Gonzo Times

The Anti-Authoritarian Website

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101 Reasons Why I am not an Anarcho-Capitalist.

The charges laid out and listed with particular reference to those
of the Mises Institute and Lew Rockwell.com

1. Anarchism has been defined in ahistorical terms of a thin voluntaryism.Anarchism is just

voluntarism in their minds.
2. Conflation of property and ownership without understand the historic usage of the former.
This conflation leads to the fallacious argument that opposition to property means
opposition to ownership.
3. Knee Jerk anti-socialism/anti- leftism. By this I do not mean opposition to statism
but I mean to things such as workplace democracy, syndicalism, co-operatives,
anti-corporate theory etc. (For example one Mises forum member said of left
libertarianism:Basically communism without the marching bands and statues. or
there was "The stuff that Scott posted in his manifesto, is basically the same post
hoc, ergo propter hoc rationale for socialism that Communists use.)
4. False dichotomy of individual ownership or state ‘ownership’.
5. Failure to consider critically the tragedy of commons and engage with the work and ideas
of Elinor Ostrome(though as a concession, I heard Hoppe is re-thinking this issue)
6. Uncritical reliance of the big figures such as Mises
7. Tendency towards cultural conservatism
8. A reactionary tendency to defend the status quo (excepting statism) especially
corporations against the state.
9. Tendency to downplay if not deny social issues making it irrelevant to the poor and non
white.
10. While claiming to not concern themselves with social issues , a tendency to defend
culturally conservative positions such as defending discrimination or classism
11. Classism especially against those on welfare with dismissal of other causes for poverty

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12. Worship of those who are rich and wealthy- functioning as ‘rich white man’s anarchism’
13. Failure to engage criticism of the meaningfulness of ‘self ownership’
14. The belief labour unions are inherently violent or state backed(Thomas Dilorenzo is guilty
of this)
15. apologetics for corporations in reply to statism or even other anarchists
16. apologetics for bosses (often in reply to statism or even other anarchists) for example
in Jeffrey Tucker's piece How to handle getting fired which sides with the employer
largely, argues for following the bosses orders even if wrong and omits completely the
hardship of unemployment.
17. dismissal or downplaying environment issues.Opposition to global warming because it's
mainstream
18. opposition to political correctness as a knee jerk reaction
19. apologetics for landlords
20. failure to engage with anarchist history or original anarchist philosophy
21. Conflation of what would exist in the free market with the current statist quo - Vulgar
libertarianism
22. Failure to seriously engage with LTV defenses or STV critiques
23. apologetics for rent
24. Residual support for libertarian political parties/politicians
25. Horrendous cultic approval of Ron Paul- totally dismissing or ignoring his support for a bill
in favour of a tax funded wall to keep out immigrants etc.
26. Restricted immigrationism especially based on Hoppe
27. Using Hoppe to argue for 'Anarcho-Monarchism' or Feudalism
28. Authoritarianism and sometimes open support for hierarchy -e.g. Rothbard.
29. Rothbard and others Anti-egalitarianism.Strawmans of equality such as equality means
everyone is identical.
30. Walter Block's defense of discrimination.
31. Walter Block's argument for 'voluntary slavery'
32. Following Walter Block claims to be 'plumbline libertarian' and so neither left nor right
while leaning strongly right
33. Some have a Culturally conservative heavy emphasis on respectability in some cases
verging on fear of being 'too extreme'.
34. Hoppe calling homosexuality an "anti family lifestyle"- "They — the advocates of
alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual
hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will
have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."
35. The attitude of abolish the state and let the market deal with
racism,sexism,environmentalism etc
36. Belief the wage gap currently cannot be due to sexism because women have lower
productivity due to marriage and the market would prevent sexism/racism etc(from Walter
Block)
37. Quick to jump on the Gold standard as the solution to all monetary woes.
38. Tendency to become an echo chamber- less than the cult of organized Objectivism but
more so than other anarchist groups.
39. Unconcern/dismissal of workplace democracy and /or worker self management if not
outright hostility.

