Rothbard: “We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists”

An Anarchist FAQ spends some time explaining, probably in far too much detail given their small size and corresponding importance, why "anarcho"-capitalism is not a form of anarchism. Ironically, its founder Murray Rothbard once agreed!

An Anarchist FAQ spends some time explaining, probably in far too much detail given their small size and corresponding importance, why "anarcho"-capitalism is not a form of anarchism. Ironically, its founder Murray Rothbard once agreed!

An Anarchist FAQ explains how anarchism, in all its many forms, is fundamentally a socialist (anti-capitalist) theory and movement. This has caused it to be, well, hated with a passion in certain right-wing circles. It is somewhat ironic, then, to discover that the founder of "anarcho"-capitalism, Murray Rothbard, also concluded that "that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical". This was because "all" anarchists had "socialistic elements in their doctrines" and "possessed socialistic economic doctrines in common." It is hard to disagree…

In a sadly unpublished article from the 1950s entitled "Are Libertarians ‘Anarchists’?", leading "anarcho"-capitalist Murray Rothbard came to the same conclusion that almost all anarchists have done, namely that "anarcho"-capitalists are not anarchists. The article itself is notable not only for its correct conclusion, namely "We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists" but also for its ill-informed diatribes against anarchism, particularly what Rothbard terms "left-wing" anarchism (i.e., social anarchism). As such, it is useful to highlight its mistakes and flaws.

Somewhat ironically, given what his article contains, Rothbard states that the "almost insuperable distortions and confusions" about anarchism "have come both from the opponents and the adherents of anarchism. The former have completely distorted anarchist tenets and made various fallacious charges, while the latter have been split into numerous warring camps with political philosophies that are literally as far apart as communism and individualism."

Yet, the fact that there were numerous schools of anarchism was a recognised fact. Kropotkin, for example, indicated as much in such works as "Modern Science and Anarchism". Yet these schools have much in common, with both Tucker and Kropotkin considering their ideas as socialist and anarchism as part of the wider socialist movement. Both were opposed to the exploitation of labour by capital, aiming to end interest, rent and profits. While Tucker, like some other individualist anarchists often (and without reason) excommunicated communist-anarchism from anarchism, he regularly called his ideas "Anarchistic-Socialism". For Tucker, like all anarchists, there were "two schools of socialistic thought", namely "State Socialism and Anarchism." [The Individualist Anarchists, pp. 78-9] Kropotkin hardly disagreed.

As such, the communist and individualist camps where not that far apart on many key issues. Both considered Proudhon as being the father of anarchism. But then, as Rothbard patronising asserts, "the various anarchist groups themselves did not recognize the enormous ideological conflict between them." Could it be, as even he is forced to admit towards the end of his inaccurate diatribe that "all the anarchist groups, even the right-wingers [sic!], possessed socialistic economic doctrines in common"? In other words, all schools of anarchism are socialistic.

"The major difficulty", Rothbard moaned, "in any analysis of anarchism is that the term covers extremely conflicting doctrines" but have a "common hostility to the existence of the State, the coercive monopolist of force and authority." Yet this is not the case, as the various forms of anarchism also shared a "common hostility" to capitalism and capitalist private property as well. An awkward fact Rothbard acknowledged: "even the best of them have . . . socialistic elements in their doctrines."

He correctly noted that anarchism "arose in the 19th century, and since then the most active and dominant anarchist doctrine has been that of ‘anarchist communism.’ This is an apt term for a doctrine which has also been called ‘collectivist anarchism,’ ‘anarcho-syndicalism,’ and ‘libertarian communism.’ This seems fair, as communist-anarchism developed out of collectivist-anarchism and shared much in common. As for anarcho-syndicalism, that was considered a tactic towards libertarian communism rather than a goal and, again, shared much in common with collectivist/communism anarchism.

It does seem strange, however, to see that Rothbard acknowledged the use of "libertarian communism" by anarchists while, at the same time, he wanted his own ideology to be called "libertarian". Given that "libertarian" had been used first by communist-anarchists as an alternative to anarchist since 1858, it shows that he was willing to appropriate that name to describe an ideology at odds to its traditional article. So Rothbard’s article, from an anarchist perspective, is utterly misnamed, It would have been better called "Are Propertarians ‘libertarians’?" and it would have come to the same conclusion.

Rothbard seems to have stated the common propertarian habit of describing social anarchism as "left"-anarchism by asserting that "[w]e may term this set of related doctrines ‘left-wing anarchism’". Given that he later admits that individualist anarchism contains "socialistic" elements, it seems that this label confuses more than it enlightens. Surely is Tucker called his position "Anarchistic Socialism then it suggests that he, too, considered his ideas of the left…

Somewhat strangely, Rothbard asserted that "Anarchist communism is primarily of Russian origin, forged by Prince Peter Kropotkin and Michael Bakunin". In reality, both Bakunin and Kropotkin became anarchists in Western Europe and rather than anarchism being "forged" by them, they were simply the most famous proponents of ideas developed within the labour movement. Thus Bakunin took up and expanded the ideas already developed by radical mutualists in the First International while communist-anarchism developed shortly after Bakunin’s death as a product of debates within the Italian section of the First International. Kropotkin may have been communist-anarchism’s most famous advocate but he did not invent it.

So, in reality, "communist-anarchism" is of Western European, not Russian, origin. It came out of the debates and activities of libertarians within the First International in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. As such, it can be considered as a natural evolution of Proudhon’s mutualism within a labour-union context (as Bakunin acknowledged, collectivist-anarchism was "Proudhonism widely developed and pushed to these, its final consequences." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 198]). For example, France’s leading mutualist, Eugene Varlin, "seems to have moved independently towards his collectivist position." [George Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 239] Kropotkin, like Bakunin, became an anarchist in exile and proclaimed to his accusers in Lyons trial of 1883 that they did him "too much honour. The father of Anarchism is the immortal Proudhon!" [quoted by Dorothy W. Douglas, "Proudhon: A Prophet of 1848: Part I", pp. 781-803, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 5, p. 800] Certainly, he become a socialist after reading Proudhon in Russia but became a libertarian socialist in Europe and, like Bakunin, wrote all his classic anarchist works there.

Significantly, Tucker referred to Proudhon as being both "the father of the Anarchistic school of socialism" as well as "being the Anarchist par excellence". [Instead of a Book, p. 391]

Rothbard showed his lack of knowledge of anarchism as a global movement when he asserted, correctly, that "it is this form that has connoted ‘anarchism’ throughout the continent of Europe." The same would be true of South America, Japan and China, for example. This would be the case in North America too — Albert Parsons and Emma Goldman were far better known than Benjamin Tucker and the communist anarchist movement quickly grew much bigger than the more home-grown individualist tendency (and as Paul Avrich notes, "[b]y the turn of the century, the anarchist movement in America had become predominantly communist in orientation." [Anarchist Voices, p. 5] It would be fair to say that anarchism has meant communist-anarchism (and its variations like anarcho-syndicalism) across the globe, even in America where the individualist tendency was quickly overwhelmed by it (in part, because of the development of capitalism there).

After showing a somewhat dubious understanding of anarchist history, Rothbard then got to what he considered the crux of the problem with anarchism, private property:

"The principal feature of anarchist communism is that it attacks private property just as vigorously as it attacks the State. Capitalism is considered as much of a tyranny, ‘in the economic realm,’ as the State in the political realm. The left-wing anarchist hates capitalism and private property with perhaps even more fervor than does the socialist or Communist."

This is, of course, true yet Rothbard makes no attempt to explain why anarchists, from Proudhon onwards (and even before, as Godwin produced a similar analysis of property as the Frenchman), have taken this position. Significantly, it was because private property produces the same kind of authoritarian social relationships which mark the state. For those interested in liberty, this similarity is important and informs anarchist theory.

Thus we find Proudhon arguing that property "violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism" and has "perfect identity with robbery." He, unsurprisingly, talks of the "proprietor, to whom [the worker] has sold and surrendered his liberty." For Proudhon, anarchy was "the absence of a master, of a sovereign" while "proprietor" was "synonymous" with "sovereign" for he "imposes his will as law, and suffers neither contradiction nor control." This meant that "property engenders despotism," as "each proprietor is sovereign lord within the sphere of his property." The aim of anarchism, unsurprisingly enough given this, was a society of "possessors without masters" rather than wage-labourers and tenants "controlled by proprietors." [What is Property, p. 251, p. 130, p. 264, pp. 266-7 and p. 167]

That this analysis is right can be seen, somewhat ironically, from Rothbard himself — at least, the future Rothbard. Some decades later we discover Rothbard arguing that the state "arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given area territorial area." He then went onto note that "[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 170 and p. 173] The logical contradiction in this position should be obvious, but not to Rothbard. It shows the power of ideology, the ability of means words (the expression "private property") to turn the bad ("ultimate decision-making power over a given area") into the good ("ultimate decision-making power over a given area").

Of course, to quote Rothbard’s future writings is problematic as, while dripping in irony, he was obviously unaware of them or the obvious contradictions they expose in his ideology. Let us quote a source he was familiar with, namely Ludwig von Mises who glibly noted that the capitalist "of course exercises power over the workers", although "he cannot exercise it arbitrarily" thanks to the market but within this limit "the entrepreneur is free to give full rein to his whims" and "to dismiss workers offhand" [Socialism, p. 443 and p. 444]

So, looking at both Rothbard and von Mises we discover that the anarchist opposition to private property "as much of a tyranny, ‘in the economic realm,’ as the State in the political realm" has merit. As we have explained in section F.1 this obvious self-contradiction in "anarcho"-capitalism is one of the many reasons why it is not anarchist.

After proclaiming, but not explaining, anarchist opposition to property, Rothbard continued in his best Ex Cathedra tone:

"Like the Marxists, the left-wing anarchist is convinced that the capitalists exploit and dominate the workers, and also that the landlords invariably are exploiting peasants."

As just indicated, the capitalist and landlord do dominate the workers and peasants, as acknowledged by both Rothbard and von Mises. Both the property owner and the state have a monopoly of decision making over a given territory and, of course, power over those within it. If the state dominates people, so (logically) must the capitalist and landlord. That Rothbard considers the power associated private property as legitimate does not change the social relations it produces.

Then there is the charge of exploitation. The answer to that is simple, why does a capitalist hire a worker unless that worker produces more for the boss than they get paid in wages. Why does the landlord rent out land to the peasant, unless to get rent? To quote a source he would be familiar with, "the employer . . . considers labour a commodity, an instrument of earning profits". Of course, in reality, labour cannot be separated from the human beings who provide it (unlike "capital" and land). The workers sell their labour-power, and so the "hired man . . . owes [the employer] a definite quantity of work of a definite kind and quality." [Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 629] As discussed in section C.2, the difference between the wages paid and what the labour actually produces is source of surplus value (profits, rent and interest).

So, yes, capitalists do exploit the workers and in order to do so dominate them, that is, create hierarchical social relationships within the workplace. Workers sell their labour (liberty) to the capitalists, the capitalists get to command them and monopolise the fruit of their labour. This has been a pretty standard anarchist position since 1840 (see Proudhon’s What is Property?) and so it is fair to say that Marxists are repeating ideas first expounded by anarchists.

Rothbard then asserted that the "economic views of the anarchists present them with a crucial dilemma", namely "how can capitalism and private property be abolished, while the State is abolished at the same time?" Given that, for example, Kropotkin wrote numerous articles on precisely this subject (as collected in The Conquest of Bread and, more recently, Act for Yourselves) Rothbard’s assertion is simply staggering. It suggests an utterly lack of familiarity with the subject matter. Let us simply quote from one of Bakunin’s numerous anarchist programmes:

"natural and necessary consequence of this destruction will be . . . [among others, the] dissolution of army, magistracy, bureaucracy, police and priesthood. . . confiscation of all productive capital and means of production on behalf of workers’ associations, who are to put them to use . . . the federative Alliance of all working men’s associations . . . will constitute the Commune . . . all provinces, communes and associations . . . by first reorganising on revolutionary lines . . . [will] constitute the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces . . . [and] organise a revolutionary force capable defeating reaction . . . [and for] self-defence . . . [The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme control must always belong to the people organised into a free federation of agricultural and industrial associations . . . organised from the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation. . . " [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170-2]

Thus it is quite easy to abolish private property at the same time as the state — those who use it simply ignore those who claim to own it and place it under their own management. In this way private property is abolished, along with wage labour and so capitalism. This should all be obvious to anyone familiar with the anarchist critique of private property.

More to the point, how is it possible to abolish private property if the state is not abolished? How can capital be expropriated if the might of the state, its police and army, can be called upon by the property owners to kick the workers out of their fields, factories and workshops? And it should be noted that Rothbard’s "solution" does not abolish the state, it simply changes its name to "a body of constitutional libertarian law" with "private courts" allowing the use of force to defend private property — in other words, private statism.

Equally, using the state to abolish private property simply replaces the property owners with a new class of state bureaucrats — as happened under Lenin. But to give credit where it is due, at least Rothbard was aware that communist-anarchists seek to destroy capitalism and the state "at the same time", which is a substantial improvement on the false Marxist assertions that we aim to just abolish the state!

Aware that anarchists have discussed his "crucial dilemma" in some detail, Rothbard states that "nearest those anarchists have come to resolving the problem has been to uphold syndicalism as the ideal." Yet anyone familiar with the history of anarchism would know that syndicalism is a tactic, not a goal. It comes from the French for revolutionary labour unionism and does not describe an economic system different from that of communist-anarchism. In fact, the ideas of syndicalism were first expounded by Bakunin and others in the First International and was supported by Kropotkin and other communist-anarchists like Malatesta. As such, there is no fundamental difference between anarchism and syndicalism (regardless of what Rothbard and Marxists may imply).

What Rothbard terms "syndicalism", namely a situation in which "each group of workers and peasants is supposed to own its means of production in common, and plan for itself, while cooperating with other collectives and communes", was raised by Proudhon in 1840 long before the word syndicalism was coined. Bakunin and Kropotkin also presented similar visions, again long before syndicalism become well-known in English.

And what of "syndicalism"? "Logical analysis of these schemes", he asserts, "would readily show that the whole program is nonsense. Either of two things would occur: one central agency would plan for and direct the various subgroups, or the collectives themselves would be really autonomous." Obviously "the first possibility means nothing more nor less than Communism" (i.e., Stalinism) — which is why anarchists have always opposed central planning! The second option, Rothbard states, "leads to a real chaos of diverse and clashing Communisms, that would probably lead finally to some central Communism after a period of social war"! Why this logically happens is left unexplained, probably because having to explain why free people would not work together for to meet their common goals would simply be too hard to do. Why a syndicate contacting another to order and arrange the delivery of a good they require would produce "a true chaos of communistic syndics" is hard to see. Equally hard to see is why these communist syndicates would take up arms against each other, after having taken up arms against capitalist oppression to create a co-operative commonwealth in the first place…

After that wonderful display of "logical analysis", Rothbard turns to this assertion:

"But the crucial question is whether these agencies would be empowered to use force to put their decisions into effect. All of the left-wing anarchists have agreed that force is necessary against recalcitrants."

Sadly Rothbard failed to provide the slightest evidence to support this claim. Perhaps because none exists? In fact, communist-anarchists have been at pains to explain that those who do not wish to be communists would be free to try other forms of economy — individualist, mutualist, collectivist and so forth. But, of course, asserting that all communist-anarchists support force means he does not have to provide any evidence, particularly given that few of his fellow propertarians would be likely to check his claim or be familiar enough with communist-anarchism to know that he is slandering it.

Rothbard then notes, correctly, that the "leading anarchists, particularly in Europe, have always been of the left-wing variety, and today the anarchists are exclusively in the left-wing camp." It is also useful to note that anarchism was coined by Proudhon, someone recognised as being one of the leading socialist thinkers in France at the time. "Add to that," he continued, "the tradition of revolutionary violence stemming from European conditions, and it is little wonder that anarchism is discredited."

Taking of logical analysis, why does anarchists being "left-wing" result in anarchism being "discredited"? Rothbard prejudices, as was often the case, obviously got in the way of his logic. It should also be noted that American anarchism also involved "revolutionary violence", so it cannot be said to be purely the results of (unspecified) "European conditions." Rather, such a "tradition" flowed from the rise of capitalism in both continents, combined with a corresponding rise in state repression of the labour movement and labour protest. For example, Italian Anarchist Gaetano Bresci assassinated King Umberto of Italy in 1900 and Alexander Berkman tried to kill Carnegie Steel Corporation manager Henry Clay Frick in 1892. What is often unknown is that Umberto’s troops had fired upon and killed protesting peasants or that Frick’s Pinkertons had also murdered locked-out workers at Homestead. Similarly, the violent rhetoric of the Chicago anarchists was a product of state repression of strikes, a repression urged on by the capitalist class.

As for anarchism being "discredited", well it is true that post-war anarchism was at a low ebb. The apparent "success" of the Russian Revolution and its impact on the wider socialist and labour movement played its role, not to mention the fact that both Fascism and Stalinism physically destroying the anarchist movement across Europe. However, the decline of anarchism was short-lived and by the 1960s it had exploded back onto the world stage again — as it has repeatedly since. This return of anarchism can be best explained by the fact that both neo-liberal capitalism and the state capitalism of Stalinism have been exposed for what they are and people are looking for alternatives to capitalism and Marxism.

Rothbard turned his attention to the Spanish Revolution, stating that "Anarchism was politically very powerful in Spain, and during the Spanish Civil War, anarchists established communes and collectives wielding coercive authority." It is true that the anarchists were very strong in Spain, with the CNT being the most active and militant union in the country. It is also true that the anarchists helped create communes and collectives, although the notion that they wielded "coercive authority" is typical Rothbard invention. The collectives were free associations of workers, managing their own affairs. If making decisions and implementing them equals "wielding coercive authority" then all organisations do so, including capitalist firms. The question really should be why a dictatorial organisation (the capitalist workplace) is considered more libertarian than a democratic one (a commune or collective) The answer is, of course, it cannot be — which is why anarchists have always been anti-capitalist.

