Archive 1 Archive 2

Usury

Socialist individualist anarchists do oppose usury and ownership of the means of production beyond what can be worked by the individual. What I added was simply showing the differences between the two types. --AFA 05:50, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

If they oppose charging interest, how do you explain Lysander Spooner here: " "All legislative restraints upon the rate of interest, are, therefore,nothing less than arbitrary and tyrannical restraints upon a man's natural capacity amid natural right to hire capital, upon which to bestow his labor." ? RJII 14:17, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Could you please provide a cite for that, and if it is true, then perhapes it should read something like "some (or most) oppose usury".AFA 04:59, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
It's from POVERTY, IT'S ILLEGAL CAUSES AND LEGAL CURES [1] What these individualists oppose is a government/banking monopoly, not banking and lending itself. They felt that anyone should be allowed to run a bank without having to get a charter from the government or other regulations. They thought if this were the case it would make capital more available and result in lower or "natural" interest rates. Some of them say that oppose "usury" but they're talking about government-enforced situations. RJII 15:16, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

disputed tag

I put a disputed POV and factual accuracy tag, because it makes the claim that "market anarchism" comes from Prouhdon, etc, and makes it look like it's only used "sometimes" for anarcho-capitalism. The claims are not sourced at all. I'm not aware of Proudon or others of his kind using the term. RJII 18:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguate or Merge

This article does not add much that is not explained better elsewhere. I propose this be a disambiguation page linking to anarcho-capitalism, mutualism and agorism, or that it be merged into one of these. Any opinions? 20:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. RJII 20:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Merge it with anarcho-capitalism and make them fight over the title. These are two views of the same phenomena exactly.
That wouldn't make much sense, now would it? Market anarchism isn't anarcho-capitalism just like anarcho-capitalism isn't market anarchism--anarcho-capitalism is but one kind of market anarchism. Market anarchism latter is simply a term used for anarchists who advocate and argue for the [totally] free market as the end and means for anarchism (just like "communist anarchism," even though this term is much more narrow). This pro-market approach distinguishes market anarchists from other anarchists. Thus, the term covers/includes mutualism, agorism, individualist anarchism (but not all of it), and anarcho-capitalism but not e.g. bakuninism or anarcho-communism.
This explanation makes sense, but if it is correct, I agree with the assertion that it should be a disambiguation page, as the present article does not add much that isn't already included in the aforementioned topics.

Why is this a seperate article when it seems to be the same as Anarcho-capitalism? Lord Metroid 20:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well the nineteenth century form, as represented by Benjamin Tucker, is usually considered distinct from anarcho-capitalism because they had a labor theory of value. But that form is not usually called market anarchism either. I've never seen a published source refer to it as market anrachism. Free-market anarchism is always used, in published sources, to refer to anarcho-capitalism. So that's a good question.Anarcho-capitalism 21:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
their should not be two pages its redundant.

I support the merge.--Eduen (talk) 07:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I would actually prefer a merge of anarcho-capitalism into free-market anarchism because the word capitalism is usually associated with statism and corporatism and is identified with protectionism and limited third party liability. (Libertaar (talk) 11:56, 11 July 2010 (UTC)).

I agree (I'm not calling myself an-cap anymore) but, alas, the governing principle is not which is less misleading but which is more in use. —Tamfang (talk) 01:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
I support a merge into "market anarchism." If the term "capitalism" is misleading, then it should not be in use. If we name the page "anarcho-capitalism," it will only prevent that change from happening. Also, "market anarchism" implies the possibilities of multiple different stateless law systems, whereas "anarcho-capitalism" implies a strict fundamentalist adherence to common law/property rights (in my humble opinion). In any circumstance, add a section onto the merged page that talks about this internal disagreement on terms.Bennytheninja (talk) 01:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
While I personally prefer free market anarchism, I think you'll have to justify merging anarcho-capitalism through it via steps recommended in Wikipedia:Primary_topic. I have a feeling there's a lot of screaming at the anarcho-capitalism article about this too, though not going over there to see. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The anarcho-capitalism article is obviously more popular. It is more edited, more visited, and more discussed. The term also enjoys usage at well-respected academic institutions (instead of free-market anarchism) such as the Mises Institute and Cato Institute. I know this because I have attended conferences with leading scholars from these places. Anarcho-capitalism is simply more favored demographically. I support this change. BennyQuixote (talk) 17:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Mutualism

I agree that Mutualism SHOULD be considered as a type of market anarchism, but are there any sources for it being called this? If not, then we can't include it in the article because that would be "original research."Anarcho-capitalism 20:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Since contemporary mutualist thinker and writer Kevin Carson, author of Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, uses the phrase "free market anti-capitalism" as kind of a motto I think it accurate to call mutualism a tradition belonging in the market anarchist camp. Also, Proudhon, the original mutualist, speaks freely about how the market can "save" the world from exploitation and oppression. See e.g. General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century.

The Molinari Institute website defines market anarchism like this: "Market Anarchism is the doctrine that the legislative, adjudicative, and protective functions unjustly and inefficiently monopolised by the coercive State should be entirely turned over to the voluntary, consensual forces of market society." That rules out Proudhon, because he never advocate privately-funded security functions. But, that's just a website. I'm looking for a scholarly definition of market anarchism.Anarcho-capitalism 20:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I found one and I put it in the intro. Like the Molinari Institute, it says market anarchists support market provided security.Anarcho-capitalism 20:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Proudhon may have supported market defense. See Spangler's essay Proudhon and Market Anarchism @[2]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jacob Haller (talkcontribs) 23:13, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
By the way, there is a definition for market anarchism available on the market anarchist op-ed news service (or something like that) Center for a Stateless Society--C4SS.org. (See their FAQ.)

Layman question

What's the difference between individualist anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, and market anarchism? Fephisto 06:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"Individualist anarchists" can refer to either of two overlapping groups; "egoists," (e.g. Stirner) not all of whom are market anarchists, and "market anarchists," not all of whom are egoists, as well as to the older tradition of anarchism in North America (e.g. Warren, Greene, Tucker, Spooner) most of whom were market anarchists and some of whom were egoists.
"Market anarchists" sometimes means "anarcho-capitalists" (which faces its own notorious definitional problems) and sometimes means all pro-market anarchists. (Anarchists in general are pro-free-association; the question is whether markets, currency, etc. drive the economy with gifts, sharing, collective consensus, etc. on the periphery, or whether gifts, etc. drive the economy, with markets, etc. on the periphery. Both-and positions, collectivism, and parecon are sometimes considered market anarchism as well.) Another definition emphasises that market mechanisms protect the society. (This definition includes most forms of mutualism and even syndicalism; it might exclude some forms of geoism).
Many but not all of the 19th-century pro-market anarchists considered themselves socialists. Warren, Proudhon, Greene, and Tucker certainly did.
Anarchism allows (voluntary) two-person trade and (voluntary) federation-wide agreements, so it's never quite clear when the market leaves off. Jacob Haller 06:36, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm guessing the word 'sometimes' is a euphenism for 'still in dispute'? Fephisto 01:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
That's one reason it's "sometimes" ... Jacob Haller 04:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

  • Oppose. I tentatively suggest that issues concerning all market anarchist philosophies should go in this page; issues concerning only one market anarchist philosophy should be removed to the individual pages. Jacob Haller 22:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose merge I don't know what the proposer was thinking, sure the two topics have some things in common but this merge is lunacries. A Featured article with this. Better to create a more comprehensive article for Market anarchism then a quick fix of mergeing. I am being bold and removes this proposal as I don't see any legitimate claim for why it would be merged. Lord Metroid 12:02, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Definition of Markets

Given (1) The term "free market" is used to denote non-coerced and non-fraudulent exchange of goods and services and (2) Market anarchism (or free-market anarchism) is a label commonly used to describe a number of individualist anarchist philosophies that assert that all the institutions necessary for the function of a free market, such as money, police, and courts, should be provided by the market itself, wouldn't, e.g., anarcho-communism meet that definition of market anarchism? Jacob Haller 05:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Probably not, but your answer will depend precisely upon how you define "market." When Warren, for example, talked about "commerce," he meant pretty much all human interactions. Plenty of social anarchist would rather not use "economic" language. It's important to note, too, that there is considerable difference between the weakest of possessory property schemes and property-in-common. Libertatia 21:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, that definition has the same ambiguity about those who don't consider money necessary, and those who don't consider police necessary, and then defining money, or police. I figure markets, currency, the idea that commerce is productive, the idea that competition can purge economic vices, etc. distinguish market and non-market anarchism (though collectivism has markets between collectives, currency within collectives, competition between economic models, etc...). If there has to be one distinguishing feature, I'd point to price signals. Jacob Haller 22:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Is there any sense in which Proudhon wasn't a market anarchist?

(Since this came up on the article page). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jacob Haller (talkcontribs) 18:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes. Proudhon did not advocate market provided defense. He defined anarchy as "a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties. In it, as a consequence, the institutions of the police, preventive and repressive methods, officialdom, taxation, etc., are reduced to a minimum." Defense would be provided by a miniarchist system funded by taxation. I believe he thought that defense would become less needed over time, over hundreds of years as people evolve, until there would be no need for defense at all. You may be tempted to change the definition of market anarchism just to fit Proudhon in but I suggest you don't. The definition has a source. All true market anarchists are market anarchists because of opposition to taxation. They like the protections services but want it to be funded voluntarily. That's the essence of market anarchism. Crashola 19:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

All true market anarchists are market anarchists because of opposition to taxation. So anarchocommunists are market anarchists, and geoanarchists aren't? It's more complicated than that. I assume you mean that opposition to taxation is one of several considerations.
Proudhon favored free association (i.e. anarchism) including free trade, markets, currency, contracts, private possession, etc. Just about any defense of market anarchism will cover Proudhon's system and just about any critique of market anarchism will challenge Proudhon's system. In his General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century, Proudhon states "instead of laws we would have contracts." In On Rousseau Bakunin, following Proudhon, emphasizes competition between different social contracts: "And since it is now proven that no state could exist without committing crimes, or at least without contemplating and planning them, even when its impotence should prevent it from perpetrating crimes, we today conclude in favour of the absolute need of destroying the states. Or, if it is so decided, their radical and complete transformation so that, ceasing to be powers centralised and organised from the top down, by violence or by authority of some principle, they may recognise -- with absolute liberty for all the parties to unite or not to unite, and with liberty for each of these always to leave a union even when freely entered into -- from the bottom up, according to the real needs and the natural tendencies of the parties, through the free federation of individuals, associations, communes, districts, provinces, and nations within humanity." Since Proudhon, and one of the least market-oriented interpreters of Proudhon, both suggest replacing the state with competing social contracts (I've only quoted two passages but there are others), it seems more likely than not that Proudhon favored the replacement of that part, as well as of the whole. Spangler looks at the same issues at http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/511 Jacob Haller 21:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Brad is noting part of a very consistent concern in Proudhon with the "economic resolution of conflict." The Selected Writings includes a section (pages 209-214) from War and Peace where he proposes an end to war by means of establishing "economic equilibrium." The attempt to use the fact that Proudhon didn't emphasize private cops as a means of marginalizing him among market anarchist is sort of amusing. Libertatia 21:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
What is amusing is your assumption that I'm trying to marginalize Proudhon, when I'm merely trying to make sure the article is accurate. Stop looking for sinister motivations and you'll make your Wikipedia experience more productive. Crashola 22:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
When I say "All true market anarchists are market anarchists because of opposition to taxation," I am saying that's what pushes them to be market anarchists. In other words, they like having police, courts, and national defense, but they don't like that it's funded by taxation. Therefore they theorize that these things can be provided by voluntary payments. That's what makes them market anarchists. I don't understand why you're bringing up anarcho-communism. Crashola 21:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
No true Scotsman fallacy. I personally know two market anarchists who oppose policing and warfare. You stated that "all true market anarchists are market anarchists because of opposition to taxation," which implies that opposition to taxation is necessary (and excludes some geoarchists, like Nock and B. Green) and sufficient (which includes even anarchocommunists, which seems to undermine the meaning of market anarchism). In any case, you haven't shown that Proudhon supported non-fee-for-service taxation. Jacob Haller 22:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying that opposition to taxation is necessary and sufficient. It's necessary but I wasn't even making the point that it was necessary. Market anarchists support market-provided defense by definition. The point I was making was that the reason why individuals choose market anarchism over minarchism, meaning market-funded defense over tax-funded defense is that they oppose taxation. Crashola 01:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Concerning geoanarchism, geoanarchists don't tax. The person who takes land is not forced to pay rent to the community. It's optional. If he doesn't pay it then he just won't receive services from the community. It's different from Georgism where payment of rent is obligatory. Crashola 22:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
to a geo-anarchist the sharing of "natural" economic rent is not optional, there are two types of economic rent. 1. "natural" economic rent which attaches to all locations as the result of exclusive use in a scarcity market. 2. "social" economic rent which is the result of public infrastructure investments as a positive externality...everyone has to share "natural" economic rent but not "social" economic rent as one can band with other contiguous landowners and secede.BeGreener 13:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Property

Concerning Josiah Warren, he just advocated that land by sold at cost in order to be "equitable." He did not espouse the idea of what you call "possession." Crashola 20:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

In Equitable Commerce he supports the ownership of improvoments but not of the natural land itself. "If improvements C have been made upon it, their cost only being paid, makes the natural wealth free and accessible to all without price." which does not suggest any preference among the three positions discussed regarding land. So I'll remove the reference to Warren there. Jacob Haller 22:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
You can't own the improvements without owning the land itself. The land is the raw material that you apply your labor to. It's the same with any other natural resource. If you improve it it's your property, in Lockean ethics. Crashola 22:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, Warren clearly supports owning the improvements but not the land. I'm not sure how he proposed to implement that. Probably not non-proviso Lockeanism. Jacob Haller 22:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Where do you see Warren say that he doesn't support owning land? That's inconsistent with anything I've ever seen from him or about him. Crashola 01:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
It's right in the passage. "If improvements C have been made upon it, their cost only being paid, makes the natural wealth free and accessible to all without price." Equitable Commerce, part 5. The only way the seller can charge for improvements, but not for site value, is if unimproved sites are accessible at near zero cost. I suppose narrowly-construed Lockean standards might achieve that... Jacob Haller 02:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
You can't transfer the improvements to the land to someone else without transferring the land itself. The improvements are made out of land. Anyway, I'm not aware of Warren ever pushing the "possession" thing where land is not owned unless you use it. He even bought land himself and sold it to settlers in his experimental villages. Crashola 04:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

As for "Intellectual Property," I know that most mutualists (including Proudhon, Tucker, and Carson) and most agorists (including Long) among others (Rothbard) have opposed IP. Spooner favored IP. Jacob Haller 23:10, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that many propertarians have endorsed abandonment standards. So many versions of Locke's system, as well as of Proudhon's system, regard long-term non-use as non-ownership. He may be persona non grata on wikipedia, but Bill Orton's "stickiness" continuum comes to mind. Jacob Haller 23:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC) In addition, An Anarchist FAQ B.3.1, goes into social-anarchist interpretations of possession. Between social anarchists and mutualists, that's most libertarian socialists. Jacob Haller 23:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You insist on mentioning the Lockean proviso. Anarcho-capitalists don't accept it. What market anarchists do? Crashola 01:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

There are two provisos with different interpretations. Homestead/abandonment considerations are a weak form, and occupancy/use standards are a strong form of one proviso. Geoism is the strong form of the other proviso. Now looking through blog posts, it seems that Roderick Long considers himself, as well as Murray Rothbard, non-proviso Lockeans. In one comment http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/290#comment-3571 Long states that:

Since most Lockeans think you lose property rights if you “abandon” a piece of property, one could say the fundamental difference between mutualists and Lockeans is a question of what counts as abandonment (a point Kevin Carson has made). If you look at it that way, it’s not obvious that mutualists are closer to Georgists than to Lockeans.

Locke had two different provisos - one was "enough and as good" and the other was the "spoilage" proviso...geoists follow the "enough and as good" proviso and mutualists follow the "spoilage" proviso because the produce left rotting in the field free for gleaners to take for personal consumption without violating property rights, is considered abandoned by the farmer.BeGreener 14:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I would think that mutualist opposition to allowing individuals to continue to own land that they're not using would be based in the "enough and as good" idea. It's not the crop rotting that they're concerned about but the land itself. Crashola 22:43, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
"enough and as good" is defined by the appearance of economic rent - why would I pay someone to locate where they are if the had left (subjectively determined) enough and as good for me to freely homestead? this is the basis of the geoist position...whereas why would I occupy and use more land than I could til and harvest if what is left in the field was free for gleaners to appropriate without violating property rights?BeGreener 02:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Among those who accept some version of private ownership, another difference is whether the possibility of common ownership is also endorsed. David Schmidtz, Carlton Hobbs, Randall Holcombe and I have all defended the position that there could and should be cases of legitimate common ownership in a libertarian society. Most Rothbardians reject this view. (I don’t mean that they reject the possibility of contractually-formed partnerships and the like, but they do tend to reject the idea of less explicit and less rigidly bounded forms of common ownership.)

Note that I'd learned homesteading/abandonment as proviso, not non-proviso Lockeanism, but that Long regards it as non-proviso Lockeanism. Kinda confusing ... Jacob Haller 03:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Anarcho-capitalist "abandonment" must be intentional. If you hold title to land you hold it indefinitely. It doesn't matter whether you use the land or not. That's not related to the priviso. The proviso has to do with how much land you acquire in the first place through homesteading. If you homestead all the land leaving none for anyone else then that would be a violation of the proviso. That's what anarcho-capitalists disagree with. Whatever you apply your labor to, you own. There is no limit. Crashola 04:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the whole section, since nothing at all was sourced. How about only adding information one bit at a time that is sourced instead of just speculating about things? Crashola 01:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Crashola is the banned sockpuppet of Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Billy Ego. -- infinity0 23:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Is that right? Crashola 00:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Free market anarchism

I think "free market anarchism" is the more common name for this in books and articles instead of just "market anarchism." Change the title of the article? Operation Spooner 19:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The "free" is superfluous -- anarchism implies the market is free. I think it's ok as is. Fritter (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Redirect proposal

This article seems to cover exactly the same things (Tucker, AnCap, etc.) as Individualist anarchism. If it differs in any respect it's in the POV presented - and POV forks should be avoided. Is there a good reason not to redirect? Bacchiad 14:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Oppose redirect per discussion above - market anarchism overlaps with, but is not encompassed by, individualist anarchism. Skomorokh incite 14:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Did you mean to say that? Market anarchism is indeed encompassed by individualist anarchism. Operation Spooner 14:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I see your point that Stirner didn't really discuss exchange in any depth and Godwin had the whole gift economy thing. The article in its current form totally sucks, though. Maybe a good start might be harmonizing the relevant sections here with the relevant sections there. Bacchiad 14:22, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
There are individualist anarchists that are not market anarchists, such as William Godwin and Max Stirner. Operation Spooner 14:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Oppose Market anarchism is a subset of the set individualist anarchism philosophies. Seperate article required Lord Metroid (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Rejection of AC

I don't think this section adds much of anything. It is essentially one person stating his vague perceptions as fact. The two links to Issues in Anarchism and Political Framing are helpful, though. Fritter (talk) 23:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

  • It's also painfully factually wrong. To quote: "Market anarchists deny that there exist capitalist states at all." - umm, no, anarchist schools of thinking use the original definition of capitalism as "concentration of (/monopoly on) capital achieved due to coertion", which outright implies that ALL states are capitalist. Squeal (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Mutualism market anarchism?

Anyone have a source for mutualism being "market anarchism?" It doesn't appear to fit the sourced definitions. Just because a form of anarchism supports markets, I don't believe that makes it market anarchism. Collectivist Anarchism (Bakunin) supports markets, but I don't think that is considered to be market anarchism. Operation Spooner (talk) 19:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I altered the wording to say "some mutualists" instead of mutualism as a whole. Operation Spooner (talk) 20:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Changing mutualists to "some" is original research. "Free market anti-capitalism" is a slogan for mutualism. Check out this link: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/faq.html It mentions that mutualists are anti-capitalist. Mutalists are somewhere between individualist and collectivist anarchism. However, this article classifies that free market anarchy is always a form of individualist anarchy. This may be false. Some free market anarchists may not be individualist anarchists.71.175.31.106 (talk) 08:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
That FAQ is not admissible as a source. And "free market anti-capitalism" does not translate as "market anarchism." About mutualists being between individualist and collectivist, yes that could be said for Proudhonian mutualism. But from what I understand there is not just one form of mutualism. From what I understand some of the American individualist anarchists were called mutualists. I haven't come across a reliable source for this though. But, it would be a different form of mutualism. By definition, Benjamin Tucker was a market anarchist, but I haven't seen a source for that. And Tucker is always called an individualist anarchist rather than a mutualist, at least in the sources I've seen. I'm not sure if Proudhon would be considered a market anarchist. Simply supporting markets does not make one a market anarchist. Otherwise Collectivist anarchism would be called market anarchism too. It appears the "market anarchism" was created for Rothbard and Friedman to refer to market security. It seems to have been applied later by some people on the internet for some other people. We just need some sources. Operation Spooner (talk) 17:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
"That FAQ" is now an admissible source, as it has been published by AK Press. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.107.38 (talk) 14:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Moving to free-market anarchism

"Free-market anarchism" seems to be the more popular name. If you do a Google search to test for the term "market anarchism" that doesn't have the "free" in front of it like this: ""market anarchism" -"free-market anarchism" -Wikipedia"" you get 1530 hits. When you test for "free-market anarchism" like this: ""free-market anarchism" -Wikipedia"" you get 6890 hits. My observation has been that the original term is "free-market anarchism," but lately "market anarchism" has been used by some people as shorthand, especially on the internet. Operation Spooner (talk) 16:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirect

Free-market anarchism is a synonym of anarcho-capitalism, as Rothbard used, so why won't we redirect? There is only one kind of market anarchism: anarcho-capitalism. Mutualism and geoanarchism has a partial mix of collectivist concepts.

The word market, is shorthand for the word free market, according to dictionaries. [3]

Some do not consider mutualists and geoanarchists market-anarchists. These are do not have "free" markets because mutualists have "possession" regulations and geoanarchists have land regulations. They are not pure socialist nor market, but mix of both. It is similar to the anarchist equivalent to a mixed economy. They advocate socialist roads and regulations.

