     Replies to Some Errors and Distortions in Bryan Caplan's "Anarchist
   Theory FAQ" version 5.2

1 - Individualist Anarchists and the socialist movement.

   Caplan, in his FAQ, attempts to rewrite anarchist history by trying to
   claim that the individualist anarchists were forerunners of the
   so-called "anarcho-capitalist" school. However, as is so often the case
   with Caplan's FAQ, nothing could be further from the truth.

   In section 5 (What major subdivisions may be made among anarchists?) of
   his FAQ, Caplan writes that:

     "A large segment of left-anarchists is extremely sceptical about the
     anarchist credentials of anarcho-capitalists, arguing that the
     anarchist movement has historically been clearly leftist. In my own
     view, it is necessary to re-write a great deal of history to
     maintain this claim."

   He quotes Carl Landauer's European Socialism: A History of Ideas and
   Movements as evidence:

     "To be sure, there is a difference between individualistic anarchism
     and collectivistic or communistic anarchism; Bakunin called himself
     a communist anarchist. But the communist anarchists also do not
     acknowledge any right to society to force the individual. They
     differ from the anarchistic individualists in their belief that men,
     if freed from coercion, will enter into voluntary associations of a
     communistic type, while the other wing believes that the free person
     will prefer a high degree of isolation. The communist anarchists
     repudiate the right of private property which is maintained through
     the power of the state. The individualist anarchists are inclined to
     maintain private property as a necessary condition of individual
     independence, without fully answering the question of how property
     could be maintained without courts and police."

   Caplan goes on to state that "the interesting point is that before the
   emergence of modern anarcho-capitalism Landauer found it necessary to
   distinguish two strands of anarchism, only one of which he considered
   to be within the broad socialist tradition."

   However, what Caplan seems to ignore is that both individualist and
   social anarchists agree that there is a difference between the two
   schools of anarchist thought! Some insight. Of course, Caplan tries to
   suggest that Landauer's non-discussion of the individualist anarchists
   is somehow "evidence" that their ideas are not socialistic. Firstly,
   Landauer's book is about European Socialism. Individualist anarchism
   was almost exclusively based in America and so hardly falls within the
   book's subject area. Secondly, from the index Kropotkin is mentioned on
   two pages (one of which a footnote). Does that mean Kropotkin was not a
   socialist? Of course not. It seems likely, therefore, that Landauer is
   using the common Marxist terminology of defining Marxism as Socialism,
   while calling other parts of the wider socialist movement by their
   self-proclaimed names of anarchism, syndicalism and so on. Hardly
   surprising that Kropotkin is hardly mentioned in a history of
   "Socialism" (i.e. Marxism).

   As noted above, both schools of anarchism knew there was a difference
   between their ideas. Kropotkin and Tucker, for example, both
   distinguished between two types of anarchism as well as two types of
   socialism. Thus Caplan's "interesting point" is just a banality, a
   common fact which anyone with a basic familiarity of anarchist history
   would know. Kropotkin in his justly famous essay on Anarchism for The
   Encyclopaedia Britannica also found it necessary to distinguish two
   strands of anarchism. As regards Caplan's claims that only one of these
   strands of anarchism is "within the broad socialist tradition" all we
   can say is that both Kropotkin and Tucker considered their ideas and
   movement to be part of the broader socialist tradition. According to an
   expert on Individualist Anarchism, Tucker "looked upon anarchism as a
   branch of the general socialist movement" [James J. Martin, Men Against
   the State, pp. 226-7]. Other writers on Individualist Anarchism have
   noted the same fact (for example, Tucker "definitely thought of himself
   a socialist" [William O. Reichart, Partisans of Freedom: A Study in
   American Anarchism, p. 156]). As evidence of the anti-socialist nature
   of individualist anarchism, Caplan's interpretation of Landauer's words
   is fundamentally nonsense. If you look at the writings of people like
   Tucker you will see that they called themselves socialists and
   considered themselves part of the wider socialist movement. No one
   familiar with Tucker's works could overlook this fact.

   Interestingly, Landauer includes Proudhon in his history and states
   that he was "the most profound thinker among pre-Marxian socialists."
   [p. 67] Given that Caplan elsewhere in his FAQ tries to co-opt Proudhon
   into the "anarcho"-capitalist school as well as Tucker, his citing of
   Landauer seems particularly dishonest. Landauer presents Proudhon's
   ideas in some depth in his work within a chapter headed "The three
   Anticapitalistic Movements."
   Indeed, he starts his discussion of Proudhon's ideas with the words "In
   France, post-Utopian socialism begins with Peter Joseph Proudhon." [p.
   59] Given that both Kropotkin and Tucker indicated that Individualist
   Anarchism followed Proudhon's economic and political ideas the fact
   that Landauer states that Proudhon was a socialist implies that
   Individualist Anarchism is also socialist (or "Leftist" to use Caplan's
   term).

   Tucker and the other individualist anarchists considered themselves as
   followers of Proudhon's ideas (as did Bakunin and Kropotkin). For
   example, Tucker stated that his journal Liberty was "brought into
   existence as a direct consequence of the teachings of Proudhon" and
   "lives principally to spread them." [cited by Paul Avrich in his
   "Introduction" to Proudhon and his "Bank of the People" by Charles A.
   Dana]

   Obviously Landauer considered Proudhon a socialist and if Individualist
   Anarchism follows Proudhon's ideas then it, too, must be socialist.

   Unsurprisingly, then, Tucker also considered himself a socialist. To
   state the obvious, Tucker and Bakunin both shared Proudhon's opposition
   to private property (in the capitalist sense of the word), although
   Tucker confused this opposition (and possibly the casual reader) by
   talking about possession as "property."

   So, it appears that Caplan is the one trying to rewrite history.

2 - Why is Caplan's definition of socialism wrong?

   Perhaps the problem lies with Caplan's "definition" of socialism. In
   section 7 (Is anarchism the same thing as socialism?) he states:

     "If we accept one traditional definition of socialism -- 'advocacy
     of government ownership of the means of production' -- it seems that
     anarchists are not socialists by definition. But if by socialism we
     mean something more inclusive, such as 'advocacy of the strong
     restriction or abolition of private property,' then the question
     becomes more complex."

   Which are hardly traditional definitions of socialism unless you are
   ignorant of socialist ideas! By definition one, Bakunin and Kropotkin
   are not socialists. As far as definition two goes, all anarchists were
   opposed to (capitalist) private property and argued for its abolition
   and its replacement with possession. The actual forms of possession
   differed from between anarchist schools of thought, but the common aim
   to end private property (capitalism) was still there. To quote Dana, in
   a pamphlet called "a really intelligent, forceful, and sympathetic
   account of mutual banking" by Tucker, individualist anarchists desire
   to "destroy the tyranny of capital,- that is, of property" by mutual
   credit. [Charles A. Dana, Proudhon and his "Bank of the People", p. 46]

   Interestingly, this second definition of socialism brings to light a
   contradiction in Caplan's account. Elsewhere in the FAQ he notes that
   Proudhon had "ideas on the desirability of a modified form of private
   property." In fact, Proudhon did desire to restrict private property to
   that of possession, as Caplan himself seems aware. In other words, even
   taking his own definitions we find that Proudhon would be considered a
   socialist! Indeed, according to Proudhon, "all accumulated capital is
   collective property, no one may be its exclusive owner." [Selected
   Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 44] Thus Jeremy Jennings'
   summary of the anarchist position on private property:

     "The point to stress is that all anarchists [including Spooner and
     Tucker], 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]

   The idea that socialism can be defined as state ownership or even
   opposition to, or "abolition" of, all forms of property is not one
   which is historically accurate for all forms of socialism. Obviously
   communist-anarchists and syndicalists would dismiss out of hand the
   identification of socialism as state ownership, as would Individualist
   Anarchists like Tucker and Joseph Labadie. As for opposition or
   abolition of all forms of "private property" as defining socialism,
   such a position would have surprised communist-anarchists like
   Kropotkin (and, obviously, such self-proclaimed socialists as Tucker
   and Labadie).

   For example, in Act for Yourselves Kropotkin explicitly states that a
   peasant "who is in possession of just the amount of land he can
   cultivate" would not be expropriated in an anarchist revolution.
   Similarly for the family "inhabiting a house which affords them just
   enough space . . . considered necessary for that number of people" and
   the artisan "working with their own tools or handloom" would be left
   alone [pp. 104-5]. He makes the same point in The Conquest of Bread [p.
   61] Thus, like Proudhon, Kropotkin replaces private property with
   possession as the former is "theft" (i.e. it allows exploitation, which
   "indicate[s] the scope of Expropriation" namely "to everything that
   enables any man [or woman]. . . to appropriate the product of other's
   toil" [The Conquest of Bread, p. 61])

   Even Marx and Engels did not define socialism in terms of the abolition
   of all forms of "private property." Like anarchists, they distinguished
   between that property which allows exploitation to occur and that which
   did not. Looking at the Communist Manifesto we find them arguing that
   the "distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of
   property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property" and that
   "Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of
   society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate
   the labour of others by means of such appropriation." Moreover, they
   correctly note that "property" has meant different things at different
   times and that the "abolition of existing property relations is not at
   all a distinctive feature of Communism" as "[a]ll property relations in
   the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent
   upon the change in historical conditions." As an example, they argue
   that the French Revolution "abolished feudal property in favour of
   bourgeois property." [The Manifesto of the Communist Party, p.47, p. 49
   and p. 47]

   Which means that the idea that socialism means abolishing "private
   property" is only true for those kinds of property that are used to
   exploit the labour of others. Nicholas Walter sums up the anarchist
   position when he wrote that anarchists "are in favour of the private
   property which cannot be used by one person to exploit another."
   [Reinventing Anarchy, p. 49] In other words, property which is no
   longer truly private as it is used by those who do not own it. In
   effect, the key point of Proudhon's What is Property?, namely the
   difference between possession and property. Which means that rather
   than desire the abolition of all forms of "private property,"
   socialists (of all kinds, libertarian and authoritarian) desire the
   abolition of a specific kind of property, namely that kind which allows
   the exploitation and domination of others. To ignore this distinction
   is to paint a very misleading picture of what socialism stands for.

