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Libertarianism

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-S036-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-S036-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/libertarianism/v-1

2. Antecedents of libertarianism

Libertarianism, while a relatively recent development, was formed out of several currents. The first is the issue of ’the individual versus the state’: libertarians of all ilks clearly wish to give the state only a very narrow authority. The second is the question of what should properly count as the individual’s own concern: libertarianism strongly resists the idea that the state should have a role in the regulation of possession and exchange or in the manner in which an individual chooses to live their own life. A third impetus to libertarian thinking, underlining the other two, is the classical liberal tradition, emphasizing the economic advantages of a market free from government intervention.

In tracing the development of libertarianism, it is important to see the first of these issues – the individual versus the state – as historically prior. Many of the thinkers cited as sources for libertarianism were prepared to accept great restrictions on property holdings. It is the antipathy to a powerful, centralized state that gave libertarianism its initial spur; its transformation into a defence of absolute property rights and extensive market society has been a relatively recent development.

Given these somewhat confusing origins, it is not surprising that various forebears have been claimed for libertarianism. Clearly there are affinities between Locke’s defence of individual property rights and the doctrine of the inviolability of property that forms the heart of libertarianism (see Locke, J. §10; Inviolability). Equally, the classical liberal notion of the laissez-faire state, derived from Adam Smith (§4), has had great impact on libertarian thinking. On similar grounds, even David Hume (§5) has, with some justice, been cited as an influence on libertarian thought.

We can also see an overtly anarchist strand in libertarianism, springing from Proudhon and Max Stirner, and reaching twentieth-century individualist thought via the US libertarian Benjamin Tucker (see Anarchism §2). Thus, part of the foundation of libertarianism is an emancipatory politics, formed in radical opposition to Marxism and opposed in particular to Marx’s advocation of a highly structured, authoritarian period of politics prior to the withering of the state (see Marx, K. §12). The anarchist observation that such means would inevitably lead away from the intended end inspired reflection on how a broadly egalitarian society could be organized on truly voluntary grounds. It is something of an irony, then, that such ideas have given rise to a tradition which sometimes, and with good reason, is called anarcho-capitalism.

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Citing this article:
Wolff, Jonathan. Antecedents of libertarianism. Libertarianism, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-S036-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/libertarianism/v-1/sections/antecedents-of-libertarianism.
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