     Replies to Some Errors and Distortions in Bryan Caplan's "Anarchist
   Theory FAQ" version 4.1.1. There have been a few "anarchist" FAQ's
   produced before. Bryan Caplan's anarchism FAQ is one of the more
   recent. While appearing to be a "neutral" statement of anarchist ideas,
   it is actually in large part an "anarcho"-capitalist FAQ. This can be
   seen by the fact that anarchist ideas (which he calls "left-anarchist")
   are given less than half the available space while "anarcho"-capitalist
   dogma makes up the majority of it. Considering that anarchism has been
   around far longer than "anarcho"-capitalism and is the bigger and
   better established movement, this is surprising. Even his use of the
   term "left anarchist" is strange as it is never used by anarchists and
   ignores the fact that Individualist Anarchists like Tucker called
   themselves "socialists" and considered themselves part of the wider
   socialist movement. For anarchists, the expression "left anarchist" is
   meaningless as all anarchists are anti-capitalist. Thus the terms used
   to describe each "school" in his FAQ are biased (those whom Caplan
   calls "Left anarchists" do not use that term, usually preferring
   "social anarchist" to distinguish themselves from individualist
   anarchists like Tucker).

   Caplan also frames the debate only around issues which he is
   comfortable with. For example, when discussing "left anarchist" ideas
   he states that "A key value in this line of anarchist thought is
   egalitarianism, the view that inequalities, especially of wealth and
   power, are undesirable, immoral, and socially contingent." This,
   however, is not why anarchists are egalitarians. Anarchists oppose
   inequalities because they undermine and restrict individual and social
   freedom.

   Taking another example, under the question, "How would left-anarchy
   work?", Caplan fails to spell out some of the really obvious forms of
   anarchist thought. For example, the works of Bookchin, Kropotkin,
   Bakunin and Proudhon are not discussed in any detail. His vague and
   confusing prose would seem to reflect the amount of thought that he has
   put into it. Being an "anarcho"-capitalist, Caplan concentrates on the
   economic aspect of anarchism and ignores its communal side. The
   economic aspect of anarchism he discusses is anarcho-syndicalism and
   tries to contrast the confederated economic system explained by one
   anarcho-syndicalist with Bakunin's opposition to Marxism. Unfortunately
   for Caplan, Bakunin is the source of anarcho-syndicalism's ideas on a
   confederation of self-managed workplaces running the economy.
   Therefore, to state that "many" anarchists "have been very sceptical of
   setting up any overall political structure, even a democratic one, and
   focused instead on direct worker control at the factory level" is
   simply false. The idea of direct local control within a confederated
   whole is a common thread through anarchist theory and activity, as any
   anarchist could tell you.

   Lastly, we must note that after Caplan posted his FAQ to the
   "anarchy-list," many of the anarchists on that list presented numerous
   critiques of the "anarcho"-capitalist theories and of the ideas
   (falsely) attributed to social anarchists in the FAQ, which he chose to
   ignore (that he was aware of these postings is asserted by the fact he
   e-mailed one of the authors of this FAQ on the issue that anarchists
   never used or use the term "left-anarchist" to describe social
   anarchism. He replied by arguing that the term "left-anarchist" had
   been used by Michel Foucault, who never claimed to be an anarchist, in
   one of his private letters! Strangely, he never posted his FAQ to the
   list again).

   Therefore, as can be seen from these few examples, Caplan's "FAQ" is
   blatantly biased towards "anarcho-capitalism" and based on the
   mis-characterisations and the dis-emphasis on some of the most
   important issues between "anarcho-capitalists" and anarchists. It is
   clear that his viewpoint is anything but impartial.

   This section will highlight some of the many errors and distortions in
   that FAQ. Numbers in square brackets refer to the corresponding
   sections Caplan's FAQ.

1 Is anarchism purely negative?

   [1]. Caplan, consulting his American Heritage Dictionary, claims:
   "Anarchism is a negative; it holds that one thing, namely government,
   is bad and should be abolished. Aside from this defining tenet, it
   would be difficult to list any belief that all anarchists hold."

   The last sentence is ridiculous. If we look at the works of Tucker,
   Kropotkin, Proudhon and Bakunin (for example) we discover that we can,
   indeed list one more "belief that all anarchists hold." This is
   opposition to exploitation, to usury (i.e. profits, interest and rent).
   For example, Tucker argued that "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] Such a position is one that
   Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin would agree with.

   In other words, anarchists hold two beliefs -- opposition to government
   and opposition to exploitation. Any person which rejects either of
   these positions cannot be part of the anarchist movement. In other
   words, an anarchist must be against capitalism in order to be a true
   anarchist.

   Moreover it is not at all difficult to find a more fundamental
   "defining tenet" of anarchism. We can do so merely by analysing the
   term "an-archy," which is composed of the Greek words an, meaning "no"
   or "without," and arche, meaning literally "a ruler," but more
   generally referring to the principle of rulership, i.e. hierarchical
   authority. Hence an anarchist is someone who advocates abolishing the
   principle of hierarchical authority -- not just in government but in
   all institutions and social relations.

   Anarchists oppose the principle of hierarchical authority because it is
   the basis of domination, which is not only degrading in itself but
   generally leads to exploitation and all the social evils which follow
   from exploitation, from poverty, hunger and homelessness to class
   struggle and armed conflict.

   Because anarchists oppose hierarchical authority, domination, and
   exploitation, they naturally seek to eliminate all hierarchies, as the
   very purpose of hierarchy is to facilitate the domination and (usually)
   exploitation of subordinates.

   The reason anarchists oppose government, then, is because government is
   one manifestation of the evils of hierarchical authority, domination,
   and exploitation. But the capitalist workplace is another. In fact, the
   capitalist workplace is where most people have their most frequent and
   unpleasant encounters with these evils. Hence workers' control -- the
   elimination of the hierarchical workplace through democratic
   self-management -- has been central to the agenda of classical and
   contemporary anarchism from the 19th century to the present. Indeed,
   anarchism was born out of the struggle of workers against capitalist
   exploitation.

   To accept Caplan's definition of anarchism, however, would mean that
   anarchists' historical struggle for workers' self-management has never
   been a "genuine" anarchist activity. This is clearly a reductio ad
   absurdum of that definition.

   Caplan has confused a necessary condition with a sufficient condition.
   Opposition to government is a necessary condition of anarchism, but not
   a sufficient one. To put it differently, all anarchists oppose
   government, but opposition to government does not automatically make
   one an anarchist. To be an anarchist one must oppose government for
   anarchist reasons and be opposed to all other forms of hierarchical
   structure.

   To understand why let use look to capitalist property. Murray Rothbard
   argues that "[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate
   decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc."
   [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 173] Defence firms would be employed to
   enforce those decisions (i.e. laws and rules). No real disagreement
   there. What is illuminating is Rothbard's comments that the state
   "arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making
   power, over a given area territorial area" [Op. Cit. , p. 170] Which,
   to state the obvious, means that both the state and property is marked
   by an "ultimate decision-making power" over their 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.

   In capitalism, property and possession are opposites -- as Proudhon
   argued in What is Property?. Under possession, the "property" owner
   exercises "ultimate decision-making power" over themselves as no-one
   else uses the resource in question. This is non-hierarchical. Under
   capitalism, however, use and ownership are divided. Landlords and
   capitalists give others access to their property while retaining power
   over it and so the people who use it. This is by nature hierarchical.
   Little wonder Noam Chomsky argued that a "consistent anarchist must
   oppose private ownership of the means of production and the wage
   slavery which is a component of this system as incompatible with the
   principle that labour must be freely undertaken and under the control
   of the producer." ["Notes on Anarchism", For Reasons of State, p. 158]

   Thus a true anarchist must oppose both state and capitalism as they
   generate the same hierarchical social relationships (as recognised by
   Rothbard but apparently subjected to "doublethink"). As
   "anarcho"-capitalists do not oppose capitalist property they cannot be
   anarchists -- they support a very specific form of archy, that of the
   capitalist/landlord over working class people.

   Self-styled "anarcho"-capitalists do not oppose government for
   anarchist reasons. That is, they oppose it not because it is a
   manifestation of hierarchical authority, but because government
   authority often conflicts with capitalists' authority over the
   enterprises they control. By getting rid of government with its minimum
   wage laws, health and safety requirements, union rights laws,
   environmental standards, child labour laws, and other inconveniences,
   capitalists would have even more power to exploit workers than they
   already do. These consequences of "anarcho"-capitalism are
   diametrically opposed to the historically central objective of the
   anarchist movement, which is to eliminate capitalist exploitation.

   We must conclude, then, that "anarcho"-capitalists are not anarchists
   at all. In reality they are capitalists posing as anarchists in order
   to attract support for their laissez-faire economic project from those
   who are angry at government. This scam is only possible on the basis of
   the misunderstanding perpetrated by Caplan: that anarchism means
   nothing more than opposition to government.

   Better definitions of anarchism can be found in other reference works.
   For example, in Grollier's Online Encyclopedia we read: "Anarchism
   rejects all forms of hierarchical authority, social and economic as
   well as political." According to this more historically and
   etymologically accurate definition, "anarcho"-capitalism is not a form
   of anarchism, since it does not reject hierarchical authority in the
   economic sphere (which has been the area of prime concern to anarchists
   since day one). Hence it is bogus anarchism.

2 Anarchism and Equality

   [5.] On the question "What major subdivisions may be made among
   anarchists?" Caplan writes:

     "Unlike the left-anarchists, anarcho-capitalists generally place
     little or no value on equality, believing that inequalities along
     all dimensions -- including income and wealth -- are not only
     perfectly legitimate so long as they 'come about in the right way,'
     but are the natural consequence of human freedom."

