{"id":260,"date":"2026-02-01T10:56:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=260"},"modified":"2026-02-01T10:56:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:56:28","slug":"what-it-means-to-be-libertarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/what-it-means-to-be-libertarian\/","title":{"rendered":"What it means to be libertarian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a write-up of my talk at the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair. It is based on my article \u201c160 Years of Libertarian\u201d which appeared in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em> No. 71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What it means to be libertarian<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is a write-up of my talk at the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair. The programme blurb was as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c2017 marks 160 years since Joseph D\u00e9jacque coined the word \u201clibertarian<\/em>\u201d in an open letter challenging Proudhon\u2019s patriarchal and market socialist views. By the dawn of the twentieth century, anarchists across the world had embraced the term. Today, it is now increasingly associated with the far-right. How did this happen? What does it mean to be a libertarian? Can you be a right-wing libertarian? Can we reclaim the word for the twenty-first century? These questions as well as the history of \u201clibertarian\u201d will be explored by Iain McKay, author of An Anarchist FAQ<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is based on my article \u201c160 Years of Libertarian\u201d which appeared in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em> No. 71. I should note that this journal was originally launched in 1986 under the title Libertarian Labor Review<\/em>, the change occurring in 1999 due to the forces discussed below. I am sure this write-up makes it sound better than it was. My talk ends with a question \u2013 is libertarian worth fighting for, or is it too associated with the right that we should let it be? The answer lies with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What it means to be libertarian<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting how words change their meaning. When I became an anarchist \u2013 thirty years ago this year \u2013 the term libertarian meant what it always did, namely a synonym for anarchist or a socialist close to anarchism. So, for example, Maurice Brinton and the group Solidarity<\/em> were libertarians and there were various libertarian Marxists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overtime, I became aware of the right-wing use of the term \u2013 particularly in America. Today, we see the likes of Tory MPs proclaiming themselves \u201clibertarians\u201d and this is not challenged by the media, nor by their opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did we get here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph D\u00e9jacque<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To understand how this happened we first need to recount the history of the term libertarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as my thirty years, this year also marks 160 years since Joseph D\u00e9jacque coined the word \u201clibertarian<\/em>\u201d in an open letter challenging Proudhon\u2019s patriarchal and market socialist views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D\u00e9jacque was a very interesting character. We first hear of him during the 1848 revolution, during which he was imprisoned for socialist agitation. He was re-arrested in 1851 for a collection of poems and during his trial he prosecution described him as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cMr. D\u00e9jacque is one of those hateful socialists who hold society in horror, and who have no other aim, no thought but to constantly excite the wicked passions of those who possess nothing against those who do possess, so that their detestable doctrines may triumph. This is how one foments the hatred of tenants towards landlords and especially of workers towards bosses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So a fine, upstanding member of the community!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He escaped to London in 1851 after Louis-Napoleon\u2019s coup before moving to America. There, in 1857, wrote his letter to Proudhon and coins the word libertaire<\/em> and the following year until 1861 he published the periodical Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement social<\/em>, the first of many anarchist journals to use that title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned to France after an amnesty, dying in poverty, in Paris, in 1864.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Given this, it is obvious that D\u00e9jacque\u2019s work cannot be viewed in isolation from Proudhon\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon is a much misrepresented thinker, indeed he has been systematically distorted by many, not least Marx in his book The Poverty of Philosophy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is most famous for proclaiming \u201cproperty is theft!\u201d in 1840 but he also proclaimed \u201cproperty is despotism\u201d in What is Property?<\/em>. This book is a systematic and devastating critique of liberalism. While it echoes Rousseau\u2019s earlier democratic critique, Proudhon extends his critique to both Rousseau and State Socialism. He showed how none of these will meet its stated goals and raised Anarchy as alternative \u2014 association<\/em> to abolish capitalism and federalism<\/em> to abolish the State<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said, he is much misrepresented but one criticism is true \u2013 he was a sexist, a firm defender of patriarchy. This was why D\u00e9jacque \u2013 who considered himself a follower of Proudhon \u2013 raised his voice in 1857, denouncing him for being \u201ca liberal<\/em> and not a LIBERTARIAN [\u2026] you cry out against the high barons of capital and you wish to rebuild the high barony of the male upon the female vassal\u201d and urged him to \u201cBe frankly, fully anarchist [\u2026] Press on to the abolition of [\u2026] property and authority in every form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year saw D\u00e9jacque found Le Libertaire<\/em> in