Like in a political chart, socialists are left and capitalists are right. Similarily, socialist anarchists are left and anarcho-capitalists are right. Mutualism and geoanarchism are located in the middle of the spectrum. Therefore, the logical method is to uncategorize these two articles, since a "mixed economy" is not as far right in the spectrum as capitalism is.

Agorism is not a system. Agorism is the practice of using counter-economics to acheivve an anarcho-capitalist society. So all agorists are anarcho-capitalists, according to Samuel Edward Konkin II and some other left-Rothbardians. Even that agorism is a "kind" of anarcho-capitalism, agorism should not be included in the anarcho-capitalism article. So why should agorism included in this article?71.175.31.106 (talk) 02:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that mutualists do not support an all-ecompassing free-market economy, because they won't let people own the land they buy. But the question is do some sources consider them to be free-market anarchists? If so, then this article should exist shouldn't it? Who are you calling mutualists anyway? It is not clear who is a mutualist other than Proudhon. I see people talking on here about Benjamin Tucker being a mutualist, but I'm having a hard time finding sources for Benjamin Tucker or Lysander Spooner being mutualists. They sources I come across say they are individualist anarchists rather than mutualists. Mutualists are a hybrid between individualists and collectivists, as you point out, according to sources. Anyway, what makes someone a free-market anarchist is that they support competitive provision of security, according to the sources. So someone who didn't support land being protected from being taken away from a person, could still be a free-market anarchist according to that definition. But they wouldn't be anarcho-capitalists. Operation Spooner (talk) 14:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that some sources deny that mutualism and geoanarchism are a kind of market anarchism, while other do. If mutualists are free-market anarchists, then anarcho-socialists should too be market anarchists, because there would be anarcho-socialist communes in a market anarchist society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.31.106 (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
What are some sources that deny mutualism and geoanarchism are market anarchism? There's really not much point in this discussion without sources. Our personal reasoning is not really relevant. Operation Spooner (talk) 03:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I've seen some good sources on the Internet, but I did not have the time to find them. A majority of sources indicating that mutualism is a form of market anarchism are only Wikipedia clone pages and pages that link to wikipedia.

The pages that are not influenced by Wikipedia are mostly blog and forum pages, which are not good sources. I don't see any relevent sources suggesting that mutualism is a kind of market anarchism. Here's the link

So the best thing is to remove the word mutualism in this article.

One other thing: Voluntaryists endorse market anarchism, but it is not a subset of market anarchism. Similarily, agorists just endorse this. Why are not agorists mentioned in the anarcho-capitalism article? All agorists are anarcho-capitalists.

The content of this article should be moved to anarchism and Anarchist schools of thought.

71.175.31.106 (talk) 20:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that agorism meets the definition of anarcho-capitalism. But the problem is that it is so obscure that there are almost no published sources that mention it. To label or include it as anarcho-capitalism requires a source does it not? I haven't seen any published sources for mutualism being market anarchism. So yes mutualism probably should be deleted, unless someone can come up with some. I don't think mutualists, as a rule, support market anarchism. Some mutualists did, maybe. Benjamin Tucker wasn't an anarcho-capitalist, but he meets the definition of market anarchism. However, I haven't been able to find sources saying that Tucker was a market anarchist. Operation Spooner (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I see no relevent sources mentioning agorists supporting anarcho-capitalism, except this one and this one, but the latter source comes from a blog...71.175.31.106 (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's move to anarcho-capitalism. The other article explains Molinari, Tucker, Rothbard and David Friedman much more thoroughly and inclusively. The other article contains everything in this article except agorism and the belief in a corrupt state. Lockean homesteading, the non-aggression axiom, deontology and consequentalism, and all the other info are included there.71.175.31.106 (talk) 00:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just found a published source saying that Benjamin Tucker was a free-market anarchist. [4] You don't consider Tucker to be an anarcho-capitalist do you? Operation Spooner (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
The word anarcho-capitalism was not invented at that time. Benjamin Tucker is in the anarcho-capitalism article, so why do you want to duplicate? I do not see any sources suggesting that free-market anarchism and anarcho-capitalism are different. So he would probably identify himself an anarcho-capitalist if the term was available. Free-market anarchism is a synonym of anarcho-capitalism. This article should be moved to anarcho-capitalism.71.175.31.106 (talk) 21:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
But I just gave you a source for Tucker being a free-market anarchist. I'm not aware of any sources that say Tucker was an anarcho-capitalist. Operation Spooner (talk) 22:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Proudhon, Tucker, and more recently Carson, among others, have all identified as socialists or anti-capitalists. Tucker and Carson, among others, are generally, if not universally, considered free-market anarchists, market anarchists, free-market, etc. covering all those bases. Shunting self-described socialists into the anarchocapitalism article seems to involve excessive systematization. I think it would involve systemic bias and could involve SYN and POV. 72.66.40.17 (talk) 05:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


[5] Here you can see a didactical exposition of free market anarchismS, write by a collaborator of Mises Institute, in there free market anarchism is anarcho-capitalism, mutualism and agorism, all three. --190.154.162.130 (talk) 21:05, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, let's please re-direct to anarcho-capitalism. This is the first I've ever heard it referred to as "free market anarchism." Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 14:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Let us move it to anarcho-capitalism. They are synonymous. Madhava 1947 (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I totally disagree. Free market anarchism is not only anarchocapitalism, but also mutualism (anticapitalist free market anarchism), you also can't describe nineteenth century individualist free market anarchists as anarchocapitalists, but only put them in the free market anarchism category. If we will merge this article with anarchocapitalism - we would claim that mutualism isn't free market anarchism (clearly it is free market anarchism and anticapitalism). So, I just can't agree with total absurdity.--Kregus (talk) 13:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Google not valid, change back to market anarchism

Axioms

Symbol
Logic
Results
Search term
A
(+ "free market anarchism only" + both) + "market anarchism only" 20,200 "market anarchism"
B
(+ "free market anarchism only" + both) -

"market anarchism only"

11,200 "free market anarchism"
C
- "free market anarchism only" - both + "market

anarchism only"

2,170 "market anarchism" -"free market anarchism"

Then solve the equation:
A + B + C = 20,200
A + B - C = 11,200
-A - B + C = 2,170

Answers: {}

both is embedded in fm and m.
We have to first solve fm and m without both.
m without both is C.
Notice B and C are reciprocals.
But A is not equal to B + C.

Theorems

Symbol
Logic
Results
Method
D
+ "free market anarchism only" - both + "market anarchism only"

E
+ "free market anarchism only" - both - "market anarchism only" 9,000 A - B
F
- "free market anarchism only" + both + "market anarchism only"

G
- "free market anarchism only" + both - "market anarchism only"

H
- "free market anarchism only" - both - "market

anarchism only"

0

I agree, and furthermore the fact that one phrase has more hits than another phrase does not mean that it is a more popular phrase for the same concept. I am moving it back as there was no consensus in favour of the move. Skomorokh 02:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The above analysis is erroneous. In addition "free-market anarchism" is more encyclopedic than "market anarchism," without a doubt. Operation Spooner (talk) 03:05, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
How is it more encyclopedic? What had effectively been done is an article on one concept (market anarchism) had been moved to a title (free market anarchism) with distinct connotations (anarcho-capitalism), and then purged of any content not congruent with those connotations (Proudhon/mutualism/Geoism/agorism etc.). Skomorokh 03:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
It's more encyclopedic in that it's rare that it's referred to as "market anarchism" in reference works and books. It's nearly always "free-market anarchism." BTW, Never have I see Proudhon or goergists or mutualists referred to as market anarchists. Operation Spooner (talk) 03:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Why are you so sure that "it" is the same thing? There is the very clear and unambiguous anarcho-capitalism, which is pretty much the privatization of the state. This is distinct from the market-friendly anarchism of the LTV-espousing self-described socialists like Tucker and the anti-employment individualists like Spooner, the "land is an exception to property rights" Georgists, and the pro-market anti-capitalist mutualists such as Proudhon and Carson. You might say that what unites these is individualist anarchism, but that while arguably correct, would be to miss the point, which is that it is their favourable stance towards markets but against free-market capitalism. Examining the history of this article, it looks like any dissenting views from capitalism have been slashed or removed in an attempt to merge this to anarcho-capitalism, thereby cleansing Wikipedia of any article on market-friendly anarchism other than anarcho-capitalism. Skomorokh 14:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Ok, but "market-friendly anarchism," your term, is not the same thing as "market anarchism." Bakunin's Collectivist anarchism is market friendly too. In that, the means of production are owned in common, people people are paid and buy things in markets. But I doubt you're going to be able to find a source calling it market anarchism, though you might. We ought not try to, ourselves, classify what falls under "market anarchism" or "free-market anarchism." We need to leave it to reliable published sources. I'm not sure where the term "free-market anarchism" or "market anarchism" originated, but it appears to have first been applied to Friedman or Rothbard. It appears that some people are starting to call Tucker a market anarchist, in retrospect, but so far only one source has been found and it was just in an editor's note I believe. None have been found for Proudhon or for "mutualists" or Georgists. The definitions found for market anarchism requires a market in security, i.e. competing providers of security. Besides there not being any sources found yet, I haven't seen Proudhon or Georgists call for that. Operation Spooner (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That mathematical analysis stuff above appears to be wrong. Both in Google and Google Books, "free market anarchism" is more common than "market anarchism." Google Books is probably more reliable for parsing reliable sources, btw. (You just search "market anarchism" -"free market anarchism" versus "free market anarchism.") Jadabocho (talk) 05:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Free market anarchism mutualist?

The leading section referred market anarchism as a form of individualist anarchism. Another section claimed mutualism as a form of market anarchism. However, Wikipedia has no source referring mutualism as a kind of individualist anarchism. While this may hold for some American individualist anarchists influenced by Proudhon, such as Benjamin R. Tucker, it does not hold for Proudhon himself. I think we need to change "mutualists" to "some mutualists." 71.185.65.241 (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the criticisms section of the Mutualism (economic theory) entry contains Bakunin's rather snarky bit about "the Proudhonian mutualists who conceive society as the result of the free contract of individuals absolutely independent of one another and entering into mutual relations only because of the convention drawn up among men." It is probably the case that the "individualist" distinction should be struck from the lead paragraph, but Proudhon is featured prominently on the Individualist anarchism page. Libertatia (talk) 02:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Removing OR section

Ever since I have reverted the mutualist and the geolibertarian links, User:Libertatia has reverted the mutualist link back. However, Libertatia re-added the "geolibertarian" link on the see also section. Libertatia's re-addition of "geolibertarianism" also violates the WP:NPOV policies. No sources state "geolibertarianism" as a form of market anarchism, thus suggesting Libertaria's contribution as WP:OR. Even the geolibertarianism article itself has original research as lacks sources. To resolve Libertia's POV-pushing, I will remove the "geolibertarianism" link that he added. 71.185.237.8 (talk) 17:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Need to archive

First, the merge discussion (which I myself accidentally go into) - as well as the redirect one - are very old. So is everything else but the last topic. So we need to archive the talk so people can focus on current issues. Hearing no rational dissent, will so so soon. CarolMooreDC (talk) 00:40, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

How's this? —Tamfang (talk) 05:25, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Will wait for it to kick in. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:19, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Now we need an archive directory box. I was uncertain about the syntax to set that up. —Tamfang (talk) 07:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
The configs did split per month that did cause 1-2 threads per archive. I reverted it and re-implemented the auto-archiving with more usual parameters. --Kslotte (talk) 10:35, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
I decided to do everything manually, it is overkill to have auto-archiving when this talk page isn't active. No thread expect this one exist during this year. --Kslotte (talk) 10:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Proudhon? Mutualism?

