Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Sbastien Car
Ph.D. in Politics, Assistant Professor at the University of Rennes 1 (France)
sebacare@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
Anarcho-capitalism is the doctrine that every service, including law enforcements, should be
supplied through the market, and that all of the governments coercive activities should be replaced
by free market activities. Conceptualized in clandestineness by economists such as Murray
Rothbard and David Friedman in the early 1970, it is nowadays discussed in top economics
journals1 and defended by well-recognized scholars such as the economics Nobel Prize laureate
Vernon Smith and the professor of philosophy emeritus Jan Narveson. Reconciling the individualist
anarchism of Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker with the classical liberalism of John Locke
and Adam Smith, anarcho-capitalism claims to differ from other kinds of anarchism by paying more
attention to human nature as it is, instead of how it should be. Indeed, it seems that left anarchism
involves a spiritual conversion that would make the government and its functions useless.
This point is stated by Murray Rothbard: In contrast to such utopians as Marxists or left-wing
anarchists (anarchocommunists or anarcho-syndicalists), libertarians do not assume that the
ushering in of the purely free society of their dreams will also bring with it a new, magically
transformed Libertarian Man2. The originality of anarcho-capitalist thinkers is that they take
people as they are, and consider that what the State does is necessary because of human nature. But
as the state is for them neither legitimate nor efficient, anarcho-capitalists propose to entrust its
functions to private institutions. For instance, while left anarchism believes that institutions of law
enforcement would become useless if human changed their nature, anarcho-capitalism considers
that such institutions are necessary since it does not bet on changes in human nature. Somehow,
anarcho-capitalism seems more realistic than left anarchism. But does it mean at the same time that
it is more desirable? More than its possibility, anarcho-capitalisms attractiveness should be brought
into question.
A way to do so consists in confronting the two versions of anarcho-capitalism and in seeing if
they can withstand their reciprocal assaults. The most important controversy among anarcho-
capitalist theorists concerns the question of whether their doctrine should be based on deontological
or consequentialist ethics. Right-based anarcho-capitalists, such as Murray Rothbard, claim that a
stateless society is founded on the basis of a natural law, more precisely on a nonaggression axiom
according to which the only justification for the use of force is to deal with
aggressive force initiated by someone else. However, consequentialists such as David
Friedman argue that rights are merely human constructs created through contracts, and that a
libertarian system can only come about by contract between self-interested parties who agree to
refrain from initiating coercion against each other. In that perspective, an anarcho-capitalist society
is justified by its advantageous consequences for parties concerned.
The aim of this paper is to compare the two moral versions of anarcho-capitalism, notably their
implications on the two different types of society they respectively lead to. Doesnt the
confrontation of these two versions of anarcho-capitalism underline their respective weaknesses,
1
Cf. Hirshleifer Jack, Anarchy and its Breakdown, in Journal of Political Economy, 1995, Number 103, p. 26-52;
Dowd Kevin, Anarchy, Warfare, and Social Order: Comment on Hirshleifer, in Journal of Political Economy,
Number 105, 1997, p. 648-51
2
The end of the citation: We do not assume that the lion will lie down with the lamb, or that no one will have criminal
or fraudulent designs upon his neighbour. The better that people will be, of course, the better any social system will
work, in particular the less work any police or courts will have to do. But no such assumption is made by
libertarians.Murray Rothbard, For a new liberty : The Libertarian manifesto, online edition, 2002,
[http://www.mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf], 1973, p. 239
and the precariousness of anarcho-capitalism? After the presentation of the two versions, a
tentative answer to this question will ensue from a dialogue between the two versions.
3
Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998, 1982), p. 7
4
Ibidem, p. 11
5
Ibidem, p. 31
6
Ibidem, p. 31
7
Murray Rothbard, The myth of National Defence: Essays on the Theory and History of Security (Auburn: Ludwig von
Mises Institute, 2003), p. 66
instead of living in accordance with the nature of man, [] feeds unilaterally by exploiting the
labor and energy of other men8.