   This statement is not inaccurate as a characterisation of
   "anarcho"-capitalist ideas, but its implications need to be made clear.
   "Anarcho"-capitalists generally place little or no value on equality --
   particularly economic equality -- because they know that under their
   system, where capitalists would be completely free to exploit workers
   to the hilt, wealth and income inequalities would become even greater
   than they are now. Thus their references to "human freedom" as the way
   in which such inequalities would allegedly come about means "freedom of
   capitalists to exploit workers;" it does not mean "freedom of workers
   from capitalist exploitation."

   But "freedom to exploit workers" has historically been the objective
   only of capitalists, not anarchists. Therefore, "anarcho"-capitalism
   again shows itself to be nothing more than capitalism attempting to
   pass itself off as part of the anarchist movement -- a movement that
   has been dedicated since its inception to the destruction of
   capitalism! One would have to look hard to find a more audacious fraud.

   As we argue in [1]section 2.1 of the appendix [2]"Is
   'anarcho'-capitalism a type of anarchism?" the claim that inequalities
   are irrelevant if they "come about the right way" ignores the reality
   of freedom and what is required to be free. To see way we have to
   repeat part of our argument from that section and look at Murray
   Rothbard's (a leading "anarcho"-capitalist icon) analysis of the
   situation after the abolition of serfdom in Russia and slavery in
   America. He writes:

     "The bodies of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they
     had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of
     their former oppressors. With economic power thus remaining in their
     hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once
     more of what were now free tenants or farm labourers. The serfs and
     slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly derived of its
     fruits." [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 74]

   However, contrast this with Rothbard's (and Caplan's) claims that if
   market forces ("voluntary exchanges") result in the creation of free
   tenants or wage-labourers then these labourers and tenants are free
   (see, for example, The Ethics of Liberty, pp. 221-2 on why "economic
   power" within capitalism does not, in fact, exist). But the labourers
   dispossessed by market forces are in exactly the same situation as the
   former serfs and slaves. Rothbard sees the obvious "economic power" in
   the later case, but denies it in the former. But the conditions of the
   people in question are identical and it is these conditions that
   horrify us and create social relationships because on subordination,
   authority and oppression rather than freedom. It is only ideology that
   stops Rothbard and Caplan drawing the obvious conclusion -- identical
   conditions produce identical social relationships and so if the
   formally "free" ex-serfs are subject to "economic power" and "masters"
   then so are the formally "free" labourers within capitalism! Both sets
   of workers may be formally free, but their circumstances are such that
   they are "free" to "consent" to sell their freedom to others (i.e.
   economic power produces relationships of domination and unfreedom
   between formally free individuals).

   Thus inequalities that "come about in the right way" restrict freedom
   just as much as inequalities that do not. If the latter restricts
   liberty and generate oppressive and exploitative social relationships
   then so do the former. Thus, if we are serious about individuality
   liberty (rather than property) we must look at inequalities and what
   generate them.

   One last thing. Caplan states that inequalities in capitalism are "the
   natural consequence of human freedom." They are not, unless you
   subscribe to the idea that capitalist property rights are the basis of
   human freedom. However, the assumption that capitalist property rights
   are the best means to defend individual liberty can be easily seen to
   be flawed just from the example of the ex-slaves and ex-serfs we have
   just described. Inequalities resulting from "voluntary exchanges" in
   the capitalist market can and do result in the denial of freedom, thus
   suggesting that "property" and liberty are not natural consequences of
   each other.

   To state the obvious, private property (rather than possession) means
   that the non-property owner can gain access to the resource in question
   only when they agree to submit to the property owner's authority (and
   pay tribute for the privilege of being bossed about). This aspect of
   property (rightly called "despotism" by Proudhon) is one which
   right-libertarians continually fail to highlight when they defend it as
   the paradigm of liberty.

3 Is anarchism the same thing as socialism?

   [7.] In this section ("Is anarchism the same thing as socialism?")
   Caplan writes:

     "Outside of the Anglo-American political culture, there has been a
     long and close historical relationship between the more orthodox
     socialists who advocate a socialist government, and the anarchist
     socialists who desire some sort of decentralised, voluntary
     socialism. The two groups both want to severely limit or abolish
     private property..."

   For Caplan to claim that anarchism is not the same thing as socialism,
   he has to ignore anarchist history. For example, the Individualist
   anarchists called themselves "socialists," as did social anarchists.
   Indeed, Individualist Anarchists like Joseph Labadie stated that
   "Anarchism is voluntary socialism" [Anarchism: What it is and What it
   is Not) and wanted to limit private property in many ways (for example,
   "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." [What is Socialism?]). Therefore, within the
   "Anglo-American political culture," all types of anarchists considered
   themselves part of the socialist movement. This can be seen not only
   from Kropotkin's or Bakunin's work, but also in Tucker's (see Instead
   of a Book). So to claim that the "Anglo-American" anarchists did not
   have "a long and close historical relationship" with the wider
   socialist movement is simply false.

   The statement that anarchists want to severely limit or abolish
   "private property" is misleading if it is not further explained. For
   the way it stands, it sounds like anarchism is just another form of
   coercive "state" (i.e. a political entity that forcibly prevents people
   from owning private property), whereas this is far from the case.

   Firstly, anarchists are not against "private property" in the sense
   personal belongings. "Anarchists," points out Nicholas Walter, "are in
   favour of the private property which cannot be used by one person to
   exploit another -- those personal possessions which we accumulate from
   childhood and which become part of ours." ["About Anarchism", in
   Reinventing Anarchy, p. 49] Kropotkin makes the anarchist position
   clear when he wrote that we "do not want to rob any one of his coat"
   but expropriation "must apply to everything that enables any man [or
   woman] -- by he financier, mill owner, or landlord -- to appropriate
   the product of others' toil." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 61]

   In effect, Caplan is confusing two very different kinds of "private
   property", of which one rests on usefulness to an individual, the other
   on the employment (and so exploitation) of the labour of others. The
   latter produces social relations of domination between individuals,
   while the former is a relationship between people and things. As
   Proudhon argued, possession becomes property only when it also serves
   as means of exploitation and subjection of other people. But failing to
   distinguish these radically different forms of "private property"
   Caplan distorts the anarchist position.

   Secondly, it is not that anarchists want to pass laws making private
   property (in the second, exploitative, sense) illegal. Rather they want
   to restructure society in such a way that the means of production are
   freely available for workers to use. This does not mean "anarchist
   police" standing around with guns to prohibit people from owning
   private property. Rather, it means dismantling the coercive state
   agencies that make private property possible, i.e., the departments of
   real police who now stand around with guns protecting private property.

   Once that occurs, anarchists maintain that capitalism would be
   impossible, since capitalism is essentially a monopoly of the means of
   production, which can only be maintained by organised coercion. For
   suppose that in an anarchist society someone (call him Bob) somehow
   acquires certain machinery needed to produce widgets (a doubtful
   supposition if widget-making machines are very expensive, as there will
   be little wealth disparity in an anarchist society). And suppose Bob
   offers to let workers with widget-making skills use his machines if
   they will pay him "rent," i.e. allow him to appropriate a certain
   amount of the value embodied in the widgets they produce. The workers
   will simply refuse, choosing instead to join a widget-making collective
   where they have free access to widget-making machinery, thus preventing
   Bob from living parasitically on their labour. Thus Kropotkin:

     "Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs
     from the poverty of the poor. That is why an anarchist society need
     not fear the advent of a Rothschild [or any other millionaire] who
     would settle in its midst. If every member of the community knows
     that after a few hours of productive toil he [or she] will have a
     right to all the pleasures that civilisation procures, and to those
     deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all who
     seek them, he [or she] will not sell his strength. . . No one will
     volunteer to work for the enrichment of your Rothschild." [Op. Cit.,
     p. 61]

   In this scenario, private property was "abolished," but not through
   coercion. Indeed, it was precisely the abolition of organised coercion
   that allowed private property to be abolished.

4 Anarchism and dissidents

   [9.] On the question "How would left-anarchy work?" Caplan writes:

     "Some other crucial features of the left-anarchist society are quite
     unclear. Whether dissidents who despised all forms of communal
     living would be permitted to set up their own inegalitarian
     separatist societies is rarely touched upon. Occasionally
     left-anarchists have insisted that small farmers and the like would
     not be forcibly collectivised, but the limits of the right to refuse
     to adopt an egalitarian way of life are rarely specified."

   This is a straw man. "Left" (i.e. real) anarchist theory clearly
   implies and explicitly states the answer to these questions.

   Firstly, on the issue of "separatist" societies. Anarchist thinkers
   have always acknowledged that there would be multitude of different
   communities after a revolution (and not just Caplan's "inegalitarian"
   ones). Marx, for example, mocked Bakunin for arguing that only
   revolutionary communes would federate together and that this would not
   claim any right to govern others (see Bakunin's "Letter to Albert
   Richards", Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 179] Kropotkin stated
   that "the point attained in the socialisation of wealth will not be
   everywhere the same" and "[s]ide by side with the revolutionised
   communes . . . places would remain in an expectant attitude, and would
   go on living on the Individualist system." [The Conquest of Bread, p.
   81] While he was hopeful that "everywhere [would be] more or less
   Socialism" he recognised that the revolution would not conform to "any
   particular rule" and would differ in different areas -- "in one country
   State Socialist, in another Federation" and so on. [Op. Cit., p. 82]
   Malatesta made the same point, arguing that "after the revolution"
   there would be "relations between anarchist groupings and those living
   under some kind of authority, between communist collectives and those
   living in an individualistic way." This is because anarchism "cannot be
   imposed". [Life and Ideas, p. 173, p. 21]

   Needless to say, these "separatist societies" (which may or may not be
   "inegalitarian") would not be anarchist societies. If a group of people
   wanted to set up a capitalist, Marxist, Georgist or whatever kind of
   community then their right would be respected (although, of course,
   anarchists would seek to convince those who live in such a regime of
   the benefits of anarchism!). As Malatesta pointed out, "free and
   voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the right and the
   possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist,
   individualist -- as one wishes, always on condition that there is no
   oppression or exploitation of other" as "it is clear that all, and
   only, those ways of life which respect freedom, and recognise that each
   individual has an equal right to the means of production and to the
   full enjoyment of the product of his own labour, have anything in
   common with anarchism." [Op. Cit., p. 103 and p. 33]

   Ultimately, "it is not a question of right and wrong; it is a question
   of freedom for everybody. . . None can judge with certainty who is
   right and who is wrong, who is nearest to the truth, or which is the
   best way to achieve the greatest good for each and everyone. Freedom
   coupled with experience, is the only way of discovering the truth and
   what is best; and there can be no freedom if there is the denial of the
   freedom to err." [Op. Cit., p. 49]

   Secondly, regarding "dissidents" who wanted to set up their own
   "inegalitarian separatist societies," if the term "inegalitarian"
   implies economic inequalities due to private property, the answer is
   that private property requires some kind of state, if not a public
   state then private security forces ("private-state capitalism"), as
   advocated by "anarcho"-capitalists, in order to protect private
   property. Therefore, "anarcho"-capitalists are asking if an anarchist
   society will allow the existence of states. Of course, in the territory
   that used to be claimed by a nation state a whole host of communities
   and societies will spring up -- but that does not make the
   non-anarchist ones anarchist!

