Libertarian vs Centrist

New to libertarianism or have questions and want to learn more? Be sure to check out the sub Frequently Asked Questions and [the massive r/libertarian information WIKI] (r/Libertarian/wiki/index) from the sidebar, for lots of info and free resources, links, books, videos, and answers to common questions and topics. Want to know if you are a Libertarian? Take the worlds shortest political quiz and find out!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

I'll take a stab at it. A centrist could still want government control for various things that do not specifically align right or left, where a libertarian would want less control overall.

I get into this with my in-laws every once and a while because they can’t break out of the right vs. left paradigm. They look at how I think in the issues and say things like “you pick and choose from both sides” which they mean in a good way, but I had to explain how this is faulty thinking.

Centrism is based largely on the Aristotelian idea of the Golden Mean, essentially holding that the mean between moral extremes is the best coarse of action or thought. It has very little to do with a fundamental belief in rights or the role of the state in its direct relationship with its citizens.

Whereas, Libertarianism is not at all concerned with finding the mean between extremes. It is chiefly concerned with the individual as the basic policial unit and moreover, the rights that individual possesses due to their humanity. Everything that follows in libertarian thought is based on these individual rights.

Due to this fundamental difference, centrists and libertarians disagree on a great many things. Chief among these is the legitimacy of the use of force and or coercion by the state. Centrists are often fine with some level of force or coercion because it’s “the mean between extremes”. Whereas, libertarians eschew force and coercion entirely. Given this example you can imagine the myriad other issues upon which centrists and libertarians would not see eye to eye.

Libertarianism, despite what some infiltrators might have us believe, is far more hardline than centrism. This isn’t to say their isn’t a great deal of flexibility in how libertarianism is expressed but it is not nearly as relativist as some people believe.

Do a Google search for the Nolan Chart (an X / Y axis), it explains things pretty well. One axis is for social freedoms, the other axis for economic freedoms. One side of each axis is pure government involvement into your actions, the other is pure absence of government influence.

• A pure centrist would be smack in the middle of the cross.

• A pure libertarian would be on the side of freedom from the government, both socially and fiscally.

• A pure liberal would be in on the side of freedom economically but under government influence economically

• A pure conservative is on the side of freedom fiscally but under government influence socially.

In practice virtually nobody is “pure” anything. But it gives you an idea on the general differences as cleanly as possible.

The politicians in both the Democrat and Republican party who get called centrist and moderate tend to be some of the most hawkish and pro-war voices in Congress. Why is it that all the so-called moderate politicians are so radically pro-war?

there is no left-right dichotomy mostly because what is left and right is fluid from generation to generation. there is something called a "political compass" that helps define your political stance and put it in perspective with other people based upon a test. the political compass is a 2-dimensional graph with liberal beliefs (typically lower) opposing authoritarian beliefs (typically upper) and social ownership (typically left) opposing individual ownership (typically right).

there are other tests that have 3 dimensions and even some with well over 10 dimensions. if you take enough of those tests you begin to understand that left vs right is ridiculous because it is laughably oversimplified and only devicive people who like to play team politics find it useful.

They don't compare. Left/right is a false division created by authoritarians for simple-minded people to distract them over the role of government.

Libertarianism is not a form of government, it's a culture of natural rights. The bill of rights. You can layer on any form of government you want. Without natural rights, everything else is mafia- you serve the powerful. Society reconfigures to maximize greed and exploitation because no one will help you, and it rewards those who "get ahead of it". Why do you think all these giant companies went woke overnight?

Centrists believe in finding compromise in a scenario where it’s already determined that government policy is the only (or best) solution to any number of social or fiscal issues.

Libertarians will stop and ask if government should even have a role in the solution, whether the government policy is the most effective solution, and - most importantly - will ask what individual freedoms will need to be minimized in order to implement the government policy.

Then, we mostly yell at each other until we’re blue in the face and call other libertarians “statists” in arguments about things like drivers licenses and raw milk.😀

Bill Clinton is/was a centrist. Ron Paul is a libertarian.

In my experience, Libertarians are anything but centrist. We tend to be very extreme in our support of individual freedom and our opposition to authoritarianism.

Leftists support freedom in x, y, & z areas and support authoritarianism in a, b, and c.

Rightwingers support freedom in a, b, & c, and support authoritarianism in x, y, & z.

Libertarians support freedom in a, b, c, and x, y, z. We don't fit anywhere on the scale of leftist to rightist. On a scale of freedom to authoritarianism, we sit at the far end of the "freedom" end.

You can be both. I am. The problem you have is you are thinking about politics as a line.

Go look at a political compass. It is a square with Authoritarian on the top, Libertarian on the bottom and Left and Right on the left and right (obviously). In the center there is centrism. You can be centrist but on the libertarian half.

You can even be a radical libertarian anarchist and still be in the center between Left and Right (meaning you support a hybrid of free market and socialism, with a network of collectives and cooperatives providing safety nets for all people, but with a free market/non-corporate economy.)