12
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989)
13
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
116
pay for the privilege14, and their victims get a lot more pain out of the oppression than their
oppressors get pleasure15. If some people are willing to pay a much higher price to be left alone
than anyone is willing to pay to control others life, Friedman concludes that there wont be so
many unlibertarian laws in an anarcho-capitalist society.
It is interesting to note that the applications of the two main ethical positions on the virgin land
of anarchy lead to two different kinds of society. It is then important to confront the two versions if
we want to evaluate their respective merits and weaknesses.
14
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
127
15
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
127
16
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
168
17
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989)
Adherents to a natural law paradigm reply to this criticism in two ways. They first argue that
libertarian principles only apply to a civilized context, and not to life-boat situations 18. Secondly,
they avoid the objection by opposing legal rights to general morality. To take Friedmans example,
it would be in consonance with general morality that a member of the crowd takes the rifle and uses
it to shoot the madman even if he would not have any legal right to do it. Virtue does not entail any
rights. To parody Lysander Spooners famous sentence that vices are not crimes, it could be said
that, for Rothbard, virtues are not necessarily legal.
The second weakness underlined by Friedman is perhaps more redoubtable. Indeed, sample
statements of Rothbardian principles may appear not that compelling. Many people may be in
favour of initiating coercion, or at least are currently doing things that rights-based libertarians
regard as illegitimate. However, as Friedman says, despite occasional claims to the contrary,
libertarians have not yet produced any proof that our moral position is correct 19. This criticism
somehow concurs with Thomas Nagels statement towards Nozicks attempt to justify a libertarian
society from a natural rights ethics. Nozick starts from the unargued premise that individuals have
certain inviolable rights which may not be intentionally transgressed by other individuals or the
state for any purpose. [] He concludes that the only morally permissible state would be the
nightwatchman state. [] The argument is not one which derives a surprising conclusion from a
plausible premise. No one (except perhaps an anarchist) who did not already accept the conclusion
would accept the premise, and the implausibility of each can only serve to reinforce a conviction of
the implausibility of the other20. In other words, natural rights libertarians modus ponens may be
anothers modus tollens. If natural rights of self ownership necessarily lead to anarcho-capitalism,
why not reject these absolute rights rather than embrace anarcho-capitalism?
The problem with Rothbards anarchism is that the worst would be justified if it does not
contradict his ethics of capitalism. Norman Barry underlines this point by saying that what is
interesting are the radical conclusions that Rothbard draws from the ethics of capitalism rather than
his derivation of the ethics themselves21. Such a drift is evident in the work of Rothbards epigone
Walter Block. In his book Defending the Undefendable, Block depicts the pimp, the prostitute, the
scab, the slumlord, the libeler, the moneylender, the blackmailer etc., as heroes just because they
do not initiate violence against nonaggressors22. To become really attractive, Rothbards utopia
would need something that would reconcile justice and morality, and that would make the possible
acceptable.
18
See Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998, 1982), p. 149-154
19
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
170
20
Thomas Nagel, Libertarianism without Foundations , in The Yale Law Journal, Volume 85, Number 1, November
1975, p. 138
21
Norman P. Barry, On Classical liberalism and libertarianism (London: Macmillan Press, 1986), p. 176
22
Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable (Auburn: Mises Institute, 2008 [1976]) p. xiv
totally reject the idea that people must be forcibly protected from themselves. A libertarian society
would have no laws against drugs, gambling, pornography and no compulsory seat belts in
cars23. However, in the course of the reading, we surprisingly find out that such a society has not
been designed to be universal, but was just Friedmans subjective preference. Indeed, as we have
already claimed, if enough non-libertarians bought enough non-libertarian laws and began using
them to imprison drug dealers, prostitutes and pagans under their jurisdiction, Friedman could make
no moral complaint. If his theory does not defend such laws, it does not condemn them either.
People have the law they pay for, and those who dont like them have to bear their cost or to move
out. That is why David Friedman asks: Is Anarcho-capitalism libertarian?, and earnestly concedes
a possible negative answer.
