Guest post by Jacob Hornberger. Statists oftentimes accuse libertarians of holding extreme views. One reason for that is that since we have all been born and raised in a society based on welfare and warfare, the libertarian philosophy, which stands in opposition to socialism, interventionism, and imperialism, seems extreme to statists. Consider, for example, the…
Tag: libertarian
Is the Free Market a Utopia?
Guest post by Nielsio. Jon Stewart asks: “If we didn’t have government, we’d all be in hovercrafts, and nobody would have cancer, and broccoli would be ice-cream?” Libertarians are not against government, they are for economic cooperation. We would like to expand the division of labor in as many areas as possible, and as such…
Three Voluntary Economies
Guest post by Philip E. Jacobson. A free nation is not necessarily a Capitalist nation. As we seek to describe the institutions of a free nation we must consider all the alternatives. In the United States, libertarians tend to associate the idea of an economy based on voluntary relations with cash-based, for-profit enterprises. Other voluntary…
Myth and Truth About Libertarianism
Guest post by Murray Rothbard. Libertarianism is the fastest growing political creed in America today. Before judging and evaluating libertarianism, it is vitally important to find out precisely what that doctrine is, and, more particularly, what it is not. It is especially important to clear up a number of misconceptions about libertarianism that are held…
Times Change, Principles Don’t
Guest post by Lew Rockwell. [The] libertarian critique of government is not contingent on or tied to time and place, one that can be abandoned when the moment seems to call for government action. The libertarian critique of government is foundational. It says that in all times and places, the coercive power of the state…
Button Pushing and the Radical Libertarian
Post by Skyler J. Collins. Originally written August 2011. Since I once claimed to be a radical libertarian, the question presents itself, “What is a radical libertarian?” Though I’ll give my own thoughts on the question, I could not answer this any better than one of the greatest of radical libertarians, Murray Rothbard: The true…
The Mystification of State Power
Guest post by Roderick Long. When invisible-hand or spontaneous-order mechanisms are invoked in libertarian social theory, it is customarily as a benign alternative to state power. Yet there are reasons for thinking that state power itself likewise depends for its maintenance on spontaneous-order mechanisms.Read the full thing »
Defining a Free Society
Guest post by Brian Lobb. What is a “free society”? Some people think that having economic freedom while controlling others socially is freedom. On the opposite side, certain folks think that having social freedom while controlling their neighbors’ pocketbook is freedom. Neither stance is freedom when you really break it down. To have a truly…
Parents as the State
Written by Skyler J. Collins. Parents have a unique responsibility. They have the power to create life, and then the duty to protect it and raise it into a functioning adult. But can we say that this life that they create is theirs in the sense of materialistic ownership? I don’t think we can. If…
False Dichotomies Abound, Politics and Education
The typical Left vs. Right political spectrum is a false dichotomy. Both the political Left and Right use force to mold people in society against their will. Donald Boudreaux analyzes this and explains a better political spectrum in chapter 2 of Everything Voluntary. But politics does not have a monopoly on false dichotomies. Another one…