producers own the means of production in capitalism.
producers own the means of production in capitalism.
who owns the means of production in capitalism?
producers
conversely, critics within anarchism do not believe that anarcho-capitalism can be considered to be a part of the anarchist movement due to the fact that anarchism has historically been an anti-capitalist movement and for definitional reasons which see anarchism as incompatible with capitalism. indeed, throughout most of its history anarchism has been defined by its proponents in opposition to capitalism which they believe can be maintained only by state violence. anarchists generally follow pierre-joseph proudhon in opposing ownership of workplaces by capitalists and aim to replace wage labor with workers' associations. these anarchists also agree with peter kropotkin's comment that "the origin of the anarchist inception of society [lies in] the criticism [...] of the hierarchical organisations and the authoritarian conceptions of society" rather than in simple opposition to the state or government. they argue that the wage system is hierarchical and authoritarian in nature and consequently capitalism cannot be anarchist. most early individualist anarchists, including tucker and spooner who rothbard claimed as anarcho-capitalist influences, considered themselves "fervent anti-capitalists [who see] no contradiction between their individualist stance and their rejection of capitalism". many defined themselves as socialists. these early individualist anarchists defined capitalism in various ways, but it was often discussed in terms of usury: "there are three forms of usury, interest on money, rent on land and houses, and profit in exchange. whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer". excluding these, they tended to support free trade, free competition and varying levels of private property such as mutualism based on occupation and use property norms. it is this distinction which has led to the rift between anarchism and anarcho-capitalism, with the latter supporting the homestead principle. historically, anarchists considered themselves socialists and opposed to capitalism, therefore anarcho-capitalism is considered by many anarchists today as not being a form of anarchism. anarchist organisations such as the confederación nacional del trabajo (spain) and the anarchist federation (britain and ireland) generally take an explicitly anti-capitalist stance. when in the 20th century several economists began to formulate a form of radical american libertarianism known as anarcho-capitalism, this has met resistance from those who hold that capitalism is inherently oppressive or statist and many anarchists and scholars do not consider anarcho-capitalism to properly cohere with the spirit, principles, or history of anarchism. while other anarchists and scholars regard anarchism as referring only to opposition to the non-privatisation of all aspects of the state and do consider anarcho-capitalism to be a form of anarchism, gary chartier has joined kevin carson, roderick t. long, charles w. johnson, brad spangler, sheldon richman and chris matthew sciabarra in maintaining that—because of its heritage, emancipatory goals and potential—radical market anarchism should be seen by its proponents and by others as part of the socialist tradition and that market anarchists can and should call themselves socialists, echoing the language of american individualist anarchists like benjamin tucker and lysander spooner and british thomas hodgskin. in particular, chartier has argued that proponents of a genuinely free market, termed freed market to distinguish them from the common conception which these left-libertarians (referred to as left-wing market anarchists to distingue themselves from anarcho-capitalists, or market-oriented left-libertarians who believe markets to be riddled with statist and capitalist privileges) should explicitly reject capitalism and identify with the global anti-capitalist movement while emphasizing that the abuses the anti-capitalist movement highlights result from state-tolerated violence and state-secured privilege rather than from voluntary cooperation and exchange. like anarcho-capitalists, proponents of this approach strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets, but they maintain that taken to their logical conclusions these ideas support anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical and pro-labor positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly radical views regarding such cultural issues as gender, sexuality and race. while anarcho-capitalists who argue for private property which supports absentee and landlordism ownership rather than occupation and use property norms as well as the principle of homesteading are considerated right-libertarians rather than anarchists (this is due to anarchism generally viewing any absentee ownership and ownership claims on land and natural resources as immoral and illegitimate and seeing the idea of perpetually binding original appropriation as advocated by some anarcho-capitalists as anathema to traditional schools of anarchism as well as to any moral or economic philosophy that takes equal natural rights to land and the earth's resources as a premise), other anarcho-capitalists are closer to mutualism and are considered part of free-market anarchism which argue that a true free-market or "laissez-faire" system would be best served under socialism rather than capitalism. as such, chartier has argued that anarcho-capitalists should reject capitalism and call themselves free-markets advocates, writing:[i]t makes sense for [freed-market advocates] to name what they oppose "capitalism." doing so calls attention to the freedom movement's radical roots, emphasizes the value of understanding society as an alternative to the state, underscores the fact that proponents of freedom object to non-aggressive as well as aggressive restraints on liberty, ensures that advocates of freedom aren't confused with people who use market rhetoric to prop up an unjust status quo, and expresses solidarity between defenders of freed markets and workers — as well as ordinary people around the world who use "capitalism" as a short-hand label for the world-system that constrains their freedom and stunts their lives.
anarchism and capitalism
there are various theories and critiques of state capitalism, some of which existed before the 1917 october revolution. the common themes among them identify that the workers do not meaningfully control the means of production and detect that commodity relations and production for profit still occur within state capitalism. in "socialism: utopian and scientific" (1880), friedrich engels argued that state ownership does not do away with capitalism by itself, but rather would be the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. he argued that the tools for ending capitalism are found in state capitalism.
state capitalism