this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Libertarians usually define liberty narrowly as "freedom from government".
Freedom does not mean the ability to do as you please, but rather the ability to not be told what not to do, or to be made to do something you do not wish to do.
A libertarian usually does not object to wage slavery, and would disagree with the concept of wage slavery entirely, on the grounds that you were not forced to work a job you dislike, since you could always choose to starve instead.

What you're looking for is one of the schools of anarchism.
Although usually painted as "anti-government, anti-society", it actually derives from being against hierarchy, and is characterized generally (there are many schools) as being opposed to involuntary power hierarchies.
Sometimes government is the best way to reduce the total amount of coercion in the system, since forcing a lot of people to pay a little can free many, many people from being forced to do stuff they loath to survive.

Libertarians aren't pro-liberty they're anti-government, and anarchists aren't pro-chaos they're anti-coercian. They're both entire political schools of thought, so I've obviously not encapsulated them entirely in two paragraphs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

This is exactly right.

However, you are on Lemmy where the vast majority of users are from the US which means they have their own weird skew on libertarianism and liberalism, thanks to their media and social media. Somehow it's distinctly Republican, conservative (lol, yes), and pro-capitalism, which obviously isn' correct because of their many, many, many, anti-liberal views.

Only in the US can socialists be mad about a school of thought that values social equality and welfare, because a form of media informed them it's pro-capitalism and the red-cap redneck that cries "Liberty!" with their AR-15 must be liberalism or libertarian.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Libertarians aren’t pro-liberty they’re anti-government.

Libertarians are pro liberty. Generally, they align the most with the upholding of negative liberty. Libertarians are not anti government; libertarians advocate for the minimization of government — that is, minarchy. Anarchists are anti-government.