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<title>G.7 Lysander Spooner: right-"libertarian" or libertarian socialist? </title>

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<h1>G.7 Lysander Spooner: right-"libertarian" or libertarian socialist?</h1>
<p>
Murray Rothbard and others on the "libertarian" right have argued that
Lysander Spooner is another individualist anarchist whose ideas support
"anarcho"-capitalism's claim to be part of the anarchist tradition. It
is fair to say that Spooner's critique of the state, rooted in <i>"natural
rights"</i> doctrine, was quoted favourably by Rothbard on many occasions,
making Spooner the 19th century anarchist most likely to be referenced by
him. This is understandable as Spooner was undoubtedly the closest to 
liberalism of the individualist anarchists, making him more amenable to
appropriation than the others (particularly those, like Tucker, who 
called themselves socialists).
</p><p>
As will be shown below, however, any claim that Spooner provides retroactive
support for "anarcho"-capitalist claims of being a form of anarchism is untrue.
This is because, regardless of his closeness to liberalism, Spooner's vision 
of a free society was fundamentally anti-capitalist. It is clear that Spooner 
was a left-libertarian who was firmly opposed to capitalism. The ignoring (at
best) or outright dismissal (at worse) of Spooner's economic ideas and vision 
of a free society by right-"libertarians" should be more than enough to show
that Spooner cannot be easily appropriated by the right regardless of his 
(from an anarchist position) unique, even idiosyncratic, perspective on 
property rights. 
</p><p>
That Spooner was against capitalism can be seen in his opposition to wage
labour, which he wished to eliminate by turning capital over to those who
work it. Like other anarchists, he wanted to create a society of associated
producers -- self-employed farmers, artisans and co-operating workers --
rather than wage-slaves and capitalists. For example, Spooner writes: 
<blockquote>
<i>"every man, woman, and  child. . . could . . . go into business for himself, 
or herself -- either singly, or in partnerships -- and be under no necessity to 
act as a servant, or sell his or her labour to others. All the great establishments,
of every kind, now in the hands of a few proprietors, but employing a great number 
of wage labourers, would be broken up; for few, or no persons, who could hire 
capital, and do business for themselves, would consent to labour for wages for 
another."</i> [<b>A Letter to Grover Cleveland</b>, p. 41]
</blockquote></p><p>
Wage-labour, Spooner argued, meant that workers did not labour for their own
benefit <i>"but only for the benefit of their employers."</i> The workers are
<i>"mere tools and machines in the hands of their employers."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 50] Thus he considered that <i>"it was necessary that every man be his own 
employer or work for himself in a direct way, since working for another resulted 
in a portion being diverted to the employer. To be one's own employer, it was 
necessary for one to have access to one's own capital."</i> [James J. Martin, 
<b>Men Against the State</b>, p. 172] This was because wage labour resulted in 
exploitation:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"When a man knows that he is to have <b>all</b> the fruits of his labour, 
he labours with more zeal, skill, and physical energy, than when he 
knows -- as in the case of one labouring for wages -- that a portion 
of the fruits of his labour are going to another. . . In order that 
each man may have the fruits of his own labour, it is important, as 
a general rule, that each man should be his own employer, or work 
directly for himself, and not for another for wages; because, in the 
latter case, a part of the fruits of his labour go to his employer, 
instead of coming to himself . . . That each man may be his own employer, 
it is necessary that he have materials, or capital, upon which to bestow 
his labour."</i> [<b>Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure</b>, 
p. 8]
</blockquote></p><p>
This preference for a system based on simple commodity production in which
capitalists and wage slaves are replaced by self-employed and co-operating
workers puts Spooner squarely in the <b>anti-capitalist</b> camp with other
anarchists. And, we may add, the egalitarianism he expected to result from 
his system indicates the left-libertarian nature of his ideas, turning the 