   This leaves the "the strong restriction . . . of private property"
   definition of socialism. Here Caplan is on stronger ground.
   Unfortunately, by using that definition the Individualist Anarchists,
   like the Social Anarchists, are included in socialist camp, a
   conclusion he is trying to avoid. As every anarchist shares Proudhon's
   analysis that "property is theft" and that possession would be the
   basis of anarchism, it means that every anarchist is a socialist (as
   Labadie always claimed). This includes Tucker and the other
   Individualist Anarchists. For example, Joseph Labadie stated that "the
   two great sub-divisions of Socialists" (anarchists and State
   Socialists) both "agree that the resources of nature -- land, mines,
   and so forth -- should not be held as private property and subject to
   being held by the individual for speculative purposes, that use of
   these things shall be the only valid title, and that each person has an
   equal right to the use of all these things. They all agree that the
   present social system is one composed of a class of slaves and a class
   of masters, and that justice is impossible under such conditions."
   [What is Socialism?] Tucker himself argued that the anarchists'
   "occupancy and use" title to land and other scare material would
   involve a change (and, in effect, "restriction") of current (i.e.
   capitalist) property rights:

     "It will be seen from this definition that Anarchistic property
     concerns only products. But anything is a product upon which human
     labour has been expended. It should be stated, however, that in the
     case of land, or of any other material the supply of which is so
     limited that all cannot hold it in unlimited quantities, Anarchism
     undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based on actual
     occupancy and use." [Instead of a Book, p. 61]

   and so:

     "no advocate of occupancy and use believes that it can be put in
     force until as a theory it has been accepted as generally . . . seen
     and accepted as is the prevailing theory of ordinary private
     property." [Occupancy and Use versus the Single Tax]

   So, as can be seen, Individualist Anarchism rejected important aspects
   of capitalist property rights. Given that the Individualist Anarchists
   were writing at a time when agriculture was still the largest source of
   employment this position on land is much more significant than it first
   appears. In effect, Tucker and the other American Anarchists were
   advocating a massive and fundamental change in property-rights, in the
   social relationships they generated and in American society. This is,
   in other words, a very "strong restriction" in capitalist property
   rights (and it is this type of property Caplan is referring to, rather
   than "property" in the abstract).

   However, such a "definition" of socialism as "restricting" private
   property is flawed as it does not really reflect anarchist ideas on the
   subject. Anarchists, in effect, reject the simplistic analysis that
   because a society (or thinker) accepts "property" that it (or he/she)
   is capitalistic. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the term "property"
   has been used to describe a wide range of situations and institutions.
   Thus Tucker used the term "property" to describe a society in which
   capitalist property rights were not enforced. Secondly, and far more
   importantly, concentrating on "property" rights in the abstract ignores
   the social relationships it generates. Freedom is product of social
   interaction, not one of isolation. This means that the social
   relationships generated in a given society are the key to evaluating it
   -- not whether it has "property" or not. To look at "property" in the
   abstract is to ignore people and the relationships they create between
   each other. And it is these relationships which determine whether they
   are free or not (and so exploited or not). Caplan's use of the
   anti-property rights "definition" of socialism avoids the central issue
   of freedom, of whether a given society generates oppression and
   exploitation or not. By looking at "property" Caplan ignores liberty, a
   strange but unsurprising position for a self-proclaimed "libertarian"
   to take.

   Thus both of Caplan's "definitions" of socialism are lacking. A
   "traditional" one of government ownership is hardly that and the one
   based on "property" rights avoids the key issue while, in its own way,
   includes all the anarchists in the socialist camp (something Caplan, we
   are sure, did not intend).

   So what would be a useful definition of socialism? From our discussion
   on property we can instantly reject Caplan's biased and simplistic
   starting points. In fact, a definition of socialism which most
   socialists would agree with would be one that stated that "the whole
   produce of labour ought to belong to the labourer" (to use words Thomas
   Hodgskin, an early English socialist, from his essay Labour Defended
   against the Claims of Capital). Tucker stated that "the bottom claim of
   Socialism" was "that labour should be put in possession of its own,"
   that "the natural wage of labour is its product" (see his essay State
   Socialism and Anarchism). This definition also found favour with
   Kropotkin who stated that socialism "in its wide, generic, and true
   sense" was an "effort to abolish the exploitation of labour by
   capital." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 169]

   From this position, socialists soon realised that (to again quote
   Kropotkin) "the only guarantee not to by robbed of the fruits of your
   labour is to possess the instruments of labour." [The Conquest of
   Bread, p. 145] Because of this socialism also could be defined as "the
   workers shall own the means of production," as this automatically meant
   that the product would go to the producer, and, in fact, this could
   also be a definition of socialism most socialists would agree with. The
   form of this ownership, however, differed from socialist tendency to
   socialist tendency (some, like Proudhon, proposed co-operative
   associations, others like Kropotkin communal ownership, others like the
   Social Democrats state ownership and so on). Moreover, as the economy
   changed in the 19th century, so did socialist ideas. Murray Bookchin
   gives a good summary of this process:

     "Th[e] growing shift from artisanal to an industrial economy gave
     rise to a gradual but major shift in socialism itself. For the
     artisan, socialism meant producers' co-operatives composed of men
     who worked together in small shared collectivist associations . . .
     For the industrial proletarian, by contrast, socialism came to mean
     the formation of a mass organisation that gave factory workers the
     collective power to expropriate a plant that no single worker could
     properly own. . . They advocated public ownership of the means of
     production, whether by the state or by the working class organised
     in trade unions." [The Third Revolution, vol. 2, p. 262]

   So, in this evolution of socialism we can place the various brands of
   anarchism. Individualist anarchism is clearly a form of artisanal
   socialism (which reflects its American roots) while communist anarchism
   and anarcho-syndicalism are forms of industrial (or proletarian)
   socialism (which reflects its roots in Europe). Proudhon's mutualism
   bridges these extremes, advocating as it does artisan socialism for
   small-scale industry and agriculture and co-operative associations for
   large-scale industry (which reflects the state of the French economy in
   the 1840s to 1860s). The common feature of all these forms of anarchism
   is opposition to usury and the notion that "workers shall own the means
   of production." Or, in Proudhon's words, "abolition of the
   proletariat." [Op. Cit., p. 179] As one expert on Proudhon points out,
   Proudhon's support for "association" (or "associative socialism")
   "anticipated all those later movements" which demanded "that the
   economy be controlled neither by private enterprise nor by the state .
   . . but by the producers" such as "the revolutionary syndicalists" and
   "the students of 1968." [K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and
   the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 165] "Industrial Democracy
   must. . . succeed Industrial Feudalism," to again quote Proudhon. [Op.
   Cit., p. 167]

   Thus the common agreement between all socialists was that capitalism
   was based upon exploitation and wage slavery, that workers did not have
   access to the means of production and so had to sell themselves to the
   class that did. Thus we find Individualist Anarchists arguing that the
   whole produce of labour ought to belong to the labourer and opposing
   the exploitation of labour by capital. To use Tucker's own words:

     "the fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon
     the sale of their labour, while another class of men are relieved of
     the necessity of labour by being legally privileged to sell
     something that is not labour. . . . And to such a state of things I
     am as much opposed as any one. But the minute you remove privilege .
     . . every man will be a labourer exchanging with fellow-labourers .
     . . What Anarchistic-Socialism aims to abolish is usury . . . it
     wants to deprive capital of its reward." [Instead of a Book, p. 404]

   By ending wage labour, anarchist socialism would ensure "The land to
   the cultivator. The mine to the miner. The tool to the labourer. The
   product to the producer" and so "everyone [would] be a proprietor" and
   so there would be "no more proletaires" (in the words of Ernest
   Lesigne, quoted favourably by Tucker as part of what he called a
   "summary exposition of Socialism from the standpoint of Anarchism" [Op.
   Cit., p. 17, p. 16]). Wage labour, and so capitalism, would be no more
   and "the product [would go] to the producer." The Individualist
   Anarchists, as Wm. Gary Kline correctly points out, "expected a society
   of largely self-employed workmen with no significant disparity of
   wealth between any of them." [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 104] In
   other words, the "abolition of the proletariat" as desired by Proudhon.

