Left-libertarianism

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This article is about the type of libertarianism stressing both individual freedom and social equality. For the socialist anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarian philosophy, see Libertarian socialism.
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Left-libertarianism,

social ecology
, are also generally considered left-libertarian.

In the United States, left-libertarianism represents the left wing of the

minarchism, with right-libertarianism being more known than left-libertarianism,[4] political usage of the term until then was associated exclusively with anti-capitalism, libertarian socialism, and social anarchism; in most parts of the world, such an association still predominates.[7][9]

Left-libertarians are skeptical of, or fully against, private ownership of natural resources, arguing, in contrast to right-libertarians, that neither claiming nor

left-wing market anarchism
(or market-oriented left-libertarianism).

Definition

See also: Definition of anarchism and libertarianism

Some political scientists and writers classify the forms of

free-market anti-capitalism consciously label themselves as left-libertarians and part of the libertarian left.[7][11]

As a term, left-libertarianism has been used to refer to various political economic philosophies emphasizing individual liberty. With the modern development of right-libertarian co-opting[14] the term libertarian in the mid-20th century to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as land, infrastructure, and natural resources,[15] left-libertarianism has been used more often to differentiate between the two forms,[7][8] especially concerning property rights.[16]

According to

social democrats who wish to socialize the economy but who still see a limited role for the State."[17]

According to the textbook definition in The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, left-libertarianism has at least three meanings, writing:

In its oldest sense, it is a synonym either for anarchism in general or social anarchism in particular. Later it became a term for the left or Konkinite wing of the free-market libertarian movement, and has since come to cover a range of pro-market but anti-capitalist positions, mostly individualist anarchist, including agorism and mutualism, often with an implication of sympathies (such as for radical feminism or the labor movement) not usually shared by

anarcho-capitalists. In a third sense it has recently come to be applied to a position combining individual self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources; most proponents of this position are not anarchists.[7]

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy distinguishes left-libertarianism from right-libertarianism, arguing:

Libertarianism is often thought of as 'right-wing' doctrine. This, however, is mistaken for at least two reasons. First, on social—rather than economic—issues, libertarianism tends to be 'left-wing'. It opposes laws that restrict consensual and private sexual relationships between adults (e.g., gay sex, non-marital sex, and deviant sex), laws that restrict drug use, laws that impose religious views or practices on individuals, and compulsory military service. Second, in addition to the better-known version of libertarianism—right-libertarianism—there is also a version known as 'left-libertarianism'. Both endorse full self-ownership, but they differ with respect to the powers agents have to appropriate unappropriated natural resources (land, air, water, etc.).[18]

Terminology

As a term, left-libertarianism is used by some political analysts, academics, and media sources, especially in the United States, to contrast it with the libertarian philosophy, which is supportive of

free-market capitalism and strong private property rights, in addition to supporting limited government and self-ownership which is common to both libertarian types.[19]

common property.[20]

Followers of

left-wing market anarchism,[22] use the terminology as outlined by Roderick T. Long, who describes left-libertarianism as "an integration, or I'd argue, a reintegration of libertarianism with concerns that are traditionally thought of as being concerns of the left. That includes concerns for worker empowerment, worry about plutocracy, concerns about feminism and various kinds of social equality."[23]

social hierarchy, preferring a liberal lifestyle, opposing big business, and having a New Left opposition to imperialism and war.[24] Although some American libertarians may reject the political spectrum,[25] others have written about libertarianism's left-wing opposition to authoritarian rule and argued that libertarianism is fundamentally a left-wing position.[26] Rothbard himself previously made the same point, rejecting the association of statism with the left.[27]

Philosophy

While all libertarians begin with a conception of personal autonomy from which they argue in favor of civil liberties and a reduction or elimination of the state, left-libertarianism encompasses those libertarian beliefs that claim the Earth's natural resources belong to everyone in an egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively.[5][7][10][12][13]

Contemporary left-libertarians such as Hillel Steiner, Peter Vallentyne, Philippe Van Parijs, Michael Otsuka, and David Ellerman believe the appropriation of land must leave "enough and as good" for others or be taxed by society to compensate for the exclusionary effects of private property.[8][12]

