Anarcho-capitalism

**Anarcho-capitalism** is a political philosophy that says that governments are not needed but that private property rights are needed.

## Complaints against government
**Anarcho-capitalism** says that governments are not needed because governments either do not work or are bad.&nbsp; Anarcho-capitalists normally believe that governments are bad due to their use of force.&nbsp; Anarcho-capitalists' examples of government force include:
*Forcing people to pay taxes,
*Forcing people to join the military,
*Starting unnecessary wars,
*Forcing slaves to return to their masters,
*Forcing people into internment camps or concentration camps,
*Telling people what they may and may not do with their own bodies (including whether they can use drugs, have voluntary sex, or gamble),
*Telling people what sort of contracts they may or may not make with one another,
*Telling people where they may or may not live,
*Telling businesses who they may or may not hire,
*Telling who people may and may not marry,
*Telling people how to run their businesses,
*Telling people what religious beliefs and nonviolent religious practices they may have,
*Telling people what they may or may not say or write,
*Telling people what they may and may not buy or sell or import or export, and
*Making itself a monopoly by making private alternatives illegal.

Anarcho-capitalists say that society would be better off if the good thing government did were instead done on the free market by private individuals, private companies, charities, mutual aid societies, and voluntary unions.&nbsp; Anarcho-capitalists think that people will still be safe without armies and police that are paid for with taxes, and that people will be able to protect themselves by paying people or "private defence agencies" to defend them, or by setting up neighborhood watches.&nbsp; Voluntarism, which is normally included as a part of anarcho-capitalist ideology, think that when people get into fights or arguments about who owns what, people should be able to get together and decide what kind of court to go to and what kind of rules they should be judged by, instead of being forced to go to a court that the government sets up.

Anarchists are against capitalism as they think it uses force. Anarcho-capitalists support capitalism and say everything in it is consensual.

Anarchists oppose anarcho-capitalism because they do not believe any private property is legitimate.&nbsp; These anarchists would say that all property is founded on the theft of the commons (unowned land and stuff).&nbsp; Many anarchists don't even think that anarcho-capitalism counts as a real form of anarchism, as this critique of property goes back to some of the earliest people calling themselves anarchists.

## Property
Anarcho-capitalists, like other libertarians and classical liberals, only believe property is legitimate when it has been gotten in the right sort of way.&nbsp; If you steal (take something from someone without their permission), or hire someone to steal on your behalf, or ask the government to steal on your behalf, the property you get is not really yours.&nbsp; The *real* owner is still the person or people it belonged to before it was stolen.&nbsp; In other words, if you come across an unowned field, and you start farming it, then the land you farm becomes your property, along with all of the crops you grow.&nbsp; If someone else comes along and steals all of the crops you worked on growing, that person has committed a form of force called "theft."&nbsp; The second and third ways to legitimately get property is through voluntary trade or gift.

If someone has gotten something in an illegitimate way, it is not theft to take the thing back, as long as you harm no innocent person in the process.

## Non-aggression
Some anarcho-capitalists are also anarcho-pacifists, but most anarcho-capitalists are not. Anarcho-pacifists, like Robert LeFevre, believe one may never use any force at all, not even in self-defence. Most anarcho-capitalists, however, believe it is okay to use defensive force as long as it is *only* directed against those who have used non-defensive force, and as long as it is proportional to the non-defensive force.&nbsp; In other words, one may not legitimately shoot a person for stealing a stick of gum, because shooting someone is a lot more forceful than stealing the gum.

## Related pages
* Anarchism
* Agorism
* Austrian School
* Autarchism

## Notes