   Therefore, like all socialists, Tucker wanted to end usury, ensure the
   "product to the producer" and this meant workers owning and controlling
   the means of production they used ("no more proletaires"). He aimed to
   do this by reforming capitalism away by creating mutual banks and other
   co-operatives (he notes that Individualist Anarchists followed
   Proudhon, who "would individualise and associate" the productive and
   distributive forces in society [as quoted by James J. Martin, Men
   Against the State, p. 228]). Here is Kropotkin on Proudhon's reformist
   mutualist-socialism:

     "When he proclaimed in his first memoir on property that 'Property
     is theft', he meant only property in its present, Roman-law, sense
     of 'right of use and abuse'; in property-rights, on the other hand,
     understood in the limited sense of possession, he saw the best
     protection against the encroachments of the state. At the same time
     he did not want violently to dispossess the present owners of land,
     dwelling-houses, mines, factories and so on. He preferred to attain
     the same end by rendering capital incapable of earning interest."
     [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlet's, pp. 290-1 -- emphasis added]

   In other words, like all anarchists, Proudhon desired to see a society
   without capitalists and wage slaves ("the same end") but achieved by
   different means. When Proudhon wrote to Karl Marx in 1846 he made the
   same point:

     "through Political Economy we must turn the theory of Property
     against Property in such a way as to create what you German
     socialists call community and which for the moment I will only go so
     far as calling liberty or equality." [Selected Writings of
     Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 151]

   In other words, Proudhon shared the common aim of all socialists
   (namely to abolish capitalism, wage labour and exploitation) but
   disagreed with the means. As can be seen, Tucker placed himself
   squarely in this tradition and so could (and did) call himself a
   socialist. Little wonder Joseph Labadie often said that "All anarchists
   are socialists, but not all socialists are anarchists." That Caplan
   tries to ignore this aspect of Individualist Anarchism in an attempt to
   co-opt it into "anarcho"-capitalism indicates well that his FAQ is not
   an objective or neutral work.

   Caplan states that the "United States has been an even more fertile
   ground for individualist anarchism: during the 19th-century, such
   figures as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker gained
   prominence for their vision of an anarchism based upon freedom of
   contract and private property."

   However, as indicated, Tucker and Spooner did not support private
   property in the capitalist sense of the word and Kropotkin and Bakunin,
   no less than Tucker and Spooner, supported free agreement between
   individuals and groups. What does that prove? That Caplan seems more
   interested in the words Tucker and Proudhon used rather than the
   meanings they attached to them. Hardly convincing.

   Perhaps Caplan should consider Proudhon's words on the subject of
   socialism:

     "Modern Socialism was not founded as a sect or church; it has seen a
     number of different schools." [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph
     Proudhon, p. 177]

   If he did perhaps he would who see that the Individualist Anarchists
   were a school of socialism, given their opposition to exploitation and
   the desire to see its end via their political, economic and social
   ideas.

3 - Was Proudhon a socialist or a capitalist?

   In section 8 (Who are the major anarchist thinkers?), Caplan tries his
   best to claim that Proudhon was not really a socialist at all. He
   states that "Pierre[-Joseph] Proudhon is also often included [as a
   "left anarchist"] although his ideas on the desirability of a modified
   form of private property would lead some to exclude him from the
   leftist camp altogether."

   "Some" of which group? Other anarchists, like Bakunin and Kropotkin?
   Obviously not -- Bakunin claimed that "Proudhon was the master of us
   all." According to George Woodcock Kropotkin was one of Proudhon's
   "confessed disciples." Perhaps that makes Bakunin and Kropotkin
   proto-capitalists? Obviously not. What about Tucker? He called Proudhon
   "the father of the Anarchistic school of Socialism." [Instead of a
   Book, p. 381] And, as we noted above, the socialist historian Carl
   Launder considered Proudhon a socialist, as did the noted British
   socialist G.D.H. Cole in his History of Socialist Thought (and in fact
   called him one of the "major prophets of Socialism."). What about Marx
   and Engels, surely they would be able to say if he was a socialist or
   not? According to Engels, Proudhon was "the Socialist of the small
   peasant and master-craftsman." [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p.
   260]

   In fact, the only "left" (i.e. social) anarchist of note who seems to
   place Proudhon outside of the "leftist" (i.e. anarchist) camp is Murray
   Bookchin. In the second volume of The Third Revolution Bookchin argues
   that "Proudhon was no socialist" simply because he favoured "private
   property." [p. 39] However, he does note the "one moral provision
   [that] distinguished the Proudhonist contract from the capitalist
   contract" namely "it abjured profit and exploitation." [Op. Cit., pp.
   40-41] -- which, of course, places him in the socialist tradition (see
   [1]last section). Unfortunately, Bookchin fails to acknowledge this or
   that Proudhon was totally opposed to wage labour along with usury,
   which, again, instantly places him in ranks of socialism (see, for
   example, the General Idea of the Revolution, p. 98, pp. 215-6 and pp.
   221-2, and his opposition to state control of capital as being "more
   wage slavery" and, instead, urging whatever capital required collective
   labour to be "democratically organised workers' associations" [No Gods,
   No Masters, vol. 1, p. 62]).

   Bookchin (on page 78) quotes Proudhon as arguing that "association" was
   "a protest against the wage system" which suggests that Bookchin's
   claims that Proudhonian "analysis minimised the social relations
   embodied in the capitalist market and industry" [p. 180] is false.
   Given that wage labour is the unique social relationship within
   capitalism, it is clear from Proudhon's works that he did not
   "minimise" the social relations created by capitalism, rather the
   opposite. Proudhon's opposition to wage labour clearly shows that he
   focused on the key social relation which capitalism creates -- namely
   the one of domination of the worker by the capitalist.

   Bookchin does mention that Proudhon was "obliged in 1851, in the wake
   of the associationist ferment of 1848 and after, to acknowledge that
   association of some sort was unavoidable for large-scale enterprises."
   [p. 78] However, Proudhon's support of industrial democracy pre-dates
   1851 by some 11 years. He stated in What is Property? that he
   "preach[ed] emancipation to the proletaires; association to the
   labourers" and that "leaders" within industry "must be chosen from the
   labourers by the labourers themselves." [p. 137 and p. 414] It is
   significant that the first work to call itself anarchist opposed
   property along with the state, exploitation along with oppression and
   supported self-management against hierarchical relationships within
   production ("anarcho"-capitalists take note!). Proudhon also called for
   "democratically organised workers' associations" to run large-scale
   industry in his 1848 Election Manifesto. [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1,
   p. 62] Given that Bookchin considers as "authentic artisanal
   socialists" those who called for collective ownership of the means of
   production, but "exempted from collectivisation the peasantry" [p. 4]
   we have to conclude that Proudhon was such an "authentic" artisanal
   socialist! Indeed, at one point Bookchin mentions the "individualistic
   artisanal socialism of Proudhon" [p. 258] which suggests a somewhat
   confused approach to Proudhon's ideas!

   In effect, Bookchin makes the same mistake as Caplan; but, unlike
   Caplan, he should know better. Rather than not being a socialist,
   Proudhon is obviously an example of what Bookchin himself calls
   "artisanal socialism" (as Marx and Engels recongised). Indeed, he notes
   that Proudhon was its "most famous advocate" and that "nearly all
   so-called 'utopian' socialists, even [Robert] Owen -- the most
   labour-orientated -- as well as Proudhon -- essentially sought the
   equitable distribution of property." [p. 273] Given Proudhon's
   opposition to wage labour and capitalist property and his support for
   industrial democracy as an alternative, Bookchin's position is
   untenable -- he confuses socialism with communism, rejecting as
   socialist all views which are not communism (a position he shares with
   right-libertarians).

   He did not always hold this position, though. He writes in The Spanish
   Anarchists that:

     "Proudhon envisions a free society as one in which small craftsmen,
     peasants, and collectively owned industrial enterprises negotiate
     and contract with each other to satisfy their material needs.
     Exploitation is brought to an end. . . Although these views involve
     a break with capitalism, by no means can they be regarded as
     communist ideas. . ." [p. 18]

   In contrast to some of Bookchin's comments (and Caplan) K. Steven
   Vincent is correct to argue that, for Proudhon, justice "applied to the
   economy was associative socialism" and so Proudhon is squarely in the
   socialist camp [Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French
   Republican Socialism, p. 228].

   However, perhaps all these "leftists" are wrong (bar Bookchin, who is
   wrong, at least some of the time). Perhaps they just did not understand
   what socialism actually is (and as Proudhon stated "I am socialist"
   [Selected Writing of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 195] and described
   himself as a socialist many times this also applies to Proudhon
   himself!). So the question arises, did Proudhon support private
   property in the capitalist sense of the word? The answer is no. To
   quote George Woodcock summary of Proudhon's ideas on this subject we
   find:

     "He [Proudhon] was denouncing the property of a man who uses it to
     exploit the labour of others, without an effort on his own part,
     property distinguished by interest and rent, by the impositions of
     the non-producer on the producer. Towards property regarded as
     'possession,' the right of a man to control his dwelling and the
     land and tools he needs to live, Proudhon had no hostility; indeed
     he regarded it as the cornerstone of liberty." ["On Proudhon's 'What
     is Property?'", The Raven No. 31, pp. 208-9]

   George Crowder makes the same point:

     "The ownership he opposes is basically that which is unearned . . .
     including such things as interest on loans and income from rent.
     This is contrasted with ownership rights in those goods either
     produced by the work of the owner or necessary for that work, for
     example his dwelling-house, land and tools. Proudhon initially
     refers to legitimate rights of ownership of these goods as
     'possession,' and although in his latter work he calls this
     'property,' the conceptual distinction remains the same." [Classical
     Anarchism, pp. 85-86]

   Indeed, according to Proudhon himself, the "accumulation of capital and
   instrument is what the capitalist owes to the producer, but he never
   pays him for it. It is this fraudulent deprivation which causes the
   poverty of the worker, the opulence of the idle and the inequality of
   their conditions. And it is this, above all, which has so aptly been
   called the exploitation of man by man." [Selected Writings of
   Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 43]

   He called his ideas on possession a "third form of society, the
   synthesis of communism and property" and calls it "liberty." [The
   Anarchist Reader, p. 68]. He even goes so far as to say that property
   "by its despotism and encroachment, soon proves itself oppressive and
   anti-social." [Op. Cit., p. 67] Opposing private property he thought
   that "all accumulated capital is collective property, no one may be its
   exclusive owner." Indeed, he considered the aim of his economic reforms
   "was to rescue the working masses from capitalist exploitation."
   [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 44, p. 80]

   In other words, Proudhon considered capitalist property to be the
   source of exploitation and oppression and he opposed it. He explicitly
   contrasts his ideas to that of capitalist property and rejects it as a
   means of ensuring liberty.