State

There are a number of different left-libertarian positions on the state, which can range from advocating for the complete abolition of the state, to advocating for a more decentralized and limited government with social ownership of the economy.[17] According to Sheldon Richman of the Independent Institute, other left-libertarians "prefer that corporate privileges be repealed before the regulatory restrictions on how those privileges may be exercised."[26]

Property rights

Left-libertarians generally uphold

owned collectively.[18]

Political scientist Peter Mclaverty notes it has been argued that socialist values are incompatible with the concept of self-ownership when this concept is considered "the core feature of libertarianism" and socialism is defined as holding "that we are social beings, that society should be organised, and individuals should act, so as to promote the common good, that we should strive to achieve social equality and promote democracy, community and solidarity."[30] However, political philosopher Nicholas Vrousalis has also argued that "property rights [...] do not pass judgment as to what rights individuals have to their own person [...] [and] to the external world" and that "the nineteenth-century egalitarian libertarians were not misguided in thinking that a thoroughly libertarian form of communism is possible at the level of principle."[31]

Economics

Other left-libertarians make a libertarian reading of

social-democratic economics to advocate a universal basic income. Building on Michael Otsuka's conception of "robust libertarian self-ownership", Karl Widerquist argues that a universal basic income must be large enough to maintain individual independence regardless of the market value of resources because people in contemporary society have been denied direct access to enough resources with which they could otherwise maintain their existence in the absence of interference by people who control access to resources.[32]

Schools of thought

Classical liberalism

Main article: Classical liberalism

Contemporary left-libertarian scholars such as

social welfare programs.[35][36]

Individuals in this left-libertarian tradition include Henry George, Locke, Thomas Paine, William Ogilvie of Pittensear, Herbert Spencer, and more recently, Baruch Brody, Ellerman, James O. Grunebaum, Otsuka, Steiner, Vallentyne and Van Parijs, among others.[8][37] Hippolyte de Colins,[38] George,[38] François Huet,[38] William Ogilvie of Pittensear,[37] Paine,[38] and Léon Walras[38] are left-libertarians also seen as being within the left-liberal tradition of socialism.[37]

Philosophical anarchist

classical economists such as David Ricardo,[39] Thomas Robert Malthus, Nassau William Senior, Robert Torrens, and the Mills, the early writings of Herbert Spencer,[40] socialists such as Thomas Hodgskin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, social reformer Henry George[40] and the Ricardian/Smithian socialists,[41][42] among others, "provided the basis for the further development of the left libertarian perspective."[43]

Green politics

Main article: Green politics

Bookchin was one of the main influences behind the formation of the Alliance 90/The Greens, the first green party to win seats in state and national parliaments. Modern green parties attempt to apply these ideas to a more pragmatic system of democratic governance as opposed to contemporary individualist or socialist libertarianism. The green movement, especially its more left-wing factions, is often described by political scientists as left-libertarian.[44][45][46][47]

Political scientists see European political parties such as Ecolo and Groen in Belgium, Alliance 90/The Greens in Germany, or the Green Progressive Accord and GroenLinks in the Netherlands as coming out of the New Left and emphasizing spontaneous self-organisation, participatory democracy, decentralization and voluntarism, being contrasted to the bureaucratic or statist approach.[47] Similarly, political scientist Ariadne Vromen has described the Australian Greens as having a "clear left-libertarian ideological base."[48]

Libertarian socialism

Main article: Libertarian socialism
Noam Chomsky, a noted left-libertarian of the libertarian socialist school

Libertarian socialism is a left-libertarian tendency

statist control of the economy.[51][failed verification
]

Market-oriented left-libertarianism

Benjamin Tucker (left) and Lysander Spooner (right), who have greatly influenced the development of left-wing libertarianism in the United States

American Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that gives privilege and is exploitative.[52] Certain American left-wing market anarchists who come from the left-Rothbardian school such as Roderick T. Long and Sheldon Richman, cite Murray Rothbard's homestead principle with approval to support worker cooperatives.[53]

Also referred to as left-wing market anarchists,[54] according to Sheldon Richman in The American Conservative, these proponents of this market-oriented left-libertarian approach strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets, while maintaining that, taken to their logical conclusions, these ideas support strongly anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly liberal or radical views regarding such cultural issues as gender, sexuality and race.[26] Members of this school typically urge the abolition of the state, arguing that vast disparities in wealth and social influence result from the use of force—especially state power—to steal and engross land and acquire and maintain special privileges. They judge that in a stateless society the kinds of privileges secured by the state will be absent and injustices perpetrated or tolerated by the state can be rectified, concluding that with state interference eliminated it will be possible to achieve "socialist ends by market means."[55]

