Anarchism, what it is and what it is not, I: property

I use the labels anarchist and libertarian to describe where I stand ideologically and philosophically. In another post, I explained why anarchists must be libertarians, and why libertarians must be anarchists. However, both labels cause confusion (as labels often do). Therefore, I would like to explain what I mean, and do not mean, by describing myself as an anarchist.

There are many misunderstandings about what anarchism means, even among people who call themselves anarchists. One of these common misunderstandings is that anarchism is incompatible with private property, or property at all, since Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said that "property is theft". If one accepts Proudhon as an anarchist icon, it seems hard to combine this with the defense of private property. There are, however, different opinions about what Proudhon actually meant by that statement. Some claim that Proudhon only referred to state property, and to property created through state privileges. After all, he was a mutualist.

Besides, there are anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, Murray Rothbard and David D. Friedman, who all defend a free market and private property, and consider these institutions as either necessary for a stateless society, or the logical consequence of such a society.

This is also why I consider myself a free market anarchist (or a libertarian anarchist). There are other anarchist traditions, which Per Bylund tells more about here. One of these traditions is voluntaryism, which says (obviously) that all human action should be voluntary. Although this theory, if I understand it correctly, mostly concerns collective action, the essence of voluntaryism must be that all peaceful interaction between human beings, be it intellectual, cultural, sexual or commercial, must be allowed. This means that under voluntaryism, there would be free markets, and thus, anarchism is compatible with private property, which means that I do not support throwing rocks at office buildings, or food stores.