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§ The hall of

Anarcho-Capitalist

David D. Friedman, in 'The Machinery of Freedom,' presents an economic argument for Anarcho-Capitalism, proposing private agencies handle security and justice through competitive markets. Rejecting state authority, this system relies on voluntary contracts, arbitration, and private property as the foundation of order and governance.

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Figures
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Historical & living
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Fictional
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Social variants
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Anarcho-Capitalist · cell 8·8
§ The territory

What it believes

The market entire: law, police, courts, and defense supplied by competing agencies under insurance and arbitration, property absolute, and the state revealed as just a monopoly that forgot it had competitors.

The appeal

It is the boldest consistency claim in the atlas — if competition beats monopoly everywhere else, why exempt governance? — and its thought experiments (Friedman's Iceland, private arbitration's real success) keep the question honestly open.

Where it breaks

Protection agencies with armies are governments in larval form: the equilibrium of competing enforcers is either cartel (a state), conquest (a worse state), or Somalia's decade of warlord clearing prices. No polity has ever stayed in this cell; things pass through it, in one direction or the other.

Among its neighbours

The Minarcho-Capitalist above keeps the state's nameplate this cell unscrews. The Crypto-Anarchist beside it builds the infrastructure this cell's agencies would bill through. The far end of this row — the Anarcho-Communist — shares the abolition and disputes everything else: the two poles of the stateless dream, glaring at each other across the whole map.

§ Featured · the definitive faces

Figures — real and imagined — who share the Anarcho-Capitalist base ideology. They differ only on the third axis: from radical to restorationist, each is a different face of a Anarcho-Capitalist.

§ The hall · everyone else

The company you keep.

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§ The nine shades of Anarcho-Capitalist

The social axis (progressive ↔ traditional) splits Anarcho-Capitalist into nine named shades. Take the quiz to find out which one is yours.

  • Radical Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Progressive Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Reformist Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Heterodox Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Rooted Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Traditional Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Reactionary Anarcho-Capitalist
  • Restorationist Anarcho-Capitalist
Find your shade — take the quiz →
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