anarcho-capitalism

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From anarcho- +‎ capitalism. Earliest extant attestation is in American author Karl Hess's essay “The Death of Politics”, originally published by Playboy, in March 1969.[1][2] Even though American economist Murray Rothbard is credited with coining this word, it possibly first appeared in his 1971 essay “Know Your Rights”,[3][4] published two years after Hess's essay.

Noun[edit]

anarcho-capitalism (uncountable)

  1. (politics, economics) A political and economic philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and other coercive institutions in favour of individual self-ownership and free market.
    • 1969 March, Karl Hess, “The Death of Politics”, in Playboy[4]:
      Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism[sic], is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so.
    • 1971, Murray Rothbard, “Know Your Rights”, in WIN: Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action[5], volume 7, number 4, pages 6–10:
      Anarcho-capitalism is a creed new to the present age. Its closest historical links are with the “individualist anarchism” of Benjamin R. Tucker and Lysander Spooner of the late nineteenth century, and it shares with Tucker and Spooner a devotion to private property, individualism, and competition. Furthermore, and in contrast to Read and Rand, it shares with Spooner and Tucker their hostility to government officials as a criminal band of robbers and murderers. []
    • 1998, John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, New York: The New Press, →ISBN, page 133:
      The second was shock therapy. Implemented briefly in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, shock therapy aimed to construct a free market in post-communist Russia. It produced instead a species of mafia-dominated anarcho-capitalism.

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References[edit]

  1. ^ Hess, Karl (2003), “The Death of Politics”, in Faré's Home Page[1], Playboy, published 1969, retrieved 9 October 2023
  2. ^ Johnson, Charles (28 August 2015), “Karl Hess on Anarcho-Capitalism”, in Center for a Stateless Society[2], retrieved 9 October 2023
  3. ^ Rothbard, Murray (1 March 1971), “Know Your Rights”, in WIN: Peace and Freedom through Nonviolent Action, volume 7, issue 4, retrieved 9 October 2023
  4. ^ “Untitled Preface to Murray Rothbard's ‘Know Your Rights’”, in AnthonyFlood.com – Philosophy against Misosophy[3], 2010, retrieved 9 October 1969: “Rothbard's neologism, ‘anarchocapitalism,’ probably makes its first appearance in print here.”

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