By Jamie O'Hara & Craig FitzGerald
Anarchists with socialist leanings
associate the terms “free market” and “capitalism” with
oppression and exploitation. To anarcho-capitalists, the
absence of state intervention in the market is the ultimate form of
liberty. In both the underground and mainstream political
worlds, free enterprise is virtually synonymous with capitalism.
But these expressions are not one and the same. The etymology
of the word “capitalism” reveals characteristics that are
completely antithetical to the concept of a free market, as well as
the philosophy of anarchism.
In English, the word “capital”
dates back to the thirteenth century, when it was used to mean
“primary,” “chief,” or “head.” These words all
necessarily imply the existence of hierarchy; “capitalism” as an
organized economic system is inherently hierarchical. Rather
than describe free markets, the word is synonymous with plutocracy,
which comes from the Greek for “rule or power of the wealthy or of
wealth.” When “capital” received its financial definition
in the sixteenth century, its now double meaning—“money” and
“head”—began to solidify this comparison to plutocracy.
No evidence exists of the word “capitalism” until 1854 when it
meant the “condition of having capital.” In 1861, French
anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon coined the word “capitalism” and
described it as a plutocratic economic system.
By the fourteenth century, the word
also connoted mortality and life or death (hence “a capital
offense” and “capital punishment”). It is interesting to
consider the way that most people today perceive money as a matter of
life and death. For those who participate in the plutocracy,
abundant finances mean everything, while the lack thereof can bring
one’s demise. Our culture has been bombarded with the false
value that currency equals wealth, and wealth equals life. In
actuality, the most common manifestation of capital punishment is the
imposed system of fiat money.
So, capitalism is a life or death
system in which money is the hierarchy’s head. This
perception of the word stemmed from an examination of the word’s
etymology in English, but even more telling are the original Latin
meanings of capitale. In addition to the definitions
associated with being first or on top, capitale could also mean
“something stolen.” This suggests a hint of corruption and
theft (which may have influenced Proudhon’s idea that “property
is theft”). It also reflects the contemporary economic
situation everywhere: banks and governments steal from the people.
Such an understanding of the word
“capitalism” allows one to draw a stark contrast between this
economic system and the potential for truly laissez-faire free
markets. The theory of Agorism, posited by Canadian libertarian
Samuel Edward Konkin III in 1975, is an ideal representation of real
free enterprise. The term comes from the Greek word agora,
meaning “open marketplace,” and refers to the voluntary building
of parallel underground economies.
Unlike capitalism, agorism is
compatible with all forms of anarchism, regardless of hyphenation.
In An Agorist Primer, Konkin’s first and third Axioms of Agorism
are, respectively: “The closest approach to a free society is an
uncorrupted agora” and “The moral system of any agora is
compatible with pure libertarianism” (i.e. anarchism). If
an anarchist community maintains an alternative economy apart from
the state, that community is implementing agorism, regardless of
whether that economy is communist, free market, or anything in
between. In fact, anarchist groups who do not embrace an
agorist model will inevitably fail at being independent from the
state and its corporate partners. Even though agorism
originated in a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist context, it is equally
applicable to socialist anarchist communities. Whether an
anarchist community’s goals include socialized welfare and
healthcare systems or alternative currencies and autonomous methods
of trade, agorism is the only means.
Anarchists of all stripes must bridge
the gap between theory and action. Economics is pragmatic,
realistic and material. Without it, anarchist communities are
solely philosophical. Agorism represents a way for tribes to
attain successful and sustainable independence from the state.
The intention behind anarcho-capitalism
is to create free markets, not to establish hierarchies of wealth.
Anarcho-capitalists should consider completely disassociating from
the label of capitalism at all, and instead employ terms like “free
market,” “free enterprise,” “voluntaryism” and “agorism.”
Anarcho-capitalists who argue that their libertarian brand of
capitalism is completely different from the
statist-corporatist-Keynesian version of capitalism fail to recognize
the historical reality that capitalism has never produced a free
market. They also ignore the etymological significance of the
word. While anarchism has enough semantic arguments and
divisions, language is important. The history of words has
significance for humanity, and we should be very conscious of the
messages we proclaim.
(Source)
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