Fascism & Right Libertarians

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This helps explain the libertarian to alt-right pipeline and why so-called libertarians always end up adjacent to fascists in practice.

I get confused with these names. Liberal, libertarian, neoliberalism. Are they all the same or different?

They are different, and sometimes a bit complicated to explain because all of those can mean multiple things.

A libertarian, in this sense, takes the ideological position that greater freedom is always good, and that any action taken by the government to impinge upon your freedom is always bad. There is some nuance here, in that some libertarians think tax is OK when it is used to fund a few basic services such as justice and national defence, while others do not.

A liberal also places a lot of value on freedom, but tends to take more nuanced positions than libertarians. Liberals tend to recognise, for example, that a person who is starving has less freedom, and that a rich person being taxed (at non-extortionate rates) is not significantly having their freedom impacted, and that therefore taxing relatively rich people in order to feed the poor is probably good. Liberalism is a very broad church, and by some definitions the majority of modern politicians are liberals (compared to, for example, Henry VIII).

Neoliberals are a subset of liberals. There are two competing definitions of neoliberalism. The first was basically for liberals who supported a welfare state. The second was for people who supported dismantling the post-war economic consensus, the likes of Thatcher and Reagan. There is also of course the third meaning which is "anyone I don't like".

I haven't watched the video, but I have some nuanced disagreement with the premise as summarised. Yes, some "libertarians" quickly turn fashy, especially teenagers, but many do not - they either remain committed to their principles, or they moderate and become liberals when they realise their economics are bad. I find it hard to say that Justin Amash is "adjacent to fascists in practice", for instance.

^
Not quite right.

In the US a "Liberal" means someone 'slightly left of center', a 'progressive' might apply as a label...but thats another can of worms. Someone who favors the government occasionally stepping in to do something for the people (like Walrus's example of taking a few ducats from the rich to feed the destitute poor),is a liberal. As opposed to Communist who wants the state to take over the whole economy, and also as opposed to a conservative who wants no interference in the economy.

In Britain and in the UK and in the UK former colonies except the US a "Liberal" is a conservative...specifically "someone who favors captialism over state involvement and favors deregulation" and like that.

Hense the expression "neoliberalism". Neo means new. So if you wanna revive old fashion unbridled free enterprise then you are a "neoliberal". But thats only in the rest of the world out side of the US. In the US they dont usually use that term. Rather in the US you would just be called a "neoconservative".

A libertarian is someone who seeks protect all personal liberty. Folks right left and center id themselves as "libertarian" but in practice the creed is mostly conservative because it favors unregulated business. The US political party named "Libertarian" is quite conservative on economic issues, though (like the Koch brothers) you can be a member of that party and be for same sex marriage (liberal on social issues).

If I am not mistaken the two main political parties in Australia are "Liberal" and "Labor". Their "Liberal" party is what Americans would call "conservative", and the Labor party is what Americans would call "Liberal".

The video doesn't frame it as guaranteed, only as common and picks apart why that is.

That's complicated! Gosh.

I don't think in the UK a Liberal is a Conservative. Because we have 3 main parties:

Labour, the left wing party.
Conservative, the right wing party.
Liberal Democrats, the centre party.

Well that's what it used to mean. These days the Conservative party is very far right, while the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties seem to be swirling around the centre area and not providing a very solid opposition to the Conservative party/government.

Ideologically speaking, liberalism is the norm in liberal, democratic societies. That means that most conservative parties and most leftist parties tend to be rooted in liberalism to some degree as well.

Ehh, the projection is ironic coming from the people who actually do enjoy a public/private power alliance and use it to punish their political foes, but to the extent that it is true, it's largely in reaction and opposition to said alliance. Like everything else about the progressives, it's a self fulfilling prophecy that they refuse to recognize their own role in creating.

I've noticed in the last decade a big shift towards the right among libertarians--especially younger ones. Right libertarianism is and always has been partial to hierarchy and inequality. Younger libertarians, especially since the financial crisis and the leftward shift in corporate culture, have been more critical of laissez faire capitalism than most libertarians before them. They see corporations siding with the social left and they struggle to imagine how giving those corporations more freedom would benefit the right. While libertarians in the past supported queer politics, I have noticed a major shift among libertarians on queer issues since gay marriage was made legal. Right libertarians almost always oppose discrimination in government, but overwhelmingly support a right of a business to discriminate in who it serves and hires. Look up libertarian perspectives on the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act. Corporations that choose to actively support DEI and oppose a right to discriminate are seen as traitors to the same laissez faire capitalism which empowered them.

I disagree with you generally speaking, but Ylyou're partially right here. Corporations and the liberal establishment have become very buddy-buddy, especially since corporations started to realize en masse that conservatives show no sign of making a comeback in the Culture Wars, so it is beneficial from a business point of view to show support for the winning side. The left enjoys this support inasmuch as it benefits identity political causes, but virtually everyone who identifies as a leftist will tell you we absolutely still want to dismantle those same corporations even if they do make pitiful attempts to co-opt leftist causes. They are useful idiots to us. If manipulating corporations can further socialism in the long run despite themselves, then we will take what support we can get until they outlive their usefulness.
Many on the left will agree that the ends (socialist revolution) justify the means, even if those means include manipulating corporations to erode the social acceptability of conservatism as a whole.
However, this throws a monkey wrench into the fusionist alliance that characterized the conservatism of the last half century. Social conservatives are willing to do away with laissez faire capitalism if it means reigning in corporations that side against them in the culture wars. I have seen many right libertarians and laissez faire conservatives say that although they oppose government interference in business, they feel like they are enabling the left by not using the state to crack down on corporations that pay lip service to the left.
I would not say that this is the fault of the left at all. The fusionist conservative coalition was always fragile. This break was a long time coming. Despite their overtures of social forward-thinking, right libtertarians are, at their core, more reactionary than liberal. Right libertarians are overwhelmingly nationalist, so it should come as no surprise that, without a belief in laissez faire capitalism, they are left with little more than conservative nationalist ideology. Right libtertarians will continue to default to nationalism when pressed, because they almost all see America as remarkable and more worthy than any other country. They hero worship the Founding Fathers every bit as much as the likes of Pence and McCain. They never shut up about "freedom", because pro-America propaganda never shuts up about "freedom". America is a special snowflake country to them in part because it, supposedly, was founded on laissez faire capitalism. So if the government (AND corporations) turn away from that, then it naturally riles up their inner fasco-nationalist. Using the state to regulate business is a forgiveable sin to them if it helps return Great American Fatherland To Glorious Ideals Of The Past.