Atlas / Comparisons / Anarcho-Capitalism vs Mensheviks
Anarcho-Capitalism and Mensheviks
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on CH. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, SC.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Rothbard | RSDLP(m) | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +10 | −08 | 18 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +01 | −05 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −10 | −04 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| SC · Scale of decision | −10 | +03 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −02 | −07 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +03 | +02 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Rothbard · EC +10
At the ceiling. Every function including law and defence is to be supplied by contract.
- Programme textRothbard's For a New Liberty treats taxation as theft without qualification and proposes private courts and defence agencies.
RSDLP(m) · EC −08
Coded within one point of the Bolsheviks: the disagreement was about sequence and method, not about ownership.
- Programme textBoth factions accepted the same Second Congress programme of 1903 on socialisation of the means of production.
Rothbard · SC −10
At the floor with anarcho-communism: no unit above voluntary association.
- Programme textDefence, adjudication and law are supplied by competing firms serving individual clients.
RSDLP(m) · SC +03
Favoured a democratic republic with substantial regional autonomy rather than centralised command.
- Documented act or statuteThe Georgian Menshevik republic of 1918–21 operated a parliamentary constitution until the Red Army invasion.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Anarcho-Capitalism
1970– · United States
All state functions including courts, police and defence should be supplied competitively on the market; taxation is theft.
Mensheviks
1903–1921 · Russia
Russia must pass through a bourgeois-democratic stage; socialism cannot be decreed by a minority.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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