Rather than a blanket condemnation of all organisation, perhaps Rothbard is referring to the Stalinist myth (recently repeated by propertarians) that the anarchist militias forced people to join collectives in Aragon. While this did happen in a very few cases (and was opposed by the CNT-FAI), the facts are that the vast majority of collectives were formed voluntarily and worked remarkably well. And, strangely enough, the syndicates did not start a "social war" amongst themselves…

Clearly on a roll, Rothbard then stated that "[o]ne of their first steps was to abolish the use of money on the pain of a death penalty." Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, he failed to indicate where he got that particular gem — because, yet again, it never happened?

After this little detour into fantasy, Rothbard tried to generalise from his inventions. "It is obvious," he opines, "that the supposed anarchist hatred of coercion had gone very much awry." Why? Simple: "The reason was the insoluble contradiction between the antistate and the antiproperty tenets of left-wing anarchy." Of course, his case would be somewhat stronger if he presented any actual real evidence to support it, but never mind!

So why does communist-anarchism urge the expropriation of capital and the creation of collectives/communes? This flows from our libertarian analysis of capitalism and the awareness that private property produces hierarchical social relationships — the owner has power over the workers. We urge those subject to such power to rebel and get rid of it by forming an association. To quote Proudhon:

"either the workman. . . will be simply the employee of the proprietor-capitalist-promoter; or he will participate. . . [and] have a voice in the council, in a word he will become an associate.

"In the first case the workman is subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience. . . In the second case he resumes his dignity as a man and citizen. . . he forms part of the producing organisation, of which he was before but the slave; as, in the town, he forms part of the sovereign power, of which he was before but the subject . . . we need not hesitate, for we have no choice. . . it is necessary to form an ASSOCIATION among workers . . . because without that, they would remain related as subordinates and superiors, and there would ensue two . . . castes of masters and wage-workers, which is repugnant to a free and democratic society." [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 215-216]

While Proudhon opposed revolution, his arguments for association were perfectly correct. Thus the antistate and antiproperty aspects of anarchism fit together logically. In fact, as Rothbard himself later proved, any pro-property "anarchism" involves the real "insoluble contradiction"!

Ultimately, Rothbard is blind to the fact that there are "two ways of oppressing men: either directly by brute force, by physical violence; or indirectly by denying them the means of life and this reducing them to a state of surrender." In the second case, government is "an organised instrument to ensure that dominion and privilege will be in the hands of those who . . . have cornered all the means of life, first and foremost the land, which they make use of to keep the people in bondage and to make them work for their benefit." [Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 21] As Kropotkin argued against a forerunner of propertarianism:

"The modern Individualism initiated by Herbert Spencer is, like the critical theory of Proudhon, a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable — so miserable as to lead us to inquire if the talk of ‘No force’ be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination." [Act For Yourselves, p. 98]

Moving on to his favourite subject, Rothbard states that "[o]f economics, which would show them the impossibility of their system, they are completely ignorant, perhaps more so than any other group of political theorists." Given how little relationship economics has to reality, this is hardly a major blow against anarchism — assuming it were true. Equally, it should be noted that Austrian economics, like neo-classical economics, is not a science. Logic deductions from a few assumptions is a pre-scientific methodology, not to mention the repeated assertions by Rothbard that mere evidence cannot disprove his claims. And it is a strange coincidence that these deductions always seem to end up being what the property-owning class wants to hear! As Kropotkin put it, economics "has always confined itself to stating facts occurring in society, and justifying them in the interest of the dominant class . . . Having found [something] profitable to capitalists, it has set it up as a principle." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 181]

Rothbard then moved onto the issue of anti-social activity, stating that the "dilemma about coercion they attempt to resolve by the absurd theory that crime would simply disappear if the State were abolished, so that no coercion would have to be used." Really? Crime would "simply disappear"? No, not at all. If you read Kropotkin, say, he was well aware that anti-social acts would not disappear. What he did argue, as did other anarchists, was that once people were free and no longer crushed by poverty and hierarchy then anti-social behaviour would decrease drastically. Apparently Rothbard subscribed to the absurd theory that crime is completely independent on how wealth is distributed and how people are treated — apparently a starving man and a well-fed one would have the same tendency to steal a loaf of bread…

Significantly, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (Allen Lane, 2009) demonstrate that more equal societies have less crime and smaller prison populations as well as consistently delivering other advantages such as better physical and mental health, lower rates of teenage pregnancy and obesity, and higher rates of literacy and social trust. It is striking that on almost every index of quality of life or wellness there is a strong correlation between a country’s level of economic inequality and its social outcomes.

Of course that information was not around when Rothbard wrote his diatribe but it is a striking confirmation of the communist-anarchist position he distorts in order to mock. While as an "Austrian" economist, Rothbard may happily dismiss this empirical evidence, the awkward fact is that more equal societies are better ones and have less crime. As Kropotkin and others argued.

Showing that Marxists have no monopoly of spewing forth nonsense about anarchism, Rothbard asserted that:

"Irrationality indeed permeates almost all of the views of the left-wing anarchists. They reject industrialism as well as private property, and tend to favor returning to the handicraft and simple peasant conditions or the Middle Ages."

It would be interesting to discover which anarchists favoured a return to the Middle Ages or rejected "industrialism", but sadly Rothbard did not feel that actually naming them would be of benefit to his potential readers. Perhaps this silence is due to the awkward fact that no "left-wing" anarchist actually advocated such a rejection or return? If Rothbard had actually read, say, Kropotkin he would have discovered that he advocated the use of appropriate technology, the integration of workplaces and farming, the humanisation of industry and most definitely not their rejection.

While Marxists have tended to dismiss anarchists, particularly Kropotkin, along these exact same lines, it does not make it true. The actual position advocated by anarchists, including Kropotkin, did not involve rejecting technology and industry, but rather the surely uncontroversial position that a free society would transform the industrial structure and technology that grew up under centuries of unfree society. As Kropotkin repeatedly stressed, modern industry is shaped by the need to make profits and dominate markets. Combine this with state intervention against the working class, and you quickly come to the conclusion that the "industrialism" that Rothbard takes for granted was the product of centuries of coercion and the exercise of political and economic power.

Apparently, for Rothbard, centuries of coercion in no way shaped the economy and that, without the state, exactly the same socio-economic system would have developed, with essentially the same industrial and class structure.

Rothbard then introduces a somewhat surreal point (pun intended!):

"They are fanatically in favor of modern art, which they consider ‘anarchist’ art."

Again, who is this "they"? He named no names, again. Moreover, this statement is wonderfully irrelevant, raising the question "who cares?" And to make an equally irrelevant statement, is it not interesting that Stalin, like the Nazis, had a distinct hatred of modern art. Who knows, perhaps he did so because he considered it "anarchist" too? One thing is sure, many modern art supporters and artists that they were the most important bulwark against totalitarianism and its repression represented a warning that individual liberties were being threatened.

Rothbard continued to make his broad and decidedly vague accusations against communist-anarchists:

"They have an intense hatred of money and of material improvements. Living a simple peasant existence, in communes, is extolled as ‘living the anarchist life,’ while a civilized person is supposed to be viciously bourgeois and unanarchist."

"They"? Who, exactly? Again, Rothbard named no names. As such, it makes it hard to determine whether anarchists do wish to live "a simple peasant existence, in communes". It is well-known, of course, that Kropotkin suggested that a free society would combine industry and agriculture in a decentralised economic system but that was hardly a "peasant existence" nor did it reject "material improvements". As for "communes", that suggests a blissful ignorance of anarchist history as well as theory given that anarchists saw communes embrace whole towns and cities (with the Paris Commune giving a concrete example of what was desired). That is hard to square with a "a simple peasant existence" and so, unsurprisingly, went unmentioned.

And what, may we ask, makes a person "civilised"? By what criteria is being "bourgeois" civilised? But, yes, an employer of wage slaves (an actual bourgeois) would be "unanarchist" as, by definition, anarchism is against masters and slaves, against social relationships based on power, authority, oppression and exploitation.

Rothbard then concluded: "Considering the dominant anarchists, it is obvious that the question ‘are libertarians anarchists?’ must be answered unhesitatingly in the negative. We are at completely opposite poles." And ignoring the unsubstantiated assertions, smears and errors, Rothbard’s conclusion is right — it is obvious that propertarians are not communist anarchists, that they are "at completely opposite poles."

However, communist-anarchism is not the only school of anarchism. Rothbard noted that "[c]onfusion enters" because of "the existence in the past, particularly in the United States, of a small but brilliant group of ‘individualist anarchists’ headed by Benjamin R. Tucker." This is, he states, "a different breed" who "have contributed a great deal to libertarian thought." Needless to say, he used the term "libertarian" in the (incorrect) propertarian sense and in that (incorrect) sense it is questionable how much they did contribute to propertarianism. While certain of their ideas have been inserted (in a suitably modified form) into propertarianism, the economic and social context of these ideas have been ignored. This cannot help present a somewhat skewed notion of what the individualist anarchist desired and how close they are to propertarianism or, for that matter, communist anarchism.