   Caplan goes on to claim that "[s]ome of Proudhon's other heterodoxies
   include his defence of the right of inheritance and his emphasis on the
   genuine antagonism between state power and property rights."

   However, this is a common anarchist position. Anarchists are well aware
   that possession is a source of independence within capitalism and so
   should be supported. As Albert Meltzer puts it:

     "All present systems of ownership mean that some are deprived of the
     fruits of their labour. It is true that, in a competitive society,
     only the possession of independent means enables one to be free of
     the economy (that is what Proudhon meant when, addressing himself to
     the self-employed artisan, he said 'property is liberty', which
     seems at first sight a contradiction with his dictum that it was
     theft)"[Anarchism: Arguments For and Against, pp. 12-13]

   Malatesta makes the same point:

     "Our opponents . . . are in the habit of justifying the right to
     private property by stating that property is the condition and
     guarantee of liberty.

     "And we agree with them. Do we not say repeatedly that poverty is
     slavery?

     "But then why do we oppose them?

     "The reason is clear: in reality the property that they defend is
     capitalist property. . . which therefore depends on the existence of
     a class of the disinherited and dispossessed, forced to sell their
     labour to the property owners for a wage below its real value. . .
     This means that workers are subjected to a kind of slavery."
     [The Anarchist Revolution, p. 113]

   As does Kropotkin:

     "the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits of your labour is
     to possess the instruments of labour. . . man really produces most
     when he works in freedom, when he has a certain choice in his
     occupations, when he has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when
     he sees his work bringing profit to him and to others who work like
     him, but bringing in little to idlers." [The Conquest of Bread, p.
     145]

   Perhaps this makes these three well known anarcho-communists "really"
   proto-"anarcho"-capitalists as well? Obviously not. Instead of
   wondering if his ideas on what socialism is are wrong, he tries to
   rewrite history to fit the anarchist movement into his capitalist ideas
   of what anarchism, socialism and whatever are actually like.

   In addition, we must point out that Proudhon's "emphasis on the genuine
   antagonism between state power and property rights" came from his later
   writings, in which he argued that property rights were required to
   control state power. In other words, this "heterodoxy" came from a
   period in which Proudhon did not think that state could be abolished
   and so "property is the only power that can act as a counterweight to
   the State." [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 140] Of
   course, this "later" Proudhon also acknowledged that property was "an
   absolutism within an absolutism," "by nature autocratic" and that its
   "politics could be summed up in a single word," namely "exploitation."
   [p. 141, p. 140, p. 134]

   Moreover, Proudhon argues that "spread[ing] it more equally and
   establish[ing] it more firmly in society" is the means by which
   "property"
   "becomes a guarantee of liberty and keeps the State on an even keel."
   [p. 133, p. 140] In other words, rather than "property" as such
   limiting the state, it is "property" divided equally through society
   which is the key, without concentrations of economic power and
   inequality which would result in exploitation and oppression.
   Therefore, "[s]imple justice. . . requires that equal division of land
   shall not only operate at the outset. If there is to be no abuse, it
   must be maintained from generation to generation." [Op. Cit., p. 141,
   p. 133, p. 130].

   Interestingly, one of Proudhon's "other heterodoxies" Caplan does not
   mention is his belief that "property" was required not only to defend
   people against the state, but also capitalism. He saw society dividing
   into "two classes, one of employed workers, the other of
   property-owners, capitalists, entrepreneurs." He thus recognised that
   capitalism was just as oppressive as the state and that it assured "the
   victory of the strong over the weak, of those who property over those
   who own nothing." [as quoted by Alan Ritter, The Political Thought of
   Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p. 121] Thus Proudhon's argument that "property
   is liberty" is directed not only against the state, but also against
   social inequality and concentrations of economic power and wealth.

   Indeed, he considered that "companies of capitalists" were the
   "exploiters of the bodies and souls of their wage earners" and an
   outrage on "human dignity and personality." Instead of wage labour he
   thought that the "industry to be operated, the work to be done, are the
   common and indivisible property of all the participant workers." In
   other words, self-management and workers' control. In this way there
   would be "no more government of man by man, by means of accumulation of
   capital" and the "social republic" established. Hence his support for
   co-operatives:

     "The importance of their work lies not in their petty union
     interests, but in their denial of the rule of capitalists, usurers,
     and governments, which the first [French] revolution left
     undisturbed. Afterwards, when they have conquered the political lie.
     . . the groups of workers should take over the great departments of
     industry which are their natural inheritance." [cited in
     Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, E. Hymans, pp. 190-1, and Anarchism, George
     Woodcock, p. 110, 112]

   In other words, a socialist society as workers would no longer be
   separated from the means of production and they would control their own
   work (the "abolition of the proletariat," to use Proudhon's
   expression). This would mean recognising that "the right to products is
   exclusive - jus in re; the right to means is common - jus ad rem"
   [cited by Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 96] which would lead to
   self-management:

     "In democratising us, revolution has launched us on the path of
     industrial democracy." [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
     p. 63]

   As Woodcock points out, in Proudhon's "picture of the ideal society of
   the ideal society it is this predominance of the small proprietor, the
   peasant or artisan, that immediately impresses one" with "the creation
   of co-operative associations for the running of factories and
   railways." ["On Proudhon's 'What is Property?'", Op. Cit., p. 209, p.
   210]

   All of which hardly supports Caplan's attempts to portray Proudhon as
   "really" a capitalist all along. Indeed, the "later" Proudhon's support
   for protectionism [Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, p.
   187], the "fixing after amicable discussion of a maximum and minimum
   profit margin," "the organising of regulating societies" and that
   mutualism would "regulate the market" [Op. Cit., p. 70] and his obvious
   awareness of economic power and that capitalism exploited and oppressed
   the wage-worker suggests that rather than leading some to exclude
   Proudhon from the "leftist camp" altogether, it is a case of excluding
   him utterly from the "rightist camp" (i.e. "anarcho"-capitalism).
   Therefore Caplan's attempt to claim (co-opt would be better) Proudhon
   for "anarcho"-capitalism indicates how far Caplan will twist (or
   ignore) the evidence. As would quickly become obvious when reading his
   work, Proudhon would (to use Caplan's words) "normally classify
   government, property, hierarchical organisations . . . as 'rulership.'"

   To summarise, Proudhon was a socialist and Caplan's attempts to rewrite
   anarchist and socialist history fails. Proudhon was the fountainhead
   for both wings of the anarchist movement and What is Property?
   "embraces the core of nineteenth century anarchism. . . [bar support
   for revolution] all the rest of later anarchism is there, spoken or
   implied: the conception of a free society united by association, of
   workers controlling the means of production. . . [this book] remains
   the foundation on which the whole edifice of nineteenth century
   anarchist theory was to be constructed." [Op. Cit., p. 210]

   Little wonder Bakunin stated that his ideas were Proudhonism "widely
   developed and pushed to these, its final consequences." [Michael
   Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 198]

4 - Tucker on Property, Communism and Socialism.

   That Tucker called himself a socialist is quickly seen from Instead of
   A Book or any of the books written about Tucker and his ideas. That
   Caplan seeks to deny this means that either Caplan has not looked at
   either Instead of a Book or the secondary literature (with obvious
   implications for the accuracy of his FAQ) or he decided to ignore these
   facts in favour of his own ideologically tainted version of history
   (again with obvious implications for the accuracy and objectivity of
   his FAQ).

   Caplan, in an attempt to deny the obvious, quotes Tucker from 1887 as
   follows in section 14 (What are the major debates between anarchists?
   What are the recurring arguments?):

     "It will probably surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save
     his declaration that 'property is robbery' to learn that he was
     perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that ever lived on this
     planet. But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when you read his
     book and find that by property he means simply legally privileged
     wealth or the power of usury, and not at all the possession by the
     labourer of his products."

   You will instantly notice that Proudhon does not mean by property "the
   possession of the labourer of his products." However, Proudhon did
   include in his definition of "property" the possession of the capital
   to steal profits from the work of the labourers. As is clear from the
   quote, Tucker and Proudhon was opposed to capitalist property ("the
   power of usury"). From Caplan's own evidence he proves that Tucker was
   not a capitalist!

   But lets quote Tucker on what he meant by "usury":

     "There are three forms of usury, interest on money, rent on land and
     houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of
     these is a usurer." [cited in Men against the State by James J.
     Martin, p. 208]

   Which can hardly be claimed as being the words of a person who supports
   capitalism!

