Libertarianism has many folds - it depends on what piece you want to claim for your own. sammieswife.
THE CORPORATE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
Three major constituencies have joined in a powerful political alliance to advance the ideological agenda of corporate libertarianism with a dogmatic fervor normally associated with religious crusades.
Neoliberal Economists. Neoliberal economists embrace two first principles as fundamental articles of faith. One is that individuals are motivated solely by self-interest. The other is that individual choice based on the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest leads to socially optimal outcomes. [See The Betrayal of Adam Smith.] Neoliberal economists provide corporate libertarianism with a patina of intellectual legitimacy.
Property Rights Advocates. Ardent property rights advocates, sometimes called "market liberals," commonly present themselves as libertarians dedicated to the defense of individual rights and freedoms. While true libertarians seek to defend individual freedom against intrusion from coercive institutions of any kind, market liberals are mostly concerned with protecting the rights from property from public accountability. Those without property have no rights that the market liberal is bound to respect. Market liberals give corporate libertarianism its cast of moral legitimacy.
Corporations and Members of the Corporate Class. Corporations and members of the corporate class--such as corporate managers, lawyers, consultants, public-relations specialists, financial brokers, and wealthy investors--comprise the third pillar of the corporate libertarian alliance. Some are drawn to corporate libertarianism purely by financial self-interest or because they are paid to do so, others by moral conviction. Although few members of the corporate class have a serious interest in the fine points of academic theories or moral philosophy, they find a natural common cause with those who provide an intellectual and ethical case for freeing corporations from the restraining hand of government and absolving them of moral responsibility for the social and environmental consequences of their actions. Furthermore, they have the financial resources at their disposal to handsomely reward those who legitimate their power.
This combination of economic theory, moral philosophy, and elite political interest makes for a powerful alliance. Yet in many ways it has served even its own members poorly, as its corrupting influence has not been limited to the broader society. It has led neoliberal economists to seriously debase the integrity and social utility of economics by reducing it to a system of ideological indoctrination that violates its own theoretical foundations and is deeply at odds with reality. It has similarly engaged libertarians in a cause that violates their own commitment to individual freedom, as corporations infringe on the property rights of real people and use their growing power to suppress the individual freedoms of all but society's wealthiest members. The enormous political success of the alliance in shielding corporations from public accountability has create a monster that even the members of the corporate class no longer control and is creating a world that they would scarcely wish to bequeath to their children.
THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF INJUSTICE
The moral philosophers of market liberalism perpetrate a serious distortion by neglecting the distinction between the rights of property and the rights of people. Indeed, they equate the freedom and rights of individuals with market freedom and property rights. The freedom of the market is the freedom of those with money. When rights are a function of property rather than personhood, only those with property have rights.
It is a basic premise of democracy that each individual has equal rights before the law and an equal voice in political affairs--one person, one vote. We can rightfully look to the market as a democratic arbiter of rights and preferences only to the extent that money and property are equitably distributed. Although a market can allocate efficiently with less than complete equality, when 358 billionaires enjoy a combined net worth of $760 billion--equal to the net worth of the poorest 2.5 billion of the world's people--the market is neither just nor efficient and it loses all legitimacy as a democratic institution."