Don’t libertarians believe in abolishing public institutions like public schools? That’s encroaching on my children’s liberty to educate themselves affordably. Or without a public fire department it’s kind of hard to have the liberty to not die in a house fire.

Libertarianism is a joke.

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

No. While it's a spectrum, much of that spectrum is actually more for equal distribution in society and opposed to ideas like private ownership and capitalism, to a degree, since these unequally take away access or privilege for some and not for others. Thus, not everyone has the same liberties because one part of society has blocked or encroached another part.

The fundamental idea is not to gain something, rather it's not to lose anything,

The exception to this is the somewhat unique and new right-wing libertarian branches that appeared in the US which are sort of more from a minarchism idea, so it's more focused on not being regulated or controlled by a state. This is where free market concepts really took off, for example. The traditional libertarian views which, being much more mature and prevalent in the rest of the world, encompass society as much and originates from the left with stances of socialism, social balance, and of course the that any government is in service to the people and not an authority over them. This is why they are more for protecting liberty, rather than using it, and a state's role is this. Basically, don't let arseholes get loose and shit on everyone, because they will.