Saturday, November 8, 2008

Lysander Spooner's Philosophy

A great essay on it, here.

On another note..

One thing that is interesting is how many social anarchists label Spooner as "anti-capitalist" for some of his criticisms of wage labor (most of these criticisms were discussing wage labor in the context of *state* capitalism, but some were not).

Ancaps Sam Konkin and David Friedman (among others) both made similar criticisms of wage labor, yet neither of them are hailed as "anti-capitalists," like Spooner is. And Spooner's conception of natural rights is basically the same as Rothbard's, which is why I think it's politically accurate to call him an anarcho-capitalist--albeit a "left-leaning" one.

Why do the collectivists want to claim Spooner so badly? My guess that they can't stand the thought of not being able to "have" a famous abolitionist.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spooner's economics were not anarcho-capitalist, but rooted in the Proudhon/Warren doctrine.

Natural rights are not ancap exclusive either.

Ben Arzate said...

What's "anarcho-capitalist economics"? Not all ancaps are Austrians.

I haven't read all of Spooners works but he didn't seem to be as opposed to rent, interest and profit as other individualist anarchists were.

Cork said...

Anonymous,

Rorshak beat me to it. Anarcho-capitalism isn't a set of "economic views." It's a political philosophy that opposes aggression against person and property.