Talk:Criticism of libertarianism

message: This is basically the same content as the main libertarian page. I think it could be summarized in a couple sentences. Gregsinclair 07:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: First Paragraph

message: I have to wonder why criticism of libertarianism is given so much attention as opposed to giving equal views on other mainstream idealogies. Democratic and Republican platforms are certainly more worthy focuses than this.
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Labeling these criticisms as conservative and liberal doesn't make much sense. Conservatives and liberals aren't of the same political persuasion depending on what country you're talking about. In some countries a liberal is a libertarian, for example Australian Democratic Liberal party. I think it would make sense to label these Right and Left criticisms. The Right are anti civil liberties, and the left are anti economic freedom and private property. RJII 20:22, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Political Criticisms

message: This isn't an authoritativee source(its my blog), but may give you some ideas about what to add to the criticism of Libertarianism section:
Thanks!-Urthogie 10:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  link 

message: I wish to bring to your attention the Critiques of libertarianism website. It's not exactly very user-friendly, but it contains well-sourced anti-libertarian arguments by the bucketful. It's the first place to look when you need to find an anti-libertarian citation. -- Nikodemos 05:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations by the bucketful 

message: According to the Libertarianism article, many Libertarians support certain elements of the govrenment, such as infrastructure, schools, courts and police. Many also believe is tax reduction or abolition. A glaring flaw in this premise is that infrastructure, schools, courts, police, and other government-sponsored areas like fire departments and hospitals are all funded through taxes. I have often read and heard criticisms as a result of this since there is no way for these services to be provided without taxation. Does anyone know of any articles which explain how Libertarians handle this issue? Unless there is a tangible plan to handle this apparent conflict, I would think it should be addressed in this article. --Waterspyder 20:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This probably ought to go in there; I don't see it addressed, really.  I'm not sure where it would fit.  Perhaps that and the section within "Methodological criticism" on "Decentralization or size reduction as..." could be split to a new section titled something like "Practical criticism" - though that's an absolutely terrible title - or whatever for criticisms that attack the possibility or results of implementing libertarian ideas with arguments that don't come from any particular ideological perspective. (Alternatively perspectives could be identified for these arguments... I don't know what they'd be though.) Kalkin 20:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Last time I checked it's only extreme libertarians that are against all taxes.--Urthogie 21:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxes and government services 

message: Gibby what do you think? Kalkin 20:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current state of ''Methodological Criticism'' section 

message: I reverted the edit of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_libertarianism&oldid=72284419 as much of it was not at all written in an encylopedic fashion.  Some parts of the edit may have been worth keeping, or worth rewriting into something keepable, feel free to do so.  --Xyzzyplugh 18:50, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reverted last major edit

message: To help unclutter and deal with the backlog of pages tagged as original research I am replacing the original reasearch tags copied to this talk page with . It doesn't change the meaning of the message being edited but it helps a lot with dealing with the growing back log. The tag should be confined to the article itself. Thank you for your understanding. MartinDK 18:57, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original research tags on the talk page

message: I took a look at this article. There is a tonne of stuff that is not sourced at all. It really needs work. --Quirex 17:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  OR Tag Added 

message: I deleted the paragraph about libertarian short sightedness. It was very POV.Deathhatefear 22:11, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Short sightedness 

message: Much of this page is occupied by notions not critical of Libertarianism per se, but of Laissez-faire in general; it seems to me like they're unnecessary here.  You say, "Libertarians support the free market," and then the reader can read the free market article and decide if that's good or bad.  Am I wrong?
By way of analogy, consider this: you wouldn't discuss the criticisms of communism in an article on the Soviet Union.
Your thoughts?
--Xiaphias 09:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Free Market' Criticisms 

message: Libertarianism is almost exclusively discussed in term of 'what we think will happen if..'. What always amazes me is that neither libertarians nor their opponents seem to analyze the experiences we already have had with it.  The Dutch republic is a good example, because the country already had a stock market since the early 1600. In fact it crashed in 1637. Its goverment -expecially on the federal level- was very weak already in the 17th century and became even weaker in the 18th. In fact power was almost exclusively in the hands of a handful of capitalist entrepreneurs. In the 17th century they were very innovative and became rich quickly, often through risky and ruthless colonial undertakings. But in the 18th their descendents, even though they controled politics even more than their gogetter forebares, were anything but innovative. In fact they stiffled any change and any progress. They were fat, rich and quite comfy. Change? Why?! John Adams even wrote back home about how not to be a republic like Holland I believe. Why must we go and repeat these mistakes exactly?
:nl:Gebruiker:Jcwf
75.178.177.135 (talk) 02:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The case of the Dutch republic

message: On the indented paragraph re: Chile, the little footnote thing 1) says the wrong number, 2) doesn't even take you to that wrong number  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.151.34.13 (talk) 01:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing link 

