Wasn't there some economist or something who hijacked the word libertarian and warped it's original meaning on purpose?
“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over...” - Murray Rothbard
Rothbard was a far-right Austrian School economist and the founder of "anarcho"-capitalism.
When I was younger I used to just call my self a libertarian. I always had problems with some of the aspects of general libertarians but I had no idea there was an actual name for my philosophy. I kinda cringe when I think of how many people I told I was libertarian to.
if you're an American who grew up during the 00s, there was a good while when right libertarianism was presented as a sort of "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" alternative to the rightly maligned two major parties, one that vociferously opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported gay marriage, abortion, and weed legalization, and presented basic criticisms of the police. The part of it that involved eliminating all government regulations and destroying all welfare programs was kept in the back behind a beaded curtain. When the only "left" alternative was the Green Party, it's easy to see how someone without a class analysis could see them as the only rational, progressive option.
Yup that was exactly me. Didn't take me long to realize that government regulations were absolutely necessary to corps from controlling every aspect basically every thing. Took me a little longer to realize that taxes and social welfare were good an necessary too. From there it was fairly easy to become an anarchist.
What else should it? It's a very american label, just own your anarchism
call him a problematic fave, but god makhno was a hottie
