Tradition
Libertarian socialism
Overview
Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers' self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.
With its roots in the Age of Enlightenment, libertarian socialism was first constituted as a tendency by the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), during their conflict with the Marxist faction. Libertarian socialism quickly spread throughout Europe and the American continent, reaching its height during the early stages of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and particularly during the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Its defeat during these revolutions led to its brief decline, before its principles were resurrected by the New Left and new social movements of the late 20th century.
While its key principles of decentralisation, workers' control, and mutual aid are generally shared across the many schools of libertarian socialism, differences have emerged over the questions of revolutionary spontaneity, reformism, and whether to prioritise the abolition of the state or of capitalism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is…
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
States what Libertarian socialism is; the author is tied to Libertarian socialism in the knowledge graph.
It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the bourgeois society. In these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, is periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an…
Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party
The author is tied to Libertarian socialism in the knowledge graph.
In judging of an industrial system, whether the one under which we live or one proposed by reformers, there are four main tests which may be applied. We may consider whether the system secures (1) the maximum of production, or (2) justice in distribution, or (3) a tolerable existence for producers, or (4) the greatest possible freedom and stimulus to vitality and progress. We may say, broadly, that the present…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
The author is tied to Libertarian socialism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Libertarian socialism
- Murray Bookchin
- Noam Chomsky
- Charles Fourier
- Antonio Negri
- Dwight Macdonald
- Cornelius Castoriadis
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
- Erich Fromm
- Peter Kropotkin
- Emma Goldman
- Albert Camus
- Edgar Morin
- Vincent Descombes
- Andrew Levine
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- Anarcho-capitalism
- The Independent
- Federalism
- George Orwell
- Anarchism
- German Confederation
- Creativity
- Worker cooperative
- Private property
- Power (social and political)
- Individualist anarchism
- Individualism
- Murray Bookchin
- Statism
- Karl Marx
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Trade union
- Marx's theory of alienation
- Anarchist communism
- Competition
- Spanish Civil War
- Marxism
- Autonomy
Place in the tradition
Part of Anarchism.