Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 21:39:23 +0100
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Anarchist Web Page Directory


hello all

Shawn writes:

> Say we grant, provisionally, that "mutualists favoured capitalism." 

well, I would disagree with that, even provisionally! :)

<snip>
 
> My experience with lib-caps is that they don't know the mutualists and
> 19th century individualists at all well. 

I would agree with that. Then again, the same can be said for
anarchists,
as I discovered when I started reading their works.

They're probably fondest of
> Lysander Spooner, probably because he comes closest to being a
> "capitalist"  of some sort - *but* he also favors the abolition or
> abandonment of the industrial system, which pretty drastically undercuts
> any support for contemporary capitalism.

He was also totally against wage labour, which makes him less of a
capitalist than some of the Individualist Anarchists! His Letter
to Cleveland is basically an attack on the creation of capitalism
in the USA, arguing that the state was encouraging the creation
of wage labour and that the state was run by the rich. I find it
strange that Spooner has become such a favourite of the lib caps
-- perhaps thats because they ignore his economic ideas totally
(and so place his political ideas in an inappropriate environment
and one he did not intend!).

But its never surprising what some people do to the dead...
 
<snip>

Iain