The growing menace of Anarcho-Capitalism

The actions of the Cameron government are best understood when one recognises that the driving force in contemporary political economy is Anarcho-Capitalism, A-C and nobody seems to have noticed. The beast needs to be named and revealed in the light.

Its High Priests are David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Bruce L. Benson, etc, drawing on recent sources such as Ayn Rand and much earlier ones including John Locke.

The mark of an A-C advocate is their assertion that all taxation is theft and deification of "the market." "There is no such thing as society comes" from the same stream of thought.

A-C notions are cropping up regularly in discussion groups such as the Guardian's Comment is Free, though probably most of those who are spouting them have no idea of their origins.

The left has no answer to this which is why A-C is making the intellectual running at the moment and will continue to do do. It is very dangerous nonsense because it is grounded, partially, on familiar experience which makes it superficially plausible.

The underlying fallacy of A-C is that it accepts John Locke's flawed theory of the origin of property rights. Since the left in general has no coherent theory of property rights to pose as an alternative, it is defenceless in the face of this onslaught. The alternative notion "All property is theft" does not stand as it is so obviously flawed.

The only plausible arguments against A-C is the set of ideas put forward by Henry George in the nineteenth century. Better get familiar with them or A-C will take us over and society will be smashed to smithereens.

Time for a new Papal encyclical methinks.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism