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'''Anarcho-capitalism''' is a ] and ] that advocates the elimination of ]s in favor of a system of ] enforced by ], ]s and the ] interpretation of ], which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self. In the absence of ], anarcho-capitalists (or ''ancaps'')<ref>{{Cite web |title=ANCAP {{!}} Definition of ANCAP by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of ANCAP |url=https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/ancap |access-date=15 May 2021 |website=Lexico Dictionaries {{!}} English |language=en}}</ref> hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market which they describe as a ].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2008 |title=Anarcho-Capitalism |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |publisher=]; ] |location=Thousand Oaks, California |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC&pg=PT51 |last=Morriss |first=Andrew |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-first=Ronald |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |pages=13–14 |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n8 |isbn=978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024}}</ref><ref name="Stringham51">Edward Stringham. . p. 51.</ref><ref name="marshallpitzer">{{Cite web |last=Peter Marshall |title=The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/dward/newrightanarchocap.html |access-date=2 July 2020}}</ref> In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private property would still exist and be enforced by private defense agencies and ] selected by customers which would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police.<ref name="marshallpitzer" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Ryan H. |title=Markets against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public and Private |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2019 |isbn=978-1498591188 |page=84}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Luc Hatlestad |date=19 August 2018 |title=Is Anarchy the Solution to Our Political Problems? |url=https://www.5280.com/2016/08/is-anarchy-the-solution-to-our-political-problems/ |website=5280 Denver's Mile High Magazine}}</ref> | |||
According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism,<ref name="Hoppe 2001">] (31 December 2001). . Lew Rockwell.com. Retrieved 5 July 2020.</ref> but the first person to use the term ''anarcho-capitalism'' was ], in the 1940s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robert Leeson |title=Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, Part IX: The Divine Right of the 'Free' Market |publisher=Springer |year=2017 |isbn=978-3-319-60708-5 |pages=180 |quote=To the original 'anarchocapitalist' (Rothbard coined the term) .}}</ref> Rothbard synthesized elements from the ], ] and 19th-century American ] and ] ] and ] while rejecting their ] and the ] and ] norms they derived from it.<ref name="Miller 1987">Miller, David, ed., ''et al.'' (1987). ''Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought''. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 290. {{ISBN|978-0-631-17944-3}}. "A student and disciple of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker."</ref><ref name="Bottomore 1991">{{Cite book |last=Bottomore |first=Tom |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionarymarxis00bott |title=A Dictionary of Marxist Thought |publisher=Blackwell Reference |year=1991 |isbn=0-63118082-6 |location=Oxford |page= |chapter=Anarchism |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Outhwaite 2003">Outhwaite, William (2003). ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought''. "Anarchism". Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 13. {{ISBN|9780631221647}}. "Their successors today, such as Murray Rothbard, having abandoned the labor theory of value, describe themselves as anarcho-capitalists."</ref> Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow".<ref name="Rothbard 1978">{{Cite book |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |url=https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto |title=For a New Liberty |date=1978 |publisher=Mises Institute |isbn=9781610164481 |location=Auburn |page=282 |chapter=12 The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts}}</ref> This legal code would recognize contracts, private property, self-ownership and ] in keeping with the ].<ref name="Rothbard 1978" /><ref name="miseslawproperty" /> | |||
Anarcho-capitalism is distinguished from both ] and ]. Minarchists advocate a night-watchman state limited to protecting individuals from aggression and enforcing private property.<ref>Long, Roderick T.; Machan, Tibor R., eds. (2008). ''Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?'' Ashgate. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-6066-8}}.</ref> On the other hand, anarchism is an anti-capitalist movement which holds that capitalism is incompatible with ] and ]. Despite its name, anarcho-capitalism lies outside the tradition of anarchism and is more closely affiliated with capitalism, ], and ].<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Jennings 1993" /><ref name="Gay & Gay 1999, p. 15" /><ref name="Morriss 2008" /><ref name="Franks 2013" /> Anarcho-capitalists reject the libertarian socialist economic theories of anarchism, arguing that they are inherently authoritarian or require authoritarianism to achieve, while believing that there is no coercion under capitalism. Criticism of anarcho-capitalism includes that it creates coercive hierarchy in practice and a ] state, and ignores the coercive nature of capitalism; anarcho-capitalism is generally seen as fraudulent and an oxymoron by anarchists.<ref name="Funnell 2007" /><ref name="Robinson 2009" /><ref name="Jun 2009" /><ref name="El-Ojeili 2012" /><ref name="Williams 2012" /><ref name="White & Williams 2014" /> | |||
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== Philosophy == | |||
] (1926–1995), who coined the word ''anarcho-capitalism''|alt=Murray Rothbard wearing glasses, a suit and a bow-tie and sat on an armchair, looking rightwards]] | |||
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Author J Michael Oliver says that during the 1960s, a philosophical movement arose in the United States that championed "reason, ethical egoism, and free-market capitalism". According to Oliver, anarcho-capitalism is a political theory which logically follows the philosophical conclusions of ], a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=J Michael Oliver |title=The New Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism |year=2013 |isbn=978-1491068625 |pages=11–12}}</ref> Professor ] also says that Rand's anti-statist, pro–“free market” stances went on to shape the politics of anarcho-capitalism.<ref name="Dissent Magazine 2019">{{cite web | title=Ayn Rand and the Cruel Heart of Neoliberalism | website=Dissent Magazine | date=22 May 2019 | url=https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/ayn-rand-and-the-cruel-heart-of-neoliberalism | access-date=29 October 2021 | author = Lisa Duggan | author-link = Lisa Duggan}}</ref> | |||
According to ], the political ideology and programme of Anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the ] "rollback of the state", and calls for the extension of "entrepreneurial freedom" and "competitive market rationality" to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and "leaves no space for state action whatsoever".<ref name="pschu" /> | |||
=== On the state === | |||
Anarcho-capitalists opposition to the state is reflected in their goal of keeping but ] all functions of the state.<ref name="pschu" /><ref name="Kinna 2012" /><ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4CcannofnY | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211122/S4CcannofnY| archive-date=2021-11-22 | url-status=live|title=David Friedman on How to Privatize Everything |date=27 November 2012 |last=David Friedman |type=YouTube |publisher=ReasonTV |access-date=4 January 2021}}{{cbignore}}</ref> They see ] and the "]" as the basis for a free and prosperous society. ], who is credited with coining the term ''anarcho-capitalism'',<ref>Roberta Modugno Crocetta, , ].</ref><ref>Michael Oliver, , originally published in ''The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal'', 25 February 1972. For an earlier published use of ''anarcho-capitalism'' by Rothbard, see his ''WIN: Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action'', Volume 7, No. 4, 1 March 1971, 6–10.</ref> stated that the difference between ] and ] is the difference between "peaceful, voluntary exchange" and a "collusive partnership" between business and government that "uses coercion to subvert the free market".<ref>Rothbard, Murray N., ; Murray N. Rothbard, .</ref> | |||
Rothbard argued that all government services, including defense, are inefficient because they lack a market-based ] regulated by "the voluntary decisions of consumers purchasing services that fulfill their highest-priority needs" and by investors seeking the most profitable enterprises to invest in.<ref name="Rothbard-P&M" />{{rp|1051|quote=It is all the more curious, incidentally, that while *laissez-faireists* should by the logic of their position, be ardent believers in a single, unified world government so that no one will live in a state of "anarchy" in relation to anyone else, they almost never are.}} Furthermore, Linda and Morris Tannehill believe that no coercive monopoly of force can arise on a truly free market and that a government's citizenry can not desert them in favor of a competent protection and defense agency.<ref>Linda and Morris Tannehill. '''', p. 81.</ref> | |||
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Rothbard used the term ''anarcho-capitalism'' to distinguish his philosophy from anarchism that opposes private property<ref> (2007). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 30 July 2007.</ref> as well as to distinguish it from individualist anarchism.<ref name="autogenerated1">Murray Rothbard (2000). "Egalitarianism as A Revolt Against Nature And Other Essays: and other essays". Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000. p. 207.</ref> Other terms sometimes used by proponents of the philosophy include: | |||
* Individualist anarchism<ref name="Avrich 1996">] (1996). ''Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America'' (abridged paperback ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 282. {{ISBN|9780691044941}}. "Although there are many honorable exceptions who still embrace the 'socialist' label, most people who call themselves individualist anarchists today are followers of Murray Rothbard's Austrian economics and have abandoned the labor theory of value."</ref><ref>] (2006). ''Studies in Mutualist Political Economy''. . {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110415135834/http://www.mutualist.org/id112.html|date=15 April 2011}} Charleston: BookSurge Publishing. {{ISBN|9781419658693}}. "Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), American economist, historian, and individualist anarchist."</ref> | |||
* Natural order<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
* Ordered anarchy<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
* Private-law society<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
* Private-property anarchy<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
* Radical capitalism<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
|} | |||
=== Non-aggression principle === | |||
{{Main|Non-aggression principle}} | |||
Writer Stanisław Wójtowicz says that although anarcho-capitalists are against centralized states, they hold that all people would naturally share and agree to a specific moral theory based on the ].<ref name="swnauka">{{Cite journal |last=Stanisław Wójtowicz |year=2017 |title=Anarcho-capitalism, or can we do away with the state |url=http://nauka-pan.pl/index.php/nauka/article/view/747 |journal=Nauka |issue=4 |issn=1231-8515 |quote=The last problem is especially vexing, since anarcho-capitalists seem to be caught up in a contradiction here. On one hand, they are proponents of a specific moral theory (based on non-aggression principle), on the other hand, they do not allow for any central, monopolistic agency to impose that moral theory on society.}}</ref> While the Friedmanian formulation of anarcho-capitalism is robust to the presence of violence and in fact, assumes some degree of violence will occur,<ref>Friedman, David D. (1989) . ''The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism'' (2nd ed.). La Salle: Open Court Press. {{ISBN|0-8126-9069-9}}.</ref> anarcho-capitalism as formulated by Rothbard and others holds strongly to the central libertarian nonaggression ],<ref name="swnauka" /> sometimes non-aggression principle. Rothbard wrote: | |||
{{quote|The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with". From these twin axioms – self-ownership and "homesteading" – stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free-market society. This system establishes the right of every man to his own person, the right of donation, of bequest (and, concomitantly, the right to receive the bequest or inheritance), and the right of contractual exchange of property titles.<ref name="miseslawproperty">Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1982). . ''Cato Journal''. '''2''' (1): 55–99.</ref>}} | |||
Rothbard's defense of the self-ownership principle stems from what he believed to be his falsification of all other alternatives, namely that either a group of people can own another group of people, or that no single person has full ownership over one's self. Rothbard dismisses these two cases on the basis that they cannot result in a ], i.e. a just natural law that can govern all people, independent of place and time. The only alternative that remains to Rothbard is ] which he believes is both axiomatic and universal.<ref name="Rothbard-1982.2">Rothbard, Murray (1982). . Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press. p. 162. {{ISBN|978-0-8147-7506-6}}.</ref> | |||
In general, the non-aggression axiom is described by Rothbard as a prohibition against the initiation of force, or the threat of force, against persons (in which he includes direct violence, assault and murder) or property (in which he includes fraud, burglary, theft and taxation).<ref name="Rothbard">{{Cite book |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |url=https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto |title=For a New Liberty |date=1978 |publisher=Mises Institute |isbn=978-1-61016-448-1 |location=Auburn |page=282}}</ref>{{rp|24–25}} The initiation of force is usually referred to as ] or ]. The difference between anarcho-capitalists and other libertarians is largely one of the degree to which they take this axiom. ] libertarians such as ] would retain the state in some smaller and less invasive form, retaining at the very least public police, courts, and military. However, others might give further allowance for other government programs. In contrast, Rothbard rejects any level of "]", defining the state as a ] and as the only entity in human society that derives its income from what he refers to as "legal aggression", an entity that inherently violates the central axiom of libertarianism.<ref name="Rothbard-1982.2" /> | |||
Some anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard accept the non-aggression axiom on an intrinsic moral or natural law basis. It is in terms of the ] that Rothbard defined his interpretation of anarchism, "a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression "; and wrote that "what anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the State, i.e. to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion".<ref>Rothbard, Murray N. (1975) ''Libertarian Forum'' newsletter (January 1975).</ref> In an interview published in the ] journal ''The New Banner'', Rothbard stated that "capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism".<ref>Rothbard, Murray (25 February 1972). . ''The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal''. Retrieved 10 September 2020.</ref> | |||
=== Property === | |||
==== Private property ==== | |||
Anarcho-capitalists postulate the ] of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems.<ref name="pschu">{{Cite web |last=Patrik Schumacher |date=2016 |title=The Stages of Capitalism and the Styles of Architecture |url=https://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Stages%20of%20Capitalism%20and%20the%20Styles%20of%20Architecture.html |access-date=22 December 2020 |website=ASA web-magazine}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Cristóbal Matarán López |year=2021 |title=The Austrian school of Madrid |journal=The Review of Austrian Economics |doi=10.1007/s11138-021-00541-0 |quote=In addition, Professor Huerta de Soto has become one of the most prominent and resolute defenders of the Anarchocapitalism, that is, the full and complete privatisation of all goods and services. |doi-access=free}}</ref> | |||
Central to Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism are the concepts of ] and ] that combines ] and ]. Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote: | |||
{{quote|Everyone is the proper owner of his own physical body as well as of all places and nature-given goods that he occupies and puts to use by means of his body, provided only that no one else has already occupied or used the same places and goods before him. This ownership of "originally appropriated" places and goods by a person implies his right to use and transform these places and goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not change thereby uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and goods originally appropriated by another person. In particular, once a place or good has been first appropriated by, in John Locke's phrase, 'mixing one's labor' with it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a voluntary – contractual – transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner.<ref name="Hoppe-2002">{{Cite web |last=Hoppe, Hans-Hermann |author-link=Hans-Hermann Hoppe |date=20 May 2002 |title=Rothbardian Ethics |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe7.html |access-date=15 June 2020 |website=]}}</ref>}} | |||
Rothbard however rejected the ], and followed the rule of "first come, first served", without any consideration of how much resources are left for other individuals, which opposed John Locke's beliefs.<ref>Hall, Larry M., PhD diss., p. 126, University of Tennessee, 1990.</ref><ref>John Locke, '']'', Chapter V, paragraph 27.</ref> | |||
Anarcho-capitalists advocate private ownership of the means of production and the allocation of the product of labor created by workers within the context of ] and the free market – that is through decisions made by property and capital owners, regardless of what an individual needs or does not need.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stephanie Silberstein |title=Was Spooner Really an Anarcho-Socialist? |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/Spooner/debate.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425080122/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/Spooner/debate.html |archive-date=25 April 2017 |access-date=5 July 2020 |website=Anarchy Archives}}</ref> Original appropriation allows an individual to claim any never-before-used resources, including land and by improving or otherwise using it, own it with the same "absolute right" as their own body, and retaining those rights forever, regardless of the resource is still being used by them. According to Rothbard, property can only come about through labor, therefore original appropriation of land is not legitimate by merely claiming it or building a fence around it—it is only by using land and by mixing one's labor with it that original appropriation is legitimized: "Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be". Rothbard argued that the resource need not continue to be used in order for it to be the person's property as "for once his labor is mixed with the natural resource, it remains his owned land. His labor has been irretrievably mixed with the land, and the land is therefore his or his assigns' in perpetuity".<ref name="Rothbard-MES">{{Cite book |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |title=] |date=1993 |edition=2nd |author-link=Murray Rothbard |orig-year=1962}} published in {{cite book |last1=Rothbard |first1=Murray |title=Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market |date=2009 |publisher=Mises Institute |isbn=978-1-933550-27-5 |edition=2nd |url=https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market |access-date=15 June 2020}}</ref>{{rp|170}} | |||
As a practical matter, anarcho-capitalists say that in terms of the ownership of land there are few, if any, parcels of land left on Earth whose ownership was not at some point in time obtained in violation of the homestead principle "through seizure by the state or put in private hands with the assistance of the state".{{Fact|date=June 2021}} Rothbard wrote: | |||
{{quote|It is not enough to call simply for the defense of "the rights of private property"; there must be an adequate theory of justice in property rights, else any property that some State once decreed to be "private" must now be defended by libertarians, no matter how unjust the procedure or how mischievous its consequences.<ref name="autogenerated1" />}} | |||
In ''Justice and Property Right'', Rothbard wrote that "any identifiable owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property".<ref>Rothbard, Murray (2000). . In ''Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays'' (2nd ed.). Auburn: Mises Institute. p. 113. {{ISBN|9781610164627}}.</ref><ref>Cobin, John M. (2009). ''A Primer on Modern Themes in Free Market Economics and Policy''. Irvine: Universal-Publishers. p. 557. {{ISBN|9781610167024}}.</ref> In the case of slavery, Rothbard claimed that in many cases "the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed". Rothbard believed slaves rightfully own any land they were forced to work on under the homestead principle. If property is held by the state, Rothbard advocated its confiscation and "return to the private sector",<ref>Deist, Jeff (7 December 2019). . Mises Institute. Retrieved 6 September 2020.</ref> writing that "any property in the hands of the State is in the hands of thieves, and should be liberated as quickly as possible".<ref name="Gordon 2019">Gordon, David, ed.; Rothbard, Murray; Fuller, Edward W. (2019). ''Rothbard A to Z''. Auburn: Mises Institute. {{ISBN|9781610167024}}.</ref> Rothbard proposed that ] be seized by the students and faculty under the homestead principle. Rothbard also supported the expropriation of nominally "private property" if it is the result of state-initiated force such as businesses that receive grants and subsidies.<ref>Carson, Kevin (28 September 2012). . Center for a Stateless Society. "What most people ordinarily identify as the stereotypical 'libertarian' privatization proposal, unfortunately, goes something like this: sell it to a giant corporation on terms that are most advantageous to the corporation. Rothbard proposed, instead, was to treat state property as unowned, and allow it to be homesteaded by those actually occupying it and mixing their labor with it. This would mean transforming government utilities, schools, and other services into consumer cooperatives and placing them under the direct control of their present clientele. It would mean handing over state industry to workers' syndicates and transforming it into worker-owned cooperatives". Retrieved 10 January 2020.</ref> Rothbard further proposed that businesses who receive at least 50% of their funding from the state be confiscated by the workers,<ref>Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1965). "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty". ''Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought''. '''1''' (1): 4–22.</ref><ref>Long, Roderick T. (8 April 2006). . Mises Institute. Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2020.</ref> writing: "What we libertarians object to, then, is not government ''per se'' but crime, what we object to is unjust or criminal property titles; what we are for is not 'private' property ''per se'' but just, innocent, non-criminal private property".<ref name="Gordon 2019" /> | |||
Similarly, ] wrote that "libertarianism wants to advance principles of property but that it in no way wishes to defend, willy nilly, all property which now is called private ... Much of that property is stolen. Much is of dubious title. All of it is deeply intertwined with an immoral, coercive state system".<ref name="Hess1969">{{cite journal |last1=Hess |first1=Karl |author-link1=Karl Hess |title=Letter From Washington: Where Are The Specifics? |journal=] |date=15 June 1969 |volume=I |issue=VI |page=2}} published in {{Cite book |url=https://cdn.mises.org/Libertarian%20Forum_Volume_1.pdf |title=The Complete Libertarian Forum: 1969–1984 |date=2006 |publisher=] |isbn=978-1-933550-02-2 |editor-last=Rothbard |editor-first=Murray N. |editor-link=Murray Rothbard |volume=Volume 1: 1969–1975 |page=26 |access-date=15 June 2020}}</ref> | |||
