Libertarian left and right

[reverendjeremiah]

Honestly, I thought this thread would be about something you mentioned on the Occupy Wall Street thread about there being 'left wing' and 'right wing' libertarians.
To that end, could someone explain to me the difference more precisely?

Well, you can find out where you stand by taking this test:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

You have 4 basic positions in politics reflecting social and economic position.

Authoritarian Socialist = The Stalin type
Authoritarian Capitalist = The george W. bush type
Anti-authoritarian Socialist = The Gandhi type
Anti-authoritarian Capitalist = The Milton Friedman type

---

Overall, a bit too simplistic.

Eg

"Value". There are two concepts of value; extrinsic or 'use value' and 'intrinsic' ,which is an illusion. Economic value is based on the illusion that an object has intrinsic worth.



Libertarianism: Before coming to this forum,I had barely heard the word.The people I ran across here who described themselves as "Libertarians" tended to be American. THEIR form of Libertarianism was based on an extreme form of laissez faire economics, resulting in a social Darwinism of "I'm OK Jack,fuck you".


Why the need for simple definitions for complex ideas?

Because those simple definitions come together to form a complex position, such as left libertarian. Center left libertarian, etc...