Hi everyone,
I'm sorry for this wall of text. I hope it's sort of interesting.
What's this topic about? Well, it's about the concept of 'left' and 'right' in the political philosophy of 'libertarians' and the meanings it (sometimes) has and what it can and cannot have and why it can and cannot be relevant. You'll see what I mean when we get there. :p
(For the record: when I talk about 'libertarianism' in this text, you can read it as Rothbardian-libertarian. Given that most people are familiar with it and adhere to it, I'm using this as the initial definition.)
The reason why is to make aware that there are different aspects of the philosophy we - in a general sense - could call the philosophy of 'living together'. Allow me to define some words. I know some of you have use some of these differently, but in order to be on the same page, let me clarify what I mean by them.
Oke. Given these definitions, let's talk about it's relationship with libertarianism.
We all know the concept of 'left-libertarianism'. We've heard about it, but it's clear there is still no uniform definition. Some use it as something that's anti-thetical from what the people in general on this forum consider to be 'libertarian'.
Another thing called libertarian is something like the Georgist/Occupancy theory that has some connections with 'our' kind of libertarianism, but has some other opinions on specific things.
Third: we have people like Sheldon Richmann and Roderik Long. Long described (his) left-libertarianism as 'leftist goals with libertarian means', i.e. when we will live in a libertarian world - a Rothbardian, harde core natural rights world - we will have more social states that approach the leftist desires. E.g. more equally, stronger labor versus capital relationship, more care about the environment, more 'liberation' from hierarchical bounds.
It's in this context that the concept of 'right-libertarianism' also is relevant. One might correct me on this one, but I take Hoppe and the 'paleo-conservative libertarian' connection to mean something similar on the other side: a libertarian world will strengthen conservative values like traditions, a stronger family, more local ties (within globalized trade) and so on and so forth.
(Please: if I'm misrepresenting anyone's views - which is always possible - please don't flame me because of it. Try to make a distinction between things I use to illustrate my point and the point itself.)
These kinds of 'right' and 'left' libertarianism don't focus on _political_ philosophy per se. They, however, do focus on social philosophy - which is also important. (Maybe not as much, but also.) Again: social philosophy in a normative sense tries to analyze what people ought to do given their dues and within justifiable political institutions. As a descriptive sense, you can understand it as the philosophy/analysis that tries to understand what will happen given certain institutions and rights.
Why is this important?
We all know the Rothbardian famous idea - which is correct - from the ethics of liberty that his book doesn't try to argue whether or not something is 'moral', only if someone has the right to do so. And this is really important - definitely in todays world. We have the right to do a lot of things that others might find appalling. Rothbard gives the example of abortion, selling of parental guardianship, libel and slander, and so on and so forth. (I don't want to go into a discussion wether or not he's correct in claiming that libertarians should support these things. Just the general idea: libertarians often defend something as a 'right' even though they personally are against it.)
And libertarians - _qua_ libertarians - should keep defending things if people have a right to do so - even if they are against it.
Does this mean that the concepts of 'left' and 'right' have no meaning?
Well, I would argue 'no', along the lines of a analogy. A different kind of political concept is democracy. 'Everyone' is a democrat now a days: 'democracy' is the end and all of all political debate. Democrates and republicans are, both, in a very real sense 'democrats' (you could argue 'plutocrats', but let's not get into that debate here). They accept the rules of democracy and will try to play by it. Does that mean that the concepts of 'left' and 'right' have no meaning? (I would agree that they don't say that much. A lot of people have opinions that are 'left' and 'right'. But it's not true that the concepts of 'left' and 'right' have 'no' meaning.) So we have 'left' and 'right' democrats (or statists). They both try to act within the 'normal, accepted' political rules to try and achieve their (social) goals. The constraints they have are the constraints the state has - the political idea that is dominant at this very moment.
In a similar way; 'left' and 'right' within libertarianism kind a makes sense. Given the political constraints of a libertarian world - no aggression - it would still be able to analyze certain social goals - a social end of affairs people want to see achieved. Take, for instance, the concept of helping the poor. In a libertarian world there could be different groups who both try to help the poor. Some would be paternalistic, some would be empowering, some would be a combination and so on and so forth. These could also aspire debates between 'the left' and 'the right'. 'You have to give single mothers money to be able to take care of there childeren!', 'No! You have to give them part time jobs, so they can empower themselves!' and so on and so forth.
Of course, again, as _libertarians_ we can say: 'well, it's al lawful as long as everybody uses it's own means' and that's absolutely correct. Just as democrats would say 'as long as it's democratically decided, it's all good'. Oke we want to change the decision democracy takes, but those are the rules of the game <=> Oke, we want to change the decisions these people voluntarily take, but those are the rules of the game. See where I'm getting at?
Where I am going with this? Well, a few (minor) points. The concept of 'left-libertarianism' doesn't necessarily have to be 'wrong'. Again; in so far (some) self-acclaimed left-libertarians deny basic economics, that's to bad. In so far some make (some) economic mistakes, that's to bad. But it doesn't follow the idea as a whole is entirely absurd. The fact that two people are in a basic accordance about the _political_ organization of society - just as a democrat and republican can both agree 'yes, democracy has to decide who will be president - doesn't mean you have to agree on (1) the social consequences or (2) what social philosophy people should aim at.
Obviously; social philosophy has less logical scrutiny than (imo) political philosophy. I believe the state to be an unjustifiable institution, period. I, however, have some social views that I consider to be less strictly logically necessary as the unjustifiable nature of the state. E.g. I'm very big sceptic of the idea of how education is performed in our public schools - with a teacher telling you what to do and all. It's possible that in a libertarian society schools would operate under similar lines - but I would still be against it. I just think it's bad practice. Also, I'm not a big fan of development aid, _even_ if given voluntarily. (William Easterly has a lot of criticism against development aid projects that are completely voluntary, but fail completely.)
Also; I've got a mixture of social ideas, some considered 'left', some considered 'right'.
In any case; what I'm trying to say is: just as the political dominant idea of 'democracy' has developed his 'left' and his 'right' it's not bad to identify that 'libertarianism' as a political alternative, also has people who - within what is justified - want to act upon different social goals.
And we can have interesting debates about what will happen in a libertarian world. And we can have interesting debates on what kind of social goals people should try to achieve in a libertarian world. Again; I'm not saying that this is urgent. And I'm well aware that these kind of debates might actually divide the movement as a whole. But on the other had: if we can openly analyze and be aware of the difference between the political and the social, it might be an improvement, if we can agree on what ought to be the political part of society and agree to disagree on the social, in stead of having endless debates, which are, in essence, debates that, imo, confuse the social and the political.
I'm sorry if I don't make any sense. I hope I made some. (It's 3.45 am here, so... :p)
The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is.
Anyone?
Well the great thing about libertarianism in general is that there is room to differ from each other. We do not all agree with each other yet we understand the basic principal when it comes down to the NAP and property rights. For example, we can clearly say that Walter Block is highly influenced by Murray Rothbard, yet they highly disagree on topics such as abortion, the death penalty, and voluntary slavery... The different views between Rothbard or Block doesn't make either of them 'less libertarian than the other,' but that is the beauty of libertarianism, we allow this diversity.
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
My understanding is that the very act of trying to separate what you call social philosophy from political philosophy is considered right wing or vulgar libertarianism. The issue is not so much right vs. left as it is left vs. everything else.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage