Quote from: forevernoob on August 12, 2014, 01:29:17 PM

Quote from: Beliathon on August 11, 2014, 05:06:46 PM

I'm afraid that just like theists and their all-powerful, infinitely-loving God, the perfect version of capitalism that you advocate exists only in your imagination.

It has never and will never exist in reality.

This is the definition of economic fundamentalism.

And "anarcho-socialism" has existed when exactly?

Some point in the post-capitalism future, I imagine.

Are you an economic fundamentalist?

For all you white male American "libertarians",

Anarchism and capitalism are diametrically opposed ideologies, incompatible at the most basic level.

Is anarcho-capitalism a type of anarchism?

Anyone who has followed political discussion on the net has probably come across people calling themselves libertarians but arguing from a right-wing, pro-capitalist perspective. For most people outside of North America, this is weird as the term libertarian is almost always used in conjunction with socialist or communist (particularly in Europe and, it should be stressed, historically in America). In the US, though, the Right has partially succeeded in appropriating the term libertarian for itself. Even stranger is that a few of these right-wingers have started calling themselves anarchists in what must be one of the finest examples of an oxymoron in the English language: Anarcho-capitalist!!!

Arguing with fools is seldom rewarded, but to let their foolishness to go unchallenged risks allowing them to deceive those who are new to anarchism. Here we will show why the claims of these anarchist capitalists are false.

Anarchism has always been anti-capitalist and any anarchism that claims otherwise cannot be part of the anarchist tradition. It is important to stress that anarchist opposition to the so-called capitalist anarchists do not reflect some kind of debate within anarchism, as many of these types like to pretend, but a debate between anarchism and its old enemy, capitalism. In many ways this debate mirrors the one between Peter Kropotkin and Herbert Spencer (an English capitalist minimal statist) at the turn the 19th century and, as such, it is hardly new.

(...)

Are anarcho-capitalists really anarchists?

In a word, no. While anarcho-capitalists obviously try to associate themselves with the anarchist tradition by using the word anarcho or by calling themselves anarchists their ideas are distinctly at odds with those associated with anarchism.

As a result, any claims that their ideas are anarchist or that they are part of the anarchist tradition or movement are false.

Anarcho-capitalists claim to be anarchists because they say that they oppose government. As noted in the last section, they use a dictionary definition of anarchism. However, this fails to appreciate that anarchism is a political theory. As dictionaries are rarely politically sophisticated things, this means that they fail to recognise that anarchism is more than just opposition to government, it is also marked a opposition to capitalism (i.e. exploitation and private property). Thus, opposition to government is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being an anarchist you also need to be opposed to exploitation and capitalist private property. As anarcho-capitalists do not consider interest, rent and profits (i.e. capitalism) to be exploitative nor oppose capitalist property rights, they are not anarchists.

"...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love,
love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
-Eric Fromm, The Sane Society

This is the 21st century, folks. The plain fact is that humanity can do better than capitalism.

Yours in compassion and solidarity,

World Citizen Beliathon