Is there any flavor of libertarianism that even in theory makes sense? I lump libertarians together which I guess is unfair but I only talk to them online and they always seem to so similar however they define themselves with nuance. I find them to be ridiculous, obnoxious, and selfish.
For example - at Bluesky I just had an argument with a self-described socio-libertarian who was against “disruptive” protests against climate change. The character limit at Bluesky makes an actual discussion pointless in a situation like this. But they were an asshole anyway so that limit did me a favor. And I didn’t need to her some kind of fantastical thinking about the magic of the free market solving climate change.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about libertarian socialism…
Libertarian socialism is an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist political current that emphasises self-governance and workers’ self-management. It is contrasted from other forms of socialism by its rejection of state ownership and from other forms of libertarianism by its rejection of private property. Broadly defined, it includes schools of both anarchism and Marxism, as well as other tendencies that oppose the state and capitalism.
I’ll say that libertarian socialism is broad umbrella that covers everything from anarcho-socialist tendencies to “I would like to do the socialism without heavy-handed intrusion by the state into people’s lives.” So it’s kind of hard to make a blanket statement about it.
Personally, I think socialist political economies should strive to be as least intrusive as possible, but obviously the material conditions of the situation are going to dictate how possible that is. Which is a good indicator of how ridiculous a person is being, if they understand the realities that get in the way of that guideline or if they go into the territory of demonizing any AES country that doesn’t meet the perfect ideal.
my own opinion/thoughts:
i would think libertarian socialism will be a transitional state to full communism.
i mean, at some point the state has to wither and that will be a process just like building socialism itself. i’m talking generations under world or world majority socialism even under an ML framework. no siege socialism, the day has been won and now is time to win the peace
there could theoretically be shortcuts to it but i think this is beyond current prediction and would require some kind of incredible technological or social leap