Section F: Is “anarcho”-capitalism a type of anarchism?

Anyone who has followed political discussion on the net has probably come across people calling themselves “libertarians” but arguing from a right-wing, pro-capitalist perspective. For most people outside of North America, this is weird as the term “libertarian” is almost always used in conjunction with “socialist” or “communist” (particularly in Europe and, it should be stressed, historically in America). In the US, though, the Right has partially succeeded in appropriating the term “libertarian” for itself. Even stranger is that a few of these right-wingers have started calling themselves “anarchists” in what must be one of the finest examples of an oxymoron in the English language: “Anarcho-capitalist”!!!

Arguing with fools is seldom rewarded, but to let their foolishness to go unchallenged risks allowing them to deceive those who are new to anarchism. This is what this section of the FAQ is for, to show why the claims of these “anarchist” capitalists are false. Anarchism has always been anti-capitalist and any “anarchism” that claims otherwise cannot be part of the anarchist tradition. It is important to stress that anarchist opposition to the so-called capitalist “anarchists” do not reflect some kind of debate within anarchism, as many of these types like to pretend, but a debate between anarchism and its old enemy, capitalism. In many ways this debate mirrors the one between Peter Kropotkin and Herbert Spencer (an English capitalist minimal statist) at the turn the 19th century and, as such, it is hardly new.

At that time, people like Spencer tended to call themselves “liberals” while, as Bookchin noted, “libertarian” was “a term created by nineteenth-century European anarchists, not by contemporary American right-wing proprietarians.” [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 57] David Goodway concurs, stating that “libertarian” has been “frequently employed by anarchists” as an alternative name for our politics for over a century. However, the “situation has been vastly complicated in recent decades with the rise of ... extreme right-wing laissez-faire philosophy ... and [its advocates] adoption of the words ‘libertarian’ and ‘libertarianism.’ It has therefore now become necessary to distinguish between their right libertarianism and the left libertarianism of the anarchist tradition.” [Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow, p. 4] This appropriation of the term “libertarian” by the right not only has bred confusion, but also protest as anarchists have tried to point out the obvious, namely that capitalism is marked by authoritarian social relationships and so there are good reasons for anarchism being a fundamentally anti-capitalist socio-political theory and movement. That a minority of the right “libertarians” have also tried to appropriate “anarchist” to describe their authoritarian politics is something almost all anarchists reject and oppose.

That the vast majority of anarchists reject the notion of “anarcho”-capitalism as a form of anarchism is an inconvenient fact for its supporters. Rather than address this, they generally point to the fact that some academics state that “anarcho”-capitalism is a form of anarchism and include it in their accounts of our movement and ideas. That some academics do this is true, but irrelevant. What counts is what anarchists think anarchism is. To place the opinions of academics above that of anarchists implies that anarchists know nothing about anarchism, that we do not really understand the ideas we advocate but academics do! Yet this is the implication. As such the near universal rejection of “anarcho”-capitalism as a form of anarchism within anarchist circles is significant. However, it could be argued that as a few anarchists (usually individualist ones, but not always) do admit “anarcho”-capitalism into our movement that this (very small) minority shows that the majority are “sectarian.” Again, this is not convincing as some individuals in any movement will hold positions which the majority reject and which are, sometimes, incompatible with the basic principles of the movement (Proudhon’s sexism and racism are obvious examples). Equally, given that anarchists and “anarcho”-capitalists have fundamentally different analyses and goals it is hardly “sectarian” to point this out (being “sectarian” in politics means prioritising differences and rivalries with politically close groups).

Some scholars do note the difference. For example, Jeremy Jennings, in his excellent overview of anarchist theory and history, argues that it is “hard not to conclude that these ideas [“anarcho”-capitalism] — with roots deep in classical liberalism — are described as anarchist only on the basis of a misunderstanding of what anarchism is.” [“Anarchism”, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Roger Eatwell and Anthony Wright (eds.), p. 142] Barbara Goodwin reaches a similar conclusion, noting that the “anarcho”-capitalists’ “true place is in the group of right-wing libertarians” not in anarchism for “[w]hile condemning absolutely state coercion, they tacitly condone the economic and interpersonal coercion which would prevail in a totally laissez-faire society. Most anarchists share the egalitarian ideal with socialists: anarcho-capitalists abhor equality and socialism equally.” [Using Political Ideas, p. 138]

Sadly, these seem to be the minority in academic circles as most are happy to discuss right-“libertarian” ideology as a subclass of anarchism in spite of there being so little in common between the two. Their inclusion does really seem to derive from the fact that “anarcho”-capitalists call themselves anarchists and the academics take this at face value. Yet, as one anarchist notes, having a “completely fluid definition of anarchism, allows for anyone and anything to be described as such, no matter how authoritarian and anti-social.” [Benjamin Franks, “Mortal Combat”, pp. 4–6, A Touch of Class, no. 1, p. 5] Also, given that many academics approach anarchism from what could be termed the “dictionary definition” methodology rather than as a political movement approach there is a tendency for “anarcho”-capitalist claims to be taken at face value. As such, it is useful to stress that anarchism is a social movement with a long history and while its adherents have held divergent views, it has never been limited to simply opposition to the state (i.e. the dictionary definition).

The “anarcho”-capitalist argument that it is a form of anarchism hinges on using the dictionary definition of “anarchism” and/or “anarchy.” They try to define anarchism as being “opposition to government,” and nothing else. Of course, many (if not most) dictionaries “define” anarchy as “chaos” or “disorder” but we never see “anarcho”-capitalists use those particular definitions! Moreover, and this should go without saying, dictionaries are hardly politically sophisticated and their definitions rarely reflect the wide range of ideas associated with political theories and their history. Thus the dictionary “definition” of anarchism will tend to ignore its consistent views on authority, exploitation, property and capitalism (ideas easily discovered if actual anarchist texts are read). And for this strategy to work, a lot of “inconvenient” history and ideas from all branches of anarchism must be ignored. From individualists like Tucker to communists like Kropotkin and considered anarchism as part of the wider socialist movement. Therefore “anarcho”-capitalists are not anarchists in the same sense that rain is not dry.

Significantly, the inventor of the term “anarcho”-capitalism, Murray Rothbard had no impact on the anarchist movement even in North America. His influence, unsurprisingly, was limited to the right, particularly in so-called “libertarian” circles. The same can be said of “anarcho”-capitalism in general. This can be seen from the way Rothbard is mentioned in Paul Nursey-Bray’s bibliography on anarchist thinkers. This is an academic book, a reference for libraries. Rothbard is featured, but the context is very suggestive. The book includes Rothbard in a section titled “On the Margins of Anarchist Theory.” His introduction to the Rothbard section is worth quoting:

“Either the inclusion or the omission of Rothbard as an anarchist is likely, in one quarter or another, to be viewed as contentious. Here, his Anarcho-Capitalism is treated as marginal, since, while there are linkages with the tradition of individualist anarchism, there is a dislocation between the mutualism and communitarianism of that tradition and the free market theory, deriving from Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek, that underpins Rothbard’s political philosophy, and places him in the modern Libertarian tradition.” [Anarchist Thinkers and Thought, p. 133]

This is important, for while Rothbard (like other “anarcho”-capitalists) appropriates some aspects of individualist anarchism he does so in a highly selective manner and places what he does take into an utterly different social environment and political tradition. So while there are similarities between both systems, there are important differences as we will discuss in detail in section G along with the anti-capitalist nature of individualist anarchism (i.e. those essential bits which Rothbard and his followers ignore or dismiss). Needless to say, Nursey-Bray does not include “anarcho”-capitalism in his discussion of anarchist schools of thought in the bibliography’s introduction.

Of course, we cannot stop the “anarcho”-capitalists using the words “anarcho”, “anarchism” and “anarchy” to describe their ideas. The democracies of the west could not stop the Chinese Stalinist state calling itself the People’s Republic of China. Nor could the social democrats stop the fascists in Germany calling themselves “National Socialists”. Nor could the Italian anarcho-syndicalists stop the fascists using the expression “National Syndicalism”. This does not mean their names reflected their content — China is a dictatorship, not a democracy; the Nazi’s were not socialists (capitalists made fortunes in Nazi Germany because it crushed the labour movement); and the Italian fascist state had nothing in common with anarcho-syndicalist ideas of decentralised, “from the bottom up” unions and the abolition of the state and capitalism.

It could be argued (and it has) that the previous use of a word does not preclude new uses. Language changes and, as such, it is possible for a new kind of “anarchism” to develop which has little, or no, similarities with what was previously known as anarchism. Equally, it could be said that new developments of anarchism have occurred in the past which were significantly different from old versions (for example, the rise of communist forms of anarchism in opposition to Proudhon’s anti-communist mutualism). Both arguments are unconvincing. The first just makes a mockery of the concept of language and breeds confusion. If people start calling black white, it does not make it so. Equally, to call an ideology with little in common with a known and long established socio-political theory and movement the same name simply results in confusion. No one takes, say, fascists seriously when they call their parties “democratic” nor would we take Trotskyists seriously if they started to call themselves “libertarians” (as some have started to do). The second argument fails to note that developments within anarchism built upon what came before and did not change its fundamental (socialistic) basis. Thus communist and collectivist anarchism are valid forms of anarchism because they built upon the key insights of mutualism rather than denying them.

