In the
1950s many with classical liberal beliefs in the
United States began to describe themselves as "libertarian." Academics as well as proponents of the free market perspectives note that free-market libertarianism has spread beyond the
U.S. since the
1970s via think tanks and political parties and that libertarianism is increasingly viewed worldwide as a free market position. However, libertarian socialist intellectuals
Noam Chomsky,
Colin Ward, and others argue that the term "libertarianism" is considered a synonym for anarchist socialism by the international community and that the United States is unique in widely associating it with free market ideology.
Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater's libertarian-oriented challenge to authority had a major impact on the libertarian movement,[15] through his book
The Conscience of a Conservative and his run for president in 1964.[16]
Goldwater's speech writer,
Karl Hess, became a leading libertarian writer and activist.[17]
The Vietnam War split the uneasy alliance between growing numbers of self-identified libertarians, anarchist libertarians, and more traditional conservatives who believed in limiting liberty to uphold moral virtues. Libertarians opposed to the war joined the draft resistance and
peace movements and organizations such as
Students for a Democratic Society. They began founding their own publications, like
Murray Rothbard's
The Libertarian Forum[18][19] and organizations like the
Radical Libertarian Alliance.[20]
The split was aggravated at the
1969 Young Americans for Freedom convention, when more than
300 libertarians organized to take control of the organization from conservatives. The burning of a draft card in protest to a conservative proposal against draft resistance sparked physical confrontations among convention attendees, a walkout by a large number of libertarians, the creation of libertarian organizations like the
Society for Individual Liberty, and efforts to recruit potential libertarians from conservative organizations.[21] The split was finalized in
1971 when conservative leader
William F. Buckley, Jr., in a 1971
New York Times article, attempted to divorce libertarianism from the freedom movement. He wrote: "The ideological licentiousness that rages through
America today makes anarchy attractive to the simple-minded. Even to the ingeniously simple-minded
."[22]
In 1971,
David Nolan and a few friends formed the
Libertarian Party.[23] Attracting former
Democrats,
Republicans and independents, it has run a presidential candidate every election year since
1972. Over the years, dozens of libertarian political parties have been formed worldwide. Educational organizations like the
Center for Libertarian Studies and the
Cato Institute were formed in the 1970s, and others have been created since then.[24]
Philosophical libertarianism gained a significant measure of recognition in academia with the publication of
Harvard University professor
Robert Nozick's
Anarchy, State, and Utopia in
1974. The book won a
National Book Award in
1975.[25] According to libertarian essayist
Roy Childs, "
Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia single-handedly established the legitimacy of libertarianism as a political theory in the world of academia."[26]
Texas congressman
Ron Paul's 2008 and
2012 campaigns for the
Republican Party presidential nomination were largely libertarian.
Paul is affiliated with the libertarian-leaning
Republican Liberty Caucus and founded the
Campaign for Liberty, a libertarian-leaning membership and lobbying organization.
The
2012 Libertarian National Convention which saw
Gary Johnson and
James P. Gray nominated as the 2012 presidential ticket for the Libertarian Party resulted in the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since
2000, and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number.
Johnson received 1% of the popular vote, amounting to more than
1.2 million votes.[27][28] Johnson has expressed a desire to win at least
5 percent of the vote so that the Libertarian Party candidates could get equal ballot access and federal funding, thus subsequently ending the two-party system.[29][30][31]
In the United States, libertarians may emphasize economic and constitutional rather than religious and personal policies, or personal and international rather than economic policies,[32] such as the
Tea Party movement, founded in 2009, which has become a major outlet for
Libertarian Republican ideas[33][34] especially rigorous adherence to the
U.S. Constitution, lower taxes and an opposition to a growing role for the federal government in health care. However polls show that many people who identify as
Tea Party members do not hold traditional libertarian views on most social issues, and tend to poll similarly to socially conservative Republicans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_in_the_United_States
- published: 24 Apr 2014
- views: 1599