   Thus suppose that in a hypothetical libertarian socialist society, Bob
   tries to set up private security forces to protect certain means of
   production, e.g. farmland. By the hypothesis, if Bob merely wanted to
   work the land himself, there would be no reason for him go to the
   trouble of creating a private state to guard it, because use-rights
   guarantee that he has free access to the productive assets he needs to
   make a living. Thus, the only plausible reason Bob could have for
   claiming and guarding more farmland than he could use himself would be
   a desire to create a monopoly of land in order to exact tribute from
   others for the privilege of using it. But this would be an attempt to
   set up a system of feudal exploitation in the midst of a free
   community. Thus the community is justified in disarming this would-be
   parasite and ignoring his claims to "own" more land than he can use
   himself.

   In other words, there is no "right" to adopt an "inegalitarian way of
   life" within a libertarian community, since such a right would have to
   be enforced by the creation of a coercive system of enslavement, which
   would mean the end of the "libertarian" community. To the contrary, the
   members of such a community have a right, guaranteed by "the people in
   arms," to resist such attempts to enslave them.

   The statement that "left" anarchists have "occasionally" insisted that
   small farmers and the like would not be forcibly collectivised is a
   distortion of the facts. No responsible left libertarian advocates
   forced collectivisation, i.e. compelling others to join collectives.
   Self-employment is always an option. This can be seen from Bakunin's
   works [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 200], Kropotkin's [The Conquest of
   Bread, p. 61 and Act for Yourselves, pp. 104-5] and Malatesta's [Life
   and Ideas, p. 99, p. 103]. So the anarchist opposition to forced
   collectivisation has always existed and, for anyone familiar with the
   ideas of social anarchism, very well know. Thus during the Spanish
   Revolution, small farmers who did not wish to join collective farms
   were allowed to keep as much land as they could work themselves. After
   perceiving the advantages of collectives, however, many joined them
   voluntarily (see Sam Dolgoff, ed., The Anarchist Collectives).

   To claim that social anarchists "occasionally" oppose forced
   collectivisation is a smear, pure and simple, with little basis in
   anarchist activity and even less in anarchist theory. Anyone remotely
   familiar with the literature could not make such a mistake.

   Finally, we should point out that under "anarcho"-capitalism there
   would be, according to Murray Rothbard, a "basic libertarian law code."
   Which means that under "anarcho"-capitalism, "egalitarian" communities
   could only come about within a "inegalitarian" legal framework! Thus,
   given that everything would be privatised, dissenters could only
   experiment if they could afford it and accepted the legal system based
   on capitalist property rights (and, of course, survive the competition
   of capitalist companies within the capitalist framework). As we have
   argued in sections [3]B.4 and [4]F.3why
   should we have to pay the stealers of the earth for the privilege to
   life our own lives? Caplan, in effect, ignores the barriers to
   experimentation in his system while distorting the anarchist position.

5 How would anarcho-capitalism work?

   [10.] This section (How would anarcho-capitalism work?) contains
   Caplan's summary of arguments for "anarcho"-capitalism, which he
   describes as an offshoot of Libertarianism. Thus:

     "So-called 'minarchist' libertarians such as Nozick have argued that
     the largest justified government was one which was limited to the
     protection of individuals and their private property against
     physical invasion; accordingly, they favour a government limited to
     supplying police, courts, a legal code, and national defence."

   The first thing to note about this argument is that it is stated in
   such a way as to prejudice the reader against the left-libertarian
   critique of private property. The minarchist right-"libertarian," it is
   said, only wants to protect individuals and their private property
   against "physical invasion." But, because of the loose way in which the
   term "property" is generally used, the "private property" of most
   "individuals" is commonly thought of as personal possessions, i.e.
   cars, houses, clothing, etc. (For the left-libertarian distinction
   between private property and possessions, see [5]section B.3.1.)
   Therefore the argument makes it appear that right libertarians are in
   favour of protecting personal possessions whereas left-libertarians are
   not, thus conjuring up a world where, for example, there would be no
   protection against one's house being "physically invaded" by an
   intruder or a stranger stealing the shirt off one's back!

   By lumping the protection of "individuals" together with the protection
   of their "private property," the argument implies that right
   libertarians are concerned with the welfare of the vast majority of the
   population, whereas in reality, the vast majority of "individuals" do
   not own any private property (i.e. means of production) -- only a
   handful of capitalists do. Moreover, these capitalists use their
   private property to exploit the working class, leading to
   impoverishment, alienation, etc., and thus damaging most individuals
   rather than "protecting" them.

   Caplan goes on:

     "This normative theory is closely linked to laissez-faire economic
     theory, according to which private property and unregulated
     competition generally lead to both an efficient allocation of
     resources and (more importantly) a high rate of economic progress."

   Caplan does not mention the obvious problems with this "theory," e.g.
   that during the heyday of laissez-faire capitalism in the US there was
   vast wealth disparity, with an enormous mass of impoverished people
   living in slums in the major cities -- hardly an "efficient" allocation
   of resources or an example of "progress." Of course, if one defines
   "efficiency" as "the most effective means of exploiting the working
   class" and "progress" as "a high rate of profit for investors," then
   the conclusion of the "theory" does indeed follow.

   And let us not forget that it is general equilibrium theory which
   predicts that unregulated competition will produce an efficient
   allocation of resources. However, as we noted in [6]section C.1, such a
   model has little to do with any real economy. This means that there is
   no real reason to assume an efficient outcome of capitalist economies.
   Concentrations of economic power and wealth can easily skew outcomes to
   favour the haves over the have-nots (as history again and again shows).

   Moreover, the capitalism can easily lead to resources being allocated
   to the most profitable uses rather than those which are most needed by
   individuals. A classic example is in the case of famines. Amartya Sen
   (who won the 1998 Nobel Prize for economics) developed an "entitlement"
   approach to the study of famine. This approach starts with the insight
   that having food available in a country or region does not mean
   everyone living there is "entitled" to it. In market economies, people
   are entitled to food according to their ability to produce it for
   themselves or to pay or swap for it. In capitalist economies, most
   people are entitled to food only if they can sell their labour/liberty
   to those who own the means of life (which increases the economic
   insecurity of wage workers).

   If some group loses its entitlement to food, whether there is a decline
   in the available supply or not, a famine can occur. This may seem
   obvious, yet before - and after - Sen, famine studies have remained
   fixated on the drop in food available instead of whether specific
   social groups are entitled to it. Thus even a relatively success
   economy can price workers out of the food market (a depressed economy
   brings the contradiction between need and profit -- use value and
   exchange value -- even more to the forefront). This "pricing out" can
   occur especially if food can get higher prices (and so profits)
   elsewhere -- for example the Irish famine of 1848 and sub-Saharan
   famines of the 1980s saw food being exported from famine areas to areas
   where it could fetch a higher price. In other words, market forces can
   skew resource allocation away from where it is most needed to where it
   can generate a profit. As anarchist George Barret noted decades before
   Sen:

     "Today the scramble is to compete for the greatest profits. If there
     is more profit to be made in satisfying my lady's passing whim than
     there is in feeding hungry children, then competition brings us in
     feverish haste to supply the former, whilst cold charity or the poor
     law can supply the latter, or leave it unsupplied, just as it feels
     disposed. That is how it works out." [Objectives to Anarchism]

   In other words, inequality skews resource allocation towards the
   wealthy. While such a situation may be "efficient allocation of
   resources" from the perspective of the capitalist, it is hardly so from
   a social perspective (i.e. one that considers all individual needs
   rather than "effective demand").

   Furthermore, if we look at the stock market (a key aspect of any
   capitalist system) we discover a strong tendencies against the
   efficient allocation of resources. The stock market often experiences
   "bubbles" and becomes significantly over-valued. An inflated stock
   market badly distorts investment decisions. For example, if Internet
   companies are wildly over-valued then the sale of shares of new
   Internet companies or the providing of start-up capital will drain away
   savings that could be more productively used elsewhere. The real
   economy will pay a heavy price from such misdirected investment and,
   more importantly, resources are not efficiency allocated as the stock
   market skews resources into the apparently more profitable areas and
   away from where they could be used to satisfy other needs.

