Libertarian Socialism: Does It Make Sense and How Does It Work?

[libertasbella]

Are libertarianism and socialism diametrically opposed? The libertarian socialist would say no.

The political philosophy of libertarian socialism categorically rejects state interference in social affairs and instead proposes the abolition of authoritarian institutions that inhibit freedom and justice.

The rejection of state socialism and the current mixed economy define libertarian socialism. Instead, the libertarian socialism project calls for decentralized institutions that use direct democracy or voluntary associations to break up centralized institutions and institutions captured by rent-seeking capitalists.

What is a Libertarian Socialist?

The libertarian socialist believes in a free society, where individuals do not have to worry about being coerced by corporations or oppressive states. The political philosophy is focused on freedom and the individual’s quest to break free from institutions that shackle human thought and creativity.

Unlike their state socialist counterparts, libertarian socialists do not push central planning, state-owned enterprises, or outright nationalization. However, they do not reject the idea of collective ownership of property. The ability for free individuals to determine their own property-holding arrangements is crucial for socialist libertarians.

If people band together and collectivize the ownership of private property ona voluntary basis, this is perfectly in line with these precepts. There are numerous cases where private property is acquired through dubious means and is used by elites to cement their economic status and lord over the working classes.

A social libertarian stresses the importance of defending civil liberties, which made them staunch opponents of totalitarian socialist regimes throughout the 20th century. Since Vladimir Lenin successfully led the Bolshevik Revolution starting in 1917, Communism and its socialist cousins have been directly associated with totalitarianism.

What Is a Libertarian Socialist Approach to Governance?

Libertarians of all stripes never approved of one-party states. Communist regimes and totalitarian socialist adjacent political movements were marked by such arrangements. Ironically, these regimes banned many dissident socialist parties, which validated the initial libertarian socialist skepticism towards these kinds of regimes.

Instead, libertarians with socialist inclinations favored voluntary associations, economic democracy, and local governance. One of the contradictions they spotted with regards to 20th century communist experiments was how wealth inequality still persisted thanks to the concentration of power in the state.

This was a sign of how centralized political structures can allow for massive wealth and power consolidation. Which is why political decentralization is key for ensuring equality of political and economic opportunities. In sum, states have a tendency of centralizing and creating benefits for parasitic individuals, thus requiring a new way forward.

Unlike conventional free-marketers, libertarian socialists are concerned about economic inequality. A society marked by wealth inequality is oppressive and socially unstable. By phasing out the state, individuals would be free to live up to their economic potential now that they’re no longer shackled by the state’s laws and regulations.

Similarly, being free from excessive corporate power allows for people to chart their own economic paths free from sub-optimal employment arrangements. Additionally, individuals and communities would then be afforded the opportunity to set up economic institutions that provide real value to consumers while providing dignified work.

Although market interactions would be respected, many socialist libertarians called into question a number of economic assumptions and offered alternatives at the local level to address certain inequalities and worrisome social problems that corporate capitalism generally brought about.

Origin of Libertarian Socialism

It’s often forgotten that the word ”libertarian” had a different meaning in the 19th century. Anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, and other forms of left-leaning anarchist movements of that century were often described as libertarians. These movements thoroughly opposed the state, as well as dominant business entities.

This stands in contrast to modern libertarianism, which focused more on economic freedoms and private property. This 20th century philosophy of liberty drew more from classical liberalism and generally held market activity in a much higher regard. There was much stronger emphasis on individualism and respect for private property.

In the 19th century, advocates of private property and free markets would generally be categorized as liberals. Broadly speaking, libertarian describes a pro-liberty outlook on politics, while socialism describes an economic system where wealth is distributed on a more equal basis.

Libertarian socialists try to fuse these concepts together to form a unique philosophy. Liberalism would be critiqued from a socialist perspective, while state socialism would be critiqued from a libertarian perspective. The goal was to create a new way of dealing with the problems of industrialization while protecting individual freedoms.

This unique philosophy tried to make political discussion more nuanced by recognizing the merits of both socialist and liberal thought. Political discourse tends to get stale at times, and often what’s needed is to recognize that certain competing political schools have valid points that can be combined to form news ways of thinking.