present <i>"wheel of fortune"</i> into <i>"an extended surface, varied 
somewhat by inequalities, but still exhibiting a general level, affording 
a safe position for all, and creating no necessity, for either force or 
fraud, on the part of anyone, to enable him to secure his standing."</i> 
[quoted by Peter Marshall, <b>Demanding the Impossible</b>, pp. 388-9]
Thus:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"That the principle of allowing each man to have, (so far as it is 
consistent with the principles of natural law that he can have,) all 
the fruits of his own labour, would conduce to a more just and equal 
distribution of wealth than now exists, is a proposition too 
self-evident almost to need illustration. It is an obvious principle 
of natural justice, that each man should have the fruits of his own 
labour . . . It is also an obvious fact, that the property produced 
by society, is now distributed in very unequal proportions among 
those whose labour produced it, and with very little regard to the 
actual value of each ones labour in producing it."</i> [<b>Poverty: 
Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure</b>, p. 7]
</blockquote></p><p>
For Spooner, as with other left-libertarians, equality was seen as the
necessary basis for liberty. As he put it, the <i>"practice of each man's 
labouring for himself, instead of labouring for another for wages"</i>
would <i>"be greatly promoted by a greater equality of wealth."</i> Not
only that, it <i>"would also contribute to the increase of labour-saving 
inventions -- because when a man is labouring for himself, and is to have 
all the proceeds of his labour, he applies his mind, with his hands, much 
more than when he is labouring for another."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 42]
As he stressed equality will have many positive outcomes beyond the
abolition of wage labour and increased productiveness:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Extremes of difference, in their pecuniary circumstances, divide society 
into castes; set up barriers to personal acquaintance; prevent or suppress 
sympathy; give to different individuals a widely different experience, and 
thus become the fertile source of alienation, contempt, envy, hatred, and 
wrong. But give to each man all the fruits of his own labour, and a comparative 
equality with others in his pecuniary condition, and caste is broken down; 
education is given more equally to all; and the object is promoted of placing 
each on a social level with all: of introducing each to the acquaintance of 
all; and of giving to each the greatest amount of that experience, wealth, 
being common to all, enables him to sympathise with all, and insures to himself 
the sympathy of all. And thus the social virtues of mankind would be greatly 
increased."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 46-7]
</blockquote></p><p>
Independence in producing would lead to independence in all aspects of life,
for it was a case of the <i>"higher self-respect also, which a man feels, and 
the higher social position he enjoys, when he is master of his own industry, 
than when he labours for another."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 35] It is quite 
apparent, then, that Spooner was against wage labour and, therefore, was no 
supporter of capitalism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Spooner (like William Greene)
had been a member of the <b>First International</b>. [George Woodcock,
<b>Anarchism</b>, p. 393]
</p><p>
Whether Spooner's ideas are relevant now, given the vast amount of capital needed 
to start companies in established sectors of the economy, is another question. 
Equally, it seems unlikely that a reversion to pre-industrial forms of economy
is feasible even if we assume that Spooner's claims about the virtues 
of a free market in credit are correct. But one thing is clear: Spooner was 
opposed to the way America was developing in the 19th century. He had no 
illusions about tariffs, for example, seeing them as a means of accumulating
capital as they <i>"enable[d] the home producers . . . to make fortunes by 
robbing everybody else in the prices of their goods."</i> Such protectionism
<i>"originated with the employers"</i> as the workers <i>"could not have had
no hope of carrying through such a scheme, if they alone were to profit;
because they could have had no such influence with governments."</i> [<b>A 
Letter to Grover Cleveland</b> p. 20 and p. 44] He had no illusions that the
state was anything else than a machine run by and for the wealthy. 
