Alan C.

I ascribe to anarcho-capitalism in the tradition of Murray Rothbard who is credited with coining the term. Anarcho-capitalism is often incorrectly defined as the current economic system in the United States minus the State. Anarcho-capitalism was Rothbard's fusion of the social philosophy of individualist anarchism with the 'capitalistic order of production' as explicated by Austrian economics. Rothbard intended to differentiate private property anarchists from anti-propertarian anarchists. An anarchistic society in which individuals fail to recognize private property would remain in a state of grinding poverty because there would be no prices with which to coordinate production and extend 'division of labor' beyond direct observation.

In a 1972 interview, Rothbard said, "The movement that I'm in favor of is a movement of libertarians who do not substitute whim for reason. Now some of them do, obviously, and I'm against that. I'm in favor of reason over whim. As far as I'm concerned, and I think the rest of the movement, too, we are anarcho-capitalists. In other words, we believe that capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism. Not only are they compatible, but you can't really have one without the other. True anarchism will be capitalism, and true capitalism will be anarchism."

The pejorative use of "capitalism" to denounce mercantilism is needless pettifog. The endless bickering over classes, hierarchies, wage-slavery, "property is theft," and "profit=exploitation" is sophistic, disingenuous, and puerile. I repudiate the sabotage, vandalism, and Luddism advocated and perpetrated by the various groups of anarcho-collectivists.

Reference to mercantilism first appeared in print in Marquis de Mirabeau's Philosophie Rurale (1763) as "systeme mercantile" and was subsequently criticized in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. Mercantilism was practiced in Europe as far back as the 14th century and is still practiced today in much of the world. Murray Rothbard defined mercantilism as, "...a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state."

I do not believe in any god(s) and such matters are as much of a concern to me as the
existence of elves and faries. That is to say, it is of no concern to
me at all. If a proposition cannot be sustained with physical evidence and reasoned logic (aka PEARLism) then that is sufficient reason to reject it as nonsense. I agree with