   And we should note that Tucker considered both government and capital
   oppressive. He argued that anarchism meant "the restriction of power to
   self and the abolition of power over others. Government makes itself
   felt alike in country and in city, capital has its usurious grip on the
   farm as surely as on the workshop and the oppressions and exactions of
   neither government nor capital can be avoided by migration." [Instead
   of a Book, p. 114]

   And, we may add, since when was socialism identical to communism?
   Perhaps Caplan should actually read Proudhon and the anarchist critique
   of private property before writing such nonsense? We have indicated
   Proudhon's ideas above and will not repeat ourselves. However, it is
   interesting that this passes as "evidence" of "anti-socialism" for
   Caplan, indicating that he does not know what socialism or anarchism
   actually is. To state the obvious, you can be a hater of "communism"
   and still be a socialist!

   So this, his one attempt to prove that Tucker, Spooner and even
   Proudhon were really capitalists by quoting the actual people involved
   is a failure.

   He asserts that for any claim that "anarcho"-capitalism is not
   anarchist is wrong because "the factual supporting arguments are often
   incorrect. For example, despite a popular claim that socialism and
   anarchism have been inextricably linked since the inception of the
   anarchist movement, many 19th-century anarchists, not only Americans
   such as Tucker and Spooner, but even Europeans like Proudhon, were
   ardently in favour of private property (merely believing that some
   existing sorts of property were illegitimate, without opposing private
   property as such)."

   The facts supporting the claim of anarchists being socialists, however,
   are not "incorrect." It is Caplan's assumption that socialism is
   against all forms of "property" which is wrong. To state the obvious,
   socialism does not equal communism (and anarcho-communists support the
   rights of workers to own their own means of production if they do not
   wish to join communist communes -- see above). Thus Proudhon was renown
   as the leading French Socialist theorist when he was alive. His ideas
   were widely known in the socialist movement and in many ways his
   economic theories were similar to the ideas of such well known early
   socialists as Robert Owen and William Thompson. As Kropotkin notes:

     "It is worth noticing that French mutualism had its precursor in
     England, in William Thompson, who began by mutualism before he
     became a communist, and in his followers John Gray (A Lecture on
     Human Happiness, 1825; The Social System, 1831) and J. F. Bray
     (Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy, 1839)." [Kropotkin's
     Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 291]

   Perhaps Caplan will now claim Robert Owen and William Thompson as
   capitalists?

   Tucker called himself a socialist on many different occasions and
   stated that there were "two schools of Socialistic thought . . . State
   Socialism and Anarchism." And stated in very clear terms that:

     "liberty insists on Socialism. . . - true Socialism, Anarchistic
     Socialism: the prevalence on earth of Liberty, Equality, and
     Solidarity." [Instead of a Book, p. 363]

   And like all socialists, he opposed capitalism (i.e. usury and wage
   slavery) and wished that "there should be no more proletaires." [see
   the essay "State Socialism and Anarchism" in Instead of a Book, p. 17]

   Caplan, of course, is well aware of Tucker's opinions on the subject of
   capitalism and private property. In section 13 (What moral
   justifications have been offered for anarchism?) he writes:

     "Still other anarchists, such as Lysander Spooner and Benjamin
     Tucker as well as Proudhon, have argued that anarchism would abolish
     the exploitation inherent in interest and rent simply by means of
     free competition. In their view, only labour income is legitimate,
     and an important piece of the case for anarchism is that without
     government-imposed monopolies, non-labour income would be driven to
     zero by market forces. It is unclear, however, if they regard this
     as merely a desirable side effect, or if they would reject anarchism
     if they learned that the predicted economic effect thereof would not
     actually occur."

   Firstly, we must point that Proudhon, Tucker and Spooner considered
   profits to be exploitative as well as interest and rent. Hence we find
   Tucker arguing that a "just distribution of the products of labour is
   to be obtained by destroying all sources of income except labour. These
   sources may be summed up in one word, -- usury; and the three principle
   forms of usury are interest, rent and profit." [Instead of a Book, p.
   474] To ignore the fact that Tucker also considered profit as
   exploitative seems strange, to say the least, when presenting an
   account of his ideas.

   Secondly, rather than it being "unclear" whether the end of usury was
   "merely a desirable side effect" of anarchism, the opposite is the
   case. Anyone reading Tucker (or Proudhon) would quickly see that their
   politics were formulated with the express aim of ending usury. Just one
   example from hundreds:

     "Liberty will abolish interest; it will abolish profit; it will
     abolish monopolistic rent; it will abolish taxation; it will abolish
     the exploitation of labour; it will abolish all means whereby any
     labourer can be deprived of any of his product." [Instead of a Book,
     p. 347]

   While it is fair to wonder whether these economic effects would result
   from the application of Tucker's ideas, it is distinctly incorrect to
   claim that the end of usury was considered in any way as a "desirable
   side effect" of them. Rather, in their eyes, the end of usury was one
   of the aims of Individualist Anarchism, as can be clearly seen. As Wm.
   Gary Kline points out in his excellent account of Individualist
   Anarchism:

     "the American anarchists exposed the tension existing in liberal
     thought between private property and the ideal of equal access. The
     Individualist Anarchists were, at least, aware that existing
     conditions were far from ideal, that the system itself worked
     against the majority of individuals in their efforts to attain its
     promises. Lack of capital, the means to creation and accumulation of
     wealth, usually doomed a labourer to a life of exploitation. This
     the anarchists knew and they abhorred such a system." [The
     Individualist Anarchists, p. 102]

   This is part of the reason why they considered themselves socialists
   and, equally as important, they were considered socialists by other
   socialists such as Kropotkin and Rocker. The Individualist Anarchists,
   as can be seen, fit very easily into Kropotkin's comments that "the
   anarchists, in common with all socialists. . . maintain that the now
   prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist
   production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly which runs
   against both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility."
   [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 285] Given that they
   considered profits as usury and proposed "occupancy and use" in place
   of the prevailing land ownership rights they are obviously socialists.

   That the end of usury was considered a clear aim of his politics
   explains Tucker's 1911 postscript to his famous essay "State Socialism
   and Anarchism" in which he argues that "concentrated capital" itself
   was a barrier towards anarchy. He argued that the "trust is now a
   monster which. . . even the freest competition, could it be instituted,
   would be unable to destroy." While, in an earlier period, big business
   "needed the money monopoly for its sustenance and its growth" its size
   now ensured that it "sees in the money monopoly a convenience, to be
   sure, but no longer a necessity. It can do without it." This meant that
   the way was now "not so clear." Indeed, he argued that the problem of
   the trusts "must be grappled with for a time solely by forces political
   or revolutionary" as the trust had moved beyond the reach of "economic
   forces" simply due to the concentration of resources in its hands.
   ["Postscript" to State Socialism and Anarchism]

   If the end of "usury" was considered a "side-effect" rather than an
   objective, then the problems of the trusts and economic
   inequality/power ("enormous concentration of wealth") would not have
   been an issue. That the fact of economic power was obviously considered
   a hindrance to anarchy suggests the end of usury was a key aim, an aim
   which "free competition" in the abstract could not achieve. Rather than
   take the "anarcho"-capitalist position that massive inequality did not
   affect "free competition" or individual liberty, Tucker obviously
   thought it did and, therefore, "free competition" (and so the abolition
   of the public state) in conditions of massive inequality would not
   create an anarchist society.

   By trying to relegate an aim to a "side-effect," Caplan distorts the
   ideas of Tucker. Indeed, his comments on trusts, "concentrated capital"
   and the "enormous concentration of wealth" indicates how far
   Individualist Anarchism is from "anarcho"-capitalism (which dismisses
   the question of economic power Tucker raises out of hand). It also
   indicates the unity of political and economic ideas, with Tucker being
   aware that without a suitable economic basis individual freedom was
   meaningless. That an economy (like capitalism) with massive
   inequalities in wealth and so power was not such a basis is obvious
   from Tucker's comments.

   Thirdly, what did Tucker consider as a government-imposed monopoly?
   Private property, particularly in land! As he states "Anarchism
   undertakes to protect no titles except such as are based upon actual
   occupancy and use" and that anarchism "means the abolition of
   landlordism and the annihilation of rent." [Instead of a Book, p. 61,
   p. 300] This, to state the obvious, is a restriction on "private
   property" (in the capitalist sense), which, if we use Caplan's
   definition of socialism, means that Tucker was obviously part of the
   "Leftist camp" (i.e. socialist camp). In other words, Tucker considered
   capitalism as the product of statism while socialism (libertarian of
   course) would be the product of anarchy.

   So, Caplan's historical argument to support his notion that anarchism
   is simply anti-government fails. Anarchism, in all its many forms, have
   distinct economic as well as political ideas and these cannot be parted
   without loosing what makes anarchism unique. In particular, Caplan's
   attempt to portray Proudhon as an example of a "pure" anti-government
   anarchism also fails, and so his attempt to co-opt Tucker and Spooner
   also fails (as noted, Tucker cannot be classed as a "pure"
   anti-government anarchist either). If Proudhon was a socialist, then it
   follows that his self-proclaimed followers will also be socialists --
   and, unsurprisingly, Tucker called himself a socialist and considered
   anarchism as part of the wider socialist movement.

