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Title: Demystifying Left Minarchism Author: Logan Marie Glitterbomb Date: June 3rd, 2020 Language: en Topics: minarchism, c4ss Source: Retrieved on 2020-06-04 from https://c4ss.org/content/52937
When talking about right libertarianism, many associated with those
circles are quick to point out the varying factions of the libertarian
movement. The simplest and most well known division is that between the
anarchists and minarchists. On the anarchist side, you have your natural
rights ancaps, consequentialist ancaps, agorists, individualist
anarchists, free market anarchists, geo-anarchists, synthesis
anarchists, and a myriad of other variations. On the minarchist side you
have classical liberals, constitutionalists, paleolibertarians,
Republican-lights, etc.
With the ground gained by the #BottomUnity campaign, a lot more right
libertarians are getting exposed to left libertarianism and yet not
understanding that there are just as many variations. While
historically, libertarianism, especially in leftist circles, has been
synonymous with anarchism, that isn’t always the case. Most are familiar
with the anarchist variations such as anarcho-communism,
anarcho-socialism, anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-syndicalism, mutualism,
anarcho-primitivism, individualist anarchism, and free market anarchism,
but few are familiar with the traditions of left minarchism.
Yes, left minarchism is a thing and it can take many forms including
democratic confederalism, Luxembourgism, council communism, communalism,
libertarian ecosocialism, democratic socialism, liberaltarianism, etc.
While council communism and Luxembourgism largely remain obscure and
irrelevant tendencies in modern political organizing, especially in the
so-called united states, we can look towards the autonomous territory of
Rojava and groups in the so-called united states such as the Green
Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution, Justice
Democrats, and the Democratic Freedom Caucus for examples of left
minarchism in action.
The Green Party has been the staple leftist third party for a long time
now. It was co-founded by many anarchists, including current GP
presidential candidate Howie Hawkins, a self-proclaimed libertarian
municipalist and anarcho-communist known for drafting the original Green
New Deal and for his work with Murray Bookchin. The Green Party
continues to boost anarchist voices to this day. Similarly to the
Libertarian Party, however, not all party members or founders are
anarchists. While the Green Party has always identified as libertarian,
some veer on the more minarchist side, but instead of seeing the only
function of the state as being those laid out in the constitution or
even more minimally, the nightwatchman state (i.e. police, courts,
prisons, and militaries), they often see the main function of the state
to be welfare functions while usually advocating the abolition of
police, prisons, and sometimes even the military.
The DSA is in a very similar boat to the Green Party in that it is a
mixture of anarchists and minarchists on the libertarian end. They have
more minarchist-leaning demsocs, Greens, and Berniecrats among their
ranks while also having an explicitly anarchist Libertarian Socialist
Caucus. The difference is that the DSA also has some decidedly
non-libertarian members as well, including the old guard liberals who
kept the organization going between its Socialist Party origins and its
current incarnation. Many of these came from the Bernie movement after
it began falling in line with the Democratic Party and endorsing every
corporate candidate they put up while continuously bashing third
parties. Thankfully most of them are being pushed out post-Bernie. Now
the threats tend to be younger liberal-apologists and tankies. Despite
their inclusion, the DSA still currently leans predominantly libertarian
and has endorsed prison abolition, fossil fuel divestment, and drug and
sex work decriminalization among other platform planks. They also have
many amazing direct action campaigns, most famously their Gimme a Brake
(Light) clinics they hold nationwide where they replace peoples’ brake
lights for free since broken brake lights are one of the number one
reasons for people being harassed by the police while driving.
Our Revolution and the Berniecrat movement more generally is very
similar in makeup to the DSA. You have everyone from more left-leaning
liberal statists who believe voting and reform is enough to left
anarchists focused towards harm reduction and outreach. While Bernie’s
policies themselves largely publicly lean social democrat rather than
democratic socialist, many left minarchist types latched onto his
campaign anyway due to his higher possibility of winning and position as
the supposed harm reduction vote. In spite of his campaign being merely
a watered down version of the Green Party or even true democratic
socialist politics, he still has been a strong advocate against
corporate welfare, mass incarceration, the drug war, mass surveillance,
student debt, and environmental destruction, and has inspired others to
run for office on even more radical platforms such as Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) who has called explicitly for prison abolition and
the abolition of ICE.
The Justice Democrats, co-founded by AOC as an anti-corporate Democratic
caucus, is one outgrowth of this effect. As such, it is not strictly
libertarian but tends to attract libertarian-leaning individuals. The
Squad, made up of AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib,
have all backed each other in calling for states to stop using the
police and court systems to force evictions and calling for a moratorium
on state-owned utility shut offs and mortgage payments to the banksters
during the COVID-19 pandemic, freeing of non-violent offenders from
prison, and calling for the enactment of a UBI.
The Democractic Freedom Caucus tends to be more closely aligned with
liberaltarianism of a classical liberal and Georgist influence.
Typically they are for the decriminalization of drugs and sex work,
ending foreign wars and reducing the military, strong privacy rights,
gun rights, land-value tax, reducing mass incarceration, etc. but tend
to lean more towards capitalist economics and tend to be fusionists
similar to a left-of-center version of the Republican-lights. While
largely removed from the rest of the minarchist libertarian left,
occasionally you will have some overlap between them and the
DSA/Berniecrat/Justice Democrat crowd over candidates such as 2008
Libertarian and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel and
2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard who received the endorsements
of Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Mike Gravel (who made a dual endorsement
of her and Bernie Sanders after he ended his campaign).
While #BottomUnity may be easy for anarchists who all envision a
voluntary stateless society regardless of their differing economic and
political beliefs, left and right minarchists will likely have a much
more difficult time reconciling their differences. And yet we have still
seen glimpses of unity. Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich historically
formed alliances with Ron Paul on areas of civil liberties. Right
minarchist libertarian Judge Andrew Napolitano has called Nader one of
his favorite politicians and has praised and interviewed him on his show
on Fox News. The Green Party and the Libertarian Party have worked
together on ballot access and used to attend each others’ events and
have a lot more crossover during the early alliance of the Old Right and
New Left that inspired the modern american libertarian movement. Murray
Bookchin spoke at both GP and LP events, libertarian presidential
candidate Russell Means endorsed Ralph Nader, etc. The LP’s Libertarian
Socialist Caucus is making inroads with the DSA’s LSC. Hell, even left
minarchist-leaning politicians such as AOC and Bernie Sanders sometimes
find themselves fighting alongside the likes of Thomas Massie and Justin
Amash.
It’s a messy world out there and the fight against the corporate state
ends up attracting libertarians of all kinds. From anarchist to
minarchist, left to right, it’s time we stopped strawmanning each other
and genuinely learned about each others’ politics and where we agree and
differ and form alliances accordingly. If anarchists and minarchists on
either side can put off their differences to form tactical alliances and
left and right anarchists can do the same, then so can right and left
minarchists to varying degrees. I’m not saying the alliance will not be
without its pains and disagreements but I do think if we come to it with
open hearts and minds, we can learn a lot from each other and find new
paths forward which better fit the concerns and meet the needs of all
libertarians on the path towards diminishing the size of the state and
its control over our lives.