Talk:Libertarian socialism

Once again a plea to not be so quick with removal rather than tagging. I have about 100 tabs open from Google scholar with descriptions of William Morris, GDH Cole, and the Socialist League as libertarian socialist. Peter Hain is also a secondary source for that claim, so I don't see why he's been removed as a primary source. I'm travelling next week, but will return to this in September. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:34, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi Bob, does this section still need to be tagged for expansion or can it be removed? czar 12:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for removing. I don't think it does need that any more. I will also add secondary sourcing for Hain and keep the removed ILP passage in my mind as I go through the bibliography I still have open once I have time. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

What was wrong with the Boric text?

In Chile, Gabriel Boric founded Social Convergence in 2018, bringing together the Autonomist Movement, Libertarian Left and other libertarian socialist groups.^[1] Boric, described as libertarian socialist by others and himself, was elected president in 2021.^[2][3][4]

BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:03, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

The first and third reference do support that he self-identifies as such....IMO that should be kept. I didn't see anything about others identifying him as such. This would be important if supported, but we can't make a major unsourced statement. North8000 (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

You're right. "who describes himself as" would be better on the basis of these specific sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:51, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Grnrchst says Quail only uses the term "libertarian socialist" once, in passing, to refer to the IWW and has therefore removed all references to Quail's The Slow-Burning Fuse, probably the most comprehensive and authoritative history of British anarchism. Quail has been used as a source, in this and other articles, for the co-existence of anarchists, libertarian socialist and Marxists in the Socialist League, and I don't think there is a dispute about its reliability, simply if it is synthesis to use it if it doesn't explicitly call the SL or its founders "libertarian socialist" even though plenty of others routinely do. (Good example: Brian Morris.) I want to dispute the argument that it is synthesis, based on the fact that Quail is clearly talking about socialists who are libertarian. Here's an example, which sets out the context in which socialist groups like the SL emerged:

So socialism was to creep in and influence the Radical rank and file. But in one sense it had always been there, although as a submerged and sometimes only just discernible tradition which can be traced back through the century... In the 1860s and 1870s this tradition was continued through individuals who were a part of the Radical milieu. It is clear, however, from the limited work that has been done that from the collapse of the International in the early 1870s to the development of the new socialism of the 1880s continuity was preserved, as we shall see, by small but more decisively socialist groups. Of anarchist groups there is no trace, though anarchist individuals can be found from time to time. Of the socialist groups that existed in the 1870s, some were influenced by what was, at base, a more militant Radicalism, though with more emphasis on physical force. Some were influenced by theories of the mutual antagonism of capital and labour. Some socialists put this view in the context of traditional aspirations towards parliamentary representation, thus providing the earliest apostles of a party of labour (or Labour Party). Others preserved the element of physical force, opposed parliamentary activity and argued that the working-class struggle for emancipation would, of necessity, have to be revolutionary. It was to libertarians of this shade of opinion that anarchism was later to appeal, not in a vacuum but to an already developed set of ideas and to a body of self-confident and active men. The specific and developed theories of anarchist mutualism, collectivism and communism were really only taken up by English people in the 1880s; yet foreign anarchist exiles in England before this time could and did find areas of mutual understanding with sections of the British socialist movement.

Members of the socialist tradition who were libertarian, i.e. libertarian socialists.

Among the first examples Quail gives are Frank Kitz and Joseph Lane. Of Lane: By 1881 he was apparently calling himself a socialist, since in that year, having moved to Hackney, he founded the Homerton Social Democratic Club. He talks about Lane coming into contact with Russian anarchists: it was partly through contact between them and the British socialists that a more sophisticated libertarian philosophy was to develop relevant to British conditions. Socialists who developed a libertarian philosophy, i.e. libertarian socialists.

Kitz and Lane formed the Labour Emancipation League, an explicitly socialist group: The working-class militants were concerned with the practical problems of socialist propaganda on specific issues at the grass roots. As Frank Kitz put it, “the English Section and the comrades of the Labour Emancipation League worked with only one aim and that was to permeate the mass of the people with a spirit of revolt against their oppressors and against the squalid misery which results from their monopoly of the means of life...” This assertion was certainly true of those who formed the libertarian wing of the movement in the 1880s. The libertarian wing of the socialist movement, i.e. libertarian socialists.

