Anarcho-Capitalism: Individualist or not?

Mar 11

Response

A while ago Springtime of Nations had given me a response citing some Individualist sources that I haven’t responded to directly yet. It is suggested that you watch for context. At the time I wasn’t as well read on equitable commerce and decided to refrain from much direct commentary on the matter. There is no particular reason I am doing so now other than out of boredom. Hopefully people new to Mutualism can use this to parse fact from fiction.

This article deals with two figures known as Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. These are individuals who were associated with the early formulation of Anarchism in North America and would come to influence later radicals such as the Mutualist Benjamin Tucker, who would develop a matured form of free market anarchism.

They claim that it is the principle of the “Sovereignty of the Individual” that Warren had expounded in the mid-19th century that unites the Individualists and the Anarcho-Capitalists. They then contrast this with the “Cost Principle”, which I have written about here. Springtime of Nations then concludes that the first principle is “superior” to the second, because self-sovereignty means the freedom to not price articles according to labor-cost.

Springtime of Nations doesn’t offer any citation to support that the Sovereignty of the Individual was considered “superior” to the Cost Principle. In reality, when reviewing Warren and Andrews, we see something radically different. They were two ideas that mutually penetrate each other. They were not even the only two principles for equitable commerce, indeed, there were actually five, and one of them is of critical importance. He had based his whole program on the recognition of individuality, which was his actual first principle.

“INDIVIDUALITY, Definiteness, Disconnection, Division, Disunion is the great Principle of Social Harmony, Order, and Progress.” [1]

Individuality is a constant recurring theme within Warren’s writing and stems back to his experience in Robert Owen’s Communist experiment in New Harmony. He had observed that the differences of individuals make artificial combination unsuitable for harmonic social relations. One party, or even everyone involved, was always left dissatisfied and frustrated with forced compromise.

To protect every person’s innate individuality, their individual quirks and differences, they had to be independent of others. Social structures where the group supersedes individual interest had the inherent effect of neutralizing individuality — causing conflict and retarding progress. That is why Warren had advocated for the absolute self-sovereignty of every individual. Giving people total autonomy completely flips contemporary sociopolitical relations on their head.

The Cost Principle was advocated for in a similar manner. It protects individuality in the sense that it secures the individual self-subsistence and sets the stage for the Sovereignty of the Individual to take full effect. Springtime of Nations simply limits its role to finding a just equivalent for trade, but its significance is deeper than that. The Cost Principle is not something that simply overlays the Sovereignty of the Individual, but actually forms the fabric upon which it rests. This is because at the heart of Individualist anarchism is equity, and it was astoundingly clear to all Individualist anarchists that without equity then there can be no genuine practice of individual freedom.

Andrews writes very extensively on this subject and it is worth looking at.

“We now assert that, in order to secure what is more important than all else, the possibility of the free exercise of Individual Sovereignty, an indispensable condition is a still greater amount than now exists of Individuality, or disconnection in the property relations of men. We affirm that nearly all that there is good in existing society results from that element. What then follows? Do we abandon the high aims of other Socialists in other respects? Is all thought of cooperation and the economies surrendered by us? Clearly they are, unless some new and hitherto undiscovered element is brought in. To go back from the present field of effort of the Social Reformers to so much of Individuality as can exist in the present order of society, and stop at that alone, is evidently to return to the present social disorder, in which it is sufficiently demonstrated by experience that the exercise of the Sovereignty of the Individual — the point we aim to secure — is itself just as impossible as the other conditions desired. But why is it impossible? For the reason that Individuality of interests, upon which that exercise rests, is itself only partially possible in a social state in which there is a general denial of equity in the distribution of wealth, — equity being what the Cost Principle alone can supply. If the woman, or the youth under age, is denied the means of acquiring an independent subsistence, by the fact that they receive less than equivalents for their industry, they are necessarily thrown into a state of dependence upon others. The exercise of their own Sovereignty, then, is obviously an impossibility for them. There are thousands of women, for example, in the higher ranks of society, who never felt the luxury in their lives of spending a shilling that they knew to be actually their own, and never applied to their fathers or husbands for money without the degrading sense of beggary. On the other hand, the husbands and fathers are involved, by the same false pecuniary relations, in an unnecessary and harassing responsibility for the conduct and expenditure of every member of their families, which is equally destructive of their own freedom, or the exercise of their own Sovereignty over themselves. It is the same in the existing relations of the poor and the rich, the hireling and the employer, the master and the slave, and in nearly all the ten thousand ramified connections of men in existing society. By refusing equity in the distribution of wealth; by reducing the earnings of women, and youths, and hired men, and slaves below equivalents; by thus grasping power over others, through the medium of an undue absorption of the products of their industry, — the members of community are brought into the relation of oppressors and oppressed, and both are together and alike involved in a common destiny of mutual restrictions, espionage, suspicions, heartburnings, open destructive collisions, and secret hostility, and each is thereby shorn of the possibility of exercising his prerogative of sovereign control over his own actions.” [2]

