Market Anarchism
What is Market Anarchism? an introduction [1]
by Joshua Holmes, 2003-06-26
While much has been written about issues related to market anarchism here on this website [anti-state.com], very little has been written about what market anarchism actually is. People who browse to the site are often dropped into the middle of a discussion over mutualist banking, odd applications of moral axioms, or something equally obtuse. What they really want to know is what we're about.
Market anarchism is, in brief, private property without the state. It is the purest form of libertarian political thought (although some disagree), the central tenet of which is the Non-Aggression Principle, which L. Neil Smith has defined as such:
A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.
A similar sentiment was echoed in the Declaration of Independence:
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
