Free-market anarchism

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Free-market anarchism or market anarchism[1] (sometimes used synonymously with anarcho-capitalism) refers to an individualist anarchist philosophy that harmonizes the abolition of the state with a market economy by proposing to replace the monopoly of force held by government with a competitive market of private institutions offering police protection, justice, and other defense services[2] - "the private allocation of force, without central control."[3] Providers of force would be paid for voluntarily by those who wish to receive the services rather than individuals being taxed without their consent and assigned a particular provider without their consent. The belief, among market anarchists, is that this competition this will tend to produce cheaper and higher quality legal and police services including "a high-quality good of impartial, efficient umpiring of conflicting rights claims."[4]

Notable proponents of free-market anarchism include Murray Rothbard[5], David D. Friedman[6], and Benjamin Tucker[7]. Market anarchism has been traced as far back as the 1840's, as conceived by individuals such as Julius Faucher and Gustave de Molinari.[8] [9]

Gustave de Molinari
Gustave de Molinari

One of the first individuals to discuss to propose the possibility of privatizing protection of individual liberty and property, i.e. market anarchism, was France's Jakob Mauvillon in the 18th century. Later, in the 1840s, Julius Faucher and Gustave de Molinari advocated the same. Molinari, in his essay The Production of Security, argued, "No government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity."[8] Molinari argued that the monopoly on security causes high prices and low quality. He says in Les Soirées: "The monopoly of government is no better than any other. One does not govern well and, especially not cheaply, when one has no competition to fear, when the ruled are deprived of the right of freely choosing their rulers...The production of security inevitably becomes costly and bad when it is organized as a monopoly."[10] The brunt of Molinari's argument for market anarchism is based in economics rather than on moral opposition to the state.[11]

Benjamin Tucker
Benjamin Tucker

In the 19th century, Benjamin Tucker in the United States also theorized market anarchism: "defense is a service like any other service; that it is labor both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand; that in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production; that, competition prevailing, patronage would go to those who furnished the best article at the lowest price; that the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the State; and that the State, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices."[12] He noted that the anarchism he proposed would include prisons and military.[13] Later, in the mid 20th century, market anarchism was revived by Murray Rothbard. David D. Friedman proposes a form of market anarchism where in addition to security being provided by the market, the law itself is produced by the market."[14]

Murray Rothbard
Murray Rothbard

Market anarchists believe that the state becomes corrupt, hence creates a social structure of privileges, handed out and enforced by government in a system they call corporatism.

Samuel Edward Konkin III, who calls his philosophy "agorism," wishes to eliminate the state practicing tax resistance and by the use illegal black market strategies called counter-economics until the security functions of the state can be replaced by free-market competitors. Rothbard's "anarcho-capitalism" says that any non-immoral tactic available to bring about liberty should be used.[15] Agorists use to oppose intelectual property because they consider it a market restriction.[16]

Murray Rothbard and other natural rights theorists hold strongly to the central libertarian non-aggression axiom, while other market anarchists such as David D. Friedman utilize utilitarianism.[17]

Rothbardian free-market anarchists and John Locke believes that property may only originate by being the product of labor, and may then only legitimately change hands by trade or gift.

Some market anarchists, such as Benjamin Tucker, believe that it was in opposition to natural law to protect land while it was not being used or occupied. There would be no market in land that is not in use. Tucker later abandoned natural rights theory and said that land ownership is legitimately transferred through force unless specified otherwise by contracts: "Man's only right to land is his might over it. If his neighbor is mightier than he and takes the land from him, then the land is his neighbor's, until the latter is dispossessed by one mightier still."[18] He did say, though, he expected that individuals would come to the realization that the "occupancy and use" was a "generally trustworthy guiding principle of action," and that individuals would likely would contract to an occupancy and use policy.[19]

Contents

[edit] Ideological variance

See also: Issues in anarchism

Beyond their agreeing that security should be privately provided by market-based entities, proponents of market anarchism differ in other details and aspects of their philosophies.

Market anarchists believe that the state becomes corrupt, hence creates a social structure of privileges, handed out and enforced by government in a system they call corporatism.

Murray Rothbard and other natural rights theorists hold strongly to the central libertarian non-aggression axiom, while other market anarchists such as David D. Friedman utilize utilitarianism.[20] Following Max Stirner, some found their political philosophy on egoistic justifications. Some market anarchists in the nineteenth century, such as Benjamin Tucker, subscribed to a labor theory of value which lead them to embrace a surplus value exploitation theory.

