Hey Walter, what are your thoughts on all these anarcho-X titles? Do you feel it complicates the theory?
My feeling is that most of those labels have a little bit of additional information to contribute. Anarcho-capitalist is a very good title, IMO, as long as you don't think capitalism means business cooperating with government. The other names help elucidate exactly what anarchy means, how it would work, or why the particular anarchist came to his convictions.
Of course a couple labels clue me in to the fact that the "anarchist" speaking to me isn't an anarchist at all and just wants some other form of control. I'm all into voluntaryism and absolutely not about coerced communism/socialism. The social order that emerges from pure voluntary cooperation is beautiful and productive - and it certainly includes a lot of pooled resources and people casting their fate together in various ways and partnerships. But when people talk about stripping the government down and replacing it with all sorts of social controls, I know that really what they mean is, they just want to be in charge.
At some point I read an article by Murray Rothbard talking about the libertarian tendency to see common ground with various groups and how to evaluate whether you really have common ground or not. His basic conclusion was that anyone who would "push the button" is a true ally. I'm pretty sure this was the article:
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard75.htmlThere runs through For a New Liberty (and most of the rest of my work as well) a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind. In contrast, it is evident that David does not hate the State at all; that he has merely arrived at the conviction that anarchism and competing private police forces are a better social and economic system than any other alternative. Or, more fully, that anarchism would be better than laissez-faire which in turn is better than the current system. Amidst the entire spectrum of political alternatives, David Friedman has decided that anarcho-capitalism is superior. But superior to an existing political structure which is pretty good too. In short, there is no sign that David Friedman in any sense hates the existing American State or the State per se, hates it deep in his belly as a predatory gang of robbers, enslavers, and murderers. No, there is simply the cool conviction that anarchism would be the best of all possible worlds, but that our current set-up is pretty far up with it in desirability. For there is no sense in Friedman that the State – any State – is a predatory gang of criminals.
There is not a single abolitionist who would not grab a feasible method, or a gradual gain, if it came his way. The difference is that the abolitionist always holds high the banner of his ultimate goal, never hides his basic principles, and wishes to get to his goal as fast as humanly possible. Hence, while the abolitionist will accept a gradual step in the right direction if that is all that he can achieve, he always accepts it grudgingly, as merely a first step toward a goal which he always keeps blazingly clear. The abolitionist is a "button pusher" who would blister his thumb pushing a button that would abolish the State immediately, if such a button existed. But the abolitionist also knows that alas, such a button does not exist, and that he will take a bit of the loaf if necessary – while always preferring the whole loaf if he can achieve it.
I would push the button, in a heartbeat! And I hope that cryptocurrency is that button, or a means to finding it. That is why even though my Bitcoin holdings are meager, I get so happy when the price goes up - it's a measure of the adoption of something that may be the button.
I think the push the button reference exists in some of Rothbard's other writings as well.
