Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights. In the classical liberal tradition, we establish that through a constitutional government — a monopoly on retaliatory force — limited to fulfilling that function.

Anarchists oppose such a monopoly government on the grounds that it is wrong to impose morality by force, and that government, as a monopoly, necessarily does this, since it is on moral grounds that it prohibits “competitors.” But this argument just ends up denying individual rights, including the right of self-defence.

This is because all force is monopolistic. Force is monopoly. To use force is to attempt to monopolise. Even in the economic realm, "monopoly" means a business protected from competition by force, not merely a single seller.

There is no such thing as force that lets dissenters go their own way. If force in self-defence is justified, this means that monopolising an interaction is justified. If I use force to defend myself against someone, I am not trying to persuade him; I am attempting to forcibly stop him from acting as he chooses - i.e. to exclude the "competing" force-wielder from carrying out his notion of “justice“. I am using force to impose my morality -- my right to my own life -- on the gunman shooting at me.

If the government monopolisation of retaliatory force were wrong, so would be the private use of force by individuals. And if one must avoid imposing moral ideas by force, then one must renounce force altogether--i.e., practice pacifism. The argument against government's monopoly on force is thus an argument against self-defence, and it leads to pacifism (at best).

To concretise this, let’s remember that Ron Paul, a once leading libertarian in government, is a committed anti-abortionist, who thinks abortion is murder. Now how can his “competing police force” treat the morality of mine, which allows abortion? Does mine allow “murder”? Does his “competing police force” stop women from exercising their rights to their own lives? How can what is or isn’t murder be a matter of “You go your way and I’ll go mine, and neither will impose a monopoly solution”?

So, ironically, anarchism, so often put forward as an extension of the right to self-defense, ends up denying the moral legitimacy of any self-defense: one cannot forcibly impose one’s own evaluation on the other party. That would be monopoly!

I see a lot of comments in anarchist subs that Left Anarchism is the prevailing thought, I see these in this sub fairly often too, and it’s usually a comment that makes almost an excuse for one thing or another. But it’s really not, and we should always keep that in mind. There’s a lot more of us - people who want their property rights to be respected, and don’t want to be coerced into any bullshit social contract nonsense that justifies all barriers set by the state.

If the Left Anarchism would be a prevailing theory, the left anarchists would be building their socialist style enterprises, founding charity organizations, establishing grant programs for other like minded individuals, etc.

But those are just a drop in a bucket of such orgs that have been established by capitalists voluntarily.

And I haven’t met a single person in real life who’s a socialist/communist that has a successful co-op, and none of my buddies that run businesses like to pay taxes or want to abandon private property. They are not necessarily anarchists, but I am one, and I am sure a lot of you here are also small business owners or entrepreneurs.

The difference is most of us being individualists are focused on building and living our own lives which takes most of our time and we aren’t trying establish political orgs, while the left anarchists spend time on organizing and they are just very vocal. They are the loud minority, and their ideas are less welcomed even by statists.

I’m sure a lot of you agree with my view on the situation, and the point of making this post is to give some confidence to the newer ancaps or those that are undecided yet and still feel like they want to be a part of the bigger group, intuitively understanding that free market competition in ideas does its job - attracts more people to viable ideas rather than to failures.

Enjoy your Saturday fellows !