About the ALSAbout the ALSThe Australian Libertarian Society (ALS) was founded by John Humphreys in 2000, and is an organisation dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, free markets and small government.
Since 2000 the ALS has been involved in many activities, including media campaigns, discussion papers, producing a newsletter, dinners throughout Australia and counter-protests. In January 2003, on it's three year anniversary, the ALS moved to it's new home at libertarian.org.au and started a 'blog'. Monthly dinners are hosted in Canberra and all libertarians are invited to attend.
You may like to check out some of the ALS archives.
The libertarian political philosophy, also known as classical liberalism, has existed in some form for several centuries. It is not possible to give a good introduction to libertarianism is only a few paragraphs, but plenty of information is available on the Internet. A good starting point is www.libertarian.org.
Libertarians believe in individual liberty, small government and free markets. Often libertarians are described as 'economically right-wing' and 'socially left-wing'. While this isn't a perfect explanation, it's a helpful shortcut and one that has been used by www.self-gov.org in their 'world's smallest political quiz'.
Some people are confused by what appear to be contradictory positions in libertarianism. Free trade is considered to be right-wing, but drug legalisation is left-wing. Cutting tax is right-wing, but defending civil liberties and gay rights is left-wing. However, all of these libertarian positions share the common principle of decreasing the role of government. In contrast, "left-wing" people often want to have the government control the economy, but not to control our social lives, and "right-wing" people often want to have the government control our social lives, but not the economy.
Libertarianism can be based on two very different philosophical starting points. Some libertarians believe that free markets and individual freedom should be preferred because they are more moral political systems. Such people argue that it is immoral to take money from people by force and it is immoral to tell people how to live their lives. The other philosophical position often used by libertarians is utilitarianism. Utilitarian libertarians believe that a small government will lead to better outcomes than a big government. Such people argue that libertarian solutions will lead to greater wealth, less poverty, more diversity and will generally make people happier. The first philosophical position is concerned with process, while the second is concerned with outcomes. In reality, most libertarians (and most people) care about both.
More details on the libertarian political philosophy can be found by following the links provided on the ALS links page.