As my wife practices Van Halen's "Right Now" on the piano in the other room, and I am feeling rather inspired by the sounds and lyrical power of that song, I decided now would be as good a time as any to clear up what I feel are some naggingly persistent misconceptions about the ideas of market anarchism, Voluntaryism, and Anarcho-Capitalism. I will use these three terms interchangeably in this post (this really isn't much of a simplification, as the terms are basically synonymous), in the interest of not getting lost in unimportant (when it all comes down to it) semantic nuance.
So, with all that out of the way, let's get down to brass tacks.
1. No, market anarchism is not "chaos."
Market anarchism, Voluntaryism, and Anarcho-Capitalism are names for a system of building society based exclusively on individual self-ownership and private property (the definition of legitimate private property being derived from individual self-ownership). This means that the same social order holds individual self-ownership (the private property ethic) to be the ultimate arbiter in cases of conflict.
As such, things like police, security firms, arbitration services, courts, and community ordinances ARE NOT "ruled out." The difference is, according to Anarcho-Capitalism, THEY MUST BE BASED EXCLUSIVELY ON INDIVIDUAL SELF-OWNERSHIP AND PRIVATE PROPERTY. No centralized, coercive government creates and enforces "the law" in any given community. Private property owners in that community do.
The reason for this is that under the current system called "government" laws and rules are created and enforced by a centralized body which claims to "own" vast geographical regions (countries, states, etc) without ever having legitimately acquired said property (through homesteading or some other legitimate means). No, the "governments" of today lay claim to vast geographical regions by scribbling on paper, and then using violence and threats of violence to enforce arbitrary rules in those regions:
Don't collect rainwater! Don't ge gay! Don't possess a plant! Don't make financial transactions without paying us!
Under a market anarchist system, what are considered "violations" are not based merely opinion, but on reality. As self-owning individuals (you possess highest, nature-conferred executive capacity in regard to your mind and body) valuing a minimally violent society, it objectively follows that this "self-ownership" must be respected in view of scarcity and the potential of conflict arising over rivalrous resources. Any system that says a certain class of people are government, and can choose how the rest will or will not use their minds and bodies, engenders conflict, as each individual possesses a unique will, wants, needs, and propensities.
THE ONLY THING THAT IS A TRUE VIOLATION, IS VIOLENCE.
Violence is violating someone. It is drone bombing weddings and funerals--innocent families just trying to survive. It is a cop taking a father away from his family because he was smoking cannabis, while the opinion of the state says that this activity is "wrong." Even if this father was harming no one, and not violating anyone else's self-ownership, the state finds it acceptable to steal him from his children and wife, and put him in a cage. He did not VOLUNTARILY agree to be governed by such a restriction, but was born into a political region called a "country" that criminalizes a plant. His is the victimhood of a kid on a massive playground dominated by an especially cruel bully known as the state.
IMPORTANT POINT: SOME COMMUNITIES OF PRIVATE PROPERTY OWNERS MAY WISH TO BAN CANNABIS. THIS IS TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE IF BASED EXCLUSIVELY ON PRIVATE PROPERTY. Look, I cannot come into your house and just do whatever I want, right? Why? Because it is your private property. It is the same principle at work here. If a group of landowners or joint landowners decide to govern the land they own in this way, it is totally acceptable, because they are not telling other land owners how THEY must act on THEIR property, but are simply dictating what may or may not be done on theirs.
If nature wanted us to be totally homogenous we would have all been a giant flesh blob that agrees with itself on everything. We are not. We are unique individuals with unique wants, desires and needs. As such we must recognize individual self-ownership if we want peace.
If this sounds too confusing please check out this amazing illustrated video on what a private law society would look like, and how needs can be met without a centralized, coercive state:
2. Hierarchies are not anti-thetical to market anarchism, or even anarchism defined loosely.
An-Archy simply means " without ruler." Some people misconstrue this to mean "without hierarchy" due to the shared etymological element "archos" in both words. This is merely a linguistic artifact that should not be stumbled upon. THE DIFFERENCE IS CLEAR: A HIERARCHY CAN BE VOLUNTARY. BEING "RULED" BY SOMEONE IS NEVER VOLUNTARY AS "RULE" REQUIRES THE APPLICATION OF FORCE AGAINST THE RULED.
In other words, I can take painting lessons, or apply for a job voluntarily, and there will still be a hierarchy in place which each party to the voluntary transaction accepts: I know my painting teacher will decide how the class is taught, and that my boss has ultimate say in how his (or her) business is run. There is nothing illegitimate or coercive about these hierarchical relationships as long as the transactions and agreements made therein are completely voluntary and consensual.
Even the different parts of a tree are arranged in a unified, hierarchical structure. And no, nature is not all pissed about it and holding protests against herself.
3. You can't have everything based on contracts and private property (individual self-ownership)! That would be a legalistic, complicated mess, and not feasible or practical at all!
Well, to those making this claim I say this: have you looked around at the world as it exists today? Nearly everything is a series of contracts and liabilities. Businesses operate smoothly within convoluted spider webs of legal partnerships and agreements. This big picture would boggle the mind of anyone when the whole vast and diverse web of human interaction is examined from a distance. How on earth could all of these billions of individuals work together without completely annihilating one another?
The world is still chugging along, and has not become (at least ubiquitously) a Mad Max wasteland. How much better to remove the violent and illegitimate actor (the state) from these fantasticly intermingled spiderwebs of human societal and economic transaction?
Instead of dropping bombs on infants, caging people for plants, and stealing money from billions under threat of violence (taxation), maybe we could actually be civilized and bring back the reality of human individual self-ownership as something society recognizes as the ultimate and foundational principle by which to live. This is not me asking that society conform to my personal opinion, but me asking that society conform to reality itself.
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)