According to libertarian Sheldon Richman, left-libertarians "favor worker solidarity vis-à-vis bosses, support poor people's squatting on government or abandoned property, and prefer that corporate privileges be repealed before the regulatory restrictions on how those privileges may be exercised." Richman says left-libertarians see Walmart as a symbol of corporate favoritism, being "supported by highway subsidies and eminent domain", viewing "the fictive personhood of the limited-liability corporation with suspicion" and doubting that "Third World sweatshops would be the 'best alternative' in the absence of government manipulation." Richman also says left-libertarians also tend to "eschew electoral politics, having little confidence in strategies that work through the government [and] prefer to develop alternative institutions and methods of working around the state."[26]

In the 21st century, left-libertarianism has come to encapsulate forms of

free-market anti-capitalism,[7][26] such as the mutualism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker.[7][26]

Steiner–Vallentyne school

Contemporary left-libertarian scholars such as

physiocratic views regarding the ownership of land and natural resources (e.g. those of Henry George and John Locke).[62][18][63]

Scholars representing this school of left-libertarianism often understand their position in contrast to right-libertarians, who maintain that there are no fair share constraints on use or appropriation that individuals have the power to appropriate unowned things by claiming them (usually by mixing their labor with them) and deny any other conditions or considerations are relevant and that there is no justification for the state to redistribute resources to the needy or to overcome

Carson–Long left-libertarianism school typically endorse the labor-based property rights that Steiner–Vallentyne left-libertarians reject, but they hold that implementing such rights would have radical rather than conservative consequences.[65]