Since markets are not synonymous with capitalism, nor mutually exclusive from socialism, why is it that the work of Proudhon - which has been around since the mid 19th century - conspicuously absent through all this talk about Rothbard - whose views are generally rejected by the anarchist mainstream as non-anarchist, for much the same reasons he had previously rejected the label himself.

Nothing here about worker cooperatives? Real-world examples of workplace anarchy in the marketplace? The idea of market anarchism has been around for a while, hasn't it? Why only the capitalist angle?

Finx (talk) 11:17, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, this article can use some work.

Especially considering it contains claims such as "The term (Market Anarchism) describes the type of anarchy proposed by anarcho-capitalism."

68.84.235.198 (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Redirect to anarcho-capitalism

This article is basically a smaller version of the article "anarchocapitalism". I don´t even see something that could be taken from here that is not already being said there. It even says "The term describes the type of anarchy proposed by anarcho-capitalism and the philosophies that prefigurated it.[1]" so as to make it really pointless for it to be a different article. On the introduction of the article "anarchocapitalism", it should simply say that "free market anarchism" is another way of saying "anarchocapitalism" --Eduen (talk) 05:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference AL was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
First, this idea already discussed and opposed here. I oppose merge or redirect. Some of material here preceeds the more recent creation of anarcho-capitalism. Also, you have to put the tag on top of the anarcho-capitalism article. Also contact the originator to see their reasons for creating the article. I don't see harm in two separate articles. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The "material" here is the same as the article "anarchocapitalism". It doesn´t matter which article was written first, the theorists, influences and "originators" of both "anarchocapitalism" and "free market anarchism" are the same ones as anyone can check in both articles, Rothbard, De molinari, USA "Boston anarchists". The content of both positions also are the same as has been said before and can be checked by anyone so no one can say that "both ideologies are just similar but came from different sources". If you can point out a single thing that is different here from "anarchocapitalism" maybe we could start a discussion but I really don´t see anything different except the title. As anyone can go and check WP:MERGE this article is a clear case in which there exists "unnecessary duplication of content, significant overlap with the topic of another page, and minimal content that could be covered in or requires the context of a page on a broader topic". What I propose is redirection to the bigger, more detailed article.--Eduen (talk) 00:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Since you still haven't put a merge template on the other article, or a note about a redirect, I did. Plus asked -- why not merge anarcho-capitalism into free market? Free market is the broader category, isn't it? Capitalism can be statist or capitalist, but a free market is a free market. And do you intend to make sure that no good information and sources used here are lost? I'm not going to go through every ref and see if it uses phrase "free market anarchism" but assume you will in your merging efforts and the final article will clearly delineate which sources call which thinkers either or both phrases and not just create and article about anarcho-capitalism, which would be offensive to those academics and activists who use the phrase free market anarchism. CarolMooreDC (talk) 13:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I agree that if we must choose one title or the other this one is preferable. —Tamfang (talk) 19:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
Happily, we do NOT have to choose one or the other and should just leave the two articles as they are to get the different flavors of libertarianism. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This might be something similar to "libertarian communism" and "anarcho-communism". 2 different ways for saying the same thing and in all wikipedias both are one article and if one writes "libertarian communism" one gets the anarcho-communism article. As i check the "anarcho-capitalism" article, it even begins this way: "also known as “libertarian anarchy” or “market anarchism” or “free market anarchism”. So as there are not separate "libertarian communism" and "anarcho-communism" articles, there shouldn´t be separate "free market anarchism" and "anarchocapitalism" articles. They are not "different flavours" really.--Eduen (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

So far we have three opinions: 1) redirect; 2) make anarcho-capitalism subset of this; 3) keep both OR make anarcho-capitalism subset of this. Not a consensus. CarolMooreDC (talk) 04:43, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

The "free market anarchism" entry quite clearly covers more than just "anarcho-capitalism." The waters are muddied by the fact that there is discussion of American individualist anarchism on the "anarcho-capitalism" page, but only as an influence on the development of anarcho-capitalism. The distinction between market-friendly anarchism and market-unfriendly anarchism is significant enough to warrant this article, just as the differences between "anarcho-capitalism" and other market-friendly forms of anarchism are significant enough to warrant separate articles. There is no particularly reason for this article to do much more than list the various varieties of market-friendly anarchism, and there is certainly no reason for the "anarcho-capitalism" article to contain a separate discussion of Tucker and Spooner, or any of the sources prior to the explicitly "anarcho-capitalist" school. Bring the individual articles up to standards and the problem goes away. Libertatia (talk) 21:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Go for it :-) CarolMooreDC (talk) 05:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Tucker and Spooner are well dealt with in both the individualist anarchism and individualist anarchism in the United States articles. The fact is that the "anarchocapitalism" article itself states that it is also known as "free market anarchism" and "market anarchism".

"The distinction between market-friendly anarchism and market-unfriendly anarchism is significant enough to warrant this article, just as the differences between "anarcho-capitalism" and other market-friendly forms of anarchism are significant enough to warrant separate articles."

Well, there is the article called "Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism" which deals with that discussion and it is rather long and detailed. That article focuses on the exact issue of "The distinction between market-friendly anarchism and market-unfriendly anarchism".

And "the differences between "anarcho-capitalism" and other market-friendly forms of anarchism" are pointed out in the individualist anarchism article where it belongs well as I find this sentence: "19th century individualist anarchists espoused the labor theory of value. Some believe that the modern movement of anarcho-capitalism is the result of simply removing the labor theory of value from ideas of the 19th century American individualist anarchists". In the "anarchocapitalism" article there is a long section called "Nineteenth century individualist anarchism in the United States" on that same issue.

And so the existence of that section on the article "anarcho-capitalism" mainly covers this differentiation you think is needed. To my taste that section is overtly long and at times it goes off topic but nevertheless covers this well.--Eduen (talk) 19:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

After two weeks there is no consensus to this second or third attempt to do this, so I think we should remove the tag. CarolMooreDC (talk) 23:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

User Tamfang before has suggested "if we must choose one title or the other this one is preferable". So lets do that as it happens that anyway "anarchocapitalism" and "free market anarchism" appear to be synomymous so it really doesn´t matter in the end. What cannot stay is one article that begins this way "Anarcho-capitalism (also known as “libertarian anarchy or “market anarchism” or “free market anarchism)" and another article which is called "free market anarchism" (!) . On top the article "anarchocapitalism" when it begins saying it is the same thing as "free market anarchism" provides a direct link to "free market anarchism". This is obviously just absurd.--Eduen (talk) 07:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Some people would find it more absurd to eliminate the anarcho-capitalism article without discussion on that page. So you'd have to bring it up there. Perhaps a change in the description to make it clear that some see them as synonymous and some see them as different would solve your problem. CarolMooreDC (talk) 15:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

well, I am not an expert on "anarchocapitalism" but the reference at the beginning supports "anarchocapitalism" and "free market anarchism" being the same thing and both articles have the same content, the same protagonists but of course "anarchocapitalism" is more detailed. I don´t know who will see them as different and so references for that will be needed but as it stands now they are synomymous just like "libertarian communism" and "anarchocomunism". And so I don´t know if it was you but i checked on the article "anarchocapitalism" and someone tried to put up a banner about the merge and they took it out and seems without much explanation.--Eduen (talk) 20:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)


Mutualism is free-market anarchism, but isn't anarcho-capitalism.--Msnake (talk) 07:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I oppose the merger: Anarcho-capitalists want a free market for everything, while free-market anarchists want a free market for the use of force (police, military, courts). You could be a free market anarchist and also have an egalitarian view on natural resources. Byelf2007 (talk) 26 August 2011

As a market anarchist I absolutely oppose the merger if this article is put under anarcho capitalism, not vice versa. I think anarcho capitalists actually want a free market, do strive for stateless society, bot often border on Voluntaryism (voluntary government or social contracts) whereas market anarchists tend away from social contracts and voluntary government beyond the individual. I also think anarcho capitalism is essentially a misnamed type of socialism, as Brad Spangler has pointed out, and is simply a school of thought with an identity crisis due to the redefinition of words in the last century like "markets" and "socialism". In this way, anarcho capitalism is a form of anarchism, but is distinct from market anarchism generally (the larger category is market anarchism, and anarcho capitalists fall under it as a niche). That being said, it's not necessary to be against property in land or in favor of cooperative worker situations to be a market anarchist as opposed to an anarcho capitalist. The differnce is what one would choose to associate with. For example, both would favor panarchist synthesis in organization and economics...but the AnCaps would prefer to associate with capital per se, whereas market anarchists may choose to associate with other forms of exchange (gift economics for instance). Whether or not market anarchists are "propertarians" is irrelelvant. It's also irrelevant whether they choose to partake in cooperatives. They may, or may not; both types exist. The same isn't true for the subset niche AnCaps, who are decidedly for property and decidedly against cooperatives. If a merge is done, it would have to be putting AnCaps under this article as a subset, not the other way around, and definately not eliminating market anarchism altogether. In the end, it's my opinion as a non-AnCap, but a full fledged market anarchist, that both are actually a form of market socialism. AnCaps are just very clumsily named. They should really do away with the name and call themselves something more accurate. I mean, how many capitalists do you know that oppose corporate personhood and say in the absence of a state there would exist no corporations? This is exactly what nearly every AnCap I've ever met (who is worth any intellectual weight) says. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.164.21 (talk) 08:24, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

This is all a bit ridiculous. I would just like to remind everyone that "anarcho-capitalism" is rejected as a form of anarchism, by the anarchist mainstream, for obvious reasons: employer/employee relationship, workplace hierarchy. So, as best I can tell, none of this article talks about market anarchism, which is a very real thing and can be read about, for example, in the article on Proudhon. It predates Marxism. Even this article existing, without clarifying this history, is a gross misrepresentation of the history, etymology and the facts surrounding anarchism and markets. In my opinion, it either needs to be merged or rewritten to explain the divide between traditional anarchism, "anarcho-capitalism" and markets. Finx (talk) 07:55, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

I support the merge! MeUser42 (talk) 07:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

People seem to forget that offline, the most popular strain of anarchism that utilizes free markets is still Mutualism, an anti-capitalist ideology. This article does not reflect that at all because it is swarmed by "internet activist" anarcho-capitalists and other capitalist related "anarchists".--Sharangir (talk) 13:12, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Part of the problem is conflicting definitions of capitalism (and differing degrees of awareness of the statist taint in Actually Existing Capitalism). Another difference, perhaps, is that "mainstream" anarchists would (if I understand right) forbid wage labor, while an-caps would neither ban it nor insist on it but greet its natural demise – as obstacles to entrepreneurship are broken down – with a smile. —Tamfang (talk) 02:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, anarchism (the way that word had always been used until the 70s in America anyway), is just as opposed to fantasy, "free-market" capitalism as Actually-Existing Capitalism. This can be seen again and again throughout anarchist history, even in the works of individualists like Tucker and Spooner, who were both explicitly socialists, despite having been kind of subverted by the right wing laissez faire types and the highly vocal new strain of internet-"anarchists" coming from Rothbard, Mises and other neoliberal influences. This article is really quite ridiculous, and should be merged, deleted or renamed if we're going to pretend to have any regard for history or just general intellectual integrity. Finx (talk) 22:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Distortions, scare quotes, and POV pushing

Rothbardanswer,

I will go through this new introduction point by point, including some older unresolved issues.

