08/06/2026
One of the biggest misconceptions about anarchism is that it’s simply a spectrum with anarcho-capitalism on one end and anarcho-communism on the other. Historically, that isn’t how anarchism developed.
The earliest anarchists weren’t defending capitalism, nor were they calling for the abolition of all markets. Thinkers like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon argued that exploitation came from privilege: state-backed monopolies, absentee property ownership, banking monopolies, and legal protections that allowed some people to live from the labor of others.
Proudhon’s famous statement, “Property is theft,” wasn’t a rejection of possession or personal property. He also wrote, “Property is liberty.” What he opposed was property that granted power over others; such as absentee ownership and privilege enforced by the state. He defended possession based on occupancy and use, voluntary exchange, workers’ associations, and mutual credit.
From that perspective, anarcho-capitalism misses the mark by preserving capitalist property relations while removing the state. Eliminating government doesn’t eliminate hierarchy if wealth can still be concentrated through absentee ownership, monopoly, and wage dependence. Replacing politicians with corporate landlords isn’t the abolition of domination.
Anarcho-communism, in my view, misses the mark for a different reason. While it shares anarchism’s opposition to capitalism and the state, it often treats markets, exchange, and individual economic choice as inherently illegitimate. If everyone is expected to participate in communist economic arrangements, those who prefer voluntary market exchange have little room to live differently.
Mutualism offers another path.
It rejects capitalism without rejecting markets. It rejects communism without rejecting cooperation. It supports voluntary markets stripped of state privilege, worker cooperatives, mutual aid societies, occupancy-and-use property, decentralized production, and free association.
Most importantly, mutualism doesn’t insist there’s only one correct economic system. If a group of people wants to form a communist commune, they should be free to do so. If another group wants to operate worker cooperatives that trade in a genuinely free market, they should be equally free to do so. No state. No capitalist privilege. No compulsory communism.
To me, that’s what anarchism has always been about: dismantling systems of domination while maximizing voluntary association. Not replacing one economic orthodoxy with another, but creating a society where people are free to organize their lives without rulers, and without being forced into someone else’s preferred economic model.