   The stock market is also a source of other inefficiencies. Supporters
   of "free-market" capitalism always argued that the Stalinist system of
   central planning created a perverse set of incentives to managers. In
   effect, the system penalised honest managers and encouraged the flow of
   dis-information. This lead to information being distorted and resources
   inefficiently allocated and wasted. Unfortunately the stock market also
   creates its own set of perverse responses and mis-information. Doug
   Henwood argues that "something like a prisoners' dilemma prevails in
   relations between managers and the stock market. Even if participants
   are aware of an upward bias to earnings estimates, and even if they
   correct for it, managers still have an incentive to try and fool the
   market. If you tell the truth, your accurate estimates will be marked
   down by a sceptical market. So its entirely rational for managers to
   boost profits in the short term, either through accounting gimmickry or
   by making only investments with quick paybacks." He goes on to note
   that "[i]f the markets see high costs as bad, and low costs as good,
   then firms may shun expensive investments because they will be taken as
   signs of managerial incompetence. Throughout the late 1980s and early
   1990s, the stock market rewarded firms announcing write-offs and mass
   firings -- a bulimic strategy of management -- since the cost cutting
   was seen as contributing rather quickly to profits. Firms and economies
   can't get richer by starving themselves, but stock market investors can
   get richer when the companies they own go hungry. As for the long term,
   well, that's someone else's problem." [Wall Street, p. 171]

   This means that resources are allocated to short term projects, those
   that enrich the investors now rather than produce long term growth and
   benefits later. This results in slower and more unstable investment
   than less market centred economies, as well as greater instability over
   the business cycle [Op. Cit., pp. 174-5] Thus the claim that capitalism
   results in the "efficient" allocation of resources is only true if we
   assume "efficient" equals highest profits for capitalists. As Henwood
   summarises, "the US financial system performs dismally at its
   advertised task, that of efficiently directing society's savings
   towards their optimal investment pursuits. The system is stupefyingly
   expensive, gives terrible signals, and has surprisingly little to do
   with real investment." [Op. Cit., p. 3]

   Moreover, the claim that laissez-faire economies produce a high rate of
   economic progress can be questioned on the empirical evidence
   available. For example, from the 1970s onwards there has been a strong
   tendency towards economic deregulation. However, this tendency has been
   associated with a slow down of economic growth. For example, "[g]rowth
   rates, investment rates and productivity rates are all lower now than
   in the [Keynesian post-war] Golden Age, and there is evidence that the
   trend rate of growth -- the underlying growth rate -- has also
   decreased." Before the Thatcher pro-market reforms, the British economy
   grew by 2.4% in the 1970s. After Thatcher's election in 1979, growth
   decreased to 2% in the 1980s and to 1.2% in the 1990s. In the USA, we
   find a similar pattern. Growth was 4.4% in the 1960s, 3.2% in the
   1970s, 2.8% in the 1980s and 1.9% in the first half of the 1990s [Larry
   Elliot and Dan Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity, p. 236]. Moreover, in
   terms of inflation-adjusted GDP per capita and productivity, the US had
   the worse performance out of the US, UK, Japan, Italy, France, Canada
   and Australia between 1970 and 1995 [Marc-Anfre Pigeon and L. Randall
   Wray, Demand Constraints and Economic Growth]. Given that the US is
   usually considered the most laissez-faire out of these 7 countries,
   Caplan's claim of high progress for deregulated systems seems at odds
   with this evidence.

   As far as technological innovation goes, it is also not clear that
   deregulation has aided that process. Much of our modern technology owns
   its origins to the US Pentagon system, in which public money is
   provided to companies for military R&D purposes. Once the technology
   has been proven viable, the companies involved can sell their public
   subsidised products for private profit. The computer industry (as we
   point out in [7]section J.4.7) is a classic example of this -- indeed
   it is unlikely whether we would have computers or the internet if we
   had waited for capitalists to development them. So whether a totally
   deregulated capitalism would have as high a rate of technological
   progress is a moot point.

   So, it seems likely that it is only the assumption that the free
   capitalist market will generate "an efficient allocation of resources
   and (more importantly) a high rate of economic progress." Empirical
   evidence points the other way -- namely, that state aided capitalism
   provides an approximation of these claims. Indeed, if we look at the
   example of the British Empire (which pursued a strong free trade and
   laissez-faire policy over the areas it had invaded) we can suggest that
   the opposite may be true. After 25 prosperous years of fast growth (3.5
   per cent), after 1873 Britain had 40 years of slow growth (1.5 per
   cent), the last 14 years of which were the worse -- with productivity
   declining, GDP stagnant and home investment halved. [Nicholas Kaldor,
   Further Essays on Applied Economics, p. 239] In comparison, those
   countries which embraced protectionism (such as Germany and the USA)
   industrialised successfully and become competitors with the UK. Indeed,
   these new competitors grew in time to be efficient competitors of
   Britain not only in foreign markets but also in Britain's home market.
   The result was that "for fifty years Britain's GDP grew very slowly
   relative to the more successful of the newer industrialised countries,
   who overtook her, one after another, in the volume of manufacturing
   production and in exports and finally in real income per head." [Op.
   Cit., p. xxvi] Indeed, "America's growth and productivity rates were
   higher when tariffs were steep than when they came down." [Larry Elliot
   and Dan Atkinson, Op. Cit., p. 277]

   It is possible to explain almost everything that has ever happened in
   the world economy as evidence not of the failure of markets but rather
   of what happens when markets are not able to operate freely. Indeed,
   this is the right-libertarian position in a nut shell. However, it does
   seem strange that movements towards increased freedom for markets
   produce worse results than the old, more regulated, way. Similarly it
   seems strange that the country that embraced laissez-faire and free
   trade (Britain) did worse than those which embraced protectionism (USA,
   Germany, etc.).

   It could always be argued that the protectionist countries had embraced
   free trade their economies would have done even better. This is, of
   course, a possibility -- if somewhat unlikely. After all, the argument
   for laissez-faire and free trade is that it benefits all parties, even
   if it is embraced unilaterally. That Britain obviously did not benefit
   suggests a flaw in the theory (and that no country has industrialised
   without protectionism suggests likewise). Unfortunately, free-market
   capitalist economics lends itself to a mind frame that ensures that
   nothing could happen in the real world that would could ever change its
   supporters minds about anything.

   Free trade, it could be argued, benefits only those who have
   established themselves in the market -- that is, have market power.
   Thus Britain could initially benefit from free trade as it was the only
   industrialised nation (and even its early industrialisation cannot be
   divorced from its initial mercantilist policies). This position of
   strength allowed them to dominate and destroy possible competitors (as
   Kaldor points out, "[w]here the British succeeded in gaining free entry
   for its goods. . . it had disastrous effects on local manufactures and
   employment." [Op. Cit., p. xxvi]). This would revert the other country
   back towards agriculture, an industry with diminishing returns to scale
   (manufacturing, in contrast, has increasing returns) and ensure
   Britain's position of power.

   The use of protection, however, sheltered the home industries of other
   countries and gave them the foothold required to compete with Britain.
   In addition, Britains continual adherence to free trade meant that a
   lot of new industries (such as chemical and electrical ones) could not
   be properly established. This combination contributed to free trade
   leading to stunted growth, in stark contrast to the arguments of
   neo-classical economics.

   Of course, we will be accused of supporting protectionism by recounting
   these facts. That is not the case, as protectionism is used as a means
   of "proletarianising" a nation (as we discuss in [8]section F.8).
   Rather we are presenting evidence to refute a claim that deregulated
   capitalism will lead to higher growth. Thus, we suggest, the history of
   "actually existing" capitalism indicates that Caplan's claim that
   deregulated capitalism will result "a high rate of economic progress"
   may be little more than an assumption. True, it is an assumption of
   neo-classical economics, but empirical evidence suggests that
   assumption is as unfounded as the rest of that theory.

   Next we get to the meat of the defence of "anarcho"-capitalism:

     "Now the anarcho-capitalist essentially turns the minarchist's own
     logic against him, and asks why the remaining functions of the state
     could not be turned over to the free market. And so, the
     anarcho-capitalist imagines that police services could be sold by
     freely competitive firms; that a court system would emerge to
     peacefully arbitrate disputes between firms; and that a sensible
     legal code could be developed through custom, precedent, and
     contract."

   Indeed, the functions in question could certainly be turned over to the
   "free" market, as was done in certain areas of the US during the 19th
   century, e.g. the coal towns that were virtually owned by private coal
   companies. We have already discussed the negative impact of that
   experiment on the working class in [9]section F.6.2. Our objection is
   not that such privatisation cannot be done, but that it is an error to
   call it a form of anarchism. In reality it is an extreme form of
   laissez-faire capitalism, which is the exact opposite of anarchism. The
   defence of private power by private police is hardly a move towards the
   end of authority, nor are collections of private states an example of
   anarchism.

   Indeed, that "anarcho"-capitalism does not desire the end of the state,
   just a change in its form, can be seen from Caplan's own arguments. He
   states that "the remaining functions of the state" should be "turned
   over to the free market." Thus the state (and its functions, primarily
   the defence of capitalist property rights) is privatised and not, in
   fact, abolished. In effect, the "anarcho"-capitalist seeks to abolish
   the state by calling it something else.

   Caplan:

     "The anarcho-capitalist typically hails modern society's increasing
     reliance on private security guards, gated communities, arbitration
     and mediation, and other demonstrations of the free market's ability
     to supply the defensive and legal services normally assumed to be of
     necessity a government monopoly."

   It is questionable that "modern society" as such has increased its
   reliance on "private security guards, gated communities" and so on.
   Rather, it is the wealthy who have increased their reliance on these
   forms of private defence. Indeed it is strange to hear a
   right-libertarian even use the term "society" as, according to that
   ideology, society does not exist! Perhaps the term "society" is used to
   hide the class nature of these developments? As for "gated communities"
   it is clear that their inhabitants would object if the rest of society
   gated themselves from them! But such is the logic of such developments
   -- but the gated communities want it both ways. They seek to exclude
   the rest of society from their communities while expected to be given
   access to that society. Needless to say, Caplan fails to see that
   liberty for the rich can mean oppression for the working class -- "we
   who belong to the proletaire class, property excommunicates us!"
   [Proudhon, What is Property?, p. 105]

   That the law code of the state is being defended by private companies
   is hardly a step towards anarchy. This indicates exactly why an
   "anarcho"- capitalist system will be a collection of private states
   united around a common, capitalistic, and hierarchical law code. In
   addition, this system does not abolish the monopoly of government over
   society represented by the "general libertarian law code," nor the
   monopoly of power that owners have over their property and those who
   use it. The difference between public and private statism is that the
   boss can select which law enforcement agents will enforce his or her
   power.