     "Like Proudhon, Tucker was an 'un-marxian socialist'" [William O.
     Reichart, Partisans of Freedom: A Study in American Anarchism, p.
     157]

5 - Anarchism and "anarcho"-capitalism

   Caplan tries to build upon the non-existent foundation of Tucker's and
   Proudhon's "capitalism" by stating that:

     "Nor did an ardent anarcho-communist like Kropotkin deny Proudhon or
     even Tucker the title of 'anarchist.' In his Modern Science and
     Anarchism, Kropotkin discusses not only Proudhon but 'the American
     anarchist individualists who were represented in the fifties by S.P.
     Andrews and W. Greene, later on by Lysander Spooner, and now are
     represented by Benjamin Tucker, the well-known editor of the New
     York Liberty.' Similarly in his article on anarchism for the 1910
     edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Kropotkin again freely
     mentions the American individualist anarchists, including 'Benjamin
     Tucker, whose journal Liberty was started in 1881 and whose
     conceptions are a combination of those of Proudhon with those of
     Herbert Spencer.'"

   There is a nice historical irony in Caplan's attempts to use Kropotkin
   to prove the historical validity of "anarcho"-capitalism. This is
   because while Kropotkin was happy to include Tucker into the anarchist
   movement, Tucker often claimed that an anarchist could not be a
   communist! In State Socialism and Anarchism he stated that anarchism
   was "an ideal utterly inconsistent with that of those Communists who
   falsely call themselves Anarchists while at the same time advocating a
   regime of Archism fully as despotic as that of the State Socialists
   themselves." ["State Socialism and Anarchism", Instead of a Book, pp.
   15-16]

   While modern social anarchists follow Kropotkin in not denying Proudhon
   or Tucker as anarchists, we do deny the anarchist title to supporters
   of capitalism. Why? Simply because anarchism as a political movement
   (as opposed to a dictionary definition) has always been anti-capitalist
   and against capitalist wage slavery, exploitation and oppression. In
   other words, anarchism (in all its forms) has always been associated
   with specific political and economic ideas. Both Tucker and Kropotkin
   defined their anarchism as an opposition to both state and capitalism.
   To quote Tucker on the subject:

     "Liberty insists. . . [on] the abolition of the State and the
     abolition of usury; on no more government of man by man, and no more
     exploitation of man by man." [cited in Native American Anarchism - A
     Study of Left-Wing American Individualism by Eunice Schuster, p.
     140]

   Kropotkin defined anarchism as "the no-government system of socialism."
   [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 46] Malatesta argued that
   "when [people] sought to overthrow both State and property -- then it
   was anarchy was born" and, like Tucker, aimed for "the complete
   destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man." [Life
   and Ideas, p. 19, pp. 22-28] Indeed every leading anarchist theorist
   defined anarchism as opposition to government and exploitation. Thus
   Brain Morris' excellent summary:

     "Another criticism of anarchism is that it has a narrow view of
     politics: that it sees the state as the fount of all evil, ignoring
     other aspects of social and economic life. This is a
     misrepresentation of anarchism. It partly derives from the way
     anarchism has been defined [in dictionaries, for example], and
     partly because Marxist historians have tried to exclude anarchism
     from the broader socialist movement. But when one examines the
     writings of classical anarchists. . . as well as the character of
     anarchist movements. . . it is clearly evident that it has never had
     this limited vision. It has always challenged all forms of authority
     and exploitation, and has been equally critical of capitalism and
     religion as it has been of the state." ["Anthropology and
     Anarchism," Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed no. 45, p. 40]

   Therefore anarchism was never purely a political concept, but always
   combined an opposition to oppression with an opposition to
   exploitation. Little wonder, then, that both strands of anarchism have
   declared themselves "socialist" and so it is "conceptually and
   historically misleading" to "create a dichotomy between socialism and
   anarchism." [Brian Morris, Op. Cit., p. 39] Needless to say, anarchists
   oppose state socialism just as much as they oppose capitalism. All of
   which means that anarchism and capitalism are two different political
   ideas with specific (and opposed) meanings -- to deny these meanings by
   uniting the two terms creates an oxymoron, one that denies the history
   and the development of ideas as well as the whole history of the
   anarchist movement itself.

   As Kropotkin knew Proudhon to be an anti-capitalist, a socialist (but
   not a communist) it is hardly surprising that he mentions him. Again,
   Caplan's attempt to provide historical evidence for a "right-wing"
   anarchism fails. Funny that the followers of Kropotkin are now
   defending individualist anarchism from the attempted "adoption" by
   supporters of capitalism! That in itself should be enough to indicate
   Caplan's attempt to use Kropotkin to give credence to
   "anarcho"-capitalist co-option of Proudhon, Tucker and Spooner fails.

   Interestingly, Caplan admits that "anarcho"-capitalism has recent
   origins. In section 8 (Who are the major anarchist thinkers?) he
   states:

     "Anarcho-capitalism has a much more recent origin in the latter half
     of the 20th century. The two most famous advocates of
     anarcho-capitalism are probably Murray Rothbard and David Friedman.
     There were however some interesting earlier precursors, notably the
     Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari. Two other 19th-century
     anarchists who have been adopted by modern anarcho-capitalists with
     a few caveats are Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner. (Some
     left-anarchists contest the adoption, but overall Tucker and Spooner
     probably have much more in common with anarcho-capitalists than with
     left-anarchists.)"

   Firstly, as he states, Tucker and Spooner have been "adopted" by the
   "anarcho"-capitalist school. Being dead they have little chance to
   protest such an adoption, but it is clear that they considered
   themselves as socialists, against capitalism (it may be claimed that
   Spooner never called himself a socialist, but then again he never
   called himself an anarchist either; it is his strong opposition to wage
   labour that places him in the socialist camp). Secondly, Caplan lets
   the cat out the bag by noting that this "adoption" involved a few
   warnings - more specifically, the attempt to rubbish or ignore the
   underlying socio-economic ideas of Tucker and Spooner and the obvious
   anti-capitalist nature of their vision of a free society.

   Individualist anarchists are, indeed, more similar to classical
   liberals than social anarchists. Similarly, social anarchists are more
   similar to Marxists than Individualist anarchists. But neither
   statement means that Individualist anarchists are capitalists, or
   social anarchists are state socialists. It just means some of their
   ideas overlap -- and we must point out that Individualist anarchist
   ideas overlap with Marxist ones, and social anarchist ones with liberal
   ones (indeed, one interesting overlap between Marxism and Individualist
   Anarchism can be seen from Marx's comment that abolishing interest and
   interest-bearing capital "means the abolition of capital and of
   capitalist production itself." [Theories of Surplus Value, vol. 3, p.
   472] Given that Individualist Anarchism aimed to abolish interest
   (along with rent and profit) it would suggest, from a Marxist position,
   that it is a socialist theory).

   So, if we accept Kropotkin's summary that Individualist Anarchism ideas
   are "partly those of Proudhon, but party those of Herbert Spencer"
   [Kropotkins' Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 173], what the
   "anarcho"-capitalist school is trying to is to ignore the Proudhonian
   (i.e. socialist) aspect of their theories. However, that just leaves
   Spencer and Spencer was not an anarchist, but a right-wing Libertarian,
   a supporter of capitalism (a "champion of the capitalistic class" as
   Tucker put it). In other words, to ignore the socialist aspect of
   Individualist Anarchism (or anarchism in general) is to reduce it to
   liberalism, an extreme version of liberalism, but liberalism
   nevertheless -- and liberalism is not anarchism. To reduce anarchism so
   is to destroy what makes anarchism a unique political theory and
   movement:

     "anarchism does derive from liberalism and socialism both
     historically and ideologically . . . In a sense, anarchists always
     remain liberals and socialists, and whenever they reject what is
     good in either they betray anarchism itself . . . We are liberals
     but more so, and socialists but more so." [Nicholas Walter,
     Reinventing Anarchy, p. 44]

   In other words, "anarcho"-capitalism is a development of ideas which
   have little in common with anarchism. Jeremy Jennings, in his overview
   of anarchist theory and history, agrees:

     "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." [Contemporary Political Ideologies, Roger Eatwell and Anthony
     Wright (eds.), p. 142]

   Barbara Goodwin also agrees that the "anarcho"-capitalists' "true place
   is in the group of right-wing libertarians" not in anarchism [Using
   Political Ideas, p. 148]. Indeed, that "anarcho"-capitalism is an
   off-shoot of classical liberalism is a position Murray Rothbard would
   agree with, as he states that right-wing Libertarians constitute "the
   vanguard of classical liberalism." [quoted by Ulrike Heider, Anarchism:
   Left, Right and Green, p. 95] Unfortunately for this perspective
   anarchism is not liberalism and liberalism is not anarchism. And
   equally as unfortunate (this time for the anarchist movement!)
   "anarcho"-capitalism "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] However, being opposed to the state is a necessary but not
   sufficient condition for being an anarchist (as can be seen from the
   history of the anarchist movement). Brian Morris puts it well when he
   writes:

     "The term anarchy comes from the Greek, and essentially means 'no
     ruler.' Anarchists are people who reject all forms of government or
     coercive authority, all forms of hierarchy and domination. They are
     therefore opposed to what the Mexican anarchist Flores Magon called
     the 'sombre trinity' -- state, capital and the church. Anarchists
     are thus opposed to both capitalism and to the state, as well as to
     all forms of religious authority. But anarchists also seek to
     establish or bring about by varying means, a condition of anarchy,
     that is, a decentralised society without coercive institutions, a
     society organised through a federation of voluntary associations.
     Contemporary 'right-wing' libertarians . . . who are often described
     as 'anarchocapitalists' and who fervently defend capitalism, are not
     in any real sense anarchists." [Op. Cit., p. 38]

   Rather than call themselves by a name which reflects their origins in
   liberalism (and not anarchism), the "anarcho"-capitalists have instead
   seen fit to try and appropriate the name of anarchism and, in order to
   do so, ignore key aspects of anarchist theory in the process. Little
   wonder, then, they try and prove their anarchist credentials via
   dictionary definitions rather than from the anarchist movement itself
   (see [2]next section).

