• chaogomu@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    It wasn’t always.

    It was a left wing ideology until an American fascist co-opted the term for his own brand of rightwing nonsense.

    • JesterXIII@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I can’t really see Ayn Rand as anything other than far right, and that’s about as OG libertarian as you get. Free market, unfettered capitalism.

      • meeeeetch@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        She’s only OG if you disregard the fifty some odd years of the word libertarian referring to anarchists like Emma Goldman. Back before Murray Rothbard hijacked the term.

      • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        At this point I kind of agree that it’s pointless to argue about it as the word’s connotations have already changed.

        But again the Ayn Rand as a Libertarian is still viewing the word through the altered meaning that rose to prominence in the US. Previous to that change it indeed was a wing of anarchism, a left-wing ideology.

    • psychothumbs@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The word libertarian was used to mean something more leftist before that term was claimed by the modern America right wing libertarian movement, but that movement was never anything but a catspaw for right wing oligarchs.