A related defence of “anarcho”-capitalism as a form of anarchism is the suggestion that the problem is one of terminology. This argument is based on noting that “anarcho”-capitalists are against “actually existing” capitalism and so “we must distinguish between ‘free-market capitalism’ ... and ‘state capitalism’ ... The two are as different as day and night.” [Rothbard, The Logic of Action II, p. 185] It would be churlish indeed to point out that the real difference is that one exists while the other has existed only in Rothbard’s head. Yet point it out we must, for the simple fact is that not only do “anarcho”-capitalists use the word anarchism in an unusual way (i.e. in opposition to what has always been meant by the term), they also use the word capitalism in a like manner (i.e., to refer to something that has never existed). It should go without saying that using words like “capitalism” and “anarchism” in ways radically different to traditional uses cannot help but provoke confusion. Yet is it a case that “anarcho”-capitalists have simply picked a bad name for their ideology? Hardly, as its advocates will quickly rush to defend exploitation (non-labour income) and capitalist property rights as well as the authoritarian social structures produced with them. Moreover, as good capitalist economists the notion of an economy without interest, rent and profit is considered highly inefficient and so unlikely to develop. As such, their ideology is rooted in a perspective and an economy marked by wage labour, landlords, banking and stock markets and so hierarchy, oppression and exploitation, i.e. a capitalist one.

So they have chosen their name well as it shows in clear light how far they are from the anarchist tradition. As such, almost all anarchists would agree with long-time anarchist activist Donald Rooum’s comment that “self-styled ‘anarcho-capitalists’ (not to be confused with anarchists of any persuasion) [simply] want the state abolished as a regulator of capitalism, and government handed over to capitalists.” They are “wrongly self-styled ‘anarchists’” because they “do not oppose capitalist oppression” while genuine anarchists are “extreme libertarian socialists.” [What Is Anarchism?, p. 7, pp. 12–13 and p. 10] As we stress in section F.1, “anarcho”-capitalists do not oppose the hierarchies and exploitation associated with capitalism (wage labour and landlordism) and, consequently, have no claim to the term “anarchist.” Just because someone uses a label it does not mean that they support the ideas associated with that label and this is the case with “anarcho”-capitalism — its ideas are at odds with the key ideas associated with all forms of traditional anarchism (even individualist anarchism which is often claimed, usually by “anarcho”-capitalists, as being a forefather of the ideology).

We are covering this topic in an anarchist FAQ for three reasons. Firstly, the number of “libertarian” and “anarcho”-capitalists on the net means that those seeking to find out about anarchism may conclude that they are “anarchists” as well. Secondly, unfortunately, some academics and writers have taken their claims of being anarchists at face value and have included their ideology in general accounts of anarchism (the better academic accounts do note that anarchists generally reject the claim). These two reasons are obviously related and hence the need to show the facts of the matter. The last reason is to provide other anarchists with arguments and evidence to use against “anarcho”-capitalism and its claims of being a new form of “anarchism.”

So this section of the FAQ does not, as we noted above, represent some kind of “debate” within anarchism. It reflects the attempt by anarchists to reclaim the history and meaning of anarchism from those who are attempting to steal its name. However, our discussion also serves two other purposes. Firstly, critiquing right “libertarian” theories allows us to explain anarchist ones at the same time and indicate why they are better. Secondly, and more importantly, it shares many of the same assumptions and aims of neo-liberalism. This was noted by Bob Black in the early 1980s, when a “wing of the Reaganist Right ... obviously appropriated, with suspect selectivity, such libertarian themes as deregulation and voluntarism. Ideologues indignate that Reagan has travestied their principles. Tough shit! I notice that it’s their principles, not mine, that he found suitable to travesty.” [“The Libertarian As Conservative”, pp. 141–8, The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, pp. 141–2] This was echoed by Noam Chomsky two decades later when he stated that “nobody takes [right-wing libertarianism] seriously” (as “everybody knows that a society that worked by ... [its] principles would self-destruct in three seconds”). The “only reason” why some people in the ruling elite “pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon” in the class struggle [Understanding Power, p. 200] As neo-liberalism is being used as the ideological basis of the current attack on the working class, critiquing “anarcho”-capitalism also allows us to build theoretical weapons to use to resist this attack and aid our side in the class war.

The results of the onslaught of free(r) market capitalism along with anarchist criticism of “anarcho”-capitalism has resulted in some “anarcho”-capitalists trying to re-brand their ideology as “market anarchism.” This, from their perspective, has two advantages. Firstly, it allows them to co-opt the likes of Tucker and Spooner (and, sometimes, even Proudhon!) into their family tree as all these supported markets (while systematically attacking capitalism). Secondly, it allows them to distance their ideology from the grim reality of neo-liberalism and the results of making capitalism more “free market.” Simply put, going on about the benefits of “free market” capitalism while freer market capitalism is enriching the already wealthy and oppressing and impoverishing the many is hard going. Using the term “market anarchism” to avoid both the reality of anarchism’s anti-capitalist core and the reality of the freer market capitalism they have helped produce makes sense in the marketplace of ideas (the term “blackwashing” seems appropriate here). The fact is that however laudable its stated aims, “anarcho”-capitalism is deeply flawed due to its simplistic nature and is easy to abuse on behalf of the economic oligarchy that lurks behind the rhetoric of economic textbooks in that “special case” so ignored by economists, namely reality.

Anarchism has always been aware of the existence of “free market” capitalism, particularly its extreme (minimal state) wing, and has always rejected it. As we discuss in section F.7, anarchists from Proudhon onwards have rejected it (and, significantly, vice versa). As academic Alan Carter notes, anarchist concern for equality as a necessary precondition for genuine freedom “is one very good reason for not confusing anarchists with liberals or economic ‘libertarians’ — in other words, for not lumping together everyone who is in some way or another critical of the state. It is why calling the likes of Nozick ‘anarchists’ is highly misleading.” [“Some notes on ‘Anarchism’”, pp. 141–5, Anarchist Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, p. 143] So anarchists have evaluated “free market” capitalism and rejected it as non-anarchist since the birth of anarchism and so attempts by “anarcho”-capitalism to say that their system is “anarchist” flies in the face of this long history of anarchist analysis. That some academics fall for their attempts to appropriate the anarchist label for their ideology is down to a false premise: it “is judged to be anarchism largely because some anarcho-capitalists say they are ‘anarchists’ and because they criticise the State.” [Peter Sabatini, Social Anarchism, no. 23, p. 100]

More generally, we must stress that most (if not all) anarchists do not want to live in a society just like this one but without state coercion and (the initiation of) force. Anarchists do not confuse “freedom” with the “right” to govern and exploit others nor with being able to change masters. It is not enough to say we can start our own (co-operative) business in such a society. We want the abolition of the capitalist system of authoritarian relationships, not just a change of bosses or the possibility of little islands of liberty within a sea of capitalism (islands which are always in danger of being flooded and our freedom destroyed). Thus, in this section of the FAQ, we analysis many “anarcho”-capitalist claims on their own terms (for example, the importance of equality in the market or why replacing the state with private defence firms is simply changing the name of the state rather than abolishing it) but that does not mean we desire a society nearly identical to the current one. Far from it, we want to transform this society into one more suited for developing and enriching individuality and freedom.

Finally, we dedicate this section of the FAQ to those who have seen the real face of “free market” capitalism at work: the working men and women (anarchist or not) murdered in the jails and concentration camps or on the streets by the hired assassins of capitalism.

For more discussion on this issue, see the appendix “Anarchism and ‘Anarcho’-capitalism”

F.1 Are “anarcho”-capitalists really anarchists?

In a word, no. While “anarcho”-capitalists obviously try to associate themselves with the anarchist tradition by using the word “anarcho” or by calling themselves “anarchists” their ideas are distinctly at odds with those associated with anarchism. As a result, any claims that their ideas are anarchist or that they are part of the anarchist tradition or movement are false.

“Anarcho”-capitalists claim to be anarchists because they say that they oppose government. As noted in the last section, they use a dictionary definition of anarchism. However, this fails to appreciate that anarchism is a political theory. As dictionaries are rarely politically sophisticated things, this means that they fail to recognise that anarchism is more than just opposition to government, it is also marked a opposition to capitalism (i.e. exploitation and private property). Thus, opposition to government is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being an anarchist — you also need to be opposed to exploitation and capitalist private property. As “anarcho”-capitalists do not consider interest, rent and profits (i.e. capitalism) to be exploitative nor oppose capitalist property rights, they are not anarchists.