So "[c]onfusion enters" only if you ignore the social context in which Individualist Anarchism developed and if you have an ideologically coloured notion of what socialism is.

Somewhat strangely, Rothbard states that "[i]n the political sphere, the individualist anarchists were generally sound libertarians. They favored private property, extolled free competition, and battled all forms of governmental intervention." Since when was free competition political rather than economic? And to proclaim they "favored private property" is somewhat at odds with the later acknowledgement that they "failed to advocate defense of private landholdings beyond what the owner used personally"! In a predominantly agricultural society, such a position was not only considered an attack on the rights of private property (as Rothbard implies) but also a radical transformation of the economy. As for "all forms of governmental intervention" that included defence of capitalist property rights in land and housing (Tucker regarded a tenant of a house "as the occupant and user of the land on which the house stands, and as the owner of the house itself." [Liberty, no. 308, p. 4]).

"Politically," Rothbard continued, "the Tucker anarchists had two principal defects: (1) they failed to advocate defense of private landholdings beyond what the owner used personally; (2) they relied too heavily on juries and failed to see the necessity for a body of constitutional libertarian law which the private courts would have to uphold." Yet, the Tucker anarchists did not consider these as being remotely defects — quite the reverse. Indeed, Tucker spent some time arguing against Rothbard’s preferred property rights in land based on valid libertarian principles:

"I put the right of occupancy and use above the right of contract . . . principally by my interest in the right of contract. Without such a preference the theory of occupancy and use is utterly untenable; without it . . . it would be possible for an individual to acquire, and hold simultaneously, virtual titles to innumerable parcels of land, by the merest show of labour performed thereon . . . [This would lead to] the virtual ownership of the entire world by a small fraction of its inhabitants . . . [which would see] the right of contract, if not destroyed absolutely, would surely be impaired in an intolerable degree." [Liberty, no. 350, p. 4]

It should be noted that this critique caused problems with another propertarian thinker of the time, Auberon Herbert.

Somewhat ironically, Tucker would have joined Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin in "the private courts" if they had practiced what they preached and refused to pay rent. After all, that would be a crime under Rothbard’s "constitutional libertarian law" and it would be unlikely that a wealthy private judge would be as moved as a jury by the arguments used to defend their actions! And what, exactly, is the difference between a monopoly "constitutional libertarian law" and the state, other than the former, like a dictatorship, would not be subject to democratic change?

It should also be noted that Rothbard’s wish to defend landlords just proves Kropotkin’s point:

"Political economy — that pseudo-science of the bourgeoisie — does not cease to give praise in every way to the benefits of individual property . . . [Yet] the economists do not conclude, ‘The land to him who cultivates it.’ On the contrary, they hasten to deduce from the situation, ‘The land to the lord who will get it cultivated by wage earners!’" [Words of a Rebel, p. 209-10]

However, while they had "minor political failings" the Tucker anarchists had "grievous economic error". First off, they "believed that interest and profit were exploitative" (not to mention rent!) and this was caused by "an allegedly artificial restriction on the money supply." Their goal, apparently, was to establish free banking in which "everyone would print as much money as he needed, and interest and profits would fall to zero." Of course, this is simply nonsense (and it gives some of Rothbard’s assertions on communist-anarchism a run for its money in terms of being inaccurate!).

For the Tucker anarchists, free banking simply meant that banks did not need specie to issue money and credit, rather people would use other forms of property as collateral. It would not be printing money, but rather the creation of credit for people seeking to produce more goods and services. In other words, they expressed a clear understanding of how a modern credit economy would work — in stark contrast to Rothbard’s "Austrian" position which assumes his logical deductions are more significant than the activities of an industry which have evolved over centuries.

Rest assured, though, the "economic fallacies of the Tuckerites . . . still permitted them to advocate a nearly libertarian system"! Yet if the economic base of their political system do not exist, if aspects of their system are grafted onto a deeply unequal society marked by accumulation of wealth via interest, rent and profit, then their system would turn into the opposite of what they desired. Rather than ended the power of the capitalist and landlord class over society, the private courts would be imposing the private power of these classes, a power enshrined in the "constitutional libertarian law". As individualist anarchist Laurance Labadie put it:

"Mere common sense would suggest that any court would be influenced by experience; and any free-market court or judge would in the very nature of things have some precedents guiding them in their instructions to a jury. But since no case is exactly the same, a jury would have considerable say about the heinousness of the offence in each case, realising that circumstances alter cases, and prescribing penalty accordingly. This appeared to Spooner and Tucker to be a more flexible and equitable administration of justice possible or feasible, human beings being w hat they are . . .

"But when Mr. Rothbard quibbles about the jurisprudential ideas of Spooner and Tucker, and at the same time upholds presumably in his courts the very economic evils which are at bottom the very reason for human contention and conflict, he would seem to be a man who chokes at a gnat while swallowing a camel." [quoted by Mildred J. Loomis and Mark A. Sullivan, "Laurance Labadie: Keeper Of The Flame", pp. 116-30, Benjamin R. Tucker and the Champions of Liberty, Coughlin, Hamilton and Sullivan (eds.), p. 124]

Many a subsequent propertarian has echoed Rothbard’s notion that "superficial might easily confuse the two" schools because the individualists were led to attack ‘capitalists’, whom they felt were exploiting the workers through State restriction of the money supply." Yet Rothbard himself fell into this allegedly "superficial" perspective by acknowledging that "all the anarchist groups . . . possessed socialistic economic doctrines in common" and that "even the best of them" had "socialistic elements in their doctrines". Clearly, confusing the two schools of anarchism may not be so "superficial" after all!

This acknowledgement of reality came when he asserted that "[m]any libertarian thinkers in that Golden Age of liberalism were working on doctrines that were similar in many respects" although these "genuine libertarians never referred to themselves as anarchists." The reason seems clear: "probably the main reason was that all the anarchist groups, even the right-wingers [sic!], possessed socialistic economic doctrines in common." Apparently these "genuine libertarians" were also "superficial"

It would have been nice to know who these "genuine" libertarians actually were. Presumably, one of them would have been Molinari, someone propertarians generally point to as inventing "market anarchism" even though he never called himself an anarchist. Assuming that Rothbard meant Molinari, it should be noted that his position was unique — he was the sole defender of such free-market justice at the time in France. It must also be noted that no one, including these so-called "genuine libertarians", ever referred to them as "libertarians" at the time. This "Golden Age of liberalism" not only produced anarchism in opposition to it, it also saw anarchists across the globe use the word "libertarian" to describe their ideas from 1858 onwards! And, needless to say, surely the fact that "all" anarchists were "socialistic" is significant?

Rothbard gets to his conclusion:

"We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines . . . we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists . . . We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical."

How very true (bar the "irrational collectivists" nonsense, of course)! As argued by most anarchists ever since and as proven in An Anarchist FAQ! It may be argued that as Rothbard did not publish his article, it makes little sense to discuss it. This is not the case, particularly given that elements of this article subsequently appeared in two other published pieces ("The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist’s View" and the charmingly entitled "The Death Wish of the Anarcho-Communists"). More importantly, Rothbard’s conclusion was correct. Attempts to include "anarcho"-capitalism into anarchism are "completely unhistorical" and are not "on firm etymological ground". His conclusion that all schools of anarchism have "socialistic elements in their doctrines" confirms what anarchists have long argued, as does his admission that "We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists."

That Rothbard at one stage acknowledged the obvious is significant and should be commented upon, just as his slanders and distortions about anarchism should pointed out and corrected.

34 replies on “Rothbard: “We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists””

The Rothbard “coercive
The Rothbard “coercive authority” trick is classic right wing hokum. The argumentative content is pretty comical. The logic of this kind of conservative market thought goes a little something like this:

“For how can one have an anarchist society without CEOs? How will the Donald Trumps of the world survive?! The anarchists are oppressing them for not allowing corporate power to dominate the social fabric!

“This criminal coercion by anarchist scum must be stopped! I have an idea. How about we start fighting it by popularizing the terms “libertarian” and “anarcho-” in right wing discourse! That’s a start; we can fend off the SCUM that want to dissolve oppression and bring about justice somehow!”

Actually, that is NOT too far

Actually, that is NOT too far from the truth… Here is Rothbard looking back on the propertarian appropriation of the term libertarian from the left:

“One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, ‘our side,’ had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . ‘Libertarians’ . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing [sic!] anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over…” (The Betrayal of the American Right, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, 2007, p. 83)

Quite disgraceful behaviour! There is the irony, though, that the "libertarians" — right-wing defenders of absolute private property — stole their name from the left! So, apparently, theft is property 🙂

This might have been
This might have been condensed into a tolerably interesting article. Instead it just goes on and on, one bald assertion after another. “How can Rothbard have believed x ? Didn’t he read (insert name of favourite anarchist) ?” Yes, he did read all of them and criticised them, which is more than can be said of this essay. The Rothbard quote are good though.

You fear “private statism”. Rothbard believed that each man is sovereign, his own ‘state” if you like so you needn’t worry.

Overall, you quibble over semantics and use far too many exclamation points and CAPITALS to amplify your meagre points.

“You fear “private statism”.
“You fear “private statism”. Rothbard believed that each man is sovereign, his own ‘state” if you like so you needn’t worry.”

Yeah, and some soverigns are more equal than others. You write that as if each state as they are today coexists equally and peacefully with its neighbors. If each man is “soverign, his own ‘state”” then what is preventing some men from becoming empires and others from becoming colonies? Is that justice?

In short, if there are a few

In short, if there are a few people who monopolise the world’s wealth then the rest of us must sell our freedom in order to gain access to it. Which means that the person posting this "reply" does not understand the basic point of the anarchist critique of property. I guess that most "anarcho"-capitalist’s still haven’t read Proudhon’s What is Property?

“I guess that most
“I guess that most “anarcho”-capitalist’s still haven’t read Proudhon’s What is Property?”

I have read it. I just find it absurd and illogical. Especially the “property is theft” nonsense, when theft is a term that only makes sense when talking about private property. Theft presupposes valid property. Yet property is theft and invalid. Hence, there was no theft, as there was no property, so property is fine. But it’s also theft.

But if we are quoting Proudhon, then “Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.”

And if I REALLY want to confuse you, I will quote him one more time, stating “Property is Liberty!” I’m sure, however, that you have some complicated and obtuse explanation for this obvious contradiction to the implied meaning of the former statement (which was a self-contradiction).

poor sap, no wonder you’re
poor sap, no wonder you’re confused.

You forgot the part about what Proudhon considered “valid” property (possession, occupancy and use).

There’s no need for some complicated or obtuse explanation (other than simple “possession” and “occupancy and use”) since there is no contradiction.

I think you’re wrong in that
I think you’re wrong in that when he said property is liberty he did have the right-wing version in mind. Take this from the Theory of Property:

The principle of property is ultra-legal, extra-legal, absolutist, and egoist by nature, to the point of iniquity: it must be this way.

It has for counter-weight the reason of the State, which is absolutist, ultra-legal, illiberal, and governmental, to the point of oppression: it must be this way.

This is how, in the projections of universal reason, the principle of egoism, usurper by nature, without integrity, becomes an instrument of justice and of order, to the point that property and right are inseparable ideas and nearly synonyms. Property is egoism idealized, consecrated, invested with a political and juridical function.

It must be this way: because right is never better observed than when it finds a defender in selfishness and in the coalition of egoisms. Liberty will never be defended against power, if it does not have at its disposal a means of defense, if it does not have its impregnable fortress.

Did you really read
Did you really read Proudhon’s arguments? A piece of land that remains under ownership long after it was abandoned. Don’t even mention abandonment rules to a propertarian, he will cry statism until you’ve lost all hearing capacity. And then, there’s rent being paid on a piece of land long after the value of the house was repaid, continuing into the next generation of owners, infinitely. There’s plenty of grounds for saying that property is theft. Let me have another reading and I’ll come up with more arguments.

The point is, there is no logic to the system of private property; only some arguments that may have some value under some particular perspective. For instance, they say there are conflicts because of unclear or inexistant boundaries. Lots of people lived in communes in Europe and they were pretty fine with it. I suppose it depends if you’re an asshole who wants things for himself and doesn’t care about anything or anyone. Then you might need a philosophy where you don’t even put a toe on someone else’s front lawn.

I would recommend

I would recommend understanding Proudhon before trying to discuss his ideas…

I have read it. I just find it absurd and illogical. Especially the "property is theft" nonsense, when theft is a term that only makes sense when talking about private property. Theft presupposes valid property. Yet property is theft and invalid. Hence, there was no theft, as there was no property, so property is fine. But it’s also theft.

I would suggest you read it a little bit more closely, as you clearly don’t understand the arguments be is putting forward.

But if we are quoting Proudhon, then "Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence."

And if you had studied Proudhon you would know that Tucker translated "Community" as "Communism" and that by "Community" Proudhon meant the ideas of Fourier and Saint-Simon, who were most definitely not communists. If you want his arguments against (authoritarian) communism please consult General Idea of the Revolution.

And if I REALLY want to confuse you, I will quote him one more time, stating "Property is Liberty!" I’m sure, however, that you have some complicated and obtuse explanation for this obvious contradiction to the implied meaning of the former statement (which was a self-contradiction).

Proudhon recognised that having control over the things you use is liberty — that was why he opposed "Community" and it was the corporation which held the means of production, housing and so forth and determined your income. He also recognised that under capitalism (property) this freedom is turned into the ability to control those who use your property — wage-workers, tenants, etc. Thus property turns from being liberty into despotism under capitalism.

My I suggest you buy my new Proudhon anthology Property is Theft! as it covers these very basic aspects of his ideas.

You think these private
You think these private states or “competing governments” as Molinari called them, won’t collude and cartelize? You really think the non aggression principle matters to men with such organized coercive power? You really are daft!

It’s only an “quibble over
It’s only an “quibble over semantics” to ‘anarcho’-capitalists who rationalize their desire for hierarchy by differentiating between “voluntary hierarchy” and “coercive hierarchy” as if “voluntary hierarchy” was compatible with an-archy. Finding a rationalization for the desirability of hierarchy doesn’t make hierarchy compatible with anarchy. The only people who have these conversations of “legitimate hierarchy” are ‘anarcho’-capitalists; and such conversations are only an attempt to square the cognitive dissonance created by advocating anarchy and hierarchy simultaneously.

While anarchist-communists don’t want to suppress free exchange in a coercive way (as this would defeat the purpose of anarchism), ‘anarcho’-capitalists find hierarchy super desirable (which also defeats the purpose of anarchism) and their ideal society would be one primarily based on institutions which are hierarchical.

So there is a problem with Rothbard calling himself an anarchist while rejecting egalitarianism and advocating hierarchy as desirable.

I propose a name change for Rothbardians. Instead of calling yourselves ‘an-archists’, you could start calling yourselves “hier-archists”. Instead of ‘anarcho’-capitalist, you can call yourselves “hierarcho-capitalists”. And instead of “market anarchists” you can call yourselves “market hierarchists.” The original school of market anarchists (the Hodgskin/Proudhonian crowd) can keep the name “anarchist” as well as anarchist-communists who view hierarchy as undesirable. It’s the only logically consistent and intellectually honest compromise.

“as if “voluntary hierarchy”
“as if “voluntary hierarchy” was compatible with an-archy”

Then anarchy is a self-contradiction. If I wish to hire a laborer to work in a factory I labored to build, and someone else is willing to be hired to fill that position, it would require a ruler (I suppose you would probably call them archons) to enforce a system of prevention.

Nope, if the two of you
Nope, if the two of you wanted to play out your ‘worker’ and ‘boss’ BDSM fantasy for a while no one would care. But you wouldn’t own the means of production so that as soon as the ‘worker’ got tired with being bossed around they would be no one to enforce you claim of ownership. ‘Communism’ as a safe word I guess

right, the “archons” would be
right, the “archons” would be the hired guns contracted by the capitalist to “enforce a system of prevention” against workers becoming the owners. So maybe the anon before you is right, anarchy is contradictory and impossible, which I get the feeling was the gist of Rothbard’s “anarcho”-capitalism.

Looks like the anon before you finally reached a moment of clarity in deciphering the works of Rothbard, which were just a long-winded, ironic, and convoluted of saying anarchy impossible. Rothbard should have just re-titled his work “Anarchy as a Revolt against Nature.”

I don’t see any contradiction
I don’t see any contradiction here. If the worker you hire was paid the full benefit of his/her labor, then that worker might remain and work, and everyone would benefit. If, however, you decide to take part of the worker’s product of labor, they would probably leave and go work for themselves or elsewhere free from theft.

Instead it just goes on and

Instead it just goes on and on, one bald assertion after another. "How can Rothbard have believed x ? Didn’t he read (insert name of favourite anarchist) ?" Yes, he did read all of them and criticised them, which is more than can be said of this essay.

Rothbard obviously did not read many anarchist thinkers, beyond a few individualist anarchists (and then only to ignore their more radical ideas). If Rothbard had read, say, Proudhon he would not have come out with his warmed-up (and de-fanged) Lockean property rights. He would also have been aware of the obvious contradictions in his own ideology (state monopoly of hierarchical power wrong, property owners monopoly of hierarchical power fine). Sadly, he just decided to call himself an anarchist and ignore anarchism’s long history of anti-capitalism — and this essay when he recognised the stupidity of proclaiming himself an anarchist.

The Rothbard quote are good though.

Yes, they are — they show that anarchism is a form of libertarian socialism and so things like "anarcho"-capitalism are an oxymoron…

You fear "private statism". Rothbard believed that each man is sovereign, his own ‘state" if you like so you needn’t worry.

You really are unaware of Rothbard’s ideology and the reality of capitalism… Rothbard was quite clear that bosses would have hierarchical power over their wage-workers. Makes you wonder what part of an-archy is difficult to understand.

Overall, you quibble over semantics and use far too many exclamation points and CAPITALS to amplify your meagre points.