message: One notable criticism of libertarianism has been to point out that the ideology of the Church of Satan, founded by Anton Szandor LaVey, is highly similar to libertarianism. This is maybe a value judgement, but it does strike a chord with some people who are already convinced of the evil nature of libertarianism, and of capitalism in general. ADM (talk) 06:57, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Church of Satan

message: Quote: "An important distinction made by Rawls is between freedom itself and the value of freedom, and libertarians wrongly seek to maximize freedom without consideration of the value of the resulting freedoms. This criticism is based on the notion of the incommensurability of values, where liberty is but one good that must compete with others, rather than all goods being reducible to one simple measure of utility. Libertarians simplistically consider liberty to trump all other goods, without consideration of the commensurability of different goods. Significantly, although Rawls argues for inviolable rights, these are restricted to situations where basic prosperity has been established, rather than being ideological maxims in the manner of libertarians' view of liberty."
The sentence I have marked out is biased against libertarians. Wikipedia should not be biased in this way. --Lordnecronus (talk) 16:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like much of that paragraph is just WP:original research, against wikipedia policy, and can be removed. Only criticism from a WP:reliable source that reflects the source can be used in an article. Even when people have a source it's good to check it (and even many book quotes can be verified through books.google.com) because they often misconstrue what the author actually is saying. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased Sentence 

message: Anybody else tired that the word conservative has been "hijacked" by libertarians? 184.96.217.200 (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  More criticism from the right please. 

message: This article needs to do more to expose the angry Paultards/Rothbardtards who mine the Internet 25 hours a day for dissenters against their pseudo-philosophy for what the overwhelming majority of them really are: arrogant hypocrites who search without end for some kind of high moral justification for personal greed by hiding behind the doctrine of "non-coercion", and only aiming to create an even worse environment in the end where a small, ultra-rich elite essentially takes over the role of the state in the absence of its coercive presence; in much the same fashion as an ultra-powerful, centralized and dictatorial government controlling every single aspect of the lives of its citizenry, a completely "laissez-faire" society, run by ever-powerful corporate interests, would not hesitate, under the pretext of operating under the "free market", to do the exact same thing for the sake of power, greed and selfishness. In the extreme minimalization or outright absence of virtually any form of government coercion, corporate interests would eventually gain total control of every aspect of society, including land ownership, and thus every "lesser" human being would be invisibly coerced to do exactly as they say and act exclusively in such corporate interests, or otherwise be denied any "natural" rights or opportunities because contrary interests would only serve to reduce profits, and are thus "evil". And if there is no real government to establish standards for private interests of such a size, or to tell them what to do, and if they simply bought out and owned nearly everything over time, who would ever be able to stop them? It's just another reason why libertarianism, along with Marxism, is just plain incompatible with philosophy or common sense in general. Consider this a partisan response to your equally partisan attack on the criticisms thrown against your movement.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.153.191.120 (talk) 19:20, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ideologues on the run 

message: Russell Kirk wrote a famous essay on libertarianism.  Should be include a section on it? ELH76345 (talk) 04:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russell Kirk 

message: I think someone should add information about the Constitution's "General Welfare Clause" and mention that many critical interpreters and exegetes of the constitution agree that the provision of the general welfare to the people through taxation is clearly a critique of libertarianism in itself. The text reads as follows: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and "general Welfare" of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States";Nashhinton (talk) 11:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Why, exactly, is the US Constitution of any relevance here?  This article is about criticisms of a political/economic/moral philosophy that is not confined to any particular country so the fact that a random country's constitution articulates goals at odds with it is not worthy of inclusionMetacrias (talk) 08:00, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: General Welfare Clause of the US constitution

message: It's been awhile since I've read up on libertarianism and the many, many critiques of it so I don't have the sources needed to properly reference some critiques that I believe need added - hopefully someone else does.  Overall, this article is woefully underdeveloped and poorly written - libertarianism is one of the most heavily criticized and derided economic philosophies still adhered to by some today and this article only touches on a couple basic critiques.  One important issue that is missing is how libertarian philosophies could be reconciled with the actual global political and economic system.  Metacrias (talk) 08:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pragmatic Concerns: Libertarianism in the context of the existing global economy 

