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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anarcho-capitalism | 3/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:56:15.395858+00:00 | kb-cron |
Everyone is the proper owner of his own physical body as well as of all places and nature-given goods that he occupies and puts to use by means of his body, provided only that no one else has already occupied or used the same places and goods before him. This ownership of "originally appropriated" places and goods by a person implies his right to use and transform these places and goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not change thereby uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and goods originally appropriated by another person. In particular, once a place or good has been first appropriated by, in John Locke's phrase, 'mixing one's labor' with it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a voluntary – contractual – transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner. Rothbard, however, rejects the Lockean proviso and follows the rule of "first come, first served", without any consideration of what resources are left for other individuals. Anarcho-capitalists advocate private ownership of the means of production and the allocation of the product of labor created by workers within the context of wage labor and the free market – that is, through decisions made by property and capital owners, regardless of what an individual needs or does not need. Original appropriation allows an individual to claim any never-before-used resources, including land, and by improving or otherwise using it, own it with the same "absolute right" as their own body, and retain those rights forever, regardless of whether the resource is still being used by them. According to Rothbard, property can only come about through labor, therefore original appropriation of land is not legitimate by merely claiming it or building a fence around it – it is only by using land and by mixing one's labor with it that original appropriation is legitimized: "Any attempt to claim a new resource that someone does not use would have to be considered invasive of the property right of whoever the first user will turn out to be." Rothbard argues that the resource need not continue to be used for it to be the person's property as "for once his labor is mixed with the natural resource, it remains his owned land. His labor has been irretrievably mixed with the land, and the land is therefore his or his assigns' in perpetuity." Rothbard also argues about a theory of justice in property rights:
It is not enough to call simply for the defense of "the rights of private property"; there must be an adequate theory of justice in property rights, else any property that some State once decreed to be "private" must now be defended by libertarians, no matter how unjust the procedure or how mischievous its consequences. In Justice and Property Rights, Rothbard writes that "any identifiable owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property." In the case of slavery, Rothbard claims that in many cases "the old plantations and the heirs and descendants of the former slaves can be identified, and the reparations can become highly specific indeed." Rothbard believes slaves rightfully own any land they were forced to work on under the homestead principle. If property is held by the state, Rothbard advocates its confiscation and "return to the private sector", writing that "any property in the hands of the State is in the hands of thieves and should be liberated as quickly as possible." Rothbard proposed that state universities be seized by the students and faculty under the homestead principle. Rothbard also supported the expropriation of nominally "private property" if it is the result of state-initiated force such as businesses that receive grants and subsidies. Rothbard further proposed that businesses that receive at least 50% of their funding from the state be confiscated by the workers, writing: "What we libertarians object to, then, is not government per se but crime, what we object to is unjust or criminal property titles; what we are for is not 'private' property per se but just, innocent, non-criminal private property." Similarly, Karl Hess wrote that "libertarianism wants to advance principles of property, but it in no way wishes to defend, indiscriminately, all property which now is called private ... Much of that property is stolen. Much is of dubious title. All of it is deeply intertwined with an immoral, coercive state system." Classical anarchists view capitalism and institutions of law enforcment and wage system as an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical system and seek the abolishment of private property. Anarcho-capitalists don't disagree, but consider property- and contract-based hierarchies to be acceptable or even desirable. For that reason there is disagreement between most anarchists and anarcho-capitalists as the former generally rejects anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism and considers anarcho-capitalism a contradiction in terms, while the latter holds that the abolishment of private property and the wage system would require expropriation and anti-market state regulation, which is "counterproductive to order" and would require a state.