What's Market Anarchism?

Question

Oops, hit enter before I asked anything. Anyhoot, I'm not clear on what market anarchism is. Is it, I guess, just 'anarcho'-capitalism lite, or something entirely different?

Answer 1

i hope other people address this too. my sense of market anarchism is that it could be/is sometimes anarcho-capitalism lite, depending on who you talk to, and how you define capitalism and market.
i believe there are market anarchists who are not capitalists, and who call themselves that because they have a specific emphasis (as with sindicalists, for example... edit (sigh) i mean that sindicalists focus on workers and work, and the tendency is named for that). what they focus on in when thinking about how anarchy could work is markets and currencies and trade, and they support the idea of some kind of market place, which (at its most benign) could be a town square where people trade stuff, for example.

as always, i look forward to more knowledgeable people correcting me.

Comments

"i believe there are market anarchists who are not capitalists,"

i know there are those inspired by mutualism, agorism, etc, who define themselves left-libertarian or left-wing market anarchists contra the so-called 'anarcho' crapitalists. broadly, they are far more concerned about social issues like racism, sexism and poverty, as well as ecocide, than the lew rockwell/mises crowd...which isn't at all concerned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_market_anarchism

http://libertarianleft.org/

https://c4ss.org/

---

Is mutualism the one that has some sort of currency, contracts, and it would supposedly be voluntary? Or maybe kind of like an in between of capitalism and socialism? Like each business is owned collectively and they compete with each other for customers and stuff. Economics/markets makes my brain hurt.

I tried to read another thread on what mutualism was, but it just had some person writing huge walls-o-text that didn't state anything.

---

'Economics/markets makes my brain hurt.'

indeed. economics seems to me one of the worst of the prevalent miserabilist tendencies. it (supposedly) reduces everything into units of manipulation, 'things-in-themselves,' while presenting itself as 'the way things are,' fact (aka 'reality'). yech. a ready-to-hand example of nietzsche's famous note (and famously quoted out of context) 'there are no facts only interpretations.' economics of every stripe depends on the large context of relations, perspectives, meanings, senses, we label as 'worldview.' in the case of economics, it seems always to entail a much reduced, impoverished, context.

anyway, for some heavy head-hurting there's this.

edit for added thoughts.