There are a few exclaimation points, I agree. No capitals though (one from Proudhon, but as a quote that does not count).

Suffice to say, Rothbard’s article shows a staggering ignorance of social anarchist ideas and why anarchists (both social and individualist) have been anti-capitalist. Pointing this out is hardly meagre points — particularly given the weak nonsense they are refuting… Still, at least Rothbard once recognised that his propertarian ideology was not anarchist. That is something.

In a truly anarchist society
In a truly anarchist society there would be no state coercion to enforce private property rights so whilst an individualist capitalist could build a factory and employ somebody, the employee could just take whatever he made and exchange it for whatever he wanted, thus people would logically form communes and share the workload equally right?
Interestingly in Somalia, where the state did effectively disappear, private trade and private property continued. Their currency is one of the world’s most stable (funny how getting rid of a money-counterfeiting central bank worked so well) and their banking system handles over $1 billion a year in transactions. Their mobile phone network is the clearest and cheapest in Africa. Companies such as BA and CocaCola have recently invested millions. Wealthy Somalis are buying properties in Kenya and Dubai (and Southall and Kentish Town come to think of it). Instead of the destruction of the state resulting in communes, Somalia is an interesting example of Anarcho-Capitalism in action. Ludwig von Mises would probably have been pleasantly surprised to see the application of his principles in Islamic East Africa; I would argue that black-hoodied Middlesex Uni Liberal Arts students have a lot to learn from the Somalian Rothbardians.
A friend joked during the Olympics that “In the sailing Britain took Gold, America took Silver and Somalia took a middle-aged couple from Bournemouth.”
Mildly amusing. But the Somalian pirates were once fisherman whose enterprise was extinguished by foreign trawlers plundering Somalian waters and thus depriving these men of their income. This perhaps is the biggest problem for an anarchist land- how do you stop powerful outsiders robbing you? Recently foreign powers attempted to impose government on Somalia, this resulted in Somali clans joining up with a (previously impotent) Islamist movement with disastrous consequences. So perhaps there is a place for government, as a body to protect a country from foreign aggression (though how much use that is in the age of the American Empire is debatable). Any thoughts?

Any thoughts? That you

Any thoughts? That you clearly don’t understand much about anarchism. I would suggest you read An Anarchist FAQ — particularly section F, on so-called "anarcho"-capitalism…

I am sorry but your theories
I am sorry but your theories are inaccurate. The only way you could destroy free trade and private ownership of capital goods and the means of production would be through massive state aggression. Without huge coercive force there is no way you can prevent people acting in a rational and productive way. Somalia is further proof that free trade and a variety of different ownership structures- small businesses, corporations, sole-traders, workers co-operatives- are the inevitable result of getting rid of the state. Communist Anarchists wish to destroy private industry and enterprise. This never has happened, and never will happen, in a country without a powerful government to enforce it. Therefore communist anarchy is impossible and anarcho-capitalism the logical result of getting rid of the state.

It is true that in certain regions of Spain during the civil war left-wing anarchists instituted new systems of production and exchange. But such instances were rare. Also, the Spanish left-anarchists (whose struggle against Franco was undeniably admirable) frequently murdered those who got in their way and controlled territory in a governmental fashion. Equally, some of the more reasonable Spanish anarchists refused on principle to impose their systems on others against their will, resultantly other regions of non-Fascist Spain ran things their way.

Realistically, communist anarchy in the real world, as opposed to in a pleasantly fanciful textbook, is only possible via massive violence against individuals and groups. Therefore it is based on authoritarian force. This somewhat defeats the point.

Nonetheless, decent left-anarchists and right-wing libertarians have much common ground. They despised the tyrannies of fascism, Stalinism and Imperialism and the aggression of an oppressive state against peaceful people. Hence Chomsky and Rothbard both stood up against the vile American Empire just as, after the 1848 revolution, Proudhon and Bastiat warned against the demise of freedom and the return to tyranny in France.

If you have an explanation of how communist-anarchy could be imposed or voluntarily introduced, without massive oppression, I would be interested to hear it. If you have any comments on why parts of Somalia are thriving capitalist regions I would be interested to hear them. If you want to tell me how dumb I am and how all I need to do is read your devastatingly brilliant FAQ section to understand the truth about philosophy and economics then…well, that’s up to you I guess.

I am sorry but your theories

I am sorry but your theories are inaccurate.

That is your opinion, but does not change the awkward fact that anarchism is and has always been anti-capitalist. So, please, call your authoritarian ideology something else….

The only way you could destroy free trade and private ownership of capital goods and the means of production would be through massive state aggression.

Free trade? Since when was capitalism based on free trade? It has always had massive state intervention — to be created and to be maintained.  As for "private ownership of capital goods", that again was created by massive state intervention — stripping the peasants from the land, creating state aid for the accumulation of capital, etc.

In terms of being "inaccurate", I assume that "anarcho"-capitalism involves denying the actual history of capitalism in  favour of theories in books?

Without huge coercive force there is no way you can prevent people acting in a rational and productive way.

What is "rational" about selling your liberty to a boss? As for "productive", workers’ self-management is more efficient and productive than private ownership of capital goods…

Somalia is further proof that free trade and a variety of different ownership structures- small businesses, corporations, sole-traders, workers co-operatives- are the inevitable result of getting rid of the state.

Sole-trades and co-operatives are nothing to do with capitalism… corporations? Really? how do they enforced limited liability? I assume they employ private police, like the robber barons of 19th century America did?

Communist Anarchists wish to destroy private industry and enterprise. This never has happened, and never will happen, in a country without a powerful government to enforce it. Therefore communist anarchy is impossible and anarcho-capitalism the logical result of getting rid of the state.

ROTFL! Communist-anarchists wish workers to work for themselves, not bosses. To stop that happening needs a state — even if its the private state of so-called "anarcho"-capitalism…

It is true that in certain regions of Spain during the civil war left-wing anarchists instituted new systems of production and exchange. But such instances were rare.

Just to remind you, you just wrote that the "never has happened, and never will happen" and was "impossible" — now, apparently, it did happen! Please make your mind up…

Also, the Spanish left-anarchists (whose struggle against Franco was undeniably admirable) frequently murdered those who got in their way and controlled territory in a governmental fashion.

You mean, they defended themselves against those seeking to impose fascism on them? Or against the Stalinists?

Equally, some of the more reasonable Spanish anarchists refused on principle to impose their systems on others against their will, resultantly other regions of non-Fascist Spain ran things their way.

The rural collectives were around 95% plus voluntary, as were the urban ones. And why should workers let the boss stay in power over them?

Realistically, communist anarchy in the real world, as opposed to in a pleasantly fanciful textbook, is only possible via massive violence against individuals and groups. Therefore it is based on authoritarian force. This somewhat defeats the point.

What happens if a group of workers decide to occupy their workplace? Oh, right, the police come along and use violence against them… that applies just as much to the private statism of so-called "anarcho"-capitalism….

And best not mention the authoritarian force used in the past to create capitalism…

Nonetheless, decent left-anarchists and right-wing libertarians have much common ground. They despised the tyrannies of fascism, Stalinism and Imperialism and the aggression of an oppressive state against peaceful people.

You obviously have not read von Mises praise fascism in the 1920s. Nor come across the many propertarians who say nice things about Pinochet….

Hence Chomsky and Rothbard both stood up against the vile American Empire just as, after the 1848 revolution, Proudhon and Bastiat warned against the demise of freedom and the return to tyranny in France.

Best not mention that Chomsky wrote against Rothbard nor Proudhon against Bastiat… You can be against the same thing, but for different reasons (i.e., because the nation state defends property and because it does not do it well enough!).

If you have an explanation of how communist-anarchy could be imposed or voluntarily introduced, without massive oppression, I would be interested to hear it.

You may have heard of An Anarchist FAQ?

If you have any comments on why parts of Somalia are thriving capitalist regions I would be interested to hear them.

Given that you have not left to go to Somalia, I assume that you now consider your taxes as voluntary contributions?

If you want to tell me how dumb I am and how all I need to do is read your devastatingly brilliant FAQ section to understand the truth about philosophy and economics then…well, that’s up to you I guess.

Well, I would suggest you read up on the real history of capitalism and anarchism. Section F of An Anarchist FAQ explains both the anti-capitalist nature of anarchism (and anti-anarchist nature of capitalism!) and the history of capitalism.

Perhaps once you have a better grasp of both, we could have a meaningful discussion… but, in the meantime, please call your ideology  something else than anarchist or libertarian — it is neither.

When you say we could have a
When you say we could have a meaningful discussion I guess you mean I could agree with all you blatantly illogical views. Please note the following:

1) I am not a right wing libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist and never said I was.

2) I have not moved to Somalia for the following reasons: A) I am not a Somali. B) My partner is not either. C) I have friends and family in England but none in Somali. D) I have ample opportunities to be a wage slave selling my freedom to the evil capitalist exploiters in England (and thus have very high living standards). E) More to the point, I never said Somalia was my ideal country or that I objected to paying taxes. I just pointed out that when you abolish the state, instead of creating loads of hippy communes and workers co-ops you tend to get a market system. You did not at any point rebut this, you just made snarky remarks.