   Caplan's attempt in his FAQ is an example to ignore individualist
   anarchist theory and history. Ignored is any attempt to understand
   their ideas on property and instead Caplan just concentrates on the
   fact they use the word. Caplan also ignores:

     their many statements on being socialists and part of the wider
   socialist movement.

     their opposition to capitalist property-rights in land and other
   scarce resources.

     their recognition that capitalism was based on usury and that it was
   exploitation.

     their attacks on government and capital, rather than just government.

     their support for strikes and other forms of direct action by workers
   to secure the full product of their labour.

   In fact, the only things considered useful seems to be the
   individualist anarchist's support for free agreement (something
   Kropotkin also agreed with) and their use of the word "property." But
   even a cursory investigation indicates the non-capitalist nature of
   their ideas on property and the socialistic nature of their theories.

   Perhaps Caplan should ponder these words of Kropotkin supporters of the
   "individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians . . . soon
   realise that the individualisation they so highly praise is not
   attainable by individual efforts, and . . . abandon the ranks of the
   anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism of the
   classical economist." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 297]

   Caplan seems to confuse the end of the ending place of ex-anarchists
   with their starting point. As can be seen from his attempt to co-opt
   Proudhon, Spooner and Tucker he has to ignore their ideas and rewrite
   history.

6 - Appendix: Defining Anarchism

   In his Appendix "Defining Anarchism" we find that Caplan attempts to
   defend his dictionary definition of anarchism. He does this by
   attempting to refute two arguments, The Philological Argument and the
   Historical Argument.

   Taking each in turn we find:

   Caplan's definition of "The Philological Argument" is as follows:

     "Several critics have noted the origin of the term 'anarchy,' which
     derives from the Greek 'arkhos,' meaning 'ruler,' and the prefix
     an-,' meaning 'without.' It is therefore suggested that in my
     definition the word 'government' should be replaced with the word
     'domination' or 'rulership'; thus re-written, it would then read:
     'The theory or doctrine that all forms of rulership are unnecessary,
     oppressive, and undesirable and should be abolished.'"

   Caplan replies by stating that:

     "This is all good and well, so long as we realise that various
     groups of anarchists will radically disagree about what is or is not
     an instance of 'rulership.'"

   However, in order to refute this argument by this method, he has to
   ignore his own methodology. A dictionary definition of ruler is "a
   person who rules by authority." and "rule" is defined as "to have
   authoritative control over people" or "to keep (a person or feeling
   etc.) under control, to dominate" [The Oxford Study Dictionary]

   Hierarchy by its very nature is a form of rulership (hier-archy) and is
   so opposed by anarchists. Capitalism is based upon wage labour, in
   which a worker follows the rules of their boss. This is obviously a
   form of hierarchy, of domination. Almost all people (excluding die-hard
   supporters of capitalism) would agree that being told what to do, when
   to do and how to do by a boss is a form of rulership. Anarchists,
   therefore, argue that "economic exploitation and political domination .
   . . [are] two continually interacting aspects of the same thing -- the
   subjection of man by man." [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 147]
   Rocker made the same point, arguing that the "exploitation of man by
   man and the domination of man over man are inseparable, and each is the
   condition of the other." [Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 18]

   Thus Caplan is ignoring the meaning of words to state that "on its own
   terms this argument fails to exclude anarcho-capitalists" because they
   define rulership to exclude most forms of archy! Hardly convincing.

   Strangely enough, "anarcho"-capitalist icon Murray Rothbard actually
   provides evidence that the anarchist position is correct. He argues
   that the state "arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate
   decision-making power, over a given area territorial area." [The Ethics
   of Liberty, p. 170] This is obviously a form of rulership. However, he
   also argues that "[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the
   ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over
   his, etc." [Op. Cit., p. 173] Which, to state the obvious, means that
   both the state and property is marked by an "ultimate decision-making
   power" over a given territory. The only "difference" is that Rothbard
   claims the former is "just" (i.e. "justly" acquired) and the latter is
   "unjust" (i.e. acquired by force). In reality of course, the modern
   distribution of property is just as much a product of past force as is
   the modern state. In other words, the current property owners have
   acquired their property in the same unjust fashion as the state has
   its. If one is valid, so is the other. Rothbard (and
   "anarcho"-capitalists in general) are trying to have it both ways.

   Rothbard goes on to show why statism and private property are
   essentially the same thing:

     "If the State may be said too 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]

   Of course Rothbard does not draw the obvious conclusion. He wants to
   maintain that the state is bad and property is good while drawing
   attention to their obvious similarities! Ultimately Rothbard is
   exposing the bankruptcy of his own politics and analysis. According to
   Rothbard, something can look like a state (i.e. have the "ultimate
   decision-making power" over an area) and act like a state (i.e. "make
   rules for everyone" who lives in an area, i.e. govern them) but not be
   a state. This not a viable position for obvious reasons.

   Thus to claim, as Caplan does, that property does not generate
   "rulership" is obviously nonsense. Not only does it ignore the
   dictionary definition of rulership (which, let us not forget, is
   Caplan's own methodology) as well as commonsense, it obviously ignores
   what the two institutions have in common. If the state is to be
   condemned as "rulership" then so must property -- for reasons,
   ironically enough, Rothbard makes clear!

   Caplan's critique of the "Philological Argument" fails because he tries
   to deny that the social relationship between worker and capitalist and
   tenant and landlord is based upon archy, when it obviously is. To quote
   Proudhon, considered by Tucker as "the Anarchist par excellence," the
   employee "is subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of
   obedience." Without "association" (i.e. co-operative workplaces,
   workers' self-management) there would be "two industrial castes of
   masters and wage-workers which is repugnant to a free and democratic
   society," castes "related as subordinates and superiors." [The General
   Idea of the Revolution, p. 216]

   Moving on, Caplan defines the Historical Argument as:

     "A second popular argument states that historically, the term
     'anarchism' has been clearly linked with anarcho-socialists,
     anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists, and other enemies of the
     capitalist system. Hence, the term 'anarcho-capitalism' is a strange
     oxymoron which only demonstrates ignorance of the anarchist
     tradition."

   He argues that "even if we were to accept the premise of this argument
   -- to wit, that the meaning of a word is somehow determined by its
   historical usage -- the conclusion would not follow because the minor
   premise is wrong. It is simply not true that from its earliest history,
   all anarchists were opponents of private property, free markets, and so
   on."

   Firstly, anarchism is not just a word, but a political idea and
   movement and so the word used in a political context is associated with
   a given body of ideas. You cannot use the word to describe something
   which has little or nothing in common with that body of ideas. You
   cannot call Marxism "anarchism" simply because they share the anarchist
   opposition to capitalist exploitation and aim for a stateless society,
   for example.

   Secondly, it is true that anarchists like Tucker were not against the
   free market, but they did not consider capitalism to be defined by the
   free market but by exploitation and wage labour (as do all socialists).
   In this they share a common ground with Market Socialists who, like
   Tucker and Proudhon, do not equate socialism with opposition to the
   market or capitalism with the "free market." The idea that socialists
   oppose "private property, free markets, and so on" is just an
   assumption by Caplan. Proudhon, for example, was not opposed to
   competition, "property" (in the sense of possession) and markets but
   during his lifetime and up to the present date he is acknowledged as a
   socialist, indeed one of the greatest in French (if not European)
   history. Similarly we find Rudolf Rocker writing that the Individualist
   Anarchists "all agree on the point that man be given the full reward of
   his labour and recognised in this right the economic basis of all
   personal liberty. They regard free competition . . . as something
   inherent in human nature . . . They answered the socialists of other
   schools [emphasis added] who saw in free competition one of the
   destructive elements of capitalistic society that the evil lies in the
   fact that today we have too little rather than too much competition."
   [quoted by Herbert Read, A One-Man Manifesto, p. 147] Rocker obviously
   considered support for free markets as compatible with socialism. In
   other words, Caplan's assumption that all socialists oppose free
   markets, competition and so on is simply false -- as can be seen from
   the history of the socialist movement. What socialists do oppose is
   capitalist exploitation -- socialism "in its wide, generic, and true
   sense" was an "effort to abolish the exploitation of labour by
   capital." [Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p.
   169] In this sense the Individualist Anarchists are obviously
   socialists, as Tucker and Labadie constantly pointed out.

   In addition, as we have proved elsewhere, Tucker was opposed to
   capitalist private property just as much as Kropotkin was. Moreover, it
   is clear from Tucker's works that he considered himself an enemy of the
   capitalist system and called himself a socialist. Thus Caplan's attempt
   to judge the historical argument on its own merits fails because he has
   to rewrite history to do so.

