You get some pretty different stories on this from different capis, but my general inclination is to say that there is no single coherent meaning of "capitalism" used by anarchocapitalists. On the one hand when asked to give an explicit definition anarcho-capitalists will usually define capitalism simply in terms of private property and free market exchange (or perhaps free markets with an advanced division of labor, or a functioning stock exchange, or similar). On the other hand when confronted with things like free market syndicalism ([1](http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/03/23/el_pueblo/), [2](http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/03/23/el_pueblo/)) or [cooperative ownership of the means of production](http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/23/king_ludds/), or [ground-level protests against Fortune 500 corporations or free-market defenses of non-commercialized, anti-corporate uses of property](http://radgeek.com/gt/2009/04/25/three_notes/) they tend to raise hackles and start growling more or less explicitly about the anticapitalistic mentality. Which would seem to indicate that there is more involved than just free markets and private property, since none of the above are in any basic logical conflict with either -- something which looks a lot like the traditional mutualist uses of "capitalism" to mean sothe wages system, or the domination of the means of production by bosses, bankers and landlords, or similar. Now I think all this sort of two-step is happening because the use of "capitalism" that they're deploying in argument is neither the definition of capitalism as free markets, nor the definition of capitalism as a boss-dominated economy. It's not a simple, clean definition at all, but rather [a concealed causal claim](http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/08/libertarian-anticapitalism) -- the typical anarcho-capitalist is generally using the term to mean something like "a highly-developed corporate economy, like the one we'd get if we had totally free markets." But if that's what they mean, then that's a [zaxlebax](http://mises.org/daily/2099#6), and almost certain to confuse certain kinds of discussions more than it facilitates them.
You get some pretty different stories on this from different capis, but my general inclination is to say that there is no single coherent meaning of "capitalism" used by anarchocapitalists. On the one hand when asked to give an explicit definition anarcho-capitalists will usually define capitalism simply in terms of private property and free market exchange (or perhaps free markets with an advanced division of labor, or a functioning stock exchange, or similar). On the other hand when confronted with things like free market syndicalism ([1](http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/03/23/el_pueblo/), [2](http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/03/23/el_pueblo/)) or [cooperative ownership of the means of production](http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/23/king_ludds/), or [ground-level protests against Fortune 500 corporations or free-market defenses of non-commercialized, anti-corporate uses of property](http://radgeek.com/gt/2009/04/25/three_notes/) they tend to raise hackles and start growling more or less explicitly about the anticapitalistic mentality. Which would seem to indicate that there is more involved than just free markets and private property, since none of the above are in any basic logical conflict with either -- something which looks a lot like the traditional mutualist uses of "capitalism" to mean sothe wages system, or the domination of the means of production by bosses, bankers and landlords, or similar. Now I think all this sort of two-step is happening because the use of "capitalism" that they're deploying in argument is neither the definition of capitalism as free markets, nor the definition of capitalism as a boss-dominated economy. It's not a simple, clean definition at all, but rather [a concealed causal claim](http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/08/libertarian-anticapitalism) -- the typical anarcho-capitalist is generally using the term to mean something like "a highly-developed corporate economy, like the one we'd get if we had totally free markets." But if that's what they mean, then that's a [zaxlebax](http://mises.org/daily/2099#6), and almost certain to confuse certain kinds of discussions more than it facilitates them.
Thanks. That's actually one of the best one-sentence descriptions I've ever read of the purpose of the book, and the reasons we made the decisions we made in collecting the different pieces of it together.
Thanks. That's actually one of the best one-sentence descriptions I've ever read of the purpose of the book, and the reasons we made the decisions we made in collecting the different pieces of it together.
The book definitely does not make any claim that everyone in it is Proudhonian in their approach. It includes some stuff by Proudhon and by a number of later writers who claim (with more or less justification) to be drawing on Proudhonian insights. But it also includes a lot of material by other folks coming at things from other angles. As for anarcho-capitalists, if they find themselves agreeing with pretty much everything in the book, well, cool; but it seems to me that if they noticed the part about not defending capitalists as a class or capitalism as a socio-economic system, and found themselves agreeing with it, then that's as good a reason as any to stop being anarcho-capitalists. (Now of course, if they want to keep on defending something else, which they used to call "capitalism," but which is really completely separate from and has nothing to do with apologetics for capitalists or capitalistic patterns of ownership and control, I guess that's cool too. But then maybe they should think of a more accurate name to call the thing that they're defending.)