   The threat to freedom and justice for the working class is clear. The
   thug-like nature of many private security guards enforcing private
   power is well documented. For example, the beating of protesters by
   "private cops" is a common sight in anti-motorway campaigns or when
   animal right activists attempt to disrupt fox hunts. The shooting of
   strikers during strikes occurred during the peak period of American
   laissez-faire capitalism. However, as most forms of protest involve the
   violation of "absolute" property rights, the "justice" system under
   "anarcho"-capitalism would undoubtedly fine the victims of such attacks
   by private cops.

   It is also interesting that the "anarcho"-capitalist "hails" what are
   actually symptoms of social breakdown under capitalism. With increasing
   wealth disparity, poverty, and chronic high unemployment, society is
   becoming polarised into those who can afford to live in secure, gated
   communities and those who cannot. The latter are increasingly
   marginalised in ghettos and poor neighbourhoods where drug-dealing,
   prostitution, and theft become main forms of livelihood, with gangs
   offering a feudalistic type of "protection" to those who join or pay
   tribute to them. Under "anarcho"-capitalism, the only change would be
   that drug-dealing and prostitution would be legalised and gangs could
   start calling themselves "defence companies."

   Caplan:

     "In his ideal society, these market alternatives to government
     services would take over all legitimate security services. One
     plausible market structure would involve individuals subscribing to
     one of a large number of competing police services; these police
     services would then set up contracts or networks for peacefully
     handling disputes between members of each others' agencies.
     Alternately, police services might be 'bundled' with housing
     services, just as landlords often bundle water and power with rental
     housing, and gardening and security are today provided to residents
     in gated communities and apartment complexes."

   This is a scenario designed with the upper classes in mind and a few
   working class people, i.e. those with some property (for example, a
   house) -- sometimes labelled the "middle class". But under capitalism,
   the tendency toward capital concentration leads to increasing wealth
   polarisation, which means a shrinking "middle class" (i.e. working
   class with decent jobs and their own homes) and a growing "underclass"
   (i.e. working class people without a decent job). Ironically enough,
   America (with one of the most laissez-faire capitalist systems) is also
   the Western nation with the smallest "middle class" and wealth
   concentration has steadily increased since the 1970s. Thus the number
   of people who could afford to buy protection and "justice" from the
   best companies would continually decrease. For this reason there would
   be a growing number of people at the mercy of the rich and powerful,
   particularly when it comes to matters concerning employment, which is
   the main way in which the poor would be victimised by the rich and
   powerful (as is indeed the case now).

   Of course, if landlords do "bundle" police services in their contracts
   this means that they are determining the monopoly of force over the
   property in question. Tenants would "consent" to the police force and
   the laws of the landlord in exactly the same way emigrants "consent" to
   the laws and government of, say, the USA when they move there. Rather
   than show the difference between statism and capitalism, Caplan has
   indicated their essential commonality. For the proletarian, property is
   but another form of state. For this reason anarchists would agree with
   Rousseau when he wrote that:

     "That a rich and powerful man, having acquired immense possessions
     in lands, should impose laws on those who want to establish
     themselves there, and that he should only allow them to do so on
     condition that they accept his supreme authority and obey all his
     wishes; that, I can still conceive. But how can I conceive such a
     treaty, which presupposes anterior rights, could be the first
     foundation of law? Would not this tyrannical act contain a double
     usurpation: that on the ownership of the land and that on the
     liberty of the inhabitants?" [The Social Contract and Discourses, p.
     316]

   Caplan:

     "The underlying idea is that contrary to popular belief, private
     police would have strong incentives to be peaceful and respect
     individual rights. For first of all, failure to peacefully arbitrate
     will yield to jointly destructive warfare, which will be bad for
     profits. Second, firms will want to develop long-term business
     relationships, and hence be willing to negotiate in good faith to
     insure their long-term profitability. And third, aggressive firms
     would be likely to attract only high-risk clients and thus suffer
     from extraordinarily high costs (a problem parallel to the
     well-known 'adverse selection problem' in e.g. medical insurance --
     the problem being that high-risk people are especially likely to
     seek insurance, which drives up the price when riskiness is hard for
     the insurer to discern or if regulation requires a uniform price
     regardless of risk)."

   The theory that "failure to peacefully arbitrate will yield to jointly
   destructive warfare, which will be bad for profits" can be faulted in
   two ways. Firstly, if warfare would be bad for profits, what is to stop
   a large "defence association" from ignoring a smaller one's claim? If
   warfare were "bad for business," it would be even worse for a small
   company without the capital to survive a conflict, which could give big
   "defence associations" the leverage to force compliance with their
   business interests. Price wars are often bad for business, but
   companies sometimes start them if they think they can win. Needless to
   say, demand would exist for such a service (unless you assume a
   transformation in the "human nature" generated by capitalism -- an
   unlikely situation and one "anarcho"-capitalists usually deny is
   required for their system to work). Secondly -- and this is equally, if
   not more, likely -- a "balance of power" method to stop warfare has
   little to recommend it from history. This can be seen from the First
   World War and feudal society.

   What the "anarcho"-capitalist is describing is essentially a system of
   "industrial feudalism" wherein people contract for "protection" with
   armed gangs of their choice. Feudal societies have never been known to
   be peaceful, even though war is always "unprofitable" for one side or
   the other or both. The argument fails to consider that "defence
   companies," whether they be called police forces, paramilitaries or
   full-blown armies, tend to attract the "martial" type of authoritarian
   personality, and that this type of "macho" personality thrives on and
   finds its reason for existence in armed conflict and other forms of
   interpersonal violence and intimidation. Hence feudal society is
   continually wracked by battles between the forces of opposing warlords,
   because such conflicts allow the combatants a chance to "prove their
   manhood," vent their aggression, obtain honours and titles, advance in
   the ranks, obtain spoils, etc. The "anarcho" capitalist has given no
   reason why warfare among legalised gangs would not continue under
   industrial feudalism, except the extremely lame reason that it would
   not be profitable -- a reason that has never prevented war in any known
   feudal society.

   It should be noted that the above is not an argument from "original
   sin." Feudal societies are characterised by conflict between opposing
   "protection agencies" not because of the innate depravity of human
   beings but because of a social structure based on private property and
   hierarchy, which brings out the latent capacities for violence,
   domination, greed, etc. that humans have by creating a financial
   incentive to be so. But this is not to say that a different social
   structure would not bring out latent capacities for much different
   qualities like sharing, peaceableness, and co-operation, which human
   beings also have. In fact, as Kropotkin argued in Mutual Aid and as
   recent anthropologists have confirmed in greater detail, ancient
   societies based on communal ownership of productive assets and little
   social hierarchy were basically peaceful, with no signs of warfare for
   thousands of years.

   However, let us assume that such a competitive system does actually
   work as described. Caplan, in effect, argues that competition will
   generate co-operation. This is due to the nature of the market in
   question -- defence (and so peace) is dependent on firms working
   together as the commodity "peace" cannot be supplied by one firm.
   However, this co-operation does not, for some reason, become collusion
   between the firms in question. According to "anarcho"-capitalists this
   competitive system not only produces co-operation, it excludes
   "defence" firms making agreements to fix monopoly profits (i.e.
   co-operation that benefits the firms in question). Why does the market
   produce beneficial co-operation to everyone but not collusion for the
   firms in question? Collusion is when firms have "business
   relationships" and "negotiate in good faith" to insure their
   profitability by agreeing not to compete aggressively against each
   other in order to exploit the market. Obviously in "anarcho"-capitalism
   the firms in question only use their powers for good!

   Needless to say, the "anarcho"-capitalist will object and argue that
   competition will ensure that collusion will not occur. However, given
   that co-operation is required between all firms in order to provide the
   commodity "peace" this places the "anarcho"-capitalist in a bind. As
   Caplan notes, "aggressive" firms are "likely to attract only high-risk
   clients and thus suffer from extraordinarily high costs." From the
   perspective of the colluding firms, a new entry into their market is,
   by definition, aggressive. If the colluding firms do not co-operate
   with the new competitor, then it will suffer from "extraordinarily high
   costs" and either go out of business or join the co-operators. If the
   new entry could survive in the face of the colluding firms hostility
   then so could "bad" defence firms, ones that ignored the market
   standards.

   So the "anarcho"-capitalist faces two options. Either an "aggressive"
   firm cannot survive or it can. If it cannot then the very reason why it
   cannot ensures that collusion is built into the market and while the
   system is peaceful it is based on an effective monopoly of colluding
   firms who charge monopoly profits. This, in effect, is a state under
   the "anarcho"-capitalist's definition as a property owner cannot freely
   select their own "protection" -- they are limited to the firms (and
   laws) provided by the co-operating firms. Or an "aggressive" firm can
   survive, violence is commonplace and chaos ensures.

   Caplan's passing reference to the "adverse selection problem" in
   medical insurance suggests another problem with "anarcho"-capitalism.
   The problem is that high-risk people are especially likely to seek
   protection, which drives up the price for, as "anarcho"-capitalists
   themselves note, areas with high crime levels "will be bad for
   profits," as hardware and personnel costs will be correspondingly
   higher. This means that the price for "protection" in areas which need
   it most will be far higher than for areas which do not need it. As poor
   areas are generally more crime afflicted than rich areas,
   "anarcho"-capitalism may see vast sections of the population not able
   to afford "protection" (just as they may not be about to afford health
   care and other essential services). Indeed, "protection services" which
   try to provide cheap services to "high-risk" areas will be at an
   competitive disadvantage in relation to those who do not, as the
   "high-risk" areas will hurt profits and companies without "high-risk"
   "customers" could undercut those that have.

   Caplan:

     "Anarcho-capitalists generally give little credence to the view that
     their 'private police agencies' would be equivalent to today's Mafia
     -- the cost advantages of open, legitimate business would make
     'criminal police' uncompetitive. (Moreover, they argue, the Mafia
     can only thrive in the artificial market niche created by the
     prohibition of alcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling, and other
     victimless crimes. Mafia gangs might kill each other over turf, but
     liquor-store owners generally do not.)"

   As we have pointed out in [10]section F.6, the "Mafia" objection to
   "anarcho"-capitalist defence companies is a red herring. The biggest
   problem would not be "criminal police" but the fact that working people
   and tenants would subject to the rules, power and laws of the property
   owners, the rich would be able to buy better police protection and
   "justice" than the poor and that the "general" law code these companies
   would defend would be slanted towards the interests and power of the
   capitalist class (defending capitalist property rights and the
   proprietors power). And as we also noted, such a system has already
   been tried in 19th-century and early 20th America, with the result that
   the rich reduced the working class to a serf-like existence, capitalist
   production undermined independent producers (to the annoyance of
   individualist anarchists at the time), and the result was the emergence
   of the corporate America that "anarcho"-capitalists say they oppose.

   Caplan argues that "liquor-store owners" do not generally kill each
   other over turf. This is true (but then again they do not have access
   to their own private cops currently so perhaps this could change). But
   the company owners who created their own private police forces and
   armies in America's past did allow their goons to attack and murder
   union organisers and strikers. Let us look at Henry Ford's Service
   Department (private police force) in action:

     "In 1932 a hunger march of the unemployed was planned to march up to
     the gates of the Ford plant at Dearborn. . . The machine guns of the
     Dearborn police and the Ford Motor Company's Service Department
     killed [four] and wounded over a score of others. . . Ford was
     fundamentally and entirely opposed to trade unions. The idea of
     working men questioning his prerogatives as an owner was outrageous.
     . . [T]he River Rouge plant. . . was dominated by the autocratic
     regime of Bennett's service men. Bennett . . organise[d] and
     train[ed] the three and a half thousand private policemen employed
     by Ford. His task was to maintain discipline amongst the work force,
     protect Ford's property [and power], and prevent unionisation. . .
     Frank Murphy, the mayor of Detroit, claimed that 'Henry Ford employs
     some of the worst gangsters in our city.' The claim was well based.
     Ford's Service Department policed the gates of his plants,
     infiltrated emergent groups of union activists, posed as workers to
     spy on men on the line. . . Under this tyranny the Ford worker had
     no security, no rights. So much so that any information about the
     state of things within the plant could only be freely obtained from
     ex-Ford workers." [Huw Beynon, Working for Ford, pp. 29-30]

   The private police attacked women workers handing out pro-union
   handbills and gave them "a serve beating." At Kansas and Dallas
   "similar beatings were handed out to the union men." [Op. Cit., p. 34]
   This use of private police to control the work force was not unique.
   General Motors "spent one million dollars on espionage, employing
   fourteen detective agencies and two hundred spies at one time [between
   1933 and 1936]. The Pinkerton Detective Agency found anti-unionism its
   most lucrative activity." [Op. Cit., p. 32] We must also note that the
   Pinkerton's had been selling their private police services for decades
   before the 1930s. In the 1870s, they had infiltrated and destroyed the
   Molly Maguires (a secret organisation Irish miners had developed to
   fight the coal bosses). For over 60 years the Pinkerton Detective
   Agency had "specialised in providing spies, agent provocateurs, and
   private armed forces for employers combating labour organisations." By
   1892 it "had provided its services for management in seventy major
   labour disputes, and its 2 000 active agents and 30 000 reserves
   totalled more than the standing army of the nation." [Jeremy Brecher,
   Strike!, p. 9 and p. 55] With this force available, little wonder
   unions found it so hard to survive in the USA. Given that unions could
   be considered as "defence" agencies for workers, this suggests a
   picture of how "anarcho"-capitalism may work in practice.

   It could be argued that, in the end, the union was recognised by the
   Ford company. However, this occurred after the New Deal was in place
   (which helped the process), after years of illegal activity (by
   definition union activism on Ford property was an illegal act) and
   extremely militant strikes. Given that the union agreement occurred
   nearly 40 years after Ford was formed and in a legal situation
   violently at odds with "anarcho"-capitalism (or even minimal statist
   capitalism), we would be justified in wondering if unionisation would
   ever have occurred at Ford and if Ford's private police state would
   ever have been reformed.

   Of course, from an "anarcho"-capitalist perspective the only limitation
   in the Ford workers' liberty was the fact they had to pay taxes to the
   US government. The regime at Ford could not restrict their liberty as
   no one forced them to work for the company. Needless to say, an
   "anarcho"-capitalist would reject out of hand the argument that no-one
   forced the citizen to entry or remain in the USA and so they consented
   to taxation, the government's laws and so on.

   This is more than a history lesson. Such private police forces are on
   the rise again (see "Armed and Dangerous: Private Police on the March"
   by Mike Zielinski, Covert Action Quarterly, no. 54, Fall, 1995 for
   example). This system of private police (as demonstrated by Ford) is
   just one of the hidden aspects of Caplan's comment that the
   "anarcho"-capitalist "typically hails modern society's increasing
   reliance on private security guards. . . and other demonstrations of
   the free market's ability to supply the defensive and legal services
   normally assumed to be of necessity a government monopoly."

   Needless to say, private police states are not a step forward in
   anarchist eyes.

   Caplan:

     "Unlike some left-anarchists, the anarcho-capitalist has no
     objection to punishing criminals; and he finds the former's claim
     that punishment does not deter crime to be the height of naivete.
     Traditional punishment might be meted out after a conviction by a
     neutral arbitrator; or a system of monetary restitution (probably in
     conjunction with a prison factory system) might exist instead."

   Let us note first that in disputes between the capitalist class and the
   working class, there would be no "neutral arbitrator," because the rich
   would either own the arbitration company or influence/control it
   through the power of the purse (see [11]section F.6). In addition,
   "successful" arbitrators would also be wealthy, therefore making
   neutrality even more unlikely. Moreover, given that the laws the
   "neutral arbitrator" would be using are based on capitalist property
   rights, the powers and privileges of the owner are built into the
   system from the start.

   Second, the left-libertarian critique of punishment does not rest, as
   "anarcho"-capitalists claim, on the naive view that intimidation and
   coercion aren't effective in controlling behaviour. Rather, it rests on
   the premise that capitalist societies produce large numbers of
   criminals, whereas societies based on equality and community ownership
   of productive assets do not.

   The argument for this is that societies based on private property and
   hierarchy inevitably lead to a huge gap between the haves and the
   have-nots, with the latter sunk in poverty, alienation, resentment,
   anger, and hopelessness, while at the same time such societies promote
   greed, ambition, ruthlessness, deceit, and other aspects of competitive
   individualism that destroy communal values like sharing, co-operation,
   and mutual aid. Thus in capitalist societies, the vast majority of
   "crime" turns out to be so-called "crimes against property," which can
   be traced to poverty and the grossly unfair distribution of wealth.
   Where the top one percent of the population controls more wealth than
   the bottom 90 percent combined, it is no wonder that a considerable
   number of those on the bottom should try to recoup illegally some of
   the mal-distributed wealth they cannot obtain legally. (In this they
   are encouraged by the bad example of the ruling class, whose parasitic
   ways of making a living would be classified as criminal if the
   mechanisms for defining "criminal behaviour" were not controlled by the
   ruling class itself.) And most of the remaining "crimes against
   persons" can be traced to the alienation, dehumanisation, frustration,
   rage, and other negative emotions produced by the inhumane and unjust
   economic system.

   Thus it is only in our societies like ours, with their wholesale
   manufacture of many different kinds of criminals, that punishment
   appears to be the only possible way to discourage "crime." From the
   left-libertarian perspective, however, the punitive approach is a
   band-aid measure that does not get to the real root of the problem -- a
   problem that lies in the structure of the system itself. The real
   solution is the creation of a non-hierarchical society based on
   communal ownership of productive assets, which, by eliminating poverty
   and the other negative effects of capitalism, would greatly reduce the
   incidence of criminal behaviour and so the need for punitive
   countermeasures.

   Finally, two more points on private prisons. Firstly, as to the
   desirability of a "prison factory system," we will merely note that,
   given the capitalist principle of "grow-or-die," if punishing crime
   becomes a business, one can be sure that those who profit from it will
   find ways to ensure that the "criminal" population keeps expanding at a
   rate sufficient to maintain a high rate of profit and growth. After
   all, the logic of a "prison factory system" is self-defeating. If the
   aim of prison is to deter crime (as some claim) and if a private prison
   system will meet that aim, then a successful private prison system will
   stop crime, which, in turn, will put them out of business! Thus a
   "prison factory system" cannot aim to be efficient (i.e. stop crime).