   Caplan is right to state that the meaning of words change over time,
   but this does not mean we should run to use dictionary definitions.
   Dictionaries rarely express political ideas well - for example, most
   dictionaries define the word "anarchy" as "chaos" and "disorder." Does
   that mean anarchists aim to create chaos? Of course not. Therefore,
   Caplan's attempt to use dictionary definitions is selective and
   ultimately useless - anarchism as a political movement cannot be
   expressed by dictionary definitions and any attempt to do so means to
   ignore history.

   The problems in using dictionary definitions to describe political
   ideas can best be seen from the definition of the word "Socialism."
   According to the Oxford Study Dictionary Socialism is "a political and
   economic theory advocating that land, resources, and the chief
   industries should be owned and managed by the State." The Webster's
   Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, conversely, defines socialism as "any
   of various economic and political theories advocating collective or
   government ownership and administration of the means of production and
   distribution of goods."

   Clearly the latter source has a more accurate definition of socialism
   than the former, by allowing for "collective" versus solely "State"
   control of productive means. Which definition would be better? It
   depends on the person involved. A Marxist, for example, could prefer
   the first one simply to exclude anarchism from the socialist movement,
   something they have continually tried to do. A right-libertarian could,
   again, prefer the first, for obvious reasons. Anarchists would prefer
   the second, again for obvious reasons. However neither definition does
   justice to the wide range of ideas that have described themselves as
   socialist.

   Using dictionaries as the basis of defining political movements ensures
   that one's views depend on which dictionary one uses, and when it was
   written, and so on. This is why they are not the best means of
   resolving disputes -- if resolution of disputes is, in fact, your goal.

   Both Kropotkin and Tucker stated that they were socialists and that
   anarchism was socialistic. If we take the common modern meaning of the
   word as state ownership as the valid one then Tucker and Kropotkin are
   not socialists and no form of anarchism is socialist. This is obviously
   nonsense and it shows the limitations of using dictionary definitions
   on political theories.

   Therefore Caplan's attempt to justify using the dictionary definition
   fails. Firstly, because the definitions used would depend which
   dictionary you use. Secondly, dictionary definitions cannot capture the
   ins and outs of a political theory or its ideas on wider subjects.

   Ironically enough, Caplan is repeating an attempt made by State
   Socialists to deny Individualist Anarchism its socialist title (see
   "Socialism and the Lexicographers" in Instead of a Book). In reply to
   this attempt, Tucker noted that:

     "The makers of dictionaries are dependent upon specialists for their
     definitions. A specialist's definition may be true or it may be
     erroneous. But its truth cannot be increased or its error diminished
     by its acceptance by the lexicographer. Each definition must stand
     on its own merits." [Instead of a Book, p. 369]

   And Tucker provided many quotes from other dictionaries to refute the
   attempt by the State Socialists to define Individualist Anarchism
   outside the Socialist movement. He also notes that any person trying
   such a method will "find that the Anarchistic Socialists are not to be
   stripped of one half of their title by the mere dictum of the last
   lexicographer." [Op. Cit., p. 365]

   Caplan should take note. His technique been tried before and it failed
   then and it will fail again for the same reasons.

   As far as his case against the Historical Argument goes, this is
   equally as flawed. Caplan states that:

     "Before the Protestant Reformation, the word 'Christian,' had
     referred almost entirely to Catholics (as well as adherents of the
     Orthodox Church) for about one thousand years. Does this reveal any
     linguistic confusion on the part of Lutherans, Calvinists, and so
     on, when they called themselves 'Christians'? Of course not. It
     merely reveals that a word's historical usage does not determine its
     meaning."

   However, as analogies go this is pretty pathetic. Both the Protestants
   and Catholics followed the teachings of Christ but had different
   interpretations of it. As such they could both be considered Christians
   - followers of the Bible. In the case of anarchism, there are two main
   groupings - individualist and social. Both Tucker and Bakunin claimed
   to follow, apply and develop Proudhon's ideas (and share his opposition
   to both state and capitalism) and so are part of the anarchist
   tradition.

   The anarchist movement was based upon applying the core ideas of
   Proudhon (his anti-statism and socialism) and developing them in the
   same spirit, and these ideas find their roots in socialist history and
   theory. For example, William Godwin was claimed as an anarchist after
   his death by the movement because of his opposition to both state and
   private property, something all anarchists oppose. Similarly, Max
   Stirner's opposition to both state and capitalist property places him
   within the anarchist tradition.

   Given that we find fascists and Nazis calling themselves "republicans,"
   "democrats," even "liberals" it is worthwhile remembering that the
   names of political theories are defined not by who use them, but by the
   ideas associated with the name. In other words, a fascist cannot call
   themselves a "liberal" any more than a capitalist can call themselves
   an "anarchist." To state, as Caplan does, that the historical usage of
   a word does not determine its meaning results in utter confusion and
   the end of meaningful political debate. If the historical usage of a
   name is meaningless will we soon see fascists as well as capitalists
   calling themselves anarchists? In other words, the label
   "anarcho-capitalism" is a misnomer, pure and simple, as all anarchists
   have opposed capitalism as an authoritarian system based upon
   exploitation and wage slavery.

   To ignore the historical usage of a word means to ignore what the
   movement that used that word stood for. Thus, if Caplan is correct, an
   organisation calling itself the "Libertarian National Socialist Party,"
   for example, can rightly call itself libertarian for "a word's
   historical usage does not determine its meaning." Given that
   right-libertarians in the USA have tried to steal the name
   "libertarian" from anarchists and anarchist influenced socialists, such
   a perspective on Caplan's part makes perfect sense. How ironic that a
   movement that defends private property so strongly continually tries to
   steal names from other political tendencies.

   Perhaps a better analogy for the conflict between anarchism and
   "anarcho"- capitalism would be between Satanists and Christians. Would
   we consider as Christian a Satanist grouping claiming to be Christian?
   A grouping that rejects everything that Christians believe but who like
   the name? Of course not. Neither would we consider as a
   right-libertarian someone who is against the free market or someone as
   a Marxist who supports capitalism. However, that is what Caplan and
   other "anarcho"-capitalists want us to do with anarchism.

   Both social and individualist anarchists defined their ideas in terms
   of both political (abolition of the state) and economic (abolition of
   exploitation) ideas. Kropotkin defined anarchism as "the no-government
   form of socialism" while Tucker insisted that anarchism was "the
   abolition of the State and the abolition of usury." In this they
   followed Proudhon who stated that "[w]e do not admit the government of
   man by man any more than the exploitation of man by man." [quoted by
   Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 245]

   In other words, a political movement's economic ideas are just as much
   a part of its theories as their political ideas. Any attempt to
   consider one in isolation from the other kills what defines the theory
   and makes it unique. And, ultimately, any such attempt, is a lie:

     "[classical liberalism] is in theory a kind of anarchy without
     socialism, and therefore simply a lie, for freedom is impossible
     without equality, and real anarchy cannot exist without solidarity,
     without socialism." [Errico Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 46]

   Therefore Caplan's case against the Historical Argument also fails -
   "anarcho-capitalism" is a misnomer because anarchism has always, in all
   its forms, opposed capitalism. Denying and re-writing history is hardly
   a means of refuting the historical argument.

   Caplan ends by stating:

     "Let us designate anarchism (1) anarchism as you define it. Let us
     designate anarchism (2) anarchism as I and the American Heritage
     College Dictionary define it. This is a FAQ about anarchism (2)."

   Note that here we see again how the dictionary is a very poor
   foundation upon to base an argument. Again using Webster's Ninth New
   Collegiate Dictionary, we find under "anarchist" - "one who rebels
   against any authority, established order, or ruling power." This
   definition is very close to that which "traditional" anarchists have -
   which is the basis for our own opposition to the notion that anarchism
   is merely rebellion against State authority.

   Clearly this definition is at odds with Caplan's own view; is Webster's
   then wrong, and Caplan's view right? Which view is backed by the theory
   and history of the movement? Surely that should be the basis of who is
   part of the anarchist tradition and movement and who is not? Rather
   than do this, Caplan and other "anarcho"-capitalists rush to the
   dictionary (well, those that do not define anarchy as "disorder"). This
   is for a reason as anarchism as a political movement as always been
   explicitly anti-capitalist and so the term "anarcho"-capitalism is an
   oxymoron.

   What Caplan fails to even comprehend is that his choices are false.
   Anarchism can be designated in two ways:

     (1). Anarchism as you define it
     (2). Anarchism as the anarchist movement defines it and finds
     expression in the theories developed by that movement.

   Caplan chooses anarchism (1) and so denies the whole history of the
   anarchist movement. Anarchism is not a word, it is a political theory
   with a long history which dictionaries cannot cover. Therefore any
   attempt to define anarchism by such means is deeply flawed and
   ultimately fails.

   That Caplan's position is ultimately false can be seen from the
   "anarcho"-capitalists themselves. In many dictionaries anarchy is
   defined as "disorder," "a state of lawlessness" and so on. Strangely
   enough, no "anarcho"-capitalist ever uses these dictionary definitions
   of "anarchy"! Thus appeals to dictionaries are just as much a case of
   defining anarchism as you desire as not using dictionaries. Far better
   to look at the history and traditions of the anarchist movement itself,
   seek out its common features and apply those as criteria to those
   seeking to include themselves in the movement. As can be seen,
   "anarcho"-capitalism fails this test and, therefore, are not part of
   the anarchist movement. Far better for us all if they pick a new label
   to call themselves rather than steal our name.

   Although most anarchists disagree on many things, the denial of our
   history is not one of them.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append11.html#app2
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append11.html#app6