Free-market anarchism (sometimes called libertarian anarchism or propertarian anarchism)

"Libertarian anarchism" is redundant. 'Libertarian', 'libertarian socialist' and 'libertarian communist' had been used interchangeably with 'anarchist' for over 150 years.

"Propertarian anarchism" implies advocacy for private property, which applies exclusively to anarcho-capitalists, while practically all other anarchists see it as an astonishing contradiction in terms, considering that the anarchist movement had been founded on denouncing private property and capitalist ownership. See "Property is Theft!"

is an economic and political philosophy which holds that the provision of goods, services, contracts and activities should take place through voluntary market agreements rather than the state.

This is slightly less absurd than saying "all" as in the previous draft. Still, what goods? What services? What activities? The provision most of these in just about any feasible society has nothing to do with market agreements or the state. Serving thanksgiving dinner provides goods; pressing the button in an elevator for someone is a service; a promise to return a pencil is a verbal contract; brushing your teeth is an activity. The idea is probably that market anarchists want to maximize the role of markets in the economy, but this statement is either wrong or totally meaningless.

While market anarchists broadly describe the state as illegitimate and propose a stateless society, the history of "market" anarchist thought

There is no need for scare quotes. Market anarchism is the title.

it's relationship to anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-syndicalism is complicated by inconsistencies and discordances between political philosophy and economic theory (most notably in the politically libertarian economically quasi-socialist individualist anarchists of 19th century America)

POV pushing. This is written to sound like libertarianism and socialism are somehow mutually exclusive. First of all, libertarian has meant socialist everywhere in the world ever since an anarchist communist named Joseph Déjacque first published a periodical called 'Le Libertaire' in 1861. That's where it comes from. Or to quote 'paleolibertarian' (?!) Rothbard:

One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy ... 'Libertarians' ... had long been simply a polite word for left-wing [sic!] anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over ... (The Betrayal of the American Right, p. 83)

Anarchists (libertarians) rejected capitalist ownership for the same reasons they rejected the state. They denounced bosses and owners just the same way they denounced autocrats and career politicians, seeing them as workplace rulers.

Also, I don't know what "quasi-socialist" means. Do you have a reference for that? See the section "Tucker and Spooner were explicitly socialists" above. Again, they denounced wage labor, adhered to the labor theory of value, and believed workers should own and control their workplaces. In other words, they believed that the means of productions should be socially owned, considered themselves part of the socialist movement and were considered socialists by everyone else. What more do you need? This is yet more POV-pushing.

Hence there are divisions between Anarcho-capitalists, who stress the legality and priority of private property, natural rights

The borderline-religious idea that property is somehow a natural right should not just be casually thrown in like it's basic and uncontroversial. Classical liberals like Jefferson thought it was plain ridiculous, for example. And I'm not even touching anarchism, which was far more radical almost without exception. To quote Jefferson:

It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.

If you want to throw 'natural rights' around like confetti in an introduction, explain what natural rights means to Rothbard and others, because it's certainly not what natural rights are to everyone else. Continuing,

private property, natural rights and the free (sic) market

As opposed to all those other shitty-no-good anarchists who don't really want a free market, right?

voluntarists, mutualists, and Anarcho-syndicalists, who generally propose cooperative or collective ownership of the means of production and a democratic or unionized economic

I don't know where the dividing line is here, because it isn't clear from the sentence structure, but it's basically anarcho-capitalists vs. 'everyone else.' Just to rehash, mutualism is an anti-capitalist ideology, and anarcho-syndicalism is not inherently anti-market. This should be clear in the introduction.

and legal system.

Who mentioned a legal system and how does that fit into this?

I'm reverting the first paragraph and editing the second to make a clear distinction between anarchist socialists and advocates for capitalism. It's really getting tiresome to parse these every time someone wants to appropriate individualist anarchists for the ancap camp.

Here is a good and lengthy, sourced explanation on why this should not be done so casually, beyond citing influences. Of particular note, since Lysander Spooner seems to be the fallback when other prominent anarchists are shown to be clearly socialists:

For Lysander Spooner, liberty meant that the worker was entitled to “all the fruits of his own labour” and argued that this “might be feasible” only when “every man [was] own employer or work for himself in a direct way, since working for another resulted in a portion being diverted to the employer.” [Martin, Op. Cit., p. 153 and p. 172]

This is supposed to be an encyclopedic article, not an advertisement for Murray Rothbard.

Finx (talk) 05:07, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Definition of Free Market Anarchism

Should a more specific definition of free market anarchism be given in the article? For example, as defined by Roderick Long here, "Market Anarchism is the doctrine that the legislative, adjudicative, and protective functions unjustly and inefficiently monopolised by the coercive State should be entirely turned over to the voluntary, consensual forces of market society." Currently the article says that free-market anarchism "is an economic and political philosophy which holds that the provision of goods, services, contracts and activities should take place primarily through voluntary market agreements rather than the state." This definition seems rather poor, as the inclusion of the word "primarily" seems to make some versions of statism compatible with free-market anarchism (as defined in this way). It also just doesn't seem to be worded well overall. Is it grammatically correct to say "the provision of... contracts and activities..."? Someone please fix this. I recommend adding Roderick Long's definition as an improvement. Thanks. 64.223.151.21 (talk) 07:28, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you try to negotiate a mutually beneficial transaction for something of greater or equal value when you hold the door for someone? How about cooking dinner for family? Is there a check at the end? Well, those are most certainly 'activities' taking place outside the market framework. Hell, breathing is an activity that takes place outside of markets, and the above actually easily qualify as provision of goods and services. It's is most definitely a horribly written and incredibly poorly thought out introduction and I tried to salvage it best I can. I think Rothbardanswer's edits should be reverted and thrown out completely because they're based on profound misunderstandings about anarchism and, to be honest, I was just trying to be respectful before this user decided to ignore everything discussed on the talk page and start an edit war by turning this into a hagiography for laissez faire liberals and Murray Rothbard, ignoring near two hundred years of market anarchist (which is to say, anti-capitalist) history. Finx (talk) 05:01, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free-market_anarchism&oldid=527162677 this is an old version. The continual political edits turn this into a bit of a patchwork mess. Maybe you could add a praxeological emphasis and properly distinguish between the extant "anarchy of the market" (as Bolsheviks called it in disdain) that free market anarchism wants to elaborate entirely and the abstract reactionary concept of "market" socialism. Free market anarchism is primarily an anarcho-capitalist/voluntarist movement that developed from classical liberal laissez faire and individualist anarchism. I think Mutualism then comes after voluntarism (even though I like Long). I think the reactionary concept of "market socialism" either deserves its own section with criticism if it warrants space at all. (it has its own page already). Maybe add Hoppe's private law stuff :) Rothbardanswer (talk) 18:06, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the claims you are making and find this entirely unhistorical. "Anarcho-capitalism" is a marginal (outside of internet forums, practically non-existent) ideology, utterly rejected my virtually all strains of anarchism - which has always been, first and foremost, an anti-capitalist movement, founded on the pro-market socialism of Proudhon. If this article is to have "anarchism" in the title, the focus should be market socialism, mutualism and syndicalism, with ancaps as a footnote. Otherwise, please proceed with merge suggested above and rewrite history in the one article ancaps haven't been barred from editing yet, on account of willfully distorting documented history. This is just disgraceful. Finx (talk) 04:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


I've looked at this entire talk page and in the space of less than a week you've filled it with your own political opinions. I'm not going to read it all but it has to be said the purpose of a wiki article is to document an idea. In this case it's the history of the development of free market anarchism. It doesn't matter if you object to the way dead philosophers and economists use the word or how popular their ideas became. If you're offended by the article then don't read it. Stop badgering everyone to change their cited contributions to an article THAT IS about something you seem to dislike. Wikipedia isn't hear to definition things out of existence. If you continue to be so blatantly non-neutral and openly talk about vandalising text you dislike I'll have to report you. Rothbardanswer (talk) 09:36, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Please show me anywhere that I've indicated my personal political opinion on anything. I'm tired of correcting your blatantly false and deliberately misleading, unsourced historic fabrications. You've been warned a dozen times for edit warring, vandalizing and spouting completely unsupported claims, ostensibly to aggrandize the political idol you've decided to name yourself after. Go ahead and report me. In fact, I encourage you to do it. I doubt that scrubbing your user talk page of the complaints lodged against you is going to fool anybody. Finx (talk) 14:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I was warned TWICE for edit warring on the liberalism page. That was before I even knew what edit warring was! Sourced material was being routinely deleted by people pushing a political point. The actual issue was over the inclusion of Spanish Scholastics. That's it. It was another technical issue that offended the political sensibilities of an editor. Why don't you show me one paragraph you've written where you aren't just going on and on passing judgment and criticising philosophers you dislike. It's irrelevant. You don't have any valid criticisms of the contributions other than your own politics. Show me one paragraph where you demonstrate knowledge of what free market anarchy even is. Your main source was a youtube video. I watched it. It outlined anarcho-capitalism! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rothbardanswer (talkcontribs) 14:46, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you please tell me which statements in my edits you disagree with so that I can provide any missing sources? Let's be concrete about this, if you believe I am misrepresenting something. Finx (talk) 15:01, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Every criticism you make in these talk pages is a criticism of the philosophy or economic theory (that you don't get) expressed by primary sources. Your contribution to the lead was to delete cited contributions without explanation and add "broadly" and pass judgment and push your own political opinion that free market anarchism is only "purportedly" stateless. I shouldn't have to explain political philosophy to you but individualism and libertarianism aren't egalitarian movements. That's why its called libertarian. People are free to be different in a stateless society. Here's some texts you deleted: [6], [7], [8]. You've actually ruined the lead. This isn't an article on socialism. If you want to understand what free market anarchism is you can read any of the intellectual literature from before the fall of the soviet union. Read Einstein's "shy socialism". He talks about rejecting the "anarchy of the market". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rothbardanswer (talkcontribs) 15:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't remember ever offering a single criticism of the 'philosophy' or 'economic theory' (that I apparently "don't get") on this talk page or anywhere else. I am not interested, for the purposes of this article, in how valid Rothbard's ideas are. What I criticized was the misrepresentation of 200 years worth of writers and activists who either self-identified as or were broadly considered 'market anarchists.' I thoroughly explained every one of my edits on this talk page and in the edit summary, and provided numerous sources. For example, here is an article (which I have linked earlier) explaining the origins of the word 'libertarian' and describing how 'libertarian' has been interchangeably used with (anti-capitalist/socialist) 'anarchist' for over 150 years. Murray Rothbard had confirmed the same, which I had also quoted and sourced:
One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, 'our side,' had captured a crucial word from the enemy ... 'Libertarians' ... had long been simply a polite word for left-wing [sic!] anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over ... -- The Betrayal of the American Right, p. 83
Therefore, it is not appropriate to characterize libertarianism as pro-capitalist -- much less exclusively pro-capitalist. The common American meaning of libertarianism (eg: CATO, US Libertarian Party, etc) represents a very recent and globally still very marginal re-interpretation of that word. Concerning "purportedly" -- it means exactly what it means. As we have clearly established, market anarchism means very different things to different people. It means a society without capitalism (private ownership of the means of production) to the vast majority of anarchists who had historically been proponents of markets, and unimpeded capitalism to a small minority of people who (as of the mid-late 20th century) self-identify as anarchists: the anarcho-capitalists. Now, each of the groups, however disproportionate, denies that the other 'truly' desires a stateless society. Traditional anarchists (of the types prior to Murray Rothbard) deny that laissez faire capitalism can ever be stateless for reasons that should be blindingly obvious if you've studied anarchist history: they see anarcho-capitalistm as an extreme, radical form of statism that seeks to privatize the state and make it wholly unaccountable. This point of view is explained here. Anarcho-capitalists hold the same position towards anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism and market socialism, as stated by Murray Rothbard, for example in the same piece where he stated "we must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground" where he expressed that "current anarchists are irrational collectivists" who, in his view, wish to subject people to their own brand of pseudo-statist coercion.
Therefore, it seems fair, in accordance with WP:NPOV, to characterize market anarchism as "purportedly" stateless -- since both sides, even though one of them is given far more weight than it deserves in this article, believe the other side is not representative of a stateless society. That distances the article from passing judgement on validity of those claims, since that is not what an encyclopedic article is for. You should note that nowhere have I opined on which ideology I think is correct. Do you have any other objections? Finx (talk) 16:16, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

the zaxlebax problem

... some anarchists ... consider themselves anti-capitalists and oppose private ownership of the means of production, instead insisting on their cooperative or collective ownership and management ...

Does this include Kevin Carson and Roderick Long? Both, I think, describe themselves as anti-capitalist, using the term capitalism as Marx did: a system of political privileges to existing firms, at the expense of both labor and competition. Opposition to capitalism in this sense does not require collective ownership. —Tamfang (talk) 05:37, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The conventional definition of capitalism is basically "private ownership of the means of production." Carson is apparently an anti-capitalist in the normal sense, just on the market-ish side. I'd have to dig into Long's views to understand why he's throwing the word 'capitalism' overboard though. By association with the 'Ludwig von Mises Institute' -- I suspect the views are just laissez-faire/neoliberal capitalist, but I guess he just doesn't like the word for some reason. I guess the phrasing could be clearer that this generally includes 'individually owned' means of production (eg, craftsmen and such) but I thought maybe this would be confused with private/absentee ownership. Finx (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Merge or convert in a disambiguation page

The content of the article is a description of anarcho-capitalism with another terms, or what political history use to expose as examples of libertarian anarchism before libertarian anarchism. This last is an extemporaneous interpretation from modern intelectuals and is enough for the section of "precursors" in the article about anarcho-capitalism or by extension for the interpretations about what was historical free-market anarcho-individualism (now defunct) in the article about anarcho-individualism. This separated article "free-market anarchism" is almost primary source and haven't enough enciclopedical relevance, and the very defenses of its permanence are especulations from some Wikipedia editors not reducted to expose several/reliable sources.

Another defenses of this separated article using sources of isolated authors aren't sequent to the relevance politics of Wikipedia and therefore should no longer be used. That's only a good idea for write in the Wikipedia article of the isolated author about his/her use of of the term "free-market anarchism", no more. Language is a social practice, remember that.

The second solution I propose is to make this entrance to a disambiguation page, citing in first place the primarily social use of the expression "free-market anarchism" that refers to anarcho-capitalism and convergent ideas. I suposse the other uses in the list of the disambiguation page could be a matter of another discussion. --Sageo (talk) 00:29, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

What does "social use" even mean? There's about two centuries worth of history identifying market anarchism with socialism. Anarchism began, though not exclusively, as a pro-market and anti-capitalist movement, despite the neoliberal attempts to appropriate the term. This is thoroughly documented and sourced in dozens of wikipedia articles. I support the merge by the way. As far as this page, it should be a redirect to the anarchism article -- not "anarcho-capitalism" which is marginal and barely even worth a mention. Finx (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Neoliberal attempts to appropriate the term? You do see the irony behind using that phraseology, being that classical liberalism is in line with "markets" being synonymous with free association, thus what you arbitrarily label as "private" is what exists without the presence of coercive force. You're emotional disdain for anarcho-capitalism is evident, which subjects your credibility to lacking objectivity; and thus ignored. Objective Reason (talk) 09:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
Anarcho-Capitalism and Freemarket Anarchism are not necessarily the same. Anarcho-capitalism is a form of freemarket anarchism, but freemarket anarchism exists in forms other than anarcho-capitalism. The term "anarcho-capitalism" refers specifically to the ideology founded by Murray Rothbard, whereas freemarket anarchism has existed for centuries before; some of the notable thinkers being Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. Anarcho-capitalism or Rothbardianism considers itself a Right-wing ideology, whereas Agorism and similar movements consider themselves Left-wing. Furthermore, an "Anarcho-capitalist" (Rothbardian) is not necessarily a fundamentalist Anarchist, they may engage in politics in the belief of eventually moving towards statelessness. Whereas, Agorism and other forms of Market Anarchism are against any form of state politics/involvement. 24.90.230.216 (talk) 00:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Tucker and Spooner were explicitly socialists

This article misrepresents two anarchist individualists, Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner, as capitalists. In actuality, their views closely follow those of Proudhon and even older, anti-capitalist classical liberal strains of thought, as described in this documentary on American anarchism and thoroughly detailed in the Anarchist FAQ. They denounced wage labor, adhered to the labor theory of value, and believed workers should own and control their own means of production, which is the core tenet of socialism. This is a grossly misinformed account of people who considered themselves part of the socialist movement, and I am correcting it, if this article is not to be renamed, merged or deleted, as in my opinion it should be. Finx (talk) 22:17, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I confess I don't understand the tenet "workers should own and control their own means of production." Does it mean that a tool, no matter who made it, becomes the property of whoever picks it up and uses it? Or that no one should use tools unless he can buy them? Or merely that it's better to be a free lance, with one's own toolbox, than an employee? —Tamfang (talk) 00:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
This is a complicated and multifaceted topic, and there's no single definitive answer but no, it's not just honorific. It describes the same sort of thing Marx talked about, eg: who owns the factories and to what end. If you want to go by the original classical liberal views, the answer clearly draws the line short of capitalism. The standard concept of liberty, as put forward by John Locke and Adam Smith, specifically meant self-agency and being entitled to the fruits of your own labor, rather than just leasing one's labor out to a paymaster - which they (many classical liberals) held in great contempt. Their liberty was the liberty to be in charge of one's own labor. The anarchist movement, beginning with people like Proudhon (who was an advocate of markets by the way) only became more explicit about it and focused on private tyranny. So, if there's an arbitrary line in the sand, it's probably division of labor. That's conservative. Most anarchists (I guess I have to keep saying - in the 'traditional' sense) typically go much further and advocate to either abolish private property or redefine it to mean something radically different from capitalism - focusing instead on use and occupation. This doesn't necessarily mean, at all, a rejection of markets. But if your labor did not come with the right to self-management and you don't get to keep what you make, I'm not aware of any individualist anarchists who considered that acceptable. However they thought it should work, they advocated for some type of social ownership of the means of production. Hence, they were considered and considered themselves socialists. Finx (talk) 00:21, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Finx, I'm not an expert with respect to these issues, but after reviewing your proposed edit/your points here, I agree with you. I'd advise you wait another day or two before reverting my revert to provide a little more time for others to review your proposal. Thanks for the great work! Byelf2007 (talk) 20 June 2012
I don't mind waiting, but really I think my edit was not sufficient. Looking through the history of this article and its revisions, I think something has to be said, at the risk of sounding like I just want to hurl rotten eggs at this thing. In the main article on anarchism, one of far better quality, notice how there is precisely a one single cursory mention of "anarcho-capitalism." Considering Wikipedia's criteria for undue weight, one could make a very solid argument that this is one more mention than it deserves. For a strain of anarchism mainly consigned to blogs, internet message boards and the works of a gentleman who all but admitted that the label was a put-on, just as he gloated that the right wing ideology had "captured a crucial word from the [left-wing] enemy," I'd say this school of thought has an unbelievable amount of representation on Wikipedia. What I see all over, perhaps after some people were denied a full re-writing of the main article on anarchism, is a bizarre patchwork quilt of strange and confused appropriations - classical liberals, laissez faire liberals, socialist individualists - stitching together a hagiographic historical tribute to the anarchist movement that never was. Please consider that the first self-proclaimed anarchist was a market advocate - and also viciously anti-capitalist. How this article managed to stay up for so long boldly designating Tucker and Spooner anarcho-capitalists is no less baffling to me than how it ignores market anarchist history, hand-waving Proudhon (zero mentions), with a big portrait of Gustave de Molinari (what?) right under the "history" section. I understand that anti-state capitalism has a history, and I understand that nobody owns the word "anarchist," but I really think a wee bit of perspective is in order. Perhaps, a section on capitalist and anti-capitalist strains would be interesting here? I think there's a lot of room to compare and contrast ideas. Within Wikipedia's guidelines, of course, this could be a great article to shed some light on exactly what a free market is supposed to mean. Finx (talk) 03:55, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Adding the following references, on how both Tucker and Spooner were anti-capitalists because this keeps creeping up again and again:

For Lysander Spooner, liberty meant that the worker was entitled to “all the fruits of his own labour” and argued that this “might be feasible” only when “every man [was] own employer or work for himself in a direct way, since working for another resulted in a portion being diverted to the employer.” [Martin, Op. Cit., p. 153 and p. 172]
every man, woman, and child... could ... go into business for himself, or herself — either singly, or in partnerships — and be under no necessity to act as a servant, or sell his or her labour to others. All the great establishments, of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number of wage labourers, would be broken up; for few, or no persons, who could hire capital, and do business for themselves, would consent to labour for wages for another. -- Spooner, Lysander. A Letter to Grover Cleveland. p. 41.
The two principles referred to are Authority and Liberty, and the names of the two schools of Socialistic thought which fully and unreservedly represent one or the other of them are, respectively, State Socialism and Anarchism. Whoso knows what these two schools want and how they propose to get it understands the Socialistic movement. For, just as it has been said that there is no half-way house between Rome and Reason, so it may be said that there is no half-way house between State Socialism and Anarchism. -- Benjamin Tucker, Woodcock, edited by George (1986). The Anarchist reader. [London]: Fontana. p. 150. ISBN 0006861067. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)

Honestly hope that will be the end of that, because I'm getting tired of having to explain that anarchism has always been a socialist movement. Finx (talk) 23:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Original research