which he expanded upon his Open Letter and advocated communism (free, of course) against Proudhon\u2019s market socialism \u2013 in other words distribution by need, not deed \u2013 and revolution against Proudhon\u2019s reformism<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was the first to draw these conclusions which became commonplace during and after the 1870s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After D\u00e9jacque<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The term libertarian, however, did not immediately spread in usage but the critique of sexism was raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French members of the International, Eugene Varlin and Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o (both of whom would become Communards) made similar points to D\u00e9jacque. L\u00e9o, for example, rightly argued against those French Internationalists who embraced Proudhon\u2019s sexism as well as his mutualism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThese so-called lovers of liberty, if they are unable to take part in the direction of the state, at least they will be able to have a little monarchy for their personal use, each in his own home [\u2026] Order in the family without hierarchy seems impossible to them \u2013 well then, what about in the state?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, this position was echoed by Bakunin, Kropotkin and almost all others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Anti-Authoritarian<\/em> was the preferred term in the federalist-wing of International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next recorded use of libertarian was at a French regional anarchist Congress in November 1880, which talked about \u201clibertarian communism.\u201d January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on \u201cLibertarian or Anarchist Communism.\u201d Six years later. in 1887, individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker quoted a Belgium socialist (Ernest Lesigne) in Liberty<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThere are two Socialisms [\u2026] One is dictatorial, the other libertarian [\u2026] One wishes that there should be none but proletarians. The other wishes that there should be no more proletarians\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In 1895 S\u00e9bastien Faure and Louise Michel began publication of newspaper La Libertaire<\/em> while the following year saw Kropotkin state \u201cmodern Socialism is forced to make a step towards libertarian communism\u201d while Malatesta argued that \u201cthe name libertarians<\/em> [is] accepted and used by all anarchists\u201d. By 1899, Henry Glasse was discussing the issue in Freedom<\/em>, noting that the \u201cterm \u2018Libertarian\u2019 in place of \u2018Anarchist\u2019 seems to be used with increasing frequency\u201d and how the \u201cnewer term pleases me better.\u201d Three years later he wrote of \u201cAnarchism (or Libertarianism, if you prefer)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So by the dawn of the twentieth century anarchists \u2013 and just anarchists \u2013 across the world had embraced the term and this remained the case for most of the century. Indeed, when George Woodcock published Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements<\/em> in 1962 he made no mention of right-wing \u201clibertarians\u201d at all. Yet, today, it is now increasingly associated with the far-right, particularly in America. How did that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theft is property!<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As the term \u201cLiberal\u201d became increasingly associated with the New Deal in the US, some American right-wing liberals privately pondered using the term \u201clibertarian\u201d to describe their ideas. They probably became aware of the term via American Charles T. Sprading\u2019s 1913 book Liberty and the Great Libertarians<\/em>. Sprading was associated with Tucker\u2019s Liberty<\/em>, so undoubted picked up the word there and his book is a mish-mash, including actual<\/em> libertarians \u2013 like Kropotkin, Wilde, Tucker, Bakunin, Goldman (on syndicalism!) \u2013 but many liberals. However, American right-wing liberals did not start using the term as their preferred label until the late 1950s. Murray Rothbard \u2013 one of those involved at the time \u2013 recalled:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cOne gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that [\u2026], we, \u2018our side,\u2019 had captured a crucial word from the enemy [\u2026] \u2018Libertarians\u2019 [\u2026] 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, and more properly from the view of etymology; since we were proponents of individual liberty and therefore of the individual\u2019s right to his property.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So deliberate theft \u2013 something Rothbard claimed to be opposed to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cEvery individual in the free society has a right to ownership of his own self and to the exclusive use of his own property. Included in his property is his name, the linguistic label which is uniquely his and is identified with him. A name is an essential part of a man\u2019s identity and therefore of his property [\u2026] defense of person and property [\u2026] involves the defense of each person\u2019s particular name or trademark against the fraud of forgery<\/em> or imposture<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The hypocrisy is clear \u2013 if Anarchists think property is theft, for Rothbard theft is property!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Property is despotism!<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ignoring the blatant hypocrisy, what of Rothbard\u2019s claim they were entitled to take the name because their ideology \u201cmore properly\u201d fitted its meaning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just an ideological version of immanent domain or primitive accumulation, something which Rothbard was, in theory, against but ignoring that, if you read Rothbard you quickly see his whole-hearted defence of very authoritarian things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, for example, a person \u201cdoes not have a \u2018right to freedom of speech\u2019; what he does<\/em> have is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premise.