The rapid industrialization of the 19th century caught many people by surprise and required novel strategies to address its many unforeseen consequences. Socialist libertarians firmly believed they had the right answers to the many problems present during the industrial era.

Continue reading Libertarian Socialism: Does It Make Sense and How Does It Work? on Libertas Bella

 

[TheTexan]

Yup. Freedom has many flavors.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Are libertarianism and socialism diametrically opposed? ...

Yes. Next question...

 

[TheTexan]

Yes. Next question...

There is nothing anti liberty about socialism itself. As long as there is no coercion, what's the harm.

You can try to make the argument that socialism cannot survive without coercion, but that's also not quite true. Families and even small communities such as tribes can often be described as socialist in nature.

Nearly all socialist governments in history have been anti liberty. The same however can be said of capitalist leaning governments - they just generally have been better at putting food on the table.

It does not however make capitalism "better" from a libertarian perspective.

 

[ClaytonB]

The political philosophy of libertarian socialism categorically rejects state interference in social affairs and instead proposes the abolition of authoritarian institutions that inhibit freedom and justice.

"Socialism" is a bit of a misnomer for this. Mutualism, community/agricultural co-op, etc. are more accurate terms that describe some of the variations on this that have been tried over the years.

Nobody will stop you from experimenting in this way. In fact, one sure-fire sign that you are living in a free society is that there is a broad diversity of forms of social organization in different communities. The more uniform and cookie-cutter communities are, the more sure you can be that they are the product of a monopolistic, nepotistic, tyrannical central State that either controls the market outright (socialism and communism) or indirectly (crony capitalism, lobbies, bribery, etc.) In other words, an ancap society that does not have pockets of mutualists, co-ops, (private) communes, and the like, is not actually free, it's a pirate oligarchy with a patina of liberty.

As I wrote in a post in another thread a few days ago, the issue is scale. A family household is a communist organization. The parents (traditionally, just the father) owns the means of production. The children own nothing, not even their clothing. The few naive communists out there who "really believe" it could work "if done right" fall into this trap because they imagine that it is possible to universalize a family structure at a nation-state scale. And that's simply impossible. The communal structure of a family breaks down somewhere in the range of a few dozen people. Extended family structures allow this to be scaled up to the range of perhaps a few hundred people, but beyond that, it simply disintegrates into a sham where everybody pays lip service to "the way it oughtta be" then goes out the door and does whatever it is they have to do to survive.

Tribal scale, community scale, agricultural national scale and industrial national scale... each of these is unique and no one social structure is appropriate for all of them. But the final social order, the one that is "above all" orders will always be the order consisting of no order, that is, no imposed order. "Anarchy" is the correct term in respect to human rule. The only global order is the order that emerges from the state-of-affairs as it is. Applying the chisel to the stone mountain does not make it better, it only leaves behind a bunch of unsightly scratches. Everybody has an opinion about how the mountain can be improved by chiseling it this way or that way but, in the end, the mountain remains unchanged and indifferent, too large to be moved or even significantly altered by human hands.

 

[jmdrake]

Yup. Freedom has many flavors.

Correct.

Yes. Next question...

Incorrect. The early church in Jerusalem was a kind of "libertarian socialism."

Acts 2:44-45

44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
​

The key is that this socialism was voluntary. Annanias and Saphira didn't sin by keeping back a portion of the proceeds of the land. They sinned by lying about it.

Acts 5:4

Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.​

But that doesn't change the fact that there was a collective safety net for the body of believers to which the community of believers contributed. Everything doesn't have to be done by "property rights." That's one of the biggest fallacies plaguing the libertarian movement. You want to have a commune, have a commune. You want to have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs, have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs.

 

[TheTexan]

+outta rep well said clayton

 

[Swordsmyth]

It works for families and maybe small tribes.
Anything bigger and it doesn't work.

 

[jmdrake]

"Socialism" is a bit of a misnomer for this. Mutualism, community/agricultural co-op, etc. are more accurate terms that describe some of the variations on this that have been tried over the years.