3) The Spanish anarchists abolished the use of money at gunpoint. They massacred the clergy. They fought rival communists. They did not allow people to exchange goods and services in ways they did not approve of. Therefore they WERE effectively a coercive government. Therefore communist-anarchism was never enforced WITHOUT a coercive state. You say the communes were 95% voluntary? Were they? Probably in certain villages but what about in the towns, how do you know they were voluntary? Who did the survey? Did the landowners who were murdered volunteer for euthanasia? Did everyone want the Catholic clergy to be exterminated? It sounds like tyranny than voluntarism to me.

4) People do not sell their liberty to their boss (except perhaps in a philosophical sense), they sell their labour. If they sold their liberty they would not be allowed to resign. The idea that you need a government for this to work is ridiculous. Let us suppose that in a stateless country someone decides to start producing honey. He grows flowers, sets up a beehive etc. People like his honey and buy it off him. He then offers someone else the chance to work for him, giving them money (or gold or cocoa beans or whatever) in exchange for collecting the honey. Perhaps no one would do it because they would be selling their liberty. Perhaps they would do it but then steal the beehive and the flowers because for someone other than the workers to own it would be theft. But then perhaps the guy who actually built the business would get his friends (or other people who want a bee-keeping career, or just hired goons…there would probably be quite a lot of them what with the disbanding of the state and all) to help him take it back? Whilst you would no doubt argue that the workers were in the right and others would argue the original entrepreneur was in the right, it is not logical to say that the workers would be guaranteed to win. Extrapolate to every business in the country. Whilst workers might steal/expropriate what is theirs (delete according to taste) some businesses, surely existing owners would keep hold of others? And if people wanted to work for these companies then they would. Therefore you do not require the state to have employment. Therefore the only way to completely destroy private employment would be via a massive violent coercive mechanism, a.k.a. the state.

5) I did not say that government has not intervened on behalf of capitalists, it obviously has. This does not mean no transactions were entered into voluntarily. I never for one moment said that the history of capitalism was not bloody or that it was free of state intervention. But there is a difference between someone choosing to sell a good or a service at a mutually agreed price and someone being forced into doing it. Thus trade in capitalist countries is free in comparison with feudalism, communism etc.

6) Ludwig von Mises was not an anarcho-capitalist. He was just a smart economist who pointed out the fact that communism didn’t work (as Bukharin and Lenin soon realized). The fact that he advised Austrian Fascists in the 1920 does not change this fact. Nor does it change the fact that the market is a relatively efficient allocator of resources when largely unencumbered.

7) Of course Chomsky dissed Rothbard and Proudhon and Bastiat clashed in Parliament and in the papers. That is obvious beyond belief and well known to anyone who has studied 1848 or American Libertarianism. I was just pointing out the fact that they had some things in common.

8) Sole traders and co-ops are completely compatible with capitalism as there are thousands of them in England right now. Two of our biggest supermarkets are co-operatives. The point about free capitalism is that people can set up a co-op or they can work on their own or, as most people do, they can sell their labour to someone else. And getting rid of state-mandated limited liability would not mean people could not set up companies.

9) Pinochet was mass-murdering scum. Whether some Libertarians supported him or not is completely irrelevant to the Somalian economy and everything else I have said. But he only came to power with the support of Richard Nixon and a massive CIA operation that would never have happened if America had followed a genuinely Libertarian foreign policy. Equally, Castillo Armas, Fulgencio Batista, Anastasio Samoza and most of the other vile beneficiaries of Teddy’s imperialist corollary to the Monroe Doctrine would have got nowhere near power if America had been a Libertarian country.

10) Anarcho-Capitalism is the name Rothbard gave his ideology, therefore that is what it is called. Perhaps he should have called it something else. But he didn’t. Arguably North Korea is more like an absolutist monarchy than any kind of communism Marx and Engels would have approved of but…Communist is what we call it. You could also argue that America today is not a capitalist country but rather, as Richard Duncan says, a creditist one. Yet we still call it capitalist. Anarchism has come in many varieties, it does not have to be left wing.

Conclusion: You have not in any way rebutted my point that when you get rid of the state people still choose to sell their labour and trade in a variety of ways. Unless of course someone like the (heavily armed) Spanish Anarchists force them to do otherwise. You also work from the assumption that all workers want to own their own business. They do not. Some people only want to work somewhere for a short period of time. Some people are not interested with the stress and hassle that comes with responsibility and are happy to let someone else handle the headache in return for a wage. I have never said that capitalism, or anarcho-capitalism, are perfect nor that many people do not live unfulfilled lives as a result of them. I merely pointed out that getting rid of the state does not mean workers take over capital goods by force nor that money is destroyed nor that everyone decides that co-operatives are the only way an economy can be organized. Sorry, they just don’t. I say this not because I agree with Rothbard but because it is a fact.

Why are you repeating
Why are you repeating Rothbard’s lie about the Spanish anarchists banning the use of money at gun point? This is patently false and a simple google search shows that Rothbard pulled this factoid *entirely* out of his asshole; that is, he’s the *only source* for that claim.

Yours and every misoid and Molyneux fanboi’s only proof that the spanish anarchists created a state is a phony claim Rothbard made up and fantasized. It never happened.

And why the fuck are *you* demanding surveys when you blindly repeat a made up fantasy in the same paragraph?

Sorry, I made one
Sorry, I made one mistake:

Mises advised an Austrian Fascist in the 1930s (he worked as an advisor to the government). In the 1920s, he advised Austro-Marxist Otto Bauer, successfully convincing him that the application of Bolshevik economics would wreck the country. Incidentally, he never wrote praising Fascism. He wrote to say that he was glad the Fascist thugs stopped Europe turning Communist (I don’t agree with this obviously) but that Fascism would not work (I do agree with this). He called Mussolini evil. Being Jewish he was not a huge fan of Hitler either.

Still has nothing to do with Somalia or the fact that people often sell their labour voluntarily rather than participating in business ownership. Or the fact that business owners are just as likely to win a confrontation for control of a business as their employees (assuming that the workers actually want to steal the business in the first place instead of just doing their 8 hours and collecting a wage even if the company loses money.)

“4) People do not sell their
“4) People do not sell their liberty to their boss (except perhaps in a philosophical sense), they sell their labour. If they sold their liberty they would not be allowed to resign. The idea that you need a government for this to work is ridiculous. Let us suppose that in a stateless country someone decides to start producing honey. He grows flowers, sets up a beehive etc. People like his honey and buy it off him. He then offers someone else the chance to work for him, giving them money (or gold or cocoa beans or whatever) in exchange for collecting the honey.” This is not a barter economy and if there is limited supply jobs you are indirectly your a slave to your boss.

“5) I did not say that government has not intervened on behalf of capitalists, it obviously has. This does not mean no transactions were entered into voluntarily. I never for one moment said that the history of capitalism was not bloody or that it was free of state intervention.” Key word “was” before advent of industrial revolution.

“8) Sole traders and co-ops are completely compatible with capitalism as there are thousands of them in England right now. Two of our biggest supermarkets are co-operatives.” It is not capitalist as there is no direct owner. Capitalism should go away just like it relative feudalism.

4) I’m guessing from your
4) I’m guessing from your grotesque comparison between working for an employer and slavery that you are white. Mate, when your boss throws you in a filthy, disease-ridden, overcrowded ship’s hold full of fellow humans manacled in agony, when he auctions you to a man who forces you to perform back-breaking work for meager rations, a man who rapes your female relatives and threatens to kill your family if you try to escape…then you can say employment is like slavery.
The fact that you have to work to survive does not make you a slave. In any case, in our society you don’t even have to do that. You can just ask the government for money and they’ll take it off other people who do work and give it to you. They don’t give you very much but if you accept a mediocre lifestyle you can certainly live without working. Therefore to compare yourself to someone who is forced to work for an evil man on the pain of execution is ridiculous.
In any case, the point I was making was that if the state was disposed of people would still employ other people. I did not say anything about a barter economy. As I pointed out, the Somalian currency works perfectly well without a government printing it.

5) Sorry, I do not get what you mean. Are you saying that governments intervene on behalf of corporations? Of course they do. Are you saying that many governments which support capitalism are thoroughly awful? Of course they are. That doesn’t mean private property and free trade are wrong. Equally, Stalin’s gulags do not prove that communism is wrong (the fact that communism was so inefficient does), they just prove that he was a monster.

