things that could be done, but I am aware of how wikipedia works and as such will refrain from doing things unless people with different opinions comment. Yurolib (talk) 23:54, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
The founders of the U.S. Libertarian Party (Nolan, Rothbard and Hess) took the name, writings and symbols of libertarianism and made one adjustment: private property was essential to freedom. They were not original in that, since individualist anarchism had done that 100 years before. I don't see why we cannot have an article about this broad intellectual movement. TFD (talk) 03:42, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Me neither, so do you agree with what I said in my previous comment? Can we start by implementing those changes that will, I would argue, improve the quality of this article? Yurolib (talk) 05:53, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
I think TFD is saying that there's enough similarity between the original (left) libertarianism and the newer (right) libertarianism -- i.e. that right-libertarianism is just a recent and not even especially novel twist on the same old libertarianism that's been around for centuries -- that one article talking about the entire movement as a unified whole and not emphasizing one branch over the other, like we have now, is a sensible thing to have. If that's correct then I agree with it.
Talking about left-libertarianism before right-libertarianism makes sense historically, and if there is undue length of coverage of one rather than the other, you need to show what information is inappropriate for one or missing for the other. Looking at the lead now I don't see anything that is clearly undue information about left-libertarianism or anything obviously missing about right-libertarianism.
If there is material critical of left-libertarianism that we're missing here, it should be added to the Criticism section, rather than that section being renamed specifically as a section critical of right-libertarianism. Or, all criticism should be integrated throughout the article. In any case, strong oppose to renaming that section, it makes it look like Wikipedia is targeting right-libertarianism specifically and giving left-libertarianism a pass. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Worrying about simple bias/balance between two "sides" is not my dance. My bigger worry is that this article fails to inform the readers and that it confuses the readers. The biggest root cause of how it misses the mark (in addition to the "tower of babel situation described above) is that it really isn't a libertarianism article, it's a "libertarian philosophies" article. And as a unintended result of our "big compromise" about 10 years ago, to a certain extent a portion of it is a list of obscure libertarian philosophies where (flippantly speaking) they have no practitioners and the only "source" is the guy who invented it. Not that they shouldn't be covered, but they are flooding this article.North8000 (talk) 13:47, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

The emphasis on so-called “left-libertarianism” is absurd. I made a substantial revision to the first paragraph. I would describe libertarianism as a right-wing ideology based on principles of personal and economic freedom. The article seems to be referring to some kind of syndicalism. Concise language emphasizing concepts like property and the market would be more coherent. Junius Fertilis (talk) 12:38, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@Junius Fertilis: While I disagree with your overly narrow characterization of libertarianism, I think that your edits are fine and welcome your participation. This article does need some work and fixes.North8000 (talk) 13:19, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Incoherent "history" section

This history section may need some bold restructuring, as it is currently an incoherent mess. Rather than providing a broad, chronological overview of the history of libertarianism, it's broken up into subsections that cover different wings of libertarian thought. So while it starts with its origins in classical liberalism during the 17th and 18th centuries, which is a fair enough introduction; it then has an "anarchism" section which focuses mostly on the French Revolution; then a "libertarian socialism" section, which stretches from the 1840s to the 1970s; then an "Individualist anarchism in the United States" section, which jumps back to the 1820s and goes on to 1900; then it moves on to an uncited, meandering and incoherent spiel about Geoism; then it finally ends with a section about libertarianism in the post-WWII United States.

This is less a section about the history of libertarianism than it is a random series of peeks at different subsects of libertarianism, with little-to-no connection between them. Perhaps some of this can be incorporated into a different section about the variants of libertarianism, but currently it makes for an ill-conceived history section. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:13, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Notable libertarians

We should have a section for notable Libertarians like Camille Paglia, Ben Shapiro, Dave Smith and many others both alive and dead Nlivataye (talk) 10:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

