Anarcho capitalism is not anarchy?

[OGMizen]

Ive come across this 'argument' countless times and I know its NaA (its more of a redirect/attempt to shame) but I'd like to know what people think of it and how other people would respond to it. So every time I speak about An-Cap ideas to other Anarchists (an-coms/an-socs/an-synds) they almost always say 'Anarcho capitalism is not anarchy, read some X, Y, Z (anarchist philosphers like emma goldman and chomsky) and then tell me not to call myself an anarchist because anarchy and capitalism are 'direct opposites''

 

-the idea is that capitalism (price system, 'wage slavery', etc) are rulers by proxy and therefore an-cap is not anarchy.. Any thoughts? Are there any an cap philosophers (besides stef) I can look up?

[Alan C.]

Anarcho-capitalism is Murray Rothbard's fusion of the social philosophy of 19th century individualist anarchism with the capitalistic order of production as explicated by Austrian economics (ie. anarchism with private property and free trade).

 

The people who say that anarcho-capitalism isn't real anarchism define capitalism as a system of State privilege which confers benefits to a politically-connected capitalist class.

[Pelafina]

What if it's renamed anarcho-voluntary-exchange or anarcho-peaceful-market, would they understand it then?  Probably not because they don't believe in property.  

[Pepin]

I think Alan is pretty much right. I would add that an understanding of free market economics is similar to the understanding of nature prior to the popularization of Darwin. The concept of spontaneous order is rather difficult for most people to understand as they can't conceive how such complexity and order can be generated without a designer. This is much the same as how creationist cannot imagine how such complexity and order can be generated without a deity.

 

I don't think the term "capitalistic system" is an argument that there is a system, rather it is an admission that they cannot fathom how capitalism can operate without a system. The idea of anarchy, of spontaneous order, that wealth and peace can be achieved without a central authority: is still out of the reach of most people's imagination.

[Mick Bynes]

I'm totally convinced that anarcho-capitalism is anarchism.  After reading so much on it and checking out videos about it, it has to be.  "Capitalism Is Anarchy = Anarcho-Capitalism." - Michael Shanklin

 

Look up Michael Shanklin, he makes an excellent case about anarcho-capitailsm.

[Pelafina]

The modern term for spontaneous order is "emergence".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

[dsayers]

I'd like to know what people think of it and how other people would respond to it. 

 

Mr. Chapman is right. You/they have to define terms. I think you'll find that what they're responding to isn't what capitalism actually is. Trying to deny capitalism is like trying to deny gravity when you consider that the root of capitalism is self-ownership.

 

Full disclosure: I may be biased here. I know that once self-ownership was explained to me, EVERYTHING seemed clearer and far more simple than most people make things out to be as a result of unprocessed trauma and their bias/need for certain things to be true even if they're not.

[luxfelix]

The modern term for spontaneous order is "emergence".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

 

This is synonymous with Adam Smith's description of the invisible hand of the market, if I recall correctly; parties acting based on self-interest in a free market will inevitably(?) lead to an overall benefit for all participants (since voluntary trades lead to net positives within the system).

[Josh F]

I'm not an advocate of this argument, but I think the more nuanced argument is based on history.  They might argue that the idea of property rights correlated with the rise of agriculture, and that these agricultural societies produced the first modern states.  More abstractly, private property, as a claim of ownership, requires violence to defend those asserted rights.  If I claim a piece of property I am taking it out of the commons, and in order to maintain that exclusive claim I have to defend it against other claimants.  Thus their argument that private property is violence.  

[dsayers]

If I claim a piece of property I am taking it out of the commons, and in order to maintain that exclusive claim I have to defend it against other claimants.  Thus their argument that private property is violence.  

 

Thank you for shedding light on their position. The flaw of course is in the validity of the other claimants and manner in which it is defended against. I can walk up and say I own your car. If I'm willing to inflict this conclusion, then it would be my claim that is the violence, not your defense of it. Also, the car in question is not part of the commons since cars are not naturally occurring. Meaning its very existence denotes it belongs to somebody. Finally, I don't think that "is currently of the commons" infers that it must always remain part of the commons.

[RyanT]

Your right it is a complete 'bait and switch'....

 

''Here are some shoes I've made....that are completely waterproof''

''They aren't shoes at all, they're boots!!!!!!!!!'' 