Springtime of Nations is therefore very wrong when they allege that the Cost Principle was something that could be dispensed with, and still maintain genuine self-sovereignty (in terms of Warren and Andrews). It was of great importance for the laborer to attain their own self-sovereignty, and to live equitably with his fellow laborers. The Cost Principle being something that Warren and Andrews sought the public to voluntarily adopt makes no significant difference. Anarchists know that no one can enforce freedom, and that a society that doesn’t want freedom cannot be freed. Likewise, Warren and Andrews didn’t want to enforce freedom either. They wanted to instill the spirit of freedom through education, and to light a path for the public to live in harmony as free equals.

We can see another passage where Andrews, point blank, informs of the integral role of the Cost Principle in the practice of Individual sovereignty.

“Hence it follows that the Cost Principle underlies Individuality, or the disconnection of interests, in the same manner as Individuality itself underlies and sustains the Sovereignty of the Individual. Hence, again the Cost Principle is the basis principle or foundation upon which the whole fabric of social harmony rests, as the Sovereignty of the Individual is, as has been said, the apex, or culminating point of the same fabric, — the end and purpose of a true social order.” [3]

It is why the Equitable Commerce crowd had such an interest in equal exchange and the labor note. These new economic principles would set the stage for sociopolitical revolution.

Let us not forget the forest for the trees, though. Springtime of Nations made this video to (meagerly) defend the claim that “Anarcho-Capitalists are Anarchists”. It is kind of laughable then that out of all the people they would have chosen to prove this, they had chosen Warren and Andrews. It is important to remember that Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews did not really advocate for themselves as “Anarchists”. What we know as anarchism was being formulated by them, but they had no real impulse to comment on what makes someone an Anarchist. For example, Warren identified himself as a “Democrat” and Andrews advocated for “Pantarchy”.

If we are to assume government is the opposite of anarchy (meaning the absence of government), then we can try to use Andrews’ understanding of the role inequity plays in government to see if he would see Anarcho-Capitalists as truly anti-government. Here Andrews remarks:

“All combinations of interest imply and involve the necessity of government, because nature demands and will have an individual lead. The denial of equity implies and involves the necessity of combination of interest, by throwing one part of the community into a state of dependence upon the other, authorizing mutual supervision and criticism, and creating mutual restriction and hostility.” [4]

So, it is pretty clear here that there is not much room for “no-government Capitalism” in the writings of these Individualists.

Given the role equity played in their advocacy of the Sovereignty of the Individual, given their sophisticated analysis of Capitalism as a system of exploitation that subordinates the wage-laborer, and given that they referenced Capitalist society as being antithetical to self-sovereignty; it is safe to assume that these Individualists would not have seen Anarcho-Capitalists as being on the same side for individual freedom.

