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Ownership of Self

Anarcho-Capitalism is a movement self-decribing as an individualist anarchist[1] political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the individual in a free market. Anarchists that disagree with capitalism see the label as a contradiction in terms, disputing its inclusion in the spectrum of anarchism.

Some anarcho-capitalists are fundamentally against proactive physical coercion; their system has no metanormative opposition to voluntary communism or syndicalism. Others prefer that in an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, any formerly state-provided institutions or services that consumers demanded would be provided by voluntarily-funded or voluntarily-formed organizations, with defense and security being provided by private defense agencies or communal militias rather than through taxation, and where money is privately produced in an open market.

Deontological anarcho-capitalists, such as Murray Rothbard, claim that no state is morally justified, and that the traditional functions of the state thus ought to be provided by voluntary human interaction. Others, such as David Friedman, claim that the state is economically and socially suboptimal and that non-physically coercive human interaction yields greater Marshallian efficiency.

There are some anarcho-capitalists that do not view anarchism as requiring titles, but see it as an attitude with hyphenations merely describing the means by which they seek to attain anarchy; that is, where no human owns any human. In fact, they are more properly described as anarchists and capitalists. For instance, they view debt and monopolization as probabilities that could bring about archism, so anarchists use capitalistic methods to prevent or limit these, including to avoid business with those that do not follow ways to avoid archism, which stems from the idea that "activity produces wealth". For example, some refuse business with companies that are monopolistic or that are developing into a monopoly, and others also refuse trade with those that do not divest to an extent or release debtors every seven years, regardless of how much was owed. Indeed, a few call themselves competists, rather than capitalists, as they view competition as necessary to obtain better products (or capital).


[edit] Theory

Anarcho-capitalism is a consistent version of capitalism, where coercive public monopolies would no longer exist.

Anarcho-Capitalism embraces the free market, which contrasts with collectivistic anarchist philosophy. It should be noted that most anarcho-capitalists define the words "capitalism," "free market" and "private property" differently from collectivistic anarchists.

  • Capitalism: economic system where production is, at least, originally privately owned, where business decisions and correction are determined through the operation of a free market.
  • Free market: market where all decisions regarding transfer of possessions, including items and services, are voluntary.
  • Private possession (or property): possession gained by the invention of it, by mixing one's labor with unused and unpossessed material or material already owned by that person, by voluntary trade or as a gift.

This difference in terminology is often the basis for controversy.

Though the first self-described anarcho-capitalist was 19th century individualist anarchist Voltarine de Cleyre, anarcho-capitalism as a defined political philosophy did not emerge until the 1950s, coming out of the tradition of classical liberalism, and generally setting itself in contrast to all forms of coercion and collectivism. Murray Rothbard, an Austrian economist influenced by work of individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner, is often described as the founder of anarcho-capitalism.

[edit] Varying Views on Intellectual Property

While some Anarcho-capitalists support intellectual property, others oppose it, claiming that intellectual property infringes on physical property. They hold that intellectual property laws "in effect grant the holder the right to control the property and bodies of other people". [1] These anarcho-capitalists consider intellectual property to be equivalent to mercantilism, the system under which monarchs would grant exclusive monopolies to companies in a certain industry or territory.

Jeremy Sapienza, founder anti-state.com writes, "Is there nothing more preposterous than equating intellectual property, whatever the hell that is, with real, personal property?"[2].

Roderick T. Long argues that intellectual property violates the freedom of the speech and of the press: "To enforce copyright laws and the like is to prevent people from making peaceful use of the information they possess. If you have acquired the information legitimately (say, by buying a book), then on what grounds can you be prevented from using it, reproducing it, trading it? Is this not a violation of the freedom of speech and press?" [3]

In cases where anarcho-capitalists support intellectual property, it stems from the idea that property arrives from activity or labor, internal or external not being a subject of debate.

Lysander Spooner, who supported copyright and patents, wrote in his THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY; OR AN ESSAY ON THE RIGHT OF AUTHORS AND INVENTORS TO A PERPETUAL PROPERTY IN THEIR IDEAS [4]: "man's ideas are his property. They are his for enjoyment, and his for use. Other men do not own his ideas. He has a right, as against all other men, to absolute dominion over his ideas....So absolute is the author’s right of dominion over his ideas that he may forbid their being communicated even by human voice if he so pleases". [5]

Murray Rothbard, a defender of copyright but not patents, claimed, "Let us consider copyright. A man writes a book or composes music. When he publishes the book or sheet of music, he imprints on the first page the word “copyright.” This indicates that any man who agrees to purchase this product also agrees as part of the exchange not to recopy or reproduce this work for sale. In other words, the author does not sell his property out­right to the buyer; he sells it on condition that the buyer not reproduce it for sale. Since the buyer does not buy the property outright, but only on this condition, any infringement of the con­tract by him or a subsequent buyer is implicit theft and would be treated accordingly on the free market. The copyright is there­fore a logical device of property right on the free market....and this copyright would be per­petual, not limited to a certain number of years. Obviously, to be fully the property of an individual, a good has to be perma­nently and perpetually the property of the man and his heirs and assigns". [6]

In Linda and Morris Tannehill's "The Market for Liberty", they supported intellectual property in a number of ways. In their advocacy of private property, they state, "A man’s life is made up of time, so when he invests his time in material or intellectual property (ideas) he is investing parts of his life, thereby making that property an extension of his life." [7] In Chapter 7, they mention how free courts would be used to help an inventor in a conflict with "Handy-Dandy Kitchen Gadget". [8]

The debate over intellectual property among anarcho-capitalists is still on-going.

[edit] Wage Labor

Anarcho-capitalists state that an employer-employee relationship may be a mutually profitable form of voluntary association. They resent government as a parasite that corrupts, biases, impedes and distorts what would otherwise be peaceful fair and free associations.



