Is Libertarianism Right Wing?

Where does Libertarianism fit on the political spectrum? Political compass memes aside, let's talk about the history of the concepts of Left and Right and how they relate to fundamental features of human psychology.

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[duncannelson]

Great video explaining the left vs the right

[quinlan]

This video is a giant riddle with all the big words and name droppings with random animations in the background

[Neko_Mario]

For keeping it more consistent, I more go with the notion that right is individualism and freedom while left is collectivism and tyranny. While social conservativism and liberalism is more of a secondary application that only slightly affects it. Looking at it economically and governmentally keeps it a lot more consistent.

[sexpolitics]

Great video until half way through.
Left vs Right is not about DNA
Left vs Right is not about Change vs Reverting/ Progress vs Reactionary
We learned this with the debates between Burke and Paine

The only accurate way of viewing the left vs right is Collectivism vs Individualism

[heterodoxagnostic]

where is that political spectrum image from? the one from the thumbnail, i'd like to download it.

[lexter]

I think this is one of the better analyses I have seen about the left and right spectrum. However, you might point out what is the general theme of changes the left is trying to make. They are trying to make society's hierarchy as flat as possible. This is why you can have auth-left on the right in comparison to lib-left. When SSSR was born it had critics exactly like that, calling SSSR a right-wing top-down hierarchy.

[seaofseeof]

8:25 hah, thank you. American conservatism IS liberal conservatism, but its willingness to protect liberal institutions and values are means of protecting American culture and values, not ends. And they are more than willing to sacrifice liberal foreign policy, the liberal free market or other liberal institutions if they feel that this helps to protect some other facet of American values or "Americanism". In contrast with the libertarian movement, that seeks to re-establish, protect or even create more liberal institutions.

However, I do feel that through-out the course of the 20th century, left wing and right wing have, at least in the sphere of Western politics, have solidified in identifiable orientations:

- Left wing political ideologies are all about identifying a class inequality, subsequently identifying an oppressive system and tasking society's institutions with a political goal of abolishing that oppressive system to establish this class egalitarianism.

I.e. socialism identifies the working class as an oppressed class, by the system of capitalism, and tasks markets with the political goal of abolishing this oppressive system by putting the means of production in the hands of workers.

I.e. feminism identities women (or "all genders" if you're into queer or gender theory and ugh what a mess) as an oppressed class, at the hands of patriarchy, and seeks to abolish this structure by analyzing how all institutions (entertainment, marriage, capitalism, liberalism, etc) contribute to upholding the patriarchy, and subsequently abolishing or reforming those institutions to eventually abolish the patriarchy.

Same parallels can be drawn with black liberation movements in the US, the LGBTQ movement, etc. This is more or less a global Western phenomenon.

Whereas right wing politics, as you pointed out, is concerned either with preserving something, or recalling something. And it has the tendency of appealing to some imagined, objective order. Be it divine, natural, or traditional. However, traditional monarchist right wingism has long been mostly replaced by either liberal conservatism, or the far right. And the far right is basically just the product of the various Third Way movements that were influenced by progressive social theories and economics, with totally different goals (fascism, neonazism, etc).

I think what is unique about liberalism is that it's not concerned with social theories, or theories of social organization. Left wing politics expressly seeks to abolish social hierarchies, whereas right wing politics seek to enforce social hierarchies. Liberalism, and subsequently libertarianism, has no such fundamental social theory. Liberalism, especially after the developments of the Marginal Revolution, is firmly rooted in economic theory. And any class or social theory (such as political class theory) is the product of such economic theory. Right and left wing politics on the other hand, derive their economic theory from their class theory.

That said, there's no denying that liberal market capitalism can actually create more or less egalitarian outcomes, depending on context. For example, capitalism did a lot more to liberate women from traditionally femine roles than feminism has by virtue of economic productivity. But that was never the stated goal of liberal capitalism. Nevertheless, some liberals therefore feel attracted to liberalism for that. Whereas other, like Hoppe, see liberal free markets as a means of preserving some sort of natural order or hierarchy and therefore feel attracted to it.

Basically, liberalism and subsequently libertarianism, is a social blank slate that rejects the left and the right on a philosophical level. Though individuals can apply liberal ideas for either progressive or conservative goals.