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 |  Subject: An Introduction to Individualist Anarchism - Andrew Rogers  Sun Jan 24, 2016 2:41 am | |
| Anarcho-capitalism or free-market anarchism is often classified as a type of libertarianism — although not everyone is satisfied with that taxonomy. There are actually some significant differences, in part because "libertarianism" is a relatively big tent, whereas anarcho-capitalism is much more tightly reasoned ... but you have to start somewhere, and that strikes me as good a place as any.
As with a number of things in my life (see also my yinshih page, for example), I held free-market anarchist ideas long before I knew there was a name, or actually many names (see below) for this set of ideas. But I have learned much more through reading and reflecting upon the vast body of an-cap literature, both in print and online.
What's in a Name?
The first part of the name, anarcho, obviously derives from anarchy. Right away, this can be confusing and a complication. The important thing to understand is that, contrary to common usage, "anarchy" and "chaos" are not synonyms (when people use anarchy colloquially, what they generally mean is anomie). "Anarchy" comes from the Greek an- (without) and arkhos (ruler). Therefore, as writer Jim Dodge has said, "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control, it means out of THEIR control."
A little less obscurely, Roy Childs described it in his famous open letter to Ayn Rand as "the absence of political control." In that letter, Childs rejected traditional libertarianism — often called minarchism for its advocacy of minimalist, "night watchman" government — as flawed, contradictory, and ultimately a failure. If the State is itself a moral evil (and anarcho-capitalists believe it is), advocating or tolerating even minimal evil is still ... evil.
The second half of the name, capitalism, has its own set of baggage, starting with the fact that Karl Marx coined the word and it's always a bad idea to let your enemies define your terms; personally, I'm starting to prefer market anarchist to anarcho-capitalist as a descriptive term.
Regardless of who coined it, capitalism means is a free market, laissez-faire economy, voluntary trade and exchange, and a high emphasis placed on the right of individuals to own, possess, use, and dispose of private property (this is what distinguishes anarcho-capitalists from left-anarchists — really socialists — who hate private property).
Put together, then, an anarcho-capitalist society would be one in which human interactions are based on people satisfying their needs and desires through voluntary and mutually beneficial association and trade (the "economic means", as Franz Oppenheimer called them), as opposed to getting what they want through force, fraud, compulsion, and the threat — all too often, reality — of violence and death (the "political means"). When Mao said power flowed from the barrel of a gun, he was talking about political power, and truer words were never spoke.
Maybe you'd prefer one of these names instead?
As befits a philosophy that glories in the free market, there are a variety of different names for this set of ideas. Here are a few I've run into:
http://www.andrewrogers.net/Free-Market_Anarchism/free-market_anarchism_intro.html |
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