Part of the problem is that Marxists, like many academics, also tend to assert that anarchists are simply against the state. It is significant that both Marxists and “anarcho”-capitalists tend to define anarchism as purely opposition to government. This is no co-incidence, as both seek to exclude anarchism from its place in the wider socialist movement. This makes perfect sense from the Marxist perspective as it allows them to present their ideology as the only serious anti-capitalist one around (not to mention associating anarchism with “anarcho”-capitalism is an excellent way of discrediting our ideas in the wider radical movement). It should go without saying that this is an obvious and serious misrepresentation of the anarchist position as even a superficial glance at anarchist theory and history shows that no anarchist limited their critique of society simply at the state. So while academics and Marxists seem aware of the anarchist opposition to the state, they usually fail to grasp the anarchist critique applies to all other authoritarian social institutions and how it fits into the overall anarchist analysis and struggle. They seem to think the anarchist condemnation of capitalist private property, patriarchy and so forth are somehow superfluous additions rather than a logical position which reflects the core of anarchism:

“Critics have sometimes contended that anarchist thought, and classical anarchist theory in particular, has emphasised opposition to the state to the point of neglecting the real hegemony of economic power. This interpretation arises, perhaps, from a simplistic and overdrawn distinction between the anarchist focus on political domination and the Marxist focus on economic exploitation ... there is abundant evidence against such a thesis throughout the history of anarchist thought.” [John P. Clark and Camille Martin, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity, p. 95]

So Reclus simply stated the obvious when he wrote that “the anti-authoritarian critique to which the state is subjected applies equally to all social institutions.” [quoted by Clark and Martin, Op. Cit., p. 140] Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and so on would all agree with that. While they all stressed that anarchism was against the state they quickly moved on to present a critique of private property and other forms of hierarchical authority. So while anarchism obviously opposes the state, “sophisticated and developed anarchist theory proceeds further. It does not stop with a criticism of political organisation, but goes on to investigate the authoritarian nature of economic inequality and private property, hierarchical economic structures, traditional education, the patriarchal family, class and racial discrimination, and rigid sex- and age-roles, to mention just a few of the more important topics.” For the “essence of anarchism is, after all, not the theoretical opposition to the state, but the practical and theoretical struggle against domination.” [John Clark, The Anarchist Moment, p. 128 and p. 70]

This is also the case with individualist anarchists whose defence of certain forms of property did stop them criticising key aspects of capitalist property rights. As Jeremy Jennings notes, the “point to stress is that all anarchists, and not only those wedded to the predominant twentieth-century strain of anarchist communism have been critical of private property to the extent that it was a source of hierarchy and privilege.” He goes on to state that anarchists like Tucker and Spooner “agreed with the proposition that property was legitimate only insofar as it embraced no more than the total product of individual labour.” [“Anarchism”, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Roger Eatwell and Anthony Wright (eds.), p. 132] This is acknowledged by the likes of Rothbard who had to explicitly point how that his position on such subjects was fundamentally different (i.e., at odds) with individualist anarchism.

As such, it would be fair to say that most “anarcho”-capitalists are capitalists first and foremost. If aspects of anarchism do not fit with some element of capitalism, they will reject that element of anarchism rather than question capitalism (Rothbard’s selective appropriation of the individualist anarchist tradition is the most obvious example of this). This means that right-“libertarians” attach the “anarcho” prefix to their ideology because they believe that being against government intervention is equivalent to being an anarchist (which flows into their use of the dictionary definition of anarchism). That they ignore the bulk of the anarchist tradition should prove that there is hardly anything anarchistic about them at all. They are not against authority, hierarchy or the state — they simply want to privatise them.

Ironically, this limited definition of “anarchism” ensures that “anarcho”-capitalism is inherently self-refuting. This can be seen from leading “anarcho”-capitalist Murray Rothbard. He thundered against the evil of the state, arguing that it “arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area.” In and of itself, this definition is unremarkable. That a few people (an elite of rulers) claim the right to rule others must be part of any sensible definition of the state or government. However, the problems begin for Rothbard when he notes 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 mere 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”).

Now, this contradiction can be solved in only one way — the users of the “given area” are also its owners. In other words, a system of possession (or “occupancy and use”) as favoured by anarchists. However, Rothbard is a capitalist and supports private property, non-labour income, wage labour, capitalists and landlords. This means that he supports a divergence between ownership and use and this means that this “ultimate decision-making power” extends to those who use, but do not own, such property (i.e. tenants and workers). The statist nature of private property is clearly indicated by Rothbard’s words — the property owner in an “anarcho”-capitalist society possesses the “ultimate decision-making power” over a given area, which is also what the state has currently. Rothbard has, ironically, proved by his own definition that “anarcho”-capitalism is not anarchist.

Of course, it would be churlish to point out that the usual name for a political system in which the owner of a territory is also its ruler is, in fact, monarchy. Which suggests that while “anarcho”-capitalism may be called “anarcho-statism” a far better term could be “anarcho-monarchism.” In fact, some “anarcho”-capitalists have made explicit this obvious implication of Rothbard’s argument. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is one.

Hoppe prefers monarchy to democracy, considering it the superior system. He argues that the monarch is the private owner of the government — all the land and other resources are owned by him. Basing himself on Austrian economics (what else?) and its notion of time preference, he concludes that the monarch will, therefore, work to maximise both current income and the total capital value of his estate. Assuming self-interest, his planning horizon will be farsighted and exploitation be far more limited. Democracy, in contrast, is a publicly-owned government and the elected rulers have use of resources for a short period only and not their capital value. In other words, they do not own the country and so will seek to maximise their short-term interests (and the interests of those they think will elect them into office). In contrast, Bakunin stressed that if anarchism rejects democracy it was “hardly in order to reverse it but rather to advance it,” in particular to extend it via “the great economic revolution without which every right is but an empty phrase and a trick.” He rejected wholeheartedly “the camp of aristocratic ... reaction.” [The Basic Bakunin, p. 87]

However, Hoppe is not a traditional monarchist. His ideal system is one of competing monarchies, a society which is led by a “voluntarily acknowledged ‘natural’ elite — a nobilitas naturalis” comprised of “families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct.” This is because “a few individuals quickly acquire the status of an elite” and their inherent qualities will “more likely than not [be] passed on within a few — noble — families.” The sole “problem” with traditional monarchies was “with monopoly, not with elites or nobility,” in other words the King monopolised the role of judge and their subjects could not turn to other members of the noble class for services. [“The Political Economy of Monarchy and Democracy and the Idea of a Natural Order,” pp. 94–121, Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, p. 118 and p. 119]

Which simply confirms the anarchist critique of “anarcho”-capitalism, namely that it is not anarchist. This becomes even more obvious when Hoppe helpfully expands on the reality of “anarcho”-capitalism:

“In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance towards democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They — the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centred lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.” [Democracy: the God that Failed, p. 218]

Thus the proprietor has power/authority over his tenants and can decree what they can and cannot do, excluding anyone whom they consider as being subversive (in the tenants’ own interests, of course). In other words, the autocratic powers of the boss are extended into all aspects of society — all under the mask of advocating liberty. Sadly, the preservation of property rights destroys liberty for the many (Hoppe states clearly that for the “anarcho”-capitalist the “natural outcome of the voluntary transactions between various private property owners is decidedly non-egalitarian, hierarchical and elitist.” [“The Political Economy of Monarchy and Democracy and the Idea of a Natural Order,” Op. Cit., p. 118]). Unsurprisingly, Chomsky argued that right-wing “libertarianism” has “no objection to tyranny as long as it is private tyranny.” In fact it (like other contemporary ideologies) “reduce[s] to advocacy of one or another form of illegitimate authority, quite often real tyranny.” [Chomsky on Anarchism, p. 235 and p. 181] As such, it is hard not to conclude that “anarcho”-capitalism is little more than a play with words. It is not anarchism but a cleverly designed and worded surrogate for elitist, autocratic conservatism. Nor is too difficult to conclude that genuine anarchists and libertarians (of all types) would not be tolerated in this so-called “libertarian social order.”

Some “anarcho”-capitalists do seem dimly aware of this glaringly obvious contradiction. Rothbard, for example, does present an argument which could be used to solve it, but he utterly fails. He simply ignores the crux of the matter, that capitalism is based on hierarchy and, therefore, cannot be anarchist. He does this by arguing that the hierarchy associated with capitalism is fine as long as the private property that produced it was acquired in a “just” manner. Yet in so doing he yet again draws attention to the identical authority structures and social relationships of the state and property. As he puts it:

“If the State may be said to properly own its territory, then it is proper for it to make rules for everyone who presumes to live in that area. It can legitimately seize or control private property because there is no private property in its area, because it really owns the entire land surface. So long as the State permits its subjects to leave its territory, then, it can be said to act as does any other owner who sets down rules for people living on his property.” [Op. Cit., p. 170]

Obviously Rothbard argues that the state does not “justly” own its territory. He asserts that “our homesteading theory” of the creation of private property “suffices to demolish any such pretensions by the State apparatus” and so the problem with the state is that it “claims and exercises a compulsory monopoly of defence and ultimate decision-making over an area larger than an individual’s justly-acquired property.” [Op. Cit., p. 171 and p. 173] There are four fundamental problems with his argument.

First, it assumes his “homesteading theory” is a robust and libertarian theory, but neither is the case (see section F.4.1). Second, it ignores the history of capitalism. Given that the current distribution of property is just as much the result of violence and coercion as the state, his argument is seriously flawed. It amounts to little more than an “immaculate conception of property” unrelated to reality. Third, even if we ignore these issues and assume that private property could be and was legitimately produced by the means Rothbard assumes, it does not justify the hierarchy associated with it as current and future generations of humanity have, effectively, been excommunicated from liberty by previous ones. If, as Rothbard argues, property is a natural right and the basis of liberty then why should the many be excluded from their birthright by a minority? In other words, Rothbard denies that liberty should be universal. He chooses property over liberty while anarchists choose liberty over property. Fourthly, it implies that the fundamental problem with the state is not, as anarchists have continually stressed, its hierarchical and authoritarian nature but rather the fact that it does not justly own the territory it claims to rule.

