Progress pill
Political families under the microscope

Libertarians

What's your Political Leaning?

Libertarians

  • Freedoms: they are strong in both societal and economic areas.
  • Cardinal values: individual freedom, responsibility, private property, consent.
  • Philosophy and principles: primacy of individual freedom. Historically, classical liberalism is first and foremost a philosophy of law. The fundamental idea is that every individual possesses inalienable rights to life, liberty and property. These rights are not granted by government, but are intrinsic to the human being. Self-sovereignty (or self-ownership) is the concept that each individual is the rightful owner of his or her own body and life, and has the right to make decisions about them without external coercion, as long as he or she does not violate the rights of others.
  • Politics: Libertarians believe that no one, nor any group (including government), has the right to initiate or threaten physical force against another person or their property. This is the principle of non-aggression. This means that fraud, theft and coercion are morally reprehensible. The use of force is justifiable only in self-defense.
Libertarians refuse to grant the state special permission to commit acts that most people would consider immoral, illegal or criminal if committed by individuals or groups in society. In short, libertarians insist that everyone should be subject to the same moral code, with no exceptions for any group or individual.
Libertarians are deeply suspicious of any concentration of power, whether political or economic. State power is considered particularly dangerous because it can legally exercise coercion.
  • Economics: Free trade and freedom of enterprise are economic expressions of respect for the rights of individuals to own themselves and their goods, and to exchange them freely. Freedom produces a spontaneous, just order, because it results from individual action and responsibility, via the interplay of voluntary exchange and contracts.
Types of libertarians:
In the 20th century, two major trends emerged:
  1. Minarchist: which considers that the powers of the State should be strictly limited to the defense of individual liberties. It's a minimal state regime (Night-watchman state), where power is legitimate only to ensure the core functions of police, justice and armed defense of the territory.
  2. The other anarcho-capitalist: who believes that state functions should be privatized and managed by the market.
However, both agree on the fundamental principle of individual sovereignty. Libertarian ideas were expressed as early as the 18th century by the Physiocrats, notably Vincent de Gournay and Turgot, and developed by Condillac, Jean-Baptiste Say and Frédéric Bastiat. In the 20th century, they were taken up and developed by the Austrian school of economics, whose main authors are Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard.
Quiz
Quiz1/5
What is the fundamental difference between minarchist and anarcho-capitalist libertarians regarding the role of the state?