   Secondly, Caplan does not mention the effect of prison labour on the
   wages, job conditions and market position of workers. Having a sizeable
   proportion of the working population labouring in prison would have a
   serious impact on the bargaining power of workers. How could workers
   outside of prison compete with such a regime of labour discipline
   without submitting to prison-like conditions themselves?
   Unsurprisingly, US history again presents some insight into this. As
   Noam Chomsky notes, the "rapid industrial development in the
   southeastern region [of America] a century ago was based on (Black)
   convict labour, leased to the highest bidder." Chomsky quotes expert
   Alex Lichtenstein comments that Southern Industrialists pointed out
   that convict labour was "more reliable and productive than free labour"
   and that it overcomes the problem of labour turnover and instability.
   It also "remove[d] all danger and cost of strikes" and that it lowers
   wages for "free labour" (i.e. wage labour). The US Bureau of Labor
   reported that "mine owners [in Alabama] say they could not work at a
   profit without the lowering effect in wages of convict-labour
   competition." [The Umbrella of US Power, p. 32]

   Needless to say, Caplan fails to mention this aspect of
   "anarcho"-capitalism (just as he fails to mention the example of Ford's
   private police state). Perhaps an "anarcho"-capitalist will say that
   prison labour will be less productive than wage labour and so workers
   have little to fear, but this makes little sense. If wage labour is
   more productive then prison labour will not find a market (and then
   what for the prisoners? Will profit-maximising companies really invest
   in an industry with such high over-heads as maintaining prisoners for
   free?). Thus it seems more than likely that any "prison-factory system"
   will be as productive as the surrounding wage-labour ones, thus forcing
   down their wages and the conditions of labour. For capitalists this
   would be ideal, however for the vast majority a different conclusion
   must be drawn.

   Caplan:

     "Probably the main division between the anarcho-capitalists stems
     from the apparent differences between Rothbard's natural-law
     anarchism, and David Friedman's more economistic approach. Rothbard
     puts more emphasis on the need for a generally recognised
     libertarian legal code (which he thinks could be developed fairly
     easily by purification of the Anglo-American common law), whereas
     Friedman focuses more intently on the possibility of plural legal
     systems co-existing and responding to the consumer demands of
     different elements of the population. The difference, however, is
     probably overstated. Rothbard believes that it is legitimate for
     consumer demand to determine the philosophically neutral content of
     the law, such as legal procedure, as well as technical issues of
     property right definition such as water law, mining law, etc. And
     Friedman admits that 'focal points' including prevalent norms are
     likely to circumscribe and somewhat standardise the menu of
     available legal codes."

   The argument that "consumer demand" would determine a "philosophically
   neutral" content of the law cannot be sustained. Any law code will
   reflect the philosophy of those who create it. Under
   "anarcho"-capitalism, as we have noted (see [12]section F.6), the
   values of the capitalist rich will be dominant and will shape the law
   code and justice system, as they do now, only more so. The law code
   will therefore continue to give priority to the protection of private
   property over human values; those who have the most money will continue
   being able to hire the best lawyers; and the best (i.e. most highly
   paid) judges will be inclined to side with the wealthy and to rule in
   their interests, out of class loyalty (and personal interests).

   Moreover, given that the law code exists to protect capitalist property
   rights, how can it be "philosophically neutral" with that basis? How
   would "competing" property frameworks co-exist? If a defence agency
   allowed squatting and another (hired by the property owner) did not,
   there is no way (bar force) a conflict could be resolved. Then the firm
   with the most resources would win. "Anarcho"-capitalism, in effect,
   smuggles into the foundation of their system a distinctly non-neutral
   philosophy, namely capitalism. Those who reject such a basis may end up
   sharing the fate of tribal peoples who rejected that system of property
   rights, for example, the Native Americans.

   In other words, in terms of outcome the whole system would favour
   capitalist values and so not be "philosophically neutral." The law
   would be favourable to employers rather than workers, manufacturers
   rather than consumers, and landlords rather than tenants. Indeed, from
   the "anarcho"-capitalist perspective the rules that benefit employers,
   landlords and manufacturers (as passed by progressive legislatures or
   enforced by direct action) simply define liberty and property rights
   whereas the rules that benefit workers, tenants and consumers are
   simply an interference with liberty. The rules one likes, in other
   words, are the foundations of sacred property rights (and so "liberty,"
   as least for the capitalist and landlord), those one does not like are
   meddlesome regulation. This is a very handy trick and would not be
   worth mentioning if it was not so commonplace in right-libertarian
   theory.

   We should leave aside the fantasy that the law under
   "anarcho"-capitalism is a politically neutral set of universal rules
   deduced from particular cases and free from a particular instrumental
   or class agenda.

   Caplan:

     "Critics of anarcho-capitalism sometimes assume that communal or
     worker-owned firms would be penalised or prohibited in an
     anarcho-capitalist society. It would be more accurate to state that
     while individuals would be free to voluntarily form communitarian
     organisations, the anarcho-capitalist simply doubts that they would
     be widespread or prevalent."

   There is good reason for this doubt. Worker co-operatives would not be
   widespread or prevalent in an "anarcho"-capitalist society for the same
   reason that they are not widespread or prevalent now: namely, that the
   socio-economic, legal, and political systems would be structured in
   such as way as to automatically discourage their growth (in addition,
   capitalist firms and the rich would also have an advantage in that they
   would still own and control the wealth they currently have which are a
   result of previous "initiations of force". This would give them an
   obvious advantage on the "free-market" -- an advantage which would be
   insurmountable).

   As we explain in more detail in [13]section J.5.11, the reason why
   there are not more producer co-operatives is partly structural, based
   on the fact that co-operatives have a tendency to grow at a slower rate
   than capitalist firms. This is a good thing if one's primary concern
   is, say, protecting the environment, but fatal if one is trying to
   survive in a competitive capitalist environment.

   Under capitalism, successful competition for profits is the fundamental
   fact of economic survival. This means that banks and private investors
   seeking the highest returns on their investments will favour those
   companies that grow the fastest. Moreover, in co-operatives returns to
   capital are less than in capitalist firms. Under such conditions,
   capitalist firms will attract more investment capital, allowing them to
   buy more productivity-enhancing technology and thus to sell their
   products more cheaply than co-operatives. Even though co-operatives are
   at least as efficient (usually more so) than their equivalent
   capitalist firms, the effect of market forces (particularly those
   associated with capital markets) will select against them. This bias
   against co-operatives under capitalism is enough to ensure that,
   despite their often higher efficiency, they cannot prosper under
   capitalism (i.e. capitalism selects the least efficient way of
   producing). Hence Caplan's comments hide how the effect of inequalities
   in wealth and power under capitalism determine which alternatives are
   "widespread" in the "free market"

   Moreover, co-operatives within capitalism have a tendency to adapt to
   the dominant market conditions rather than undermining them. There will
   be pressure on the co-operatives to compete more effectively by
   adopting the same cost-cutting and profit-enhancing measures as
   capitalist firms. Such measures will include the deskilling of workers;
   squeezing as much "productivity" as is humanly possible from them; and
   a system of pay differentials in which the majority of workers receive
   low wages while the bulk of profits are reinvested in technology
   upgrades and other capital expansion that keeps pace with capitalist
   firms. But this means that in a capitalist environment, there tend to
   be few practical advantages for workers in collective ownership of the
   firms in which they work.

   This problem can only be solved by eliminating private property and the
   coercive statist mechanisms required to protect it (including private
   states masquerading as "protection companies"), because this is the
   only way to eliminate competition for profits as the driving force of
   economic activity. In a libertarian socialist environment, federated
   associations of workers in co-operative enterprises would co-ordinate
   production for use rather than profit, thus eliminating the competitive
   basis of the economy and so also the "grow-or-die" principle which now
   puts co-operatives at a fatal economic disadvantage. (For more on how
   such an economy would be organised and operated, as well as answers to
   objections, see [14]section I.)

   And let us not forget what is implied by Caplan's statement that the
   "anarcho"-capitalist does not think that co-operative holding of
   "property" "would be widespread or prevalent." It means that the vast
   majority would be subject to the power, authority and laws of the
   property owner and so would not govern themselves. In other words, it
   would a system of private statism rather than anarchy.

   Caplan:

     "However, in theory an 'anarcho-capitalist' society might be filled
     with nothing but communes or worker-owned firms, so long as these
     associations were formed voluntarily (i.e., individuals joined
     voluntarily and capital was obtained with the consent of the owners)
     and individuals retained the right to exit and set up corporations
     or other profit-making, individualistic firms."

   It's interesting that the "anarcho"-capitalists are willing to allow
   workers to set up "voluntary" co-operatives so long as the conditions
   are retained which ensure that such co-operatives will have difficulty
   surviving (i.e. private property and private states), but they are
   unwilling to allow workers to set up co-operatives under conditions
   that would ensure their success (i.e. the absence of private property
   and private states). This reflects the usual vacuousness of the
   right-libertarian concepts of "freedom" and "voluntarism."

   In other words, these worker-owned firms would exist in and be subject
   to the same capitalist "general libertarian law code" and work in the
   same capitalist market as the rest of society. So, not only are these
   co-operatives subject to capitalist market forces, they exist and
   operate in a society defined by capitalist laws. As discussed in
   [15]section F.2, such disregard for the social context of human action
   shows up the "anarcho" capitalist's disregard for meaningful liberty.

   All Caplan is arguing here is that as long as people remain within the
   (capitalist) "law code," they can do whatever they like. However, what
   determines the amount of coercion required in a society is the extent
   to which people are willing to accept the rules imposed on them. This
   is as true of an "anarcho"-capitalist society as it is of any other. In
   other words, if more and more people reject the basic assumptions of
   capitalism, the more coercion against anarchistic tendencies will be
   required. Saying that people would be free to experiment under
   "anarcho"-capitalist law (if they can afford it, of course) does not
   address the issue of changes in social awareness (caused, by example,
   by class struggle) which can make such "laws" redundant. So, when all
   is said and done, "anarcho"-capitalism just states that as long as you
   accept their rules, you are free to do what you like.

   How generous of them!

