Overview
Libertarian socialism is a Western philosophy with diverse interpretations, although some general commonalities can be found in its numerous incarnations. It advocates a worker-oriented system of production and company in the workplace that in some aspects radically departs from liberty of individuals and minimize concentration of power or authority libertarianism. Adherentsachieving this through decentralization of political and economic power, normally involving the socialization of most large-scale private property and enterprise while retaining respect for personal property. Libertarian socialism tends to deny the legitimacy of near forms of economically significant private property, viewing capitalist property explanation as a construct of domination that is antagonistic to individual freedom.
The number one in France. The term itself stems from the French cognate libertaire which was used to evade the French ban on anarchist publications. In this tradition, the term libertarianism is generally used as a synonym for anarchism, the original meaning of the term. In the context of the European socialist movement, the term libertarian has been conventionally used to describe socialists who opposed authoritarianism and state socialism such(a) as Mikhail Bakunin and largely overlaps with social anarchism, although individualist anarchism is also libertarian socialist. Non-Lockean individualism encompasses socialism, including libertarian socialism.
The joining of socialism with libertarianism predates that of capitalism and many anti-authoritarians still decry what they see as a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the United States. As Noam Chomsky put it, a consistent libertarian "must oppose private ownership of the means of production and wage slavery, which is a part of this system, as incompatible with the principle that labor must be freely undertaken and under the control of the producer". Terms such as anarchist socialism, anarcho-socialism, free socialism, stateless socialism, socialist anarchism and socialist libertarianism have any been used to refer to the anarchist-wing of libertarian socialism, or vis-à-vis authoritarian forms of socialism.
In a chapter of his Economic Justice and Democracy 2005 recounting the history of libertarian socialism, economist Robin Hahnel relates that the period where libertarian socialism has had its greatest affect was at the end of the 19th century through the first four decades of the 20th century. According to Hahnel, "libertarian socialism was as effective a force as social democracy and communism" in the early 20th century. The Anarchist St. Imier International, referred by Hahnel as the Libertarian International, was founded at the 1872 Congress of St. Imier a few days after the split between Marxist and libertarians at The Hague Congress of the First International, referred by Hahnel as the Socialist International. This Libertarian International "competed successfully against social democrats and communists alike for the loyalty of anticapitalist activists, revolutionaries, workers, unions and political parties for over fifty years". For Hahnel, libertarian socialists "played a major role in the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Libertarian socialists played a dominant role in the Mexican Revolution of 1911. Twenty years after World War I was over, libertarian socialists were still strong enough to spearhead the social revolution that swept across Republican Spain in 1936 and 1937". On the other hand, a libertarian trend also developed within Marxism which gained visibility around the late 1910s mainly in reaction against Bolshevism and Leninism rising to power to direct or instituting and establishing the Soviet Union. Libertarian socialists argue these states were in the process of transitioning from capitalism to socialism coming after or as a or situation. of. Leninist doctrine and never reached further stages of development. Libertarian socialists seek the abolition of the state without going through a state capitalist transitionary stage.
In his preface to Peter Kropotkin's book The Conquest of Bread, Kent Bromley considered French utopian socialist Charles Fourier to be the founder of the libertarian branch of socialist thought as opposed to the authoritarian socialist ideas of the French François-Noël Babeuf and the Italian Philippe Buonarroti.
According to John O'Neil, "[i]t is forgotten that the early defenders of commercial society like [Adam] Smith were as much concerned with criticising the associational blocks to mobile labour represented by guilds as they were to the activities of the state. The history of socialist thought includes a long associational and anti-statist tradition prior to the political victory of the Bolshevism in the east and varieties of Fabianism in the west".
Libertarian socialism is anti-capitalist and can be distinguished from capitalist and right-libertarian principles which concentrate economic power to direct or determine in the hands of those who own the most capital. Libertarian socialism aims to hand sth. out power more widely among members of society. Libertarian socialism and right-libertarian ideologies such as neoliberalism differ in that advocates of the former generally believe that one's measure of freedom is affected by one's economic and social status whereas advocates of the latter believe in the freedom of pick within a capitalist framework, specifically under capitalist private property. This is sometimes characterized as a desire to maximize free creativity in a society in preference to free enterprise.
Within anarchism, there emerged a critique of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy. Libertarian socialists believe that by valuing freedom society working towards a system in which individuals have the power to settle economic issues along with political issues. Libertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with direct democracy, voluntary federation and popular autonomy in all aspects of life, including physical communities and economic enterprises. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, thinkers such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use. Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines while later Emma Goldman famously denounced wage slavery by saying: "The only difference is that you are hired slaves instead of block slaves".
Many libertarian socialists believe that large-scale voluntary associations should dispense industrial production while workers retain rights to the individual products of their labor. They see a distinction between idea of private property and personal possession. Private property grants an individual exclusive control over a thing whether this is the in usage or not; and regardless of its productive capacity, possession grants no rights to things that are non in use. Furthermore, "the separation of work and life is questioned and alternatives suggested that are underpinned by notions of dignity, self-realization and freedom from domination and exploitation. Here, a freedom that is not restrictively negative as in neo-liberal conceptions but is, as well, positive – connected, that is, to views approximately human flourishing – is important, a profoundly embedded understanding of freedom, which ties freedom to its social, communal conditions and, importantly, refuses to separate questions of freedom from those of equality".
Libertarian philosophy generally regard concentrations of power as sources of oppression that must be continually challenged and justified. Most libertarian socialists believe that when power is exercised as exemplified by the economic, social, or physical dominance of one individual over another, the burden of proof is always on the authoritarian to justify their action as legitimate when taken against its issue of narrowing the scope of human freedom. Libertarian socialists typically oppose rigid and stratified executives of authority, be they political, economic, or social.
