AFAIK The core is freedom, i.e. a lack of coercion of any kind.

If, to be yourself, you need to claim someone else property, then Libertrarians would say it goes against the core principles of liberty, because to execute this claim you exercise coertion.

But as long as you do not exert coercion on no one else, you're free to be yourself anyway you like.

> lack of coercion of any kind

In practice, it means lack of government coercion because that's the easiest kind to oppose. Weaken government too much, and other forms of coercion will come to the fore. Changing that would require changing human nature though, so most libertarians prefer to turn a blind eye to it.

I'm not sure why you think government is easier to oppose. Or what it has to do with the core principles of Libertarianism.

In any case, of cause, the reality is much more complicated, if there is a dispute over property rights or a form of coercion you go to court to decide who is right and who is wrong. Libertarianism is not anarchism. At the same time, in spite of all the complications of the real world, there is a clear difference in ideology between libertarianism and social democracy, for example. And one can claim the difference stems from the core principle where the two worldviews differ in certain values.

Ah yes, the one form of coercion libertarians endorse - via the courts. I'm just not even going to address all the reasons that can't work and/or just changes the details of coercion. Others have done so, more or less eloquently, zillions of times. It always falls on intentionally deaf ears. Good day.

Property rights themselves depends on the use of coercion to deny others access and use.

It's a core inconsistency of right-libertarianism that the artificial creation of property rights are taken as an exception that is elevated to something almost holy.

But because of the coercive nature of property rights, there isn't a country on earth that doesn't have huge carveouts to reduce their applicability. Ranging from zoning, to regulations of what you can do on your land to access rights and easements.

Some more than others. E.g. in Norway where I grew up, a private property owner can't deny you access to walk through forests or other non-urban land, nor can they deny you the right to forage or camp, as long as you're a certain distance from dwellings, as such restrictions have always been seen as undue restrictions on the liberties of the public to the point where it was for a long time the only uncodified area of Norwegian law, as it was seen as so inherently obvious it didn't need to be. Sweden has similar rights in their constitution.

But left-libertarians reject property rights entirely because they see it as entirely incompatible with liberty to apply coercion to exercise a claim of land at all by denying others access.

There nothing "freedom" about some sole family owning the only water supply generation after generation or whatever dystopian scenario that libertarianism likely would bring about. In practice it's just a dismantling of democracy in favour of feudalistic power through wealth and property.

No don’t you see, by virtue of the free market, someone will innovate around the need for water!

Then they will hold a monopoly over necessary resources for a few generations until someone innovates around them.

You have to realize it’s a good thing to see others go without just to make sure I never have to share my excess wealth /s

That's a nice strawman you've got. I think what you're describing is anarchy.

The origin of libertarianism is Dejacque, who considered Proudhon of "property is theft" fame to be a "moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian" for not going far enough.

He was an anarcho-communist and the first publisher of libertarian political texts.

Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger, and e.g. people like Rothbard very intentionally tried to find common ground between what he saw as the anti-authoritarian parts of the left and the right, but was largely rebuffed by the left, where left-libertarians, many of whom are anarchists, saw the right-libertarian obsession with property rights as fundamentally incompatible with the goal of maximising liberty.

> Right-wing libertarianism is about a century younger

How can you make this claim when Frederick Bastiat was a contemporary of Dejacque's? Many of today's leading libertarian-minded thinkers (Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, etc.) consider Bastiat core to their beliefs and you can hear Bastiat's writings echoed in their works.

I can make this claim because Dejacque was the first to use the term to describe an ideology (here is the very first use [1], and here's a page on Dejacque's newspaper Le Libertaire[2]), and because when the term was introduced into right-wing anti-authoritarianism it was with explicit knowledge that it was co-opting the term as it had then been used for a century by the left.

Libertarianism as such was founded as a rejection of "moderate" anarchism, and a more extensive rejection of authority than that of Proudhon, along with an absolute rejection of property rights as oppressive.

That he was later adopted by some right-wing libertarians does not mean he invented libertarianism. Many people toyed with similar ideas. Dejacque was the person who gave it a name and promoted it as an explicit ideology.

You'll also not that Bastiat did not take things nearly as far as Dejacque did. E.g. Bastiat argued in Justice and Fraternity even for limited state provided welfare, so he did not even go as far as many right-libertarians. But whatever the size, he argues for a state, not the total dismantling of the state, which was the origin of libertarianism.

As such, Bastiat looks libertarian to right-libertarians because they took left-wing libertarianism and gutted the commitment to liberty of Dejacque to add in state restrictions on liberty to enable property, and in doing so shifted the ideology far to the right. But he's far less libertarian by its original definition than e.g. an anarchist like Proudhon. To left-libertarians he's just another statist.

