See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology >

The term “libertarian” was invented by Joseph Dejacque, who was, broadly, a communist who rejected using a centralized state to move society toward communism (this is the opposite of what we now call authoritarian communists, who believe that you have to seize state power first in order to bring about a socialist and then communist society).

in the 1960s Murray Rothbard, a right-wing libertarian, popularized the term to refer to people who want zero or minimal state power and want a sort of hyper-capitalism to run everything by contract. He wrote that he specifically chose to steal the term from the left. This is considered right wing because it will make hierarchical systems, especially capitalism, much more intense and brutal. The state doesn’t usually limit the brutality of capitalism or other hierarchies, but from time to time popular movements have been able to make it do that.

In the US, most people will think you mean the Rothbard definition if you just say “libertarian” and will not really know what a “libertarian socialist” or “left-libertarian” is. American socialists will often have heard all of these terms.

The left supports collectivization of production, the right supports private ownership of production.

When I was young and in college I thought I was a Libertarian because it wasn’t big government, and that libertarians were in favor of legalizing weed and gay marriage, basically letting people do what they want without the government regulating it. At the time around 2008ish, the Libertarian party really was leaning hard into that part, while leaving out the whole wanting to privatize everything. I had to get a bit older and more mature to realize that libertarians want to make every tax payer funded program function more like our fucked up healthcare system. Libertarians think that the fire department should be an opt in subscription service like it was in the 1800s. Fucking dipshits the lot of them.

I was, techniclly still am registered Libertarian. I always considered myself a left-libertarian. The ideology pretty much boils down to government bad. What I failed to realize is that the government is bad because it serves capitalist interests. Now, I identify with marxist ideology. I’m also considering democratic socialism. I intend to change my registration to Democratic before the next election. I also considered the green party for a while but Jill Stein fucked that up.

The private ownership of production is what makes them right-wing.

Left-libertarianism would be anarchism I guess but I’d never call and anarchist left-libertarian

I’m not an expert (or libertarian), but my understanding is that a libertarian is basically interested in small government/low government oversight. That platform is a little on both ends of the US political spectrum. They would support more right leaning initiatives like low taxation, free market capitalism, deregulation, but also possibly some left leaning initiatives like legalized marijuana, and generally be against regulation on abortions, gender affirming care, etc.

That’s just in theory. Many people use the term when they don’t fully embody it’s values. I have heard people self identify as libertarian while basically being far right (to be fair, 2016 trump did appeal to anti-establishment voters which includes libertarians). It can also be used incorrectly to mean “right wing voter who doesn’t like trump so doesn’t want to be called Republican/fascist but still supports many conservative ideologies”.

I don’t have much insight into other country libertarian parties, other than I believe it is considered fairly centrist in most cases.

They are suspiciously knowledgeable about age-of-consent laws.

I’ll be interested to read the other comments when I have the time/attention span.

It could just be the part of the country where I live (i.e. deeply conservative rural south), but everybody I know who identifies as a Libertarian (going to hand wave over the reality of whether the pedants and purists would agree) is basically what’s termed as “Republican-lite” or “Conservative-lite” aka right-wing.

If I tell you I’m a Libertarian, but my voting record is such that I’ve essentially only voted for Republican candidates in all prominent elections in the past decade (or sometimes more) and/or the majority of my political speech is in opposition to Democratic politicians and liberal policies, what does that suggest?

If I identify as a vegan but I like to eat meat with every meal, am I really a vegan?

The views of the US Libertarian Party are essentially summarized by “taxes and regulations are bad” with few other guiding principles. As a party, it is largely separated from any sort of political theory (even libertarian political theory), and sort of relies on a politically disenaged and uninformed populous who vote for the people promising lower taxes and legal weed without really understanding that the Libertarian Party’s approach to “taxes and regulations are bad” are primarily in favor of large corporations rather than individuals. They posture themselves as a true alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties when practically they want most of the same stuff Republicans want for the most part, with token acceptance of progressive social ideas.

Libertarianism more broadly is an ideology that believes that individual rights are the most important thing to creating a better society. This can be left wing (extending individual rights to include things like the ability to use land and other natural resources without being limited by property ownership) or right wing (believing that the right of the individual includes the right to accumulate wealth and power through accumulation of capital), and the distinction primarily depends on the approach to ownership and property. Libertarianism differs from Anarchism in that libertarians believe that a state is required for maintaining and guaranteeing individual rights through the use of laws and courts, and defending those rights from external threats via military action.

All in all, my personal view is that libertarianism, along with anarchism and other “min-archist” movements, is unable to answer the question of “how do you prevent someone from accumulating material and social power and using that power to enforce their will upon others?” For many libertarians the answer seems to be that social norms in a libertarian society would prevent people from doing this and that they would be able to withstand external attacks from groups that do not hold their views. I do not believe this, and I think that human nature means that some people will always want to gain control over others through whatever means they can, and that only a government can effectively combat these tendencies. Social norms are powerful and are a required part of a functioning democracy, but ultimately the law, backed by the ability to apply the use of force in a way agreed upon by the public, is what allows the weak to resist domination from the strong.