</p><p>
Spooner viewed the rise of capitalism with disgust and suggested a way for 
non-exploitative and non-oppressive economic relationships to become the norm 
again in US society, a way based on eliminating a root feature of capitalism -- 
wage-labour -- through a system of easy credit, which he believed would enable 
artisans and farmers to obtain their own means of production and work for 
themselves. As we stressed in <a href="secG1.html#secg12">section G.1.2</a> 
capitalism is based not on property as such but rather property which is not 
owned by those who use it (i.e., Proudhon's distinction between property and 
possession which was echoed by, among others, Marx). Like more obvious socialists 
like Proudhon and Marx, Spooner was well aware that wage labour resulted in 
exploitation and, as a result, urged its abolition to secure the worker the 
full produce of their labour.
</p><p>
As such, Spooner's analysis of capitalism was close to that of social anarchists
and Marxists. This is confirmed by an analysis of his famous works <b>Natural 
Law</b> (unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent quotes are from this work).
</p><p>
Spooner's support of "Natural Law" has also been taken as "evidence" that
Spooner was a proto-right-"libertarian." Most obviously, this ignores the 
fact that support for "Natural Law" is not limited to right-"libertarians" 
and has been used to justify, among other things, feudalism, slavery, theocracy, 
liberty, fascism as well as communism. As such, "natural rights" justification 
for property need not imply a support for capitalism or suggest that those who 
hold similar views on them will subscribe to the same vision of a good society. 
Of course, most anarchists do not find theories of "natural law," be they those 
of right-"libertarians", fascists or whatever, to be particularly compelling. 
Certainly the ideas of "Natural Law" and "Natural Rights," as existing 
independently of human beings in the sense of the ideal Platonic Forms, are 
difficult for most anarchists to accept <b>per se</b>, because such ideas are 
inherently authoritarian as they suggest a duty to perform certain actions for 
no other reason than obedience to some higher authority regardless of their 
impact on individuals and personal goals. Most anarchists would agree with 
Tucker when he called such concepts <i>"religious"</i> (Robert Anton Wilson's 
<b>Natural Law: or don't put a rubber on your willy</b> is an excellent 
discussion of the flaws of such concepts).
</p><p>
Spooner, unfortunately, did subscribe to the cult of <i>"immutable and 
universal"</i> Natural Laws. If we look at his "defence" of Natural Law we 
can see how weak (and indeed silly) it is. Replacing the word <i>"rights"</i> 
with the word <i>"clothes"</i> in the following passage shows the inherent 
weakness of his argument:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"if there be no such principle as justice, or natural law, then every
human being came into the world utterly destitute of rights; and coming 
so into the world destitute of rights, he must forever remain so. For if 
no one brings any rights with him into the world, clearly no one can ever 
have any rights of his own, or give any to another. And the consequence 
would be that mankind could never have any rights; and for them to talk of 
any such things as their rights, would be to talk of things that had, never 
will, and never can have any existence."</i> 
</blockquote></p><p>
And, we add, unlike the "Natural Laws" of <i>"gravitation, . . . of light,
the principles of mathematics"</i> to which Spooner compares them, he
is perfectly aware that his "Natural Law" can be <i>"trampled upon"</i>
by other humans. However, unlike gravity (which does not need enforcing) 
it is obvious that Spooner's "Natural Law" has to be enforced by human beings 
as it is within human nature to steal. In other words, it is a moral code, 
<b>not</b> a "Natural Law" like gravity. Appeals to make this specific moral
code to be considered the universal one required by nature are unconvincing,
particularly as such absolutist schemes generally end up treating the rights
in question (usually property related ones) as more important than actual 
people. Hence we find, for example, supporters of "natural rights" to property
(like Murray Rothbard) willing to deny economic power, the restrictions
of liberty it creates and its similarity to the state in the social relations
it creates simply because property is sacred (see <a href="secF1.html">section F.1</a>).