\u201d He \u201chas no right<\/em> to speak but only a request\u201d that the owner \u201cmust decide upon\u201d while owners \u201chave the right to decide who shall have access to those streets\u201d and \u201chave the absolute right to decide on whether picketers could use their street\u201d while \u201cthe employer can fire\u201d a worker who joins a union \u201cforth-with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, no freedom of speech, association or assembly \u2013 which is hardly libertarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, no property, no liberty\u2026<\/em> It gets worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rothbard opposed the State because it \u201carrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area\u201d he then admitted in an end note to the same chapter that \u201c[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc.\u201d! Such is the power of ideology, allowing you ignore common features:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIf<\/em> the State may be said to properly own<\/em> its territory, then it is proper for it to make rules for everyone who presumes to live in that area. [\u2026] So long<\/em> as the State permits its subjects to leave its territory, then, it can be said to act as does any other owner who sets down rules for people living on his property.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Opps! So he is against the State not<\/em> because it is authoritarian but because it does not own its territory justly!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet does anyone<\/em> own their property justly? Of course not \u2013 look at history, it is a product of centuries of coercion. So why does Rothbard think so? Because he creates a lovely \u201cjust-so\u201d story \u2013 which is not even original, he simply regurgitates John Locke. Yet Locke postulates that the State is created when landlords decide to form a joint-stock company amongst themselves and the State does<\/em> own its territory justly because the landlords do! According to that \u201cjust-so\u201d story, at least\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah, it may be objected, but people can leave and find a better master. Ignoring the awkward but relevant question of what if you don\u2019t want masters?<\/em>, this objection ignores the reality of economic power. Rothbard, needless to say, denies this exists in capitalism but also has this to say about the abolition of slavery and serfdom in the nineteenth century:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe bodies<\/em> of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of their former oppressors. With economic power thus remaining in their hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once more of what were now free tenants or farm labourers. The serfs and slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly derived of its fruits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So if \u201cmarket forces\u201d (\u201cvoluntary exchanges\u201d) result in the few owning most of the property then that is fine and raises no questions about the (lack of) liberty of the working class but if people are placed in exactly the same situation<\/em> as a result of coercion then it a case of \u201ceconomic power\u201d and \u201cmasters\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such is the power of ideology \u2013 it allows you to write a book which contradicts itself!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voluntary does not equal libertarian<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He is not alone \u2013 look at a Robert Nozick who defends both voluntary slavery (\u201c<\/em>The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would\u201d<\/em>) and voluntary dictatorship (\u201cif one starts a private town, on land whose acquisition did not [\u2026] violate the Lockean proviso, persons who chose to move there [\u2026] would have no right to a say in how the town was run\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a strange notion of freedom which postulates that you are not free if you cannot become a slave\u2026 It does, however, show the bankruptcy of the intellectual culture that this is considered libertarian<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Ellerman has recounted the long history of contractual defences of tyranny and slavery and both Rothbard and Nozick derive their ideas from John Locke, a seventeenth century English Philosopher \u2013 \u201cThe Father of Liberalism\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Locke, people have property in the person, the worker owns their labour and from this weaves a just-so story which turns the commons into private property. As labour being someone\u2019s property, it can be sold and so the master (the wealthy owner) now owns that labour and its product, not the worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This negation of the starting principles comes as no surprise as Locke\u2019s work is all about justifying the \u2013 to use his words \u2013 the \u201csubordinate relations of wife, children, servants, and slaves\u201d. Locke, then, invokes \u201cconsent\u201d to defend subordination, not<\/em> liberty. As can be seen by what he uses self-ownership and \u201cconsent\u201d to justify: inequalities in wealth; masters and servants; patriarchy; non-absolute monarchy; government by the wealthy few; contractual life-time slavery (termed \u201cdrudgery\u201d); actual<\/em> slavery; and hereditary serfdom<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the only thing it did not seem to allow non-hierarchical social relationships\u2026 Unsurprisingly, for as Carole Pateman suggested \u201cContracts about property in the person inevitably create subordination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows that the notion that \u201cconsent\u201d equates to libertarian is simply false and why opposition to coercion is a necessary<\/em> but not sufficient<\/em> definition for libertarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of money in the market-place of ideas<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This self-contradictory rubbish should never have gone anywhere except for three key factors. First, the Lockean roots of modern bourgeois ideology. Second, it reflects the reality of the