Firstly let me say that I do not agree with the implict argument that because libertarianism appears to be based on force that it is not viable. I am an anarcho-capitalist myself and would like to know if anyone has a response or could link me to one which deals with the Anarchist Writers FAQ?
The FAQ says, "If the “anarcho”-capitalist is to claim with any plausibility that “real” capitalism is non-statist or that it can exist without a state, it must be shown that capitalism evolved naturally, in opposition to state intervention. In reality, the opposite is the case. Capitalism was born from state intervention. In the words of Kropotkin, "the State . . . and capitalism . . . developed side by side, mutually supporting and re-enforcing each other."
The writer continues by saying that any system of property must ultimately be based on the force used in the past. Reading the essay itself is worth it.
So does anyone have any reply to this because I must admit it’s annoying me! History of capitalism is not my strong point.
The historical evidence available cannot prove either that capitalism evolved because of the state or that it evolved before and/or in spite of it. However, one can readily show that private property does not require a state.
Does the writer make a distinction between aggressive and defensive force? I haven’t read the essay.
I think he states that the property system and the capitalist economic system is based on the initiation of force therefore libertarian principles are wrong, or something like that. Although he may have a point (especially in some industries where businessmen collude with the state for regulation and the like) I hardly see why this discredits libertarianism as a whole, so long as businessmen in the future don’t rely on the state to uphold the capitalist system.
Does it matter? Let’s destroy the state and we shall see what comes out of it. I myself have no doubt, but that is besides the point.
What I really fear is that once they see what anarchy really is, i.e. pure capitalism, many self-styled “anarchists” will turn violent to prevent it and try modeling society according to their wishes.
Tricky word that word “force”, as technically speaking every action is by definition force. That said, if by “capitalism was born from state intervention” we mean “civilization”, sure what the hell. Capitalism is by it’s very nature anti-primitivism. If the anarchists you are concerned with care about going back to a feudalism without lords or some form of primitivism you may as well make that concession. Now if they mean “The Modern State” (French Revolution onward) that is laughably 100% spectacularly false. Just look at the French Revolution.
I still don’t understand why anarchists don’t all work together at first and then deal with the economic implications. If some see capitalism as force, they may as well get rid of the commonly-agreed-upon force in the form of the current government. Truth is, it seems like the State was developed by an-comms who thought the fruit of another’s labor belonged to everyone else and realized it couldn’t be that way without force.
Property requires the initiation of force against people who don’t share your definition of property.
You could go on all day about natural rights but this fact will never change. So yes I would say libertarianism is based on force, but I am still a libertarian.
Amen, but according to this strict definition no human society could ever be violence-free. Hence, we should stop even discussing violence and focur on rightful violence.
You can’t just claim ownership over anything. You have to mix your labor with something in order to claim ownership. The idea that you simply own a piece of land without working it is an idea of force in a way, but not the homesteading principle. Taking something that someone creates without compensation or permission is force, not the other way around.
It has been my experience that people making the bolded comment above, or something similar to it, are defining “capitalism” as the mechanism that spawned large, multi-national corporations… something I prefer to call “corporatism.” They are not defining “capitalism” as most anarcho-capitalists typically do. I’ll be reading the article the first chance I have to see how close I am. Thanks for posting it.
I used to not understand that difference. Understanding the separation of capitalism from corporatism and state capitalism is so important in grasping libertarianism, I think. Wasn’t Marx more against state capitalism than free-market capitalism?
Property is not secured by an initiation of force (regardless what government might claim otherwise). Property is secured by a repulsion of illegitimate force. Property is not created by law (ie. government) but by contract. If anything, property is a private institution protected by law. Property is not strictly mixing one’s labor with nature but nature with which no other labor has been mixed. Therefore, capitalism was not "born from state intervention" but was thought to be protected by state intervention. Men created the State to protect their pre-existent property.
I think Marx was of the opinion that free market capitalism would inevitably turn into state-capitalism, as his theories called for Capitalists to become more and more desperate to maintain thier ownership of the means of production, due in turn to his theories on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. His whole idea was that “capitalists” were taking surplus value from “laborers” via wage-labor/exploitation.
When you actually look at it in time though, “capitalists” are actually doing valuable work in speculation, management, investment, etc. The only people who are doing the exploiting and living off the work of others are the wards of the State. Have you read that great essay Hoppe has about this?
No it doesn’t. What does it matter that “capitalism” did not “evolve naturally” and “in opposition to state intervention”? And this is ignoring the libertarian class analysis, pitting the state as the enemy of commerce. Yes, rich businessmen ‘capture’ the state and use it for their own agenda, but their target for oppression is the same as when aristocrats used the state: free enterprise. The state, no matter whose influence it is under, transfers property rights and obstructs the freedom of contract, and the anarcho-capitalist wants property and contract respected.
This is a pretty vapid statement. Living requires the “initiation of force” against people who don’t want you to go on living.
What opponents mean, I often find, is that property itself requires a violent enforcer, similar to the Hobbesian story of rights. That is, property rights do only exist or can only exist because the state is there to unilaterally define them and enforce them through violence, and so a capitalist order requires the active use of force. Presumably, without the state enforcing capitalistic property rights, capital would be in common ownership and all that good stuff. The truth is that property, as with language, manners and others customs, can exist as a tacit agreement between individuals, self-enforcing due to mutual benefits and reciprocal commitments, with self-help and commercial methods of deterring and responding to property violations. Hume pointed out centuries ago that property is necessarily antecedent to the state; it is a convention, and conventions are unique in that they do not require an enforcer.
It’s also worth noting that 1) one need not use force when others violate one’s property rights, 2) even if there is a tacit threat against property violators, this threat may never be carried out in practice, and 3) anarcho-capitalists generally believe that the legal system should be focused on restitution to the victim, so if a communist takes my property, I will simply demand the property back (and maybe more in damages). What is the communist going to do when I come to take it back? Use force against me just because I don’t share his definition of property?
The Hobbesian war of all against all is only avoided through respecting the rules of natural ownership - and this is most likely why it evolved naturally (and it did evolve naturally), long before the existence of a territorial state. To quote Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty p. 45:
“…if each man is not entitled to full and 100 percent selfownership, then what does this imply? It implies either one of two conditions: (1) the “communist” one of Universal and Equal Other-ownership, or (2) Partial Ownership of One Group by Another-a system of rule by one class over another. These are the only logical alternatives to a state of 100 percent self-ownership for all.”
The first one seems quite close to the war of all against all: since all persons have equal rights to body and labor of all other persons, it would be an act of aggression to prevent them from taking their rightful share. By the same token, though, everyone else has a claim over this share too, so it is not just for any one person to make use of it. The result is either stasis and death (since it is unjust to eat an apple), or the breakdown of this ‘justice’ system. Either way, it fails.
The second one is that employed be the state. I think we’ve had enough discussions about its economic failures, but it’s clear why states have always needed propaganda and particular claims of legitimacy (including divinity etc.), since people do not naturally accept that any particular person has greater claims of property rights than others.
It seems pretty clear to me that property rights evolved naturally - before the state - and indeed why they evolved naturally: they are simply the most economically viable and fair system. For more on this see the pages following the one I referenced.
Thanks for posting it.