Libertarianism

Abstract

Libertarianism advocates for liberty, both social and economic, as the primary political value. It does so both on the basis of natural justice, and of institutional prudence. Libertarianism emerged as a response to the changes that happened in liberal democracies following the second world war, reasserting a classical form of liberalism generally, and economic liberalism especially. Libertarian theories are typically structured in one of two ways; either by proposing moral principles relating to liberty as criteria for assessing the justice of actually-existing institutions, or by proposing institutional configurations that deploy liberty as a social technology, and showing how they satisfy broader criteria for social and political desirability. The strength of libertarian theory is its bold, liberal scepticism of power. However, this often generates a weakness in the form of an undersupply of resources for informing the work of politics, which often involves compromise with unjust power.