</p><p>
Interestingly, Spooner did come close to a <b>rational,</b> non-metaphysical source 
for rights when he pointed out that <i>"Men living in contact with each other, and 
having intercourse together, cannot avoid learning natural law."</i> This indicates 
the <b>social</b> nature of rights, of our sense of right and wrong, and so rights 
and ethics can exist without believing in religious concepts as "Natural Law." In 
addition, we can say that his support for juries indicates an unconscious recognition 
of the <b>social</b> nature (and so evolution) of any concepts of human rights. In 
other words, by arguing strongly for juries to judge human conflict, he implicitly 
recognises that the concepts of right and wrong in society are <b>not</b> indelibly 
inscribed in law tomes as the "true law," but instead change and develop as society
does (as reflected in the decisions of the juries). In addition, he states that 
<i>"[h]onesty, justice, natural law, is usually a very plain and simple matter,"</i>
which is <i>"made up of a few simple elementary principles, of the truth and justice 
of which every ordinary mind has an almost intuitive perception,"</i> thus indicating 
that what is right and wrong exists in "ordinary people" and not in "prosperous judges" 
or any other small group claiming to speak on behalf of "truth."
</p><p>
As can be seen, Spooner's account of how "natural law" will be administered is radically 
different from, say, Murray Rothbard's and indicates a strong egalitarian context 
foreign to right-libertarianism. As we noted in <a href="secG3.html">section G.3</a>,
Rothbard explicitly rejected Spooner's ideas on the importance of jury driven law
(for Spooner, <i>"the jurors were to judge the law, and the justice of the law."</i>
[<b>Trial by Jury</b>, p. 134]). As far as "anarcho"-capitalism goes, one wonders how 
Spooner would regard the "anarcho"-capitalist "protection firm," given his comment 
that <i>"[a]ny number of scoundrels, having money enough to start with, can establish 
themselves as a 'government'; because, with money, they can hire soldiers, and with 
soldiers extort more money; and also compel general obedience to their will."</i> 
[<b>No Treason</b>, p. 22] This is the use of private police to break strikes and
unions in a nutshell. Compare this to Spooner's description of his voluntary justice 
associations: 
<blockquote></p><p>
<i>"it is evidently desirable that men should associate, so far as they
freely and voluntarily can do so, for the maintenance of justice among
themselves, and for mutual protection against other wrong-doers. It is
also in the highest degree desirable that they should agree upon some plan
or system of judicial proceedings"</i>
</blockquote></p><p>
At first glance, one may be tempted to interpret Spooner's justice organisations 
as a subscription to "anarcho"-capitalist style protection firms. A more careful 
reading suggests that Spooner's actual conception is more based on the concept of 
mutual aid, whereby people provide such services for themselves and for others 
rather than buying them on a fee-per-service basis. A very different concept. As
he put it elsewhere, <i>"[a]ll legitimate government is a mutual insurance
company"</i> in which <i>"insured persons are shareholders of a company."</i>
It is likely that this would be a co-operative as the <i>"free administration
of justice . . . must necessarily be a part of every system of government which
is not designed to be an engine in the hands of the rich for the oppression of
the poor."</i> It seems unlikely that Spooner would have supported unequal 
voting rights based on wealth particularly as <i>"all questions as to the 
<b>rights</b> of the corporation itself, must be determined by members of the
corporation itself . . .  by the unanimous verdict of a tribunal fairly 
representing the whole people"</i> such as a jury [<b>Trial by Jury</b>, p. 223, 
p. 172 and p. 214]
</p><p>
These comments are particularly important when we consider Spooner's
criticisms of finance capitalists, like the Rothschilds. Here he departs
even more strikingly from right-"libertarian" positions. For he believes
that sheer wealth has intrinsic power, even to the extent of allowing the
wealthy to coerce the government into behaving at their behest. For
Spooner, governments are <i>"the merest hangers on, the servile, obsequious,
fawning dependants and tools of these blood-money loan-mongers, on whom
they rely for the means to carry on their crimes."</i> Thus the wealthy can
<i>"make [governments] and use them"</i> as well as being able to <i>"unmake 
them . . . the moment they refuse to commit any crime we require of them, or 
to pay over to us such share of the proceeds of their robberies as we see fit
to demand."</i> Indeed, Spooner considers <i>"these soulless blood-money 
loan-mongers"</i> as <i>"the real rulers,"</i> not the government (who are 
simply their agents). Thus governments are <i>"little or nothing else 
than mere tools, employed by the wealthy to rob, enslave, and (if need be)
murder those who have less wealth, or none at all."</i> [<b>No Treason</b>, 
p. 50, p. 51, p. 52 and p. 47] This is an extremely class conscious analysis
of the state, one which mirrors the standard socialist one closely.