This article is an essay, check Wikipedia:Original research. An article in Wikipedia couldn't be a collection of opinions of the wikipedians themselves. This is not the same case of merge petition, I'm saying that this content is an essay. There aren't reliable sources that support the definitions and taxonomies that this article shows. Even, this article induces to think the term "market anarchism" is a historical one when it is contemporary. --Sageo (talk) 04:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Per example, the section "internal disputes" is apocryph, in the history of political thinking never existed a clash between "tuckerites" and "rothbardians". That affirmation is anacronic, and not representative of the several political discussions of both philosophies. The article doesn't explain that "market anarchism" is only an alternative libertarian term for anarchist brand of libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism), not a political philosophy itself, and checking publications the term probably was created and used little decades ago in some libertarian magazines and without very deep intelectual pretentions (it's seems to be only an alternative term used occasionally). This article also makes a connection of american liberal anarcho-individualism of 19º century with anarcho-capitalism in a non-encyclopedical way as branches of a same thing, not like a philosophical resemble realized a posteriori as a possible precedent as is explained in another Wikipedia articles.
An article should expose the outstanding use of the term, not what wikipedians think should the the "right use". I think "market anarchism" entry don't have enough encyclopedical relevance because is only an alternative name for anarcho-capitalism and probably for ancient american liberal anarcho-individualism (what should be proved as a significant use). Maybe could be only an entry in Wicktyonary, or maybe a disambiguation page, or only a redirection. But first, what I want is that you realize that the current article is an essay, a non-encyclopedical entry. --Sageo (talk) 05:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
I think, same as you, that the 'Tuckerite/Rothbardian' section should be removed or rewritten, however you've made no direct references to primary sources. As far as your assertion that 'market anarchism' is another way to say 'anarcho-capitalism' -- I don't see a single shred of evidence to support that. As the intro states, the founders of market anarchism (which is to say, anarchism advocating free-market systems) -- Proudhon, Tucker and Spooner -- were libertarian socialists, which is to say anti-capitalists, who wished to abolish the capitalist system. There are several academic sources to support this in introduction. The American phenomenon of the neoliberal redefinition of 'anarchism' and 'libertarianism' is of very marginal interest to this topic. Finx (talk) 05:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Here is no support for this essay. No evidence that this definitions and taxonmies are recognized like the principals, no evidence that those authors were part of the same political school. This article is making a revisionist, a posteriori, a-historical, interpretation of the term. Check no sources about what is "market anarchism" itself, and no several sources before 2000s that mention the term. I suggest this article should redirect to anarcho-capitalism or should be converted in a disambiguation page to "a term used to refers": anarcho-capitalism, american 19º century anarcho-individualism, and lef-libertarian anarchism. To the date, this is an essay. --Sageo (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Please see the talk pages I mentioned earlier, including this one, for the reasons why "market anarchism" is not a synonym for "anarcho-capitalism." By my count, there's four academic sources backing up the anti-capitalist market advocacy of Proudhon, Tucker and Spooner (individualist anarchists were generally outspoken anti-capitalists) and an absurd amount of sources in other articles that the mostly internet-based phenomenon of "anarcho-capitalism" is not considered a form of anarchism by anyone except self-described "anarcho-capitalists." Reverting your templates again, because for all the angry accusations, you still haven't pointed to any use of primary sources or original research. "I don't like anarchism that advocates free markets" is not a reason to mark this article for OR. Finx (talk) 09:02, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
I had explained it very times. For the date, this article is original research. No description or taxonomies or suposed conflicts used here had been referenced. The article take some information and sources about isolated issues and then build an original history. Provide secondary and reliable sources where the authors use the term "market anarchism" for know which is the normal use. Don't remove again the templates about original research or you will be denounced. What I suggest is that if this situation doesn't change we should convert this page al least in a disambiguation page (if is so 'sensitive' the re-direction, that for me is most accurate action, but we can dialogue). --Sageo (talk) 19:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Just to be perfectly clear, you are contending that the principal founders of anarchism, like Proudhon, Tucker and Spooner, who advocated a political economy built on the cornerstone of markets and market exchange are not relevant to the topic of "market anarchism" -- is this correct? I am once again removing your template because you are refusing to back up your claims of OR/PS -- probably because there are no primary sources what-so-ever and zero original research. As for the redirect, no, I still do not agree that this should be a centerfold advertisement for a marginal internet cult. A redirect to Anarchism proper, or even Mutualism, would make some amount of sense. Finx (talk) 03:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Response with sources. Sources that support the existence of a separated theory called "market anarchism", that explain the origin of the term, and that make the definitions or taxonomies explained in this article. Don't remove template until a consensus been achieved. --Sageo (talk) 14:13, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Let me know where I should put these:
  • Benjamin Tucker called himself a "laissez-faire Socialist" and belonged, along with many other free-market anarchist advocates (mostly in New England), to the First Workingmen's International
    • The Journal of Historical Review. 8 (2): 241. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  • Victor Yarros explained the understanding of the word "anarchism" of the market anarchists such as Tucker, himself, and others [note: both anti-capitalists]
    • Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Boston: MobileReference.com. 2007. ISBN 1605010995.
  • Proudhon is generally known as a mutualist anarchist for his vision of cooperative groups of small scale artisans combining market mechanisms with collective social arrangements.
    • Ferguson, Kathy E. Emma Goldman political thinking in the streets. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 153. ISBN 1442210486.
  • Free Market in Western culture James G Carrier. Liberty anarchist ideas were presented and debated from 1881 to 1908 (McElroy 1981: 7-39). Tucker was initially attracted to anarchism through contacts with Josiah Warren, William B.
    • Carrier, edited by James G. (1997). Meanings of the market : the free market in Western culture (1. publ. ed.). Oxford: Berg. p. 107. ISBN 185973149X. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  • Benjamin R. Tucker (1854-1939) was the leading American anarchist of the late nineteenth century. Like Warren, he also saw his ideas as socialistic, although he was much more committed to the free market, and even believed his socialistic ...
    • Adams, Ian (2001). Political ideology today (2nd ed. ed.). Manchester [angleterre]: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719060206. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

By the way "market anarchism" isn't a "theory" - just like "market socialism" isn't a "theory"; it's a compendium of anarchist ideas advocating market systems. If you're finished retaliating for me removing your 'market anarchism' -> 'anarcho-capitalism' redirect, please remove the templates at your convenience, unless you want to provide some examples of actual OR/PS/etc. Finx (talk) 06:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, what we can see its that the use of the term haven't many years, few decades, it's not a term used by those ancient authors to refers themselves or their theories. (Only two) references mention the use of the term to refers to 19º century american anarcho-individualism, the last explain ancient american anarcho-individualism without using the term. The others sources only mention the word market - and been the word market so common, that is not a relevant proof of the use of the term. Check again "original Research" policies and the announce of the template: "This article or section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources." That is the problem. Also we have to check the uses of the term, as synonymous of or refering to anarcho-capitalism:

According to free-market anarchism, all the fundamental institutions necessary for the market to function—money, police protection, and even justice—would themselves be "for sale on the market." Democracy, Markets, and the Legal Order: Notes on the Nature of Politics in a Radically Liberal Society (1993) Cambridge Journal

The Production of Security ... was the first presentation ... of what is now called "anarcho-capitalism" or "free-market anarchism. Murray Rothbard (1977) The oldest use I find Prologue to The Porduction of Security of Gustave de Molinari

Anarchism advocates the dissolution of the State into social and market arrangements, and these arrangements are far more flexible and less predictable than political institutions. Society without a State, Rothbard (1975) I show this source only to contextualize the age when concepts "anarchism" and "market" began to be together, in this paper even "anarchism" is used as a synonymous of "anarcho-capitalism".

This position is generally know as "market anarchism" or "anarcho-capitalism". Roderick Long and Tibor Machan (2007), book of debate, Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?

I shall maintain, one, that anarcho-capitalism and minarchism are logically incompatible. And then This implies free-market anarchism, and thus a rejection of minarchism, since with the right of secession. Walter Block (2007). A paper in response of the book, where "free-market anarchism" is an alternative term for "anarcho-capitalism".

What we have to the date, is that "free-market anarchism" is a not so old term. Many times had been used as synonymous of anarcho-capitalism, probably from the 1970's. And other sources, even more recent (10 years ago like it seems), used retrospectively that term to refers the ancient liberal american anarcho-individualism. For the date, what we have is a very recent synonymous for two historically separated political streams. So I think the redirection is not an option, but a disambiguation page to anarcho-capitalism and to american 19º centtury liberal anarcho-individualism. Maybe should begins like this, "Free-market anarchism is a contemporary political term used to refers:". We haven't sources for more that this.--Sageo (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

"Ancient"? Aside from the fact that it's self-evident that "market anarchism" refers to anarchism advocating markets, the article already clearly states that ancaps self-applied the term to describe themselves as 'market/free-market anarchists.' The term is also obviously used to describe anti-capitalists, both past and present. Would you like yet more references? The "anarcho-individualism" you describe was anti-liberal (I hope I don't have to defend why) and refers to mostly pro-market, individual-oriented libertarian socialists who wanted to dismantle the capitalist system. For the sake of clarity and intellectual honesty, it matters to make it clear that it can refer to advocates for capitalism or, more commonly, advocates for abolishing capitalism. If you want to make that into a disambiguation page, I think that's a good idea, personally. The dominant anarchist strains are anti-capitalist, so I would suggest something like "this could mean: anarchism proper, mutualism or anarcho-capitalism." That would cover individualists, muties and ancaps. Finx (talk) 10:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Here in Wikipedia we shouldn't make philosophy of our own beliefs or a reflect of our own intelectual constructions. My point is not about which is the "real anarchism" or the support of capitalism, or what is a capital and market, or about what are the dycotomies we use personally, is about the term "market anarchism" and the content of this article that isn't sourced, but is a synthesis of the sources, and that is original research. So, if we agree in a disambiguation page it shouldn't be a synthesis, that would be a repetition of the same problem of this article but in little scale. In that sense the dycotomies of "capitalism or no-capitalism" aren't relevant for the typical use of the term following the sources. The sources only show two uses for the term "free-market anarchism": first in cronology for anarcho-capitalism (1970s), and then few years ago (2000s) retrospectively for 19º century american liberal anarcho-individualism (I say "liberal" because of the conexions with classical liberalism, and to diference inside all the ancient streams, but the link should be to the name of the article in Wikipedia). Others uses and taxonomies/dychotomies are personal or sectorial synthesis and shoudn't be allowed in articles, less in polemical ones. Note: check that the assert that european mutualism is also "free-market" oriented is a revisionist assert from fringe primary sources (blogs), and is very dificult to find it accepted in reliable sources, check also that conceptually is not the same to say "market mechanism mixed with 'collective' arrangement" than to say "free-market at all arrangement". That is matter of another kind of discussions about social cooperation. --Sageo (talk) 14:21, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
I propose this draft, following this discussion and the reliable sources: Free-market anarchism is a contemporary political term used: a) As a synonymous of anarcho-capitalism as free-market of law. b) To identify retrospectively some economic proposals inside 19th century American individualist anarchism. --Sageo (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
First of all, I don't remember sharing with you any of my personal beliefs or "intelectual constructions" -- at all. None of your (quickly changing) objections apply even slightly to the content of the article. There is no synthesis here what-so-ever. I've given you several sources which stated -- plain as day -- that anti-capitalists are called "(free-)market anarchists" and offered to provide more. It's clearly relevant that anarchism -- which has always been movement to abolish capitalism -- splits into self-identified pro and anti capitalist "market anarchist" strains. Your chronology makes no sense at all. There's 150 years of anarchist history, where some strains were clearly identified as pro-market anarchism and a recent extremely marginal phenomenon of some right-wing ultra-capitalists of the Rothbardian variety self-identifying as (market) anarchists. Furthermore, individualist anti-capitalists were just one strain of pro-market libertarian (aka, anarchist), with Mutualism being the bulk of the history -- from Proudhon to present day (why do you keep saying "ancient"?) -- you can go to the Mutualism page and see plenty of literary sources, as I've given you above. I am not on board for intellectual distortion, politically motivated or otherwise, sorry. Finx (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Please, Not again with "capitalism vs socialist" issue, not again with "which theory comes first" issue, no again with "which theory is more popular", not again with "wchich theory is wrong" or even "which theory is evil". That are the issues what I was taliking about. Please don't make the talk page an ideological forum. I'm not saying that you do it to make distortion, is just a confusion about the nature of the articles, I suposse that this synthesis article is the product of many users trying to expose their own ideas or blogger theories, forgotten that this article is not about their ideas but ABOUT the term "market anarchism". Please focus in the term and the sources of its origins and uses, for get a faster consensus. Now, to advance in the aggrement, check in what we have commons points: the article should disappear, but no to a redirection but a disambiguation page that mention at least anarcho-capitalism and the 19th century american individualist anarchism. For me that is enough, because if we extend the links to synthesis uses that could be apocryfal and that's not accurate in Wikipedia. --Sageo (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Alright -- since your complaints apparently have nothing whatsoever to do with anything except baseless personal accusations that I'm pushing some sort of personal ideological agenda, as you ignore absolutely everything I say and brush aside valid references, I guess I'll be taking down your templates now. Please don't revert again without any reason. Regarding consensus, this is not a way to beat it when everyone reverts your ancap redirect and you're unhappy about it. Finx (talk) 23:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't remove template before consensus, that is broke the rules. We should solve the problem of this essay. We get a first consensus that this article is wrong and should be a disambiguation page (it's a contradition to remove templates after both get to the conclusion of make a disambiguation page). So, I talking about stop making synthesis, even for a disambiguation page. I'm talking about just include internal links for the uses of the term "free-market anarchism" that have been referenced and reliable sourced (for the moment two uses, all contemporary). If there is another used reliable sourced have to be included, but for the moment it isn't, the aditional uses that you have proposed are synthesis. But you can search for sources for prove another uses, that is no the problem, the problem is to make synthesis with the sources. --Sageo (talk) 15:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Nozick