Even worse, the possibility that private property can result in more violations of individual freedom (at least for non-proprietors ) than the state of its citizens was implicitly acknowledged by Rothbard. He uses as a hypothetical example a country whose King is threatened by a rising “libertarian” movement. The King responses by “employ[ing] a cunning stratagem,” namely he “proclaims his government to be dissolved, but just before doing so he arbitrarily parcels out the entire land area of his kingdom to the ‘ownership’ of himself and his relatives.” Rather than taxes, his subjects now pay rent and he can “regulate the lives of all the people who presume to live on” his property as he sees fit. Rothbard then asks:

“Now what should be the reply of the libertarian rebels to this pert challenge? If they are consistent utilitarians, they must bow to this subterfuge, and resign themselves to living under a regime no less despotic than the one they had been battling for so long. Perhaps, indeed, more despotic, for now the king and his relatives can claim for themselves the libertarians’ very principle of the absolute right of private property, an absoluteness which they might not have dared to claim before.” [Op. Cit., p. 54]

It should go without saying that Rothbard argues that we should reject this “cunning stratagem” as a con as the new distribution of property would not be the result of “just” means. However, he failed to note how his argument undermines his own claims that capitalism can be libertarian. As he himself argues, not only does the property owner have the same monopoly of power over a given area as the state, it is more despotic as it is based on the “absolute right of private property”! And remember, Rothbard is arguing in favour of “anarcho”-capitalism (“if you have unbridled capitalism, you will have all kinds of authority: you will have extreme authority.” [Chomsky, Understanding Power, p. 200]). The fundamental problem is that Rothbard’s ideology blinds him to the obvious, namely that the state and private property produce identical social relationships (ironically, he opines the theory that the state owns its territory “makes the State, as well as the King in the Middle Ages, a feudal overlord, who at least theoretically owned all the land in his domain” without noticing that this makes the capitalist or landlord a King and a feudal overlord within “anarcho”-capitalism. [Op. Cit., p. 171]).

One group of Chinese anarchists pointed out the obvious in 1914. As anarchism “takes opposition to authority as its essential principle,” anarchists aim to “sweep away all the evil systems of present society which have an authoritarian nature” and so “our ideal society” would be “without landlords, capitalists, leaders, officials, representatives or heads of families.” [quoted by Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, p. 131] Only this, the elimination of all forms of hierarchy (political, economic and social) would achieve genuine anarchism, a society without authority (an-archy). In practice, private property is a major source of oppression and authoritarianism within society — there is little or no freedom subject to a landlord or within capitalist production (as Bakunin noted, “the worker sells his person and his liberty for a given time”). In stark contrast to anarchists, “anarcho”-capitalists have no problem with landlords and factory fascism (i.e. wage labour), a position which seems highly illogical for a theory calling itself libertarian. If it were truly libertarian, it would oppose all forms of domination, not just statism (“Those who reject authoritarianism will require nobody’ permission to breathe. The libertarian ... is not grateful to get permission to reside anywhere on his own planet and denies the right of any one to screen off bits of it for their own use or rule.” [Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, Floodgates of Anarchy, p. 31]). This illogical and self-contradictory position flows from the “anarcho”-capitalist definition of freedom as the absence of coercion and will be discussed in section F.2 in more detail. The ironic thing is that “anarcho”-capitalists implicitly prove the anarchist critique of their own ideology.

Of course, the “anarcho”-capitalist has another means to avoid the obvious, namely the assertion that the market will limit the abuses of the property owners. If workers do not like their ruler then they can seek another. Thus capitalist hierarchy is fine as workers and tenants “consent” to it. While the logic is obviously the same, it is doubtful that an “anarcho”-capitalist would support the state just because its subjects can leave and join another one. As such, this does not address the core issue — the authoritarian nature of capitalist property (see section A.2.14). Moreover, this argument completely ignores the reality of economic and social power. Thus the “consent” argument fails because it ignores the social circumstances of capitalism which limit the choice of the many.

Anarchists have long argued that, as a class, workers have little choice but to “consent” to capitalist hierarchy. The alternative is either dire poverty or starvation. “Anarcho”-capitalists dismiss such claims by denying that there is such a thing as economic power. Rather, it is simply freedom of contract. Anarchists consider such claims as a joke. To show why, we need only quote (yet again) Rothbard on the abolition of slavery and serfdom in the 19th century. He argued, correctly, that the “bodies of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of their former oppressors. With economic power thus remaining in their hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once more of what were now free tenants or farm labourers. The serfs and slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly derived of its fruits.” [Op. Cit., p. 74]

To say the least, anarchists fail to see the logic in this position. Contrast this with the standard “anarcho”-capitalist claim that if market forces (“voluntary exchanges”) result in the creation of “tenants or farm labourers” then they are free. Yet labourers dispossessed by market forces are in exactly the same social and economic situation as the ex-serfs and ex-slaves. If the latter do not have the fruits of freedom, neither do the former. Rothbard sees the obvious “economic power” in the latter case, but denies it in the former (ironically, Rothbard dismissed economic power under capitalism in the same work. [Op. Cit., pp. 221–2]). It is only Rothbard’s ideology that stops him from drawing the obvious conclusion — identical economic conditions produce identical social relationships and so capitalism is marked by “economic power” and “virtual masters.” The only solution is for “anarcho”-capitalist to simply say that the ex-serfs and ex-slaves were actually free to choose and, consequently, Rothbard was wrong. It might be inhuman, but at least it would be consistent!

Rothbard’s perspective is alien to anarchism. For example, as individualist anarchist William Bailie noted, under capitalism there is a class system marked by “a dependent industrial class of wage-workers” and “a privileged class of wealth-monopolisers, each becoming more and more distinct from the other as capitalism advances.” This has turned property into “a social power, an economic force destructive of rights, a fertile source of injustice, a means of enslaving the dispossessed.” He concluded: “Under this system equal liberty cannot obtain.” Bailie notes that the modern “industrial world under capitalistic conditions” have “arisen under the regime of status” (and so “law-made privileges”) however, it seems unlikely that he would have concluded that such a class system would be fine if it had developed naturally or the current state was abolished while leaving that class structure intact. [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 121] As we discuss in section G.4, Individualist Anarchists like Tucker and Yarrows ended up recognising that even the freest competition had become powerless against the enormous concentrations of wealth associated with corporate capitalism.

Therefore anarchists recognise that “free exchange” or “consent” in unequal circumstances will reduce freedom as well as increasing inequality between individuals and classes. As we discuss in section F.3, inequality will produce social relationships which are based on hierarchy and domination, not freedom. As Noam Chomsky put it:

“Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn’t the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of ‘free contract’ between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else.” [Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, interview with Tom Lane, December 23, 1996]

Clearly, then, by its own arguments “anarcho”-capitalism is not anarchist. This should come as no surprise to anarchists. Anarchism, as a political theory, was born when Proudhon wrote What is Property? specifically to refute the notion that workers are free when capitalist property forces them to seek employment by landlords and capitalists. He was well aware that in such circumstances 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.” [What is Property, p. 251, p. 130, p. 264 and pp. 266–7] It must also be stressed that Proudhon’s classic work is a lengthy critique of the kind of apologetics for private property Rothbard espouses to salvage his ideology from its obvious contradictions.

So, ironically, Rothbard repeats the same analysis as Proudhon but draws the opposite conclusions and expects to be considered an anarchist! Moreover, it seems equally ironic that “anarcho”-capitalism calls itself “anarchist” while basing itself on the arguments that anarchism was created in opposition to. As shown, “anarcho”-capitalism makes as much sense as “anarcho-statism” — an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. The idea that “anarcho”-capitalism warrants the name “anarchist” is simply false. Only someone ignorant of anarchism could maintain such a thing. While you expect anarchist theory to show this to be the case, the wonderful thing is that “anarcho”-capitalism itself does the same.

Little wonder Bob Black argues that “[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.” [“The Libertarian As Conservative”, The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, pp. 142] Left-liberal Stephen L. Newman makes the same point:

“The emphasis [right-wing] libertarians place on the opposition of liberty and political power tends to obscure the role of authority in their worldview ... the authority exercised in private relationships, however — in the relationship between employer and employee, for instance — meets with no objection... [This] reveals a curious insensitivity to the use of private authority as a means of social control. Comparing public and private authority, we might well ask of the [right-wing] libertarians: When the price of exercising one’s freedom is terribly high, what practical difference is there between the commands of the state and those issued by one’s employer? ... Though admittedly the circumstances are not identical, telling disgruntled empowers that they are always free to leave their jobs seems no different in principle from telling political dissidents that they are free to emigrate.” [Liberalism at Wit’s End, pp. 45–46]

As Bob Black pointed out, right libertarians argue that “‘one can at least change jobs.’ But you can’t avoid having a job — just as under statism one can at least change nationalities but you can’t avoid subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to change masters.” [Op. Cit., p. 147] The similarities between capitalism and statism are clear — and so why “anarcho”-capitalism cannot be anarchist. To reject the authority (the “ultimate decision-making power”) of the state and embrace that of the property owner indicates not only a highly illogical stance but one at odds with the basic principles of anarchism. This whole-hearted support for wage labour and capitalist property rights indicates that “anarcho”-capitalists are not anarchists because they do not reject all forms of archy. They obviously support the hierarchy between boss and worker (wage labour) and landlord and tenant. Anarchism, by definition, is against all forms of archy, including the hierarchy generated by capitalist property. To ignore the obvious archy associated with capitalist property is highly illogical and trying to dismiss one form of domination as flowing from “just” property while attacking the other because it flows from “unjust” property is not seeing the wood for the trees.