By accepting an axiomatic definition of private property and property rights, anarcho-capitalists deny the legitimacy of a state on principle.{{original research inline|date=October 2021}} ] argues: | |||
{{quote|For, apart from ruling out as unjustified all activities such as murder, homicide, rape, trespass, robbery, burglary, theft, and fraud, the ethics of private property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax.<ref name="Hoppe-2002" />}} | |||
Anarchists view capitalism as an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical system and seek the abolishment of private property.<ref name="proudhon-prop">] (1840). '']''</ref> There is disagreement between anarchists and anarcho-capitalists<ref>{{Cite web |last=Murray Rothbard |author-link=Murray Rothbard |title=Concepts of the role of intellectuals in social change toward laissez faire |url=https://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_3.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216214953/https://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_3.pdf |archive-date=16 December 2008<!--Added by DASHBot--> |access-date=28 December 2008}}</ref> as the former generally rejects anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism and considers ''anarcho-capitalism'' an oxymoron<ref>]. ''Anarchist Justice''. pp. 223–24</ref><ref>]. ''Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy''.</ref><ref>Kropotkin, Peter. ''Anarchism''.</ref> while the latter holds that the abolishment of private property would require expropriation which is "counterproductive to order" and would require a state.<ref name="libertarianpapers">Stacy, Don (2011). . ''Libertarian Papers''. '''3''' (3).</ref> | |||
==== Common property ==== | |||
As opposed to anarchists,<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Sandra Jeppesen |last2=Anna Kruzynski |last3=Rachel Sarrasin |date=2014 |title=The anarchist commons |url=http://www.mediaactionresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Anarchist-Commons-FINAL.pdf |website=Ephemera}}</ref> most anarcho-capitalists reject the ].<ref name="Holcombe" /> However, some of them propose that non-state public or community property can also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society.<ref name="Holcombe" /> For anarcho-capitalists, what is important is that it is "acquired" and transferred without help or hindrance from what they call the "compulsory state". Deontological anarcho-capitalists believe that the only just and most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based ], rather than through aggression or fraud.<ref>]. ''Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Abridged Paperback Edition (1996), p. 282.</ref> | |||
Anarcho-capitalists state that there could be cases where ] may develop in a ] framework. Anarcho-capitalists make the example of a number of private businesses which may arise in an area, each owning the land and buildings that they use, but they argue that the paths between them become cleared and trodden incrementally through customer and commercial movement. These thoroughfares may become valuable to the community, but according to them ownership cannot be attributed to any single person and ] does not apply because many contributed the labor necessary to create them. In order to prevent it from falling to the "]", anarcho-capitalists suggest transitioning from common to private property, wherein an individual would make a homesteading claim based on disuse, acquire title by the assent of the community consensus, form a corporation with other involved parties, or other means.<ref name="Holcombe">{{Cite journal |last=Holcombe |first=Randall G. |author-link=Randall G. Holcombe |date=Spring 2005 |title=Common Property in Anarcho-Capitalism |url=https://cdn.mises.org/19_2_1.pdf |journal=] |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=3–29 |access-date=15 June 2020}}</ref> | |||
Some vast areas, except the ] they contain, such as the air, rivers, oceans, the Moon, and orbital paths are considered by anarcho-capitalists as largely unownable by individuals and considered them to be property common to all.{{Fact|date=October 2021}} However, they see challenges stemming from this idea such as whether an individual might claim ] in the area of a major ] and thereby forbid passage through it.<ref name="Holcombe" /> In contrast, Hoppe's work on anarcho-capitalist theory is based on the assumption that all property is privately held, "including all streets, rivers, airports, and harbors" which forms the foundation of ].<ref name="Holcombe" /> | |||
==== Intellectual property ==== | |||
{{Main|Intellectual property}} | |||
Some anarcho-capitalists strongly oppose intellectual property (i.e., ], ], ]). ] argues that ownership only relates to tangible assets.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kinsella|first=N. Stephan|url=https://cdn.mises.org/Against%20Intellectual%20Property_2.pdf|title=Against Intellectual Property|publisher=Ludwig Von Mises Institute|year=2008}}</ref> | |||
=== Contractual society === | |||
The society envisioned by anarcho-capitalists has been labelled by them as a "contractual society" which Rothbard described as "a society based purely on voluntary action, entirely unhampered by violence or threats of violence"<ref name="Rothbard-MES" />{{rp|84}} The system relies on contracts between individuals as the legal framework which would be enforced by private police and security forces as well as private arbitrations.<ref name="kazmi">{{Cite book |last=Zaheer Kazmi |title=Polite Anarchy in International Relations Theory |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-137-02813-6 |series=The Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought |pages=46 |quote=Notably, in light of latter-day anarcho-capitalism, Tucker had also advocated the privatisation of the policing and security functions of the state to protect people and property and accepted the use of violence as means of enforcing contracts.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Nathan W. Schlueter |title=Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives? |last2=Nikolai G. Wenzel |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-5036-0029-4 |pages=138}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Carl Levy |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism |last2=Matthew Adams |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2019 |isbn=978-3-319-75620-2 |page=558}}</ref> | |||
Rothbard argues that ] for corporations could also exist through contract, arguing that "orporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, those men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation".<ref name="Rothbard-P&M" />{{rp|1144}} However, corporations created in this way would not be able to replicate the limit on liabilities arising non-contractually such as liability in tort for environmental disasters or personal injury which corporations currently enjoy. Rothbard acknowledges that "limited liability for torts is the illegitimate conferring of a special privilege".<ref name="Rothbard-P&M">{{Cite book |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |title=] |date=1977 |edition=2nd |author-link=Murray Rothbard |orig-year=1970}} published in {{cite book|last1=Rothbard|first1=Murray|title=Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market|date=2009|publisher=]|isbn=978-1-933550-27-5|edition=2nd|url=https://mises.org/library/man-economy-and-state-power-and-market|access-date=15 June 2020}}</ref>{{rp|1144}} | |||
There are limits to the right to contract under some interpretations of anarcho-capitalism. Rothbard believes that the right to contract is based in ]<ref name="Rothbard-1982.2" /> and because of this any contract that implicitly violates those rights can be voided at will, preventing a person from permanently selling himself or herself into unindentured ]. However, Rothbard justifies the practice of ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Murray Rothbard |date=4 May 2007 |title=Children and Rights |url=https://mises.org/library/children-and-rights |website=Mises Institute}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2 September 2016 |title=Where did Donald Trump get his racialized rhetoric? From libertarians |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/02/where-did-donald-trump-get-his-racialized-rhetoric-from-libertarians/ |website=The Washington Post}}</ref> Other interpretations conclude that banning such contracts would in itself be an unacceptably invasive interference in the right to contract.<ref name="Nozick-1974">{{Cite book |last=Nozick |first=Robert |title=Anarchy, State, and Utopia |date=1974 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |author-link=Robert Nozick}}{{pages?|date=July 2020}}</ref> | |||
Included in the right of contract is "the right to contract oneself out for employment by others". While anarchists criticize wage labour describing it as ], anarcho-capitalists view it as a consensual contract.<ref name="radcap" />{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Some anarcho-capitalists prefer to see self-employment prevail over wage labor. ] has expressed a preference for a society where "almost everyone is self-employed" and "instead of corporations there are large groups of entrepreneurs related by trade, not authority. Each sells not his time, but what his time produces".<ref name="radcap">Friedman, David. ''The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism''. Harper & Row. pp. 144–145.</ref> | |||
=== Law and order and the use of violence === | |||
Different anarcho-capitalists propose different forms of anarcho-capitalism and one area of disagreement is in the area of law. In '']'', Morris and Linda Tannehill object to any ] law whatsoever. They argue that all one has to do is ask if one is aggressing against another in order to decide if an act is right or wrong.<ref>Brown, Susan Love, ''The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View'', Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, edited by James G. Carrier, Berg/Oxford, 1997, p. 113.</ref> However, while also supporting a {{clarify|text="natural prohibition"|date=October 2020}} on force and fraud, Rothbard supports the establishment of a mutually agreed-upon centralized libertarian legal code which private courts would pledge to follow, as he presumes a high degree of convergence amongst individuals about what constitutes natural justice.<ref>{{Cite book |last=George Klosko |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy |publisher=OUP Oxford |year=2011 |pages=684}}</ref> | |||
Unlike both the Tannehills and Rothbard who see an ideological commonality of ethics and morality as a requirement, David D. Friedman proposes that "the systems of law will be produced for profit on the open market, just as books and bras are produced today. There could be competition among different brands of law, just as there is competition among different brands of cars".<ref name="koltwm">Friedman, David. ''The Machinery of Freedom''. Second edition. La Salle, Ill, Open Court, pp. 116–17.</ref> Friedman says whether this would lead to a libertarian society "remains to be proven". He says it is a possibility that very un-libertarian laws may result, such as laws against drugs, but he thinks this would be rare. He reasons that "if the value of a law to its supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law ... will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society".<ref>Friedman, David. ''The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism''. Harper & Row. pp. 127–28</ref> | |||
Anarcho-capitalists only accept the collective defense of individual liberty (i.e. courts, military, or police forces) insofar as such groups are formed and paid for on an explicitly voluntary basis. However, their complaint is not just that the state's defensive services are funded by taxation, but that the state assumes it is the only legitimate practitioner of physical force—that is, they believe it forcibly prevents the private sector from providing comprehensive security, such as a police, judicial and prison systems to protect individuals from aggressors. Anarcho-capitalists believe that there is nothing morally superior about the state which would grant it, but not private individuals, a right to use physical force to restrain aggressors. If competition in security provision were allowed to exist, prices would also be lower and services would be better according to anarcho-capitalists. According to Molinari: "Under a regime of liberty, the natural organization of the security industry would not be different from that of other industries".<ref name="Molinari-1849">De Molinari, Gustave (1849). . Translated by J. Huston McCulloch. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927000023/http://praxeology.net/GM-PS.htm|date=27 September 2007}} Retrieved 15 July 2006.</ref> Proponents believe that private systems of justice and defense already exist, naturally forming where the market is allowed to "compensate for the failure of the state",{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} namely private arbitration, security guards, neighborhood watch groups and so on.<ref name="Stringham 53">{{Cite journal |last1=Stringham |first1=Edward |last2=Curott |first2=Nicholas |date=2010 |editor-last=Lopez |editor-first=Edward |title=The Rise of Government Law Enforcement in England |journal=The Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions |publisher=Independent Institute |ssrn=1711665}}</ref><ref name="Stringham 52">{{Cite journal |last=Stringham |first=Edward |date=Winter 1998–1999 |title=Market Chosen Law |journal=Journal of Libertarian Studies |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=53–77 |ssrn=1676257}}</ref><ref name="Stringham 51">{{Cite journal |last1=Stringham |first1=Edward |last2=Zywicki |first2=Todd |date=5 November 2005 |title=Rivalry and Superior Dispatch: An Analysis of Competing Courts in Medieval and Early Modern England |journal=George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper |volume=10 |issue=57 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.1703598 |ssrn=1703598 |s2cid=154834118}}</ref><ref name="Friedman-1973">] (1973) '']: Guide to a Radical Capitalism'' Harper & Row {{ISBN|978-0-06-091010-5}} {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101231170941/http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.html|date=31 December 2010 }}</ref> These private courts and police are sometimes referred to generically as private defense agencies (PDAs). The defense of those unable to pay for such protection might be financed by charitable organizations relying on voluntary donation rather than by state institutions relying on taxation, or by cooperative self-help by groups of individuals.<ref name="Rothbard" />{{rp|223}} Edward Stringham argues that private adjudication of disputes could enable the market to internalize externalities and provide services that customers desire.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stringham |first=Edward |title=Private Governance |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref name="Stringham 60">{{Cite journal |last1=Caplan |first1=Bryan |last2=Stringham |first2=Edward |date=2008 |title=Privatizing the Adjudication of Disputes |journal=Theoretical Inquiries in Law |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=503–28 |doi=10.2202/1565-3404.1195 |ssrn=1674441 |s2cid=154304272}}</ref> | |||
] at the ] during the ], a war which anarcho-capitalists such as Murray Rothbard admired and believed it was the only American war that could be justified{{Fact|date=August 2021}}]] | |||
In the context of revolution, Rothbard stated that the American Revolutionary War was the only war involving the United States that could be justified.<ref>Rothbard, Murray N. (1973) ''Reason'' February 1973. Retrieved 10 August 2005.</ref> Some anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard feel that violent revolution is counter-productive and prefer voluntary forms of ] to the extent possible.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rothbard |first=Murray |date=1981 |title=Konkin on Libertarian Strategy |url=http://www.rothbard.it/articles/konkin-on-libertarian.pdf |journal=Strategy of the New Libertarian Alliance}}</ref> Like ] and unlike ], anarcho-capitalism permits the use of force as long as it is in the defense of persons or property. The permissible extent of this defensive use of force is an arguable point among anarcho-capitalists. ], meaning retaliatory force, is often a component of the contracts imagined for an anarcho-capitalist society. According to Matthew O'Keefee, some anarcho-capitalists believe prisons or ] would be justifiable institutions to deal with those who violate anarcho-capitalist property relations while others believe exile or forced ] are sufficient.<ref name="OKeefe1989">{{Cite journal |last=O'Keeffe |first=Matthew |date=1989 |title=Retribution Versus Restitution |url=http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan005.pdf |journal=Legal Notes |location=London |publisher=Libertarian Alliance |volume=5 |isbn=1-870614-22-4 |issn=0267-7083}}</ref> | |||
] argues that legal codes may impose punitive damages for intentional torts in the interest of deterring crime. Benson gives the example of a thief who breaks into a house by picking a lock. Even if caught before taking anything, Benson argues that the thief would still owe the victim for violating the sanctity of his property rights. Benson opines that despite the lack of objectively measurable losses in such cases, "standardized rules that are generally perceived to be fair by members of the community would, in all likelihood, be established through precedent, allowing judgments to specify payments that are reasonably appropriate for most criminal offenses".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benson |first=Bruce |url=https://archive.org/details/toserveprotectpr00bens |title=To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice |publisher=] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8147-1327-3 |pages=–38 |url-access=limited}}</ref> | |||
Morris and Linda Tannehill raise a similar example, saying that a bank robber who had an attack of conscience and returned the money would still owe reparations for endangering the employees' and customers' lives and safety, in addition to the costs of the defense agency answering the teller's call for help. However, they believe that the robber's loss of reputation would be even more damaging. They suggest that specialized companies would list aggressors so that anyone wishing to do business with a man could first check his record, provided they trust the veracity of the companies' records. They further theorise that the bank robber would find insurance companies listing him as a very poor risk and other firms would be reluctant to enter into contracts with him.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tannehill, Linda and Morris |url=https://www.mises.org/books/marketforliberty.pdf |title=The Market for Liberty |publisher=Fox & Wilkes |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-930073-08-4 |location=San Francisco |pages=105–06 |access-date=30 June 2011}}</ref> | |||
=== Free-market in children === | |||
] | |||
{{Main|Child selling}} | |||
Anarcho-capitalism as proposed by Murray Rothbard advocates the ownership of children and their sale. According Rothbard: "the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children. Superficially, this sounds monstrous and inhuman. But closer thought will reveal the superior humanism of such a market."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rothbard|first=Murray|url=https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty%2020191108.pdf|title=The Ethics of Liberty|publisher=NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS - New York and London|year=2016|isbn=978-1-61016-664-5|page=103|pages=|chapter=14. Children's Rights}}</ref> ] also supports the sale of children, stating that adoptive parents not being able to pay biological parents "is responsible for the trauma and heartbreak which attend adoption in the United States today".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/baby-selling|title=On Baby Selling|website=Libtertarianism.org|date=2 January 1979|last=Block|first=Walter}}</ref> | |||
== Influences == | |||
Murray Rothbard has listed different ideologies of which his interpretations, he said, have influenced anarcho-capitalism.<ref name="Miller 1987" /><ref name="Bottomore 1991" /> This includes his interpretation of anarchism, and more precisely individualist anarchism; classical liberalism and the ] of economic thought. Scholars additionally associate anarcho-capitalism with ], radical ] and ].<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Goodway 2006" /><ref name="Newman 2010" /> | |||
=== Anarchism === | |||
{{Main|Anarchism and capitalism}} | |||
], '''' (2007): 188</ref> and is also used by the Swedish ''AnarkoKapitalistisk Front''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Flags of political parties (Sweden) |url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/se-pol.html#akf |access-date=30 October 2014 |publisher=FOTW Flags of the World website}}</ref>]]In both its ] and ] forms, ] is usually considered an ]<ref name="Jun 2009">Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". ''WorkingUSA''. '''12''' (3): 507–508. {{DOI|10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x}}. {{ISSN|1089-7011}}. " all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism."</ref><ref name="Williams 2018">Williams, Dana M. (2018). "Contemporary Anarchist and Anarchistic Movements". ''Sociology Compass''. Wiley. '''12''' (6): 4. {{DOI|10.1111/soc4.12582}}. {{ISSN|1751-9020}}.</ref> and ] left-wing or far-left<ref name="brooks">{{Cite book |last=Brooks |first=Frank H. |title=The Individualist Anarchists: An Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908) |publisher=Transaction Publishers |year=1994 |isbn=1-56000-132-1 |page=xi}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kahn |first=Joseph |year=2000 |title=Anarchism, the Creed That Won't Stay Dead; The Spread of World Capitalism Resurrects a Long-Dormant Movement |journal=The New York Times |issue=5 August}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Moynihan |first=Colin |title=Book Fair Unites Anarchists. In Spirit, Anyway |journal=The New York Times |issue=16 April}}</ref> movement that promotes ] economic theories such as ], ], ], ] and ].<ref>Guerin, Daniel (1970). ''Anarchism: From Theory to Practice''. Monthly Review Press. pp. 12, 35. {{ISBN|9780853451280}}.</ref> Because anarchism is usually described alongside ] as the ] wing of the ] and as having a historical association with anti-capitalism and ], anarchists believe that ] is incompatible with ] and ] and therefore do not recognize anarcho-capitalism as an ].<ref name="Marshall 1992">Marshall, Peter (1992). ''Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism''. London: HarperCollins. pp. 564–565. {{ISBN|978-0-00-217855-6}}. "Anarcho-capitalists are against the State simply because they are capitalists first and foremost. They are not concerned with the social consequences of capitalism for the weak, powerless and ignorant. As such, anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker. In fact, few anarchists would accept the 'anarcho-capitalists' into the anarchist camp since they do not share a concern for economic equality and social justice. Their self-interested, calculating market men would be incapable of practising voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Anarcho-capitalists, even if they do reject the state, might therefore best be called right-wing libertarians rather than anarchists."</ref><ref name="Goodway 2006">Goodway, David (2006). '']''. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Rothbard and Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."</ref><ref name="Newman 2010">Newman, Saul (2010). ''The Politics of Postanarchism''. Edinburgh University Press. p. 43. "It is important to distinguish between anarchism and certain strands of right-wing libertarianism which at times go by the same name (for example, Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism)." {{ISBN|0748634959}}.</ref> In particular, anarchists argue that capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which is incompatible with an anarchist society.<ref name="Tame, Chris R 1983. p. 56">Tame, Chris R. (October 1983). ''The Chicago School: Lessons from the Thirties for the Eighties''. Economic Affairs. p. 56.</ref><ref name="McKay 2008">McKay, Iain (2008). ''An Anarchist FAQ''. '''1'''. "What are the myths of capitalist economics?" "Is 'anarcho'-capitalism a type of anarchism?" Oakland/Edinburgh: AK Press. {{ISBN|978-1902593906}}.</ref> The usage of ''libertarian'' is also in dispute.<ref>Marshall, Peter (1992). ''Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism''. London: HarperCollins. p. 641. {{ISBN|978-0-00-217855-6}}. "For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchist but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent."</ref> While both anarchists and anarcho-capitalists have used it, ''libertarian'' was synonymous with ''anarchist'' until the mid-20th century, when anarcho-capitalist theory developed.<ref name="Goodway 2006" /><ref>Cohn, Jesse (20 April 2009). "Anarchism". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). ''The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest''. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 1–11. {{DOI|10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp0039}}. {{ISBN|978-1-4051-9807-3}}. " 'libertarianism' a term that, until the mid-twentieth century, was synonymous with 'anarchism' ''per se''" (p. 6).</ref> | |||
Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from the dominant anarchist tradition by their relation to ] and ]. While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism share general antipathy towards power by government authority, the latter exempts power wielded through ]. Anarchists, including ] such as ], have supported the protection of an individual's freedom from powers of both government and private property owners.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Francis |first=Mark |date=December 1983 |title=Human Rights and Libertarians |journal=] |volume=29 |issue=3 |page=462 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8497.1983.tb00212.x |issn=0004-9522}}</ref> In contrast, while condemning governmental encroachment on personal liberties, anarcho-capitalists support freedoms based on private property rights. Anarcho-capitalist theorist ] argued that protesters should rent a street for protest from its owners. The abolition of public amenities is a common theme in some anarcho-capitalist writings.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Francis |first=Mark |date=December 1983 |title=Human Rights and Libertarians |journal=] |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=462–463 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8497.1983.tb00212.x |issn=0004-9522}}</ref> | |||
As anarcho-capitalism puts '']'' economics before economic equality, it is commonly viewed as incompatible with the anti-capitalist and egalitarian tradition of anarchism. Although anarcho-capitalist theory implies the abolition of the state in favour of a fully ''laissez-faire'' economy,<ref name="Gay & Gay 1999">Gay, Kathlyn; Gay, Martin (1999). ''Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy''. ABC-CLIO. {{ISBN|978-0-87436-982-3}}.</ref> it lies outside the tradition of anarchism.<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Jennings 1993">Jennings, Jeremy (1993). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). ''Contemporary Political Ideologies''. London: Pinter. pp. 127–146. {{ISBN|978-0-86187-096-7}}. " anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality ''and'' community" (p. 143).</ref><ref name="Gay & Gay 1999, p. 15">Gay, Kathlyn; Gay, Martin (1999). ''Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy''. ABC-CLIO. p. 15. {{ISBN|978-0-87436-982-3}}. "For many anarchists (of whatever persuasion), anarcho-capitalism is a contradictory term, since 'traditional' anarchists oppose capitalism".</ref><ref name="Morriss 2008">Morriss, Andrew (2008). "Anarcho-capitalism". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). ''The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism''. SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 13–14. {{DOI|10.4135/9781412965811.n8}}. {{ISBN|978-1-4129-6580-4}}. {{OCLC|191924853}}. "Social anarchists, those anarchists with communitarian leanings, are critical of anarcho-capitalism because it permits individuals to accumulate substantial power through markets and private property."</ref><ref name="Franks 2013">Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". ''The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies''. Oxford University Press: 385–404. {{DOI|10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001}}. "Individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism are incompatible with practices of social anarchism. Increasingly, academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism" (pp. 393–394).</ref> While using the language of anarchism,<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> anarcho-capitalism only shares anarchism's antipathy towards the state<ref name="Gay & Gay 1999" /> and not anarchism's antipathy towards hierarchy as theorists expect from anarcho-capitalist economic power relations.<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64">Davis, Laurence (2019). "Individual and Community". In Levy, Carl; Adams, Matthew S. (eds.). ''The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism''. Cham: Springer. pp. 47–70. {{DOI|10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_3}}. {{ISBN|978-3-319-75619-6}}.</ref> It follows a different paradigm from anarchism and has a fundamentally different approach and goals.<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> In spite of the ''anarcho-'' in its title,<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> anarcho-capitalism is more closely affiliated with capitalism and ] than with anarchism.<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Jennings 1993" /><ref name="Gay & Gay 1999, p. 15" /><ref name="Morriss 2008" /><ref name="Franks 2013" /> Some within this ''laissez-faire'' tradition reject the designation of ''anarcho-capitalism'', believing that ''capitalism'' may either refer to the ''laissez-faire'' market they support or the government-regulated system that they oppose.<ref>Long, Roderick T.; Machan, Tibor R., eds. (2008). ''Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?'' Ashgate. p. vii. {{ISBN|978-0-7546-6066-8}}.</ref> | |||
Rothbard claimed that anarcho-capitalism is the only true form of anarchism—the only form of anarchism that could possibly exist in reality as he maintained that any other form presupposes authoritarian enforcement of political ideology such as "redistribution of private property" which he attributed to anarchism.<ref>Rothbard, Murray (25 February 1972). . ''The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal''. Retrieved 13 September 2020.</ref> According to this argument, the capitalist ] is "the natural situation" that would result from people being free from state authority and entails the establishment of all voluntary associations in society such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations, businesses and so on. Moreover, anarcho-capitalists, as well as ] ], argue that the application of anarchist ideals as advocated by what they term "left-wing anarchists" would require an authoritarian body of some sort to impose it. Based on their understanding and interpretation of anarchism, in order to forcefully prevent people from accumulating capital, which they believe is a goal of anarchists, there would necessarily be a redistributive organization of some sort which would have the authority to in essence exact a tax and re-allocate the resulting resources to a larger group of people. They conclude that this theoretical body would inherently have political power and would be nothing short of a state. The difference between such an arrangement and an anarcho-capitalist system is what anarcho-capitalists see as the voluntary nature of organization within anarcho-capitalism contrasted with a "centralized ideology" and a "paired enforcement mechanism" which they believe would be necessary under what they describe as a "coercively" egalitarian-anarchist system.<ref name="Tame, Chris R 1983. p. 56" /> | |||
Despite their name, anarcho-capitalists are generally seen by anarchists, who reject the notion of capitalism, hierarchies and private property,<ref name="Funnell 2007">Funnell, Warwick (2007). . ''Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal''. '''1''' (1) 18–27. {{DOI|10.14453/aabfj.v1i1.2}}.</ref><ref name="Williams 2012">Williams, Dana (2012). "From Top to Bottom, a Thoroughly Stratified World: An Anarchist View of Inequality and Domination". ''Race, Gender & Class''. '''19''' (3/4): 9–34. {{jstor|43497486}}.</ref><ref name="White & Williams 2014">White, Richard; Williams, Colin (2014). . ''Ephermera: Theory and Politics in Organization''. '''14''' (4): 947–971. {{ssrn|2707308}}.</ref> as fraudulent and an ].<ref name="Robinson 2009">Robinson, Christine M. (2009). "The Continuing Significance of Class: Confronting Capitalism in an Anarchist Community". ''Working USA''. '''12''' (3): 355–370. {{DOI|10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00243.x}}.</ref><ref name="El-Ojeili 2012">El-Ojeili, Chamsy (2012). "Anarchism as the Contemporary Spirit of Anti-Capitalism? A Critical Survey of Recent Debates". ''Critical Sociology''. '''40''' (3): 451–468. {{DOI|10.1177/0896920512452023}}.</ref> ] argued that anarcho-capitalism simply cannot be anarchism because capitalism and the state are inextricably interlinked and because capitalism exhibits domineering hierarchical structures such as that between an employer and an employee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Casey |first=Gerard |title=Freedom's Progress? |publisher=Andrews UK Limited |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-84540-942-5 |page=670}}</ref> Anna Morgenstern approaches this topic from the opposite perspective, arguing that anarcho-capitalists are not really capitalists because "mass concentration of capital is impossible" without the state.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jun |first=Nathan J. |title=Brill's Companion to Anarchism and philosophy |publisher=Brill |year=2017 |isbn=978-9004356887 |page=293}}</ref> According to ], "t is hard not to conclude that these ideas", referring to anarcho-capitalism, argued to have "roots deep in classical liberalism" more so than in anarchism, "are described as anarchist only on the basis of a misunderstanding of what anarchism is". For Jennings, "anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality and community".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jennings |first=Jeremy |title=Contemporary Political Ideologies |publisher=A & C Black |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8264-5173-6 |editor-last=Eatwell |editor-first=Roger |edition=reprinted, 2nd |location=London |page=147 |chapter=Anarchism |editor-last2=Wright |editor-first2=Anthony}}</ref> Similarly, Barbara Goodwin, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, argues that anarcho-capitalism's "true place is in the group of right-wing libertarians", not in anarchism.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Barbara |title=Using Political Ideas |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-470-02552-9 |location=Hoboken |page=143}}</ref> Nonetheless, some right-libertarian scholars like ], who identify with the ideology, describe anarcho-capitalism as a "variety of anarchism".<ref>{{Cite book |last=] |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/right-anarchy-michael-huemer/e/10.4324/9781315185255-24 |title=The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought |publisher=Routledge |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-315-18525-5 |pages=342–359 |chapter=The Right Anarchy |doi=10.4324/9781315185255-24 |quote=(From abstract): There are two main varieties of anarchism: the socialist variety (aka “social anarchism” or “anarcho-socialism”) and the capitalist variety (“anarcho-capitalism”)}}</ref> British author ] also believes that "individualist anarchism overlaps with libertarianism and is usually linked to a strong belief in the market as a self-regulating mechanism, most obviously manifest in the form of anarcho-capitalism".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Political Ideologies: An introduction, fifth edition (Chapter summaries) |url=https://www.macmillanihe.com/companion/Heywood-Political-Ideologies/resources/Chapter-summaries/ |website=Macmillan International}}</ref> | |||
While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism are in opposition to the state, it is a ] condition because anarchists and anarcho-capitalists interpret state-rejection differently.<ref>McLaughlin, Paul (2007). ''Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism''. Ashgate. –166. {{ISBN|9780754661962}}. "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short. is (contrary to what many scholars believe) ''not definitive of anarchism''."</ref><ref>Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". ''WorkingUSA''. '''12''' (3): 505–519. {{DOI|10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x}}. {{ISSN|1089-7011}}. "One common misconception, which has been rehearsed repeatedly by the few Anglo-American philosophers who have bothered to broach the topic is that anarchism can be defined solely in terms of opposition to states and governments" (p. 507).</ref><ref>Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". ''The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies''. Oxford University Press: 385–404. {{DOI|10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001}}. "any, questionably, regard anti-statism as the irremovable, universal principle at the core of anarchism. The fact that share a core concept of 'anti-statism', which is often advanced as a commonality between them , is insufficient to produce a shared identity because the concept of state-rejection differently despite the initial similarity in nomenclature" (pp. 386–388).</ref><ref name="prychytkodl">{{Cite book |last=David L. Prychytko |title=Markets, Planning, and Democracy |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing, Incorporated |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-84376-738-1 |pages=124 |chapter=Chapter 10: Expanding the Anarchist Range: A Critical Reappraisal of Rothbard’s Contribution to the Contemporary Theory of Anarchism |quote=While society without a state is necessary for full-fledged anarchy, it is nevertheless insufficient.}}</ref> Austrian school economist ], in the context of anarcho-capitalism says that "while society without a state is necessary for full-fledged anarchy, it is nevertheless insufficient".<ref name="prychytkodl" /> According to ], anarcho-capitalists are ] who draw more on right-wing ] and the ] than ]. Kinna writes that "n order to highlight the clear distinction between the two positions", anarchists describe anarcho-capitalists as "]".<ref name="Kinna 2012">Kinna, Ruth, ed. (2012). ''The Bloomsbury Companion to Anarchism''. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 330–331. {{ISBN|9781441142702}}.</ref> Anarcho-capitalism is usually seen as part of the ].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meltzer |first=Albert |url=https://archive.org/details/anarchism00albe |title=Anarchism: Arguments for and Against |publisher=AK Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-873176-57-3 |location=London |page= |quote=The philosophy of 'anarcho-capitalism' dreamed up by the 'libertarian' New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper. |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vincent |first=Andrew |title=Modern Political Ideologies |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4443-1105-1 |edition=3rd |location=Hoboken |page=66 |quote=Whom to include under the rubric of the New Right remains puzzling. It is usually seen as an amalgam of traditional liberal conservatism, Austrian liberal economic theory Ludwing von Mises and Hayek), extreme libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism), and crude populism.}}</ref> | |||
Although Rothbard promoted anarcho-capitalism as a genuine form of anarchism, he would later declare: {{Quote box | |||
| quote = We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical.<ref>{{Cite web|last=kanopiadmin|date=2007-12-03|title=Are Libertarians "Anarchists"?|url=https://mises.org/library/are-libertarians-anarchists|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Mises Institute|language=en}}</ref> | |||
| author = ] | |||
}} | |||
=== Classical liberalism === | |||
{{Main|Classical liberalism}} | |||
In his essay ''The Production of Security'', ] argued that "o government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity". Molinari and this new type of anti-state liberal grounded their reasoning on liberal ideals and ]. Historian and libertarian ] argues that what these ] "had come up with was a form of individualist anarchism, or, as it would be called today, anarcho-capitalism or market anarchism".<ref>Raico, Ralph (2004). . Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee. Unité associée au CNRS. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090610035217/http://www.crea.polytechnique.fr/index.htm|date=10 June 2009}}. Retrieved 10 June 2009.</ref> According to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the anti-state liberal tradition in Europe and the United States continued after Molinari in the early writings of ] as well as in thinkers such as ] and ].<ref name="Hoppe 2001" /> | |||
] writes that ''anarcho-capitalism'' is a term coined by ] to describe "a commitment to unregulated private property and laissez-faire economics, prioritizing the liberty-rights of individuals, unfettered by government regulation, to accumulate, consume and determine the patterns of their lives as they see fit". According to Kinna, anarcho-capitalists "will sometimes label themselves market anarchists because they recognize the negative connotations of 'capitalism'. But the literature of anarcho-capitalism draws on classical liberal theory, particularly the ] – ] and ] – rather than recognizable ]. ]'s laissez-faire, anti-government, corporate philosophy – ] – is sometimes associated with anarcho-capitalism".<ref name="Kinna 2012" /> Other scholars similarly associate anarcho-capitalism with anti-state classical liberalism, ], radical ] and ].<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Goodway 2006" /><ref name="Newman 2010" /><ref>Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. ''The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America''. London: Sage Publications. pp. 1006–1007. {{ISBN|9781412988766}}.</ref> | |||
=== Individualist anarchism === | |||
{{Main|Individualist anarchism}} | |||
], an American individualist anarchist and anti-capitalist ], who is claimed to have influenced anarcho-capitalism]] | |||
], a student of ], stated that he was influenced by the work of the 19th-century ].<ref>De Leon, David (1978). '']''. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. " Only a few individuals like Murray Rothbard, in Power and Market, and some article writers were influenced by these men. Most had not evolved consciously from this tradition; they had been a rather automatic product of the American environment."</ref> In the winter of 1949, Rothbard decided to reject ] '']'' and embrace his interpretation of individualist anarchism.<ref>Gordon, David (2007). ''The Essential Rothbard''. Mises Institute. pp. 12–13.</ref> In 1965, Rothbard wrote that "] and ] were unsurpassed as political philosophers and nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy they left to political philosophy".<ref name="Rothbard 2000">Rothbard, Murray (2000) . . ''Journal of Libertarian Studies''. '''20''' (1): 5–15.</ref> However, Rothbard thought that they had a faulty understanding of economics as the 19th-century individualist anarchists had a ] as influenced by the ] and was a student of ] economics which does not agree with the labor theory of value.<ref name="Miller 1987" /> Rothbard sought to meld 19th-century American individualist anarchists' advocacy of ] and ]s with the principles of Austrian School economics, arguing that "here is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics', a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung".<ref>Rothbard, Murray (2000) . . ''Journal of Libertarian Studies''. '''20''' (1): 7.</ref> Rothbard held that the economic consequences of the political system they advocate would not result in an economy with people being paid in proportion to labor amounts, nor would profit and interest disappear as they expected. Tucker thought that unregulated banking and money issuance would cause increases in the money supply so that interest rates would drop to zero or near to it.<ref name="Rothbard 2000" /> ] states that "anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker".<ref name="Marshall 1992" /> | |||
In "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View", Rothbard explained his disagreements. Rothbard disagreed with Tucker that it would cause the money supply to increase because he believed that the money supply in a free market would be self-regulating. If it were not, then Rothbard argued inflation would occur so it is not necessarily desirable to increase the money supply in the first place. Rothbard claimed that Tucker was wrong to think that interest would disappear regardless because he believed people, in general, do not wish to lend their money to others without compensation, so there is no reason why this would change just because banking was unregulated.<ref name="Rothbard 2000" /> Tucker held a labor theory of value and thought that in a free market people would be paid in proportion to how much labor they exerted and that exploitation or usury was taking place if they were not. As Tucker explained in ''State Socialism and Anarchism'', his theory was that unregulated banking would cause more money to be available and that this would allow the proliferation of new businesses which would, in turn, raise demand for labor.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=Benjamin |url=https://archive.org/details/statesocialisman00tuck/page/n5 |title=State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree & Wherein They Differ |date=1911 |publisher=A. C. Fifield |edition=6th |location=London}}</ref> This led Tucker to believe that the labor theory of value would be vindicated and equal amounts of labor would receive equal pay. As an Austrian School economist, Rothbard did not agree with the labor theory and believed that prices of goods and services are proportional to ] rather than to labor amounts in the free market. As opposed to Tucker he did not think that there was anything exploitative about people receiving an income according to how much "buyers of their services value their labor" or what that labor produces.<ref name="Rothbard 2000" /> | |||
], another individualist anarchist, who identified as a socialist and his individualist anarchism as ] versus ], said to have influenced anarcho-capitalism]] | |||