Left-libertarians of the Steiner–Vallentyne type hold that it is illegitimate for anyone to claim private ownership of natural resources to the detriment of others.[8][66] These left-libertarians support some form of income redistribution on the grounds of a claim by each individual to be entitled to an equal share of natural resources.[67][68] Unappropriated natural resources are either unowned or owned in common and private appropriation is only legitimate if everyone can appropriate an equal amount or if private appropriation is taxed to compensate those who are excluded from natural resources.[68]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b Bookchin, Murray; Biehl, Janet (1997). The Murray Bookchin Reader. New York: Cassell. p. 170.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84631-025-6
    . 'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Murray Rothbard and Robert Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the libertarian tradition.
  3. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism
    . London: Harper Perennial. p. 641. "The word 'libertarian' has long been associated with anarchism, and has been used repeatedly throughout this work. The term originally denoted a person who upheld the doctrine of the freedom of the will; in this sense, Godwin was not a 'libertarian', but a 'necessitarian'. It came however to be applied to anyone who approved of liberty in general. In anarchist circles, it was first used by Joseph Déjacque as the title of his anarchist journal Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social published in New York in 1858. At the end of the last century, the anarchist Sebastien Faure took up the word, to stress the difference between anarchists and authoritarian socialists."
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-1412988766. Archived
    from the original on 2019-12-21. Retrieved 2023-01-29. [S]ocialist libertarians view any concentration of power into the hands of a few (whether politically or economically) as antithetical to freedom and thus advocate for the simultaneous abolition of both government and capitalism.
  5. ^ a b Spitz, Jean-Fabien (March 2006). "Left-wing libertarianism: equality based on self-ownership". Raisons Politiques. 23 (3). Archived from the original on 23 March 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  6. ISBN 978-0472104383. Archived
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  7. ^
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  8. ^
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  9. ISBN 0304338737
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  10. ^
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    . "Left-libertarians disagree with right-libertarians with respect to property rights, arguing instead that individuals have no inherent right to natural resources. Namely, these resources must be treated as collective property that is made available on an egalitarian basis".
  11. ^ a b Carson, Kevin. "An Introduction to Left-Libertarianism". Center for a Stateless Society. Archived from the original on 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  12. ^ a b c Vallentyne, Peter (March 2009). "Libertarianism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University. Archived from the original on 6 July 2019. Retrieved 5 March 2010. Libertarianism is committed to full self-ownership. A distinction can be made, however, between right-libertarianism and left-libertarianism, depending on the stance taken on how natural resources can be owned.
  13. ^
    OCLC 750831024. Archived
    from the original on 2023-01-09. Retrieved 2016-03-18. Left libertarians regard each of us as full self-owners. However, they differ from what we generally understand by the term libertarian in denying the right to private property. We own ourselves, but we do not own nature, at least not as individuals. Left libertarians embrace the view that all natural resources, land, oil, gold, and so on should be held collectively. To the extent that individuals make use of these commonly owned goods, they must do so only with the permission of society, a permission granted only under the proviso that a certain payment for their use be made to society at large.
  14. ^
    Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism
    . London: Harper Perennial. p. 565. "The problem with the term 'libertarian' is that it is now also used by the Right. [...] In its moderate form, right libertarianism embraces laissez-faire liberals like Robert Nozick who call for a minimal State, and in its extreme form, anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard and David Friedman who entirely repudiate the role of the State and look to the market as a means of ensuring social order".
  15. ISBN 0816052247. Archived
    from the original on 2024-02-07. Retrieved 2019-03-23. In the modern world, political ideologies are largely defined by their attitude towards capitalism. Marxists want to overthrow it, liberals to curtail it extensively, conservatives to curtail it moderately. Those who maintain that capitalism is a excellent economic system, unfairly maligned, with little or no need for corrective government policy, are generally known as libertarians.
  16. ^ Widerquist, Karl. "Libertarianism: left, right, and socialist". widerquist.com.
  17. ^
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  18. ^
    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived
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  21. ^ "Interview With Samuel Edward Konkin III". www.spaz.org. Archived from the original on 2021-09-07. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  22. ^ Konkin III, Samuel Edward. "An Agorist Primer" (PDF). Kopubco.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 March 2022. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  23. ^ "Interview with Roderick Long | Liberalis in English". Liberalis in English. 2008-01-03. Archived from the original on 2020-03-27. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  24. ^ Gregory, Anthony (21 December 2006). "Left, Right, Moderate and Radical". LewRockwell.com. Archived 25 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine. 25 December 2014.
  25. ^ Raimondo, Justin (2000). An Enemy of the State. Chapter 4: "Beyond left and right". Prometheus Books. p. 159.
  26. ^ a b c d e f Richman, Sheldon (2011-02-03). "Libertarian Left". The American Conservative. Archived from the original on 2023-01-01. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  27. ^ Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1965). "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty". Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought. 1 (1): 4–22.
  28. ^ Carlson (2012). p. 1007. "[Left-libertarians] disagree with right-libertarians with respect to property rights, arguing instead that individuals have no inherent right to natural resources. Namely, these resources must be treated as collective property that is made available on an egalitarian basis."
  29. OCLC 750831024. Archived