Does that mean that the desirability of the Friedmanian society depends on the dominant values
of its habitants? Friedmans answer would be no, arguing that market demands are in dollars, not
votes, and that the legality of something would not be determined by how many are for or against,
but by how high cost each side is willing to bear so as to get its way. We have also seen that
Friedman speculates that unlibertarian laws would be discouraged, since the cost they impose to
their victims would be much higher than the benefit they offer to their supporters. The obstacle
drawn by Friedman is rather soft. James Buchanan has indeed shown that if there is even one
person who thinks it appropriate to constrain others freedom to their own life-styles, no anarchistic
order can survive in the strict sense of the term 24 . Buchanan takes a trivial example confronting
one busybody person who is disturbed by long-hairs with others who choose to allow their hair to
grow. In an anarchist society, this situation would be remedied thanks to free exchange among
persons. Money facilitates a comparison of values, and allows people with long hair to buy off their
tranquillity by preventing the busybody from interfering through appropriately settled
compensations. For Friedman, the possibility of these payments introduces a new set of issues.
There is potential money in it, individuals will find it to their advantage to be recalcitrant, not
because this expresses their internal private preference but because it promises to yield valued
returns. If the man who genuinely dislikes long-hairs so much that he is prompted to interfere in the
absence of payment is "bought off" by monetary reward, others who care not one whit for hair
styles may also commence interfering, motivated by the promise of monetary reward 25. In other
words, in an anarcho-capitalist society, the violation of liberty may become profitable even to those
who dont find any personal satisfaction in doing so.
We can stress other problems raised by Friedmans utopia. The only safeguard provided by
Friedman against the tyranny of the majority is that every one is free to move out if she or he does
not like the laws they get. Allegiance to laws is somehow given by residence. The problem is that
nothing, in Friedmans theory, can make sure that people would actually be free to leave their
communities. Nothing, except haphazard cost-benefit calculi, can prevent a law to precisely prohibit
such mobility. Moreover, this mobility which guarantees that no one would have to bear the cost of
a law he has not chosen, seems to imply sufficient information. And such information can only be
provided by education. In other words, it appears that, to become libertarian, the Friedmanian
23
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), p.
168, p. xvii
24
James M. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1977), p. 3
25
James M. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1977), p. 4
anarcho-capitalist society needs to deny itself by using political means that would give everybody a
right to move and a decent education.
Even if those conditions (freedom to leave and sufficient information) were spontaneously
satisfied, the society described by Friedman would still not appear compelling. Indeed, it would
probably lead to a network of closed societies. Tyler Cowen shows how, in Friedmans utopia,
each geographical area would possess a dominant protection agency26. Its the only way for
Friedmans utopia to be stable. If not, there would be more cases where the plaintiff and the
defendant would not belong to the same agency and do not subscribe to conflicting law codes. For
instance, difficulties arise when the plaintiff agency promises capital punishment for a murder while
the defendants agency promises protection against capital punishment. As Tyler Cowen says,
private protection agencies may find interagency warfare unprofitable and dangerous, and
subscribe to a common arbitration mechanism for settling disputes 27. Economic forces would then
encourage the formation of a dominant agency on a territorial area. The application of Friedmans
anarchy would differ from the extra-territorial panarchy described by the Belgium botanist Paul
Emile de Puydt. In 1860, this firm supporter of laissez-faire economics defended the right to choose
the political surroundings in which to live without being forced to move from ones current locale 28.
In Friedmans utopia, every one would join the community whose laws are to his or her
convenience, and thus live with people with whom he would share the same preferences. This
libertarian communitarism contradicts the classical liberal standpoint that considers pluralism as an
important factor of wealth. The subjective theory of value says that a thing may be more useful in
satisfying the wants of one person than another, or of no use to one person and of use to another. In
exchange, people will give up what they value less in return for what they value more. It follows
that both sides can gain from an exchange if they dont share the same personal preferences.
Pluralism facilitates exchange and creates value. While classical liberal authors like Friedrich
Hayek or Stuart Mill defended an inclusive pluralism by promoting the meeting and mixing of
different values, Friedmans version of anarcho-capitalism would lead to an exclusive pluralism by
encouraging the multiplication of separate groupings. The eviction of the political and the refusal to
recognize a set of rights that would transcend individual preferences lead to a society where private
existences remain parallel.
