On the other hand a libertarian trend also developed within marxism which gained
visibility around the late 1910s mainly in reaction against Bolshevism and Leni
nism rising to power and establishing the Soviet Union.
Anti-capitalism
Main article: Anti-capitalism
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v t e
Libertarian socialists are anti-capitalist, and can thus be distinguished from r
ight-wing libertarians. Whereas capitalist (and right-libertarian) principles co
ncentrate economic power in the hands of those who own the most capital, liberta
rian socialism aims to distribute power more equally amongst members of society.
A key difference between libertarian socialism and capitalist libertarianism is
that advocates of the former generally believe that one's degree of freedom is
affected by one's economic and social status, whereas advocates of the latter fo
cus on freedom of choice within a capitalist framework. This is sometimes charac
terized as a desire to maximize "free creativity" in a society in preference to
"free enterprise."[48]
Within anarchism there emerged a critique of wage slavery which refers to a situ
ation perceived as quasi-voluntary slavery,[49] where a person's livelihood depe
nds on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[50][51] It
is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage l
abor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. The term w
age slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratifi
cation, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor
and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. i
n sweatshops),[52] and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfill
ing job choices and leisure in an economy.[53][54][55] Libertarian socialists be
lieve if freedom is valued, then society must work towards a system in which ind
ividuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. L
ibertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with direct democrac
y, voluntary federation, and popular autonomy in all aspects of life,[56] includ
ing physical communities and economic enterprises. With the advent of the indust
rial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison be
tween wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property n