What was the relationship between the socialist LEL and the mainstream socialist movement, represented by the Social Democratic Federation? For the libertarians like Kitz and Lane the Democratic Federation held little charm, and they continued with their own work in more congenial surroundings... The socialists in the Federation [i.e. their fellow socialists], as far as Kitz was concerned, “were wasting their time combating the opportunism and jingoism of their shifty leader.” The socialists in the SDF leave it and join with the LEL to form the Socialist League. Morris wrote its manifesto, which Kitz and co signed: The Manifesto is a beautiful document. Socialism is seen as social being, not as an administrative form... The document, if not anarchist, is clearly libertarian in its commitment to revolution, its view of the role of socialist groups and its deprecation of state and party hierarchy. In short, libertarian socialist.

Or again: The period 1889–1890 had led to something of a scattering of the libertarian wing of the socialist movement. Insofar as there had been any anarchist organisation at all it had been based in London on the London Socialist League... In the early 1890s the working-class anarchist movement was based on a network of militants who had developed in a libertarian direction within the Socialist League.

Then finally we get to the IWW: It is a further example of a libertarian socialist milieu which effortlessly ignored formal boundaries. A further example, because the libertarians of the Socialist League and others within the socialist scene have already been raised.

The same story continues into WWI with the Herald League, a socialist group, in which many anarchists and libertarians were involved. For Quail, the symbiosis ends with the formation of the Communist Party in 1920: For those libertarians who were incapable of swallowing electoral politics the progress of the unity negotiations in 1920 did not encourage participation.

Do any other editors agree that Quail is actually a perfectly good source on libertarian socialism in Britain in these decades, and that his account can be summarised as saying that the tradition of libertarian socialism runs through the Socialist League? BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:29, 20 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Just want to contextualise that, when I first came across this article, it looked like this. A full 80% of the article was based on sources that never verifiably discuss the subject of libertarian socialism, so the vast majority of the stuff included in the article had nothing to do with the subject. In order to solve this endemic synth problem, I came to what I thought was a pretty reasonable conclusion that sources cited in an article about libertarian socialism should actually verifiably mention libertarian socialism. I thought it would be an easy enough bar to clear.

If other editors think I went too far with removing this source, then feel free to reinstate it. Right now I'm too ill and exhausted, not to mention burnt out with this subject, to push back. --Grnrchst (talk) 15:53, 20 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, sorry if I've contributed to the exhaustion, and hope things get better. Thanks for the massive amount of work you have put in as well.

Am curious what other editors think; maybe my view is too biased. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't have the depth of expertise in this that y'all do, but my thoughts are: This doesn't appear to be a tidy distinct topic where it's clear what the term means and who considers themselves to be such. So the article is actually about these two things:

• The specific term libertarian socialism
• The intersection of libertarianism and socialism. Cases/movements/philosophies where these two have been combined.

And so when covering the latter, I wouldn't be excluding anything just because it wasn't identified by the specific term libertarian socialism. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

There are multiple separate discussions happening at once here.

(1) Quail is a fine source for our purposes.

(2) The article was in such a sorry state before and covered so much that was only peripherally related to libertarian socialism, that it's always fine to add back what might have been overly pared, such as the above examples. The removals were in the interest of making the article readable as a baseline. You should feel free to restore reasonable detail without a talk page discussion when it isn't contentious to restore (which is the case here).

(3) As has been discussed previously, "libertarian socialism", "the libertarian wing of the socialist movement", and "anarchism" (not to mention "libertarians") were all the same topic in the time period covered by Quail, with any minor differences largely not explicated in sources like this. So we could expand this article duplicating all the same info from the history of anarchism in the United Kingdom but it re-opens the same question as before what unique scope this article is meant to cover that isn't sufficiently covered in our coverage of anarchism.

(4) The two bullets that North mentioned is exactly the scope of the definition of anarchism and libertarianism article. If this topic is to have the same scope, I would again encourage us to redirect and expand there as needed rather than building a diffuse article of unclear scope here.

czar 11:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Czar: I have less expertise in this particular area than you so the above was just my 2 cents. In general, there are a lot of "2 word topic" libertarian articles which are sort of just a term rather than a distinct topic. And usually the term is about something that is already covered elsewhere. And I tend to think that a large amount of those should be reduced into just short articles about the term North8000 (talk) 12:51, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I agree. What I'm saying is that definition of anarchism and libertarianism already is a short article about this term (and others) and their overlapping/conflated definitions. Our separate articles for each "two-word topic" terms function as coat racks that collect historical examples better off covered in existing articles. czar 12:57, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply