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Right-libertarianism

Overview

Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism or right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and market distribution of natural resources. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a variant of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with collectivist or usufructary property norms. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, capitalist libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like other forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a significant transformation or outright elimination of the modern welfare state.

Right-libertarian political thought is characterized by the strict priority given to liberty, with the need to maximize the realm of individual freedom and minimize the scope of government authority. Right-libertarians typically see the state as the principal threat to liberty. This anti-statism differs from anarcho-socialist theory (but not individualist anarchist theory) in that it is based upon private property norms and strong individualism that places less emphasis on human sociability or cooperation. Right-libertarian philosophy is also rooted in the ideas of individual rights and laissez-faire economics. The right-libertarian theory of individual rights generally follows the homestead principle and the labor theory of property, stressing self-ownership and that people have an absolute right to the property that their labor produces. Economically, right-libertarians make no distinction between capitalism and free markets; they view any attempt to dictate the market process as counterproductive, emphasizing the mechanisms and self-regulating nature of the market whilst portraying government intervention and attempts to redistribute wealth as criminally immoral, unnecessary, and counter-productive. Although all right-libertarians oppose government intervention, there is a division between anarcho-capitalists, who view the state as an unnecessary evil and want property rights protected without statutory law through market-generated tort, contract and property law; and minarchists, who support the need for a minimal state, often referred to as a night-watchman state, to provide its citizens with monopoly provision of courts, military, and police services.

Like libertarians of all varieties, right-libertarians refer to themselves simply as libertarians. Being the most common type of libertarianism in the United States, right-libertarianism has become the most common referent of libertarianism there since the late 20th century, while historically and elsewhere, it is widely used to refer to anti-state forms of socialism such as anarcho-socialism, libertarian communism, libertarian Marxism, and libertarian socialism. Around the time of Murray Rothbard, who popularized the term libertarian in the United States during the 1960s, anarcho-capitalist movements started calling themselves libertarian, leading to the rise of the term right-libertarian to distinguish them. Rothbard himself acknowledged the co-opting of the term and boasted of its "capture [...] from the enemy".

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Sometimes what is called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest of the government; sometimes of the interest of particular orders of men who tyrannize the government, warp the positive laws of the country from what natural justice would prescribe. In some countries, the rudeness and barbarism of the people hinder the natural sentiments of justice from arriving at that accuracy and precision which, in…
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
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From whence we may collect, that the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consisteth in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their Soveraign, be it an Assembly, or a Monarch. For seeing the Soveraign, that is to say, the Common-wealth (whose Person he representeth,) is understood to do nothing but in order to the common Peace and Security, this Distribution of lands…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
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Order and good government, and along with them the liberty and security of individuals, were in this manner established in cities, at a time when the occupiers of land in the country, were exposed to every sort of violence. But men in this defenceless state naturally content themselves with their necessary subsistence; because, to acquire more, might only tempt the injustice of their oppressors. On the contrary…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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Right-libertarianism

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