The political terms liberal and libertarian may look similar, but they have very different meanings. Both stem from Latin liber, “free,” but the word liberal entered English hundreds of years before libertarian. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Liberal vs. Libertarian”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Rachel from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Hello, Rachel. How are you doing?
I’m well. How are you?
Excellent. Thank you. Welcome to the show.
What’s going on, Rachel?
Well, I have a question for you about the words liberal and libertarian.
I know the ideologies are very different, but to me the words sound really similar.
I remember hearing the word libertarian first when I was in college in the early 2000s and thinking that they were somehow related.
But I’m wondering if the words are related, even if maybe the ideologies are not.
You’ve summed it up very, very well, as a matter of fact.
These words have gone by lots of different definitions over the years and applied to lots of different ideas.
And people will argue till the cows come home over what exactly they mean.
But you’re absolutely right that both of them look similar because they go back to the Latin root liber, meaning free.
And they found their ways into English in different ways.
For example, the word libertarian was formed by analogy from an existing English word, liberty, and the other one came to us via French from Latin.
Libertarian shows up in the late 18th century as somebody who believes in the doctrine of free will, and it’s formed from the English word liberty by analogy with other kinds of words like necessitarian, which is a believer in necessity or someone who believes that human conduct is dictated by circumstances as opposed to free will.
Or Unitarian, for that matter. Unitarian is a word that’s been around for centuries.
Actually, the U.S. Libertarian Party wasn’t formed until 1971.
That late, really?
Yeah.
It’s unexpected.
And the word liberal has been around for hundreds of years with lots of different definitions.
It was used in the 16th and 17th century as a term of reproach to criticize people who were too liberal, meaning free of restraint.
Right.
Like libertines might have been liberal.
Yeah, yeah.
Right, right.
Yeah, that’s a good connection.
And then it took on the political sense later in the mid-19th century, the sense that we think of today, a person of liberal political principles.
Interesting. So are the etymologies of the words connected in any way other than that root of liberty? Because they just sound so similar to me.
Not really.
No, there was a point at which liberal kind of definition of liberal and political senses kind of matched the definition of libertarian that some people use today.
And I hope you hear all the caveating and hedging I’m doing there because you can have two separate groups of libertarians and they’ll have two separate ideas of what a libertarian is.
But generally they just go back to the same route.
So you get the kind of coincidences that happen with the shared etymological route.
But once they move out of their parents’ house, words are their own thing.
They’re their own adults that make their own life decisions.
Interesting.
Okay, well, that’s really helpful.
Thank you so much.
Glad to help, Rachel.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
All right, bye-bye.
There are some great political jokes that come to mind.
Can I tell you one?
Oh, please.
How many libertarians does it take to change the light bulb?
Oh, no idea.
Just let the market decide.
Okay.
Send your complaints about my libertarian jokes or your own libertarian jokes to words@waywordradio.org or call us at 877-929-9673.