Without the labor theory of value,<ref name="Avrich 1996" /> some argue that 19th-century ] approximate the modern movement of anarcho-capitalism,<ref name="Miller 1987" /><ref name="Bottomore 1991" /><ref name="Outhwaite 2003" /> although this has been contested<ref name="Franks 2013" /> or rejected.<ref>Wieck, David (1978). . In Chapman, John W.; Pennock, J. Roland Pennock, eds. ''Anarchism: Nomos XIX''. New York: New York University Press. pp. 227–228. "Out of the history of anarchist thought and action Rothbard has pulled forth a single thread, the thread of individualism, and defines that individualism in a way alien even to the spirit of a Max Stirner or a Benjamin Tucker, whose heritage I presume he would claim – to say nothing of how alien is his way to the spirit of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and the historically anonymous persons who through their thoughts and action have tried to give anarchism a living meaning. Out of this thread, Rothbard manufactures one more bourgeois ideology." Retrieved 7 April 2020.</ref><ref name="Peacott 1985">Peacott, Joe (18 April 1985). . ''New Libertarian'' (14, June 1985. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170207212416/http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mcelroy2.html|date=7 February 2017}}. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "In her article on individualist anarchism in October 1984, ''New Libertarian'', Wendy McElroy mistakenly claims that modern-day individualist anarchism is identical with anarchist capitalism. She ignores the fact that there are still individualist anarchists who reject capitalism as well as communism, in the tradition of Warren, Spooner, Tucker, and others. Benjamin Tucker, when he spoke of his ideal 'society of contract,' was certainly not speaking of anything remotely resembling contemporary capitalist society. I do not quarrel with McElroy's definition of herself as an individualist anarchist. However, I dislike the fact that she tries to equate the term with anarchist capitalism. This is simply not true. I am an individualist anarchist and I am opposed to capitalist economic relations, voluntary or otherwise."</ref><ref>Baker, J. W. "Native American Anarchism". ''The Raven''. '''10''' (1): 43‒62. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "It is time that anarchists recognise the valuable contributions of individualist anarchist theory and take advantage of its ideas. It would be both futile and criminal to leave it to the capitalist libertarians, whose claims on Tucker and the others can be made only by ignoring the violent opposition they had to capitalist exploitation and monopolistic 'free enterprise' supported by the state."</ref> As economic theory changed, the popularity of the labor theory of ] was superseded by the ] of ] and Rothbard combined Mises' Austrian School of economics with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Tucker and Spooner.<ref>Miller, David, ed. (1987). ''The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought''. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 290. {{ISBN|0-631-17944-5}}.</ref> In the mid-1950s, Rothbard wrote an unpublished article named "Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?" under the pseudonym "Aubrey Herbert", concerned with differentiating himself from communist and socialistic economic views of anarchists, including the individualist anarchists of the 19th century, concluding that "we are ''not'' anarchists and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground and are being completely unhistorical. On the other hand, it is clear that we are not archists either: we do not believe in establishing a tyrannical central authority that will coerce the noninvasive as well as the invasive. Perhaps, then, we could call ourselves by a new name: ''non''archist."<ref name="Are Libertarians">Rothbard, Murray (1950s). Lew Rockwell.com. Retrieved 4 September 2020.</ref> Joe Peacott, an American individualist anarchist in the ] tradition, criticizes anarcho-capitalists for trying to hegemonize the individualist anarchism label and make appear as if all individualist anarchists are in favor of ].<ref name="Peacott 1985" /> Peacott states that "individualists, both past and present, agree with the communist anarchists that present-day capitalism is based on economic coercion, not on voluntary contract. Rent and interest are the mainstays of modern capitalism and are protected and enforced by the state. Without these two unjust institutions, capitalism could not exist".<ref>Peacott, Joe (18 April 1985). . ''New Libertarian'' (14, June 1985). {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170207212416/http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mcelroy2.html|date=7 February 2017}}. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "In her overview of anarchist history, McElroy criticizes the individualists of the past for their belief in the labor theory of value, because it fails to distinguish between profit and plunder. Some anarchist individualists still believe that profit is theft and that living off the labor of others is immoral. And some individualists, both past and present, agree with the communist anarchists that present-day capitalism is based on economic coercion, not on voluntary contract. Rent and interest are the mainstays of modern capitalism and are protected and enforced by the state. Without these two unjust institutions, capitalism could not exist. These two institutions, and the money monopoly of the state, effectively prevent most people from being economically independent and force them into wage labor. Saying that coercion does not exist i capitalist economic relations because workers aren't forced to work by armed capitalists ignores the very real economic coercion caused by this alliance of capitalism and the state. People don't voluntarily work for wages or pay rent, except in the sense that most people 'voluntarily' pay taxes Because one recognizes when she or he is up against superior force and chooses to compromise in order to survive, does not make these activities voluntary; at least, not in the way I envision voluntary relations in an anarchist society."</ref> | |||
Anarchist activists and scholars do not consider anarcho-capitalism as a part of the anarchist movement because anarchism has historically been an ] movement and see it as incompatible with capitalist forms.<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Goodway 2006" /><ref name="Newman 2010" /><ref>Sabatini, Peter (Fall/Winter 1994–1995). . '']'' (41). Retrieved 4 September 2020. "Within Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective that actually argues for the total elimination of the state. However, Rothbard's claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown that he only wants an end to the public state. In its place, he allows countless private states, with each person supplying their own police force, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from capitalist vendors so what remains is shrill anti-statism conjoined to a vacuous freedom in hackneyed defense of capitalism. In sum, the "anarchy" of Libertarianism reduces to a liberal fraud."</ref><ref>Meltzer, Albert (2000). . Oakland: AK Press. p. 50. "The philosophy of 'anarcho-capitalism' dreamed up by the 'libertarian' New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper."</ref> Although some regard anarcho-capitalism as a form of individualist anarchism,<ref name="Miller 1987" /><ref name="Bottomore 1991" /><ref name="Outhwaite 2003" /> many others disagree or contest the existence of an individualist–socialist divide because individualist anarchism is largely ].<ref name="Franks 2013" /><ref>{{Cite book |title=An Anarchist FAQ |publisher=AK Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-84935-122-5 |editor-last=McKay |editor-first=Iain |volume=II |location=Stirling}}</ref> In coming to terms that anarchism identified with ], Rothbard wrote that individualist anarchism is different from anarcho-capitalism and other capitalist theories due to the individualist anarchists retaining the labor theory of value and socialist doctrines.<ref name="Are Libertarians " /> Similarly, many writers deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism or that capitalism is compatible with anarchism.<ref name="Marshall 1992" /><ref name="Jennings 1993" /><ref name="Gay & Gay 1999, p. 15" /><ref name="Morriss 2008" /><ref name="Franks 2013" /> | |||
''The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism'' writes that "s Benjamin Franks rightly points out, individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism are incompatible with practices of social anarchism based on developing immanent goods which contest such as inequalities". Laurence Davis cautiosly asks "s anarcho-capitalism really a form of anarchism or instead a wholly different ideological paradigm whose adherents have attempted to expropriate the language of anarchism for their own anti-anarchist ends?" Davis cites ], "whom Franks cites as an authority to support his contention that 'academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism'", as arguing "quite emphatically on the very pages cited by Franks that anarcho-capitalism is by no means a type of anarchism". McKay writes that "t is important to stress that anarchist opposition to the so-called capitalist 'anarchists' does ''not'' reflect some kind of debate within anarchism, as many of these types like to pretend, but a debate between anarchism and its old enemy capitalism. ... Equally, given that anarchists and 'anarcho'-capitalists have fundamentally ''different'' analyses and goals it is hardly 'sectarian' to point this out".<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> | |||
Davis writes that "Franks asserts without supporting evidence that most major forms of individualist anarchism have been largely anarcho-capitalist in content, and concludes from this premise that most forms of individualism are incompatible with anarchism". Davis argues that "the conclusion is unsustainable because the premise is false, depending as it does for any validity it might have on the further assumption that anarcho-capitalism is indeed a form of anarchism. If we reject this view, then we must also reject the individual anarchist versus the communal anarchist 'chasm' style of argument that follows from it".<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> Davis maintains that "the ideological core of anarchism is the belief that society can and should be organised without hierarchy and domination. Historically, anarchists have struggles against a wide range of regimes of domination, from capitalism, the state system, patriarchy, heterosexism, and the domination of nature to colonialism, the war system, slavery, fascism, white supremacy, and certain forms of organised religion". According to Davis, "hile these visions range from the predominantly individualistic to the predominantly communitarian, features common to virtually all include an emphasis on self-management and self-regulatory methods of organisation, voluntary association, decentralised society, based on the principle of free association, in which people will manage and govern themselves".<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> Finally, Davis includes a footnote stating that "ndividualist anarchism may plausibly be re regarded as a form of both socialism and anarchism. Whether the individualist anarchists were ''consistent'' anarchists (and socialists) is another question entirely. ... McKay comments as follows: 'any individualist anarchism which supports wage labour is ''inconsistent'' anarchism. It ''can'' easily be made ''consistent'' anarchism by applying its own principles {{sic|?|consistenly}}. In contrast 'anarcho'-capitalism rejects so many of the basic, underlying, principles of anarchism ... that it cannot be made consistent with the ideals of anarchism'".<ref name="Davis 2019, p. 64" /> | |||
== Historical precedents == | |||
Several ] have discussed historical precedents of what they believe were examples of anarcho-capitalism.<ref name="ANCAP FAQ" /><ref name="Friedman-79" /><ref name="Long-Vikings">{{Cite web |last=Long |first=Roderick T. |author-link=Roderick T. Long |date=6 June 2002 |title=Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune? (The Vikings Were Libertarians) |url=https://www.lewrockwell.com/2002/06/roderick-t-long/the-vikings-were-libertarians |access-date=15 June 2020 |publisher=]}}</ref><ref name="Rothbard" />{{page needed|date=December 2020}}<ref name="tabarroki" /> | |||
=== Free cities of medieval Europe === | |||
Economist and libertarian scholar ] considers the free cities of medieval Europe as examples of "anarchist" or "nearly anarchistic" societies,<ref name="ANCAP FAQ">{{Cite web |title=Anarchist Theory FAQ Version 5.2 |url=http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/anarfaq.htm |access-date=23 August 2020 |publisher=George Mason University}}</ref> further arguing: | |||
{{quote|One case that has inspired both sorts of anarchists is that of the free cities of medieval Europe. The first weak link in the chain of feudalism, these free cities became Europe's centers of economic development, trade, art, and culture. They provided a haven for runaway serfs, who could often legally gain their freedom if they avoided re-capture for a year and a day. And they offer many examples of how people can form mutual-aid associations for protection, insurance, and community. Of course, left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists take a somewhat different perspective on the free cities: the former emphasize the communitarian and egalitarian concerns of the free cities, while the latter point to the relatively unregulated nature of their markets and the wide range of services (often including defense, security, and legal services) which were provided privately or semi-privately.<ref name="ANCAP FAQ" />}} | |||
=== Medieval Iceland === | |||
] in the ] which authors such as David D. Friedman believe to have some features of anarcho-capitalist society]] | |||
According to the libertarian theorist ], "edieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions".<ref name="Friedman-79">Friedman, David D. (1979). "". Retrieved 12 August 2005.</ref> While not directly labeling it anarcho-capitalist, Friedman argues that the legal system of the ] comes close to being a real-world anarcho-capitalist legal system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Friedman, David D |title=The Machinery of Freedom |date=28 February 2015 |isbn=978-1507785607 |edition=3rd |pages=203–204 |chapter=Private Law Enforcement, Medieval Iceland, and Libertarianism}}</ref> Although noting that there was a single legal system, Friedman argues that enforcement of the law was entirely private and highly capitalist, providing some evidence of how such a society would function. Friedman further wrote that "ven where the Icelandic legal system recognized an essentially 'public' offense, it dealt with it by giving some individual (in some cases chosen by lot from those affected) the right to pursue the case and collect the resulting fine, thus fitting it into an essentially private system".<ref name="Friedman-79" /> | |||
=== American Old West === | |||
According to ] and P. J. Hill, the ] in the United States in the period of 1830 to 1900 was similar to anarcho-capitalism in that "private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved" and that the common popular perception that the Old West was chaotic with little respect for property rights is incorrect.<ref>Anderson, Terry L. and Hill, P. J. "", ''The Journal of Libertarian Studies''</ref> Since ]s had no claim to western lands under federal law, extra-legal organizations formed to fill the void. Benson explains: | |||
{{quote|The land clubs and claim associations each adopted their own written contract setting out the laws that provided the means for defining and protecting property rights in the land. They established procedures for registration of land claims, as well as for the protection of those claims against outsiders, and for adjudication of internal disputes that arose. The reciprocal arrangements for protection would be maintained only if a member complied with the association's rules and its court's rulings. Anyone who refused would be ostracized. A boycott by a land club meant that an individual had no protection against aggression other than what he could provide himself.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benson, Bruce L. |url=https://archive.org/details/toserveprotectpr00bens |title=To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice |publisher=] |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8147-1327-3 |location=New York |page= |chapter=Private Justice in America |url-access=limited}}</ref>}} | |||
According to Anderson, "efining anarcho-capitalist to mean minimal government with property rights developed from the bottom up, the western frontier was anarcho-capitalistic. People on the frontier invented institutions that fit the resource constraints they faced".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Probasco, Christian |date=18 June 2008 |title=Grilling Terry L. Anderson, Free-Market Environmentalist |url=http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/grilling_terry_l_anderson_free_market_environmentalist/C39/L39/ |publisher=New West}}</ref> | |||
=== Gaelic Ireland === | |||
In his work '']'', ] has claimed ancient ] as an example of nearly anarcho-capitalist society.<ref name="Rothbard" /> In his depiction, citing the work of Professor Joseph Peden,<ref>Peden </ref> the basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath, which is portrayed as "a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes" with its territorial claim being limited to "the sum total of the landed properties of its members".<ref name="Rothbard" /> Civil disputes were settled by private arbiters called "brehons" and the compensation to be paid to the wronged party was insured through voluntary surety relationships. Commenting on the "kings" of tuaths,<ref name="Rothbard" /> Rothbard stated: | |||
{{quote|The king was elected by the tuath from within a royal kin group (the derbfine), which carried the hereditary priestly function. Politically, however, the king had strictly limited functions: he was the military leader of the tuath, and he presided over the tuath assemblies. But he could only conduct war or peace negotiations as an agent of the assemblies, and he was in no sense sovereign and had no rights of administering justice over tuath members. He could not legislate, and when he himself was party to a lawsuit, he had to submit his case to an independent judicial arbiter.<ref name="Rothbard" />}} | |||
=== Law merchant, admiralty law, and early common law === | |||
Some libertarians have cited ], ] and early ] as examples of anarcho-capitalism.<ref>Rothbard. "".</ref><ref>Benson. "".</ref>{{failed verification|date=August 2019}}<ref>Hasnas. "".</ref> | |||
In his work ''Power and Market'',<ref name="Rothbard-P&M" /> Rothbard stated: | |||
{{quote|The law merchant, admiralty law, and much of the common law began to be developed by privately competitive judges, who were sought out by litigants for their expertise in understanding the legal areas involved. The fairs of Champagne and the great marts of international trade in the Middle Ages enjoyed freely competitive courts, and people could patronize those that they deemed most accurate and efficient.<ref name="Rothbard-P&M" />{{rp|1051}}}} | |||
=== Somalia from 1991 to 2006 === | |||
{{main|History of Somalia (1991–2006)}} | |||
Economist ] claimed that Somalia in its stateless period provided a "unique test of the theory of anarchy", in some aspects near of that espoused by anarcho-capitalists ] and ].<ref name="tabarroki">{{Cite web |last=Tabarrok |first=Alex |author-link=Alex Tabarrok |date=21 April 2004 |title=Somalia and the theory of anarchy |url=http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/somalia_and_the.html |access-date=13 January 2008 |website=Marginal Revolution}}</ref> Nonetheless, both anarchists and some anarcho-capitalists argue that Somalia was not an ].<ref name="knight">{{Cite web |last=Knight |first=Alex R., III |date=7 October 2009 |title=The Truth About Somalia And Anarchy |url=https://c4ss.org/content/1201 |access-date=24 December 2016 |website=Center for a Stateless Society}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Block |first=Walter |date=Fall 1999 |title=Review Essay |url=http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae2_3_3.pdf |journal=] |volume=2 |issue=3 |access-date=28 January 2010 |quote=But if we define anarchy as places without governments, and we define governments as the agencies with a legal right to impose violence on their subjects, then whatever else occurred in Haiti, Sudan, and Somalia, it wasn't anarchy. For there were well-organized gangs (e.g., governments) in each of these places, demanding tribute, and fighting others who made similar impositions. Absence of government means absence of government, whether well established ones, or fly-by-nights.}}</ref> | |||
== Criticism == | |||
=== State, justice and defense === | |||
Anarchists such as ] argue that anarcho-capitalism does not in fact get rid of the state. He says that anarcho-capitalists "simply replaced the state with private security firms, and can hardly be described as anarchists as the term is normally understood".<ref>Brian Morris, "Global Anti-Capitalism", pp. 170–176, ''Anarchist Studies'', vol. 14, no. 2, p. 175.</ref> In "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy", anarchist Peter Sabatini notes: | |||
{{quote|Within Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective that actually argues for the total elimination of the state. However, Rothbard's claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown that he only wants an end to the public state. In its place he allows countless private states, with each person supplying their own police force, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from capitalist vendors. ... Rothbard sees nothing at all wrong with the amassing of wealth, therefore those with more capital will inevitably have greater coercive force at their disposal, just as they do now.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Peter Sabatini |title=Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-sabatini-libertarianism-bogus-anarchy}}</ref>}} | |||
Similarly, ] argues that an anarcho-capitalist wants to "abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else". He states that they do not denounce what the state does, they just "object to who's doing it".<ref>Bob Black (1992), "The Libertarian As Conservative", ''The Abolition of Work and Other Essays'', p. 144</ref> It has also been argued that anarcho-capitalism dissolves into ].<ref name="Libertarian Alliance" /> ] argues that anarcho-capitalism turns ] into a commodity as private defense and court firms would favour those who pay more for their services.<ref name="holcombe">{{Cite journal |last=Holcombe, Randall G. |title=Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable |url=https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_08_3_1_holcombe.pdf}}</ref> He argues that defense agencies could form cartels and oppress people without fear of competition.<ref name="holcombe" /> Philosopher ] argued that since anarcho-capitalism promotes the idea of private armies, it actually supports a "limited State". He contends that it "is only possible to conceive of Anarchism which is free, communistic and offering no economic necessity for repression of countering it".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meltzer |first=Albert |url=https://archive.org/details/anarchism00albe/page/50 |title=Anarchism: Arguments For and Against |publisher=] |year=2000 |isbn=978-1873176573 |page= |url-access=registration}}</ref> | |||
] argues that a competitive legal system would evolve toward a monopoly government—even without violating individuals' rights in the process.<ref>Jeffrey Paul, Fred Dycus Miller (1993). ''Liberalism and the Economic Order''. Cambridge University Press. p. 115.</ref> In '']'', Nozick argues that an anarcho-capitalist society would inevitably transform into a ] through the eventual emergence of a monopolistic private defense and judicial agency that no longer faces competition. He argues that anarcho-capitalism results in an unstable system that would not endure in the real world. While anarcho-capitalists such as ] and ] have rejected Nozick's arguments,<ref>See Childs's incomplete essay, "Anarchist Illusions", ''Liberty against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr.'', ed. Joan Kennedy Taylor (San Francisco: Fox 1994) 179–183.</ref> John Jefferson actually advocates Nozick's argument and states that such events would best operate in '']''.<ref>Jeffrey Paul, Fred Dycus Miller (1993). ''Liberalism and the Economic Order. Cambridge University Press. p. 118.</ref> Paul Birch argues that legal disputes involving several jurisdictions and different legal systems will be too complex and costly, therefore the largest private protection business in a territory will develop into a ].<ref name="Libertarian Alliance">{{Cite journal |last=Birch |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Birch (writer) |year=1998 |title=Anarcho-capitalism Dissolves into City States |url=http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/legan/legan028.pdf |journal=Libertarian Alliance |series=Legal Notes |volume=no. 28 |page=4 |issn=0267-7083 |access-date=5 July 2010}}</ref> ] presented a Hayekian case against anarcho-capitalism, calling it a "pipe-dream" and stating that anarcho-capitalists "by imagining a stable system of competing private associations, ignore both the inevitability of territorial monopolists in governance, and the importance of institutions to constrain those monopolists' abuses".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ellickson |first=Robert C. |date=26 January 2017 |title=A Hayekian Case Against Anarcho-Capitalism: Of Street Grids, Lighthouses, and Aid to the Destitute |journal=Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 569 |ssrn=2906383}}</ref> | |||
=== Rights and freedom === | |||
] are rights that oblige either action (positive rights) or inaction (negative rights). Anarcho-capitalists believe that negative rights should be recognized as legitimate, but positive rights should be rejected as an intrusion. Some critics reject the distinction between positive and negative rights.<ref>Sterba, James P. (October 1994). "From Liberty to Welfare". Ethics. Cambridge: Blackwell). 105 (1): 237–241.</ref> ] also states that the anarcho-capitalist definition of freedom is entirely ] and that it cannot guarantee the ] of individual autonomy and independence.<ref name="Marshall 1992" /> | |||
About anarcho-capitalism, ] says: | |||
{{quote|Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system that, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.<ref>{{Cite web |date=23 December 2006 |title=On Anarchism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by Tom Lane |url=http://www.chomsky.info/19961223.htm |access-date=9 January 2016 |website=chomsky.info}}</ref>}} | |||
=== Economics and property === | |||
Anarchists argue that certain capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which violates anarchist principles.<ref name="AFAQinfoshop">{{Cite web |last=Iain McKay |display-authors=etal |date=21 January 2010 |title=Section F – Are 'anarcho'-capitalists really anarchists? |url=https://libcom.org/files/Iain%20McKay%20-%20Anarchist%20FAQ.pdf |access-date=21 August 2013 |website=] |publisher=]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Andrew Fiala |date=3 October 2017 |title=Anarchism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anarchism/ |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Anthony J. II Nocella |title=Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation |last2=Richard J. White |last3=Erika Cudworth |publisher=McFarland & Co. |year=2015 |isbn=978-0786494576 |quote=Anarchism is a socio-political theory which opposes all systems of domination and oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, anti-LGBTTQIA, ageism, sizeism, government, competition, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and punitive justice, and promotes direct democracy, collaboration, interdependence, mutual aid, diversity, peace, transformative justice and equity.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Paul McLaughlin |title=Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |year=2007 |isbn=978-1138276147 |pages=48 |quote=Thus, as David Miller puts it, capitalism is regarded by anarchists as 'both coercive {{sic}} and exploitative – it places workers in the power of their bosses, and fails to give them a just return for their contribution to production.'}}</ref> Anthropologist ] noted his skepticism about anarcho-capitalism along the same lines, arguing: | |||
