How the Libertarian Party Started in The United States?

Every couple of years, mainstream media hacks pretend to have just discovered libertarianism as some sort of radical, new and dynamic force in American politics. It’s a rehash that goes back decades, and hacks love it because it’s easy to write, and because it’s such a non-threatening “radical” politics (unlike radical left politics, which threatens the rich). The latest version involves a summer-long pundit debate in the pages of the New York Times, Reason magazine and elsewhere over so-called “libertarian populism.” It doesn’t really matter whose arguments prevail, so long as no one questions where libertarianism came from or why we’re defining libertarianism as anything but a big business public relations campaign, the winner in this debate is Libertarianism.

Pull up libertarianism’s floorboards, look beneath the surface into the big business PR campaign’s early years, and there you’ll start to get a sense of its purpose, its funders, and the PR hucksters who brought the peculiar political strain of American libertarianism into being — beginning with the libertarian movement’s founding father, Milton Friedman. Back in 1950, the House of Representatives held hearings on illegal lobbying activities and exposed both Friedman and the earliest libertarian think-tank outfit as a front for business lobbyists. Those hearings have been largely forgotten, in part because we’re too busy arguing over the finer points of “libertarian populism.”

Milton Friedman. In his early days, before millions were spent on burnishing his reputation, Friedman worked as a business lobby shill, a propagandist who would say whatever he was paid to say.  That's the story we need to revisit to get to the bottom of the modern American libertarian "movement," to see what it's really all about. We need to take a trip back to the post-war years, and to the largely forgotten Buchanan Committee hearings on illegal lobbying activities, led by a pro-labor Democrat from Pennsylvania, Frank Buchanan.

What the Buchanan Committee discovered was that in 1946, Milton Friedman and his U Chicago cohort George Stigler arranged an under-the-table deal with a Washington lobbying executive to pump out covert propaganda for the national real estate lobby in exchange for a hefty payout, the terms of which were never meant to be released to the public. They also discovered that a lobbying outfit which is today credited by libertarians as the movement’s first think-tank — the Foundation for Economic Education — was itself a big business PR project backed by the largest corporations and lobbying fronts in the country.

It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America’s industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology—which it called “libertarianism”— to supplement other business lobbying groups which focused on specific policies and legislation.

GRR Spartan wrote:The poster was being called out by just one of his screen names.

This ain’t the MSU 247 board where trolls get shut down and are back posting under a new name in minutes.

Why anyone would miss full time trolls is beyond me.

Cameron wrote:Does TM still post here?

This Is The Way wrote:

GRR Spartan wrote:The poster was being called out by just one of his screen names.

This ain’t the MSU 247 board where trolls get shut down and are back posting under a new name in minutes.

Why anyone would miss full time trolls is beyond me.

Does that piece of shit, Martin Spartan, post here?

GRR Spartan wrote:

This Is The Way wrote:Does that piece of shit, Martin Spartan, post here?

That's Mr. POS Martin Spartan

Show some damned respect.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:TM must be spending time with his golf clubs or yacht or his 401k or whatever it is republicans/libertarians work hard to get.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

https://www.alternet.org/2013/09/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda

Also, just for S&G's here is a Thom Hartman rant about how the MAGA & Liberation positions unsurprisingly are the same.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/are-gop-governors-killing-their-citizens-6c2

really? I never noticed.

(it's hard to believe that pointy-headed intellectual mainstream media types get paid to unearth the sort of thing that idiots like me have known all along).

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Sort of hoping that TM is at least still reading, though it is unlikely that it will change his opinions, at least he will know his opinions are built on sand.

I suspect he is.. like most libertarian/republicans, he was always pretty fragile. His need for attention likely has him still checking in.

While I'm always happy to help folks out with whatever they need (I'm stricken with the empathy gene), he does, nor did, nothing to warrant his own thread of poetry, though I suspect his libertarian/republican "personal freedom" mainstream media-informed manifesto would be similar to our 'ol friend, Guest.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I kinda miss TM.

he was fun to troll.. kinda sensitive, quick to lash out at people who didn't fall into his republican/libertarian brand.

oh well.. I suspect he's in a more comfortable spot where his bubble of privilege isn't challenged.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I kinda miss TM.

he was fun to needle with.. kinda sensitive, quick to lash out at people who didn't fall into his republican/libertarian brand.

oh well.. I suspect he's in a more comfortable spot where his bubble of privilege isn't challenged.

