[cross-posted at C4SS and BHL]
My chapter on “Anarchism and Libertarianism” is forthcoming in Nathan Jun, ed., Brill’s Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2017), at the usual insane Brill price. In the chapter I explore the relationship between libertarianism (in the free-market sense) and the anarchist movement, including the question whether anarcho-capitalism counts as a genuine form of anarchism. (My C4SS colleague Kevin Carson has a chapter in the book as well.)
According to the publisher, I’m only allowed to make 25 hard copies of the chapter – but I’m also allowed to post a copy online, so long as it’s on my personal website. That seems to me a bit like saying “No smoking allowed in this room, but it’s okay to set the bed on fire.” But okay, here’s a link to the chapter.
(My reference to capitalist labour markets as “oligopolistic” was supposed to be “oligopsonistic.” The editors changed it to “oligopolistic,” which of course has the opposite meaning; I changed it back in galleys, but it ended up “oligopolistic” in the final published text nonetheless. Sigh.)
I also have a chapter on “Minarchism on Seasteads” in Victor Tiberius, ed., Seasteads: Opportunities and Challenges for Small New Societies (Zurich: VDF, 2017). I explore options for constraining a seastead minarchy (essentially by incorporating as many anarchist features as possible; those who remember my articles from the FNF/LNF days will find my proposals familiar). Here’s the link.
(The version I’ve posted is the galley proofs with my corrections. No, of course the corrections did not make it into the final published text. Sigh again.)
This is Minarchism. This is Seasteads. This is Minarchism on Seasteads. Any questions?
(For youngsters who have no idea what I’m talking about here’s a link.)
Are the words “is insufficient grounds” on p. 307 supposed to repeat?
None of the corrections I made in galleys made it through to the published version; the oligopsony one was just the most annoying.
Maybe the next time you submit something to the Brill’s Companion, you should try saying the opposite of what you mean, in the hopes that the editors will clumsily reverse the meaning so that the final copy is in accords with your views? This definitely requires testing. I think you should submit a pro-Third Reich article just to see what happens.
Shameless plug: you should submit some stuff to Reason Papers. The editors are reasonable and reasonably diligent–Carrie-Ann runs a tight ship, you might say–and the journal has a policy of permitting authors to reprint stuff as they please, on condition of noting somewhere that RP was the first place of publication. The only downside is that RP still employs Chicago Manual of Style, which usually requires lots of conversion in case you want to submit the same manuscript elsewhere (or lots of conversion if you don’t write in Chicago Manual format, as most people don’t).
Roderick, thanks for writing the paper on Anarchism and libertarianism. Works like that are convenient ways for me to include anarchist and libertarian perspectives in my research on issues that don’t explicitly deal with either.
Tony
I enjoyed the chapter.
One point that occurred to me is that anarcho-syndicalists are, I think, included in your social anarchist category. Wouldn’t the “private rights enforcement agencies are really states” argument also apply, mutatis mutandis, to their syndicates? Is that point made by any of the social anarchists?
The claim that in a free market interest rates would be zero strikes me as very odd, given straightforward arguments about time preference and the productivity of capital. Do any of the modern anti-capitalist libertarians defend it? Does it tie in with the odd economics of the Social Credit movement, which I don’t think you mention?