{{quote|To be honest, I'm pretty skeptical about the idea of anarcho-capitalism. If a-caps imagine a world divided into property-holding employers and property-less wage laborers, but with no systematic coercive mechanisms well, I just can't see how it would work. You always see a-caps saying "if I want to hire someone to pick my tomatoes, how are you going to stop me without using coercion?" Notice how you never see anyone say "if I want to hire myself out to pick someone else's tomatoes, how are you going to stop me?" Historically nobody ever did wage labor like that if they had pretty much other option.<ref>{{Cite web |date=28 January 2013 |title=I am David Graeber, an anthropologist, activist, anarchist and author of Debt. AMA. |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/17fi6l/i_am_david_graeber_an_anthropologist_activist/c850ma5?context=3 |access-date=21 August 2013 |website=]}}</ref>}} | |||
Some critics argue that the anarcho-capitalist concept of voluntary choice ignores constraints due to both human and non-human factors such as the need for food and shelter as well as active restriction of both used and unused resources by those enforcing property claims.<ref name="marketfailure">{{Cite web |last=Friedman |first=David |author-link=David D. Friedman |title=Market Failure: The Case for and Against Government |url=http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/mps_iceland_talk/Iceland%20MP%20talk.htm |access-date=14 July 2010 |website=Do We Need a Government? |publisher=daviddfriedman.com}}</ref> If a person requires employment in order to feed and house himself, the employer-employee relationship could be considered involuntary. Another criticism is that employment is involuntary because the economic system that makes it necessary for some individuals to serve others is supported by the enforcement of coercive private property relations.<ref name=marketfailure/> Some philosophies view any ownership claims on land and natural resources as immoral and illegitimate.<ref name="wendymcelroy">] (1995). "". ''Libertarian Heritage'' No. 14 {{ISBN|1-85637-281-2}}. Retrieved 24 June 2005.</ref> Objectivist philosopher ] criticizes anarcho-capitalism by arguing that "capitalism requires government", questioning who or what would enforce treaties and contracts.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harry Binswanger |title=Sorry Libertarian Anarchists, Capitalism Requires Government |website=] |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2014/01/24/sorry-libertarian-anarchists-capitalism-requires-government-2}}</ref> | |||
] rejects anarcho-capitalism as a "misnomer", denying the perceived "virtues" of capitalism and the possibility of any substantive connection between anti-statism, capitalism and emancipatory praxis.<ref>{{Cite book |last=David Harvey |title=A Brief History of Neoliberalism |year=2005 |isbn=0199283273 |pages=19}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Springer |first=Simon |date=30 November 2010 |title=Public Space as Emancipation: Meditations on Anarchism, Radical Democracy, Neoliberalism and Violence |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00827.x |journal=Antipode |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=525–562 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00827.x}}</ref> | |||
Some right-libertarian critics of anarcho-capitalism who support the full privatization of capital such as ] argue that ] and the raw materials of nature remain a distinct ] and cannot be justly converted to private property because they are not products of human labor. Some ], including ] and ], adamantly oppose absentee ownership. Anarcho-capitalists have strong abandonment criteria, namely that one maintains ownership until one agrees to trade or gift it. Anti-state critics of this view posit comparatively weak abandonment criteria, arguing that one loses ownership when one stops personally occupying and using it as well as the idea of perpetually binding original appropriation is anathema to traditional schools of anarchism.<ref name="Libertarian Alliance" /> | |||
== Literature == | |||
=== Nonfiction === | |||
{{example farm|section|date=April 2020}} | |||
The following is a partial list of notable nonfiction works discussing anarcho-capitalism. | |||
* ], '']'', ]'s thesis applied to early United States history | |||
* ], ''The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State'' | |||
* ], ''The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State''{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} | |||
** ''To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice'' | |||
* ], '']'' | |||
* ], ''Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice'' | |||
* ], "Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market" | |||
* ], ''Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State'' | |||
* ], ''Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography'' | |||
** ''A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism'' | |||
** '']'' | |||
** '']'' | |||
* ], '']'' | |||
* Linda and Morris Tannehill, '']'' | |||
* ], '']'' | |||
* ], founder of anarcho-capitalism: | |||
** '']'' | |||
** '']'' | |||
** '']'' | |||
** '']'' | |||
== See also == | |||
{{cols|colwidth=16em}} | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* '']'' | |||
* ] | |||
{{colend}} | |||
== References == | |||
{{reflist|30em}} | |||
== Further reading == | |||
* ] (1997). . In Carrier, James G., ed. ''Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture'' (illustrated ed.). Oxford: Berg Publishers. p. 99. {{ISBN|9781859731499}}. | |||
* {{Cite book |last=Doherty |first=Brian |title=Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement |title-link=Radicals for Capitalism |publisher=Hachette UK |year=2009 |isbn=9780786731886 |location=London |author-link=Brian Doherty (journalist)}} | |||
== External links == | |||
{{Sister project links|n=no|v=no|s=no|voy=no}} | |||
* | |||
* – website run by ] | |||
* – research and educational center of classical liberalism, including anarcho-capitalism, Austrian School of economics and American libertarian political theory | |||
* – international anarcho-capitalist society | |||
* – an anarcho-capitalist website featuring essays, news, and a forum | |||
{{anarcho-capitalism}} | |||
{{libertarianism}} | |||
] | |||
] | |||
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Revision as of 18:35, 31 December 2021
Political philosophy and economic theory of stateless capitalism and private ownership
Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy and economic theory that advocates the elimination of centralized states in favor of a system of private property enforced by private agencies, free markets and the right-libertarian interpretation of self-ownership, which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists (or ancaps) hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market which they describe as a voluntary society. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private property would still exist and be enforced by private defense agencies and insurance companies selected by customers which would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police.
According to its proponents, various historical theorists have espoused philosophies similar to anarcho-capitalism, but the first person to use the term anarcho-capitalism was Murray Rothbard, in the 1940s. Rothbard synthesized elements from the Austrian School, classical liberalism and 19th-century American individualist anarchists and mutualists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker while rejecting their labor theory of value and the anti-capitalist and socialist norms they derived from it. Rothbard's anarcho-capitalist society would operate under a mutually agreed-upon "legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow". This legal code would recognize contracts, private property, self-ownership and tort law in keeping with the non-aggression principle.
Anarcho-capitalism is distinguished from both minarchism and anarchism. Minarchists advocate a night-watchman state limited to protecting individuals from aggression and enforcing private property. On the other hand, anarchism is an anti-capitalist movement which holds that capitalism is incompatible with social and economic equality. Despite its name, anarcho-capitalism lies outside the tradition of anarchism and is more closely affiliated with capitalism, right-libertarianism, and liberalism. Anarcho-capitalists reject the libertarian socialist economic theories of anarchism, arguing that they are inherently authoritarian or require authoritarianism to achieve, while believing that there is no coercion under capitalism. Criticism of anarcho-capitalism includes that it creates coercive hierarchy in practice and a de facto state, and ignores the coercive nature of capitalism; anarcho-capitalism is generally seen as fraudulent and an oxymoron by anarchists.
Philosophy
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Author J Michael Oliver says that during the 1960s, a philosophical movement arose in the United States that championed "reason, ethical egoism, and free-market capitalism". According to Oliver, anarcho-capitalism is a political theory which logically follows the philosophical conclusions of Objectivism, a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer Ayn Rand. Professor Lisa Duggan also says that Rand's anti-statist, pro–“free market” stances went on to shape the politics of anarcho-capitalism.
According to Patrik Schumacher, the political ideology and programme of Anarcho-capitalism envisages the radicalisation of the neoliberal "rollback of the state", and calls for the extension of "entrepreneurial freedom" and "competitive market rationality" to the point where the scope for private enterprise is all-encompassing and "leaves no space for state action whatsoever".
On the state
Anarcho-capitalists opposition to the state is reflected in their goal of keeping but privatizing all functions of the state. They see capitalism and the "free market" as the basis for a free and prosperous society. Murray Rothbard, who is credited with coining the term anarcho-capitalism, stated that the difference between free-market capitalism and state capitalism is the difference between "peaceful, voluntary exchange" and a "collusive partnership" between business and government that "uses coercion to subvert the free market".
Rothbard argued that all government services, including defense, are inefficient because they lack a market-based pricing mechanism regulated by "the voluntary decisions of consumers purchasing services that fulfill their highest-priority needs" and by investors seeking the most profitable enterprises to invest in. Furthermore, Linda and Morris Tannehill believe that no coercive monopoly of force can arise on a truly free market and that a government's citizenry can not desert them in favor of a competent protection and defense agency.
Rothbard used the term anarcho-capitalism to distinguish his philosophy from anarchism that opposes private property as well as to distinguish it from individualist anarchism. Other terms sometimes used by proponents of the philosophy include:
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Non-aggression principle
Main article: Non-aggression principleWriter Stanisław Wójtowicz says that although anarcho-capitalists are against centralized states, they hold that all people would naturally share and agree to a specific moral theory based on the non-aggression principle. While the Friedmanian formulation of anarcho-capitalism is robust to the presence of violence and in fact, assumes some degree of violence will occur, anarcho-capitalism as formulated by Rothbard and others holds strongly to the central libertarian nonaggression axiom, sometimes non-aggression principle. Rothbard wrote:
The basic axiom of libertarian political theory holds that every man is a self-owner, having absolute jurisdiction over his own body. In effect, this means that no one else may justly invade, or aggress against, another's person. It follows then that each person justly owns whatever previously unowned resources he appropriates or "mixes his labor with". From these twin axioms – self-ownership and "homesteading" – stem the justification for the entire system of property rights titles in a free-market society. This system establishes the right of every man to his own person, the right of donation, of bequest (and, concomitantly, the right to receive the bequest or inheritance), and the right of contractual exchange of property titles.
Rothbard's defense of the self-ownership principle stems from what he believed to be his falsification of all other alternatives, namely that either a group of people can own another group of people, or that no single person has full ownership over one's self. Rothbard dismisses these two cases on the basis that they cannot result in a universal ethic, i.e. a just natural law that can govern all people, independent of place and time. The only alternative that remains to Rothbard is self-ownership which he believes is both axiomatic and universal.
In general, the non-aggression axiom is described by Rothbard as a prohibition against the initiation of force, or the threat of force, against persons (in which he includes direct violence, assault and murder) or property (in which he includes fraud, burglary, theft and taxation). The initiation of force is usually referred to as aggression or coercion. The difference between anarcho-capitalists and other libertarians is largely one of the degree to which they take this axiom. Minarchist libertarians such as libertarian political parties would retain the state in some smaller and less invasive form, retaining at the very least public police, courts, and military. However, others might give further allowance for other government programs. In contrast, Rothbard rejects any level of "state intervention", defining the state as a coercive monopoly and as the only entity in human society that derives its income from what he refers to as "legal aggression", an entity that inherently violates the central axiom of libertarianism.
Some anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard accept the non-aggression axiom on an intrinsic moral or natural law basis. It is in terms of the non-aggression principle that Rothbard defined his interpretation of anarchism, "a system which provides no legal sanction for such aggression "; and wrote that "what anarchism proposes to do, then, is to abolish the State, i.e. to abolish the regularized institution of aggressive coercion". In an interview published in the American libertarian journal The New Banner, Rothbard stated that "capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism".
Property
Private property
Anarcho-capitalists postulate the privatization of everything, including cities with all their infrastructures, public spaces, streets and urban management systems.
Central to Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism are the concepts of self-ownership and original appropriation that combines personal and private property. Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote:
Everyone is the proper owner of his own physical body as well as of all places and nature-given goods that he occupies and puts to use by means of his body, provided only that no one else has already occupied or used the same places and goods before him. This ownership of "originally appropriated" places and goods by a person implies his right to use and transform these places and goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not change thereby uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and goods originally appropriated by another person. In particular, once a place or good has been first appropriated by, in John Locke's phrase, 'mixing one's labor' with it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a voluntary – contractual – transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner.
Rothbard however rejected the Lockean proviso, and followed the rule of "first come, first served", without any consideration of how much resources are left for other individuals, which opposed John Locke's beliefs.
Anarcho-capitalists advocate private ownership of the means of production and the allocation of the product of labor created by workers within the context of wage labour and the free market – that is through decisions made by property and capital owners, regardless of what an individual needs or does not need. Original appropriation allows an individual to claim any never-before-used resources, including land and by improving or otherwise using it, own it with the same "absolute right" as their own body, and retaining those rights forever, regardless of the resource is still being used by them. According to Rothbard, property can only come about through labor, therefore original appropriation of land is not legitimate by merely claiming it or building a fence around it—it is only by using land and by mixing one's labor with it that original appropriation is legitimized: "Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be". Rothbard argued that the resource need not continue to be used in order for it to be the person's property as "for once his labor is mixed with the natural resource, it remains his owned land. His labor has been irretrievably mixed with the land, and the land is therefore his or his assigns' in perpetuity".
As a practical matter, anarcho-capitalists say that in terms of the ownership of land there are few, if any, parcels of land left on Earth whose ownership was not at some point in time obtained in violation of the homestead principle "through seizure by the state or put in private hands with the assistance of the state". Rothbard wrote:
It is not enough to call simply for the defense of "the rights of private property"; there must be an adequate theory of justice in property rights, else any property that some State once decreed to be "private" must now be defended by libertarians, no matter how unjust the procedure or how mischievous its consequences.
In Justice and Property Right, Rothbard wrote that "any identifiable owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property". In the case of slavery, Rothbard claimed that in many cases "the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed". Rothbard believed slaves rightfully own any land they were forced to work on under the homestead principle. If property is held by the state, Rothbard advocated its confiscation and "return to the private sector", writing that "any property in the hands of the State is in the hands of thieves, and should be liberated as quickly as possible". Rothbard proposed that state universities be seized by the students and faculty under the homestead principle. Rothbard also supported the expropriation of nominally "private property" if it is the result of state-initiated force such as businesses that receive grants and subsidies. Rothbard further proposed that businesses who receive at least 50% of their funding from the state be confiscated by the workers, writing: "What we libertarians object to, then, is not government per se but crime, what we object to is unjust or criminal property titles; what we are for is not 'private' property per se but just, innocent, non-criminal private property".
Similarly, Karl Hess wrote that "libertarianism wants to advance principles of property but that it in no way wishes to defend, willy nilly, all property which now is called private ... Much of that property is stolen. Much is of dubious title. All of it is deeply intertwined with an immoral, coercive state system".
By accepting an axiomatic definition of private property and property rights, anarcho-capitalists deny the legitimacy of a state on principle. Hans-Hermann Hoppe argues:
For, apart from ruling out as unjustified all activities such as murder, homicide, rape, trespass, robbery, burglary, theft, and fraud, the ethics of private property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax.
Anarchists view capitalism as an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical system and seek the abolishment of private property. There is disagreement between anarchists and anarcho-capitalists as the former generally rejects anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism and considers anarcho-capitalism an oxymoron while the latter holds that the abolishment of private property would require expropriation which is "counterproductive to order" and would require a state.
Common property
As opposed to anarchists, most anarcho-capitalists reject the commons. However, some of them propose that non-state public or community property can also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society. For anarcho-capitalists, what is important is that it is "acquired" and transferred without help or hindrance from what they call the "compulsory state". Deontological anarcho-capitalists believe that the only just and most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud.
Anarcho-capitalists state that there could be cases where common property may develop in a Lockean natural rights framework. Anarcho-capitalists make the example of a number of private businesses which may arise in an area, each owning the land and buildings that they use, but they argue that the paths between them become cleared and trodden incrementally through customer and commercial movement. These thoroughfares may become valuable to the community, but according to them ownership cannot be attributed to any single person and original appropriation does not apply because many contributed the labor necessary to create them. In order to prevent it from falling to the "tragedy of the commons", anarcho-capitalists suggest transitioning from common to private property, wherein an individual would make a homesteading claim based on disuse, acquire title by the assent of the community consensus, form a corporation with other involved parties, or other means.
Some vast areas, except the scarce resources they contain, such as the air, rivers, oceans, the Moon, and orbital paths are considered by anarcho-capitalists as largely unownable by individuals and considered them to be property common to all. However, they see challenges stemming from this idea such as whether an individual might claim fishing rights in the area of a major shipping lane and thereby forbid passage through it. In contrast, Hoppe's work on anarcho-capitalist theory is based on the assumption that all property is privately held, "including all streets, rivers, airports, and harbors" which forms the foundation of his views on immigration.
Intellectual property
Main article: Intellectual propertySome anarcho-capitalists strongly oppose intellectual property (i.e., trademarks, patents, copyrights). Stephan N. Kinsella argues that ownership only relates to tangible assets.
Contractual society
The society envisioned by anarcho-capitalists has been labelled by them as a "contractual society" which Rothbard described as "a society based purely on voluntary action, entirely unhampered by violence or threats of violence" The system relies on contracts between individuals as the legal framework which would be enforced by private police and security forces as well as private arbitrations.
Rothbard argues that limited liability for corporations could also exist through contract, arguing that "orporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, those men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation". However, corporations created in this way would not be able to replicate the limit on liabilities arising non-contractually such as liability in tort for environmental disasters or personal injury which corporations currently enjoy. Rothbard acknowledges that "limited liability for torts is the illegitimate conferring of a special privilege".
There are limits to the right to contract under some interpretations of anarcho-capitalism. Rothbard believes that the right to contract is based in inalienable rights and because of this any contract that implicitly violates those rights can be voided at will, preventing a person from permanently selling himself or herself into unindentured slavery. However, Rothbard justifies the practice of child selling. Other interpretations conclude that banning such contracts would in itself be an unacceptably invasive interference in the right to contract.
Included in the right of contract is "the right to contract oneself out for employment by others". While anarchists criticize wage labour describing it as wage slavery, anarcho-capitalists view it as a consensual contract. Some anarcho-capitalists prefer to see self-employment prevail over wage labor. David D. Friedman has expressed a preference for a society where "almost everyone is self-employed" and "instead of corporations there are large groups of entrepreneurs related by trade, not authority. Each sells not his time, but what his time produces".
Law and order and the use of violence
Different anarcho-capitalists propose different forms of anarcho-capitalism and one area of disagreement is in the area of law. In The Market for Liberty, Morris and Linda Tannehill object to any statutory law whatsoever. They argue that all one has to do is ask if one is aggressing against another in order to decide if an act is right or wrong. However, while also supporting a "natural prohibition" on force and fraud, Rothbard supports the establishment of a mutually agreed-upon centralized libertarian legal code which private courts would pledge to follow, as he presumes a high degree of convergence amongst individuals about what constitutes natural justice.
Unlike both the Tannehills and Rothbard who see an ideological commonality of ethics and morality as a requirement, David D. Friedman proposes that "the systems of law will be produced for profit on the open market, just as books and bras are produced today. There could be competition among different brands of law, just as there is competition among different brands of cars". Friedman says whether this would lead to a libertarian society "remains to be proven". He says it is a possibility that very un-libertarian laws may result, such as laws against drugs, but he thinks this would be rare. He reasons that "if the value of a law to its supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law ... will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society".
Anarcho-capitalists only accept the collective defense of individual liberty (i.e. courts, military, or police forces) insofar as such groups are formed and paid for on an explicitly voluntary basis. However, their complaint is not just that the state's defensive services are funded by taxation, but that the state assumes it is the only legitimate practitioner of physical force—that is, they believe it forcibly prevents the private sector from providing comprehensive security, such as a police, judicial and prison systems to protect individuals from aggressors. Anarcho-capitalists believe that there is nothing morally superior about the state which would grant it, but not private individuals, a right to use physical force to restrain aggressors. If competition in security provision were allowed to exist, prices would also be lower and services would be better according to anarcho-capitalists. According to Molinari: "Under a regime of liberty, the natural organization of the security industry would not be different from that of other industries". Proponents believe that private systems of justice and defense already exist, naturally forming where the market is allowed to "compensate for the failure of the state", namely private arbitration, security guards, neighborhood watch groups and so on. These private courts and police are sometimes referred to generically as private defense agencies (PDAs). The defense of those unable to pay for such protection might be financed by charitable organizations relying on voluntary donation rather than by state institutions relying on taxation, or by cooperative self-help by groups of individuals. Edward Stringham argues that private adjudication of disputes could enable the market to internalize externalities and provide services that customers desire.
In the context of revolution, Rothbard stated that the American Revolutionary War was the only war involving the United States that could be justified. Some anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard feel that violent revolution is counter-productive and prefer voluntary forms of economic secession to the extent possible. Like classical liberalism and unlike anarcho-pacifism, anarcho-capitalism permits the use of force as long as it is in the defense of persons or property. The permissible extent of this defensive use of force is an arguable point among anarcho-capitalists. Retributive justice, meaning retaliatory force, is often a component of the contracts imagined for an anarcho-capitalist society. According to Matthew O'Keefee, some anarcho-capitalists believe prisons or indentured servitude would be justifiable institutions to deal with those who violate anarcho-capitalist property relations while others believe exile or forced restitution are sufficient.
Bruce L. Benson argues that legal codes may impose punitive damages for intentional torts in the interest of deterring crime. Benson gives the example of a thief who breaks into a house by picking a lock. Even if caught before taking anything, Benson argues that the thief would still owe the victim for violating the sanctity of his property rights. Benson opines that despite the lack of objectively measurable losses in such cases, "standardized rules that are generally perceived to be fair by members of the community would, in all likelihood, be established through precedent, allowing judgments to specify payments that are reasonably appropriate for most criminal offenses".
Morris and Linda Tannehill raise a similar example, saying that a bank robber who had an attack of conscience and returned the money would still owe reparations for endangering the employees' and customers' lives and safety, in addition to the costs of the defense agency answering the teller's call for help. However, they believe that the robber's loss of reputation would be even more damaging. They suggest that specialized companies would list aggressors so that anyone wishing to do business with a man could first check his record, provided they trust the veracity of the companies' records. They further theorise that the bank robber would find insurance companies listing him as a very poor risk and other firms would be reluctant to enter into contracts with him.
Free-market in children
Main article: Child sellingAnarcho-capitalism as proposed by Murray Rothbard advocates the ownership of children and their sale. According Rothbard: "the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children. Superficially, this sounds monstrous and inhuman. But closer thought will reveal the superior humanism of such a market." Walter Block also supports the sale of children, stating that adoptive parents not being able to pay biological parents "is responsible for the trauma and heartbreak which attend adoption in the United States today".
Influences
Murray Rothbard has listed different ideologies of which his interpretations, he said, have influenced anarcho-capitalism. This includes his interpretation of anarchism, and more precisely individualist anarchism; classical liberalism and the Austrian School of economic thought. Scholars additionally associate anarcho-capitalism with neo-classical liberalism, radical neoliberalism and right-libertarianism.
Anarchism
Main article: Anarchism and capitalismIn both its social and individualist forms, anarchism is usually considered an anti-capitalist and radical left-wing or far-left movement that promotes libertarian socialist economic theories such as collectivism, communism, individualism, mutualism and syndicalism. Because anarchism is usually described alongside libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement and as having a historical association with anti-capitalism and socialism, anarchists believe that capitalism is incompatible with social and economic equality and therefore do not recognize anarcho-capitalism as an anarchist school of thought. In particular, anarchists argue that capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which is incompatible with an anarchist society. The usage of libertarian is also in dispute. While both anarchists and anarcho-capitalists have used it, libertarian was synonymous with anarchist until the mid-20th century, when anarcho-capitalist theory developed.
Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from the dominant anarchist tradition by their relation to property and capital. While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism share general antipathy towards power by government authority, the latter exempts power wielded through free-market capitalism. Anarchists, including egoists such as Max Stirner, have supported the protection of an individual's freedom from powers of both government and private property owners. In contrast, while condemning governmental encroachment on personal liberties, anarcho-capitalists support freedoms based on private property rights. Anarcho-capitalist theorist Murray Rothbard argued that protesters should rent a street for protest from its owners. The abolition of public amenities is a common theme in some anarcho-capitalist writings.
As anarcho-capitalism puts laissez-faire economics before economic equality, it is commonly viewed as incompatible with the anti-capitalist and egalitarian tradition of anarchism. Although anarcho-capitalist theory implies the abolition of the state in favour of a fully laissez-faire economy, it lies outside the tradition of anarchism. While using the language of anarchism, anarcho-capitalism only shares anarchism's antipathy towards the state and not anarchism's antipathy towards hierarchy as theorists expect from anarcho-capitalist economic power relations. It follows a different paradigm from anarchism and has a fundamentally different approach and goals. In spite of the anarcho- in its title, anarcho-capitalism is more closely affiliated with capitalism and right-libertarianism than with anarchism. Some within this laissez-faire tradition reject the designation of anarcho-capitalism, believing that capitalism may either refer to the laissez-faire market they support or the government-regulated system that they oppose.
Rothbard claimed that anarcho-capitalism is the only true form of anarchism—the only form of anarchism that could possibly exist in reality as he maintained that any other form presupposes authoritarian enforcement of political ideology such as "redistribution of private property" which he attributed to anarchism. According to this argument, the capitalist free market is "the natural situation" that would result from people being free from state authority and entails the establishment of all voluntary associations in society such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations, businesses and so on. Moreover, anarcho-capitalists, as well as classical liberal minarchists, argue that the application of anarchist ideals as advocated by what they term "left-wing anarchists" would require an authoritarian body of some sort to impose it. Based on their understanding and interpretation of anarchism, in order to forcefully prevent people from accumulating capital, which they believe is a goal of anarchists, there would necessarily be a redistributive organization of some sort which would have the authority to in essence exact a tax and re-allocate the resulting resources to a larger group of people. They conclude that this theoretical body would inherently have political power and would be nothing short of a state. The difference between such an arrangement and an anarcho-capitalist system is what anarcho-capitalists see as the voluntary nature of organization within anarcho-capitalism contrasted with a "centralized ideology" and a "paired enforcement mechanism" which they believe would be necessary under what they describe as a "coercively" egalitarian-anarchist system.
Despite their name, anarcho-capitalists are generally seen by anarchists, who reject the notion of capitalism, hierarchies and private property, as fraudulent and an oxymoron. Albert Meltzer argued that anarcho-capitalism simply cannot be anarchism because capitalism and the state are inextricably interlinked and because capitalism exhibits domineering hierarchical structures such as that between an employer and an employee. Anna Morgenstern approaches this topic from the opposite perspective, arguing that anarcho-capitalists are not really capitalists because "mass concentration of capital is impossible" without the state. According to Jeremy Jennings, "t is hard not to conclude that these ideas", referring to anarcho-capitalism, argued to have "roots deep in classical liberalism" more so than in anarchism, "are described as anarchist only on the basis of a misunderstanding of what anarchism is". For Jennings, "anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality and community". Similarly, Barbara Goodwin, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, argues that anarcho-capitalism's "true place is in the group of right-wing libertarians", not in anarchism. Nonetheless, some right-libertarian scholars like Michael Huemer, who identify with the ideology, describe anarcho-capitalism as a "variety of anarchism". British author Andrew Heywood also believes that "individualist anarchism overlaps with libertarianism and is usually linked to a strong belief in the market as a self-regulating mechanism, most obviously manifest in the form of anarcho-capitalism".
While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism are in opposition to the state, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition because anarchists and anarcho-capitalists interpret state-rejection differently. Austrian school economist David Prychitko, in the context of anarcho-capitalism says that "while society without a state is necessary for full-fledged anarchy, it is nevertheless insufficient". According to Ruth Kinna, anarcho-capitalists are anti-statists who draw more on right-wing liberal theory and the Austrian School than anarchist traditions. Kinna writes that "n order to highlight the clear distinction between the two positions", anarchists describe anarcho-capitalists as "propertarians". Anarcho-capitalism is usually seen as part of the New Right.
Although Rothbard promoted anarcho-capitalism as a genuine form of anarchism, he would later declare:
Murray RothbardWe must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical.
Classical liberalism
Main article: Classical liberalismIn his essay The Production of Security, Gustave de Molinari argued that "o government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity". Molinari and this new type of anti-state liberal grounded their reasoning on liberal ideals and classical economics. Historian and libertarian Ralph Raico argues that what these liberal philosophers "had come up with was a form of individualist anarchism, or, as it would be called today, anarcho-capitalism or market anarchism". According to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the anti-state liberal tradition in Europe and the United States continued after Molinari in the early writings of Herbert Spencer as well as in thinkers such as Paul Émile de Puydt and Auberon Herbert.
Ruth Kinna writes that anarcho-capitalism is a term coined by Murray Rothbard to describe "a commitment to unregulated private property and laissez-faire economics, prioritizing the liberty-rights of individuals, unfettered by government regulation, to accumulate, consume and determine the patterns of their lives as they see fit". According to Kinna, anarcho-capitalists "will sometimes label themselves market anarchists because they recognize the negative connotations of 'capitalism'. But the literature of anarcho-capitalism draws on classical liberal theory, particularly the Austrian School – Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises – rather than recognizable anarchist traditions. Ayn Rand's laissez-faire, anti-government, corporate philosophy – Objectivism – is sometimes associated with anarcho-capitalism". Other scholars similarly associate anarcho-capitalism with anti-state classical liberalism, neo-classical liberalism, radical neoliberalism and right-libertarianism.
Individualist anarchism
Main article: Individualist anarchismMurray Rothbard, a student of Ludwig von Mises, stated that he was influenced by the work of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists. In the winter of 1949, Rothbard decided to reject minimal state laissez-faire and embrace his interpretation of individualist anarchism. In 1965, Rothbard wrote that "Lysander Spooner and Benjamin R. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy they left to political philosophy". However, Rothbard thought that they had a faulty understanding of economics as the 19th-century individualist anarchists had a labor theory of value as influenced by the classical economists and was a student of Austrian School economics which does not agree with the labor theory of value. Rothbard sought to meld 19th-century American individualist anarchists' advocacy of economic individualism and free markets with the principles of Austrian School economics, arguing that "here is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics', a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung". Rothbard held that the economic consequences of the political system they advocate would not result in an economy with people being paid in proportion to labor amounts, nor would profit and interest disappear as they expected. Tucker thought that unregulated banking and money issuance would cause increases in the money supply so that interest rates would drop to zero or near to it. Peter Marshall states that "anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker".
In "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View", Rothbard explained his disagreements. Rothbard disagreed with Tucker that it would cause the money supply to increase because he believed that the money supply in a free market would be self-regulating. If it were not, then Rothbard argued inflation would occur so it is not necessarily desirable to increase the money supply in the first place. Rothbard claimed that Tucker was wrong to think that interest would disappear regardless because he believed people, in general, do not wish to lend their money to others without compensation, so there is no reason why this would change just because banking was unregulated. Tucker held a labor theory of value and thought that in a free market people would be paid in proportion to how much labor they exerted and that exploitation or usury was taking place if they were not. As Tucker explained in State Socialism and Anarchism, his theory was that unregulated banking would cause more money to be available and that this would allow the proliferation of new businesses which would, in turn, raise demand for labor. This led Tucker to believe that the labor theory of value would be vindicated and equal amounts of labor would receive equal pay. As an Austrian School economist, Rothbard did not agree with the labor theory and believed that prices of goods and services are proportional to marginal utility rather than to labor amounts in the free market. As opposed to Tucker he did not think that there was anything exploitative about people receiving an income according to how much "buyers of their services value their labor" or what that labor produces.
Without the labor theory of value, some argue that 19th-century individualist anarchists approximate the modern movement of anarcho-capitalism, although this has been contested or rejected. As economic theory changed, the popularity of the labor theory of classical economics was superseded by the subjective theory of value of neoclassical economics and Rothbard combined Mises' Austrian School of economics with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Tucker and Spooner. In the mid-1950s, Rothbard wrote an unpublished article named "Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?" under the pseudonym "Aubrey Herbert", concerned with differentiating himself from communist and socialistic economic views of anarchists, including the individualist anarchists of the 19th century, concluding that "we are not anarchists and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground and are being completely unhistorical. On the other hand, it is clear that we are not archists either: we do not believe in establishing a tyrannical central authority that will coerce the noninvasive as well as the invasive. Perhaps, then, we could call ourselves by a new name: nonarchist." Joe Peacott, an American individualist anarchist in the mutualist tradition, criticizes anarcho-capitalists for trying to hegemonize the individualist anarchism label and make appear as if all individualist anarchists are in favor of capitalism. Peacott states that "individualists, both past and present, agree with the communist anarchists that present-day capitalism is based on economic coercion, not on voluntary contract. Rent and interest are the mainstays of modern capitalism and are protected and enforced by the state. Without these two unjust institutions, capitalism could not exist".
Anarchist activists and scholars do not consider anarcho-capitalism as a part of the anarchist movement because anarchism has historically been an anti-capitalist movement and see it as incompatible with capitalist forms. Although some regard anarcho-capitalism as a form of individualist anarchism, many others disagree or contest the existence of an individualist–socialist divide because individualist anarchism is largely libertarian socialist. In coming to terms that anarchism identified with socialism, Rothbard wrote that individualist anarchism is different from anarcho-capitalism and other capitalist theories due to the individualist anarchists retaining the labor theory of value and socialist doctrines. Similarly, many writers deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism or that capitalism is compatible with anarchism.
The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism writes that "s Benjamin Franks rightly points out, individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism are incompatible with practices of social anarchism based on developing immanent goods which contest such as inequalities". Laurence Davis cautiosly asks "s anarcho-capitalism really a form of anarchism or instead a wholly different ideological paradigm whose adherents have attempted to expropriate the language of anarchism for their own anti-anarchist ends?" Davis cites Iain McKay, "whom Franks cites as an authority to support his contention that 'academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism'", as arguing "quite emphatically on the very pages cited by Franks that anarcho-capitalism is by no means a type of anarchism". McKay writes that "t is important to stress that anarchist opposition to the so-called capitalist 'anarchists' does not reflect some kind of debate within anarchism, as many of these types like to pretend, but a debate between anarchism and its old enemy capitalism. ... Equally, given that anarchists and 'anarcho'-capitalists have fundamentally different analyses and goals it is hardly 'sectarian' to point this out".
Davis writes that "Franks asserts without supporting evidence that most major forms of individualist anarchism have been largely anarcho-capitalist in content, and concludes from this premise that most forms of individualism are incompatible with anarchism". Davis argues that "the conclusion is unsustainable because the premise is false, depending as it does for any validity it might have on the further assumption that anarcho-capitalism is indeed a form of anarchism. If we reject this view, then we must also reject the individual anarchist versus the communal anarchist 'chasm' style of argument that follows from it". Davis maintains that "the ideological core of anarchism is the belief that society can and should be organised without hierarchy and domination. Historically, anarchists have struggles against a wide range of regimes of domination, from capitalism, the state system, patriarchy, heterosexism, and the domination of nature to colonialism, the war system, slavery, fascism, white supremacy, and certain forms of organised religion". According to Davis, "hile these visions range from the predominantly individualistic to the predominantly communitarian, features common to virtually all include an emphasis on self-management and self-regulatory methods of organisation, voluntary association, decentralised society, based on the principle of free association, in which people will manage and govern themselves". Finally, Davis includes a footnote stating that "ndividualist anarchism may plausibly be re regarded as a form of both socialism and anarchism. Whether the individualist anarchists were consistent anarchists (and socialists) is another question entirely. ... McKay comments as follows: 'any individualist anarchism which supports wage labour is inconsistent anarchism. It can easily be made consistent anarchism by applying its own principles consistenly [sic?]. In contrast 'anarcho'-capitalism rejects so many of the basic, underlying, principles of anarchism ... that it cannot be made consistent with the ideals of anarchism'".
Historical precedents
Several right-libertarians have discussed historical precedents of what they believe were examples of anarcho-capitalism.
Free cities of medieval Europe
Economist and libertarian scholar Bryan Caplan considers the free cities of medieval Europe as examples of "anarchist" or "nearly anarchistic" societies, further arguing:
One case that has inspired both sorts of anarchists is that of the free cities of medieval Europe. The first weak link in the chain of feudalism, these free cities became Europe's centers of economic development, trade, art, and culture. They provided a haven for runaway serfs, who could often legally gain their freedom if they avoided re-capture for a year and a day. And they offer many examples of how people can form mutual-aid associations for protection, insurance, and community. Of course, left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists take a somewhat different perspective on the free cities: the former emphasize the communitarian and egalitarian concerns of the free cities, while the latter point to the relatively unregulated nature of their markets and the wide range of services (often including defense, security, and legal services) which were provided privately or semi-privately.
Medieval Iceland
According to the libertarian theorist David D. Friedman, "edieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions". While not directly labeling it anarcho-capitalist, Friedman argues that the legal system of the Icelandic Commonwealth comes close to being a real-world anarcho-capitalist legal system. Although noting that there was a single legal system, Friedman argues that enforcement of the law was entirely private and highly capitalist, providing some evidence of how such a society would function. Friedman further wrote that "ven where the Icelandic legal system recognized an essentially 'public' offense, it dealt with it by giving some individual (in some cases chosen by lot from those affected) the right to pursue the case and collect the resulting fine, thus fitting it into an essentially private system".
American Old West
According to Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill, the Old West in the United States in the period of 1830 to 1900 was similar to anarcho-capitalism in that "private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved" and that the common popular perception that the Old West was chaotic with little respect for property rights is incorrect. Since squatters had no claim to western lands under federal law, extra-legal organizations formed to fill the void. Benson explains:
The land clubs and claim associations each adopted their own written contract setting out the laws that provided the means for defining and protecting property rights in the land. They established procedures for registration of land claims, as well as for the protection of those claims against outsiders, and for adjudication of internal disputes that arose. The reciprocal arrangements for protection would be maintained only if a member complied with the association's rules and its court's rulings. Anyone who refused would be ostracized. A boycott by a land club meant that an individual had no protection against aggression other than what he could provide himself.
According to Anderson, "efining anarcho-capitalist to mean minimal government with property rights developed from the bottom up, the western frontier was anarcho-capitalistic. People on the frontier invented institutions that fit the resource constraints they faced".
Gaelic Ireland
In his work For a New Liberty, Murray Rothbard has claimed ancient Gaelic Ireland as an example of nearly anarcho-capitalist society. In his depiction, citing the work of Professor Joseph Peden, the basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath, which is portrayed as "a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes" with its territorial claim being limited to "the sum total of the landed properties of its members". Civil disputes were settled by private arbiters called "brehons" and the compensation to be paid to the wronged party was insured through voluntary surety relationships. Commenting on the "kings" of tuaths, Rothbard stated:
The king was elected by the tuath from within a royal kin group (the derbfine), which carried the hereditary priestly function. Politically, however, the king had strictly limited functions: he was the military leader of the tuath, and he presided over the tuath assemblies. But he could only conduct war or peace negotiations as an agent of the assemblies, and he was in no sense sovereign and had no rights of administering justice over tuath members. He could not legislate, and when he himself was party to a lawsuit, he had to submit his case to an independent judicial arbiter.
Law merchant, admiralty law, and early common law
Some libertarians have cited law merchant, admiralty law and early common law as examples of anarcho-capitalism.
In his work Power and Market, Rothbard stated:
The law merchant, admiralty law, and much of the common law began to be developed by privately competitive judges, who were sought out by litigants for their expertise in understanding the legal areas involved. The fairs of Champagne and the great marts of international trade in the Middle Ages enjoyed freely competitive courts, and people could patronize those that they deemed most accurate and efficient.
Somalia from 1991 to 2006
Main article: History of Somalia (1991–2006)Economist Alex Tabarrok claimed that Somalia in its stateless period provided a "unique test of the theory of anarchy", in some aspects near of that espoused by anarcho-capitalists David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard. Nonetheless, both anarchists and some anarcho-capitalists argue that Somalia was not an anarchist society.
Criticism
State, justice and defense
Anarchists such as Brian Morris argue that anarcho-capitalism does not in fact get rid of the state. He says that anarcho-capitalists "simply replaced the state with private security firms, and can hardly be described as anarchists as the term is normally understood". In "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy", anarchist Peter Sabatini notes:
Within Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective that actually argues for the total elimination of the state. However, Rothbard's claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown that he only wants an end to the public state. In its place he allows countless private states, with each person supplying their own police force, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from capitalist vendors. ... Rothbard sees nothing at all wrong with the amassing of wealth, therefore those with more capital will inevitably have greater coercive force at their disposal, just as they do now.
Similarly, Bob Black argues that an anarcho-capitalist wants to "abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else". He states that they do not denounce what the state does, they just "object to who's doing it". It has also been argued that anarcho-capitalism dissolves into city states. Randall G. Holcombe argues that anarcho-capitalism turns justice into a commodity as private defense and court firms would favour those who pay more for their services. He argues that defense agencies could form cartels and oppress people without fear of competition. Philosopher Albert Meltzer argued that since anarcho-capitalism promotes the idea of private armies, it actually supports a "limited State". He contends that it "is only possible to conceive of Anarchism which is free, communistic and offering no economic necessity for repression of countering it".
Robert Nozick argues that a competitive legal system would evolve toward a monopoly government—even without violating individuals' rights in the process. In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Nozick argues that an anarcho-capitalist society would inevitably transform into a minarchist state through the eventual emergence of a monopolistic private defense and judicial agency that no longer faces competition. He argues that anarcho-capitalism results in an unstable system that would not endure in the real world. While anarcho-capitalists such as Roy Childs and Murray Rothbard have rejected Nozick's arguments, John Jefferson actually advocates Nozick's argument and states that such events would best operate in laissez-faire. Paul Birch argues that legal disputes involving several jurisdictions and different legal systems will be too complex and costly, therefore the largest private protection business in a territory will develop into a natural monopoly. Robert Ellickson presented a Hayekian case against anarcho-capitalism, calling it a "pipe-dream" and stating that anarcho-capitalists "by imagining a stable system of competing private associations, ignore both the inevitability of territorial monopolists in governance, and the importance of institutions to constrain those monopolists' abuses".
Rights and freedom
Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either action (positive rights) or inaction (negative rights). Anarcho-capitalists believe that negative rights should be recognized as legitimate, but positive rights should be rejected as an intrusion. Some critics reject the distinction between positive and negative rights. Peter Marshall also states that the anarcho-capitalist definition of freedom is entirely negative and that it cannot guarantee the positive freedom of individual autonomy and independence.
About anarcho-capitalism, Noam Chomsky says:
Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system that, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of "free contract" between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.
Economics and property
Anarchists argue that certain capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which violates anarchist principles. Anthropologist David Graeber noted his skepticism about anarcho-capitalism along the same lines, arguing:
To be honest, I'm pretty skeptical about the idea of anarcho-capitalism. If a-caps imagine a world divided into property-holding employers and property-less wage laborers, but with no systematic coercive mechanisms well, I just can't see how it would work. You always see a-caps saying "if I want to hire someone to pick my tomatoes, how are you going to stop me without using coercion?" Notice how you never see anyone say "if I want to hire myself out to pick someone else's tomatoes, how are you going to stop me?" Historically nobody ever did wage labor like that if they had pretty much other option.
Some critics argue that the anarcho-capitalist concept of voluntary choice ignores constraints due to both human and non-human factors such as the need for food and shelter as well as active restriction of both used and unused resources by those enforcing property claims. If a person requires employment in order to feed and house himself, the employer-employee relationship could be considered involuntary. Another criticism is that employment is involuntary because the economic system that makes it necessary for some individuals to serve others is supported by the enforcement of coercive private property relations. Some philosophies view any ownership claims on land and natural resources as immoral and illegitimate. Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger criticizes anarcho-capitalism by arguing that "capitalism requires government", questioning who or what would enforce treaties and contracts.
Julian Assange rejects anarcho-capitalism as a "misnomer", denying the perceived "virtues" of capitalism and the possibility of any substantive connection between anti-statism, capitalism and emancipatory praxis.
Some right-libertarian critics of anarcho-capitalism who support the full privatization of capital such as geolibertarians argue that land and the raw materials of nature remain a distinct factor of production and cannot be justly converted to private property because they are not products of human labor. Some socialists, including market anarchists and mutualists, adamantly oppose absentee ownership. Anarcho-capitalists have strong abandonment criteria, namely that one maintains ownership until one agrees to trade or gift it. Anti-state critics of this view posit comparatively weak abandonment criteria, arguing that one loses ownership when one stops personally occupying and using it as well as the idea of perpetually binding original appropriation is anathema to traditional schools of anarchism.
Literature
Nonfiction
This section may contain excessive or irrelevant examples. Please help improve the article by adding descriptive text and removing less pertinent examples. (April 2020) |
The following is a partial list of notable nonfiction works discussing anarcho-capitalism.
- Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State, Franz Oppenheimer's thesis applied to early United States history
- Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State
- Bruce L. Benson, The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without The State
- To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice
- David D. Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom
- Edward P. Stringham, Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice
- George H. Smith, "Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market"
- Gerard Casey, Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography
- A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
- Democracy: The God That Failed
- The Economics and Ethics of Private Property
- Herbert Spencer, Social Statics
- Linda and Morris Tannehill, The Market for Liberty
- Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority
- Murray Rothbard, founder of anarcho-capitalism:
See also
- Agorism
- Anarchapulco
- Anarcho-capitalism and minarchism
- Consequentialist libertarianism
- Counter-economics
- Creative disruption
- Crypto-anarchism
- Dark Enlightenment
- Definition of anarchism and libertarianism
- Issues in anarchism
- Left-wing market anarchism
- Natural-rights libertarianism
- Privatization in criminal justice
- Propertarianism
- Stateless society
- The Libertarian Forum
- Voluntaryism
References
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- Morriss, Andrew (2008). "Anarcho-Capitalism". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 13–14. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n8. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. OCLC 750831024.
- Edward Stringham. Anarchy and the law: the political economy of choice. p. 51.
- ^ Peter Marshall. "The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism". Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- Murphy, Ryan H. (2019). Markets against Modernity: Ecological Irrationality, Public and Private. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 84. ISBN 978-1498591188.
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- Robert Leeson (2017). Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, Part IX: The Divine Right of the 'Free' Market. Springer. p. 180. ISBN 978-3-319-60708-5.
To the original 'anarchocapitalist' (Rothbard coined the term) .
- ^ Miller, David, ed., et al. (1987). Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-631-17944-3. "A student and disciple of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard combined the laissez-faire economics of his teacher with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker."
- ^ Bottomore, Tom (1991). "Anarchism". A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Reference. p. 21. ISBN 0-63118082-6.
- ^ Outhwaite, William (2003). The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. "Anarchism". Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 13. ISBN 9780631221647. "Their successors today, such as Murray Rothbard, having abandoned the labor theory of value, describe themselves as anarcho-capitalists."
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1978). "12 The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts". For a New Liberty. Auburn: Mises Institute. p. 282. ISBN 9781610164481.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1982). "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution". Cato Journal. 2 (1): 55–99.
- Long, Roderick T.; Machan, Tibor R., eds. (2008). Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6066-8.
- ^ Marshall, Peter (1992). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: HarperCollins. pp. 564–565. ISBN 978-0-00-217855-6. "Anarcho-capitalists are against the State simply because they are capitalists first and foremost. They are not concerned with the social consequences of capitalism for the weak, powerless and ignorant. As such, anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker. In fact, few anarchists would accept the 'anarcho-capitalists' into the anarchist camp since they do not share a concern for economic equality and social justice. Their self-interested, calculating market men would be incapable of practising voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Anarcho-capitalists, even if they do reject the state, might therefore best be called right-wing libertarians rather than anarchists."
- ^ Jennings, Jeremy (1993). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). Contemporary Political Ideologies. London: Pinter. pp. 127–146. ISBN 978-0-86187-096-7. " anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality and community" (p. 143).
- ^ Gay, Kathlyn; Gay, Martin (1999). Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. ABC-CLIO. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-87436-982-3. "For many anarchists (of whatever persuasion), anarcho-capitalism is a contradictory term, since 'traditional' anarchists oppose capitalism".
- ^ Morriss, Andrew (2008). "Anarcho-capitalism". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 13–14. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n8. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. OCLC 191924853. "Social anarchists, those anarchists with communitarian leanings, are critical of anarcho-capitalism because it permits individuals to accumulate substantial power through markets and private property."
- ^ Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press: 385–404. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001. "Individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism are incompatible with practices of social anarchism. Increasingly, academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism" (pp. 393–394).
- ^ Funnell, Warwick (2007). "Accounting and the Virtues of Anarchy". Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal. 1 (1) 18–27. doi:10.14453/aabfj.v1i1.2.
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- ^ Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". WorkingUSA. 12 (3): 507–508. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x. ISSN 1089-7011. " all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism."
- ^ El-Ojeili, Chamsy (2012). "Anarchism as the Contemporary Spirit of Anti-Capitalism? A Critical Survey of Recent Debates". Critical Sociology. 40 (3): 451–468. doi:10.1177/0896920512452023.
- ^ Williams, Dana (2012). "From Top to Bottom, a Thoroughly Stratified World: An Anarchist View of Inequality and Domination". Race, Gender & Class. 19 (3/4): 9–34. JSTOR 43497486.
- ^ White, Richard; Williams, Colin (2014). "Anarchist Economic Practices in a 'Capitalist' Society: Some Implications for Organisation and the Future of Work". Ephermera: Theory and Politics in Organization. 14 (4): 947–971. SSRN 2707308.
- J Michael Oliver (2013). The New Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-1491068625.
- Lisa Duggan (22 May 2019). "Ayn Rand and the Cruel Heart of Neoliberalism". Dissent Magazine. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
- ^ Patrik Schumacher (2016). "The Stages of Capitalism and the Styles of Architecture". ASA web-magazine. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- ^ Kinna, Ruth, ed. (2012). The Bloomsbury Companion to Anarchism. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. pp. 330–331. ISBN 9781441142702.
- David Friedman (27 November 2012). David Friedman on How to Privatize Everything (YouTube). ReasonTV. Archived from the original on 22 November 2021. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
- Roberta Modugno Crocetta, Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism in the contemporary debate. A critical defense, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
- Michael Oliver, "Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard", originally published in The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal, 25 February 1972. For an earlier published use of anarcho-capitalism by Rothbard, see his "Know Your Rights" WIN: Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action, Volume 7, No. 4, 1 March 1971, 6–10.
- Rothbard, Murray N., A Future of Peace and Capitalism; Murray N. Rothbard, Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1977) . Power and Market (2nd ed.). published in Rothbard, Murray (2009). Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market (2nd ed.). Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-27-5. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- Linda and Morris Tannehill. The Market for Liberty, p. 81.
- "Libertarianism" (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
- ^ Murray Rothbard (2000). "Egalitarianism as A Revolt Against Nature And Other Essays: and other essays". Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000. p. 207.
- ^ Avrich, Paul (1996). Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (abridged paperback ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 282. ISBN 9780691044941. "Although there are many honorable exceptions who still embrace the 'socialist' label, most people who call themselves individualist anarchists today are followers of Murray Rothbard's Austrian economics and have abandoned the labor theory of value."
- Carson, Kevin (2006). Studies in Mutualist Political Economy. "Preface". Archived 15 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine Charleston: BookSurge Publishing. ISBN 9781419658693. "Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995), American economist, historian, and individualist anarchist."
- ^ Stanisław Wójtowicz (2017). "Anarcho-capitalism, or can we do away with the state". Nauka (4). ISSN 1231-8515.
The last problem is especially vexing, since anarcho-capitalists seem to be caught up in a contradiction here. On one hand, they are proponents of a specific moral theory (based on non-aggression principle), on the other hand, they do not allow for any central, monopolistic agency to impose that moral theory on society.
- Friedman, David D. (1989) "Chapter 41: Problems". The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (2nd ed.). La Salle: Open Court Press. ISBN 0-8126-9069-9.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1982). The Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-0-8147-7506-6.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1978). For a New Liberty. Auburn: Mises Institute. p. 282. ISBN 978-1-61016-448-1.
- Rothbard, Murray N. (1975) "Society Without A State" Libertarian Forum newsletter (January 1975).
- Rothbard, Murray (25 February 1972). "Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard". The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
- Cristóbal Matarán López (2021). "The Austrian school of Madrid". The Review of Austrian Economics. doi:10.1007/s11138-021-00541-0.
In addition, Professor Huerta de Soto has become one of the most prominent and resolute defenders of the Anarchocapitalism, that is, the full and complete privatisation of all goods and services.
- ^ Hoppe, Hans-Hermann (20 May 2002). "Rothbardian Ethics". LewRockwell.com. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- Hall, Larry M., "Anarcho-Capitalist Threads in Modern Libertarianism: The Social Thought of Murray Rothbard." PhD diss., p. 126, University of Tennessee, 1990.
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter V, paragraph 27.
- Stephanie Silberstein. "Was Spooner Really an Anarcho-Socialist?". Anarchy Archives. Archived from the original on 25 April 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1993) . Man, Economy, and State (2nd ed.). published in Rothbard, Murray (2009). Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market (2nd ed.). Mises Institute. ISBN 978-1-933550-27-5. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- Rothbard, Murray (2000). "Justice and Property Rights: The Failure of Utilitarianism". In Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays (2nd ed.). Auburn: Mises Institute. p. 113. ISBN 9781610164627.
- Cobin, John M. (2009). A Primer on Modern Themes in Free Market Economics and Policy. Irvine: Universal-Publishers. p. 557. ISBN 9781610167024.
- Deist, Jeff (7 December 2019). "Rothbard on Slavery Reparations". Mises Institute. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
- ^ Gordon, David, ed.; Rothbard, Murray; Fuller, Edward W. (2019). Rothbard A to Z. Auburn: Mises Institute. ISBN 9781610167024.
- Carson, Kevin (28 September 2012). "The Left-Rothbardians, Part I: Rothbard". Center for a Stateless Society. "What most people ordinarily identify as the stereotypical 'libertarian' privatization proposal, unfortunately, goes something like this: sell it to a giant corporation on terms that are most advantageous to the corporation. Rothbard proposed, instead, was to treat state property as unowned, and allow it to be homesteaded by those actually occupying it and mixing their labor with it. This would mean transforming government utilities, schools, and other services into consumer cooperatives and placing them under the direct control of their present clientele. It would mean handing over state industry to workers' syndicates and transforming it into worker-owned cooperatives". Retrieved 10 January 2020.
- Rothbard, Murray (Spring 1965). "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty". Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought. 1 (1): 4–22.
- Long, Roderick T. (8 April 2006). "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later". Mises Institute. Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference 2006. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
- Hess, Karl (15 June 1969). "Letter From Washington: Where Are The Specifics?". The Libertarian Forum. I (VI): 2. published in Rothbard, Murray N., ed. (2006). The Complete Libertarian Forum: 1969–1984 (PDF). Vol. Volume 1: 1969–1975. Ludwig von Mises Institute. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-933550-02-2. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
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has extra text (help) - Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (1840). What is Property?
- Murray Rothbard. "Concepts of the role of intellectuals in social change toward laissez faire" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2008.
- Weick, David. Anarchist Justice. pp. 223–24
- Sabatini, Peter. Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy.
- Kropotkin, Peter. Anarchism.
- Stacy, Don (2011). "Review of Kosanke's Instead of Politics – Don Stacy". Libertarian Papers. 3 (3).
- Sandra Jeppesen; Anna Kruzynski; Rachel Sarrasin (2014). "The anarchist commons" (PDF). Ephemera.
- ^ Holcombe, Randall G. (Spring 2005). "Common Property in Anarcho-Capitalism" (PDF). Journal of Libertarian Studies. 19 (2): 3–29. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- Avrich, Paul. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, Abridged Paperback Edition (1996), p. 282.
- Kinsella, N. Stephan (2008). Against Intellectual Property (PDF). Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
- Zaheer Kazmi (2012). Polite Anarchy in International Relations Theory. The Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought. Palgrave Macmillan US. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-137-02813-6.
Notably, in light of latter-day anarcho-capitalism, Tucker had also advocated the privatisation of the policing and security functions of the state to protect people and property and accepted the use of violence as means of enforcing contracts.
- Nathan W. Schlueter; Nikolai G. Wenzel (2018). Selfish Libertarians and Socialist Conservatives?. Stanford University Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-5036-0029-4.
- Carl Levy; Matthew Adams (2019). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 558. ISBN 978-3-319-75620-2.
- Murray Rothbard (4 May 2007). "Children and Rights". Mises Institute.