[edit] Criticism of Anarcho-capitalism

Some collectivist anarchist criticism of anarcho-capitalism resembles criticism of mainstream libertarianism

Anarcho-capitalism is a view that departs from collectivistic anarchist theories in that it regards coercive public entities as unnecessary and harmful to human society, but embraces capitalist economics. Anarcho-capitalism contradicts collectivist anarchism, an anti-capitalist philosophy. Anarcho-capitalism is considered a paradox by collectivistic anarchists, and vice-versa.

Collectivist anarchists purport that there is no form of capitalism that does not rely on the concentration of wealth and the existence of private property, and the need for defense of this property through public or private coercion. They claim that James Donald and Bryan Caplan have attempted (in the 1990s) to frame their arguments in language and documents that appear to be legitimate, because they use certain key phrases and structure and some author's attempts to have some connection to scholarly circles with anarchist legitimacy.

Another major problem alleged by collectivist anarchists against the ideology of anarcho-capitalism is substitution of 'opportunity' for 'freedom', in the philosophical discourse. They professes that anarcho-capitalism ignores the need to maintain the balance of freedoms, balance between positive and negative freedoms, as well as balance between freedoms of different individuals. Concentrating on a select few, anarcho-capitalists show how opportunities allowed to those few are lessened by socialism and thus conclude that socialism is unable to be free. This argument is dominant in the areas where state socialism has been a major ideology gaining or competing for dominance and happens as a result of the dominance of individualistic element in the rebellion.

[edit] Anarcho-capitalist criticism of socialism

Taken from the Anarcho Capitalist FAQ. All of these points are answered from the socialist side on the Check your premises-Blog.

"What are the myths of socialism?"

The just price doctrine and cost-price theories of value.

The medieval notion of just price permeates socialist thought. It holds that there is a intrinsic price of a good, regardless of people's wants, needs and desires, or supply and demand. In the industrial-era form of this doctrine, the value of a good is deemed to be equal to the cost of production, usually in terms of labor time expended (see labor theory of value below). This cost-price notion was refuted in the 1800s by the marginalist revolution in economics, but nevertheless many socialists remain mired in this. The marginalist economists, notably the Austrian School, consider value to be subjective. It depends on each person and his or her particular situation and values. In the desert, one may prefer a cup of water to a diamond.

The labor theory of value.


Curiously, this interpretation of the LTV is refuted in the Critique of the Gotha Program by Marx in 1890(!) [2]

The exploitation theory.



Denial of scarcity (property, money).



The obvious counter to this is that capitalists have a similarly naiive belief in the failings of human nature, believing that the animal nature underlying it is paramount and can at best be appeased with large amounts of EVERYTHING. Even if all human reason and willpower is set aside, the fact that humans represent the pinnacle of mammalian evolution, and mammals the pinnacle of animal evolution, and that mammals are most succinctly described as animals that take care of their own, still completely evades capitalists.

[edit] Quotations

"The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations." - David Friedman

"Because the free market system is so weak politically, the forms of capitalism that are experienced in many countries are very far from the ideal. They are a corrupted version, in which powerful interests prevent competition from playing its natural, healthy role." - Raghuram G. Rajan

"A robust capitalism would help us to reap all the dynamic, wealth-generating energies that Marx wrote about and only the faux Marxists today deny or deplore." - Jagdish Bhagwati

"Critics of anarcho-capitalism sometimes assume that communal or worker-owned firms would be penalized or prohibited in an anarcho-capitalist society. It would be more accurate to state that while individuals would be free to voluntarily form communitarian organizations, the anarcho-capitalist simply doubts that they would be widespread or prevalent. However, in theory an "anarcho-capitalist" society might be filled with nothing but communes or worker-owned firms, so long as these associations were formed voluntarily." - Bryan Caplan





"Ideologies fight over the best solution to our problems. Capitalism is the recognition that this one best answer does not exist. Capitalism says that all peaceful ideas, projects and systems are welcome. It says "we don’t know the one best way," so people have to decide themselves what might be best for them, what kind of ideas and dreams they want to realise and what kinds of goods and services they should or shouldn't consume. You are free to try anything so long as you don’t use force against other people or force them to pay for your projects. Capitalism is the system that leaves the economic decisions to the people, instead of the system." - Johan Norberg, former left-anarchist with the Anarchist Front



"The purchaser draws boundaries, fences himself in, and says, “This is mine; each one by himself, each one for himself.” Here, then, is a piece of land upon which, henceforth, no one has a right to step, save the proprietor and his friends; which can benefit nobody, save the proprietor and his servants. Let these sales multiply, and soon the people — who have been neither able nor willing to sell, and who have received none of the proceeds of the sale — will have nowhere to rest, no place of shelter, no ground to till. They will die of hunger at the proprietor’s door, on the edge of that property which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim, “So perish idlers and vagrants!”" - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Ch. III: "Labor as the Efficient Cause of the Domain of Property")

"Property is robbery!" - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, "Method Pursued in this Work. The Idea of a Revolution"

"It will probably surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save his declaration that 'property is robbery' to learn that he was perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that ever lived on this planet. But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when you read his book and find that by 'property' he means simply legally privileged wealth or power of usury, and not at all the possession of by the laborer of his products." - Benjamin Tucker

"Private property is the greatest revolutionary force which exists, with an unequaled capacity for setting itself against authority... and the principal function of private property within the political system is to act as a counterweight to the power of the State, and by so doing to insure the liberty of the individual." - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Theory of Property

[edit] External links

[edit] Anarcho-capitalist links

[edit] Criticism of Anarcho-capitalism

[edit] Commentary

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