We already have a List of libertarians in the United States. Whether we also need an international list is another question. Dimadick (talk) 14:21, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
This article is badly lacking on "libertarianism in current practice" coverage. I think that prominent/significant instances of this with respect to individuals would be a good thing in that respect. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
But I think it's questionable to include Ben Shapiro. Even his self-description for that article (which includes "conservative on social issues") is basically conservative rather than libertarian. North8000 (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: Wikipedia is influenced by the libertarian principle of spontaneous order according to Jimmy Wales[1], so I guess this website we're on would be an example of libertarianism in practice. X-Editor (talk) 17:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I have seen Internet pages condemning Wikipedia as a libertarian mouthpiece. Dimadick (talk) 04:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Lists are more appropriate for stub articles, where they should list only people who should be included in the article if it were complete. With a full article, important people should be mentioned in the article. A list of 50,000 to 2,000,000 notable American who could reasonably be described as libertarian is not useful.
There is also an issue of agreement on whom is libertarian, such as Ben Shapiro. TFD (talk) 05:52, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Libertarian can be conservative or liberal but all agree on minimal government intervention, laisez Ferre capitalism and also gvt should not decide morality and decide between consenting adults either people find that ugly or not Nlivataye (talk) 07:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Cool. In the US, conservative on social issues generally means in favor of governmental intervention. Most notably on abortion. But admittedly a conservative may argue that an unborn fetus is already a full human being and thus that governmental intervention government intervention is does not violate libertarianism. North8000 (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I was under the impression that American conservatives favor police state policies and an increase on mass surveillance in the United States. Dimadick (talk) 10:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that is somewhat true.North8000 (talk) 02:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Issues with the article

@North8000: You've talked about how this article has some issues, including more of a focus on philosophy and practice. Are there any other issues with the article and if so, how can they be fixed? How can the article be fixed to reflect the ideology's implementations in practice alongside the philosophy? X-Editor (talk) 05:00, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

That's complicated question. Just quick shooting from the hip:

  • Seek out material on current libertarian practice and current libertarian self-identification, current organizations, institutions & publication(s) and dramatically expand on that
  • Reduce the coverage of specialized philosophies
  • Make the lead be more a summary of the article.
  • Try for more coherent organized writing in the larger more complex areas such as libertarianism in the US
  • Increase simplified "overview" type coverage, especially of the dramatically different meanings of the terms on the two sides of the pond and the terms with equivalent meaning on the other side of the pond.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: How would you make the lead more of a summary of the article? Otherwise, I think you've answered all my questions. X-Editor (talk) 16:20, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
In the end it would be a summary of the revised body of the article and so to some extent the problems/fixes are the same as for the body. But also right now it's too loaded with / dependent on obscure and/or questionable philosophical-strand terms, too focused on history and historical subjective "ownership" of terms (although history is important), too focused on obscure philosophy terms vs. common meanings of common libertarian terms. North8000 (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Maybe the history section should be split off into its own article called History of Libertarianism once the history section is simplified, because simplifying would lose a lot of valuable content that should still be on Wikipedia. X-Editor (talk) 19:33, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree that we don't want to lose anything that is in the article (except possibly commentary type stuff). But also note that I was only talking about the lead. Overall, I don't think that history takes up too much space in this article other than it needs some organizing / tightening up I think that obscure libertarian philosophies and related obscure terminology takes up too much space. Overabundance of such actually be a minus. I originally tried to learn libertarianism by learning those terms and a taxonomy of those terms and it took me many years to figure out that it was a waste of time.....that I was just trying to learn the obscure creations and created terms of individual philosophers. North8000 (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
I'd disagree with splitting the history section in its current state. The subsections titled "Anarchism" and "Individualist anarchism in the United States" literally don't mention the words "libertarian" or "libertarianism" a single time. These would be better off merged into their own respective articles (History of anarchism and Individualist anarchism in the United States), because it's currently unclear how they relate to the subject at all. Grnrchst (talk) 21:13, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
@Grnrchst: You're right, I've removed the sections. X-Editor (talk) 21:39, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
(per table below) I believe that that section IS relevant to the article but was too long / undue. I'm not sure what to do next. North8000 (talk) 23:28, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: The geolibertarianism section in particular needs to be shortened a lot and needs actual sources. X-Editor (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Cool. Evolution of the article is invited. But before anyone goes off the deep end we need to understand that we need to understand that we are speaking two different languages here about two different topics which have enough overlap that they need to be in the same article. Here is your translation table for the common meanings:

Vague description US term European term
Prioritizes freedom and minimization of government, not defined by complex philosophies Libertarian Liberal
More radical anti-government, more defined by complex philosophies Anarchist, somewhat leftish Libertarian

And, for our European friends, a major part of the meaning of "liberal" in the US includes favoring expansion of social programs and taxes to pay for them. So everybody, please recognize this and don't (based on terminologies) say that the other half of the article is all wrong.