In addition, we must note that such inequalities in power and wealth will need “defending” from those subject to them (“anarcho”-capitalists recognise the need for private police and courts to defend property from theft — and, anarchists add, to defend the theft and despotism associated with property!). Due to its support of private property (and thus authority), “anarcho”-capitalism ends up retaining a state in its “anarchy”: namely a private state whose existence its proponents attempt to deny simply by refusing to call it a state, like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. As one anarchist so rightly put it, “anarcho”-capitalists “simply replaced the state with private security firms, and can hardly be described as anarchists as the term is normally understood.” [Brian Morris, “Global Anti-Capitalism”, pp. 170–6, Anarchist Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, p. 175] As we discuss more fully in section F.6 this is why “anarcho”-capitalism is better described as “private state” capitalism as there would be a functional equivalent of the state and it would be just as skewed in favour of the propertied elite as the existing one (if not more so). As Albert Meltzer put it:

“Commonsense shows that any capitalist society might dispense with a ‘State’ ... but it could not dispense with organised government, or a privatised form of it, if there were people amassing money and others working to amass it for them. The philosophy of ‘anarcho-capitalism’ dreamed up by the ‘libertarian’ New Right, has nothing to do with Anarchism as known by the Anarchist movement proper. It is a lie ... Patently unbridled capitalism ... needs some force at its disposal to maintain class privileges, either from the State itself or from private armies. What they believe in is in fact a limited State — that is, one in which the State has one function, to protect the ruling class, does not interfere with exploitation, and comes as cheap as possible for the ruling class. The idea also serves another purpose ... a moral justification for bourgeois consciences in avoiding taxes without feeling guilty about it.” [Anarchism: Arguments For and Against, p. 50]

For anarchists, this need of capitalism for some kind of state is unsurprising. For “Anarchy without socialism seems equally as impossible to us [as socialism without anarchy], for in such a case it could not be other than the domination of the strongest, and would therefore set in motion right away the organisation and consolidation of this domination; that is to the constitution of government.” [Errico Malatesta, Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 148] Because of this, the “anarcho”-capitalist rejection of the anarchist critique of capitalism and our arguments on the need for equality, they cannot be considered anarchists or part of the anarchist tradition. To anarchists it seems bizarre that “anarcho”-capitalists want to get rid of the state but maintain the system it helped create and its function as a defender of the capitalist class’s property and property rights. In other words, to reduce the state purely to its function as (to use Malatesta’s apt word) the gendarme of the capitalist class is not an anarchist goal.

Thus anarchism is far more than the common dictionary definition of “no government” — it also entails being against all forms of archy, including those generated by capitalist property. This is clear from the roots of the word “anarchy.” As we noted in section A.1, the word anarchy means “no rulers” or “contrary to authority.” As Rothbard himself acknowledges, the property owner is the ruler of their property and, therefore, those who use it. For this reason “anarcho”-capitalism cannot be considered as a form of anarchism — a real anarchist must logically oppose the authority of the property owner along with that of the state. As “anarcho”-capitalism does not explicitly (or implicitly, for that matter) call for economic arrangements that will end wage labour and usury it cannot be considered anarchist or part of the anarchist tradition. While anarchists have always opposed capitalism, “anarcho”-capitalists have embraced it and due to this embrace their “anarchy” will be marked by relationships based upon subordination and hierarchy (such as wage labour), not freedom (little wonder that Proudhon argued that “property is despotism” — it creates authoritarian and hierarchical relationships between people in a similar way to statism). Their support for “free market” capitalism ignores the impact of wealth and power on the nature and outcome of individual decisions within the market (see sections F.2 and F.3 for further discussion). Furthermore, any such system of (economic and social) power will require extensive force to maintain it and the “anarcho”-capitalist system of competing “defence firms” will simply be a new state, enforcing capitalist power, property rights and law.

Thus the “anarcho”-capitalist and the anarchist have different starting positions and opposite ends in mind. Their claims to being anarchists are bogus simply because they reject so much of the anarchist tradition as to make what little they do pay lip-service to non-anarchist in theory and practice. Little wonder Peter Marshall said that “few anarchists would accept the ‘anarcho-capitalists’ into the anarchist camp since they do not share a concern for economic equality and social justice.” As such, “anarcho”-capitalists, “even if they do reject the State, might therefore best be called right-wing libertarians rather than anarchists.” [Demanding the Impossible, p. 565]

F.2 What do “anarcho”-capitalists mean by freedom?

For “anarcho”-capitalists, the concept of freedom is limited to the idea of “freedom from.” For them, freedom means simply freedom from the “initiation of force,” or the “non-aggression against anyone’s person and property.” [Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 23] The notion that real freedom must combine both freedom “to” and freedom “from” is missing in their ideology, as is the social context of the so-called freedom they defend.

Before continuing, it is useful to quote Alan Haworth when he notes that “[i]n fact, it is surprising how little close attention the concept of freedom receives from libertarian writers. Once again Anarchy, State, and Utopia is a case in point. The word ‘freedom’ doesn’t even appear in the index. The word ‘liberty’ appears, but only to refer the reader to the ‘Wilt Chamberlain’ passage. In a supposedly ‘libertarian’ work, this is more than surprising. It is truly remarkable.” [Anti-Libertarianism, p. 95] Why this is the case can be seen from how the right-“libertarian” defines freedom.

In right-“libertarian” and “anarcho”-capitalist ideology, freedom is considered to be a product of property. As Murray Rothbard puts it, “the libertarian defines the concept of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’...[as a] condition in which a person’s ownership rights in his body and his legitimate material property rights are not invaded, are not aggressed against... Freedom and unrestricted property rights go hand in hand.” [Op. Cit., p.41]

This definition has some problems, however. In such a society, one cannot (legitimately) do anything with or on another’s property if the owner prohibits it. This means that an individual’s only guaranteed freedom is determined by the amount of property that he or she owns. This has the consequence that someone with no property has no guaranteed freedom at all (beyond, of course, the freedom not to be murdered or otherwise harmed by the deliberate acts of others). In other words, a distribution of property is a distribution of freedom, as the right-“libertarians” themselves define it. It strikes anarchists as strange that an ideology that claims to be committed to promoting freedom entails the conclusion that some people should be more free than others. Yet this is the logical implication of their view, which raises a serious doubt as to whether “anarcho”-capitalists are actually interested in freedom at all.

Looking at Rothbard’s definition of “liberty” quoted above, we can see that freedom is actually no longer considered to be a fundamental, independent concept. Instead, freedom is a derivative of something more fundamental, namely the “legitimate rights” of an individual, which are identified as property rights. In other words, given that “anarcho”-capitalists and right-“libertarians” in general consider the right to property as “absolute,” it follows that freedom and property become one and the same. This suggests an alternative name for the right Libertarian, namely “Propertarian.” And, needless to say, if we do not accept the right-libertarians’ view of what constitutes “legitimate rights,” then their claim to be defenders of liberty is weak.

Another important implication of this “liberty as property” concept is that it produces a strangely alienated concept of freedom. Liberty, as we noted, is no longer considered absolute, but a derivative of property — which has the important consequence that you can “sell” your liberty and still be considered free by the ideology. This concept of liberty is usually termed “self-ownership.” But, to state the obvious, I do not “own” myself, as if were an object somehow separable from my subjectivity — I am myself (see section B.4.2). However, the concept of “self-ownership” is handy for justifying various forms of domination and oppression — for by agreeing (usually under the force of circumstances, we must note) to certain contracts, an individual can “sell” (or rent out) themselves to others (for example, when workers sell their labour power to capitalists on the “free market”). In effect, “self-ownership” becomes the means of justifying treating people as objects — ironically, the very thing the concept was created to stop! As anarchist L. Susan Brown notes, “[a]t the moment an individual ‘sells’ labour power to another, he/she loses self-determination and instead is treated as a subjectless instrument for the fulfilment of another’s will.” [The Politics of Individualism, p. 4]

Given that workers are paid to obey, you really have to wonder which planet Murray Rothbard was on when he argued that a person’s “labour service is alienable, but his will is not” and that he “cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body.” He contrasts private property and self-ownership by arguing that “[a]ll physical property owned by a person is alienable ... I can give away or sell to another person my shoes, my house, my car, my money, etc. But there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable ... [his] will and control over his own person are inalienable.” [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 40, p. 135 and pp. 134–5] Yet “labour services” are unlike the private possessions Rothbard lists as being alienable. As we argued in section B.1 a person’s “labour services” and “will” cannot be divided — if you sell your labour services, you also have to give control of your body and mind to another person. If a worker does not obey the commands of her employer, she is fired. That Rothbard denied this indicates a total lack of common-sense. Perhaps Rothbard would have argued that as the worker can quit at any time she does not really alienate their will (this seems to be his case against slave contracts — see section F.2.2). But this ignores the fact that between the signing and breaking of the contract and during work hours (and perhaps outside work hours, if the boss has mandatory drug testing or will fire workers who attend union or anarchist meetings or those who have an “unnatural” sexuality and so on) the worker does alienate his will and body. In the words of Rudolf Rocker, “under the realities of the capitalist economic form ... there can ... be no talk of a ‘right over one’s own person,’ for that ends when one is compelled to submit to the economic dictation of another if he does not want to starve.” [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 10]

