What’s the difference between “market anarchism” and “anarcho-capitalism”?
The difference between market anarchism and anarcho-capitalism is contentious, and somewhat semantic. Anarcho-capitalists choose to use the word “capitalism” because they believe it denotes a laissez-faire system of economics, free from government control. Market anarchists are far more critical of capitalism, as they believe the term “capitalism” does not denote a truly freed economic system. Market anarchists avoid using the word “capitalism” because it often refers to our current, unfree economic system, dominated by corporations and vast income inequality. Market anarchists say that “capitalism” places too much emphasis on capital, implying rule by the owners of the means of production, a form of oppression which market anarchists oppose. Many market anarchists believe that in a freed society, the world would look very different from how it looks now under state capitalism. They believe that freed markets would not result in corporate domination and hierarchical firm structure. If such firms did exist, they would be few and far between. As Gary Chartier and Charles Johnson write in Markets Not Capitalism, “Market anarchists believe in market exchange, not in economic privilege. They believe in free markets, not in capitalism.”
Adherents of anarcho-capitalism believe a capitalist, laissez-faire economic system is desirable for maximum freedom and human flourishing. Market anarchism does not seek to prescribe a desirable economic system. Instead, market anarchists recognize that not everyone in a free society will desire to engage in a profit-oriented market, and alternative voluntary economic systems, such as cooperatives, gift economies, and communes, may flourish. While market anarchists may often advocate market exchange, pluralism and decentralization are also of great significance. As long as these different voluntary economic systems can peacefully coexist, market anarchists take no issue with such alternatives.
More concretely, freed market anarchists also (tend to) oppose intellectual property and absentee landlord claims, which in turn bolster the privileged position of owners of capital, viz. their ability to further concentrate wealth in their own hands by extracting unearned rent from the rest of society.
I disagree with this definition of anarcho-capitalism, as I believe do many other self-identified ancaps.
“Adherents of anarcho-capitalism believe a capitalist, laissez-faire economic system is desirable for maximum freedom and human flourishing. Market anarchism does not seek to prescribe a desirable economic system.”
Strictly interpreted this does not identify a difference between “anarcho-capitalism” and “market anarchism.”
But what I think Kelly was suggesting is that “anarcho-capitalism prescribes capitalism as a desirable economic system.”
And this is the claim I disagree with. I take Wendy McElroy’s position concisely described in “Capitalism and the Free Market”: http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.855
That is, I have a personal preference for capitalism, but I do not prescribe it as a part of my politics.
While I would agree that it would appear to be a perversion of language for there to be “anti-capitalist anarcho-capitalists,” for example, I don’t think this observation provides a sufficient reason to try to make the anarcho-capitalism-prescribes-capitalism definition more popular. And my reason for believing this is that a lot of self-identified AnCaps including myself don’t actually prescribe capitalism, so new people to these ideas reading your words will get an inaccurate idea of what the actual people who self-identify as anarcho-capitalists believe.
In other words, and to generalize my point, I think it’s more important to define labels in such a way that the uses of the label (e.g. to describe a person with particular political views) are accurate than it is to define labels to avoid perversions of language.
Of course all of this is futile, so a more practical thing to say may just be that when discuss this sort of thing, I think it would be helpful to point out that many self-identified ancaps personally prefer capitalism, but do not prescribe it to others and are perfectly fine with others setting up communes or gift economies or whatever.
Shouldn’t the title be “Market Anarchism vs. Anarcho-Capitalism”?