A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY

Explaining a Philosophical Theory (short preface)

“...it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a book—what everyone else does not say in a book.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, “Skirmishes of an Untimely Man”, 51

Short preface: read this first to avoid confusion

Libertarianism is the social ideology that holds that interpersonal liberty should be universally observed. In particular, anarchy or at least minarchy should replace large states: the foremost violators of liberty. This is a dictionary of libertarian theory and argument. Like other subject dictionaries, it is not a dictionary of definitions; in fact, it is a popular misconception that even normal word dictionaries define words in any essential or stipulative way (they merely record usage). In this subject dictionary, the listed word, phrase, or expression is sometimes simply assumed to be adequately understood so that discussion of any relevant libertarian issues can immediately begin. However, there is sometimes clarification of the sense in which a word is being discussed, especially if there are various senses of the word that are best distinguished and maybe not all are relevant, or if there is some common confusion or ignorance about a word. There is even mention of etymology where this seems relevant or simply interesting.

Despite its title, this is a sort of dictionary of politics; or, rather, anti-politics. But it does not attempt to give all the basic background information for each entry. Standard dictionaries and encyclopaedias of politics already fulfil that role. Nor does this work attempt to give equal weight to all libertarian anti-statist views. It is, as the subtitle indicates, more of a particular philosophical theory of libertarianism in an alphabetical format for the purpose of ensuring relative comprehensiveness and ease of reference. Therefore, entries have been chosen insofar as they help to comprise such a theory. And even the entries chosen often involve glossing over or ignoring many precise distinctions, arguments, or issues in order to present relevant parts of the theoretical paradigm in a concise enough form. Doubtless this will fail to satisfy those readers for whom some such distinctions, arguments, or issues are perceived as being the vital ones. But that cannot be helped. The intended readership is anyone with an interest in social and political matters. Specialist knowledge is not presupposed; however, in order to reduce repetition throughout, the reader might sometimes need to pursue the cross references for elucidation or amplification. That said, some ideas are repeated in various entries just because they are important and might otherwise be missed, given that a dictionary is rarely read from one end to the other.

The collective entries include an explanation of libertarian anarchy: the theory that all state activity is an unnecessary evil; the greatest moral evil and source of destruction that blights human life. Libertarian property rights are preferable in every area of life: giving everyone more liberty and better outcomes as well. Many questions and objections might immediately spring to mind for those people who take politics for granted: enquire within. Entries combining such collective breadth and individual brevity are hardly intended to be the last word on any of the matters discussed. Some of them might, however, be sufficient to stimulate further thought and study. One cannot always live up to Nietzsche’s ambition—as quoted on the title page—but it appears to be a useful aim in this context. Many of these things need to be said, and it would be impracticable to write a book or even a scholarly article on each one. It is not necessary to agree with everything in order to agree with anything. There will be many ideas that non-libertarians will accept and many that libertarians will reject. The whole thing has been written and revised over many years. Omissions, inconsistencies, and errors undoubtedly remain. It is an unfinishable project in the sense that it is not possible to achieve even a temporary reflective equilibrium over such a large and diverse area (or often even over particular entries, many of which are both highly idiosyncratic and tentative). But it is necessary to stop at some point.

Entries on people have been avoided, as these are not needed for the anarcho-libertarian theory and for reasons of space. There are a handful of notable military conflicts where some account of a libertarian approach to these events seems necessary to complete the outline of the general theory. It is not practical to include external references for all of the entries, but there are occasional ones. To facilitate the flow of the text, cross references are marked by small superscript asterisks immediately before relevant words, expressions, and phrases plus obvious variants of these words, including those with negating prefixes (rather than a prolix, pedantic, and parenthetical repetition of them exactly as they appear in entry titles). Mostly these asterisks only appear in each entry on the first example, but they are sometimes repeated in longer entries.

I am indebted to the following people for their invaluable critical comments on varying and various portions of drafts of this work: David Barker, Stephen Berry, Paul Coulam, David Goldstone, David McDonagh, David Miller, Ray Percival, David Ramsay Steele, and Lee Waaks. I am particularly grateful to Mark Brady for his many scrupulous and comprehensive comments. All errors remain my responsibility.