CONCLUSION
The confrontation of these two versions of anarcho-capitalism underlines their respective
weaknesses. Rothbard fails to make a persuasive case for the attractiveness of an anarcho-capitalist
society based on a universal set of natural rights. By drawing an imposing barrier between morality
and justice, he opens the possibility of legalizing the most unacceptable behaviours, also preventing
citizens from publicly formulating their own vision of the good. Friedman fails to make a
persuasive case for the libertarian nature of an anarcho-capitalist society based on efficiency. By
letting people free to choose unlibertarian laws, he does not provide a sure safeguard against the
26
Tyler Cowen, Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy, in Edward P. Stringham (ed.), Anarchy and the
Law: The Political Economy of Choice (New Brunswick: The Independent Institute, 2007) p. 272
27
Ibidem, p. 272
28
Paul Emile De Puydt, "Panarchy", in Revue Trimestrielle, Brussels, July 1860, online version :
[http://www.panarchy.org/depuydt/1860.eng.html]
tyranny of the rich and paves the way to a world juxtaposing, without any connection, a myriad of
closed societies.
Beyond their differences, both versions share a common weakness by draining the society of
its political substance. By doing so, they literally demonstrate the precariousness of anarcho-
capitalism. Nothing except the prayer of its theorists, can ensure that an anarcho-capitalist society
would actually be libertarian and effectively maximize individual liberty. Both open an outsized
realm of possibilities that also contains the possibility of their negation. In such societies,
everything is possible, even the worst. Both contain the germs of their own destruction. That is why
we can conclude that, however realist they should appear, anarcho-capitalist utopias are not
appealing. Surprisingly, the only thing that would make them attractive would be a conversion of
human nature. In Friedmans utopia, such a conversion would prevent laws to be unlibertarian. In
Rothbards utopia, it would accomplish what the law is not allowed to deal with, namely to make
moral behaviours more recurrent. In other words, to be attractive, anarcho-capitalist utopias need to
be unrealistic, just as other strands of anarchism. Without the magically transformed Libertarian
Man whose existence was denied by Rothbard, the outcome of such a society is less than
attractive, inferior to what is produced by to an actual democracy. It appears that a philosophy that
dismisses politics is then doomed to be either unrealistic or unappealing. A sense of politics merges
in the background. By giving people a hold over their collective destiny, politics may consist in
making the possible attractive, or in reducing what is realistic to what is acceptable.
REFERENCES
Norman P. Barry, On Classical liberalism and libertarianism (London: Macmillan Press, 1986)
Randy E. Barnett, The Structure of Liberty : Justice and the rule of law (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1998)
Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable (Auburn: Mises Institute, 2008 [1976])
Roy Childs, The Invisible Hand Strikes Back, Journal of Libertarian Studies,
Volume 1, 1977, p. 23-33
James M. Buchanan, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1977)
Kevin Dowd, Anarchy, Warfare, and Social Order: Comment on Hirshleifer, in Journal of
Political Economy, Number 105, 1997, p. 648-51
Richard A. Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1985)
David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism (2nd ed. La Salle:
Open Court, 1989)
Jack Hirshleifer, Anarchy and its Breakdown, Journal of Political Economy, 1995, Number
103, p. 26-52
Hans-Herman Hoppe, Democracy: The God that failed (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers,
2001)
Thomas Nagel, Libertarianism without Foundations , in The Yale Law Journal, Volume 85,
Number 1, November 1975
Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2001, [1988])
Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974)
Murray Rothbard, The myth of National Defence: Essays on the Theory and History of Security,
Auburn, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2003
Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998, 1982)
Murray Rothbard, For a new liberty : The Libertarian manifesto (Online edition, 2002,
[http://www.mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf], 1973)
Murray Rothbard, The myth of National Defence: Essays on the Theory and History of Security
(Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2003)
Edward P. Stringham (ed.), Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice (New
Brunswick: The Independent Institute, 2007)
Morris and Linda Tannehill, Market for Liberty (Lansing: Morris and Linda Tannehill, 1970)
Gordon Tullock (ed.), Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy (Blackburg:
Center for the Study of Public Choice, 1972)
Gordon Tullock (ed.), Further Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy
(Blacksburg: Center for the Study of Public Choice, 1974)