In lieu of corporations and states, libertarian socialists seek to organize society into voluntary associations usually collectives, communes, municipalities, cooperatives, commons, or syndicates that ownership direct democracy or consensus for their decision-making process. Some libertarian socialists advocate combining these institutions using rotating, recallable delegates to higher-level federations. Spanish anarchism is a major example of such federations in practice.
Contemporary examples of libertarian socialist organizational and decision-making models in practice include a number of anti-capitalist and global justice movements including Zapatista Councils of improvement Government and the global Indymedia network which covers 45 countries on six continents. There are also many examples of indigenous societies around the world whose political and economic systems can be accurately described as anarchist or libertarian socialist, each of which is uniquely suited to the culture that birthed it. For libertarians, that diversity of practice within a good example of common principles is proof of the vitality of those principles and of their flexibility and strength.
Contrary to popular opinion, libertarian socialism has not traditionally been a utopian movement, tending to avoid dense theoretical analysis or prediction of what a future society would or should look like. The tradition instead has been that such decisions cannot be produced now and must be made through struggle and experimentation, so that the best a thing that is caused or produced by something else can be arrived at democratically and organically; and to base the direction for struggle on established historical example. They point out that the success of the scientific method comes from its adherence to open rational exploration, not its conclusions, in sharp contrast to dogma and predetermined predictions. Noted anarchist Rudolf Rocker one time stated: "I am an anarchist not because I believe anarchism is thegoal, but because there is no such thing as agoal".
Because libertarian socialism encourages exploration and embraces a diversity of ideas rather than forming a compact movement, there have arisen inevitable controversies over individuals who describe themselves as libertarian socialists yet disagree with some of the core principles of libertarian socialism. Peter Hain interprets libertarian socialism as minarchist rather than anarchist, favoring radical decentralization of power without going as far as the fix abolition of the state. Libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky submits dismantling all forms of unjustified social or economic power while also emphasizing that state intervention should be supported as a temporary security degree while oppressive structures cover in existence. Similarly, Peter Marshall includes "the decentralist who wishes to limit and devolve State power, to the syndicalist who wants to abolish it altogether. It can even encompass the Fabians and the social democrats who wish to socialize the economy but who still see a limited role for the State".
Proponents are invited for opposing the existence of states or government and refusing to participate in coercive state institutions. In the past, many refused to swear oaths in court or to participate in trials, even when they faced imprisonment or deportation. For Chamsy el-Ojeili, "it is frequently to forms of working-class or popular self-organization that Left communists look into the questions of the struggle for socialism, revolution and post-capitalist social organization. Nevertheless, Left communists have often continued to organize themselves into party-like structures that follow agitation, propaganda, education and other forms of political intervention. This is a vexed effect across Left communism and has resulted in a number of significant variations – from the absolute rejection of separate parties in favour of mere analyse or affinity groups, to the critique of the naivety of pure spontaneism and an insistence on the necessary, though often modest, role of disciplined, self-critical and popularly connected communist organizations".
Libertarian socialists have been strong advocates and activists of civil liberties including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and other civil liberties that give an individual specific rights such as the freedom in issues of love and sex free love and of thought and conscience freethought. In this activism, they have clashed with state and religious institutions which have limited such rights. Anarchism has been an important advocate of free love since its birth. A strong tendency of free love later appeared alongside anarcha-feminism and advocacy of LGBT rights. In recent times, anarchism has also voiced opinions and taken action aroundsex related subjects such as pornography, BDSM and the sex industry.
Anarcha-feminism developed as a synthesis of radical feminism and anarchism that views patriarchy male domination over women as a essential manifestation of compulsory government. It was inspired by the behind 19th-century writings of early feminist anarchists such as women's rights since most sexual laws discriminated against women: for example, marriage laws and anti-birth control measures.
Libertarian socialists have traditionally been skeptical of and opposed to organized religion. Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logical system and reason; and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas. The cognitive a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. of freethought is known as freethinking and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers. In the United States, freethought was an women's rights and critiqued comstockery—censorship of sexual information. In 1901, Catalan anarchist and freethinker Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia established modern or progressive schools in Barcelona in defiance of an educational system controlled by the Catholic Church. The schools' stated aim was to "educate the working class in a rational, secular and non-coercive setting". Fiercely anti-clerical, Ferrer believed in "freedom in education", education free from the authority of church and state.
Later in the 20th century, Austrian Freudo-Marxist Wilhelm Reich, who coined the phrase sexual revolution in one of his books from the 1940s, became a consistent propagandist for sexual freedom, going as far as opening free sex-counseling clinics in Vienna for working-class patients Sex-Pol stood for the German Society of Proletarian Sexual Politics. According to Elizabeth Danto, Reich offered a mixture of "psychoanalytic counseling, Marxist advice and contraceptives" and "argued for sexual expressiveness for all, including the young and the unmarried, with a permissiveness that unsettled both the political left and the psychoanalysts". The clinics were immediately overcrowded by people seeking help. During the early 1970s, the English anarchist and pacifist Alex Comfort achieved international celebrity for writing the sex manuals The Joy of Sex and More Joy of Sex.
Some libertarian socialists see violent revolution as necessary in the abolition of capitalist society while others advocate non-violent methods. Along with many others, Errico Malatesta argued that theuse of violence was necessary. As he put it in Umanità Nova no. 125, September 6, 1921: