Libertarian

The definition turns on what is being sought rather than on what is opposed. Freedom to do anything one desires is one thing, and doing it without social responsibility or acknowledgment of debt is another, and the second is what Marsh objects to. Debt in her framework is what an unbalanced interaction leaves behind, so refusing to acknowledge it is refusing an accounting rather than refusing an obligation somebody has invented. Her note that the position is popular among endoselves is not an insult but a structural prediction, since an endoself obtains anima by taking and a doctrine holding that nothing is owed for what has been taken is exactly what such a position requires. The historical argument runs through Locke. She points to the irony of a slave owner writing the founding principle, and holds that the flawed principle went on to construct a system of libertarianism denying natural dependencies and relegating them to the fringes of society. Independence is impossible in reality and can only be simulated by using currency to abstract dependency and endosocialism to deny the labour of the negative image, so a libertarian is not describing an achievable state. Marsh is careful to distinguish her own position, since she does not reject all use of power as anarchy or libertarianism must. A caregiver may still stop a baby running in front of a car, and this use of power facilitates the future expansion of a self that is not yet autonomous.

Libertarianism is a broad family, from Nozick's rights-based minimal state through classical liberalism to left-libertarian traditions that share the anti-authoritarianism while rejecting the property claims, and in Europe the word has long meant libertarian socialism. Critics from the communitarian and care ethics traditions make the argument Marsh makes, that the self-owning independent individual is a fiction concealing dependencies, with Eva Kittay and Alasdair MacIntyre both developing it. Her definition would be rejected by most libertarians as a description of their position, since it builds the refusal of responsibility into the term rather than treating it as a consequence some libertarians dispute.