- "Where did Donald Trump get his racialized rhetoric? From libertarians". The Washington Post. 2 September 2016.
- Nozick, Robert (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
- ^ Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. Harper & Row. pp. 144–145.
- Brown, Susan Love, The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View, Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, edited by James G. Carrier, Berg/Oxford, 1997, p. 113.
- George Klosko (2011). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy. OUP Oxford. p. 684.
- Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom. Second edition. La Salle, Ill, Open Court, pp. 116–17.
- Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. Harper & Row. pp. 127–28
- De Molinari, Gustave (1849). The Production of Security. Translated by J. Huston McCulloch. Archived 27 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 15 July 2006.
- Stringham, Edward; Curott, Nicholas (2010). Lopez, Edward (ed.). "The Rise of Government Law Enforcement in England". The Pursuit of Justice: Law and Economics of Legal Institutions. Independent Institute. SSRN 1711665.
- Stringham, Edward (Winter 1998–1999). "Market Chosen Law". Journal of Libertarian Studies. 14 (1): 53–77. SSRN 1676257.
- Stringham, Edward; Zywicki, Todd (5 November 2005). "Rivalry and Superior Dispatch: An Analysis of Competing Courts in Medieval and Early Modern England". George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper. 10 (57). doi:10.2139/ssrn.1703598. S2CID 154834118. SSRN 1703598.
- Friedman, David D. (1973) The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism Harper & Row ISBN 978-0-06-091010-5 ch29 Archived 31 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Stringham, Edward (2015). Private Governance. Oxford University Press.
- Caplan, Bryan; Stringham, Edward (2008). "Privatizing the Adjudication of Disputes". Theoretical Inquiries in Law. 9 (2): 503–28. doi:10.2202/1565-3404.1195. S2CID 154304272. SSRN 1674441.
- Rothbard, Murray N. (1973) Interview Reason February 1973. Retrieved 10 August 2005.
- Rothbard, Murray (1981). "Konkin on Libertarian Strategy" (PDF). Strategy of the New Libertarian Alliance.
- O'Keeffe, Matthew (1989). "Retribution Versus Restitution" (PDF). Legal Notes. 5. London: Libertarian Alliance. ISBN 1-870614-22-4. ISSN 0267-7083.
- Benson, Bruce (1998). To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice. NYU Press. pp. 235–38. ISBN 978-0-8147-1327-3.
- Tannehill, Linda and Morris (1993). The Market for Liberty (PDF). San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. pp. 105–06. ISBN 978-0-930073-08-4. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
- Rothbard, Murray (2016). "14. Children's Rights". The Ethics of Liberty (PDF). NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS - New York and London. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-61016-664-5.
- Block, Walter (2 January 1979). "On Baby Selling". Libtertarianism.org.
- ^ Goodway, David (2006). Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 4. "'Libertarian' and 'libertarianism' are frequently employed by anarchists as synonyms for 'anarchist' and 'anarchism', largely as an attempt to distance themselves from the negative connotations of 'anarchy' and its derivatives. The situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of anarcho-capitalism, 'minimal statism' and an extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy advocated by such theorists as Rothbard and Nozick and their adoption of the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition."
- ^ Newman, Saul (2010). The Politics of Postanarchism. Edinburgh University Press. p. 43. "It is important to distinguish between anarchism and certain strands of right-wing libertarianism which at times go by the same name (for example, Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism)." ISBN 0748634959.
- Rothbard, Murray N., The Betrayal of the American Right (2007): 188
- "Flags of political parties (Sweden)". FOTW Flags of the World website. Retrieved 30 October 2014.
- Williams, Dana M. (2018). "Contemporary Anarchist and Anarchistic Movements". Sociology Compass. Wiley. 12 (6): 4. doi:10.1111/soc4.12582. ISSN 1751-9020.
- Brooks, Frank H. (1994). The Individualist Anarchists: An Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908). Transaction Publishers. p. xi. ISBN 1-56000-132-1.
- Kahn, Joseph (2000). "Anarchism, the Creed That Won't Stay Dead; The Spread of World Capitalism Resurrects a Long-Dormant Movement". The New York Times (5 August).
- Moynihan, Colin. "Book Fair Unites Anarchists. In Spirit, Anyway". The New York Times (16 April).
- Guerin, Daniel (1970). Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. Monthly Review Press. pp. 12, 35. ISBN 9780853451280.
- ^ Tame, Chris R. (October 1983). The Chicago School: Lessons from the Thirties for the Eighties. Economic Affairs. p. 56.
- McKay, Iain (2008). An Anarchist FAQ. 1. "What are the myths of capitalist economics?" "Is 'anarcho'-capitalism a type of anarchism?" Oakland/Edinburgh: AK Press. ISBN 978-1902593906.
- Marshall, Peter (1992). Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: HarperCollins. p. 641. ISBN 978-0-00-217855-6. "For a long time, libertarian was interchangeable in France with anarchist but in recent years, its meaning has become more ambivalent."
- Cohn, Jesse (20 April 2009). "Anarchism". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 1–11. doi:10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp0039. ISBN 978-1-4051-9807-3. " 'libertarianism' a term that, until the mid-twentieth century, was synonymous with 'anarchism' per se" (p. 6).
- Francis, Mark (December 1983). "Human Rights and Libertarians". Australian Journal of Politics & History. 29 (3): 462. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8497.1983.tb00212.x. ISSN 0004-9522.
- Francis, Mark (December 1983). "Human Rights and Libertarians". Australian Journal of Politics & History. 29 (3): 462–463. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8497.1983.tb00212.x. ISSN 0004-9522.
- ^ Gay, Kathlyn; Gay, Martin (1999). Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-982-3.
- ^ Davis, Laurence (2019). "Individual and Community". In Levy, Carl; Adams, Matthew S. (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Cham: Springer. pp. 47–70. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_3. ISBN 978-3-319-75619-6.
- Long, Roderick T.; Machan, Tibor R., eds. (2008). Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country? Ashgate. p. vii. ISBN 978-0-7546-6066-8.
- Rothbard, Murray (25 February 1972). "Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard". The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
- Casey, Gerard (2018). Freedom's Progress?. Andrews UK Limited. p. 670. ISBN 978-1-84540-942-5.
- Jun, Nathan J. (2017). Brill's Companion to Anarchism and philosophy. Brill. p. 293. ISBN 978-9004356887.
- Jennings, Jeremy (1999). "Anarchism". In Eatwell, Roger; Wright, Anthony (eds.). Contemporary Political Ideologies (reprinted, 2nd ed.). London: A & C Black. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-8264-5173-6.
- Goodwin, Barbara (2007). Using Political Ideas. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-470-02552-9.
- Michael Huemer (2020). "The Right Anarchy". The Routledge Handbook of Anarchy and Anarchist Thought. Routledge. pp. 342–359. doi:10.4324/9781315185255-24. ISBN 978-1-315-18525-5.
(From abstract): There are two main varieties of anarchism: the socialist variety (aka "social anarchism" or "anarcho-socialism") and the capitalist variety ("anarcho-capitalism")
- "Political Ideologies: An introduction, fifth edition (Chapter summaries)". Macmillan International.
- McLaughlin, Paul (2007). Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism. Ashgate. pp. 28–166. ISBN 9780754661962. "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short. is (contrary to what many scholars believe) not definitive of anarchism."
- Jun, Nathan (September 2009). "Anarchist Philosophy and Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary". WorkingUSA. 12 (3): 505–519. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2009.00251.x. ISSN 1089-7011. "One common misconception, which has been rehearsed repeatedly by the few Anglo-American philosophers who have bothered to broach the topic is that anarchism can be defined solely in terms of opposition to states and governments" (p. 507).
- Franks, Benjamin (August 2013). Freeden, Michael; Stears, Marc (eds.). "Anarchism". The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press: 385–404. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.013.0001. "any, questionably, regard anti-statism as the irremovable, universal principle at the core of anarchism. The fact that share a core concept of 'anti-statism', which is often advanced as a commonality between them , is insufficient to produce a shared identity because the concept of state-rejection differently despite the initial similarity in nomenclature" (pp. 386–388).
- ^ David L. Prychytko (2002). "Chapter 10: Expanding the Anarchist Range: A Critical Reappraisal of Rothbard's Contribution to the Contemporary Theory of Anarchism". Markets, Planning, and Democracy. Edward Elgar Publishing, Incorporated. p. 124. ISBN 978-1-84376-738-1.
While society without a state is necessary for full-fledged anarchy, it is nevertheless insufficient.
- Meltzer, Albert (2000). Anarchism: Arguments for and Against. London: AK Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-873176-57-3.
The philosophy of 'anarcho-capitalism' dreamed up by the 'libertarian' New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper.
- Vincent, Andrew (2009). Modern Political Ideologies (3rd ed.). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-4443-1105-1.
Whom to include under the rubric of the New Right remains puzzling. It is usually seen as an amalgam of traditional liberal conservatism, Austrian liberal economic theory Ludwing von Mises and Hayek), extreme libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism), and crude populism.
- kanopiadmin (3 December 2007). "Are Libertarians "Anarchists"?". Mises Institute. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
- Raico, Ralph (2004). Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th century. Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee. Unité associée au CNRS. Archived 10 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 10 June 2009.
- Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. London: Sage Publications. pp. 1006–1007. ISBN 9781412988766.
- De Leon, David (1978). The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. " Only a few individuals like Murray Rothbard, in Power and Market, and some article writers were influenced by these men. Most had not evolved consciously from this tradition; they had been a rather automatic product of the American environment."
- Gordon, David (2007). The Essential Rothbard. Mises Institute. pp. 12–13.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (2000) . "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View". Journal of Libertarian Studies. 20 (1): 5–15.
- Rothbard, Murray (2000) . "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View". Journal of Libertarian Studies. 20 (1): 7.
- Tucker, Benjamin (1911). State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree & Wherein They Differ (6th ed.). London: A. C. Fifield.
- Wieck, David (1978). "Anarchist Justice". In Chapman, John W.; Pennock, J. Roland Pennock, eds. Anarchism: Nomos XIX. New York: New York University Press. pp. 227–228. "Out of the history of anarchist thought and action Rothbard has pulled forth a single thread, the thread of individualism, and defines that individualism in a way alien even to the spirit of a Max Stirner or a Benjamin Tucker, whose heritage I presume he would claim – to say nothing of how alien is his way to the spirit of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and the historically anonymous persons who through their thoughts and action have tried to give anarchism a living meaning. Out of this thread, Rothbard manufactures one more bourgeois ideology." Retrieved 7 April 2020.
- ^ Peacott, Joe (18 April 1985). "Reply to Wendy Mc Elroy". New Libertarian (14, June 1985. Archived 7 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "In her article on individualist anarchism in October 1984, New Libertarian, Wendy McElroy mistakenly claims that modern-day individualist anarchism is identical with anarchist capitalism. She ignores the fact that there are still individualist anarchists who reject capitalism as well as communism, in the tradition of Warren, Spooner, Tucker, and others. Benjamin Tucker, when he spoke of his ideal 'society of contract,' was certainly not speaking of anything remotely resembling contemporary capitalist society. I do not quarrel with McElroy's definition of herself as an individualist anarchist. However, I dislike the fact that she tries to equate the term with anarchist capitalism. This is simply not true. I am an individualist anarchist and I am opposed to capitalist economic relations, voluntary or otherwise."
- Baker, J. W. "Native American Anarchism". The Raven. 10 (1): 43‒62. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "It is time that anarchists recognise the valuable contributions of individualist anarchist theory and take advantage of its ideas. It would be both futile and criminal to leave it to the capitalist libertarians, whose claims on Tucker and the others can be made only by ignoring the violent opposition they had to capitalist exploitation and monopolistic 'free enterprise' supported by the state."
- Miller, David, ed. (1987). The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 290. ISBN 0-631-17944-5.
- ^ Rothbard, Murray (1950s). "Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?" Lew Rockwell.com. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
- Peacott, Joe (18 April 1985). "Reply to Wendy Mc Elroy". New Libertarian (14, June 1985). Archived 7 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 4 September 2020. "In her overview of anarchist history, McElroy criticizes the individualists of the past for their belief in the labor theory of value, because it fails to distinguish between profit and plunder. Some anarchist individualists still believe that profit is theft and that living off the labor of others is immoral. And some individualists, both past and present, agree with the communist anarchists that present-day capitalism is based on economic coercion, not on voluntary contract. Rent and interest are the mainstays of modern capitalism and are protected and enforced by the state. Without these two unjust institutions, capitalism could not exist. These two institutions, and the money monopoly of the state, effectively prevent most people from being economically independent and force them into wage labor. Saying that coercion does not exist i capitalist economic relations because workers aren't forced to work by armed capitalists ignores the very real economic coercion caused by this alliance of capitalism and the state. People don't voluntarily work for wages or pay rent, except in the sense that most people 'voluntarily' pay taxes Because one recognizes when she or he is up against superior force and chooses to compromise in order to survive, does not make these activities voluntary; at least, not in the way I envision voluntary relations in an anarchist society."
- Sabatini, Peter (Fall/Winter 1994–1995). "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy". Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (41). Retrieved 4 September 2020. "Within Libertarianism, Rothbard represents a minority perspective that actually argues for the total elimination of the state. However, Rothbard's claim as an anarchist is quickly voided when it is shown that he only wants an end to the public state. In its place, he allows countless private states, with each person supplying their own police force, army, and law, or else purchasing these services from capitalist vendors so what remains is shrill anti-statism conjoined to a vacuous freedom in hackneyed defense of capitalism. In sum, the "anarchy" of Libertarianism reduces to a liberal fraud."
- Meltzer, Albert (2000). Anarchism: Arguments For and Against. Oakland: AK Press. p. 50. "The philosophy of 'anarcho-capitalism' dreamed up by the 'libertarian' New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper."
- McKay, Iain, ed. (2012). An Anarchist FAQ. Vol. II. Stirling: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-84935-122-5.
- ^ "Anarchist Theory FAQ Version 5.2". George Mason University. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
- ^ Friedman, David D. (1979). "Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case". Retrieved 12 August 2005.
- Long, Roderick T. (6 June 2002). "Privatization, Viking Style: Model or Misfortune? (The Vikings Were Libertarians)". LewRockwell.com. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
- ^ Tabarrok, Alex (21 April 2004). "Somalia and the theory of anarchy". Marginal Revolution. Retrieved 13 January 2008.
- Friedman, David D (28 February 2015). "Private Law Enforcement, Medieval Iceland, and Libertarianism". The Machinery of Freedom (3rd ed.). pp. 203–204. ISBN 978-1507785607.
- Anderson, Terry L. and Hill, P. J. "An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West", The Journal of Libertarian Studies
- Benson, Bruce L. (1998). "Private Justice in America". To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice. New York: New York University Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-8147-1327-3.
- Probasco, Christian (18 June 2008). "Grilling Terry L. Anderson, Free-Market Environmentalist". New West.
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(help) - Peden Stateless Societies: Ancient Ireland
- Rothbard. "Defense Services on the Free Market".
- Benson. "The Enterprise of Customary Law".
- Hasnas. "The Obviousness of Anarchy".
- Knight, Alex R., III (7 October 2009). "The Truth About Somalia And Anarchy". Center for a Stateless Society. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Block, Walter (Fall 1999). "Review Essay" (PDF). The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. 2 (3). Retrieved 28 January 2010.
But if we define anarchy as places without governments, and we define governments as the agencies with a legal right to impose violence on their subjects, then whatever else occurred in Haiti, Sudan, and Somalia, it wasn't anarchy. For there were well-organized gangs (e.g., governments) in each of these places, demanding tribute, and fighting others who made similar impositions. Absence of government means absence of government, whether well established ones, or fly-by-nights.
- Brian Morris, "Global Anti-Capitalism", pp. 170–176, Anarchist Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 175.
- Peter Sabatini. "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy".
- Bob Black (1992), "The Libertarian As Conservative", The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, p. 144
- ^ Birch, Paul (1998). "Anarcho-capitalism Dissolves into City States" (PDF). Libertarian Alliance. Legal Notes. no. 28: 4. ISSN 0267-7083. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
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has extra text (help) - ^ Holcombe, Randall G. "Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable" (PDF).
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(help) - Meltzer, Albert (2000). Anarchism: Arguments For and Against. AK Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-1873176573.
- Jeffrey Paul, Fred Dycus Miller (1993). Liberalism and the Economic Order. Cambridge University Press. p. 115.
- See Childs's incomplete essay, "Anarchist Illusions", Liberty against Power: Essays by Roy A. Childs, Jr., ed. Joan Kennedy Taylor (San Francisco: Fox 1994) 179–183.
- Jeffrey Paul, Fred Dycus Miller (1993). Liberalism and the Economic Order. Cambridge University Press. p. 118.
- Ellickson, Robert C. (26 January 2017). "A Hayekian Case Against Anarcho-Capitalism: Of Street Grids, Lighthouses, and Aid to the Destitute". Yale Law & Economics Research Paper No. 569. SSRN 2906383.
- Sterba, James P. (October 1994). "From Liberty to Welfare". Ethics. Cambridge: Blackwell). 105 (1): 237–241.
- "On Anarchism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by Tom Lane". chomsky.info. 23 December 2006. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
- Iain McKay; et al. (21 January 2010). "Section F – Are 'anarcho'-capitalists really anarchists?" (PDF). An Anarchist FAQ. Infoshop.org. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- Andrew Fiala (3 October 2017). "Anarchism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Anthony J. II Nocella; Richard J. White; Erika Cudworth (2015). Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation. McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0786494576.
Anarchism is a socio-political theory which opposes all systems of domination and oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, anti-LGBTTQIA, ageism, sizeism, government, competition, capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and punitive justice, and promotes direct democracy, collaboration, interdependence, mutual aid, diversity, peace, transformative justice and equity.
- Paul McLaughlin (2007). Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 48. ISBN 978-1138276147.
Thus, as David Miller puts it, capitalism is regarded by anarchists as 'both coercive [sic] and exploitative – it places workers in the power of their bosses, and fails to give them a just return for their contribution to production.'
- "I am David Graeber, an anthropologist, activist, anarchist and author of Debt. AMA". Reddit. 28 January 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- ^ Friedman, David. "Market Failure: The Case for and Against Government". Do We Need a Government?. daviddfriedman.com. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
- McElroy, Wendy (1995). "Intellectual Property: The Late Nineteenth Century Libertarian Debate". Libertarian Heritage No. 14 ISBN 1-85637-281-2. Retrieved 24 June 2005.
- Harry Binswanger. "Sorry Libertarian Anarchists, Capitalism Requires Government". Forbes.
- David Harvey (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. p. 19. ISBN 0199283273.
- Springer, Simon (30 November 2010). "Public Space as Emancipation: Meditations on Anarchism, Radical Democracy, Neoliberalism and Violence". Antipode. 43 (2): 525–562. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2010.00827.x.
Further reading
- Brown, Susan Love (1997). "The Free Market as Salvation from Government: The Anarcho-Capitalist View". In Carrier, James G., ed. Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture (illustrated ed.). Oxford: Berg Publishers. p. 99. ISBN 9781859731499.
- Doherty, Brian (2009). Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. London: Hachette UK. ISBN 9780786731886.
External links
- Anarcho-capitalist FAQ
- LewRockwell.com – website run by Lew Rockwell
- Mises Institute – research and educational center of classical liberalism, including anarcho-capitalism, Austrian School of economics and American libertarian political theory
- Property and Freedom Society – international anarcho-capitalist society
- Strike The Root – an anarcho-capitalist website featuring essays, news, and a forum