Are you sure about that?

http://www.mutualist.org/

Mutualism, as a variety of anarchism, goes back to P.J. Proudhon in France and Josiah Warren in the U.S. It favors, to the extent possible, an evolutionary approach to creating a new society. It emphasizes the importance of peaceful activity in building alternative social institutions within the existing society, and strengthening those institutions until they finally replace the existing statist system. As Paul Goodman put it, "A free society cannot be the substitution of a 'new order' for the old order; it is the extension of spheres of free action until they make up most of the social life."

Other anarchist subgroups, and the libertarian left generally, share these ideas to some extent. Whether known as "dual power" or "social counterpower," or "counter-economics," alternative social institutions are part of our common vision. But they are especially central to mutualists' evolutionary understanding.

Mutualists belong to a non-collectivist segment of anarchists. Although we favor democratic control when collective action is required by the nature of production and other cooperative endeavors, we do not favor collectivism as an ideal in itself. We are not opposed to money or exchange. We believe in private property, so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use. We favor a society in which all relationships and transactions are non-coercive, and based on voluntary cooperation, free exchange, or mutual aid. The "market," in the sense of exchanges of labor between producers, is a profoundly humanizing and liberating concept. What we oppose is the conventional understanding of markets, as the idea has been coopted and corrupted by state capitalism.
​

Nobody will stop you from experimenting in this way. In fact, one sure-fire sign that you are living in a free society is that there is a broad diversity of forms of social organization in different communities. The more uniform and cookie-cutter communities are, the more sure you can be that they are the product of a monopolistic, nepotistic, tyrannical central State that either controls the market outright (socialism and communism) or indirectly (crony capitalism, lobbies, bribery, etc.) In other words, an ancap society that does not have pockets of mutualists, co-ops, (private) communes, and the like, is not actually free, it's a pirate oligarchy with a patina of liberty.

Personal pet peeve of mine is when people try to argue against something by defining it away. You can have socialism without state control just like you can have capitalism without state control.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

There is nothing anti liberty about socialism itself. As long as there is no coercion, what's the harm.

You can try to make the argument that socialism cannot survive without coercion, but that's also not quite true. Families and even small communities such as tribes can often be described as socialist in nature.

Nearly all socialist governments in history have been anti liberty. The same however can be said of capitalist leaning governments - they just generally have been better at putting food on the table.

It does not however make capitalism "better" from a libertarian perspective.

Correct.



Incorrect. The early church in Jerusalem was a kind of "libertarian socialism."

Acts 2:44-45

44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
​

The key is that this socialism was voluntary. Annanias and Saphira didn't sin by keeping back a portion of the proceeds of the land. They sinned by lying about it.

Acts 5:4

Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.​

But that doesn't change the fact that there was a collective safety net for the body of believers to which the community of believers contributed. Everything doesn't have to be done by "property rights." That's one of the biggest fallacies plaguing the libertarian movement. You want to have a commune, have a commune. You want to have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs, have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs.

Why would one even attempt to label a family or a temporary voluntary agreement of a small group as “socialism”?

 

[Anti Federalist]

But that doesn't change the fact that there was a collective safety net for the body of believers to which the community of believers contributed. Everything doesn't have to be done by "property rights." That's one of the biggest fallacies plaguing the libertarian movement. You want to have a commune, have a commune. You want to have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs, have a walled off ranch for you and your heirs.

Without both the concept and practical defense of property rights being "baked into" a system of society, nothing will prevent the stronger warriors or the better armed of the commune or ranch over the hill from coming and taking yours when the need or desire arises.

 

[jmdrake]

Without both the concept and practical defense of property rights being "baked into" a system of society, nothing will prevent the stronger warriors or the better armed of the commune or ranch over the hill from coming and taking yours when the need or desire arises.

Tell that to all of the Indian tribes who banded together and fought to defend their collective happy hunting grounds. In fact a strong argument can be made that there's more incentive for a group of warriors to band together to defend they land they own together than to band together the defend they land they all own individually.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Unlike conventional free-marketers, libertarian socialists are concerned about economic inequality. A society marked by wealth inequality is oppressive and socially unstable. By phasing out the state, individuals would be free to live up to their economic potential now that they’re no longer shackled by the state’s laws and regulations.

