Libertarianism, Objectivism, Anarcho-capitalism, Paleolibertarianism

Discussion Group 2 - South Hills

Libertarianism, Objectivism, Anarcho-capitalism, Paleolibertarianism: desirability and practicability.

What are the theories of these movements? Are they desirable? Are they practicable? Among other things, we will focus on their respective approaches to religion-government issues. Libertarianism and Objectivism support strict separation of religion and government. Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) is explicitly based on atheism, though it would not use government to enforce atheism. Anarcho-capitalism and paleolibertarianism often combine extreme anti-government views with advocacy of theocracy (a contradiction?).

Some references (not required reading/viewing):

“What It Means to Be a Libertarian” (video): https://theihs.org/who-we-are/what-is-libertarian/

Libertarian Party Platform: https://www.lp.org/platform/

Objectivism (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asery3UeBj4

Anarcho-capitalism/Paleolibertarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolibertarianism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_North_%28economist%29.

Mainstream libertarian critique of paleolibertarian theocracy: https://reason.com/1998/11/01/invitation-to-a-stoning/