Ironically, perhaps Warren and Andrews would see Anarcho-Capitalists as anarchists though. They frequently used the term “anarchy” to denote a state of chaos, not unlike how Andrews described an economy based on individualism with the maintenance of systemic exploitation.

Original Script

Springtime of Nations offers no transcript for the video in question so I took the liberty of transcribing it here. [5] I will make some miscellaneous commentary that don’t fit anywhere else here as well.

The first American Anarchist was Josiah Warren, although he never used that word. Warren had two big ideas: the first was what he called the “sovereignty of the individual”, the second was the cost principle — sometimes elucidated as “cost the limit of price”.

The Cost Principle was also formulated as the “Principle of Equivalents” which arguably captures the idea in its greatest scope. These are also not the only “big ideas” that Warren formulated in his pamphlets. There were five. The other three were the principle of Individuality, the use of a medium of exchange based on cost, and the adaptation of supply to demand. All of these were deemed necessary parts of equitable commerce.

The sovereignty of the individual was essentially the same idea as what modern anarcho-capitalists call the non-aggression principle. Josiah Warren puts it this way: “This absolute right of sovereignty in every individual over his or her person, time, and property is the only rule or principle known to this writer that is not subject to exceptions and failures as a regulator of human intercourse.” It is this principle which makes Warren and modern anarchist-capitalists both anarchists.

The conflation of the non-aggression principle with self-sovereignty is either false or seriously suspect in terms of accuracy given what I have articulated before.

Warren’s second principle the cost principle says that people should choose to sell their goods and services at what it costs them to produce those goods and services without any profit. This would constitute, according to Warren, “equitable commerce” and — in addition to being morally right — he thought that this would solve a number of economic woes.

“Equitable commerce” does not refer merely to equal exchange. Stephen Pearl Andrews says as much: “The term ‘Equitable Commerce’ does not signify merely a new adjustment of the method of buying and selling. The term is employed, by Mr. Warren, to signify the whole of what I have preferred to denominate the Science of Society, including Ethics, Political Economy, and all else that concerns the outer relations of mankind. At the same time the mutual interchange of products is, as it were, the continent or basis upon which all other intercourse rests. Society reclines upon Industry. Without it man cannot exist.” [6] Here Andrews again stresses the importance that equitable exchange plays in society and for the flourishing of each individual.

Modern anarcho-capitalists think the second principle is misguided and that is why we are not Warrenites, but, Josiah Warren himself made clear that he always held his first principle the sovereignty of the individual to overrule the second. If someone wanted to sell his goods for a profit they should not be prohibited from doing so according to Warren. His campaign to get goods sold at cost was one of moral suasion.

Although Warren used moralist infused rhetoric, the advocacy of the Cost Principle was its necessity for harmonious social and economic relations. In my response I chose to use “superior” as an adjective form of the verb “overrule” used here.

This idea that goods should be sold at cost is the essential idea of what is known as mutualism.

It is not true that the ideas of Mutualism can simply be boiled down to goods being sold at cost.

Individualist anarchism can be divided into those who adhere to the mutualist idea that opposes profit as unjust and anarcho-capitalists who do not think profit is unjust.

“Individualist anarchism” is anti-Capitalist by nature, and represents a much broader category than “Mutualists and Anarcho-Capitalists” (even if we include Capitalists as part of that group). The actual totality of Individualist anarchism is made up of many Egoist, Nihilist, Illegalist, Primitivist, and some other tendencies that I am forgetting. Point being, “Individualist” and “Social” Anarchism is likely not a useful category, given that “Individualist” Anarchism literally just means “things that aren’t Social Anarchism”. Nevertheless this is not to dispute many Mutualists’ association with Individualism.