[1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Libertaire

Bastiat was a so-called right-wing libertarian in all but name only. Rothbard borrowed very liberally from Bastiat (no pun intended).

I don't recall reading anything like state provided welfare in Justice and Fraternity. It has been a very long time since I've read it, but that sounds antithetical to some of his other writings which I've re-read more recently. I would be curious to see the specific passage.

To my knowledge, communal arrangements (like Dejacque seemingly favors) have not proven practical outside of relatively small communities.

What exactly in essentially removing the state but keeping private property precludes this scenario?

If it's not evident, the conception and enforcement of private property writ large is established by governmental coercion. Thus monopolization really only occurs through that force, and is also the predominate competitor for monopolization.

You've got a silly proconception that mankind is endemically neurotic. Virtually every interaction you make throughout the day is self-organized, I'd conjecture the vast majority of it is done without direct, indirect, or conditioned coercion, and unsupervised. Multiply this by 7bn. That is to say that most all hierarchical authority isn't even preventative, and is almost exclusively reactionary, which further extends into reasoning that the "order" promised by the institutions is largely illusory outside of the directives offered, which could just as well be derived through any other system.

Dystopia? The wealthiest and most successful nations are built on the principles of classical liberalism / libertarianism.

On which of them? Classical liberalism and libertarianism, be it left- or right-libertarianism are nothing alike.

Libertarianism upholds the same principles of individual liberties. Libertarianism is also the closest thing to what's called liberalism internationally. In the US, liberalism was renamed to libertarianism.

You'd have to be using these terms in a non-standard way, for that to be true. Some common forms of libertarianism are under the umbrella of liberalism, or part of its family, if you like, but they are not identical.

This explains the connection to classical liberalism and the confusion of these terms pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_S...

You see that historically libertarianism follows directly from classical liberalism. They just changed the name.

Classical liberalism is a retrospective name for one thread of liberalism. It does not—and this is important—encompass all liberals before some date, but one branch, influenced by a set of thinkers and writers who are also counted among the influences of other branches. It has its own wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

and the broader thread, in context, is traced here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

One point that may make the distinction clear is that in this sentence, from the article you linked: "During the mid-20th century, many with Old Right or classical liberal beliefs began to describe themselves as libertarians." The "Old Right" were opponents of Roosevelt, who himself sits at the base of the branch of what the "Liberalism" entry calls "Modern Liberalism"—but both are under the tent of liberalism, as were others then and earlier whose views did not line up with libertarianism.

Liberalism was not renamed libertarianism, even just in the US, and that's certainly not what's meant by liberalism internationally.

It's not the same, but it's probably the closest thing, because European liberals are advocates of less taxes, less government regulation and intervention, less welfare state, and in general oppose any kind of socialism and Keynesian economic policies. It's quite opposite of what 'liberals' in the US advocate for, when it comes to government role and economic policies.

'Liberalism' as used when refering to Democratic Party policies in the US, is generally refered as social democracy or social liberalism in Europe.

Here's another source from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_Unite...

Private property rights, or being manifestly in control of the fruits of ones labor.

Or the exact opposite of slavery.

How does "this land is mine now, you can work on it to feed yourself" translate somehow into the opposite of slavery?

It's more like "this land is mine now, we can work out a deal where you tend to it in exchange for an agreed upon cut".

Your original categorization is apt in describing how property taxes and the USDA farm subsidies work, but not free enterprise.

What's the difference in practice apart from the more euphemistic wording?

What's euphemistic about my phrasing? A deal isn't a coercive act. Having a metaphorical gun to one's head to practice labor is.

In your view, is it acceptable that the USDA can dictate the prices of one's crops or put liens on someone's farm land for producing food in manner that isn't produced according to government dictates? Do you think that's the same as coming to an agreement with an equal on certain terms, even if one isn't necessarily happy with all of them?

The difference in practice is that someone can walk away from a deal, but no one can walk away from the government.

> What's euphemistic about my phrasing?

Why would you otherwise feel the need to rephrase it and are still unable to explain the practical difference?

> A deal isn't a coercive act. Having a metaphorical gun to one's head is to practice labor is.

Yes, and for the masses without property? I think I hinted at indirect coercion by "to feed yourself".

and I have no interests in going off into some USDA tangent.

>Why would you otherwise feel the need to rephrase it and are still unable to explain the practical difference?

Because your "definition" implies a lack of agency in an agreement between contracting parties. That is a practical difference and one that was noted in my last sentence which you either didn't read or avoided addressing. To quote: "The difference in practice is that someone can walk away from a deal, but no one can walk away from the government".

>Yes, and for the masses without property? I think I hinted at indirect coercion by "to feed yourself".