</p><p>
If one grants that highly concentrated wealth has intrinsic power and may
be used in such a Machiavellian manner as Spooner claims, then simple
opposition to the state is not sufficient. Logically, any political theory
claiming to promote liberty should also seek to limit or abolish the
institutions that facilitate large concentrations of wealth. As shown
above, Spooner regarded wage labour under capitalism as one of these
institutions, because without it <i>"large fortunes could rarely be made at
all by one individual."</i> Hence for Spooner, as for social anarchists, to 
be anti-statist also necessitates being anti-capitalist. 
</p><p>
This can be clearly seen for his analysis of history, when he asks: <i>"Why 
is it that [Natural Law] has not, ages ago, been established throughout the 
world as the one only law that any man, or all men, could rightfully be 
compelled to obey?"</i> Spooner's answer is given in his interpretation of 
how the State evolved, where he postulates that it was formed through 
the initial ascendancy of a land-holding, slave-holding class by military 
conquest and oppressive enslavement of the peasantry:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and on the labour of their slaves, 
and applying all their energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and the 
enslavement of still other defenceless persons; increasing, too, their numbers, 
perfecting their organisations, and multiplying their weapons of war, they extend 
their conquests until, in order to hold what they have already got, it becomes 
necessary for them to act systematically, and co-operate with each other in holding 
their slaves in subjection. 
</p><p>
"But all this they can do only by establishing what they call a government, and 
making what they call laws . . . Thus substantially all the legislation of the 
world has had its origin in the desires of one class of persons to plunder and 
enslave others, <b>and hold them as property.</b>"</i>
</blockquote></p><p>
Nothing too provocative here, simply Spooner's view of government as a tool of the 
wealth-holding, slave-owning class. What is more interesting is Spooner's view of 
the subsequent development of (post-slavery) socio-economic systems:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"In process of time, the robber, or slaveholding, class -- who had seized all the 
lands, and held all the means of creating wealth -- began to discover that the 
easiest mode of managing their slaves, and making them profitable, was <b>not</b> 
for each slaveholder to hold his specified number of slaves, as he had done before, 
and as he would hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty as would 
throw upon themselves (the slaves) the responsibility of their own subsistence, 
and yet compel them to sell their labour to the land-holding class -- their former 
owners -- for just what the latter might choose to give them."</i> 
</blockquote></p><p>
Here Spooner echoes the standard anarchist critique of capitalism. Note that he is 
no longer talking about slavery but rather about economic relations between a 
wealth-holding class and a 'freed' class of workers and tenant farmers. Clearly he 
does <b>not</b> view this relation --wage labour -- as a voluntary association, 
because the former slaves have little option but to be employed by members of the 
wealth-owning class. As he put it elsewhere, their wealth ensures that they have 
<i>"control of those great armies of servants -- the wage labourers -- from whom
all their wealth is derived, and whom they can now coerce by the alternative of
starvation, to labour for them."</i> [<b>A Letter to Grover Cleveland</b>, p. 48] 
Thus we have the standard socialist analysis that economic power, wealth itself, 
is a source of coercion.
</p><p>
Spooner points out that by monopolising the means of wealth creation while
at the same time requiring the newly 'liberated' slaves to provide for
themselves, the robber class thus continues to receive the benefits of the
labour of the former slaves while accepting none of the responsibility for
their welfare. <i>"Of course,"</i> Spooner continued <i>"these liberated 
slaves, as some have erroneously called them, having no lands, or other 
property, and no means of obtaining an independent subsistence, had no 
alternative -- to save themselves from starvation -- but to sell their 
labour to the landholders, in exchange only for the coarsest necessaries 
of life; not always for so much even as that."</i> Thus while technically 
"free," the apparently liberated working class lack the ability to provide 
for their own needs and hence remain dependent on the wealth-owning class. 
