WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE SPAIN - (en) Spaine, Regeneration: Libertarians vs. Libertarians -- Capitalism Disguised as Freedom By LIZA (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 In these times, few words have been as politically abused as the concept

"libertarian." What originally designated those, from a revolutionary
socialist perspective, fighting for a stateless and classless society
has been co-opted by a school of thought that glorifies the market,
private property, and inequality as supposed expressions of freedom.
This appropriation, promoted by the Anglo-Saxon world in the mid-20th
century under the label of Libertarianism, has given rise to a series of
conceptual aberrations, among them the most blatant: so-called
anarcho-capitalism.

This oxymoron, which brings together two historically and
philosophically antagonistic concepts, is not just a theoretical
imposture: it is an ideological operation serving a reactionary agenda.
This text seeks to dismantle this imposture from an anarchist
perspective, recovering the socialist and collectivist roots of
anarchism and highlighting the role of libertarians as de facto allies
of neoliberal authoritarianism and the far right. As anarchists, we
reclaim the term "libertarian" in its original sense and affirm the need
to accurately name those who, under the guise of anti-state radicalism,
defend the perpetuation of capitalism: we call them, with conceptual
clarity, libertarians.

The Genealogy of Libertarianism

The term "libertarian" was first used by Joseph Déjacque in his article
"Of Human Beings, Man and Woman" in 1857, to oppose those who called
themselves liberals, children of the French Revolution or the American
Revolution, but opposed to true individual and social sovereignty.
Libertarianism emerged as a synonym for anarchism, as a simultaneous
negation of the state and capital, as an affirmation of a social
organization based on voluntary cooperation, mutual aid, and radical
equality. The tradition that began with Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin,
and Malatesta unfolded in multiple organizational forms throughout the
20th century: from collectivized agricultural federations to
self-managed urban communes, from rationalist schools to anti-fascist
brigades.

Anarchism is not, and has never been, a doctrine of the abstract
individual separated from the community. Its commitment has always been
to a concrete freedom, embodied in social relations emancipated from
command, exploitation, and alienation. Therefore, it has been a
profoundly anti-capitalist movement. For anarchists, capital and the
state are two sides of the same coin: hierarchical structures that deny
popular autonomy.

 From Ludwig von Mises to Murray Rothbard

Contrary to this emancipatory tradition, the "libertarianism" that
emerged in the United States in the mid-20th century appropriated the
rhetoric of liberty to legitimize an order based on the accumulation of
capital. Through authors such as Ludwig von Mises, Hans Hermann Hoppe,
and especially Murray Rothbard, a worldview was constructed where
liberty equates to unlimited private property and the market is elevated
to the supreme mechanism of social organization.

It is worth considering a revealing statement by Rothbard himself, a
central figure of anarcho-capitalism, in his text "Are Libertarians
'Anarchists'?" (1954), unambiguously acknowledged:

"Therefore, we must turn to history for clarification; here we find that
none of the proclaimed anarchist groups corresponds to the libertarian
position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialist
elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all current
anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore are at the
opposite pole from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are
not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists have no firm
etymological basis and are being entirely ahistorical."

This is not, therefore, an innocent confusion, but a conscious maneuver
of terminological reappropriation. Rothbard not only distances himself
from historical anarchism: he despises it and denies it as a legitimate
reference for his own ideology, which finds its inspiration not in
Bakunin or Kropotkin, but in the most radical Manchester capitalism.

The Oxymoron of Anarcho-Capitalism

So-called anarcho-capitalism represents the most extreme attempt at this
appropriation. It seeks to combine anarchism with capitalism, two
absolutely incompatible notions. While anarchism seeks to abolish all
forms of hierarchical authority, capitalism is, by definition, a system
based on the authority of the owner over those who do not own the means
of production of life.

For anarcho-capitalists--or, more strictly, libertarians--freedom is
reduced to the possibility of entering into private contracts between
individuals. But this idea of contractual voluntarism is a fiction,
because not all individuals have equal power or conditions to negotiate.
As anarchist theory points out, economic relations in capitalism are
mediated by the structural coercion of necessity: work or die.

Anarcho-capitalism doesn't eliminate domination, it privatizes it. It
replaces the authority of the state with the authority of the
capitalist. Instead of a public police force, it proposes private
armies; instead of a state justice system, it proposes arbitration
between property owners. This is not emancipation, but market feudalism.

Reactionism and the market go hand in hand

Contemporary libertarianism, by focusing on the defense of property and
radical individualism, becomes an ideal platform for the rise of
reactionary projects. It is no coincidence that many libertarians have
been allies of Trumpism in the United States, Bolsonarism in Brazil, and
Mileism in Argentina. Javier Milei, an ultra-liberal economist turned
president, declares himself both a libertarian and an admirer of
Rothbard, Mises, and the Austrian School of Economics. His discourse
combines a defense of the market with open contempt for unions, social
movements, feminism, and social justice.

In the name of "economic freedom," all forms of popular organization are
attacked, social movements are criminalized, and the existence of
structural oppression is denied. Any struggle that questions the
supremacy of the market is repudiated. Anarcho-capitalism is, in
practice, an ideology of war against the poor.

The Libertarian Organization as a Collective Construction

Faced with this perverse caricature of freedom, anarchism champions
organization from below, the construction of popular power, and direct
democracy. This is not about individual atomization, but rather the
affirmation of horizontal collective structures, built from the bottom
up. From housing cooperatives to neighborhood solidarity networks, from
autonomous unions to self-managed educational spaces, anarchism deploys
a concrete, living, material social practice.

As Bakunin stated: "The freedom of one cannot be realized except in the
freedom of all." The freedom of one individual is not limited by that of
another individual; rather, individual freedoms are only properly
complemented under the common freedom of the entire society. There is no
freedom possible without equality. And there is no equality without
questioning private ownership of the means of production. Therefore,
anarchism proposes a socialized, self-managed economy where labor is
freed from the yoke of capital.

Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice; socialism without
freedom is slavery and brutality.

It is not only urgent, but fundamental, to clearly distinguish anarchism
from its liberal-capitalist distortion. In the face of the
commodification of life, anarchism affirms the dignity of the common
good. In the face of national or corporate authoritarianism, it affirms
organization and class struggle. Against possessive selfishness,
revolutionary solidarity.

Being libertarian doesn't simply mean being anti-statist: it means being
anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-colonial. It entails
building power from below, from horizontality and self-management, and
not from the myth of the property-owning individual who "chooses" under
structural coercion.

To the libertarian comrades in Argentina who today confront the
antisocial policies of libertarian Javier Milei, we send all our
strength, our militant solidarity, and our internationalist commitment.
Your struggle is also ours.

Because there is no anarchism without social revolution. And there is no
social revolution without breaking with capital.

Don Diego de la Vega, Liza activist

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2025/05/13/libertarios-contra-libertarianos/
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