Whatever, contractarian-propertarian capitalism; call it what you want. I don’t have any desire to hold ‘anarchism’ like some game of ‘King of the Hill’; you want the stupid word, use it, it’s associated with more crackpots and imbeciles than anyone worth a damn. I’ll take Henry Clay Frick over Emma Goldman any day of the week and any time of the day. I’d rather be owned by Rockefeller than live in a ‘commune’ that only recognizes ‘occupancy’ ownership, and I don’t have a damn bit of problem with shooting any such crazies who try to ‘homestead’ my house because I’m an absentee landlord.
This is perfect. “Libertarian” is up for the taking too.
The only grounds on which I would oppose the terms ‘anarcho-capitalist’ and ‘market anarchism’ is that they cause major confusion for most people new to the concept of the ideology (they will tend to confuse anarcho-capitalism for social anarchism and individualist anarchism, three completely different ideologies - though individualist anarchism is closer to anarcho-capitalism - falsely identifying all anarchist ideologies as the same). This is why I think Rothbard was wise in his decision to later refer to AnCap as Voluntaryism instead. This also has a clear advantage, being that ‘anarchy’ is a word associated with ‘chaos’, ‘violence’, ‘lawlessness’, etc.: not many people can associate something so negative with the word ‘voluntary’ which for me only has peaceful connotations.
However, this does not excuse the extremely annoying stance certain social anarchists take in playing nothing more than the “semantics game” when they try to attack AnCap: “but capitalism is a hierarchy”, “but exploitation theory”, “but AnCap is an oxymoron”, blah, blah, blah. picks up rifle to load and fire
It is precisely the futility of these discussions that leads me to reject the label “anarchist” completely, even if I am a “free-market capitalist,” or a close approximation thereof. The other half of that is that it’s not “government” I have a problem with, per se, but methods employed by pretty much every government that has ever existed. If a government could exist without employing morally suspect methods, I would have no basis upon which to denounce it.
So I say, you don’t like people like me calling myself “anarchist?” Fine. I won’t. What other petty thing can we find to bicker about?
It is precisely the futility of these discussions that leads me to reject the label “anarchist” completely, even if I am a “free-market capitalist,” or a close approximation thereof.
Aye. I also think it is a pretentious / semi-ignorant misuse of the word.:
There is also the brilliant George Orwell artcile on political language linked in that thread which further illustrates my point, if you are interested