8) I did not say that sole traders or co-operatives ARE capitalist, I said that they are perfectly compatible with a capitalist system. Hence Waitrose. The only way capitalism will “go away” is if some huge coercive state gets rid of it. Unfortunately, every time this has been tried it resulted in economic disaster and, frequently, in mass starvation. People have been trading with each other since the prehistoric age. People have been employing each other too. The division of labour is perfectly natural

Perhaps feudalism is a relative of capitalism. But, ironically, communism turned out to be rather more feudal than Marx and Engels would have liked. You ended up with a powerful leader, a wealthy inner circle, a strong warrior class and the masses living in abject poverty whilst being told that their corrupt superiors were actually running the country for their benefit. Left wing anarchists basically believe in communism but without the state. However this is not possible. As I pointed out, when you get rid of the state people will continue to employ other people. It is only through a huge, incredibly violent, authority structure that the, perfectly natural, process of people exchanging their labour in return for goods/money could be abolished. People have been working for others for thousands of years. Some of their jobs were excellent and some were awful. But the idea that working for someone else in inherently wrong and comparable with slavery is ludicrous. If you work from the premise that selling your labour effectively reduces you to the level of slave, then not just Burger King employees but corporate lawyers, airline pilots, fashion designers, footballers and CEOs are also effectively slaves. But they aren’t, are they? They are much more powerful and wealthy than the average co-operative farmer.

I am Sorry but the last part
I am Sorry but the last part makes me believe that you have never read this site nor what everyone except the propagandists of the Soviet Union and America says what communism is. Since before 1917 socialism as well as communism meant that you lived in a democractic society of course Lenin ruined that with his radical ridiculous ideas that the workers themselves are stupid and can never revolt against the oppressors.

No. You have misunderstood
No. You have misunderstood what I was saying (incidentally, I do not know what happened to the left-anarchist criticisms of my penultimate post; perhaps AFAQ removed them because they were so illogical). What I am saying is that anarchists, as represented by Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin and the people who run this website, want all workplaces to be democratically controlled by the workers. This is something Noam Chomsky is always going on about. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree with Chomsky on foreign policy. He is also supposed to be the don when it comes to linguistics (as I know virtually nothing about linguistics I cannot comment on this). However he is thoroughly retarded when it comes to economics and I will explain why.
Workers co-operatives are a perfectly reasonable way of running a business, as companies like Waitrose and various coal mines and farms show. However, leaving aside the fact that if no companies were allowed to fail and the price mechanism was destroyed then the economy would collapse, it would not be possible to institute democratic control over all workplaces without a coercive authoritarian state. The reason for this is simple…
Let us suppose the state was disposed of. In some instances workers might seize control of factories, farms, pet shops, recording studios, smoothie bars and other enterprises. However, let us be realistic, it is almost certain that bosses, helped by friends, family members or hired thugs, would retain control of the means of production in many instances. I used the example of a honey producer earlier but this could easily apply to someone producing oil, cars, jelly beans or nail extensions.
The only way you could be sure that every single workplace was owned and controlled by the workers would be through some huge authoritarian set up which ensured that no privateers could run their own enterprises. This would be a de-facto state.
I am not saying that anarcho-communists are Stalinists or Leninists (or advocates of the grotesque mediocrity that was Thorstein Veblen or Trotskyites or Maoists or Zapatistas or Sunderland fans). What I am saying is that guaranteeing workers’ democratic control of the means of production in every instance could only be achieved via a nationwide coercive mechanism that took out any entrepreneurs who kept control of their own property. This would, as I pointed out, be a de-facto state.
As I have already argued, when you get rid of the state, you actually end up with a rather pure form of capitalism: see Somalia.
I am not trying to say that anarchists should be compared with the monsters who ran the Soviet Union. Nor am I saying that workers’ ownership of companies is necessarily a bad idea. What I am asserting is that you cannot destroy private enterprise without an authoritarian state. Thus anarchy as you see it is unachievable whilst anarcho-capitalism is the logical result of statelessness.

In any case… the main thing for me is that we end torture and detention without trial, that the government stops robbing productive people to fund a crooked and useless banking industry and that, to quote a great Scouser, we give peace a chance.

😉

PEACE!

 Your error is in this

 Your error is in this assertion – "it is almost certain that bosses, helped by friends, family members or hired thugs, would retain control of the means of production in many instances"

This certainly isn’t ‘almost certain’ because a very small percentage of the population are bosses and a very large percentage of the population are workers.  And the workers also have ‘friends and family’.  The key extra element you point out to is that the bosses may have ‘hired thugs.’  In the society we live in they have actually managed to collectivise the costs of much of their hired thugs through the creation of police forces and standing armies.

In a free society what would the ‘hired thugs’ be paid with?  They would already have access to goods & services at the same level as everyone else after all.  Would their really be enough of them to overcome the very, very much larger number of workers?  When we exclude the self employed and family businesses in most western socieites you are looking at a showdown between 85% and 2%.

 

(BTW the only comments we delete are spam ones, sometimes they are disguised as praise comments with a link to some sales site stuck in at the end) 

The following post is from
The following post is from Bob Williams, Univ of Huddersfield: It does seem a bit disingenuous to quote Rothbard speaking as an Old Rightist before his transition to anarchy. “Although Rothbard was happily calling himself an anarchist privately by the mid-1950s, he was still cagey and wary about it publicly, since few understood his unique anarcho-capitalist synthesis. In a 1955 letter to R.C. Hoiles, he congratulated the radical newspaper magnate for an article Rothbard saw in the May 8 Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, which used the term proudly: ‘This is the first time one of us ‘right-wing anarchists’ has had the courage to come right out and call our philosophy by its proper name . . . The name “anarchist” has been stolen from us by leftists in a similar way as the term “liberal”. Those who call themselves anarchists now are not really anarchists at all, but a wild type of communist’ (Murray Rothbard to R.C. Hoiles, September 11, 1955, MRA, LVMI)” – Brian Doherty. 2007. Radicals for Capitalism. NY, NY: PublicAffairs.

That said, Rothbard did not remain an anarchist nor even a libertarian. In 1973 he became a ‘partyarchical’ Libertarian until the late 1980s, when he followed Ron Paul back to the Republican Party from whence both came where he promoted something he called ‘paleo-conservatism’.

Clearly Rothbard was always

Clearly Rothbard was always delusional.

The term "anarchist" was coined by Proudhon in 1840 and while not a "communist" (and rightly so, given what "community" and "communism" meant back then) he was clearly "left-wing" and a "leftist" — indeed, a self-proclaimed socialist (he called for a "scientific" socialism" in What is Property?). 

As for "a wild type of communist", well, anarchist-communists have existed from the late 1870s and saw their ideas as a logical development from Bakunin’s collectivism as he saw his ideas as a logical development from Proudhon’s.

As for its "proper" name, well, private-statist springs to mind — or private-hierarchist. Rothbard had no problems with the obvious hierarchies associated with capitalism… hence him being no anarchist at any stage of his career.

What is surprising is that anyone took him seriously, at least in his attempts to redefine and appropriate "anarchist" and "libertarian."

Anarcho-Capitalists are
Anarcho-Capitalists are Anarcho-Capitalists or frequently, Voluntarists. Anarcho in the sense of not having a state or rulers. Capitalist in the sense of peaceful voluntary trade amongst one another. That is in the name. What the name doesn’t indicate is the addition on one principle that leads to one rule. Self-ownership is the principle that it all starts with. From that we deduce the Non-Aggression principle. Billions of individuals adhering to the non-aggression principle and free voluntary trade lead to a beautiful spontaneous order and a state of absolute liberty. That’s it! Nothing more and nothing less. All this crap debating the labels is a huge waste of time and is actually childish. It’s not the title it’s the principles. Get over it already.

Peace!

 here we go

 here we go again…

Anarcho-Capitalists are Anarcho-Capitalists or frequently, Voluntarists.

They may call themselves anarchists but they are not — anarchism has always been anti-capitalist (indeed, the name implies it as it rejects all forms of rule including those rooted in property). As Proudhon suggested in 1840, "property is despotism". In terms of voluntarism, have a look here:

A.2.14 Why is voluntarism not enough?

There is a whole section (section F) of An Anarchist FAQ which goes into this in some detail.

Anarcho in the sense of not having a state or rulers. Capitalist in the sense of peaceful voluntary trade amongst one another. That is in the name.

Except, of course, the boss or landlord is your ruler as long as you remain on it — just like the state. Murray Rothbard was quite clear on that. In terms of "trade", well, the worker trades their liberty for access to the means of life and then gets to work for the boss and enriching them with their labour. Not a very good trade…

As for "that is in the name", well, opposition to wage-labour and private property must be part of anarchism otherwise it becomes self-contradictory.

What the name doesn’t indicate is the addition on one principle that leads to one rule. Self-ownership is the principle that it all starts with.

Self-ownership is the means by which workers becoming enslaved to a boss is justified. Rather than defend individual liberty it is the means by which it is violated everyday within capitalism.

From that we deduce the Non-Aggression principle.

It is also how many "anarcho"-capitalists deduce voluntary slave contracts (see section F.2.2). This is no coincidence.

Billions of individuals adhering to the non-aggression principle and free voluntary trade lead to a beautiful spontaneous order and a state of absolute liberty.

Say to your boss that you refuse to follow their orders and see what happens…

That’s it! Nothing more and nothing less.

Actually, there is a lot more… the implications of "anarcho"-capitalism are quite horrific and deeply authoritarian.

All this crap debating the labels is a huge waste of time and is actually childish. It’s not the title it’s the principles. Get over it already.

In that case, call your sick ideology something else rather than steal the anarchist label to discribe it (for the reasons Rothbard notes, anarchism has always been anti-capitalist). That way we can ignore your sect…

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