I read your statement as implying the usual anti-libertarian argument: property is coercion. I thought that the "to feed yourself" line was a throwaway example of a "limited" freedom "granted" by a property owner made to support your mistaken thesis that a top-down structure exists between individual parties freely engaging in a deal. My approach was to explain how property owners can't grant freedoms, as people have their freedoms or trade them for expedience, and that this top-down structure has, in the past and the present, implicitly and explicitly been practiced by government. I couldn't have read your statement in the way you implied simply because I've never conceived of any such claim being made seriously that choosing to feed oneself, whether one owns property or not, is evidence and a product of force. But now that you've made that clear, I can only say that it's ridiculous.

>and I have no interests in going off into some USDA tangent.

The USDA is not a tangent. It's an example of my point that someone without the ability to decide what do with his own property is better defined as coerced under your original phrasing. It's also a counterpoint to your claim that my point is a euphemistic rephrasing of yours.

Just so I follow, do you recognize the existence indirect coercion by necessities (which very well could be the result of private property creating artificial scarcity) at all?

Because if you do I have no idea how you can come to the idea that one can just "walk away".

> The USDA is not a tangent

It is, you're switching the topic to be about government, and a contemporary setting, instead of continuing on the topic of a private property owner and a hypothetical libertarian society.

Libertarians seem to have a bad habit of using unnecessarily convoluted language.

"Artificial" scarcity, even of so-called necessities, is not indirect coercion so long as it's the choice of the property owner. No one is entitled to the provisions or labor of another because of lack or need. If someone decides it's not in his interest to distribute the fruits of his labor, that's his right.

And yes, people can walk away. Human beings have being walking away for tens of thousands of years. You don't need to read libertarian literature to know the phrase "vote with your feet".

A government with a monopoly on force and enforcement of contracts is as much a feature of a libertarian society as it is in a contemporary one, and so the comparison involving the USDA is germane. The contention is one of degree and nature involvement. A private property owner in a libertarian society must still follow the law to the extent that such laws don't violate his rights.

What untamed land might an intrepid settler go to if they wanted to vote with their feet?

There aren’t any frontiers anymore. Everything is owned

> so long as it's the choice of the property owner.

and there you have it. why libertarianism in it's propertarianism form has nothing to do with freedom and all to do with giving power to the property owners.

> And yes, people can walk away.

You surely can't believe that people can just walk away from their only source of income?

There's always metaphorical gun to everyone's head, in that you die without air, food, and water.

The coercive act is hidden by giving you a choice on who to deal with, but the coercision is still there in that you're forced to make a deal with some property owner. There's no choice to not make a deal with the cartel

Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Mises Institute:

A postscript on voluntary slavery. I am on record on numerous occasions in support of voluntary slavery; some other libertarians support me on this issue as well. See Andersson, 2007; Block, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007A, 2007B, 2009A, 2009B; Lester, 2000; Nozick, 1974, pp. 58, 283, 331; Philmore, 1982; Steiner, 1994, pp. 232.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/walter-e-block/scurrilou...

Voluntary slavery here, means that the ultimate control of your own life includes the right to give it away, sell it, or end it.

It does not mean chattel slavery, or involuntary servitude, or even involuntary government seizures.

And your point is? That it is okay to demand that poor people agree to become slaves in exchange for access to health care for their family?

No- that private property rights are consistent with the libertarian quote above because it's voluntary.

You can argue what truly voluntarily slavery would look like in a modern world, but involuntary chattel slavery is what conflicts with principles of private property.

I'd argue things like athletes signing away future percentages of potential earnings (which was a fairly popular idea until the current NCAA name and likeness rules changed) would be one potential version.

Too late to edit: this is published on Lew Rockwell's website, but the author of this article is Walter E. Block.

the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.

> the core value of libertarianism is that the strong will dominate the weak, meaning a pure libertarian society would feature widespread slavery as a primary feature.

No it’s not, it’s freedom from being coerced into doing things. Quite literally the opposite of slavery.

Who protects that freedom ? Suppose i own the police, because they are of course privatized and owned by unelected entities (me). I can tell them to arrest you or whatever just because I feel like it. Because there is no state providing justice, if you are not yourself powerful or well liked, I don't see where you'd get any recourse. Someone else can easily give you the only choice of indentured servitude for protection and this is not at all a novel pattern in human societies, it goes on all the time.

> I can tell them to arrest you or whatever just because I feel like it.

No you can’t violate people’s liberty like that. Come on Mike, you’re not that stupid. Don’t attack strawmen.

So Libertarianism is a failed ideal like Communism?

People will do with what they own, wether it be land or its inhabitants.

A core weakness in libertarianism is the cornerstone assumption that everyone will play by the rules, and offers no remedy for those that violate those rules. Which pretty much ignores human behavior going through history (and personal experience, for anyone who has had to do a group assignment).