bourgeois economic regime. Third, it is very helpful for the ruling class (who, of course, ignore when it suits them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a key factor of the appropriation of \u201clibertarian\u201d was the funds of the Koch Empire. Their father made his fortune in Stalinist Russia (no freedom for workers there!) and after he returned to America aimed to break unions there (State intervention against unions is fine, apparently\u2026). His sons have used this wealth to fund numerous \u201clibertarian\u201d thinktanks and projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, yet more defenders of \u201cnon-coercion\u201d whose their fortunes owe much to coercion. As with Locke, incidentally, who was wealthy man who invested in the slave trade \u2013 but worry not, he simply invented another nice little \u201cjust-so\u201d story to intellectually secure those investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, there was the formation of a political party with the aim of taking government power which, as Marxists would confirm, is a good way to ensure your notions become associated with a word. So, for Rothbard, a \u201cfree\u201d society will come later once his party seized power and the State withers away\u2026 Marxo-capitalists<\/em>, anyone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What now?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So we have seen how libertarian was coined and how it was stolen. We can see what it means to be libertarian \u2013 to be opposed to both public and private hierarchies, in favour of self-management always<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proudhon had attacked political and economic hierarchies while D\u00e9jacque and other anarchists extended that analysis and critique to the home \u2013 for both logic and justice demands it. In other words, associations of free and equal people in all<\/em> spheres of life, for liberty needs equality to be meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consent, then, does not justify authoritarian social relationships as Proudhon argued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cLiberty is inviolable. I can neither sell nor alienate my liberty; every contract, every condition of a contract, which has in view the alienation or suspension of liberty, is null\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Simply put, exploitation and oppression possible in voluntary organisations \u2013 particularly if wealth is monopolised by the few. Kropotkin put it well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cmodern Individualism [is] a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable \u2013 so miserable as to lead us to inquire if the talk of \u2018No force\u2019 be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To which the answer is, yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means you simply cannot be a right-wing \u201clibertarian\u201d for capitalism is inherently authoritarian, it is \u201cdespotism\u201d as Proudhon recognised in 1840. The so-called \u201clibertarians\u201d of the right are nothing more than voluntary archists<\/em>, voluntary authoritarians. Like Locke, they seek to defend such hierarchies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse, as Proudhon first argued, liberalism cannot be genuinely anti-State as the State is needed to defend property and its power. As Kropotkin argued, \u201cwhile they advocate no force for changing the existing conditions, they advocate still more force than is now used for maintaining them. As to Anarchy, it is obviously as incompatible with plutocracy as with any other kind of -cracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why, in America, the term has been completely reversed its meaning: from opposition to bosses to support (indeed, worship) of bosses; from opposition to the State because it defends property and its power, to opposition to (certain aspects of) the State because it does not<\/em> defend them well enough; from opposition to private hierarchies, to support for private hierarchies; from opposition to wage-labour because it was a form of slavery, to support for slavery as a form of wage-labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Property, not liberty, is the basis of their ideology \u2013 which suggests that propertarian<\/em> would be a better term for them. Once you understand that, their bizarre positions become understandable and they themselves should stop using the word libertarian for, as Rothbard noted, \u201cif a current title to property is criminal in origin, and<\/em> the victim or his heir can be found, then the title should immediately revert to the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do not hold your breath waiting for that<\/em> to happen\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So there is an easy way identifying real from fake libertarians, ask them whether property is theft?<\/em> If they say \u201cyes\u201d then embrace them as a true friend of liberty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, it comes down to what does liberty mean? Does freedom mean the end of oppression or the ability to oppress? Does your liberty end at the workplace door? Or by a marriage ceremony? Is liberty opposed to slavery or does it express itself by it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be a libertarian means fighting to increase individual freedom everywhere<\/em>. It does not<\/em> mean rationalising private tyranny and so we need to dump the falsehood of \u201cproperty in the person\u201d as this notion degrades<\/em> our concept of liberty, hollowing it out so that slavery is freedom<\/em> becomes a point for serious debate rather than ridicule. For, to state the obvious, I do not \u201cown\u201d my person, I am myself<\/em> \u2013 I cannot alienate myself. Hence Kropotkin\u2019s point that Anarchy is \u201ccriticism of hierarchical organisations and authoritarian conceptions in general\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, is libertarian now too corrupted by association with the right? Should we leave the term? If so, should we also reject Anarchist? Rothbard tried to steal that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think libertarian<\/em> is worth fighting for: do you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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