 

I've come to the conclusion it's just not worth engaging with these people, 

 

As Stef once said It's just like playing chess with a pigeon, eventually it will knock all the pieces over, shit on the board and claim victory' 

 

Although be interesting to see how they get around this one....

 

So to be a 'real Anarchist' is to be against oppression....right?

Then to do the most good, we should focus our attention where there is most oppression?

....So 'real anarchists' must be those championing children..right? 

[Josh F]

Thank you for shedding light on their position. The flaw of course is in the validity of the other claimants and manner in which it is defended against. I can walk up and say I own your car. If I'm willing to inflict this conclusion, then it would be my claim that is the violence, not your defense of it. Also, the car in question is not part of the commons since cars are not naturally occurring. Meaning its very existence denotes it belongs to somebody. Finally, I don't think that "is currently of the commons" infers that it must always remain part of the commons.

I think it self detonates.  You can't steal without accepting that property rights are valid, so how can someone steal from the commons?  

[Omegahero09]

Ive come across this 'argument' countless times and I know its NaA (its more of a redirect/attempt to shame) but I'd like to know what people think of it and how other people would respond to it. So every time I speak about An-Cap ideas to other Anarchists (an-coms/an-socs/an-synds) they almost always say 'Anarcho capitalism is not anarchy, read some X, Y, Z (anarchist philosphers like emma goldman and chomsky) and then tell me not to call myself an anarchist because anarchy and capitalism are 'direct opposites''-the idea is that capitalism (price system, 'wage slavery', etc) are rulers by proxy and therefore an-cap is not anarchy.. Any thoughts? Are there any an cap philosophers (besides stef) I can look up?

Oh wow. So companies competing for your business is fundamentally the same as Che shooting you and your family in the head for X Y and Zed. Someone trying to sell you a toaster is the same as being burned at the stake for not renouncing 'x' religion. Other anarchists are so enlightening! All your have to do is point at the pistols. And if who you are arguing with ignores the pistols then well... You have to define property. Etc etc

[TDB]

Here's an anarchist FAQ that hates anarcho-capitalism so much they have two separate long sections proving that ancaps are not anarchists: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secFcon.html

 

The issues for the authors of the FAQ seem to be hierarchy (it is always bad, can't be voluntary, might as well be rape) and socialism (which they define either as worker ownership of the means of production or worker ownership of their entire output, I'm not remembering). They claim that the individualist anarchists, such as Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, were socialists and opposed rent, interest, and wage labor. According to them, anarchists must be socialists (using that definition of socialism). This is an historical issue for them, not definitional or etymological. Proudhon was the first to embrace the epithet "anarchist" and he and all subsequent anarchists (until Rothbard) would agree on this, again according to the FAQ's authors.

 

This seems sort of plausible in light of the fact that Spooner was a member of the first international. But it still has a funny smell. Here's s quote I found in Wikipedia, from Voltairine de Cleyre, who I think everyone agrees was an anarchist: "[The anarchist individualists] are firm in the idea that the system of employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other essential institutions of Commercialism, centred upon private property, are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious merely by the interference of the State." Wikipedia cites [Anarchism. Originally published in Free Society, 13 October 1901. Published in Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre, edited by Sharon Presley, SUNY Press 2005, p. 224.]

[Bedouin]

It is what it is; simply the absence of coercion.

Not sure why the terminology matters, never saw this as an 'argument' just a 'holier than thou' sort of pedantic snobbery.

 

'Anarcho-syndicalism'/'real anarchism' illogical? Very well! We shall nitpick the label of our (supposedly) opposing philosophy! It's a real cop-out.

[luxfelix]

Is this something along the lines of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy?

[Josh F]

Here's an anarchist FAQ that hates anarcho-capitalism so much they have two separate long sections proving that ancaps are not anarchists: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secFcon.html

 

The issues for the authors of the FAQ seem to be hierarchy (it is always bad, can't be voluntary, might as well be rape) and socialism (which they define either as worker ownership of the means of production or worker ownership of their entire output, I'm not remembering). They claim that the individualist anarchists, such as Spooner and Benjamin Tucker, were socialists and opposed rent, interest, and wage labor. According to them, anarchists must be socialists (using that definition of socialism). This is an historical issue for them, not definitional or etymological. Proudhon was the first to embrace the epithet "anarchist" and he and all subsequent anarchists (until Rothbard) would agree on this, again according to the FAQ's authors.