Ironically, the rights of property (which are said to flow from an individual’s self-ownership of themselves) becomes the means, under capitalism, by which self-ownership of non-property owners is denied. The foundational right (self-ownership) becomes denied by the derivative right (ownership of things). “To treat others and oneself as property,” argues L. Susan Brown, “objectifies the human individual, denies the unity of subject and object and is a negation of individual will ... [and] destroys the very freedom one sought in the first place. The liberal belief in property, both real and in the person, leads not to freedom but to relationships of domination and subordination.” [Op. Cit., p. 3] Under capitalism, a lack of property can be just as oppressive as a lack of legal rights because of the relationships of domination and subjection this situation creates. That people “consent” to this hierarchy misses the point. As Alexander Berkman put it:

“The law says your employer does not steal anything from you, because it is done with your consent. You have agreed to work for your boss for certain pay, he to have all that you produce ... “But did you really consent? “When the highway man holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You ‘consent’ all right, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun. “Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you just as the highwayman’s gun. You must live ... You can’t work for yourself ... The factories, machinery, and tools belong to the employing class, so you must hire yourself out to that class in order to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must work for him. You can’t help yourself. You are compelled.” [What is Anarchism?, p. 11]

Due to this class monopoly over the means of life, workers (usually) are at a disadvantage in terms of bargaining power — there are more workers than jobs (see section C.9). Within capitalism there is no equality between owners and the dispossessed, and so property is a source of power. To claim that this power should be “left alone” or is “fair” is “to the anarchists... preposterous. Once a State has been established, and most of the country’s capital privatised, the threat of physical force is no longer necessary to coerce workers into accepting jobs, even with low pay and poor conditions. To use [right-“libertarian”] Ayn Rand’s term, ‘initial force’ has already taken place, by those who now have capital against those who do not... In other words, if a thief died and willed his ‘ill-gotten gain’ to his children, would the children have a right to the stolen property? Not legally. So if ‘property is theft,’ to borrow Proudhon’s quip, and the fruit of exploited labour is simply legal theft, then the only factor giving the children of a deceased capitalist a right to inherit the ‘booty’ is the law, the State. As Bakunin wrote, ‘Ghosts should not rule and oppress this world, which belongs only to the living.’” [Jeff Draughn, Between Anarchism and Libertarianism]

Or, in other words, right-Libertarianism fails to “meet the charge that normal operations of the market systematically places an entire class of persons (wage earners) in circumstances that compel them to accept the terms and conditions of labour dictated by those who offer work. While it is true that individuals are formally free to seek better jobs or withhold their labour in the hope of receiving higher wages, in the end their position in the market works against them; they cannot live if they do not find employment. When circumstances regularly bestow a relative disadvantage on one class of persons in their dealings with another class, members of the advantaged class have little need of coercive measures to get what they want.” [Stephen L. Newman, Liberalism at Wit’s End, p. 130] Eliminating taxation does not end oppression, in other words. As Tolstoy put it:

“in Russia serfdom was only abolished when all the land had been appropriated. When land was granted to the peasants, it was burdened with payments which took the place of the land slavery. In Europe, taxes that kept the people in bondage began to be abolished only when the people had lost their land, were unaccustomed to agricultural work, and ... quite dependent on the capitalists ... [They] abolish the taxes that fall on the workers ... only because the majority of the people are already in the hands of the capitalists. One form of slavery is not abolished until another has already replaced it.” [The Slavery of Our Times, p. 32]

So Rothbard’s argument (as well as being contradictory) misses the point (and the reality of capitalism). Yes, if we define freedom as “the absence of coercion” then the idea that wage labour does not restrict liberty is unavoidable, but such a definition is useless. This is because it hides structures of power and relations of domination and subordination. As Carole Pateman argues, “the contract in which the worker allegedly sells his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot be separated from his capacities, he sells command over the use of his body and himself ... To sell command over the use of oneself for a specified period ... is to be an unfree labourer. The characteristics of this condition are captured in the term wage slave.” [The Sexual Contract, p. 151]

In other words, contracts about property in the person inevitably create subordination. “Anarcho”-capitalism defines this source of unfreedom away, but it still exists and has a major impact on people’s liberty. For anarchists freedom is better described as “self-government” or “self-management” — to be able to govern ones own actions (if alone) or to participate in the determination of join activity (if part of a group). Freedom, to put it another way, is not an abstract legal concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all their powers, capacities, and talents which nature has endowed them. A key aspect of this is to govern one own actions when within associations (self-management). If we look at freedom this way, we see that coercion is condemned but so is hierarchy (and so is capitalism for during working hours people are not free to make their own plans and have a say in what affects them. They are order takers, not free individuals).

It is because anarchists have recognised the authoritarian nature of capitalist firms that they have opposed wage labour and capitalist property rights along with the state. They have desired to replace institutions structured by subordination with institutions constituted by free relationships (based, in other words, on self-management) in all areas of life, including economic organisations. Hence Proudhon’s argument that the “workmen’s associations ... are full of hope both as a protest against the wage system, and as an affirmation of reciprocity” and that their importance lies “in their denial of the rule of capitalists, money lenders and governments.” [The General Idea of the Revolution, pp. 98–99]

Unlike anarchists, the “anarcho”-capitalist account of freedom allows an individual’s freedom to be rented out to another while maintaining that the person is still free. It may seem strange that an ideology proclaiming its support for liberty sees nothing wrong with the alienation and denial of liberty but, in actual fact, it is unsurprising. After all, contract theory is a “theoretical strategy that justifies subjection by presenting it as freedom” and has “turned a subversive proposition [that we are born free and equal] into a defence of civil subjection.” Little wonder, then, that contract “creates a relation of subordination” and not of freedom [Carole Pateman, Op. Cit., p. 39 and p. 59] Little wonder, then, that Colin Ward argued that, as an anarchist, he is “by definition, a socialist” and that “[w]orkers’ control of industrial production” is “the only approach compatible with anarchism.” [Talking Anarchy, p. 25 and p. 26]

Ultimately, any attempt to build an ethical framework starting from the abstract individual (as Rothbard does with his “legitimate rights” method) will result in domination and oppression between people, not freedom. Indeed, Rothbard provides an example of the dangers of idealist philosophy that Bakunin warned about when he argued that while “[m]aterialism denies free will and ends in the establishment of liberty; idealism, in the name of human dignity, proclaims free will, and on the ruins of every liberty founds authority.” [God and the State, p. 48] That this is the case with “anarcho”-capitalism can be seen from Rothbard’s wholehearted support for wage labour, landlordism and the rules imposed by property owners on those who use, but do not own, their property. Rothbard, basing himself on abstract individualism, cannot help but justify authority over liberty. This, undoubtedly, flows from the right-liberal and conservative roots of his ideology. Individualist anarchist Shawn Wilbar once defined Wikipedia as “the most successful modern experiment in promoting obedience to authority as freedom.” However, Wikipedia pales into insignificance compared to the success of liberalism (in its many forms) in doing precisely that. Whether politically or economically, liberalism has always rushed to justify and rationalise the individual subjecting themselves to some form of hierarchy. That “anarcho”-capitalism does this under the name “anarchism” is deeply insulting to anarchists.

Overall, we can see that the logic of the right-“libertarian” definition of “freedom” ends up negating itself because it results in the creation and encouragement of authority, which is an opposite of freedom. For example, as Ayn Rand pointed out, “man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.” [The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, pp. 388–9] But, as was shown in section C.2, capitalism is based on, as Proudhon put it, workers working “for an entrepreneur who pays them and keeps their products,” and so is a form of theft. Thus, by “libertarian” capitalism’s own logic, capitalism is based not on freedom, but on (wage) slavery; for interest, profit and rent are derived from a worker’s unpaid labour, i.e. “others dispose of his [sic] product.”

Thus it is debatable that a right-“libertarian” or “anarcho” capitalist society would have less unfreedom or authoritarianism in it than “actually existing” capitalism. In contrast to anarchism, “anarcho”-capitalism, with its narrow definitions, restricts freedom to only a few areas of social life and ignores domination and authority beyond those aspects. As Peter Marshall points out, their “definition of freedom is entirely negative. It calls for the absence of coercion but cannot guarantee the positive freedom of individual autonomy and independence.” [Demanding the Impossible, p. 564] By confining freedom to such a narrow range of human action, “anarcho”-capitalism is clearly not a form of anarchism. Real anarchists support freedom in every aspect of an individual’s life.