I myself am a pragmatist who believes government is a necessary evil and should provide basic services where the market is inefficient, perversely incentivized, has obscured pricing or where consumers can not make coherent buying decisions without expert training, so I would fall right on the most central libertarian edge of centrism.

I support public education (to minimize LT dependency/the risk of socialist revolution and maximize meritocracy and socioeconomic mobility), hybrid healthcare (free market principles where consumer-supplier incentives align, state management where they don't) and a citizen's dividend as a replacement for the morally hazardous welfare state that disincentivizes legitimate income. I realize this will lead many ideologues to call me not a libertarian, but fundamentally I agree with minimizing arbitrary market regulation, free market principles, ending victimless crimes, limits and checks on State power, and keeping government ideally as small as practical.

Libertarians are often accused of being centrists. Often times, people use Venn diagrams to show policies of the Republicans and Democrats that overlap with Libertarians. I have also seen people describe us as being fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

This is an attempt to pigeonhole libertarian ideas as centrist. This is bullshit and shows a total misunderstanding of the principles of libertarian thought.

It is not a middle ground between the parties it is a rejection of both their ideas. I can perhaps demonstrate this with the question of marriage, gay marriage etc.

The conservatives mostly say marriage should only be allowed between a man and a woman. Liberals say marriage should be allowed for any two consenting adults: man-woman, man-man, etc.

Libertarians mostly do support the liberal idea of marriage but that is not really libertarian philosophy. Instead, libertarians would say government has no business being involved in marriage at all.

This is a total repudiation of both camps because it removes government totally from the equation. I have even had discussions with liberals on this policy and for whatever reasons, they tend to oppose the idea. Conservatives actually seem more receptive but the concept is too foreign to both and they cannot comprehend the idea.

We can take this idea and apply it to many policies and I think it shows a clear conceptual difference between these other ideologies and why calling us centrist is, as I said, BS.

Libertarianism is based on a moral philosophy of non-aggression. All our positions derive from that. Centrists blow with the wind and can mean radically different things to different people. There is no philosophy behind it. Same goes for the democrats and republicans. Which is why their positions on issues vary so much even among themselves. Libertarians strive to be consistent. We don't always agree, but even our disagreements are based on the underlying philosophy.

Maybe they just got terminology confused from browsing this subreddit.

Centerfire isn't related to libertarian politics.

Centrist can mean a lot of things. Is it a person with middle of the road views or is it someone with extreme views on both sides.

It’s not just about left vs. right. There’s also libertarianism vs. authoritarianism to consider. One could say, for example, that if you support both gun control and the War On Drugs, you could be called a centrist, but neither of those are libertarian positions by any means.

By definition a centrist would want more government intervention in social and economical matters than the Republican platform. More gun control than the Republican platform. They would want higher taxes than the Republican platform. They would want more foreign intervention than the Republican platform.

Do you agree with all those statements? Then you might be a centrist.

What there is a problem with a linear understanding of political views? The extremes of the linear system are supposedly socialism and fascism. Two totalitarian governments whose primary difference is their justification. The whole system as a labeling mechanism makes no sense at all.

It's easy to figure it out. Do you want a government that enforces views from either side or do you want very little government intervention if any?

It’d be a centrist position to want at least some light restrictions on abortion but not a full-on ban, whereas libertarians would want functionally no restrictions that would force the mom to do anything. In this way, libertarians and liberals would have a very similar stance.

It’d be a centrist position to want gun restrictions that keep sniper rifles, machine guns, etc. out of civilian hands but the libertarian position is that whatever the military has and is able to use on citizens, the citizens should be able to defend themselves with. This would put libertarians and conservatives somewhat on the same side.

Libertarians in general want the most freedom per capita possible with the general idea that whatever the gov does, no matter how good they do, will inherently not be as good as giving the people the free will to take care of the issue themselves

Centrists just want a general compromise between the left and the right. Libertarians take very specific parts from both sides that advocate for freedom only

The best way to see it imo is the political compass. I know that it's an oversimplification, but generally maximum personal freedom and no economic freedom is the left. Maximum economic freedom and no personal freedom the right. Centrists advocate for a moderate amount of personal freedom and a moderate amount of economic freedom, while libertarians always advocate for maximum freedom, both economic and personal

libertarianism is radical centrism.

There's a left vs right spectrum on what society should look like, and then an entirely separate debate about how society gets that way. Anarchists want no government, Libertarians want extremely limited government, and authoritarians/socialists want government to make society however they want it to be.

Everyone wants cheap healthcare, the libertarian position is that the free market, with only minimal laws by government to ensure the market remains free (such as perhaps breaking up monopolies) is the best way to get cheap healthcare. A socialist take would be that government should be the healthcare provider.

Roughly speaking, there's a more libertarian wing on the right for economic issues, and a more libertarian wing on the left for social issues, although I would argue that wing entirely disappeared during the pandemic.

Centrists get elected

https://youtu.be/puusxNAkoe4

"Libertarian" has a robust meaning. Libertarianism is a political philosophy with a robustly defined set of principles and moral assertions.

"Centrist" doesn't mean anything. There are no identifiable "centrist" principles to work from.