Lumifer comments on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

88 Post author: Yvain 26 October 2014 06:05PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 30 October 2014 02:33:14PM 3 points [-]

Of course, that's too snarky.

Too snarky is OK. The problem is that it's wrong :-P

In the 19th century (defining people by the words they used to describe themselves), most libertarians were socialists

In the XIX century libertarians didn't exist. Do you mean the anarcho-socialist cluster -- Kropotkin, Bakunin, anarcho-syndicalists and such? Yes, they tried to meld individual freedom with collectivism and were popular for a while. But I would argue that their basic approach was incoherent and they pretty clearly have failed. While both contemporary communistm/socialism and libertarianism might point to them as historical predecessors, I doubt either would be willing to embrace them fully.

Comment author: TobyBartels 03 November 2014 06:57:05AM 2 points [-]

I'm talking about the people who called themselves libertarians in the 19th century. The libertarian socialists of today are their intellectual descendents. They exist, and they invented the word ‘libertarian’ (in a political context), and there is no use pretending that they aren't real or that it makes no sense to apply that word to them.

Comment author: Lumifer 03 November 2014 05:26:56PM 0 points [-]

OK, I take back my original comment. While I still don't think "libertarian communism/socialism" is a coherent framework or a meaningful expression nowadays, clearly some people prefer that name for their own political philosophy and that's fine. I guess "anarchists" has the wrong connotations ;-)