 

This seems sort of plausible in light of the fact that Spooner was a member of the first international. But it still has a funny smell. Here's s quote I found in Wikipedia, from Voltairine de Cleyre, who I think everyone agrees was an anarchist: "[The anarchist individualists] are firm in the idea that the system of employer and employed, buying and selling, banking, and all the other essential institutions of Commercialism, centred upon private property, are in themselves good, and are rendered vicious merely by the interference of the State." Wikipedia cites [Anarchism. Originally published in Free Society, 13 October 1901. Published in Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre, edited by Sharon Presley, SUNY Press 2005, p. 224.]

Any argument from history can't be universal.  History, not unlike literature, is subject to a lot of interpretation.  One historian can see that the depression was a byproduct of government intervention and another can say it was a byproduct of free markets.  I love history, but its hard to reconcile with philosophy. 

[TDB]

Any argument from history can't be universal.  

 

At first I was just nodding my head. But I kept thinking about it. The scientific method depends on empirical experiments, induction, which is just history on a small scale. Hypothesis, test, generalization. Physical experiments are not like social experiments, that's for sure. But theories are intended to universalize from history. Not this one in particular, however.

 

Anyhow, theyre saying (ironically) "We homesteaded that word, you can't use it!" To which, I think the proper response is probably "Too late!"

[Josh F]

At first I was just nodding my head. But I kept thinking about it. The scientific method depends on empirical experiments, induction, which is just history on a small scale. Hypothesis, test, generalization. Physical experiments are not like social experiments, that's for sure. But theories are intended to universalize from history. Not this one in particular, however.

 

Anyhow, theyre saying (ironically) "We homesteaded that word, you can't use it!" To which, I think the proper response is probably "Too late!"

Oh yes, excellent point.  I think I should be more clear and say Human History, in that certainly theories like Evolution are based on history and entire fields of science as well like Geology or Astronomy.  Yet History is based on scattered evidence and piles of contradictory recorded opinions.  Though cliche, things like "History is written by the winners" produces a difficult to sift through bias in any historical interpretation.  Then you have another great enemy to the accuracy of history which is the erosion and destruction of evidence.  Also history as a field has its own competing ideologies (the Great Man Theory vs the Trends and Forces Theory) which are often, if not always, wrapped up in political ideologies like Howard Zinn (or these goofy left anarchists).  My skeptical meter just goes up when anyone is doing history as objective truth.  

[dsayers]

Would it help to clarify as: your skeptical meter going up when SUBJECTIVE history is put forth as objective truth? "The Earth is at the center of the solar system" is an objective claim and one that was "historically accurate." However, since it wasn't arrived at by way of objective measurement, it is subjective history. Or perhaps better still is to point out that humans (who have the capacity for error) recording something (the Earth is at the center of the solar system) does not make it objectively true.

[luxfelix]

Another example could be how there are objective examples (artworks with the globus cruciger, writings, etc.) that indicate that it was widely known that the Earth is round before the voyages of Columbus, even if the paintings and writings come from subjective sources (bias).

 

A short documentary on the globus cruciger: 

 

[OGMizen]

NICE ONE GUYS!!! Muchos appreciatus

[Josh F]

Would it help to clarify as: your skeptical meter going up when SUBJECTIVE history is put forth as objective truth? "The Earth is at the center of the solar system" is an objective claim and one that was "historically accurate." However, since it wasn't arrived at by way of objective measurement, it is subjective history. Or perhaps better still is to point out that humans (who have the capacity for error) recording something (the Earth is at the center of the solar system) does not make it objectively true.

The distinction is formal history, the history of human beings, as opposed to the history of physical objects.  One is based on scientific deduction and observation, the other is based on something akin to literary criticism, which is reviewing documents and scatterings of evidence which remain and interpreting that information.  This is why historic (human history) claims are not, or are rarely, objective.  We might be able to say that this or that Roman lived and cooberate some information about those actions, but our scope is limited to the historians and writers of the time and the occasional physical evidence that comes out of anthropology.  

[J. D. Stembal]

The crony capitalism strawman is strong in the Statists. Most people won't recognize a distinction between a free market of trade and the monstrous corporations of the day. I envision a 21st Century online market place (think eBay powered by BitCoin) as the precursor for a completely unregulated forum for commerce. People still shop in stores for Pete's sake.

[Libertus]

I tell them, OK, fair enough, words are not important. Let's talk about ideas.