What is left-libertarianism?

In a sense, left-libertarianism is a historical revision that identifies a tradition of association between libertarianism and what can be deemed to be the "left" end of the political spectrum. The term left-libertarian does not use the term "left" in the context of mainstream politics, but in the historical context of classical liberalism and anarchism, I.E. it is a referance to the tendency of opposition to authority. It could be said that left-libertarianism is therefore a redundancy. But the usefulness of the term is as a reclaimation of political alignment in light of the distortion that has occured over the years in terms of how the political spectrum is viewed.

Particularly in America, libertarianism was largely associated with the "the left" until around the time of FDR, at which point a libertarian-conservative fusionism took place as an opposition movement to the New Deal. Ever since then, libertarians have generally assumed themselves to be in alliance with the political right or a part of it themselves. The political right has proceeded to partially co-opt libertarian rhetoric as a means for obtaining and expanding their power, and purging or ignoring the libertarians when it is most relevant. In turn, some libertarians have become more conservative in their views. Left-libertarianism represents a movement away from this tendency, a clear distinction being made between libertarianism and conservatism, with the diagnosis that conservatism is more concerned with maintaining plutocratic interests and traditionalist communitarianism than preserving or expanding individual liberty.

This is not to say that what's considered to be the contemporary political left is something to support either, however. A left-libertarian analysis of the contemporary political left reveals their methods to be largely right-of-center in orientation, which is to say that they support authoritarian means in the pursuit of goals that may very well be laudable. Part of the point of left-libertarian reconciliation is to get the contemporary left to move away from such authoritarian tendencies and support voluntary and cooperative means towards pursueing such goals. Before the rise of state-socialism, the left was much more in line with libertarianism. Unfortunately, the old libertarian left was nearly obliterated by the conservative turn that the socialist movement took towards the end of the 19th century. Ever since then, the goals of socialism, which were originally much more inconjunction with libertarian means, have become largely associated with authoritarianism.

The split between authoritarian socialism and social anarchism is well illustrated by the disagreements that took place between Marx and both Bakunin and Proudhon, with Marx being representative of authoritarianism, and Bakunin and Proudhon being representative of anarchism and libertarian socialism. While many contemporary libertarians may be tempted to act as if socialism is synanymous with authoritarianism, the fact of the matter is that socialism was a fairly libertarian movement in its origins, or by the very least it always had both an authoritarian and libertarian wing. Furthermore, the ideas of the early socialist anarchists such as Proudhon were not in principle opposed to the idea of free markets. Hence, there is a reconcilation that can be made between certain demands or goals that may be deemed "socialistic" and the context of individual liberty.

The tradition of American individualist anarchism is also instructive in this regaurd, for here we have a group of people who extended upon the framework that Proudhon provided in an even more individualistic direction. We have figures such as Benjamin Tucker to look to as a sort of crossroads between contemporary free market libertarianism and the traditional left. One can see a clear philosophical progression take place upon reflection of the matter. Left-libertarianism is an awareness of this rich history, that libertarianism did not begin in the 1930's and isn't some kind of conservative-lite movement in which we put all libertarian goals aside until the communists are liquidated. Left-libertarianism is not a deviation, it is the correction of a deviation and would not be as necessary if such a deviation did not occur to begin with.

Left-libertarianism is not just a historical perspective, however. It is a synthesis between certain goals that may be associated with "the left" and libertarian ideas, it involves ways of using libertarian ideas to derive conclusions that may be considered to be "leftish". In particular, left-libertarianism involves a tendency to use free market economics to demonstrate how state intervention negatively affects interests that may be concerns of "the left", by demonstrating how the state harms workers, reduces living standards, causes prices to rise, enables environmental damage, concentrates private power and backs up monopolies. Left-libertarianism can be used to demonstrate how the likely outcome of a genuinely free economy is comparatively egalitarian in light of currently existing economic structures, and how it is possible for things such as voluntary unions and cooperatives to exist in a genuinely free market.

Left-libertarianism observes that far too often what is celebrated as "capitalism" (even by some libertarians) is more like a plutocracy or a neo-mercantile society, and that many private elites crucially rely on state power to sustain their own power. Left-libertarianism reflects a tendency to be critical of both state and corporate power, and a keen awareness of the degree to which the two are synergetic. The function of liberty is not to privatize power but to uphold a consistant rejection of arbitrary authority, and while the state is certainly the most fundamental institution of arbitary authority, it is not necessarily the only one. Hence, additional concerns about power relations between various groups within society aren't necessarily irrelevant, it's just that one must understand the role the state plays in such power relations and the way in which such power relations truly work in general. In either case, left-libertarianism is "thick" in this sense, as there is more to it than anti-statism.

Favor for more participatory decision-making or direct action as a method for bringing about one's goals is also an aspect of left-libertarianism, best reflected by the theory of agorism. A central point is that organization must be from the bottom up and that activism is a matter of directly making a change on a personal level or on a small scale rather then participating in the illusory and bankrupt system of representative democracy or remaining in a state of dependancy on currently dominant structures. This can be seen as involving a principle of personal responsibility and an awareness of the need for competitive mechanisms in order to counter current power structures. Hence, the general tendency is towards a rejection of reformism and party politics.

Left-libertarianism also functions as an alliance or umbrella in which a multitude of various libertarian-oriented schools of thought co-exist, and therefore can be seen as a manifestation of anarchism without adjectives. In particular, mutualists and left-rothbardians (those who draw influence from Rothbard's more "leftish" years) represent a nice middle ground that can unite people associated with both free market libertarianism and social anarchism. There is no rational reason for there to be an absolute wall between the two worlds, and as semantic differences are weeded out a degree of compatability becomes evident.

While much more could be said, I think this summarizes left-libertarianism well enough.