The article would be improved by additional WP:RS discussion of Nozick's view, stated in the criticism section. Nozick's view is the consensus view today across the ordinary spectrum of thought from left to right. SPECIFICO talk 22:55, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to remove this article and redirect it to "anarchist economics"

There is already an article on anarchist economics. It covers a broad spectrum of ideas, including those of marginal, self-labeled anarchists like anarcho-capitalists. I propose that this article be deleted, to end the constant bickering and relentless attempts at appropriation of the term, and redirected to "anarchist economics" after expanding some of its market-related topics with what can be salvaged from this article. Finx (talk) 15:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Both have showed enough references to at least say that the term "free-market anarchism" is more restricted that the so wider "anarchist economics". Lets order what we have of the literal use of the term: a) a synonym of anarcho-capitalism probably emerged in late 1970's (not as a type of "free-market anarchism" but as a synonym), schoolary referenced, maybe the oldest use of the term b) as a way to identify retrospectively precursors of anarcho-capitalism in West Europe and North America (like Faucher, Molinari, Spencer, Spooner, etc) as some anarcho-capitalist theorist allegate, also a use emerged probably since the late 1970's, c) as a way to identify retrospectively a "market tradition" (a kind of historiographical use) inside the 19th century intelectual phenomenon of American individualist anarchism (Boston anarchists, and fellows), as some dispersed authors allegate from diferent political paradigms; also schoolary referenced and in any level seems that use B overlaps use C or in contrary d) no literal uses of the term, philosophical interpretations of the use of the term, that relates the term with mutualism (even european mutualism, something not seem accepted by historian of classical anarchism), but with no evidence of historical use or retrospective use (for now), e) maybe could be an a posteriori synthesis made by some blogger thinkers in Internet to try to "concile" or "unify" theories that never before were one: anarcho-capitalism, old school anarcho-individualism, mutualism, and left-libertarianism with an upper term "free-market anarchism", that's my theory of the existence of this article. But even if we cite this use in the case that we get reliable sources of an extended use in this sense, this conciliatory or unifying and later use should be cited as one more use not the first or principal one. I propose to continue trying to find a way to be descriptive of the use of the term for a disambiguation page. Another point, lenguage is dinamic, I don't think Wikipedia should be worried about a subjective judge of an "appropiation" of a neologism from the 1970's. --Sageo (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


  • "[...]These champions of individualist or free market anarchism have expressed very real asperations [sic] of masses" [...] "and that market anarchism would be [...]"
  • Anarchy. Freedom Press. 1974. pp. 9, 189. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • [edit: correct publication year is most likely 1974, though the excerpt must be older, describing a "recent" volume of Daniel Guérin ]
  • "For a most adamant argument against market integration on the basis of the socialist ideology of market anarchism, see Alekseev, A. and Savenko, Ju."
  • [Describing SDS conference/workshop -- ] "[the fifteen participants' views] ranged from free market anarchism to technocratic planning [...]"
  • "Michael Zweig [NOTE: founding member of SDS and, obviously, not an ancap ] of the Stony Brook faculty of the State University Samuel Bowles, son of the former Ambassador to India, is in of New York calls himself a free-market anarchist"
  • "As an anarchist he maintained [...] “distribute itself in a free market in accordance with the natural“ "
  • Madison, Charles A. (1943). Benjamin R. Tucker: Individualist and Anarchist. New England Quarterly. p. 456.
  • "This applies more to the Anarchist-Communists than to the more individualistic types, until the other extreme we meet that kind of laissez faire Anarchism which rests on a no less emphatic faith in the in the 'natural law' and 'free market'."
  • Cole, George Douglas Howard (1957). Socialist thought, Marxism and anarchism, 1850-90. St. Martin's Press. p. 360.
I'll be blunt. You are arguing for fraud. If anything here resembles, as you have claimed, original research, synthesis, or an essay, it's your attempts to stitch together a dishonest etymology of "market anarchism" -- which quite obviously, no matter the source, always simply refers to ideological strains described (or self-described) as anarchist advocating market systems. No matter how many times you insist otherwise, assuming that market anarchism has something to do with markets and, no less importantly, anarchism will not become some sort of wild, speculative claim. Finx (talk) 14:04, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Oppose: This ref reads: The generic term “market anarchism” is sometimes used to include both anarcho-capitalism and the market-friendly varieties of more traditional individualist anarchism.
Obviously these terms are used interchangeably by some and I can't say off hand which is the most popular. But there definitely needs to be an article since many people reject using the term anarcho-capitalism and call themselves some sort of market anarchist or other. So you can't just shunt "anarcho-capitalism" into a subsection of "anarchist economics".
The article doesn't have to be a real long one. And since every ref should use the phrase free market or market anarchism, it could be that a lot of what is in here now could be removed as WP:OR and people referred to the anarchist economics article for some of the history or whatever. (And once the material here is properly ref'd it could have it's own little section in that article). Of course, like anything else, someone's got to do the work and won't be me. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 19:57, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Free market anarchism is fringe economics/philosophy

People are free to believe whatever they want, and Wikipedia certainly should not say free market anarchism is a good or bad political system. However, it is important to note the fact that virtually no academic philosophers or economists endorse this system, making it a fringe economic theory and fringe political philosophy. I recommend someone finds an RS which documents these facts. (I will surely do it eventually if no one else is up to the task.) Thanks! Steeletrap (talk) 00:46, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Like any body in an article about anarchism is going to give a hoot what academic philosophers and economists think, except to exploit them for a good ref from time to time. :-) CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 20:03, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal of disambiguation page and a merge of fragments

After read both interventions in upper section I believe the less interpretative description of the uses B and C that I previously indicate; This ref reads: The generic term “market anarchism” is sometimes used to include both anarcho-capitalism and the market-friendly varieties of more traditional individualist anarchism. That is a the estructure of a neutral and sourced redaction. We can adapt it with the information we have, even those that use it as a synonymous (check past references in this talk page), and all the sourced uses (avoiding the synthesis in talk page). So, lets do betters line, my time:
(Disambiguation)
Free-market anarchism is a political term used in diferent forms:

--Sageo (talk) 23:12, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

This is definitely something people have been trying to figure out for a while and I wouldn't be too hasty. Have you read my suggestion above? There are lots of contemporary uses of "market anarchism" if you do research so don't abandon the article yet. It's all in the research.
Cleaning up Murray Rothbard article, for example, I found this article where Rothbard talks about free-market anarchism instead of anarcho capitalism:Murray Rothbard, Society without a State, 1975. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 00:42, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose - for reasons already stated in several threads on this talk page. Market anarchism, being predominantly socialist through its history, should not be reduced to an advertisement for fringe-of-a-fringe ideologies like the ancaps' or any other shameless distortion of the term's history. Finx (talk) 03:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Using highly charged and deprecating language makes one think that an editor is not on his or her best NPOV behavior and often undermines the credibility of the editor in others' eyes. CarolMooreDC - talkie talkie🗽 05:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
I think you would agree that anarchism, in its explicit form, is on the fringes of mainstream political ideology, and that anarcho-capitalism, rejected as incoherent by virtually all its adherents except other anarcho-capitalists, is on the fringes of that. So, I don't think anything I'm saying is all too controversial. Except for the 'shameless' bit, but I didn't choose to make this personal when I was first accused of pushing my politics, and I really don't know what else to call it when sources simply don't matter. I think this article, should it remain, should be encyclopedic instead of yet more linkspam for Murray Rothbard -- and since it began as a hagiographic piece, this unfortunately isn't the first I've had to say it. Finx (talk) 04:43, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

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Merger proposal to merge Left-wing market anarchism into Free-market anarchism

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I propose merging Left-wing market anarchism into Free-market anarchism. I think there is a huge overlap and repetition in the former article, and virtually all free-market anarchists were/are left-wing, thus we create a bit of a pleonasm. I acknowledge that some anarcho-capitalists refer to themselves as "free-market anarchists", but this can be briefly addressed in the article.

@Davide King, Bobfrombrockley, and Des Vallee: Pinging main recent contributors. Please help pinging other relevant editors. BeŻet (talk) 13:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Totally agree. It's insane we have two articles which overlap so much. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. Both of these articles are in dire need of better secondary sources. We should be writing from the perspective of what has been written in secondary sources about these topics, not just what those affiliated with the philosophies say about themselves. This said, I don't see any sourcing in Left-wing market anarchism that warrants a split from Free-market anarchism. The History section has strong overlap but is very haphazard in its coverage. I suspect these sections were just copy/pasted from existing articles at some point rather than written from a secondary source connecting market anarchism to the subject. Organizations/Theorists is all primary or non-independent sources so that should be removed, not merged. And Theory has much of the same issues. If there are no objective, secondary sources covering market anarchist theory, we should not used primary sources to attempt to do so. So insofar as there is scope overlap and a potential POV fork, merger is appropriate, though there is ultimately little to actually merge. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 16:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
    I agree. It will be easier to improve the content once it is in one place, and good quality secondary sources are used. BeŻet (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. I'm not sure why they were ever two different articles in the first place, they seem to be talking about more-or-less the same thing. --Grnrchst (talk) 20:25, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I've now performed a merge as it has unanimous support. I also made some bold changes, which I'm happy to discuss. BeŻet (talk) 13:01, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.