North8000 (talk) 23:12, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: It's not somewhat leftish, it's usually full on left-wing anarchist. Regardless, you did define the different terms very well, which will hopefully clear up confusion. X-Editor (talk)
Don't forget that I was using American-ese in that column!  :-) In American-ese, full left means being for expansion of governmental social programs and taxes to pay for them, and redistribution of wealth by the government.
I've been active at this article for almost 12 years, many of them as an attempted moderator. A pattern is that someone unaware of the two languages comes in and says that half the article is not about libertarianism. So I wrote the above to try to avoid that confusion. North8000 (talk) 01:08, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: Sorry for misinterpreting what you were trying to say, although there are anti-state leftists in the US that want to solve these problems without the state, but you are right that other leftists want to use the state for that task. You should add that column to the Q&A section of the talk page, since it clears up a lot of confusion. X-Editor (talk) 05:57, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
My main focus was to avoid debates fueled by tower-of-babel misunderstandings. And second to acknowledge some main elements which exist which we need to keep in mind when improving this article. A subtle one is that in Europe it's more defined by detailed philosophies and in the US (where there are maybe 50,000,000 vague self-declared libertarians) it really isn't. I do realize that everything I wrote is a (hopefully useful) massive over generalization and thus wrong in many cases. . If you felt like it I'd be interested in knowing which side of the Atlantic you live on, but if not, "rather not" is a fine answer. I'm on the West side of the pond. North8000 (talk) 13:28, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: I'm more familiar with US Libertarianism because people in the US are extremely outspoken about their politics. I also added info about an attempt to try US Libertarianism in the real world, but I'm not sure how many other in practice movements there are. X-Editor (talk) 18:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
@X-Editor: If you are curious the "libertarian" meaning that 20%-30% of Americans self identify as has a very short and vague meaning. It's sort of "place a higher priority on freedom" (including privacy as a means to that end.) And on "smaller and less intrusive government." And note the mere "place a higher priority on" and so a mild version of those advocacies. And most of them vote Republican and Democrat, not Libertarian party. Probably equivalent to someone in Europe saying that they are a liberal. North8000 (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
That's true X-Editor (talk) 04:40, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
North8000, although what you have provided is one definition of libertarianism, this would be a very different article if we used it. Every U.S. president from Washington to Hoover and ever Republican president from Reagan to Trump would be libertarians. For example in her book Roads to Dominion, p. 7, Sara Diamond writes, "Libertarianism, anticommunist militarism, and traditionalism have been the three pillars of the U.S. Right." Similar definitions were used by both social scientists and the founders of the modern conservative movement.
On the other hand, the term is used to refer more narrowly to the movement founded by Rothbard, Nolan and Hess, which drew on earlier libertarian movements, especially individualist anarchism. Rothbard distinguished his form of libertarianism by his emphasis on property ownership.
Libertarianism btw is not synonymous with liberalism. Hence French has three terms: libéralisme, libertairism and libertarianisme. The English term libertarianism is a translation of the French term libertairism, while the French term libertarianisme is a French translation of the English term libertarianism. Note the French article defines liberalism in the same way that the English article does, although it points out that the term is iused in different sense. Libertarianisme comes closest to the article North8000 suggests.
TFD (talk) 11:43, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
@The Four Deuces: I was not intending to create a new working definition for the term for the article, I was just trying to describe the most common meaning of the term in the US. But I disagree that that definition includes all of the people / presidents that you describe. The Nolan chart is probably the best decoder ring for the common meaning of the term in the US and IMO most or all of those presidents were in different corners of the chart than libertarianism. BTW I think that it is important recognize a 2nd tower of Babel between analysis by a European and US person. IMO a European would approach the topic as being mostly defined by history, taxonomy and well developed philosophies. A US person would tend to put extra weight on the common (vague) meaning of the term in the US. North8000 (talk) 17:14, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
  • North: interesting and thoughtful proposal, but I think your first, second, 4th and 5th bullet points would result in a worse article. This article should remain more strictly about the philosophy, its schools of thought, and the discourse and debates among philosophers. Our coverage of libertarian schools of thought should be made more rigorous, and expanded, to match the example of our far-better Socialism article.
