What is left-libertarianism?

What I am trying to do here: I am not creating a definition of what libertarianism is for everyone, I am trying to come up with a consistent definition that I can use unambiguously to improve communication.

In my writings so far, I have distinguished between right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism. I do not think that I have defined these terms in any adequate sense. I will try to come to some definition here. I would just define left-libertarianism but if I'm going to do that I should explain what right-libertarianism is and then if I'm going to do that then I should explain what they have in common, i.e., what libertarianism is, and if I do that I might as well cover what libertarian socialism is... so here goes:

The first thing to do is to define libertarianism. I think I've said in the past any political philosophy can be considered ``libertarian" if it accepts the law of equal liberty, i.e., it advocates ``the greatest amount of individual liberty compatible with the equality of liberty". You could say that libertarianism is a political philosophy that advocates individual liberty but that's silly because most people will support the idea of individual liberty. Everyone except fascists probably. This is one of the misconceptions that I held before I started reading An Anarchist FAQ, that social anarchists do not place a great deal of value on individual liberty. Which is simply false.

From there branch out 2 ideas: libertarian socialism and the political philosophy known in the United States as libertarianism.
Both philosophies accept the law of equal liberty, they just apply it to the status quo in different ways. Libertarian socialism claims equality as its end, whereas American libertarianism advocates individual liberty as its end. It is my contention that the end of individual liberty would be equality and therefore American libertarians ought to reject hierarchy, but that is something I will not elaborate on here. But briefly, all libertarian socialists (anarchists included) accept the principle of individual liberty, they simply take it to its logical conclusion. Sez Wikipedia, libertarian socialism seeks to build ``a society without political, economic or social hierarchies – a society in which all violent or coercive institutions would be dissolved, and in their place every person would have free, equal access to tools of information and production, or a society in which such coercive institutions and hierarchies were drastically reduced in scope." (heh... minarchist libertarian socialists...)

I should mention that the term left-libertarian is sometimes used in lieu of libertarian socialist, but I don't use it this way because that would just be unnecessarily confusing.

[Starting section in which libertarian and libertarianism are used interchangeably with American libertarianism and American libertarian]

On the other hand, we have American libertarianism. Now, as Wikipedia points out, we ought to distinguish between 2 theories. So you have consequentialists who just advocate the ends of libertarianism on purely utilitarian grounds, and you have those that advocate libertarianism on the basis of natural rights. The consequentialists are pretty boring as they don't really have any principle. The natural rights people say that from the fact that we ``own" our lives springs the right to own property. Using the Lockean principle that in mixing your labour with nature, you can create property. It should be noted that Locke stated that this was true as long as there was enough of nature, and as good, left for everyone else to do the same, but that is beside the point... I haven't read Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty so I can't tell you how he explains why that is not the case, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that libertarians support property rights. Like private property... well libertarian socialism isn't anti-property... it's just opposed to inequality. And libertarianism isn't indifferent to inequality because left-libertarianism is supposed to be egalitarian. This doesn't really work... I can't say that libertarians support some specific economic system because left-libertarians have such an eclectic group of ideas...

[end section of using libertarianism as a synonym for American libertarianism]

Okay, I thought about it more, talked to someone, and I have all the answers.
Libertarianism refers to a group of political philosophies that accepts the law of equal liberty, which I defined earlier. The main 2 branches of libertarianism are libertarian socialism and American libertarianism. Libertarian socialism is the more radical of these two branches, advocating the greatest amount of equality compatible with individual liberty. You can have a greater amount of liberty if there is equality. I should clarify that by equality we do not mean equality of outcome...

In any case, my friend and I decided that American libertarianism places less, little, or no value on equality, relative to the value that it places on individual liberty. This contrasts with libertarian socialism which sees equality and individual liberty as going hand in hand.

So there are 2 types of American libertarianism huh?
American libertarianism splits into left-libertarianism and right-libertarianism.
Left-libertarians are characterised by their adherence to one or more of the following positions:

1. ``softer" views on land being private property (Geo[rg]ist, mutualist (possession), or radical Rothbardian)
2. greater value placed on equality
3. opposition to political action

Right-libertarians are characterised by one or more the following views:

1. ``harder" views of land (yay de jure land ownership)
2. little to no value placed on equality
3. no opposition to political action

While vulgar libertarianism is generally a right-libertarian phenomenon, it is not a defining characteristic of right-libertarianism because it is based on misunderstanding and misconceptions that can be easily remedied.

In addition, left-libertarians are far more likely to shy away from the term ``capitalism", regardless of its definition, than are right-libertarianism.
I don't want to say that right and left libertarianism are associated with right and left wing politics respectively because I don't want to try and figure out what I mean by right and left wing politics...

Oh yes, and left-libertarianism can be really really close to libertarian socialism. Can be... well that's how I got here. I suppose I'm a libertarian socialist with strong sympathies for left-libertarianism...

If you think that I've left something out, please please please let me know, it feels like I've left out a lot.


EDIT: Oh oh oh! I know what I forgot.

``softer" views on land being private property (Geo[rg]ist, mutualist (possession), or radical Rothbardian)

What are these softer views? The geo[rg]ist view being that all of nature belongs in common to all humanity. The mutualist view being that land ownership ought to be based on occupation and use, i.e., possession. The radical Rothbardian view (Brad Spangler exemplifies this view) being a very radical interpretation of Lockean property minus the proviso, so that if you stop using land for some period of time (I'm not entirely clear on this) that you homesteaded, and then someone else starts homesteading it, they now own it. It's radical because it's so so so close to possession that the distinction between the two becomes negligible.*

Edit 2:
The point about attitudes toward politics is really just a tendency, someone asked me about that. Most definitely not a defining characteristic. I was thinking about Konkin's Movement of the Libertarian Left. Not about the right-libertarians who were/are generally sceptical of political action, like Ayn Rand and Stefan Molyneux.


*A response from Brad Spangler can be found here.