This echoes not right-"libertarian" analysis of capitalism, but left-libertarian 
and other socialist viewpoints: 
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"These liberated slaves, as they were called, were now scarcely less
slaves than they were before. Their means of subsistence were perhaps even
more precarious than when each had his own owner, who had an interest to
preserve his life."</i> 
</blockquote></p><p>
This is an interesting comment. Spooner suggests that the liberated slave
class were perhaps <b>better off as slaves.</b>  Most anarchists would not go
so far, although we would agree that employees are subject to the power of
those who employ them and so are no long self-governing individuals -- in
other words, that capitalist social relationships deny self-ownership and
freedom. Spooner denounced the power of the economically dominant class, 
noting that the workers <i>"were liable, at the caprice or interest of the 
landholders, to be thrown out of home, employment, and the opportunity of 
even earning a subsistence by their labour."</i> Lest the reader doubt that 
Spooner is actually discussing employment here (and not slavery), he explicitly 
includes being made unemployed as an example of the arbitrary nature of wage 
labour and indicates that this is a source of class conflict and danger for
the ruling class: <i>"They were, therefore, in large numbers, driven to the 
necessity of begging, stealing, or starving; and became, of course, dangerous 
to the property and quiet of their late masters."</i> And so the <i>"consequence 
was, that these late owners found it necessary, for their own safety and the safety 
of their property, to organise themselves more perfectly as a government <b>and 
make laws for keeping these dangerous people in subjection.</b>"</i>
</p><p>
In other words, the robber class creates legislation which will protect its power, 
namely its property, against the dispossessed. Hence we see the creation of "law 
code" by the wealthy which serves to protect their interests while effectively 
making attempts to change the status quo illegal. This process is in effect 
similar to the right-"libertarian" concept of a judge interpreted and developed
"general libertarian law code" which exercises a monopoly over a given area and 
which exists to defend the "rights" of property against "initiation of force," 
i.e. attempts to change the system into a new one. Spooner goes on:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"The purpose and effect of these laws have been to maintain, in the hands
of robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as
possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great 
body of labourers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would
compel them to sell their labour to their tyrants for the lowest prices at
which life could be sustained."</i> 
</blockquote></p><p>
Thus Spooner identified the underlying basis for legislation (as well as
the source of much misery, exploitation and oppression throughout history)
as the result of the monopolisation of the means of wealth creation by an
elite class. We doubt he would have considered that calling these laws
"libertarian" would in any change their oppressive and class-based
nature. The state was an instrument of the wealthy few, not some neutral 
machine which furthered its own interests, and so <i>"the whole business 
of legislation, which has now grown to such gigantic proportions, had its 
origin in the conspiracies, which have always existed among the few, for 
the purpose of holding the many in subjection, and extorting from them 
their labour, and all the profits of their labour."</i> Characterising 
employment as extortion may seem rather extreme, but it makes sense given 
the exploitative nature of profit under capitalism, as left libertarians 
have long  recognised (see <a href="secC2.html">section C.2</a>). 
