Expanding the Anarchist Range: a critical reappraisal of Rothbard's contribution to the contemporary theory of anarchism

David Prychitko

Review of Political Economy, 1997, vol. 9, issue 4, 433-455

Abstract: Anarchism is usually conceived as a libertarian rejection of the state combined with a socialist rejection of the market. The ideal anarchist system would be self-managed and comprehensively planned. Murray Rothbard, a member of the Austrian School of economics, disagreed lie argued that anarchism would work only as a free-market capitalist economy without a state. The present paper examines, and rejects, Rothbard's welfare-economics case against the state and also his theoretical case against self-managed enterprise, Rothbardian, right-wing anarchism correctly argues that contemporary left-wing anarchist theory (best represented by Murray Bookchin) is flawed because it fails to recognize the 'knowledge problem' that occurs when markets for the means of production are abolished. But Rothbard's corresponding call for the necessity of 'anarcho-capitalism' does not persuade. While the present paper affirms, with Rothbard, that anarchism must be market-based, it also seeks to expand the range of firms that operate within a market-anarchist system, from the capitalist enterprises championed by the Right to the self-managed and cooperative enterprises championed by the Left.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1080/09538259700000041

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