Anarcho-”Capitalism” is impossible
Posted by Anna Morgenstern on Sep 19, 2010 in Feature Articles
Many anarchists of various stripes have made the claim that anarcho-capitalists aren’t really anarchists because anarchism entails anti-capitalism. I happen to think this is actually backwards. If they genuinely wish to eliminate the state, they are anarchists, but they aren’t really capitalists, no matter how much they want to claim they are.
People calling themselves “anarcho-capitalists” usually want to define “capitalism” as the same thing as a free market, and “socialism” as state intervention against such. But what then is a free market? If you mean simply all voluntary transactions that occur without state interference, then it’s a circular and redundant definition. In that case, all anarchists are “anarcho-capitalists”, even the most die-hard anarcho-syndicalist.
Defining capitalism as a system of private property is equally problematic, because where would you draw the line between private and public? Under a state, state property is considered “public” but as an anarchist, you know that’s a sham. It’s private property owned by a group that calls themselves the State. Whether something is owned by 10 people or 10 million doesn’t make it more or less “private”.
Going a bit deeper, there may be issues about how property rights are defined, and the nature of ownership between different sorts of anarchists. Obviously, anarcho-capitalists do not want the government to decide who owns what property. So even at their hardest of hard-core propertarianism, they are still effectively anarchists; they just have a different idea of how an anarchist society will organize itself.
This whole discussion rests on the question, what is the definition of capitalism? I agree with those who say we should avoid using the word. The first definition given earlier is the only one compatible with anarchism, so obviously that is what is meant by those calling themselves anarcho-capitalists.
I think this author goes too far in assuming she has the right to tell others how they are allowed to define the word.
Anarcho-capitalism(1) is private property rights AND a free market.
Anti-capitalist anarchist socialism (I can't remember how it was worded earlier in the thread) is using definition 2 or 3 - means a free market and no private property rights.
I think we should focus on what the person means and not argue about which word they happen to use.
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/vulgar-libertarianism-watch-part-1.html
excerpt:
In every case, the good guys, the sacrificial victims of the Progressive State, are the rich and powerful. The bad guys are the consumer and the worker, acting to enrich themselves from the public treasury. As one of the most egregious examples of this tendency, consider Ayn Rand's characterization of big business as an "oppressed minority," and of the Military-Industrial Complex as a "myth or worse."
The ideal "free market" society of such people, it seems, is simply actually existing capitalism, minus the regulatory and welfare state: a hyper-thyroidal version of nineteenth century robber baron capitalism, perhaps; or better yet, a society "reformed" by the likes of Pinochet, the Dionysius to whom Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys played Aristotle.
There are plenty of self-described anarcho-capitalists who totally disagree with Ayn Rand and do not defend big businesses. Perhaps the term is also used by the other side, I don't know. I don't know why anyone would call themself anarcho-capitalist if they wanted government handouts to big businesses - the government handout contradicts the anarcho- part.
"Robber baron capitalism"? What does that mean? Yes, there was some of this going on, but the history of this is much misunderstood - The true entrepreneurs tended to outcompete their rivals despite govt meddling, until the anti-trust laws were used against them.
Some companies were getting political favors and handouts before the regulatory and welfare state started, in the late 1800's, but it was my understanding that most of the companies labeled as robber barons were actually maligned entrepreneurs who innovated and served customers so well that other companies could not compete. Then they were successfully attacked by their would-be competitors through the new anti-trust laws (if they had political influence they would not have lost their anti-trust hearings so it seems likely they were not using govt to get rich, at least not at the time).
See this article on mises.org about robber barons (it distinguishes, as most histories do not, between market entrepreneurs, such as James Hill with the Great Northern Railroad, and "political entrepreneurs", the real robber barons, such as Leland Stanford, who used govt to ban competition with Central Pacific). Two other market entrepreneurs described in the article are John D Rockefeller, with Standard Oil, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, with steamboats.
http://mises.org/daily/2317 One other important point - Rockefeller's reduction in the cost of kerosene made it so, for the first time, poor people had an affordable way to light their homes at night (just think what an effect that had on the education and literacy of society). Yet most people call him a robber baron, someone who helped the poor so much!
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Topic: Anarcho-capitalism isn't anarchism? (Read 38412 times)