</p><p>
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Spooner's rhetorical denunciation of the
state as being a gang of murderers and thieves employed by the wealthy 
few to oppress and exploit the many, he was not shy in similarly extreme 
rhetoric in advocating revolution. In this (as in many other things) Spooner 
was a very atypical individualist anarchist and his language could be, at
times, as extreme as Johann Most. Thus we find Spooner in 1880 <i>"advocat[ing]
that the Irish rise up and kill their British landlords since be believed 
that when a person's life, liberty, and property -- his natural rights --
are denied, that person has a natural right to kill those who would deny
these rights. Spooner called for a class war."</i> [Wm. Gary Kline, <b>The 
Individualist Anarchists</b>, p. 41] Elsewhere he thundered:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"<b>Who</b> compose the real governing power in the country? . . . How shall we 
find these men? How shall we know them from others? . . . Who, of our 
neighbours, are members of this secret band of robbers and murderers? How
can we know which are <b>their</b> houses, that we may burn or demolish 
them? Which <b>their</b> property, that we may destroy it? Which their 
persons, that we may kill them, and rid the world and ourselves of such
tyrants and monsters?"</i> [<b>No Treason</b>, p. 46]
</p><p></blockquote>
It should be noted that this fierce and militant rhetoric is never mentioned by 
those who seek to associate social anarchism with violence. 
</p><p>
Spooner's analysis of the root causes of social problems grew more radical
and consistent over time. Initially, he argued that there was a <i>"class of 
employers, who now stand between the capitalist and labourer, and, by means 
of usury laws, sponge money from the former, and labour from the latter, and 
put the plunder into their own pockets."</i> These usury laws <i>"are the 
contrivances, not of the retired rich men, who have capital to loan . . . but 
of those few 'enterprising' 'business men,' as they are called, who, in and 
out of legislatures, are more influential than either the rich or the poor; 
who control the legislation of the country, and who, by means of usury laws, 
can sponge money from those who are richer, and labour from those who are poorer 
than themselves -- and thus make fortunes. . . . And they are almost the only 
men who do make fortunes . . . large fortunes could rarely be made at all by 
one individual, except by his sponging capital and labour from others."</i> If
<i>"free competition in banking were allowed, the rate of interest would be
brought very low, and bank loans would be within the reach of everybody."</i>
[<b>Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Legal Cure</b>, p. 35, p. 11 and p. 15]
</p><p>
This is a wonderfully self-contradictory analysis, with Spooner suggesting 
that industrial capitalists are both the only wealthy people around and, 
at the same time, sponge money off the rich who have more money than 
them! Equally, he seemed to believe that allowing interest rates to rise 
without legal limit will, first, produce more people willing to take out 
loans and then, when it fell below the legal limit, would produce more rich 
people willing to loan their cash. And as the aim of these reforms was to 
promote equality, how would paying interest payments to the already very 
wealthy help achieve that goal? As can be seen, his early work was directed 
at industrial capital only and he sought <i>"the establishment of a sort of 
partnership relation between the capitalist and labourer, or lender and 
borrower -- the former furnishing capital, the latter labour."</i> However,
he opposed the idea that debtors should pay their debts in case of failure,
stating <i>"the capitalist is made to risk his capital on the final success 
of the enterprise, without any claim upon the debtor in case of failure"</i>
and this <i>"is the true relation between capital and labour, (or, what is 
the same thing, between the lender and borrower.)"</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
pp. 29-30] It is doubtful that rich lenders would concur with Spooner on
that!
</p><p>
However, by the 1880s Spooner had lost his illusions that finance capital
was fundamentally different from industrial capital. Now it was a case, like
the wider individualist anarchist movement he had become aware of and joined,
of attacking the money monopoly. His mature analysis recognised that <i>"the
employers of wage labour"</i> were <i>"also the monopolists of money"</i>
and so both wings of the capitalist class aimed to <i>"reduce [the public]
to the condition of servants; and to subject them to all the extortions as
their employers -- the holders of privileged money -- may choose to practice
upon them."</i> <i>"The holders of this monopoly now rule and rob this nation;
and the government, in all its branches, is simply their tool."</i> [<b>A 
Letter to Grover Cleveland</b>, p. 48, p. 39, p. 48] Thus Spooner came to see,
like other socialists that both finance and industrial capital share a common
goal in oppressing and exploiting the working class and that the state is
simply an organ of (minority) class rule. In this, his politics became more
in line with other individualist anarchists. This analysis is, needless to 
say, a left-libertarian one rather than right-"libertarian."
