Oftentimes in our daily life we are asked when will this magical evolution into Libertarianism we speak of, going to happen. And we always answer that is happening right now, right under your nose. And so, in order to answer the question in the title we must answer as such: yes and no.
Some of us are there and have been there for a rather long time. Most of you are not there and won't be there for quite some time. This is so because political evolution is not a homogenous affair. Not everybody moves at the same pace and in the same direction at all times. There are currents and counter-currents. Trends and counter-trends. Changes of hearth. Temporary setbacks. Accelerations and decreases in speed. And the general mess that human psychological makeup is all about.
Yet, we know in which general direction we are all going (see for example The Law of Political Systems Direction). And this direction is good. We know what drives this evolutionary process and how it works (see for example Political Systems Lifecycle and The Three Laws Of Political System Change). And we know that this is actually happening and it is not political science fiction (see for example Political Evolution Indices). However, despite all these theories and facts, we are only human and as humans we are primarily visual beings. Therefore and without further due, we give you a pictorial representation of what is happening (see the picture below). And yes, this picture has been re-hashed and re-worked from similar pictures that we have presented before. This is so because we are lazy (no secret there)… err… sorry… efficient… efficient… but primarily because it is true, it was true and will continue to be true.
This picture represents the current state of affairs. If we look at the distribution of "political beliefs" (i.e. what people believe to be the "correct" political theory), we see that not everybody agrees. As a matter of fact, what this distribution is showing is that everybody believes something slightly different. In addition to that, we have the two extremes. At the left edge we find Communism, with their current exponents, China and Cuba. At the right edge, we find Libertarianism with their current promoters, the Micro Nations and the "Free States" initiative in US. Mind you, as you can see, neither extreme is "pure". Communism is "contaminated" with socialism and, to a degree, with capitalism. Libertarianism is contaminated with socialism.
We can see this in the fact that China and Cuba have both free and freeish markets and at the other extreme, that "Free States" and Micro Nations do operate within a framework of government power. Basically, neither is "pure"; and we don't expect them to be. As we stated before in The Three Laws Of Political System Change all political evolution is "transitional" in nature. This is, although political theories evolve, they always retain "stuff" (i.e. principles and ideas) from the previous political theories.
Note: the idea of Free Staters is to coopt a state in US and turn it Libertarian. The most advanced of these projects is (arguably) in New Hampshire. Google it, if you want more info.
If we would have taken this picture 90 years ago, we would have found that socialism would have been replaced by either Monarchy or some sort of strong-man populism or dictatorship. Yet, Communism and Libertarianism would have still existed. Now, let's take a look at how the picture changes as we move forward in time.
Here we can see that although times have changed, the shape of the distribution did not. What has moved is the distribution itself and it has done so towards the right. We can see the general Political Evolutionary Direction (in green) and the blue arrow of the political Evolutionary Pressure which is determining the direction of the arrow. We can see that, for any intent and purpose, we have left "pure" communist thinking and beliefs behind. We can also see how the distribution constantly moves to the right, but maintaining a large number or people with intermediate beliefs. As a matter of fact, as indicated in the first picture, the vast majority of countries are, de facto, socialist.
And so, going back to our original question, the answer is yes, because a tiny amount of people (as indicated by the distribution) are Libertarian, and a large portion are still communist. However, the idea that there is some sort of Magic Threshold separating "modern political systems" from Libertarianism is totally ridiculous. There is no such thing. This is an evolutionary process that progresses in terms of hundreds of years, one person at the time.
The lesson here is that you should resist to be swayed by the political gurus du-jour which will tell you that socialism "for the greater good" is good for society (and you) not because it is true (it isn't) but because they are running out of time and out of history. Please do feel free to believe them if you wish to go backwards in time, but if this is your preference, then why not go all the way back and become hunter-gatherers since, after all, that's how the "real" socialism/communism started; when we shared everything with our community.
Never forget that political theories trying to mess with this evolutionary path are messing with things they don't understand and so they believe they can change the future. Paper supports anything… as they say in academia. In reality, they can only speed it up or slow it down. Meanwhile, they are screwing-up your life (see for example Austrian Economics In Pictures or Piketty Fences). The future, in human political terms, is fixed (all things being equal). But are all things equal? Will they remain equal? We don't know because we are in a race. As Kurzweil puts it "The Singularity Is Near", and when the singularity (i.e. a computer with human-like capacity to think) finally arrives, all bets will be off. But for now, we are still in the race.
Isn't this interesting? Isn't it fascinating that we live in times where the premise of Asimov's sci-fi book series Foundation happens to be real? We may not have Seldon-Crises, but we do have real-life crises… to the same effect!
So go ahead and put your confidence in political snake-oil sellers. We? We will stick with history (past and future) thank you very much. Oh, but if you do, if you keep believing in their system, brace. Sooner or later the world will change under your feet and you won't have any place to stand. Parachutes anyone?
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.