A social libertarian is a person who believes in social liberty, i.
e., individual independence and communal autonomy from overarching
government or state control.
A social libertarian typically rejects the concentration of decision-making authority into distant, oligarchical, centralized bureaucracies - federal or monolithic - favoring instead the diffusion and localization of that decision-making authority.
Social libertarians support a political, social, and economic environment which allows voluntary accession to associations, but also permits a person to choose to remain free of restraint by
society, except in cases in which an individual's claim of freedom interferes with another individual's right to be free from unwarranted, aggressive coercion or harm.
Social libertarians regard free-market
capitalism and democratic, communalistic
socialism as equally conducive economic means towards the ends of generalistic liberation from tyranny.
Murray Bookchin's
support of decentralized, non-hierarchical communal autonomy, coupled with a belief in
individual liberty, indicates that he and his adherents are social libertarians.