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40. Quick to side with the south against the north concerning the US Civil war- dismissing the
evils of the south almost entirely
41. Willingness to publish pseudoscience while having no critiques of it or in some cases
preventing critiques being aired alongside them
42. Certain Organizations desire to cover up incidents and writings which make them look
bad or reveal an individuals evils at a certain time.
43. Major figures willingness to work with an openly admitting theocrat
44. Bigotry masked by economics talk
45. Downplaying , dismissal or even outright hostility to feminism
46. Unwillingness to take seriously other branches of libertarianism/anarchism
47. Dismissal/downplaying of historic development of Capitalism e.g.Mises defense of the
Industrial revolution omitted the oppression occuring then
48. Knee Jerk Anti-Marxism without engaging it's truths
49. Environmentalism portrayed as fascist- George Reisman
50. Residual Cultic adherence by some to Ayn Rand
51. The Ron Paul Newsletters incident.
52. Uncritical thinking of Austrian Economics on Inflation and how it may not always cause
price increases
53. Tendency to dismiss concerns of ordinary working people.
54. Classism in favour of middle-upper class and classism against working/lower class people
especially those on welfare
55. Ignorant of how much the status quo is due to statism
56. Failure to engage with the evils of wage labour and what's called wage slavery
57. Strong belief in meritocracy in current world
58. Belief current 'democracy ' is egalitarian(following Hoppe)
59. Hans Hermann Hoppe's arguments suggesting monarchy is preferrable to democracy
60. Domination of rightwing or conventional thinking on organizations ,laws,communities etc
61. Belief in non state top down hierarchical structures and organizations
62. Failure to engage with Co-ops and mutual organizations
63. Anarcho-Capitalism defined more in terms of opposition to ideologies such
as socialism,marxism etc than in terms of what it is in favour of.Reactionary.
64. Tendency to serve as apologetics for rich/ politically connected(linked to vulgar
libertarianism)
65. Failure to engage critiques of Absentee Ownership or Occupancy and Use
66. Contorsions of logic involved in 'self ownership' especially from a reformulation
lockeanism.
67. Failure to even deal with Locke's Proviso.
68. Tendency to fall prey to conspiracy mixed with half truths
69. Non voting,agorism etc often portrayed as doing nothing
70. Rothbard's 'leninist' political party strategy.
71. Uncritical belief economic growth, progress, expansion, technology etc is good
72. Tendency to focus too strongly on academia to the exclusion of the ordinary person
73. Tendency to focus on getting qualifications to the exclusion of other routes in life
74. Related to Cultural Conservatism- tendency to quickly criticize weird behaviours or
lifestyles
75. Tendency to conflate opposition with X with belief force should be used to stop/end X e.g.

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on the issue of racism or oppression of workers.

76. Tendency to fail to understand shades of anarchism,socialism etc.
77. omission of the evils of bosses such as strikebreaking or glorification of them under the
rhetoric they were statist/(some libertarian historians are guilty of this)
78. Residual reliance on conservatism
79. Tendency to jump into bed with conservatives as if it's natural
80. Tendency to deify entrepreneurs and/or businessmen
81. Distanced from real life concerns and the drudgery of day to day life.
82. Uncritical reliance of the big figures such as Mises
83. False dichotomy of individual ownership or state ‘ownership’
84. Failure to see why corporations are statist
85. Failure to see why current limited liability is statist
86. Distortion and selective reading of Mutualism/Individualist Anarchism especially Benjamin
Tucker.
87. Rothbard's opposition to Jury Nullification in anarchist societies
88. Rothbard's belief in a libertarian legal code arising.
89. Tendency to conflate Capitalism with Free Market so Free Markets are automatically
Capitalistic and Anarchism is automatically Capitalist.Ahistorical usage of term Capitalism.
90. Failure to engage properly critiques of Anarcho-Capitalism such as the Anarchist FAQ
e.g. as seen in such people as Bryan Caplan.
91. Romantic attachment to founding fathers,constitutions etc.
92. False dichotomy of 'anti-market' socialism vs pro-market libertarianism.
93. Assumption Communism is inherently statist.
94. Package dealing such as conflating leftism/socialist concerns with statism.
95. Few discuss LGBT issues.
96. Unwillingness to work with other anarchists -even on an issue by issue basis- leading to
complete isolation.
97. Failure to grasp the actual difficulties of being poor.
98. Failure to grasp the mistreatment workers face often.
99. More concerned with economics than ethics.
100. Tendency to wrongly think concern for social issues is overreaching and a desire to
control others-pretty much excluding morality especially from politics.
101. Some have argued that parents own their children and so have a right to mistreatment or
spank/smack them.

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