In short, as French anarchist Elisee Reclus put it there is “an abyss between two kinds of society,” one of which is “constituted freely by men of good will, based on a consideration of their common interests” and another which “accepts the existence of either temporary or permanent masters to whom [its members] owe obedience.” [quoted by Clark and Martin, Anarchy, Geography, Modernity, p. 62] In other words, when choosing between anarchism and capitalism, “anarcho”-capitalists pick the latter and call it the former.

F.2.1 How does private property affect freedom?

The right-“libertarian” either does not acknowledge or dismisses as irrelevant the fact that the (absolute) right of private property may lead to extensive control by property owners over those who use, but do not own, property (such as workers and tenants). Thus a free-market capitalist system leads to a very selective and class-based protection of “rights” and “freedoms.” For example, under capitalism, the “freedom” of employers inevitably conflicts with the “freedom” of employees. When stockholders or their managers exercise their “freedom of enterprise” to decide how their company will operate, they violate their employee’s right to decide how their labouring capacities will be utilised and so under capitalism the “property rights” of employers will conflict with and restrict the “human right” of employees to manage themselves. Capitalism allows the right of self-management only to the few, not to all. Or, alternatively, capitalism does not recognise certain human rights as universal which anarchism does.

This can be seen from Austrian Economist W. Duncan Reekie’s defence of wage labour. While referring to “intra-firm labour markets” as “hierarchies”, Reekie (in his best ex cathedra tone) states that “[t]here is nothing authoritarian, dictatorial or exploitative in the relationship. Employees order employers to pay them amounts specified in the hiring contract just as much as employers order employees to abide by the terms of the contract.” [Markets, Entrepreneurs and Liberty, p. 136 and p. 137]. Given that “the terms of contract” involve the worker agreeing to obey the employers orders and that they will be fired if they do not, its pretty clear that the ordering that goes on in the “intra-firm labour market” is decidedly one way. Bosses have the power, workers are paid to obey. And this begs the question: if the employment contract creates a free worker, why must she abandon her liberty during work hours?

Reekie actually recognises this lack of freedom in a “round about” way when he notes that “employees in a firm at any level in the hierarchy can exercise an entrepreneurial role. The area within which that role can be carried out increases the more authority the employee has.” [Op. Cit., p. 142] Which means workers are subject to control from above which restricts the activities they are allowed to do and so they are not free to act, make decisions, participate in the plans of the organisation, to create the future and so forth within working hours. And it is strange that while recognising the firm as a hierarchy, Reekie tries to deny that it is authoritarian or dictatorial — as if you could have a hierarchy without authoritarian structures or an unelected person in authority who is not a dictator. His confusion is shared by Austrian guru Ludwig von Mises, who asserted that the “entrepreneur and capitalist are not irresponsible autocrats” because they are “unconditionally subject to the sovereignty of the consumer” while, on the next page, admitting there was a “managerial hierarchy” which contains “the average subordinate employee.” [Human Action, p. 809 and p. 810] It does not enter his mind that the capitalist may be subject to some consumer control while being an autocrat to their subordinated employees. Again, we find the right-“libertarian” acknowledging that the capitalist managerial structure is a hierarchy and workers are subordinated while denying it is autocratic to the workers! Thus we have “free” workers within a relationship distinctly lacking freedom — a strange paradox. Indeed, if your personal life were as closely monitored and regulated as the work life of millions of people across the world, you would rightly consider it the worse form of oppression and tyranny.

Somewhat ironically, right-wing liberal and “free market” economist Milton Friedman contrasted “central planning involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army or the modern totalitarian state” with “voluntary co-operation between individuals — the technique of the marketplace” as two distinct ways of co-ordinating the economic activity of large groups (“millions”) of people. [Capitalism and Freedom, p. 13] However, this misses the key issue of the internal nature of the company. As right-“libertarians” themselves note, the internal structure of a capitalist company is hierarchical. Indeed, the capitalist company is a form of central planning and so shares the same “technique” as the army. As Peter Drucker noted in his history of General Motors, “[t]here is a remarkably close parallel between General Motors’ scheme of organisation and those of the two institutions most renowned for administrative efficiency: that of the Catholic Church and that of the modern army.” [quoted by David Engler, Apostles of Greed, p. 66] Thus capitalism is marked by a series of totalitarian organisations. Dictatorship does not change much — nor does it become less fascistic — when discussing economic structures rather than political ones. To state the obvious, “the employment contract (like the marriage contract) is not an exchange; both contracts create social relations that endure over time — social relations of subordination.” [Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 148]

Perhaps Reekie (like most right-“libertarians”) will maintain that workers voluntarily agree (“consent”) to be subject to the bosses dictatorship (he writes that “each will only enter into the contractual agreement known as a firm if each believes he will be better off thereby. The firm is simply another example of mutually beneficial exchange.” [Op. Cit., p. 137]). However, this does not stop the relationship being authoritarian or dictatorial (and so exploitative as it is highly unlikely that those at the top will not abuse their power). Representing employment relations as voluntary agreement simply mystifies the existence and exercise of power within the organisation so created.

As we argue further in the section F.3, in a capitalist society workers have the option of finding a job or facing abject poverty and/or starvation. Little wonder, then, that people “voluntarily” sell their labour and “consent” to authoritarian structures! They have little option to do otherwise. So, within the labour market workers can and do seek out the best working conditions possible, but that does not mean that the final contract agreed is “freely” accepted and not due to the force of circumstances, that both parties have equal bargaining power when drawing up the contract or that the freedom of both parties is ensured.

Which means to argue (as right-“libertarians” do) that freedom cannot be restricted by wage labour because people enter into relationships they consider will lead to improvements over their initial situation totally misses the point. As the initial situation is not considered relevant, their argument fails. After all, agreeing to work in a sweatshop 14 hours a day is an improvement over starving to death — but it does not mean that those who so agree are free when working there or actually want to be there. They are not and it is the circumstances, created and enforced by the law (i.e., the state), that have ensured that they “consent” to such a regime (given the chance, they would desire to change that regime but cannot as this would violate their bosses property rights and they would be repressed for trying).

So the right-wing “libertarian” right is interested only in a narrow concept of freedom (rather than in freedom or liberty as such). This can be seen in the argument of Ayn Rand that “Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state — and nothing else!” [Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 192] By arguing in this way, right-“libertarians” ignore the vast number of authoritarian social relationships that exist in capitalist society and, as Rand does here, imply that these social relationships are like “the laws of nature.” However, if one looks at the world without prejudice but with an eye to maximising freedom, the major coercive institutions are the state and capitalist social relationships (and the latter relies on the former). It should also be noted that, unlike gravity, the power of the landlord and boss depends on the use of force — gravity does not need policemen to make things fall!

The right “libertarian,” then, far from being a defender of freedom, is in fact a keen defender of certain forms of authority. As Kropotkin argued against a forerunner of right-“libertarianism”:

“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]

To defend the “freedom” of property owners is to defend authority and privilege — in other words, statism. So, in considering the concept of liberty as “freedom from,” it is clear that by defending private property (as opposed to possession) the “anarcho”-capitalist is defending the power and authority of property owners to govern those who use “their” property. And also, we must note, defending all the petty tyrannies that make the work lives of so many people frustrating, stressful and unrewarding.

Anarchism, by definition, is in favour of organisations and social relationships which are non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian. Otherwise, some people are more free than others. Failing to attack hierarchy leads to massive contradiction. For example, since the British Army is a volunteer one, it is an “anarchist” organisation! Ironically, it can also allow a state to appear “libertarian” as that, too, can be considered voluntary arrangement as long as it allows its subjects to emigrate freely. So equating freedom with (capitalist) property rights does not protect freedom, in fact it actively denies it. This lack of freedom is only inevitable as long as we accept capitalist private property rights. If we reject them, we can try and create a world based on freedom in all aspects of life, rather than just in a few.

F.2.2 Do “libertarian”-capitalists support slavery?

Yes. It may come as a surprise to many people, but right-“Libertarianism” is one of the few political theories that justifies slavery. For example, Robert Nozick asks whether “a free system would allow [the individual] to sell himself into slavery” and he answers “I believe that it would.” [Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 371] While some right-“libertarians” do not agree with Nozick, there is no logical basis in their ideology for such disagreement.

This can be seen from “anarcho”-capitalist Walter Block, who, like Nozick, supports voluntary slavery. As he puts it, “if I own something, I can sell it (and should be allowed by law to do so). If I can’t sell, then, and to that extent, I really don’t own it.” Thus agreeing to sell yourself for a lifetime “is a bona fide contract” which, if “abrogated, theft occurs.” He critiques those other right-wing “libertarians” (like Murray Rothbard) who oppose voluntary slavery as being inconsistent to their principles. Block, in his words, seeks to make “a tiny adjustment” which “strengthens libertarianism by making it more internally consistent.” He argues that his position shows “that contract, predicated on private property [can] reach to the furthest realms of human interaction, even to voluntary slave contracts.” [“Towards a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon, and Epstein,” pp. 39–85, Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 44, p. 48, p. 82 and p. 46]

So the logic is simple, you cannot really own something unless you can sell it. Self-ownership is one of the cornerstones of laissez-faire capitalist ideology. Therefore, since you own yourself you can sell yourself.