Yes. Any time there is a power vacuum, there are strongmen waiting to step in and grab that power. As terrible as democracy is, we haven't yet invented anything better to keep the strongmen at bay. So the libertarians will have to live under the rules that society dictates, and here we are.

Where does domination in your example come from exactly? To dominate requires the initiation of force or coercion. Slavery is a primary feature of a state that violates rights, not one that enshrines them.

The only "safe guard" libertarianism brings to the table here is that a person must sign on the dotted line first. Not exactly rock solid when you also allow and encourages the inevitable concentration of wealth through private property at the same time.

Private property IS coercion.

Your safeguard is the choice to act or not act. That's a feature of a free individual. Not a bug. Choices don't become invalid or "wrong" because some people have been wildly successful with theirs while others haven't.

What exactly makes wealth such a sticking point in these arguments against libertarianism? It's not considered wrong to be "too" intelligent, or "too" handsome, or "too" strong. But for some reason using these qualities and abilities to obtain money, supposedly in excess of some "moral number" like $1B, results in being "too" wealthy and thus "wrong". Wealth and private property are a representation of value earned through choices made. I would think that one would want more value in his life not less. In a free market, value is generated by choosing to vote with one's dollar, gold bar, or bitcoin. Private property is NOT coercion. Coercion implies you own nothing and owe everything.

An agreement under coercion, direct or indirect, can't be reduced into some intentionally sterile and neutral "choice" without any context. When someone try to do that, it suggests that one is uncomfortable with that fact and prefer to rationalize it.

Either one has the agency to make and agree to a contract or one does not. There is no in-between. If one holds that every agreement is either directly or indirectly coercive, then we come to the conclusion that no normal human being is ever free. That the only people who truly have choices are clairvoyants and that the rest are as unqualified and naive as children. Obviously, I reject that.

While choice is not without context, that context is individually determined by the one's interests and rational faculties. One doesn't know what he doesn't know. However a person still has the freedom to to take a calculated risk if he deems the payoff worth it. That a person doesn't need to know everything to exercise his agency is what demonstrates choice exists and is not simply the rationalization that you claim it is.

As far as ownership is concerned, why in your view is that direct or indirect coercion? Why is buying or owning something force?

> If one holds that every agreement is either directly or indirectly coercive

You've made weird deductions and extrapolated on top of that then you reject that caricature you've created. That has never been stated.

It would be helpful if we can try to keep this in plain English.

> Either one has the agency to make and agree to a contract or one does not

People can have both agency and still use that agency into making an indirectly coerced "choice". The fact remain that it's coerced, and thus not particularly free as in freedom.

Then you're using a convoluted definition of "coercion"

How are you defining coercion or assessing its presence in a given agreement? Ignorance? Being in want? Genetic differences?

When, in your view, are people not coerced?

I'll give you examples:

Weren't the 19th century coal miners coerced by economic necessity to accept life threateningly bad working conditions?

Weren't the parents of the child laborers coerced by economic necessity?

How is this in any way shape or form even hard to understand and admit to?

> When, in your view, are people not coerced?

When one's general well being and access to necessities are not dependent on accepting the terms of the agreement.

Right wing libertarianism obsesses over property rights. The original left wing libertarianism rejects property rights as incompatible with maximising liberty.

Dejacque, the father or libertarianism criticised Proudhon, the father of anarchism for being a "moderate anarchist, liberal but not libertarian", but strongly supported his infamous "property is theft".

yup, exactly. Unfortunately the original meaning is almost never what's meant by libertarianism.

It's part of why I like to bring it up. It's a toss-up whether it makes people really upset, make them refuse to accept it, or get them to learn something new, but occasionally it makes people think critically about how property rights relate to liberty.

Incidentally I think everyone should read Dejacque's open letter to Proudhon [1], irrespective of their political views - it's just one of the most poetically written political texts I've read (and his first use of the term libertarianism). Also somewhat relevant to the discussion here as an early example of a form of wokeness - Dejacque criticising an ally on the left for not going far enough in throwing off the social order Proudhon was ostensibly challenging by failing to stand up equally for women.

[1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joseph-dejacque-on-t...

If a group wants to organise a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians. If everyone is making that choice freely.

So freedom is the core.

What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.

Big L Libertarians in the US go hard on Austrian economics. As a result, if you ask Americans what they think of libertarianism (as you suggest), they’ll mostly be thinking about adherents to Mises & Cato.

>If a group wants to organize a non property right town or city or country, that’s fine by libertarians.

https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...

> What you are talking about is more Austrian economics.

No, it's just the what libertarianism means 99 times out of a 100 when talking on HN or well, just Americans in general.