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The fundamental values that libertarians claim to fight for are individual liberty, individual responsibility and individual property. Libertarians have an elaborate theory of these values that they defend, that does not always match prevailing views regarding liberty, and that strictly opposes collectivist views in this regard. As an example, many libertarians hold that personal liberties (such as privacy and freedom of speech) are inseparable from economic liberties (such as the freedom to trade, labor, or invest). They make this point to contrast themselves with collectivist socialists who believe that economic regulation is necessary for personal freedom and personal well-being, and with conservatives who tie free trade with a restrictive regulation of personal issues such as sexuality, drug use and speech.
Many criticisms of libertarianism revolve around the notion of "freedom" itself. For example, socialists would argue that the economic freedoms defended by libertarians result in privileges for the wealthy elite and violations of workers' rights.
Other criticisms revolve around the desirability and practical usefulness of certain freedoms. Conservatives, in particular, would argue that excessive personal freedoms encourage dangerous and irresponsible behaviour, or that they are too permissive on crime.
It is a chief point for many libertarians that rights vest originally in individuals and never in groups such as nations, races, religions, classes, or cultures. This conception holds it as nonsensical to say (for instance) that a wrong can be done to a class or a race in the absence of specific wrongs done to individual members of that group. It also undercuts rhetorical expressions such as, "The government has the right to ...", since under this formulation "the government" has no original rights but only those duties with which it has been lawfully entrusted under the citizens' rights. Libertarianism frequently dovetails neatly therefore with strict constructionism in the constitutional sense.
The classic problem in political philosophy of the legitimacy of property is essential to libertarians. Libertarians often justify individual property on the basis of self-ownership: one's right to own one's body; the results of one's own work; what one obtains from the voluntary concession of a former legitimate owner through trade, gift or inheritance, and so forth. Ownership of disputed natural resources is more problematic and solutions such as homesteading have been studied from John Locke to Murray Rothbard. This is particularly important since most criticisms of private property rest on the notion that no person can claim rightful ownership over natural resources, and that since the making of any object requires some amount of raw materials and natural resources, no person can claim rightful ownership over man-made objects either.
Libertarians consider that there is an extended domain of individual freedom defined by every individual's person and private property, and that no one, whether private citizen or government, may under any circumstances violate this boundary. Indeed, libertarians consider that no organization, including government, can have any right except those that are voluntarily delegated to it by its members -- which implies that these members must have had these rights to delegate them to begin with.
Thus, according to libertarians, taxation and regulation are at best necessary evils, and where unnecessary are simply evil. Government spending and regulations should be reduced insofar as they replace voluntary private spending with involuntary public spending, and replace private morality with public coercion. To many libertarians, governments should not establish schools, run hospitals, regulate industry, commerce or agriculture, or run social welfare programs. Nor should government restrict sexual practices, gambling, drug usage, or any other 'victimless' crimes. Libertarians also believe in an extremely broad (and in some cases all-inclusive) interpretation of free speech which should not be restricted by government. For libertarians, government's main imperative should be Laissez-faire -- "Hands off!" -- except to protect the individual rights recognized by libertarianism.
Libertarians believe in minimizing the responsibilities of citizens towards the government, which directly results in minimizing the responsibilities of the government towards its citizens.
See Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy the State for early modern anti-state thought and Lysander Spooner's The Constitution of No Authority for a critique of social contract theory.
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