[edit] Views on land

In regard to land, market anarchists' views of ownership are property and possession. These views derive from similar concerns with personal economic autonomy (or self-ownership), and involve similar standards for the initial acquisition (or homesteading) of unowned land or the initial creation of other goods. These views involve different standards for the abandonment of land (and return of land to the commons or to an unowned condition).[21]

[edit] Rothbardian

The first, developed by the classical liberal John Locke, argues that, as people mix their own labor with unowned resources, they make those resources their property. People can acquire new property by labor on unowned resources or trade for created goods.

Rothbardian free-market anarchists believe that property may only originate by being the product of labor, and may then only legitimately change hands by trade or gift.

[edit] Mutualist

The second, developed by the socialist mutualist Pierre Proudhon does not grant that this creates property in land, but holds that when people customarily use given land (and in some versions goods), other people should respect that use or possession. But, when that use stops, ownership is no longer recognized, unlike with property.[22]

[edit] References

  1. ^ A Google search was done on March 12, 2008 to test for the term "market anarchism" that doesn't have the the word "free" in front of it like this: ""market anarchism" -"free-market anarchism" -Wikipedia"" which yielded 1530 hits. When a test was done for "free-market anarchism" like this: ""free-market anarchism" -Wikipedia"" the result was 6890 hits. Therefore "free-market anarchism" appears to be the most employed terminology.
  2. ^ Lavoie, Don. Democracy, Markets, and the Legal Order: Notes on the Nature of Politics in a Radically Liberal Society. Published in Liberalism and the Economic Order, by G. Tyler Miller. Cambridge University Press, 1993. p. 115
  3. ^ Sanders, John T. & Narveson, Jan. 1996. For and Against the State: New Philosophical Readings. Towman & Littlefield. p. 197
  4. ^ Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran (eds.). Handbook of Political Theory. 2004. Sage Publications. p. 119
  5. ^ "This volume honors the foremost contemporary exponent of free-market anarchism. One contributor aptly describes Murray Rothbard as 'the most ideologically committed zero-State academic economists on earth'." Review by Lawrence H. White of Man, Economy, and liberty: Essays in honor of Murray N. Rothbard, published in Journal of Economic Literature, Vol XXVIII, June 1990, page 664; "[Rothbard's book, For a New Liberty,] synthesizes an advocacy of Lockean rights to life, liberty, property, and defense, an appeal to the free market as the most efficient and decentralized "social" device for the allocation of resources, and a sociological and historical analysis of the State as being inherently aggressive and exploitive. The product of this synthesis is Rothbard's free market anarchism." Review by Eric Mack of For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard, American Political Science Review, Vol 71, p. 332
  6. ^ Paul, Ellen Frankel et al. 1993. Liberalism and the Economic Order. Cambridge University Press. p. 115
  7. ^ Editor's note in "Taxation: Voluntary or Compulsory". Formulations. Free Nation Foundation. Summer 1995 [1]
  8. ^ a b Raico, Ralph (2004) Authentic German Liberalism of the 19th Century Ecole Polytechnique, Centre de Recherce en Epistemologie Appliquee, Unité associée au CNRS
  9. ^ Rothbard, Murray. Preface. The Production of Security. By Gustave Molinari. 1849, 1977. [2]
  10. ^ Molinari, Gustave de. 1849. Les Soirées de la Rue Saint-Lazare
  11. ^ Rothbard, Murray. Preface. The Production of Security. By Gustave Molinari. 1849, 1977. [3]
  12. ^ Tucker, Benjamin. "Instead of a Book" (1893)
  13. ^ Tucker, Benjamin. Liberty October 19, 1891
  14. ^ Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom. Second edition. La Salle, Ill, Open Court, pp. 116–117.
  15. ^ Lora, Ronald & Longton, Henry. 1999. The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America. Greenwood Press. p. 369
  16. ^ Copywrongs, by Samuel Konkin
  17. ^ Danley, John R. (November 1991). "Polestar refined: Business ethics and political economy". Journal of Business Ethics 10 (12): 915-933. Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/BF00383797. 
  18. ^ Benjamin R. Tucker, "Response to 'Rights,' by William Hansen," Liberty, Dec 31, 1892; 9, 18; pg. 1
  19. ^ Benjamin R. Tucker, "The Two Conceptions of Equal Freedom," Liberty, Apr 6, 1895; 10, 24; pg. 4
  20. ^ Danley, John R. (November 1991). "Polestar refined: Business ethics and political economy". Journal of Business Ethics 10 (12): 915-933. Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/BF00383797. 
  21. ^ Carson, Kevin, Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, chapter 5.
    Long, Roderick, "Land-Locked: A Critique of Carson on Property Rights," in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 20, no. 1.
  22. ^ Swartz, Clarence Lee. What is Mutualism? VI. Land and Rent

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