Libertarianism - an ethical point of view

Today, libertarianism is mostly seen as an economic philosophy, movement and/or trend. It is falsely considered an extreme doctrine, one that enslaves the poor and offers the rich minority great advantages, so on and so forth. What both groups (supporters and detractors) ignore is the ethical side of libertarianism. I would like to state my point of view, in short. You cannot think of libertarianism in the absence of freedom - in any aspect, as long as it does not invade other people's freedom. Starting from here, one can easily build a moral system that is both simple and efficient, leading to a freer society and why not a more "relaxed" one. The modern civilized societies tend to go in that direction, starting from the equality among sexes (XXth century), up to gay marriages (XXIst century) and the enormous decline of the church and the traditional ethics. Therefore, the western world has been fastly creating a new set of moral rules for the past century, unwritten rules built upon the strong concept of personal freedom and tolerance. These concepts define us today - we want and need a new kind of society. Strange as it may seem, Jean-Paul Sartre did unporpousely lay a solid foundation in his Being and Nothingness and other works, for a libertarian ethics. Although not done yet, combining some of his ideas with some of M. Rothbard's one can come up with the ethical paradigm of libertarianism. In my opinion, it is utterly unfair that many great libertarian ideas have been embedded in today's societies by liberals, socialists and other groups, without giving any credit to the thinkers they owe them to. It is not suprising though, knowing how politicians and politics function - vive l'etat... To conclude, what I wanted to say is that a libertarian ethics is what the western societies need today and by adopting it, chances are that the state and we as a group will change for the better. Democratically speaking, it is a great chance for us to make a change and improve this fragile state that sadly so many still support. A free man will always choose a free society.

Adrian GEORGESCU