No, not at all. I would argue that one implies the other. Historically, and still to this day in much of Europe, the term "libertarianism" is a synonym for anarchism, i.e., libertarian communism.
Communism itself is the opposite of individualism; a centrally planned economy doesn't need innovators, it needs Citizen 647,203 to work at his assigned job in Agricultural Collective 63 and not get thoughts above his station lest he be sent to the gulag.
I'm British, and I can tell you libertarianism here does not mean anarchism (or the popular US version of 'libertarianism' either, AKA conservativism with legal cannabis).
Also remember why communistic economies fail - again, it's the lack of drive to innovate. If you have a dull, tedious, mind-numbing job and you get paid (or food stamps or whatever) the same value no matter whether you work hard, innovate, and improve processes or bump along at the bottom doing the bare minimum, people are going to gravitate towards the latter. As such, technological development stagnates, processes never change even when deeply flawed, and bureaucracy becomes entrenched in defending their own jobs.
There nothing in communism that requires a centrally planned economy. In fact, a lot of communist ideologists would insist that a centrally planned economy is fundamentally incompatible with communism, as it requires a central authority to enforce decisions and many see a central authority as incompatible with a class free society.
I'm in the UK, and libertarianism here most certainly does mean anarchism to a lot of people, socialism to others, though it is probably today more commonly used about factions of Thatcherites.
The word itself was first used by a French anarchist and communist, and it has a long history in Europe (150 years+) of being used about left wing organisations, and only a few decades of use about the right wing.
In the UK, the use of the term date at least as far back as the 1880's, when some prominent members of the Socialist League (1885), which counted people like Engels and Eleanor Marx as it's supporters, considered themselves libertarians.
> Also remember why communistic economies fail
No country to my knowledge have claimed to have had a communist economy. Some have claimed to be socialist, and many socialists would disagree with that as well.
Your comment seems to assume that these terms are applied to just one ideology. Meanwhile there's an old joke that if you put two Marxists in a room, you will have three different opinions about what Marxism is. And Marxism again is just one of many dozens of socialist ideologies that differ widely.
Even in Marx' days, Marx and Engels devoted a substantial proportion of the Communist Manifesto not to criticise capitalism, but to criticise other socialist ideologies that they saw as ranging from hopelessly utopian, to reactionary: worse than capitalism.
Communism is not the opposite of individualism, that's nonsense. Have a look at "The Right to be Greedy: Theses on the Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything". Greed in its fullest sense is the only possible basis for a communist society.
blueskin_|11 years ago
I'm British, and I can tell you libertarianism here does not mean anarchism (or the popular US version of 'libertarianism' either, AKA conservativism with legal cannabis).
Also remember why communistic economies fail - again, it's the lack of drive to innovate. If you have a dull, tedious, mind-numbing job and you get paid (or food stamps or whatever) the same value no matter whether you work hard, innovate, and improve processes or bump along at the bottom doing the bare minimum, people are going to gravitate towards the latter. As such, technological development stagnates, processes never change even when deeply flawed, and bureaucracy becomes entrenched in defending their own jobs.
vidarh|11 years ago
I'm in the UK, and libertarianism here most certainly does mean anarchism to a lot of people, socialism to others, though it is probably today more commonly used about factions of Thatcherites.
The word itself was first used by a French anarchist and communist, and it has a long history in Europe (150 years+) of being used about left wing organisations, and only a few decades of use about the right wing.
In the UK, the use of the term date at least as far back as the 1880's, when some prominent members of the Socialist League (1885), which counted people like Engels and Eleanor Marx as it's supporters, considered themselves libertarians.
> Also remember why communistic economies fail
No country to my knowledge have claimed to have had a communist economy. Some have claimed to be socialist, and many socialists would disagree with that as well.
Your comment seems to assume that these terms are applied to just one ideology. Meanwhile there's an old joke that if you put two Marxists in a room, you will have three different opinions about what Marxism is. And Marxism again is just one of many dozens of socialist ideologies that differ widely.
Even in Marx' days, Marx and Engels devoted a substantial proportion of the Communist Manifesto not to criticise capitalism, but to criticise other socialist ideologies that they saw as ranging from hopelessly utopian, to reactionary: worse than capitalism.
duairc|11 years ago
https://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-...