Living up to one's potential causes income "inequality".

 

[jmdrake]

Why would one even attempt to label a family or a temporary voluntary agreement of a small group as “socialism”?

Because....that's what it actually is. Why does the accurate label bother you? And why do you describe a voluntary agreement as "temporary?" Just because people can voluntarily leave something doesn't mean they must. But, technically, everything is "temporary" even empires. There is no reason a group of people cannot indefinitely share resources. This entire planet "shares" the ocean. I recall that not too long ago people on this forum where vehemently arguing against the "L.O.S.T." treaty as statist overreach. Do you think billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates should be able to buy up the ocean?

 

[Anti Federalist]

Tell that to all of the Indian tribes who banded together and fought to defend their collective happy hunting grounds. In fact a strong argument can be made that there's more incentive for a group of warriors to band together to defend they land they own together than to band together the defend they land they all own individually.

Makes my point...when the more powerful tribe came along, not from over the hill but from across the ocean, they got wiped out.

In large part because the concept of private property and it's defense, was foreign to them.

 

[jmdrake]

Makes my point...when the more powerful tribe came along, not from over the hill but from across the ocean, they got wiped out.

In large part because the concept of private property and it's defense, was foreign to them.

Uhhhh....nope. Not even kind of true. They got wiped out because they had no immunity to European disease and hadn't invented gun powder. Even the "civilized" tribes like the Aztecs and Incas who had European style feudalism got wiped out.

 

[jmdrake]

Living up to one's potential causes income "inequality".

Jordan Peterson had a pretty long discussion about this. While he agree with your point about "living up to one's potential causes income inequality", he went on to say that in a healthy society there is some way to balance that out. And that way doesn't have to be statist. For example he mentioned the native Canadian tribes ancient tradition of the "pot latch" where chiefs who had accumulated lots of stuff where honored by how much they gave away.



The Hebrew religion also had something to balance out income inequality. It was the Year of Jubilee. That year all family land that to be returned to the original owner, debts were cancelled, and Hebrew slaves were freed. (See: https://insight.bibliotech.us/jubilee-forgiveness-of-debt/) Interestingly enough, the Lord Himself claimed ownership of the land and that's why it couldn't be permanently sold, except for houses inside walled cities. (Leviticus 25:23 ¶ The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.)

Instead, we have a society where the government ultimately owns the land. Don't pay your taxes? Lose your land. Make a bad business deal? You can lose your land. One of your cousins twice removed decides he wants to sell his 2 acre share in the family 2,000 acre plot because he wants to buy his trophy wife that boob job and butt lift she wants? You guessed it, you can lose your land. There are some aspects of the Hebrew religion still in our law such as debt forgiveness through filing for bankruptcy and prohibitions on usury...with loopholes where people still charge usury anyway.

 

[Indy Vidual]

There is nothing anti liberty about socialism itself. As long as there is no coercion, what's the harm...

Yes, voluntary association of all types is a big part of freedom.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Because....that's what it actually is.

You could also label a family a monarchy or a totalitarian dictatorship. It is not accurate, and not a justification for some political system.

Why does the accurate label bother you?

Because it’s not really accurate, and it's an example of redefining and twisting words to stealthily push a political agenda. The Marxists use this technique constantly. If you accept this, then they take you to the next step.

And why do you describe a voluntary agreement as "temporary?" Just because people can voluntarily leave something doesn't mean they must.

Just because a group of people have a potluck and share food does not justify or make for a political system. It is a temporary agreement. It’s a contract.

Plenty of communes have been attempted in the past. They never work, because socialism is not a workable philosophy. Renaming common human interactions and arrangements such as families, churches, communities and charities as “socialism” is not accurate, and is a ploy.

 

[Invisible Man]

The OP reads like it's a way that a libertarian capitalist might hope libertarian socialism could work, but not like what actual self-identified libertarian socialists themselves say they are for. I don't think that socialists who call themselves libertarians advocate strictly voluntary participation. They view private property itself, everywhere that it exists, as theft, and they believe that abolishing capitalism goes hand in hand with abolishing the state.