Please note that the mutualist position is not that there is anything wrong with working for a boss who owns the means of production. The problem is with the boss not selling the product at its cost-price. In fact one of Josiah Warren’s disciples, Stephen Pearl Andrews, wrote in his book “The Science of Society”:
“It is proper and right that one man should hire another, and, if he hires him, it is proper and right that he should remunerate him for his labor, and such remuneration is wages. Hence, it follows that the ‘wages system’ is essentially proper and right. It is right that one man employ another, it is right that he pay him wages, and it is right that he direct him absolutely arbitrarily, if you will, in the performance of his labor, while, on the other hand, is the business of him who is employed implicitly to obey, — that is, to surrender all his will of his own, in relation to design not of his own and to conceive and execute the will of the other.”

I have stated in my own videos that exchanging labor with someone, even when someone commits to giving some service to another (i.e., being under temporary command, at liberty to leave) is not intrinsically archic.

Benjamin Tucker endorsed this work. He wrote:
“In this number I begin the serial publication of one of the earliest and best of anarchistic works, Stephen Pearl Andrews’ ‘Science of Society.’ Josiah Warren pronounced it the best exposition of his ideas that had ever been made and probably the best that ever would be made. … Whoever masters this work will get the key to human progress past, present, and future.”
A mutualist youtuber hades recently uploaded a video where he defines capitalism as, quote, “a specific form of labor market that is one where the dominant form of economic activity is the production of goods in workplaces that are strictly divided by class. Under capitalism, in this sense, most workers are working for a boss in return for a wage. That is, they are renting out their labor to someone else in order to survive, and it is the boss, and not the workers, who holds the title to the business, the shop, and the tools, and facilities that make the business run.”

I was “Hades”, and now I am “Plutophrenia”. I am not a fan of stagnant identity. Given what they were responding to was so long ago, I can’t exactly remember the state of mind I was in when giving the definition. Regardless, upon review, my original definition of Capitalism (that I offered in the video they are supposed to be responding to, which represents the same “Capitalism” they write about) was accurate to describe what was under scrutiny. Here is the original definition I used: “Pure capitalism is defined as a system wherein all of the means of production (physical capital) are privately owned and run by the capitalist class for a profit, while most other people are workers who work for a salary or wage (and who do not own the capital or the product).” [7] Vocabulary like “Capitalist class” and “profit” indicate exploitation going on, since a “Capitalist class” is defined as a group living on those profits which are a denial of equity. There also implies a propertied divide since no worker owns the capital they work with in “pure Capitalism”. Springtime of Nations hates actually thinking about things and just wants to get a zinger on me anyway, which I think is pretty apparent. They are trolls, nothing more, nothing less.

Hades opposes this kind of capitalism and makes it seem like this is the important istinction between anarcho-capitalism and mutualism, but, the American mutualists actually supported capitalism in this sense. If this is the important distinction, then AnCaps and the historical mutualists are on the same side, and it is the modern mutualists who are on the other.

As I have shown, this is completely false on almost every level.

Stephen Pearl Andrews wrote: “In like manner the relation of employer and employed is stigmatized daily as vicious in itself, and the ideal is entertained of each individual being so employed as to be his own ‘boss,’ to use the language of the trades, and to work solely for himself. No such arrangement is either desirable or feasible. It is not all men who are made for designers, contrivers, and directors. That is perhaps one of the most exact generalizations of mankind into classes by which they are divided into originators, organizers, and executors. The first are the least numerous, the second more numerous, and the last most numerous. It is right that those who originate should impress themselves on the execution of their designs either directly or through the intervention of the organizing class.”

It is likely that some of Springtime of Nations’ audience interpret this as Andrews saying that some people are just superior and are born to lead. Their audience is filled with Hoppeans and ethno-nationalists so it is not really an unsafe bet (these groups play with themes like “natural aristocracy” and whatnot). If we consider Andrews speaking in full expression of Warren’s doctrine, then what actually determines the individuality of each person is going to be primarily their unique life experience. This is something Warren got from Robert Owen, and that is the idea that people are products of their environment. Therefore, it is just happenstance of circumstance what certain group people fall into here. There is no essentialist claim that some are naturally better than others.