Calling all laissez-faire sovereign individual Libertarians

Adam Smith, author of The Wealth
of Nations with its famous "invisible
hand" of capitalism that "naturally
guides a society through self-interest,"
often considered the Father of Modern
Economics. (Wikimedia Commons)

The satirically titled article Calling all Stalinist-Jeffersonian-Bozoian Libertarians published on Wednesday immediately attracted the ire of contemporary socialism's apologists who stormed the "add a Comment" box on the article's page like they were storming the Bastille.

The article posited that in today's politico-philosophical world, anyone who embraced the oxymoron of "libertarian socialism" should have no problem with accepting the absurdity of "Stalinist-Jeffersonian-Bozoian Libertarianism."

The socialists (or "progressives," that being the modern, trendy camouflage word for "socialist") angrily pontificated that the libertarian label belonged exclusively to them, that the socialist usage could be traced back 150-200 years, that the libertarian label was stolen from the socialists in 1971 by the Libertarian Party (many non-libertarians harbor the illusion that the LP is somehow the beginning of modern libertarian's existence), and that "anarcho-capitalist" rather than "libertarian socialism" is the true oxymoron (because socialists make no distinction between "capitalism" which is accepted by libertarians as a synonym for voluntary free trade while "corporatism" is an invention of coercive government and is therefore rejected by libertarians, but that's another article).

Also, the author is "a laughingstock" and "stupid."

But it's almost as though the "libertarian belongs to the socialists" crowd all graduated from the same course in Selective History 101, blindly tracing their own lineage while ignoring all others.

Ludwig von Mises, Austrian School
economist and libertarian thinker,
author of Socialism, a refutation of
the economics of socialism, not a
likely candidate for a "libertarian
socialist." (Wikimedia Commons)

While historical narratives vary, any history of libertarianism can trace its seeds back at least to the Greek Epicureans and its roots to the humanist scholars of the Renaissance.

From there, modern libertarianism, first simply as "liberalism" and later as "classical liberal" thought, continued through the Reformation and the Enlightenment in the works of Hobbes and Locke and others, with writers like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill greatly influencing the American founding fathers and their founding documents.

Then, as one aforementioned commentator hedged, "if Wikipedia can be trusted," the split between liberals and libertarians occurred: "But around the 1870s" liberals gradually moved toward a belief in "an increase in government power, taxes, and regulation" which libertarians felt was "very close to socialism and therefore do not agree with it "

Since then libertarians have become simply "libertarians" while "liberals" have become ever more socialist, which drove the simple observation made in the aforementioned article that in today's politico-philosophical world neither a term like "libertarian socialist" nor "progressive libertarian" sound "even remotely libertarian to American ears."

Friedrich von Hayek, from Wikipedia:
"was an Austrian and British economist
and philosopher known for his defense
of classical liberalism and free-market
capitalism against socialist and
collectivist thought." Another non-
"libertarian socialist" with liberal roots.
(Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

Yes, modern liberalism-progressivism-socialism share roots with modern libertarianism, but their branches don't share much of anything today.

Thus, as David Boaz wrote in his book, Libertarianism: A Primer, "if you don't label your own philosophy or movement, someone else will label it for you."

So libertarians labeled themselves "libertarian." Get over it, socialists.

But the question arises, where were all those laissez-faire capitalist libertarians, those live-and-let-live libertarians, those Zero Aggression Principle libertarians, those free minds and free markets libertarians while the socialist-progressives were pummeling a libertarian article?

Those libertarians can still go to Calling all Stalinist-Jeffersonian-Bozoian Libertarians and post their own counter commentary.

But maybe today's libertarians are too ignorant of their own history, or too timid to stand up for their beliefs, or too lazy to defend their principles.

In which case we might as well all tuck our heads between our legs and kiss our libertarianism goodbye because the freedom movement doesn't have a prayer.

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