Turtleneck wrote:A discussion about the origins of libertarianism with no mention of its classical liberal influence, or even the more recent work of Robert Nozick, is not much of a discussion. I guess we should not expect better form a guy once on Russian state-funded TV's payroll, even if he went to MSU.

and dynamic force in American politics. It’s a rehash that goes back decades, and hacks love it because it’s easy to write, and because it’s such a non-threatening “radical” politics (unlike radical left politics, which threatens the rich). The latest version involves a summer-long pundit debate in the pages of the New York Times, Reason magazine and elsewhere over so-called “libertarian populism.” It doesn’t really matter whose arguments prevail, so long as no one questions where libertarianism came from or why we’re defining libertarianism as anything but a big business public relations campaign, the winner in this debate is Libertarianism.

Pull up libertarianism’s floorboards, look beneath the surface into the big business PR campaign’s early years, and there you’ll start to get a sense of its purpose, its funders, and the PR hucksters who brought the peculiar political strain of American libertarianism into being — beginning with the libertarian movement’s founding father, Milton Friedman. Back in 1950, the House of Representatives held hearings on illegal lobbying activities and exposed both Friedman and the earliest libertarian think-tank outfit as a front for business lobbyists. Those hearings have been largely forgotten, in part because we’re too busy arguing over the finer points of “libertarian populism.”

Milton Friedman. In his early days, before millions were spent on burnishing his reputation, Friedman worked as a business lobby shill, a propagandist who would say whatever he was paid to say.  That's the story we need to revisit to get to the bottom of the modern American libertarian "movement," to see what it's really all about. We need to take a trip back to the post-war years, and to the largely forgotten Buchanan Committee hearings on illegal lobbying activities, led by a pro-labor Democrat from Pennsylvania, Frank Buchanan.

What the Buchanan Committee discovered was that in 1946, Milton Friedman and his U Chicago cohort George Stigler arranged an under-the-table deal with a Washington lobbying executive to pump out covert propaganda for the national real estate lobby in exchange for a hefty payout, the terms of which were never meant to be released to the public. They also discovered that a lobbying outfit which is today credited by libertarians as the movement’s first think-tank — the Foundation for Economic Education — was itself a big business PR project backed by the largest corporations and lobbying fronts in the country.

It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America’s industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology—which it called “libertarianism”— to supplement other business lobbying groups which focused on specific policies and legislation.

https://www.alternet.org/2013/09/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda

Also, just for S&G's here is a Thom Hartman rant about how the MAGA & Liberation positions unsurprisingly are the same.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/are-gop-governors-killing-their-citizens-6c2

Turtleneck wrote:

and dynamic force in American politics. It’s a rehash that goes back decades, and hacks love it because it’s easy to write, and because it’s such a non-threatening “radical” politics (unlike radical left politics, which threatens the rich). The latest version involves a summer-long pundit debate in the pages of the New York Times, Reason magazine and elsewhere over so-called “libertarian populism.” It doesn’t really matter whose arguments prevail, so long as no one questions where libertarianism came from or why we’re defining libertarianism as anything but a big business public relations campaign, the winner in this debate is Libertarianism.

Pull up libertarianism’s floorboards, look beneath the surface into the big business PR campaign’s early years, and there you’ll start to get a sense of its purpose, its funders, and the PR hucksters who brought the peculiar political strain of American libertarianism into being — beginning with the libertarian movement’s founding father, Milton Friedman. Back in 1950, the House of Representatives held hearings on illegal lobbying activities and exposed both Friedman and the earliest libertarian think-tank outfit as a front for business lobbyists. Those hearings have been largely forgotten, in part because we’re too busy arguing over the finer points of “libertarian populism.”

Milton Friedman. In his early days, before millions were spent on burnishing his reputation, Friedman worked as a business lobby shill, a propagandist who would say whatever he was paid to say.  That's the story we need to revisit to get to the bottom of the modern American libertarian "movement," to see what it's really all about. We need to take a trip back to the post-war years, and to the largely forgotten Buchanan Committee hearings on illegal lobbying activities, led by a pro-labor Democrat from Pennsylvania, Frank Buchanan.

What the Buchanan Committee discovered was that in 1946, Milton Friedman and his U Chicago cohort George Stigler arranged an under-the-table deal with a Washington lobbying executive to pump out covert propaganda for the national real estate lobby in exchange for a hefty payout, the terms of which were never meant to be released to the public. They also discovered that a lobbying outfit which is today credited by libertarians as the movement’s first think-tank — the Foundation for Economic Education — was itself a big business PR project backed by the largest corporations and lobbying fronts in the country.

