Bill Martin V Keith Knight (anarcho-capitalist)

Good debate. I am not sure that the anarcho-capitalist had come debated anyone before arguing against the existence of the coercive State and for voluntary agreement like him but also against the capitalist economic system of production for the market with a view to profit. But he must surely have come across others calling themselves anarchists who take up this position.

Of course the anarcho-capitalists start from the assumption that the right to property derives from someone having paid for something out of their earnings from work. But, as Bill pointed out, production today is not individual but a collective effort involving all those involved in producing something (ultimately everybody who works); on the argument that the right to property derives from work this would justify socialism as common ownership and from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Not that this is an argument that we use since, as Bill also pointed out, we don’t argue in terms of “rights”. But it is one anarcho-capitalists have to answer but can’t.