The book definitely does not make any claim that everyone in it is Proudhonian in their approach. It includes some stuff by Proudhon and by a number of later writers who claim (with more or less justification) to be drawing on Proudhonian insights. But it also includes a lot of material by other folks coming at things from other angles. As for anarcho-capitalists, if they find themselves agreeing with pretty much everything in the book, well, cool; but it seems to me that if they noticed the part about not defending capitalists as a class or capitalism as a socio-economic system, and found themselves agreeing with it, then that's as good a reason as any to stop being anarcho-capitalists. (Now of course, if they want to keep on defending something else, which they used to call "capitalism," but which is really completely separate from and has nothing to do with apologetics for capitalists or capitalistic patterns of ownership and control, I guess that's cool too. But then maybe they should think of a more accurate name to call the thing that they're defending.)
> Which seems to suggest that he will argue that "uncoordinated" regulations are OK. Well, that depends on what "regulation" is supposed to mean here. We do have a section on this topic, Part Eight of the book ("Freed-Market Regulation: Social Activism and Spontaneous Order"). The basic underlying point is that if "regulation" is supposed to mean legal regimentation of market relationships (backed by political coercion, etc.) then we are against that, because we are libertarians, not authoritarians. But if "regulation" is just supposed to mean making a process or a network of relationships orderly or regular, then (1) all markets, insofar as they are markets, are regulated (the question is what does the regulating -- whether this is mainly a matter of the peaceful decisions, agreements, and conventions of the people in a self-regulating market, or whether this is mainly a matter of requirements and commands handed down by an outside authority). And (2) there is a broad and potentially very important space for self-regulating markets to be shaped by conscious critique, grassroots cultural developments and nonviolent social activism. And that in particular these offer an important way of thinking about how a number of issues of *public* and *social* concern might be addressed without turning them into issues of *government* control. (For example, we discuss the use of coordinated grassroots activism for addressing concerns about economic exploitation, sexism, racial segregation and environmental sustainability, by means of direct action within a market context, rather than by means of social policing or a centralized regulatory authority.) If you want to call this "uncoordinated regulation," I guess that's OK, as long as it's understood that decentralized social processes may well have their own sorts of spontaneous coordination or conscious development of consensus; the issue is that coordination is not being forced on them by means of orders from a coercive authority.
Co-editor here. There's no one "vision" presented in the book (it is an anthology and is intended to collect a conversation which involves a pretty wide range of different pro-market, anti-capitalist views). But speaking broadly and tentatively, if you'll take a look at the [Introduction](http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/14/markets-not-capitalism-1st-ed/), what folks in this tradition have argued for has nothing to do with "enforcement," but rather with the possible or likely tendencies of market processes. The point is not that we're aiming to outlaw some objectionable set of practices, but that we are aiming to out-compete them. So nobody is going to force you to stop "practicing capitalism." But in a vigorously competitive market, capitalists may find out that they can't find much of a market for what they are trying to sell. As we put it in the Introduction: > Market anarchists do not limit ownership to possession, or to common or collective ownerhip, although they do not exclude these kinds of ownership either; they insist on the importance of contract and market exchange, and on profit-motivated free competition and entrepreneurship; and they not only tolerate but celebrate the unplanned, spontaneous coordation that Marxists deride as the “social anarchy of production.†But left-wing market anarchists are also radically anti-capitalist, and they absolutely reject the belief — common to both the anti-market Left and the pro-capitalist Right — that these five features of the market form must entail a social order of bosses, landlords, centralized corporations, class exploitation, cut-throat business dealings, immiserated workers, structural poverty, or large-scale economic inequality. They insist, instead, on five distinctive claims about markets, freedom, and privilege: > > * **The centrifugal tendency of markets:** market anarchists see freed markets, under conditions of free competition, as tending to diffuse wealth and dissolve fortunes — with a centrifugal effect on incomes, property-titles, land, and access to capital — rather than concentrating it in the hands of a socioeconomic elite. Market anarchists recognize no *de jure* limits on the extent or kind of wealth that any one person might amass; but they believe that market and social realities will impose much more rigorous *de facto* pressures against massive inequalities of wealth than any *de jure* constraint could achieve. > > . . . Our reason for believing this is based in a number of other, background claims that we make about economics, and in particular about the structures that hold up actually-existing capitalist business models (for example, on a rather strong version of Tucker's claim that [existing patterns of ownership depend on legalized monopoly privileges](http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-many-monopolies/)), and about the available alternatives (for example, that in a vigorously competitive market without those politically protected monopolies, ordinary working folks would be able to develop a lot of viable options and grassroots alternatives and small-scale fallbacks available for work, housing, health care, mutual aid, et cetera). And I'm just detailing the conclusion here rather than providing the background claims, or the arguments for the background claims, that support it. The arguments are what the book is for. But if your reactions to the book are based on the idea that they are about enforcing an anticapitalist "vision" on unwilling traders, then I can only suggest reading the book, since it will hopefully disabuse you of that misunderstanding.
Anticopyright.