Guest post by Gary Chartier. Libertarianism is a redistributive project. That’s another way in which radical market anarchism is rightly seen as part of the socialist tradition. Statists on both the left and the right favor the redistribution of wealth. Libertarians, by contrast, are often assumed to be dead-set against all varieties of redistribution. But…
Tag: libertarian
Drug Law Nullification and 47%ers
Send him mail. “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective” is an original weekly column appearing every Monday at Everything-Voluntary.com, by the founder and editor Skyler J. Collins. Archived columns can be found here. OVP-only RSS feed available here. Welcome to the inaugural edition of “One Voluntaryist’s Perspective,” a column I really, really hope to write every week. The…
Do You Hate the State?
Guest post by Murray Rothbard. I have been ruminating recently on what are the crucial questions that divide libertarians. Some that have received a lot of attention in the last few years are: anarcho-capitalism vs. limited government, abolitionism vs. gradualism, natural rights vs. utilitarianism, and war vs. peace. But I have concluded that as important…
Why Objective Law Requires Anarchy
Guest post by Roderick Long. While libertarians all agree on the need for a drastic reduction in the size and power of the state, the libertarian movement has long been divided between the anarchists, who believe that the state should be done away with entirely, and the minarchists, who wish to reduce it to a…
The Grayness of Children’s Rights
Guest post by Wendy McElroy. Children’s rights confuse me. But, then, children’s rights and the issues that surround them, such as parental responsibility, have confounded a great many otherwise clear minded theorists. Some libertarians reach definitive conclusions that directly contradict each other. For example, in an article entitled “Taking Children Seriously & the Future of…
The Case for Radical Idealism
Guest post by Murray Rothbard. Every “radical” creed has been subjected to the charge of being “utopian,” and the libertarian movement is no exception. Some libertarians themselves maintain that we should not frighten people off by being “too radical,” and that therefore the full libertarian ideology and program should be kept hidden from view. These…
Why Won’t They Leave Us Alone?
Guest post by Eric Peters. The simple answer is – because they can’t. Cloverism is a one-way street. Libertarians, anarchists and others who hew to the philosophy of live – and let live – aren’t the least bit interested in controlling other people. It does not occur to them. In fact, it goes against their…
The Liberty Movement: What Now?
Ron Paul has officially dropped out of the race for those who live under a rock and/or are attending college for a ministry degree.I was left unsurprised and shocked at the same time. Many of my libertarian brethren told me that there is still hope and that we should continue fighting for what we believe in.…
Individualism, Collectivism, and Other Murky Labels
Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist. But is he an individualist and a capitalist or a socialist and a collectivist?
Prostitution and Coercion
Guest post by Russell Hasan. I was recently thinking about why prostitution is illegal. As a libertarian I think that it should be legal, as an extension of people’s absolute right to own their own bodies. But many Americans disagree. If there is a rational, persuasive argument against the legalization of prostitutes (or “sex workers,”…