Map My Politics

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM – The Ideology of Absolute Freedom

Anarcho-capitalism is one of the six quasi-democratic or “fringe” political ideologies on the Map My Politics ideology chart, occupying the area on the bottom right below the libertarian and minarchist zones. Anarcho-capitalists believe in an absolute maximum of economic and personal freedom and an absolute minimum of government presence, even beyond the point of a minarchist or “night-watchman" state. Instead of government services, anarcho-capitalism envisions a system of private enterprise providing the traditional roles of courts, defense and law enforcement, and where all “citizens” self-regulate and interact contractually. Because this essentially places anarcho-capitalists outside the realm of traditional democratic governance, we consider anarcho-capitalism on the fringe of the more mainstream political ideologies.

On the x-axis of economic liberty, anarcho-capitalists fully embrace the virtues of the free enterprise system as much as neoliberals do. They are total champions for free markets, predisposed to unregulated trade, and are even more laissez-faire than libertarians, their ideological cousins and Map My Politics chart neighbors. Anarcho-capitalism takes it as an article of faith that pure, unrestricted capitalism creates more individual wealth than any other economic system, and that a global free flow of goods, capital and labor will prove vastly superior for the general commonwealth as well. Taxes, as such, are taboo to an anarcho-capitalist, because only a state can impose them and, by definition, anarcho-capitalism is a stateless ideology. So the only “taxes” justified to be collected are those voluntarily paid as use fees to private companies that provide any desired services. Needless to say, because an anarcho-capitalist desires so little intrusion into his or her economic freedom, the supposition is that an anarcho-capitalistic existence – should it ever move from theoretical to actual – would involve minimal external costs for so-called essential services.

Regarding the y-axis of social liberty, anarcho-capitalists similarly are maximally supportive of the classical liberal freedoms of speech, press and religion – and then some. In fact, the only limits imposed on personal freedom would be those that are self-imposed (either by contract or otherwise) to avoid running afoul of another’s freedoms. For example, without some concept of libel and slander limiting free speech, and child protection standards limiting what can be consented to, it’s hard to imagine how an anarcho-capitalist society could function. But again, as with economic constraints, the presumption is that an anarcho-capitalist would choose minimal limitations on personal freedom.

As with libertarianism, the roots of anarcho-capitalism can be traced to Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke and Adam Smith. If minarchism’s “night-watchman” concept of government, as conceived by the American philosopher, Robert Nozick, is the purest form of state libertarianism, then anarcho-capitalism is the stateless version. Murray Rothbard, an American economist and social philosopher, is considered the “father” of anarcho-capitalism, even though he later rebranded himself as a paleolibertarian. Rothbard conceived of the ideology as a synthesis of 20th century Austrian school economics (as promulgated by Mises and Hayek), 18th century classical British liberalism, and 19th century American individualist anarchism as practiced by Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. More recent anarcho-capitalist theorists include Walter Block and David Friedman, the son of the neoliberal economist, Milton Friedman.

Because the United States is – for the most part – a two-party system, anarcho-capitalists can sometimes be found in the Republican Party, the traditional party of smaller government. However, most anarcho-capitalists find even the Libertarian Party too mainstream, so presumably they would vote independently and hope for the day when voting is superseded by private contract. But whether an anarcho-capitalist chooses to associate with an established political party or vote independently, a strong tendency to support laissez-faire economic policies and ultra-libertarian social policies will predominate. As we stress repeatedly on the Map My Politics site, politics at its most fundamental level is about ideology.

There are no anarcho-capitalists in mainstream American politics, chiefly because anarcho-capitalism is not a mainstream ideology. Some libertarian Republicans such as Paul Ryan and Ron Paul have expressed anarcho-capitalist sympathies, but they and other elected members of Congress have not, as yet, openly advocated for replacing the American constitutional form of government with an anarcho-capitalist one. Apart from Murray Rothbard, who wrote from a heterodox academic perspective, the Russian-American novelist Ayn Rand has been enormously influential in promoting anarcho-capitalism culturally. Even Rothbard, an early acolyte of Rand’s who fell out with her over her “cult-like following,” acknowledged the power of her 1957 magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, to idealize anarcho-capitalism as a political ideology.

For further reading about the anarcho-capitalist ideology, click here.

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