13 novembre 2009

How do libertarians differ from conservatives?

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This article is from the Conservatism FAQ, by Jim Kalb kalb@aya.yale.edu with numerous contributions by others.

How do libertarians differ from conservatives?

In general, libertarians emphasize limited government more than
conservatives and believe the sole legitimate purpose of government
is the protection of property rights against force and fraud. Thus,
they usually consider legal restrictions on such things as
immigration, drug use, and prostitution to be illegitimate violations
of personal liberty. Many but not all libertarians hold a position
that might be described as economically Right (anti-socialist) and
culturally Left (opposed to what are called cultural repressiveness,
racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on), and tend to attribute to
state intervention the survival of things the cultural Left dislikes.

Speaking more abstractly, the libertarian perspective assigns to the
market the position conservatives assign to tradition as the great
accumulator and integrator of the implicit knowledge of society. Some
writers, such as F.A. Hayek, attempt to bridge the two perspectives
on that issue. In addition, libertarians tend to believe in strict
methodological individualism and absolute and universally valid human
rights, while conservatives are less likely to have the former
commitment and tend to understand rights by reference to the forms
they take in particular societies.



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