message: Example:
:"Most other economic and political theories (from neoliberalism to social democracy) suggest that market failures justify government intervention in the economy; that non-intervention can lead to monopolies, monopsonies, oligopolies, cartels, collusion and stifle innovation; that unregulated markets are economically unstable; that a lack of government involvement in the economy will result in certain socially desirable goods being undersupplied or not supplied at all (for example, medical research seeking cures to tropical diseases such as malaria that largely affect extremely poor populations that couldn't afford) among other things.  Social democrats criticize libertarianism with arguments holding that even when markets do produce economically efficient outcomes these outcomes aren't necessarily the most desirable as values other than efficiency (for example, equality) may be more important and that redistribution of wealth can improve economic health and the overall level of human development in a given society. Furthermore, advances in economics since Adam Smith have shown that basic assumptions underlying libertarian economic theories (rationality, complete information) do not accurately reflect the real world and thus outcomes of libertarian economic approaches based on these assumptions will not have the theorized effects. Also, virtually all other modern economic philosophies recognize the existence of externalities which libertarian economic theories deny exist."
This "summary" of criticisms should have each individual claim cited as per WP:INCITE.  Merely sticking a tag at the end of a large paragraph is not a sufficient citation for a block of claims and makes it harder to verify each individual claim.  Then there are claims like "also, virtually all other modern economic philosophies recognize the existence of externalities which libertarian economic theories deny exist", which is an non-NPOV opinion; it should either cite an "indisputable and commonly accepted reference text" or "multiple prominent" libertarian theories denying the existence of externalities given the weight of the statement made (as per WP:WEIGHT) and (for good measue) contrast this by citing contrasting theories arguing for the existence of externalities, as befitting a statement of fact... or attribute it correctly as an opinion from a particular, named critic about what he or she thinks libertarians do or don't deny as compared to what economists say, as per WP:YESPOV "Avoid stating opinions as facts". I will be adding the appropriate tags to the article soon, but would just like to remind all who might read this page of these important requirements for a good article.198.103.184.76 (talk) 17:27, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: And on further review it looks like the sources cited in this paragraph aren't even relevant to the claims made. Funny. 198.103.184.76 (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Pursuant to my earlier post I have now added tags to the paragraphs in question.  Remember, when you claim that people say things, you should at least be able to provide a quote of a particular person saying a particular thing.  Avoid "factual statements" and attribute opinions to specific, named critics.  Libertarianism is not so old that any criticism that happens to pop into anybodies head warrants a statement of fact; it may be a deliberate strawman, it may be misinformed, it may be addressed by a prominent libertarian, it may be addressed by one branch of libertarianism but not another, et cetera.  If Libertarians deny the existence of externalities, for example, you should be able to cite a few prominent libertarians actually denying the existence of externalities.198.103.184.76 (talk) 20:51, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many of these are still poorly cited, non NPOV, and written as statements of fact 

message: Again: This article only criticizes right-libertarianism and excludes criticism of left-libertarianism Nashhinton (talk) 03:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Until this is resolved, I've added "criticism of left-libertarianism" to the template notifying users about missing information.  -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: This article only criticizes right-libertarianism and excludes criticism of left-libertarianism

message: I'm wondering how other editors feel about deleting this article.  Presenting criticisms in a dedicated article "is generally discouraged, but it is sometimes used for politics, religion and philosophy topics to avoid confusion that may result if negative viewpoints were interwoven with the description of the primary viewpoint."  WP:CRIT also states that "[c]reating separate articles with the sole purpose of grouping the criticisms or to elaborate individual points of criticism on a certain topic is generally considered a POV fork.  Wikipedia:Content forking states that 'Wikipedia articles should not be split into multiple articles solely so each can advocate a different stance on the subject.'"  Because of these facts, and due to the lack of comprehensive content in this article, I think it would be best to take what little content we have here, move it into the parent Libertarianism article, and delete this one.  Is anyone opposed to this course of action?  — MisterDub (talk | contribs) 20:25, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete article? 

message: Section 4.2 states:
Michael Lind has observed that, of the 195 countries in the world today, none have fully actualized a libertarian society:
"If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn't at least one country have tried it? Wouldn't there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?[10]"
The subsection has two main issues.  
Firstly, the question is a fallacy.  By simple reasoning, one must understand that early on in human history there existed no form of government whatsoever.  By this reasoning, any form of government would have been a terrible idea, because it had not been attempted before.  The same would be true of medicine, inventions, and even clothing.  To counter the argument above, one may note that countries under the Schengen zone have open borders with each other, and generally countries in trade pacts have some degree of free trade, and that though a libertarian state may not exist in a pure unadulterated form, to say that it cannot would ignore the births of every form of government that has ever come to being in its own unique fashion.
Secondly, the section uses a citation by the left-bent website Salon.  As this is an article on the critiques of an ideology, I can understand having more leniency to citation sources, as a biased source may at times be needed to explain the opinions of the opposition.  However, it seems poor to use such a website for a Wikipedia article.
Due to the nature of this subsection, I propose that it be removed or on a whole replaced.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.105.192.203 (talk) 19:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section 4.2:  in regards to the lack of Libertarian presence in government. 

message: It's been seen that left-libertarianism is mostly lambasted on anarchist grounds. Hence, I propose this article be made specifically for right-libertarianism's qualms. ManOfDirt (talk) 01:43, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename to "Criticism of right-libertarianism"