   Thus, while we would be allowed to be collective capitalists or
   property owners under "anarcho"-capitalists we would have no choice
   about living under laws based on the most rigid and extreme
   interpretation of property rights available. In other words,
   "anarcho"-capitalists recognise (at least implicitly) that there exists
   one collective need that needs collective support -- a law system to
   define and protects people's rights. Ultimately, as C.B. Macpherson
   argues, "Individualism" implies "collectivism" for the "notion that
   individualism and 'collectivism' are the opposite ends of a scale along
   which states and theories of the state can be arranged . . . is
   superficial and misleading. . . . [I]ndividualism . . . does not
   exclude but on the contrary demands the supremacy of the state [or law]
   over the individual. It is not a question of the more individualism,
   the less collectivism; rather, the more through-going the
   individualism, the more complete the collectivism. Of this the supreme
   illustration is Hobbes's theory." [The Political Theory of Possessive
   Individualism, p.256] Under "anarcho"-capitalism the individual is
   subject to the laws regarding private property, laws decided in advance
   by a small group of ideological leaders. Then real individuals are
   expected to live with the consequences as best they can, with the law
   being placed ahead of these consequences for flesh and blood people.
   The abstraction of the law dominates and devours real individuals, who
   are considered below it and incapable of changing it (except for the
   worse). This, from one angle, shares a lot with theocracy and very
   little with liberty.

   Needless to say, Caplan like most (if not all) "anarcho"-capitalists
   assume that the current property owners are entitled to their property.
   However, as John Stuart Mill pointed out over 100 years ago, the
   "social arrangements" existing today "commenced from a distribution of
   property which was the result, not of a just partition, or acquisition
   by industry, but of conquest and violence . . . [and] the system still
   retains many and large traces of its origin." [Principles of Political
   Economy, p. 15] Given that (as we point out in [16]section F.1) Murray
   Rothbard argues that the state cannot be claimed to own its territory
   simply because it did not acquire its property in a "just" manner, this
   suggests that "anarcho"-capitalism cannot actually argue against the
   state. After all, property owners today cannot be said to have received
   their property "justly" and if they are entitled to it so is the state
   to its "property"!

   But as is so often the case, property owners are exempt from the
   analysis the state is subjected to by "anarcho"-capitalists. The state
   and property owners may do the same thing (such as ban freedom of
   speech and association or regulate individual behaviour) but only the
   state is condemned by "anarcho"-capitalism.

   Caplan:

     "On other issues, the anarcho-capitalist differs little if at all
     from the more moderate libertarian. Services should be privatised
     and opened to free competition; regulation of personal AND economic
     behaviour should be done away with."

   The "anarcho"-capitalist's professed desire to "do away" with the
   "regulation" of economic behaviour is entirely disingenuous. For, by
   giving capitalists the ability to protect their exploitative monopolies
   of social capital by the use of coercive private states, one is thereby
   "regulating" the economy in the strongest possible way, i.e. ensuring
   that it will be channelled in certain directions rather than others.
   For example, one is guaranteeing that production will be for profit
   rather than use; that there will consequently be runaway growth and an
   endless devouring of nature based on the principle of "grow or die;"
   and that the alienation and deskilling of the workforce will continue.
   What the "anarcho"-capitalist really means by "doing away with the
   regulation of economic behaviour" is that ordinary people will have
   even less opportunity than now to democratically control the rapacious
   behaviour of capitalists. Needless to say, the "regulation of personal"
   behaviour would not be done away with in the workplace, where the
   authority of the bosses would still exist and you would have follow
   their petty rules and regulations.

   Moreover, regardless of "anarcho"-capitalist claims, they do not, in
   fact, support civil liberties or oppose "regulation" of personal
   behaviour as such. Rather, they support property owners suppressing
   civil liberties on their property and the regulation of personal
   behaviour by employers and landlords. This they argue is a valid
   expression of property rights. Indeed, any attempts to allow workers
   civil liberties or restrict employers demands on workers by state or
   union action is denounced as a violation of "liberty" (i.e. the power
   of the property owner). Those subject to the denial of civil liberties
   or the regulation of their personal behaviour by landlords or employees
   can "love it or leave it." Of course, the same can be said to any
   objector to state oppression -- and frequently is. This is an
   artificial double standard, which labels a restraint by one group or
   person in a completely different way than the same restraint by others
   simply because one is called "the government" and the other is not.

   This denial of civil liberties can be seen from these words by Murray
   Rothbard:

     "[I]n the profoundest sense there are no rights but property rights
     . . . Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to
     say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where
     does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on
     property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right
     only either on his own property or on the property of someone who
     has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him in the
     premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate 'right
     to free speech'; there is only a man's property right: the right to
     do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with
     other property owners." [Murray Rothbard, Power and Market, p. 176]

   Of course, Rothbard fails to see that for the property-less such a
   regime implies no rights whatsoever. It also means the effective end of
   free speech and free association as the property owner can censor those
   on their property (such as workers or tenants) and ban their
   organisations (such as unions). Of course, in his example Rothbard
   looks at the "trespasser," not the wage worker or the tenant (two far
   more common examples in any modern society). Rothbard is proposing the
   dictatorship of the property owner and the end of civil liberties and
   equal rights (as property is unequally distributed). He gives this
   utter denial of liberty an Orwellian twist by proclaiming the end of
   civil liberties by property rights as "a new liberty." Perhaps for the
   property-owner, but not the wage worker -- "We who belong to the
   proletaire class, property excommunicates us!" [Proudhon, What is
   Property?, p. 137]

   In effect, right-Libertarians do not care how many restrictions are
   placed on you as long as it is not the government doing it. Of course
   it will be claimed that workers and tenants "consent" to these controls
   (although they reject the notion that citizens "consent" to government
   controls by not leaving their state). Here the libertarian case is so
   disingenuous as to be offensive. There is no symmetry in the situations
   facing workers and firms. To the worker, the loss of a job is often far
   more of a threat than the loss of one worker is to the firm. The
   reality of economic power leads people to contract into situations
   that, although they are indeed the "best" arrangements of those
   available, are nonetheless miserable. In any real economy -- and,
   remember, the right-libertarian economy lacks any social safety net,
   making workers' positions more insecure than now -- the
   right-libertarian denial of economic power is a delusion.

   Unlike anarchist theory, right-libertarian theory provides no rationale
   to protest private power (or even state power if we accept the notion
   that the state owns its territory). Relations of domination and
   subjection are valid expressions of liberty in their system and,
   perversely, attempts to resist authority (by strikes, unions,
   resistance) are deemed "initiations of force" upon the oppressor! In
   contrast, anarchist theory provides a strong rationale for resisting
   private and public domination. Such domination violates freedom and any
   free association which dominates any within it violates the basis of
   that association in self-assumed obligation (see [17]section A.2.11).
   Thus Proudhon:

     "The social contract should increase the well-being and liberty of
     every citizen. -- If any one-sided conditions should slip in; if one
     part of the citizens should find themselves, by the contract,
     subordinated and exploited by others, it would no longer be a
     contract; it would be a fraud, against which annulment might at any
     time by invoked justly." [The General Idea of the Revolution, p.
     114]

   Caplan's claim that right libertarians oppose regulation of individual
   behaviour is simply not true. They just oppose state regulation while
   supporting private regulation wholeheartedly. Anarchists, in contrast,
   reject both public and private domination.

   Caplan:

     "Poverty would be handled by work and responsibility for those able
     to care for themselves, and voluntary charity for those who cannot.
     (Libertarians hasten to add that a deregulated economy would greatly
     increase the economic opportunities of the poor, and elimination of
     taxation would lead to a large increase in charitable giving.)"

   Notice the implication that poverty is now caused by laziness and
   irresponsibility rather than by the inevitable workings of an economic
   system that requires a large "reserve army of the unemployed" as a
   condition of profitability. The continuous "boom" economy of
   "anarcho"-capitalist fantasies is simply incompatible with the
   fundamental principles of capitalism. To re-quote Michael Kalecki (from
   [18]section B.4.4), "[l]asting full employment is not at all to [the]
   liking [of business leaders]. The workers would 'get out of hand' and
   the 'captains of industry' would be anxious 'to teach them a lesson'"
   as "'discipline in the factories' and `political stability' are more
   appreciated by business leaders than profits. Their class interest
   tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of
   view and that unemployment is an integral part of the 'normal'
   capitalist system.". See section C.7 ([19]"What causes the capitalist
   business cycle?") for a fuller discussion of this point.

   In addition, the claims that a "deregulated economy" would benefit the
   poor do not have much empirical evidence to back them up. If we look at
   the last quarter of the twentieth century we discover that a more
   deregulated economy has lead to massive increases in inequality and
   poverty. If a movement towards a deregulated economy has had the
   opposite effect than that predicted by Caplan, why should a totally
   deregulated economy have the opposite effect. It is a bit like claiming
   that while adding black paint to grey makes it more black, adding the
   whole tin will make it white!

   The reason for increased inequality and poverty as a result of
   increased deregulation is simple. A "free exchange" between two people
   will benefit the stronger party. This is obvious as the economy is
   marked by power, regardless of "anarcho"-capitalist claims, and any
   "free exchange" will reflect difference in power. Moreover, a series of
   such exchanges will have an accumulative effect, with the results of
   previous exchanges bolstering the position of the stronger party in the
   current exchange.

   Moreover, the claim that removing taxation will increase donations to
   charity is someone strange. We doubt that the rich who object to money
   being taken from them to pay for welfare will increase the amount of
   money they give to others if taxation was abolished. As Peter Sabatini
   points out, "anarcho"-capitalists "constantly rant and shriek about how
   the government, or the rabble, hinders their Lockean right to amass
   capital." [Social Anarchism, no. 23, p.101] Caplan seems to expect them
   to turn over a new leaf and give more to that same rabble!

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append132.html#secf21
   2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append13.html
   3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html
   4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF3.html
   5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB3.html#secb31
   6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC1.html
   7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ4.html#secj47
   8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF8.html
   9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF6.html#secf62
  10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF6.html
  11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF6.html
  12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF6.html
  13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ5.html#secj511
  14. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secIcon.html
  15. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF2.html
  16. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secF1.html
  17. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca211
  18. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB4.html#secb44
  19. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secC7.html
