Anarchy and the Law

What's all this fuss about free-market anarchism? Well, Professor Stringham didn't just introduce the topic in this massive book. He went the whole way to the end: he created what we've desperately needed for decades: a complete reader on the topic. A monumental book at 700 pages, fully indexed, this is collection we've always wanted.

Why, oh why, didn't this appear years ago? Never mind: the point is that it is here. And the Mises Institute is just so very pleased to make it available, and to offer a special congratulations to Edward Stringham for taking on the seemingly impossible, making sound judgments, and spending the necessary hundreds of hours that it took to put this together.

If you love the idea of free-market anarchism, hate it, or are just intrigued that so many are steeped in the rigor and logic of the prospects of a free society without the state, this is the collection that gives you all you need to find your way around this burgeoning line of thought.

And at this price, the book is a steal (and, no, stealing would not be allowed under free-market anarchism; see Rothbard's chapter two).

Roderick Long writes:

This nearly 700-page book is quite simply the definitive collection on free-market anarchism. Its forty chapters include contributions from Randy Barnett, Bruce Benson, Bryan Caplan, Roy Childs, Anthony de Jasay, David Friedman, John Hasnas, Hans Hoppe, Jeff Hummel, Don Lavoie, Murray Rothbard, the Tannehills, and many more, including even your humble correspondent. It also features historical classics by Voltairine de Cleyre, Gustave de Molinari, Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker, among others. It covers both moral arguments and economic ones; it ranges over both abstract theory and historical examples. It even includes important criticisms of market anarchism, like Tyler Cowen’s and Robert Nozick’s, along with anarchist replies. This, here and now, is it. Wonder no more what is the market anarchist book to recommend to the anarcho-curious or wave menacingly at the statist heathen; it’s this one.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction—Edward P. Stringham

Section I: Theory of Private Property Anarchism

2. Police, Law, and the Courts—Murray Rothbard

3. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (excerpt)—David Friedman

4. Market for Liberty (excerpt)—Morris and Linda Tannehill

5. Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Crime Prevention and the Legal Order—Randy Barnett

6. Capitalist Production and the Problem of Public Goods—Hans Hoppe

7. National Defense and the Public-Goods Problem—Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and Don Lavoie

8. Defending a Free Nation

Roderick Long

9. The Myth of the Rule of Law—John Hasnas

Section II: Debate

10. The State—Robert Nozick

11. The Invisible Hand Strikes Back—Roy A. Childs

12. Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State—Murray Rothbard

13. Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand—Roy Childs

14. Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?—Alfred G. Cuzan

15. Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy—Tyler Cowen

16. Law as a Private Good: A Response to Tyler Cowen on the Economics of Anarchy—David Friedman

17. Rejoinder to David Friedman on the Economics of Anarchy—Tyler Cowen

18. Networks, Law and the Paradox of Cooperation—Bryan Caplan and Edward Stringham

19. Conflict, Cooperation and Competition in Anarchy—Tyler Cowen and Daniel Sutter

20. Conventions: Some Thoughts on the Economics of Ordered Anarchy—Anthony De Jasay

21. Can Anarchy Save Us from Leviathan?—Andrew Rutten

22. Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable—Randall Holcombe

23. Is Government Inevitable? Comment on Holcombe’s Analysis—Peter Leeson and Edward Stringham

Section III: History of Anarchist Thought

24. Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-statist Liberal Tradition (excepts)—David Hart

25. Vindication of Natural Society(excerpt)—Edmund Burke

26. The Production of Security—Gustave de Molinari

27. Individualist Anarchism in the United States: The Origins—Murray Rothbard

28. Anarchism and American Traditions—Voltairine de Cleyre

29. On Civil Government—David Lipscomb

30. No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (excerpt)—Lysander Spooner

31. Trial by Jury—Lysander Spooner

32. Relation of the State to the Individual—Benjamin Tucker

33. Political and Economic Overview—David Osterfeld

Section IV: Historical Case Studies of Non-Government Law Enforcement

34. Are Public Goods Really Common Pools? Considerations of the Evolution of Policing and Highways in England—Bruce Benson

35. Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law—Joseph Peden

36. Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case—David Friedman

37. The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges, and the Champagne Fairs—Paul Milgrom, Douglass North, and Barry Weingast

38. Legal Evolution in Primitive Societies—Bruce Benson

39. American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West—Terry Anderson and P. J. Hill

40. Order Without Law (excerpt)—Robert Ellickson