Libertarianism or classical liberalism (these are slightly different perhaps but overlap) had a lot of popularity until sometime over the last decade it seems, when “left” and “right” seem to have become more impatient and seem to want more “authoritarian” implementations of the worlds they want to see.
At the same time perhaps “freedom” may be more popular than ever, I haven’t been monitoring it as closely.
From what I remember on the right, there were big losses with the Ron Paul / Rand Paul / Libertarian Presidential candidates which may explain some of the loss of momentum. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign was basically sabotaged from what I remember; Rand Paul couldn’t compete for the GOP presidential nomination with Trump; Some of the Libertarian Party’s candidates like Gary Johnson were saying blatantly anti-libertarian things, showing a lack of an understanding of libertarian philosophy.
The left seemed to just support authoritarianism against Trump (for example, the left used to be more anti-war but since Trump became anti-war, the left seems to be more supportive of interventionist foreign policy as a result), and I’m not sure what drove other support for authoritarian measures (growing poverty? Anyone have insight?).
So anyway, do you like “freedom” and are you for “libertarianism” or against it or have some arguments in either direction?
What are your thoughts on the topic?
My impression is Libertarianism relies on everyone doing the right thing in a form of equilibrium, and I just don’t think that could ever work. People will always organize themselves to gain an edge, powerful groups will then exploit weaker ones, etc.
I suppose this is a problem with any political philosophy, not unique to libertarianism: are the current governments run by good people, doing the right thing? It’s not powerful groups running the show exploiting the population?
While not perfect, that’s why governments usually try to have a system of checks and balances. There’s also the tug of war between private businesses, corporations and the government. You will always have an imbalance in favor of one or the other, it’s a delicate balancing act, but at least there is that attempt to balance things out.
Pure Libertarianism would just let the pieces fall where they may, with any one entity becoming as powerful as it can be. Eventually you will end up under the authoritarian rule of some mega corp who owns almost everything.