We should be careful to avoid treating philosophical libertarianism and American self-ascribed "libertarianism" as the same thing. U.S. Republicans are as "libertarian" as Obamacare is "socialist". No scholar thinks these politicians have much to do with the actual philosophy, except for a handful of Libertarian Party candidates. For example, why does this article talk at such length about the Tea Party, when scholars don't see it as libertarian? (See Brennan 2012) Sure, it has vague libertarian roots, but scholars dictate our coverage, not self-identification; the Tea Party doesn't deserve more than a few sentences, the rest is cruft (including irrelevant crap like mentioning that Trump praised the Tea Party).
Editors should be mindful to avoid rejiggering this article around what they're familiar with (U.S. domestic politics for most English Wikipedians). U.S. Republican talking points do not "define" libertarianism. Scholars and libertarian philosophers do, exclusively. Our already-excessive coverage of America only increase this article's WP:SYSTEMICBIAS and make it pointlessly more redundant with Libertarianism in the United States; that article should be WP:SUMMARYzed in a few paragraphs in a single section under "History".
For the structure, Socialism is a good model. The History section should be dedicated to attempts to implement the philosophy: politicians and governments deemed libertarian by scholars. The entire rest of the article should be about the philosophy itself, and based entirely on scholarship, not news orgs. "History" should also be reorganized to be more chronological, as others proposed. We should add "Social and political theory", "Economics", and "Politics" sections (the latter is about individual schools of thought, but again must be restricted to philosophers, not be redundant with "History"). What's in "Overview" (and most of History) should be spread out among those three sections. Thoughts appreciated. DFlhb (talk) 13:57, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
"talk at such length about the Tea Party, when scholars don't see it as libertarian" We already define the Tea Party movement as an American expression of right-wing populism. What does it have to do with libertarianism? These people did not care at all about civil rights. Dimadick (talk) 15:46, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
I do agree that the article should not focus on any one type of libertarianism. Also that the Tea party is only about 1/2 libertarian. Other that that I pretty much disagree with most of your post. "In practice" is immensely important. A scholar on a topic covers the topic. Most that you might be considering to be that might not be. Instead of covering the topic, they are more like philosophers creating or interpreting their own strands/meanings of the term. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:26, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
North8000, I'm still trying to understand what your definition of U.S. libertarianism is. It seems to describe the shared U.S. ideology, although they interpret it differently. Social conservatives claimed that morality laws do not infringe on freedom of choice, since immorality is not a real choice. U.S. liberals justified the welfare state and civil rights legislation on the basis that it empowered individual freedom. How far along a conservative or liberal pathway does one have to go before one is no longer a libertarian? It seems that only Rothbard & co. can claim no conservative and/or liberal traits, while democratic socialists are the only significant group that rejects its premises, at least in part. TFD (talk) 22:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
It varies a lot even in the US. Not only the definition, but even the degree to which it is defined. What runs through the most mathematically prevalent ones is short and vague....prioritizing freedom. The limit of the definition is pretty much the Nolan chart, and nothing beyond that. Fiscally conservative, and socially liberal (using the US definition of "liberal"). Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 02:03, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
The Nolan chart usually shows mainline parties in the upper right, left parties in the bottom left and libertarian parties in the bottom right. See for example "The US Presidential Election 2020" on the Political Compass website. Are you saying that libertarians are people who fall in the bottom right? That bascially limits it to Libertarian Party supporters. TFD (talk) 04:02, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
I know that you are one of the least biased and most objective editors I've worked with. But (especially if you live outside of the US) you might have the accidental bias of trying to understand the numerically large US libertarian phenomena in a framework of developed philosophies. The numerically large (20%+ of the population) has a very short vague definition given in my previous post, and for most of them it is nothing more specific than that, They know little or nothing about the US Libertarian Party and even those who do seldom vote for the USLP; they mostly vote for Democratic and Republican candidates. And of course there is the difference in meaning in terms across the pond. If you live in Europe, I think that the closest European word for the numerically large US libertarian phenomena folks would not be "libertarian" it would be "liberal", (which I assume is a big tent) which I think might illustrate the challenge of trying to define it as a specific developed philosophy.
Probably the distant-second most common "libertarian" in the US (my guess 1%-2% of the population) is one with a more developed philosophy along the lines of the USLP platform. Within that group there are varying degrees all the way from anarchists to very mild advocates.
Political scientists in the US describe common US libertarianism as classical liberalism or something evolved from it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

