Originally Posted by Schlack
as i said Iss, i dont hink i know enough about it. however i should clarify, i meant the extreme end of libertarianism.

my prupose in this thread was finding out a little but more about this stream of thought, most of what ive seen at the moment amounts to opposition to collectivism rather than anything concrete about what libertariansim actually means. or is that it?

An instinctual repulsion to collectivist entities coercing behaviour in society is not of and by itself a bad thing. The problem with many modern American libertarians is that they arrogantly refuse to apply the concept equally to all of society's collectives, ignoring, and often even deifying the fictional business constructs of collectivism; and their elevation in our society to the status of "person". Also, libertarians should not be opposed to collectives, per se; the opposition is to acts which are forced upon others by them. Liberty implies a freedom of association with others, but not a right to enslave them. To castrate the state, while leaving the corporation intact, would be to ensure not a future of liberty, but of neofeudalism:

Quote
The powerful barons seemed to constitute an intermediate body charged with the defence of liberty; but properly speaking, it was only their own privileges which they maintained against the royal power on the one hand and the citizens on the other hand. The barons of England extorted Magna Charta from the King; but the citizens gained nothing by it, on the contrary they remained in their former condition. Polish Liberty too, meant nothing more than the freedom of the barons in contraposition to the King, the nation being reduced to a state of absolute serfdom. When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated. For although the nobility were deprived of their sovereign power, the people were still oppressed in consequence of their absolute dependence, their serfdom, and subjection to aristocratic jurisdiction; and they were partly declared utterly incapable of possessing property, partly subjected to a condition of bond-service which did not permit of their freely selling the products of their industry.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "The Philosophy of History", pt. 4, sect. 3, ch. 2 (emphasis mine)