It starts just after the end of World War Two, when America’s industrial and financial giants, fattened up from war profits, established a new lobbying front group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) that focused on promoting a new pro-business ideology—which it called “libertarianism”— to supplement other business lobbying groups which focused on specific policies and legislation.

https://www.alternet.org/2013/09/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda

Also, just for S&G's here is a Thom Hartman rant about how the MAGA & Liberation positions unsurprisingly are the same.

https://hartmannreport.com/p/are-gop-governors-killing-their-citizens-6c2

...

Trapper Gus wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:

...

Did you mean to say anymore, or what?

No. You said the discussion is about the Libertarian Party and not libertarianism, but as can be seen in the bolded parts, Hartmann repeatedly says libertarianism.

Novak, writing in the 1970's, was only another among the putrid pile of light weights who tried to make the unworkable concept of individual liberty as the center of a moral philosophy.


Do you mean Nozick? You know, the person you never heard of before today but are now an expert on? I suppose "lightweight" is an excellent way to describe the late Ivy League Ph.D., Harvard professor, President of the American Philosophy Association, and oft cited author.  I am no fan of libertarianism, but I can recognize and treat with thoughtfulness it's intellectual roots and philosophical contentions.

The first problem with trying to do that as the basis of human society and interactions is that one human cannot survive from birth to death on their own.  Thus the liberty of the individual cannot be the first principle of a moral code.

First, there is nothing wrong with asserting individual liberty as a first principle. Second, and most importantly, your decoupling of individual liberty from concepts related to justice (like equity, cooperation, and community) creates a false choice. Your argument that a strong and authoritative state is necessary to secure justice treats human nature as endogenous and highlights an acceptance of status quo thought without critical inquiry.

Again, I by no means a libertarian, but Hartmann cherry picks his starting point and arguments.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I'm not real smart (obviously), but...

from what I can tell, "libertarians" are republicans who pretend not to adhere to a political ideology because it helps them sleep at night.

I'd just as soon them promote racism, bigotry, misogyny and white nationalism. We know who they are, anyway.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:I'm not real smart (obviously), but...

from what I can tell, "libertarians" are republicans who pretend not to adhere to a political ideology because it helps them sleep at night.

I'd just as soon them promote racism, bigotry, misogyny and white nationalism. We know who they are, anyway.

Turtleneck wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Did you mean to say anymore, or what?

No. You said the discussion is about the Libertarian Party and not libertarianism, but as can be seen in the bolded parts, Hartmann repeatedly says libertarianism.

Novak, writing in the 1970's, was only another among the putrid pile of light weights who tried to make the unworkable concept of individual liberty as the center of a moral philosophy.


Do you mean Nozick? You know, the person you never heard of before today but are now an expert on? I suppose "lightweight" is an excellent way to describe the late Ivy League Ph.D., Harvard professor, President of the American Philosophy Association, and oft cited author.  I am no fan of libertarianism, but I can recognize and treat with thoughtfulness it's intellectual roots and philosophical contentions.

The first problem with trying to do that as the basis of human society and interactions is that one human cannot survive from birth to death on their own.  Thus the liberty of the individual cannot be the first principle of a moral code.

First, there is nothing wrong with asserting individual liberty as a first principle. Second, and most importantly, your decoupling of individual liberty from concepts related to justice (like equity, cooperation, and community) creates a false choice. Your argument that a strong and authoritative state is necessary to secure justice treats human nature as endogenous and highlights an acceptance of status quo thought without critical inquiry.

Again, I by no means a libertarian, but Hartmann cherry picks his starting point and arguments.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Turtleneck wrote:

Yes, you knew who I meant.



Kant was a university professor too, but many find flaws with his writings. Expecially in philosophy having a degree does little for the validity of one's writings.  One could easily point to Thomas Stowell as a controversial example of this.

Hartman has at least examined the ideas and the real world results of those ideas, regardless of his past employment, which is somewhat meaningless.

The point of my post is that one cannot build a logically coherent system starting from "individual liberty" as a first principle.  It has its place in a hierarchy of goods,  however, survival of the species is a higher good.

Thus individual liberty when it is not in directly in conflict with survival of the "tribe" is a good, just not the ultimate good.  It is also compatible, as a good, with various political systems.