 32 Fernandez, Frank (2001). Cuban Anarchism. The History of a Movement. Sharp Press.  not a reliable source, and should be deleted

Taking a look at the book and pages in question, Fernandez gives no citations or sources for what he writes, Seeming to be an opinion piece. Contradicted by facts that are properly sourced here.


Looking at Letters of H. L. Mencken, H.L. Mencken was using the word to describe himself at least as early as the 1940s, I wish there was a source or citation explaining why he began to use it. (Current sentence seems to imply active intent in Co-Opting it, Rothbard source could be interpreted as it being a happy{for them} coincidence) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.158.83.164 (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Lack of criticism of left-libertarianism

In the criticism section there is one line referring to criticism of left-libertarianism, but four paragraphs to the right. Considering left-libertarianism is talked about frequently in this article, why so little criticism mentioned? Zilch-nada (talk) 05:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. I think that "left-libertarianism" and "right-libertarianism" are terms that need to be covered but not valid for use in covering libertarianism. But I don't know how to answer your question. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
@North8000: I had a look at Google Ngrams and found that there's a pretty massive gap between the coverage of the term "libertarianism" and those of its branches. Together, the terms "right-libertarianism", "left-libertarianism", "libertarian socialism" and "libertarian communism" make up only 4% of the coverage of "libertarianism" as a whole.[2] But in our article, for 502 uses of the term "libertarian", there are 25 uses of "left-libertarian", 25 cases of "libertarian socialis[m/t]", 20 uses of "right-libertarian" and 16 uses of "libertarian communis[m/t]". That's 17% of the cases in the article.
So I think there's a very good argument to be made that such excessive rack-focusing on different branches of libertarianism, rather than giving a broad overview of the subject, is probably undue. -- Grnrchst (talk) 12:10, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
@Grnrchst: I agree on your end result but for a different reason. The terms are very confusing particularly because we're talking about meanings/terms which exist on only one side of the pond. So we need to start treating those as mere terms (including explaining their meanings) rather than as entities. North8000 (talk) 14:23, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
@Zilch-nada: If you're referring to the one I'm thinking of, I ended up removing it because none of the cited sources mentioned "left-libertarianism" or even "libertarianism".[3] I'm sure there's criticisms of "left-libertarianism" to be made, but those are better constructed with sources that actually criticise "left-libertarianism" and those are probably better utilised in the article on left-libertarianism, not here. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:25, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Spanish language article

I was reading the Spanish version of this article and realized that it is very low-quality and an apparently US-centric, right-libertarian only, and outright sometimes incorrect description of libertarianism that fails to even mention its history before right-libertarianism and the expansiveness of non-right libertarian movements. I will try to contribute to its improvement when I am free, but if there are other people who speak/write Spanish I strongly encourage you to help with its improvement. 4kbw9Df3Tw (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@4kbw9Df3Tw The Spanish article has been "monopolized" by right-wing libertarianism advocates, so it is extremely biased. The problem is evident in so many Spanish articles. The only thing I can recommend is to report to the administration who is preventing you from editing the article. 93.45.229.98 (talk) 11:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
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