libertarianism
About us
An open, user owned community for the general disscussion of the libertarian philosophy.
- Libertarianism is the belief that each person has the right to live his life as he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.
- Libertarians defend each person’s right to life, liberty, and property.
- In the libertarian view, voluntary agreement is the gold standard of human relationships.
- If there is no good reason to forbid something (a good reason being that it violates the rights of others), it should be allowed.
- Force should be reserved for prohibiting or punishing those who themselves use force.
Most people live their own lives by that code of ethics. Libertarians believe that that code should be applied consistently, even to the actions of governments, which should be restricted to protecting people from violations of their rights. Governments should not use their powers to censor speech, conscript the young, prohibit voluntary exchanges, steal or “redistribute” property, or interfere in the lives of individuals who are otherwise minding their own business.
Source: https://www.libertarianism.org/essays/what-is-libertarianism
Rules
1. Stay on topic
We are a libertarian community. There are no restrictions regarding different stances on the political spectrum, but all posts should be related to the philosophy of libertarianism.
2. Be polite to others and respects each others opinions.
Be polite to others and respects each others opinions. We don't want any form of gatekeeping or circlejerk culture here.
3. Stay constructive and informational
In general, all types of contributions are allowed, but the relevance to this community must always be evident and presented openly by the contributor. Posts that do not meet these requirements will be removed after a public warning. Also remember to cite you sources!
4. Use self-moderation measures first before reporting.
This community is fundamentally built upon freedom of speech. Since everyone understands libertarianism differently and we do not want to exclude any kind of content a priori, we appeal to the individual users to block/mute posts or users who do not meet their requirements. Please bear this in mind when filing a report
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I'd consider libertarians to want a small government that does very little, while anarchists want none.
A small government would make and enforce laws, have a military, and maybe do some other public goods (though not many).
Anarchism is absolute chaos. Without any sort of government, anything goes. Probably the first thing to happen is a few people seize power, and technically you don't have anarchism anymore, you have warlords.
While a small government wouldn't enforce build codes and wouldn't provide free Healthcare, it's a far cry from no government.
People have the inherent ability to work together by choice without an authority creating rules, we see it every day. Seems like we could choose to work together to defend each other
Anarchy in greek means "non-rule". It means, in essence, that no one has any authority over you or your property. So there can be no state and no courts or anything like that, because otherwise you would have to cede power and authority to someone else. In an absolute anarchist society, you would have to protect everything yourself.
But this is practically impossible so most anarchists tend to give away some competences to private companies, collectives or small governments which in the end is nothing else than libertarianism.
In that case, libertarianism sounds a little more stable, one government that is harder for a warlord to take over and that a company couldn't just buy. Anarchy seems more prone to falling into totalitarianism than libertarianism.
Aside from that, it sounds less like libertarians are actually anarchists, and more like anarchists are actually libertarians.
That said, I guess they're both asking "what's the smallest amount if government possible?".
People have friends and family to work together with, that doesn't necessitate an authority creating rules
not necessarily in families but at some complexity you can't manage all yourself. You will have to rely on others to protect you or your property when you are working or away and so on. If you need a better seawage system or better roads you will definitely have to ask experts to help you. In the end you will have to create rules together to coordinate. Now you nned somebody to enforce this and so on. Anarchy is more like a reset but I think that human nature will eventually prganize in societies and states. In the best case they define the rules and these rules are as minimal as possible.