Neo-libertarianism is a

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

and

social philosophy Social philosophy examines questions about the foundations of social institutions, social behavior, and interpretations of society in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations. Social philosophers emphasize understanding the social ...

that combines "the libertarian's moral commitment to

negative liberty Negative liberty is freedom from interference by other people. Negative liberty is primarily concerned with freedom from external restraint and contrasts with positive liberty (the possession of the power and resources to fulfill one's own pote ...

with a procedure that selects principles for restricting liberty on the basis of a unanimous agreement in which everyone's particular interests receive a fair hearing." Neo-libertarianism has its roots at least as far back as 1980 when it was first described by James Sterba of the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

. Sterba observed that libertarianism advocates for a government that does no more than protection against force, fraud, theft, enforcement of contracts and other "

negative liberties Negative liberty is freedom from interference by other people. Negative liberty is primarily concerned with freedom from external restraint and contrasts with positive liberty (the possession of the power and resources to fulfill one's own pote ...

" as contrasted with " positive liberties" by Isaiah Berlin. He contrasted this with the older libertarian ideal of a "

night watchman state A night-watchman state, or minarchy, whose proponents are known as minarchists, is a model of a state that is limited and minimal, whose functions depend on libertarian theory. Right-libertarians support it only as an enforcer of the non-aggre ...

", or "

minarchism A night-watchman state, or minarchy, whose proponents are known as minarchists, is a model of a state that is limited and minimal, whose functions depend on libertarian theory. Right-libertarians support it only as an enforcer of the non-aggr ...

". Sterba held that it is "obviously impossible for everyone in society to be guaranteed complete liberty as defined by this ideal: after all, people's actual wants as well as their conceivable wants can come into serious conflict. .. is also impossible for everyone in society to be completely free from the interference of other persons". In 2013, Sterna wrote:

I shall show that moral commitment to an ideal of "negative" liberty, which does not lead to a night-watchman state, but instead requires sufficient government to provide each person in society with the relatively high minimum of liberty that persons using Rawls'
decision procedure In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a decision problem is a computational problem that can be posed as a yes–no question of the input values. An example of a decision problem is deciding by means of an algorithm wheth ...
would select. The political program actually justified by an ideal of negative liberty I shall call ''Neo-Libertarianism''.Sterba, James (2013). ''The Pursuit of Justice''. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 52.

References

{{Libertarianism Libertarianism in the United States Ideologies of capitalism International relations theory Libertarianism Libertarianism by form Libertarian theory

See also

References