Atlas / Organisations / Anarcho-Capitalism
Anarcho-Capitalism
Rothbard · 1970– · United States · Libertarian · Doctrine / school · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
All state functions including courts, police and defence should be supplied competitively on the market; taxation is theft.
Economic model
Absolute private property, no central bank, no regulation, commodity money, contract as the only legitimate obligation.
Organisation of powers
No state; private arbitration agencies and defence firms bound by voluntary contract.
Reading note
The mirror image of anarcho-communism: same extreme on authority, opposite extreme on economics. Their existence disproves the one-line model on its own.
Check a claim about Anarcho-Capitalism. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored +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.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +01
Coded near neutral: the doctrine is silent on social order, holding that any arrangement may be contracted.
- Programme textRothbard's framework derives all obligations from property and contract, with no substantive social prescription.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −10
At the floor with anarcho-communism, from the opposite economic pole. The pairing is the strongest single refutation of the one-dimensional model.
- Comparative datasetBoth traditions reject the state as such; they differ by nineteen points on the economic axis.
SC · Scale of decision · scored −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.
ID · Rule of membership · scored −02
Coded mildly universalist: membership is contractual, though the tradition splits on covenant communities.
- ScholarshipFree immigration follows from the framework; some later writers argue the opposite from property rights.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +03
Coded mildly positive: education and secession rather than force, but with an explicit right of resistance.
- Programme textStrategy is framed as withdrawal, secession and non-compliance rather than seizure of the state.
Where it came from, and what came after
- takes its doctrine fromIndividualist Anarchism
Rothbard took the individualist tradition and removed its labour theory of value.
- was destroyed byObjectivism
Rand attacked anarcho-capitalism directly, holding that force must be placed under objective law.
- split intoMinarchist Libertarianism
Nozick's night-watchman state was formulated in explicit argument against anarcho-capitalism.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Individualist Anarchism6.3
- Objectivism7.7
- Minarchist Libertarianism8.3
- Girondins10.3
- The Levellers10.5
- Classical Liberalism10.9
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.