libertarianism

libertarianism An anti-state ideology which takes the principles of liberalism to their logical extreme. Libertarianism is rooted in the writings of the seventeenth-century English political philosopher John Locke, who insisted upon the priority of individual rights to life, liberty, and property, and ‘the elimination of coercive intervention by the state, the foremost violator of liberty’. However, the valuing of individual liberty above all else is also an identifiable strand of conservative thought, and libertarians form part of the conservative radical right in both the United States and Britain. Modern libertarians include the American philosopher Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State and Utopia, 1974)
, who would reduce the role of the state to that of a mere ‘protection agency’, and the economist Friedrich Hayek. The latter maintains that the ideal economy and polity is a ‘catallaxy’–a spontaneous organization resembling the free market–within which interpersonal relationships are modelled on market exchanges; government is reduced to the minimal tasks of maintaining order and providing those public services which cannot spontaneously emerge because of huge initial capital outlays. This allegedly results in a plurality of personal and social values (see for example his ‘Principles of a Liberal Social Order’ in A. Crespigny and and J. Cronin ( eds.) , Ideologies of Politics, 1975)
.

Libertarians advocate the maximization of individual rights, the minimization of government, and a free-market economy. These ideas have found strongest support in the United States, where they mix uneasily with conservatism and neo-liberalism. In his first term (1980–4) President Ronald Reagan stood for a policy that had many libertarian elements, although these were not fully carried out by his administration.

In philosophy, libertarianism describes a theory of human actions opposed to determinism, insisting that conscious human actions are not explicable in simple causal terms. See also JUSTICE, SOCIAL.