This defence of slavery should not come as a surprise to any one familiar with classical liberalism. An elitist ideology, its main rationale is to defend the liberty and power of property owners and justify unfree social relationships (such as government and wage labour) in terms of “consent.” Nozick and Block just takes it to its logical conclusion. This is because his position is not new but, as with so many other right-“libertarian” ones, can be found in John Locke’s work. The key difference is that Locke refused the term “slavery” and favoured “drudgery” as, for him, slavery mean a relationship “between a lawful conqueror and a captive” where the former has the power of life and death over the latter. Once a “compact” is agreed between them, “an agreement for a limited power on the one side, and obedience on the other ... slavery ceases.” As long as the master could not kill the slave, then it was “drudgery.” Like Nozick, he acknowledges that “men did sell themselves; but, it is plain, this was only to drudgery, not to slavery: for, it is evident, the person sold was not under an absolute, arbitrary, despotical power: for the master could not have power to kill him, at any time, whom, at a certain time, he was obliged to let go free out of his service.” [Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Section 24] In other words, voluntary slavery was fine but just call it something else.

Not that Locke was bothered by involuntary slavery. He was heavily involved in the slave trade. He owned shares in the “Royal Africa Company” which carried on the slave trade for England, making a profit when he sold them. He also held a significant share in another slave company, the “Bahama Adventurers.” In the “Second Treatise”, Locke justified slavery in terms of “Captives taken in a just war,” a war waged against aggressors. [Section 85] That, of course, had nothing to do with the actual slavery Locke profited from (slave raids were common, for example). Nor did his “liberal” principles stop him suggesting a constitution that would ensure that “every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his Negro slaves.” The constitution itself was typically autocratic and hierarchical, designed explicitly to “avoid erecting a numerous democracy.” [The Works of John Locke, vol. X, p. 196]

So the notion of contractual slavery has a long history within right-wing liberalism, although most refuse to call it by that name. It is of course simply embarrassment that stops many right-“libertarians” calling a spade a spade. They incorrectly assume that slavery has to be involuntary. In fact, historically, voluntary slave contracts have been common (David Ellerman’s Property and Contract in Economics has an excellent overview). Any new form of voluntary slavery would be a “civilised” form of slavery and could occur when an individual would “agree” to sell their lifetime’s labour to another (as when a starving worker would “agree” to become a slave in return for food). In addition, the contract would be able to be broken under certain conditions (perhaps in return for breaking the contract, the former slave would have pay damages to his or her master for the labour their master would lose — a sizeable amount no doubt and such a payment could result in debt slavery, which is the most common form of “civilised” slavery. Such damages may be agreed in the contract as a “performance bond” or “conditional exchange.”

In summary, right-“libertarians” are talking about “civilised” slavery (or, in other words, civil slavery) and not forced slavery. While some may have reservations about calling it slavery, they agree with the basic concept that since people own themselves they can sell themselves, that is sell their labour for a lifetime rather than piecemeal.

We must stress that this is no academic debate. “Voluntary” slavery has been a problem in many societies and still exists in many countries today (particularly third world ones where bonded labour — i.e. where debt is used to enslave people — is the most common form). With the rise of sweat shops and child labour in many “developed” countries such as the USA, “voluntary” slavery (perhaps via debt and bonded labour) may become common in all parts of the world — an ironic (if not surprising) result of “freeing” the market and being indifferent to the actual freedom of those within it.

Some right-“libertarians” are obviously uneasy with the logical conclusion of their definition of freedom. Murray Rothbard, for example, stressed the “unenforceability, in libertarian theory, of voluntary slave contracts.” Of course, other “libertarian” theorists claim the exact opposite, so “libertarian theory” makes no such claim, but never mind! Essentially, his objection revolves around the assertion that a person “cannot, in nature, sell himself into slavery and have this sale enforced — for this would mean that his future will over his own body was being surrendered in advance” and that if a “labourer remains totally subservient to his master’s will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary.” However, as we noted in section F.2, Rothbard emphasis on quitting fails to recognise the actual denial of will and control over ones own body that is explicit in wage labour. It is this failure that pro-slave contract “libertarians” stress — they consider the slave contract as an extended wage contract. Moreover, a modern slave contract would likely take the form of a “performance bond,” on which Rothbard laments about its “unfortunate suppression” by the state. In such a system, the slave could agree to perform X years labour or pay their master substantial damages if they fail to do so. It is the threat of damages that enforces the contract and such a “contract” Rothbard does agree is enforceable. Another means of creating slave contracts would be “conditional exchange” which Rothbard also supports. As for debt bondage, that too, seems acceptable. He surreally notes that paying damages and debts in such contracts is fine as “money, of course, is alienable” and so forgets that it needs to be earned by labour which, he asserts, is not alienable! [The Ethics of Liberty, pp. 134–135, p. 40, pp. 136–9, p. 141 and p. 138]

It should be noted that the slavery contract cannot be null and void because it is unenforceable, as Rothbard suggests. This is because the doctrine of specific performance applies to all contracts, not just to labour contracts. This is because all contracts specify some future performance. In the case of the lifetime labour contract, then it can be broken as long as the slave pays any appropriate damages. As Rothbard puts it elsewhere, “if A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work.” [Man, Economy, and State, vol. I , p. 441] This is understandable, as the law generally allows material damages for breached contracts, as does Rothbard in his support for the “performance bond” and “conditional exchange.” Needless to say, having to pay such damages (either as a lump sum or over a period of time) could turn the worker into the most common type of modern slave, the debt-slave.

And it is interesting to note that even Murray Rothbard is not against the selling of humans. He argued that children are the property of their parents who can (bar actually murdering them by violence) do whatever they please with them, even sell them on a “flourishing free child market.” [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 102] Combined with a whole hearted support for child labour (after all, the child can leave its parents if it objects to working for them) such a “free child market” could easily become a “child slave market” — with entrepreneurs making a healthy profit selling infants and children or their labour to capitalists (as did occur in 19th century Britain). Unsurprisingly, Rothbard ignores the possible nasty aspects of such a market in human flesh (such as children being sold to work in factories, homes and brothels). But this is besides the point.

Of course, this theoretical justification for slavery at the heart of an ideology calling itself “libertarianism” is hard for many right-“libertarians” to accept and so they argue that such contracts would be very hard to enforce. This attempt to get out of the contradiction fails simply because it ignores the nature of the capitalist market. If there is a demand for slave contracts to be enforced, then companies will develop to provide that “service” (and it would be interesting to see how two “protection” firms, one defending slave contracts and another not, could compromise and reach a peaceful agreement over whether slave contracts were valid). Thus we could see a so-called “free” society producing companies whose specific purpose was to hunt down escaped slaves (i.e. individuals in slave contracts who have not paid damages to their owners for freedom). Of course, perhaps Rothbard would claim that such slave contracts would be “outlawed” under his “general libertarian law code” but this is a denial of market “freedom”. If slave contracts are “banned” then surely this is paternalism, stopping individuals from contracting out their “labour services” to whom and however long they “desire”. You cannot have it both ways.

So, ironically, an ideology proclaiming itself to support “liberty” ends up justifying and defending slavery. Indeed, for the right-“libertarian” the slave contract is an exemplification, not the denial, of the individual’s liberty! How is this possible? How can slavery be supported as an expression of liberty? Simple, right-“libertarian” support for slavery is a symptom of a deeper authoritarianism, namely their uncritical acceptance of contract theory. The central claim of contract theory is that contract is the means to secure and enhance individual freedom. Slavery is the antithesis to freedom and so, in theory, contract and slavery must be mutually exclusive. However, as indicated above, some contract theorists (past and present) have included slave contracts among legitimate contracts. This suggests that contract theory cannot provide the theoretical support needed to secure and enhance individual freedom.

As Carole Pateman argues, “contract theory is primarily about a way of creating social relations constituted by subordination, not about exchange.” Rather than undermining subordination, contract theorists justify modern subjection — “contract doctrine has proclaimed that subjection to a master — a boss, a husband — is freedom.” [The Sexual Contract, p. 40 and p. 146] The question central to contract theory (and so right-Libertarianism) is not “are people free” (as one would expect) but “are people free to subordinate themselves in any manner they please.” A radically different question and one only fitting to someone who does not know what liberty means.

Anarchists argue that not all contracts are legitimate and no free individual can make a contract that denies his or her own freedom. If an individual is able to express themselves by making free agreements then those free agreements must also be based upon freedom internally as well. Any agreement that creates domination or hierarchy negates the assumptions underlying the agreement and makes itself null and void. In other words, voluntary government is still government and a defining characteristic of an anarchy must be, surely, “no government” and “no rulers.”

This is most easily seen in the extreme case of the slave contract. John Stuart Mill stated that such a contract would be “null and void.” He argued that an individual may voluntarily choose to enter such a contract but in so doing “he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself...The principle of freedom cannot require that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his freedom.” He adds that “these reasons, the force of which is so conspicuous in this particular case, are evidently of far wider application.” [quoted by Pateman, Op. Cit., pp. 171–2]

And it is such an application that defenders of capitalism fear (Mill did in fact apply these reasons wider and unsurprisingly became a supporter of a market syndicalist form of socialism). If we reject slave contracts as illegitimate then, logically, we must also reject all contracts that express qualities similar to slavery (i.e. deny freedom) including wage slavery. Given that, as David Ellerman points out, “the voluntary slave ... and the employee cannot in fact take their will out of their intentional actions so that they