What do we mean by the liberation of learning?

For over forty years this magazine has been published in one form or another. At first it was the newsletter of the Libertarian Teacher Association. Then it became plain old Libertarian Teacher. A few years later, to recognise that learning was not, and should not, be teacher oriented, the title was changed to Libertarian Education, The name Lib Ed with the subtitle "for the liberation of learning" was adopted in 1978, partly because the old title was a bit of a mouthful. The term libertarian has historically been part of two rather different traditions; there have been libertarians of the left and libertarians of the right.

Nowadays, there is a tendency, most marked perhaps in the United States, for the term libertarian to be associated exclusively with extreme right-wing politics, which reinforces the currently fairly widespread view that socialism is incompatible with freedom and that a serious commitment to individual liberty implies a right-wing approach to other issues. This view is fundamentally mistaken. Not only are socialism and freedom compatible, but in our opinion the one pre-supposes the other.

Conversely, those on the right are often vociferous in proclaiming their commitment to individual freedom while at the same time advocating social and economic views, such as a belief in capitalism, that are fundamentally incompatible with that ideal So, partly in order to resist any hijacking of the term libertarian by the right, this article continues, and tries to reinforce, the tradition of left-wing libertarianism. The definition of libertarian education from a left-wing perspective can be taken in two parts: the ends and the means. The ends describe what the objectives of libertarian education ought to be, and the means encompass the kinds of methods which ought to be used in attaining those objectives.

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