Left-libertarianism names several related but distinct approaches to politics, society, culture, and political and social theory, which stress equally both individual freedom and social justice.

Left-libertarianism can refer generally to three related and overlapping schools of thought:

The original school of left-libertarianism is libertarian socialism.

Libertarian socialism is the anti-state tradition of socialism. In a broad sense, people who may share with "traditional socialism a distrust of the market, of private investment, and of the achievement ethic, and a commitment to expansion of the welfare state" might sometimes be described as “left-libertarians.” More narrowly, some social anarchists and libertarian socialists, including Murray Bookchin, are sometimes characterized as “left-libertarian.”, and Noam Chomsky, who identifies as a “libertarian socialist,” applies the “left-libertarian” label to himself.

Most left-libertarians in this sense are anarchists, and frequently claim to reject the concept of self-ownership, at least when it is understood to underwrite capitalism, along with private ownership of the means of production and absentee ownership of private property, in favor of alternate rights of possession and stewardship which are understood as protecting personal autonomy while rejecting putative rights which they see as permitting the economic elite to control the lives of others. They support rights to personal property and the rights of occupancy over one’s dwelling, but reject commercial propertarianism and some do not consider the re-appropriation of such wealth to be an act of theft but rather an act of liberation (see individual reclamation). Many reject arrangements that allow for hierarchy, kyriarchy, or begrudgingly consensual subordination. Similarly, some reject the non-aggression principle to the extent that it is used by right-libertarians to treat assaults on private property as assaults on individual liberty.

Gary William Chartier (born 1966) is an American legal scholar who currently serves as Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics and Associate Dean of the Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business at La Sierra University in Riverside, California.

Chartier was born on December 30, 1966, in Glendale, California, at what is now Glendale Adventist Medical Center. His parents were secretary and later realtor Helen Lucile Bloodworth Chartier and accountant and internist Stanley Earl Chartier. He graduated from La Sierra Academy in Riverside in 1984, qualifying as a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Competition. (Fascinated by constitutions, he had become friends with constitutional consultant and law professor Albert Blaustein in his early teens, though the two were only infrequently in contact after this.) While he initially planned on a career as a high school teacher, an interest in political theory spawned by earlier reading of Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, Robert Anton Wilson, and Friedrich Hayek prompted him to refocus his attention on earning a doctorate in political philosophy. As an adolescent political activist, he founded the New America Party, broadly libertarian in ideology; he represented its views (identified exaggeratedly as anarchist for dramatic effect) as a guest on Wally George's Hot Seat television show in 1986.

Norman Stephan Kinsella (born 1965) is an American intellectual property lawyer and libertarian legal theorist. His electronically published works are primarily published on his blog and websites associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute and anarcho-capitalist organizations.

Born in Prairieville, Louisiana, he attended Louisiana State University where he earned Bachelor of Science (BS) and Master of Science (MS) degrees in electrical engineering, and a Juris Doctor (JD) from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center. He also obtained an LL.M. at the University of London.

While Kinsella was general counsel of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. of Sugar Land, Texas from 2000 to 2012, he is now practicing law with Kinsella Law Group in Houston since Feb. 2012. A practicing intellectual property attorney and former adjunct professor of law at South Texas College of Law, where he taught computer law, Kinsella is actively involved with libertarian legal and political theory, and is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute as well as the former Book Review Editor for the Institute's Journal of Libertarian Studies. He is also a contributor to the news and opinion blog at LewRockwell.com and is the creator of Libertarian Papers, a peer-reviewed online journal published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.