    from the original on 2023-01-09. Retrieved 2016-03-18. [Left libertarians] regard each of us as full self-owners. Left libertarians embrace the view that all natural resources, land, oil, gold, trees, and so on should be held collectively. To the extent that individuals make use of these commonly owned goods, they must do so only with the permission of society, a permission granted only under the provision that a certain payment for their use be made to society at large.
  30. S2CID 144693867
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  31. SSRN 1703457
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  33. ^ Kymlicka, Will (2005). "libertarianism, left-". In Honderich, Ted. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. "[Left-libertarians maintain that] the world's natural resources were initially unowned, or belonged equally to all, and it is illegitimate for anyone to claim exclusive private ownership of these resources to the detriment of others. Such private appropriation is legitimate only if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if those who appropriate more are taxed to compensate those who are thereby excluded from what was once common property."
  34. ISBN 978-0-7619-6787-3. Archived
    from the original on 2017-10-10. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  35. ^ Van Parijs, Phillippe (1998). Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford: Clarendon-Oxford University Press.
  36. ^ a b Daskal, Steve (1 January 2010). "Libertarianism Left and Right, the Lockean Proviso, and the Reformed Welfare State". Social Theory and Practice. p. 1. Archived 16 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
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  40. ^
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  42. ISBN 0521893429
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  43. ISBN 978-1441153777
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  44. JSTOR 522545. Archived
    from the original on 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  45. JSTOR 3005565. Archived
    from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  46. ^ Van Kersbergen, Kees; Green-Pedersen, Christoffer (2002). "The Politics of the 'Third Way': The Transformation of Social Democracy in Denmark and the Netherlands" Archived 2006-10-17 at the Wayback Machine. Party Politics. 8 (5): 507–524.
  47. ^
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    from the original on 2019-05-11. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  48. ^ Vromen, Ariadne (2005). "Who are the Australian Greens? Surveying the membership". Ethnographic Praxis in Industry. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  49. LCCN 98-71026
    . The most creative feature of traditional anarchism is its commitment to four basic tenets: a confederation of decentralized municipalities; an unwavering opposition to statism; a belief in direct democracy; and a vision of a libertarian communist society. The most important issue that left-libertarianism -libertarian socialism no less than anarchism- faces today is: What will it do with these four powerful tenets? How will we give them social form and content? In what ways and by what means will we render them relevant to our time and bring them to the service of an organized popular movement for empowerment and freedom?
  50. JSTOR 3487815
    . In this, Tucker and George, the Anarchist and the Single Taxer, were in agreement-their respective positions can be seen as variations of libertarian socialism or, to borrow a label from Peter Valentyne and Hillel Steiner, Left-Libertarianism.
  51. ^ Long, Roderick T. (Summer 1998). "Toward a libertarian theory of class". Social Philosophy and Policy. 15 (2): 305. "Unlike other socialists, they tend to see (to various different degrees, depending on the thinker) to be skeptical of centralized state intervention as the solution to capitalist exploitation [...]."
  52. ISBN 978-1849351225
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  53. ^ Carson, Kevin. "The Left-Rothbardians, Part I: Rothbard". Center for a Stateless Society. Archived from the original on 2019-09-24. Retrieved 2023-01-01. What most people ordinarily identify as the stereotypical "libertarian" privatization proposal, unfortunately, goes something like this: sell it to a giant corporation on terms that are most advantageous to the corporation. Rothbard proposed, instead, was to treat state property as unowned, and allowing it to be homesteaded by those actually occupying it and mixing their labor with it. This would mean transforming government utilities, schools and other services into consumer cooperatives and placing them under the direct control of their present clientele. It would mean handing over state industry to workers' syndicates and transforming it into worker-owned cooperatives.
  54. ^ Chartier, Gary; Johnson, Charles W. (2011). Markets Not Capitalism. Brooklyn: Minor Compositions/Autonomedia. pp. 1–16.
  55. ^ Chartier, Gary (2009). Socialist Ends, Market Means: Five Essays. Tulsa: Tulsa Alliance of the Libertarian Left.
  56. ^ Ellerman, David (1992). Property and Contract in Economics: The Case for Economic Democracy. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.
  57. ^ Ellerman, David (1990). The Democratic Worker-Owned Firm. London: Unwin Hyman.
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  59. ^ Steiner, Hillel (1994). An Essay on Rights. Oxford: Blackwell.
  60. ^ (2000). Left Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate. In Vallentyne, Peter; and Steiner, Hillel. London:Palgrave.
  61. ^ Van Parijs, Philippe (2009). Marxism Recycled. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  62. ^ Vallentyne, Peter (2007). "Libertarianism and the State". Liberalism: Old and New. In Paul, Ellen Frankel; Miller Jr., Fred; Paul, Jeffrey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 199.
  63. doi:10.1163/174552411x591339. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 14 March 2014. Retrieved 14 March 2014. It can also invoke geoism, a philosophical tradition encompassing the views of John Locke and Henry George [...].
  64. ^ Van Parijs, Phillippe (1998). Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism? Oxford:Clarendon-Oxford University Press.
  65. ISBN 978-0312235918
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  66. ^ Kymlicka, Will (2005). "libertarianism, left-". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. In Honderich, Ted. New York: Oxford University Press. "[Left-libertarians maintain that] the world's natural resources were initially unowned, or belonged equally to all, and it is illegitimate for anyone to claim exclusive private ownership of these resources to the detriment of others. Such private appropriation is legitimate only if everyone can appropriate an equal amount, or if those who appropriate more are taxed to compensate those who are thereby excluded from what was once common property."
  67. OCLC 1057919438
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  68. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7619-6787-3. Archived
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Further reading

External links

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