I had the opportunity last fall to have a look at Markets Not Capitalism, released by the otherwise-excellent Minor Compositions, an imprint of Autonomedia. My comments, however, didn’t make it into the book.

Markets Not Capitalism (or Markets Not Anarchism as I grew to call it in my head) is anything but anti-capitalist and anything but anarchist, despite the explicit claims made by the editors and contributors. Now, to be clear, while I am not a market anarchist, I have no objection to the idea. Enough mutualists and the like have convinced me that an anti-capitalist market economy could be part of an anarchist society. (Basically, such a society would still operate using money but would be setup in such a way that one cannot make money with money but instead only make money by actually doing things.) So I picked up this book feeling hopeful. I thought it would better help me understand my market anarchist comrades.

What I found was disgusting. Here is what I wrote in response:

This book makes the basic assertion that a free market economy will set us free. I consider this to be a remarkably dangerous fallacy.

I do not believe that anarcho-capitalism is a part of anarchism. And despite the protestations one might find within these pages, Kevin Carson’s understanding of capitalism as “government interference with the market” means that much of the “anti-capitalism” involved is simply “capitalism” under some weird up-is-down, war-is-peace, rightwing-is-leftwing double-think.

I do believe that there are a wide range of anarchist ideas, and many of them include market economics, and many of the essays within these pages touch upon them. But anarcho-capitalism is outside of anarchism. An economic system that allows the centralization of power is not an anarchist one, and the ability to make money from your money will do just that.

[This is] a book that makes the claim that black civil rights activists would not have had the right to “resist arrest” when protesting segregation, or claims that libertarian thinkers should defend to the death a bigot’s right to his or her bigotry.

I have no interest in a book would pretend to be anarchist while making such bold claims as that the first enemy of the environmentalist is environmental law. As an environmental activist myself, I know full well that the anarchist position is to use the laws against our enemies when they are useful and to never be constricted by them ourselves. It’s a hopelessly reformist idea to claim that the Clean Water Act should stand between us and the people who are destroying the earth. Anarchists will violate the law and the sanctity of property to destroy what is destroying them.

It was a market anarchist who said it best: property is theft.

Another highlight from the book is the idea, disguised as leftist, that welfare is the anarchist’s first enemy in the fight to destroy economic inequality.

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