Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-Capitalism is the result of a mixture of different doctrines or beliefs, economic liberalism and political anarchism. When we refer to political liberalism, we must mention that its beginnings took place in the seventeenth century and has been experiencing some changes with time, always focusing on market economy, trying to stop the controls, problems and obstacles that it faces, defending private property and demonstrating that it is impossible to maintain a single central planning body that organizes and controls everything from the highest parts of society. Political anarchism originates in the nineteenth century and the most important part is the proposal of social organization as an alternative to the central and monopoly power that the monarchies have and have taken over the modern State.

Related topics

Physiocracy, neoliberalism

What is anarcho-capitalism?

Anarcho-capitalism also known as free market anarchism or libertarian anarchism, is a political philosophy based on promoting anarchy to eliminate the State and to protect people' sovereignty through private property and free-market products.

Anarcho-capitalism history

Anarcho-capitalism first emerged during the second half of the 20th century within what was known as libertarianism. It took many ideas from the old American individualist anarchism during the 19th century. The movement based his economic and legal arguments on many different theories, the most important being the economic analysis of law or the public election theory. The main precursor of this theory is the classical liberal John Locke, who made arguments regarding the way people mix their own work with resources without having an owner and then, turn these resources into part of their property. Privatization concept was enunciated by the Frenchman Jakob Mauvillon during the 18th century.

Anarcho-capitalism characteristics

• It promotes anarchy or the State’ s elimination in order to give protection to the individual.
• They promote tax elimination and the use of money to speed up an open market.
• Personal and economic activities can be regulated by means of a political management law.
• It is based on the dominion principle over oneself and one’s property, and at the same time, prohibits fraud.
• For anarcho-capitalism the only way a property can be acquired fairly is through original labor-based appropriation.

Anarcho-capitalism principles

This economic and political current takes its ideas from the Austrian economic school, and from classic American individual anarchism by discarding its theory of work-value. Among its main principles we can mention:

• Non-aggression principle: The axiom of non-aggression can be said to be a prohibition against violence or the use of violence, against persons (i.e., direct violence, assault, murder) or against property legitimately acquired by these persons (i.e., theft, fraud, taxes).
• Private property: The members of the anarcho-capitalist party define property as the right that each person has to property over his or her own body, while by the principle of original appropriation, they establish that each one is the true and sole owner of all the resources that have not had a previous owner or over which he or she has performed some form of work.
• Law and Order: This principle can be offered through private institutions that offer us a security and justice market, as well as some other defense services. All of them compete to have voluntary paying clients who want to hire their services and since there is competition, they produce legal and police services at a better price and with better quality.

Anarcho-capitalism representatives

Some of the main representatives are mentioned below:

• Murray Rothbard
• Hans-Hermann Hopp
• Jesús Huerta de Soto
• David Friedman
• Anthony de Jasay
• Walter Block
• Robert Higg
• Joseph Salerno
• Thomas DiLorenzo

Examples

• Celtic Ireland: A frequent example of a society with anarcho-capitalist characteristics was Celtic Ireland in the Middle Ages, because of its legal system and courts that made it based on clans to which the people or citizen could freely affiliate and disaffiliate.
• Medieval Iceland: it could have been created by some economist with the objective of testing the market system’s scope and how these could supplant the government in most of its fundamental functions.
• Early Pennsylvania: The time when Pennsylvania went into a bad situation, surrounded by anarchism, and how William Penn fought for almost ten years to get his government reinstated over the people who did not agree has been discussed.
• The Old American West: During 1830 and 1900, the Old West of the United States had many similarities and similarities to anarcho-capitalism.