[ExI] Usages of the term libertarianism

[F. C. Moulton]

On 05/09/2011 11:16 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 11:27 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki
>> ### Hey, I *don't* want a government, and I *am* a libertarian!
>>
>> Let's have an anarchocapitalist slugfest here, like in the good old
>> times! :)
> Rafal, you can call yourself whatever you would like. But the common
> definition of libertarian doesn't do away with government for the
> common defense and all that.
>
> How to anarchists keep a more cohesive government next door from
> running all over the top of them to strip their resources?
>
Let us pause for just a moment before we have yet another session of
people talking past each other and failing to seriously consider what is
being posted:

1. I assume that everyone here is intelligent enough to realize that the
term anarchist as used here does not refer to the strawman caricature of
some person all dressed in black haphazardly throwing bombs.
2. Historically and currently the term "libertarian" has been and is
still used by different people to mean either "limited government" or
"anarchist" positions even though the usages have an innate
incompatibility.
3. There is literature on this issue going back many years.  While I do
not agree with all of the conclusions I find the book Anarchy, State and
Utopia by Nozick to be an useful read when confronting these questions.
4. Since the term "anarchocapitalist" was mentioned we should note that
there are those who hold that one can only be an anarchist if they
oppose what is generally considered as market based economic activity.
On the other had there are those that claim that the anarchist position
does not preclude any voluntary activity which is not based on something
such as theft or fraud.  This latter position is often referred to as
"Anarchism without Adjectives".  Recently this disagreement occurred on
Facebook and a new FB community was formed
 https://www.facebook.com/anarchismwithoutadjectives
5. So would it be a good idea to have a handful of people doing a back
and forth on the question of "Does libertarianism explicitly exclude
anarchist position  or does libertarianism explicitly exclude even the
smallest minimal state position or are both included?"   I doubt if it
would be useful to have a long back and forth about the issue here for
several reasons; one of which is that few people on this list have read
much if any of the serious literature on the topic.

Fred