Submitted by Aubrey Herbert, Jul 4, 2007 01:56

Capitalism is inherently anti-state. That is a fact that must be stressed over and over for the sake of Randian state worshippers like Wayne here, as well as the Socialists and Interventionists that we mutually battle. Why is anarchism (the absence of a state) the logical conclusion of the philosophy of Capitalism? To undestand this one must understand just what the philosophy of Captalism entails. When one uses the word Capitalism as Rothbard used it, or as Mises used it, or Rand sometimes used it when she wasn't perverting it with conflated ideas regarding the state, one is simply saying "laissez-faire." Which means, the absence of interference—which means, the absence of violence in men's mutual peaceful affairs on behalf of the government. Obviously the extreme absence of government intervention is logically anarchism. When the Randians talk about their blessed, magical, mythical, small, minarchist state they are still referring to an organization which is permitted to initiate the use of physical force against peaceful people to prevent competition in the production of security. Randians seem to think that their state is so tiny and innocent that it can simply do no harm to those who mean no harm, yet they also hold to the ideal that there will be no competition with their state. By what means will this absence of competition be guaranteed? In the mind of Rand and her acolytes there's simply a blank-out in response to this question. It is the existence of the state that is the true gang-rule and the complete breakdown of the rule of law. The state was a mistake, and it has cost us dearly in hundreds of millions of lives and trillions of dollars, not to mention the nigh infinite missed opportunities caused by tradeoffs. The production of security is a legitimate entrepreneurial field. Security is a good or service, a commodity like any other. And in so being it is subject to known economic laws. The adhernce to economic laws for the material benefit of humanity is what we advocate when we advocate Capitalism. In sum, anarcho-Capitalism in the mould of Rothbard is *the* pure expression of Capitalism and it is also the pure expression of anarchism.

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