</p><p>
Of course, it may be objected that Spooner was a right-Libertarian" because
he supported the market and private property. However, as we argued in 
<a href="secG1.html#secg11">section G.1.1</a> support for the market does
not equate to support for capitalism (no matter how often the ideologues
of capitalism proclaim it so). As noted, markets are not the defining feature 
of capitalism as there were markets long before capitalism existed. So the 
fact that Spooner retained the concept of markets does not necessarily make 
him a supporter of capitalism. As for "property", this question is more
complex as Spooner is the only individualist anarchist to apparently 
reject the idea of "occupancy and use." Somewhat ironically, he termed
the doctrine that <i>"which holds that a man has a right to lay his hands
on any thing, which has no other man's hands upon it, no matter who may
have been the producer"</i> as <i>"absolute communism"</i> and contrasted
this with <i>"individual property . . . which says that each man has an
absolute dominion, as against all other men, over the products and 
acquisitions of his own labour, whether he retains them in his actual
possession or not."</i> This Spooner subscribed to Locke's theory 
and argued that the <i>"<b>natural</b> wealth of the world belongs to 
those who <b>first</b> take possession of it . . . There is no limit,
fixed by the law of nature, to the amount of property one may acquire,
simply by taking possession of natural wealth, not already possessed, except
the limit fixed by power or ability to take such possession, without doing
violence to the person or property of others."</i> [<b>The Law of Intellectual
Property</b>, p. 88 and pp. 21-2] From this position he argued that the 
inventor should have intellectual property rights forever, a position 
in direct contradiction to the opinions of other anarchists (and even
capitalist law and right-"libertarians" like Murray Rothbard).
</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, Tucker called Spooner's work on Intellectual Property <i>"positively 
foolish because it is fundamentally foolish, -- because, that is to say, its 
discussion of the acquisition of the right of property starts with a basic 
proposition that must be looked upon by all consistent Anarchists as obvious 
nonsense."</i> This was because it <i>"defines taking possession of a thing as the 
bestowing of valuable labour upon it, such, for instance, in the case of land, as 
cutting down the trees or building a fence around it. What follows from this? 
Evidently that a man may go to a piece of vacant land and fence it off; that he 
may then go to a second piece and fence that off; then to a third, and fence that 
off; then to a fourth, a fifth, a hundredth, a thousandth, fencing them all off;
that, unable to fence off himself as many as he wishes, he may hire other men to 
do the fencing for him; and that then he may stand back and bar all other men 
from using these lands, or admit them as tenants at such rental as he may 
choose to extract.</i> According to Tucker, Spooner <i>"bases his opposition to 
. . . landlords on the <b>sole</b> ground that they or their ancestors took their 
lands <b>by the sword</b> from the original holders . . . I then asked him whether 
if"</i> a landlord <i>"had found unoccupied the very lands that he now holds, and had 
fenced them off, he would have any objection to raise against [his] title to 
and leasing of these lands. He declared emphatically that he would not. Whereupon 
I protested that his pamphlet, powerful as it was within its scope, did not go to 
the bottom of the land question."</i> [<b>Liberty</b>,  no. 182, p. 6] For Tucker, 
the implications of Spooner's argument were such that he stressed that it was not, 
in fact, anarchist at all (he called it <i>"Archist"</i>) and, as a result,
rejected them. 
</p><p>
Thus we have a contradiction. Spooner attacked the government for it <i>"denies
the <b>natural</b> right of human beings to live on this planet. This it does
by denying their <b>natural</b> right to those things that are indispensable to
the maintenance of life."</i> [<b>A Letter to Grover Cleveland</b>, p. 33] Yet
what happens if, by market forces, all the land and capital becomes owned by 
a few people? The socio-economic situation of the mass of the population is
in exactly the same situation as under a system founded by stealing the land
by the few. Equally, having to pay for access to the land results in just as 
much a deduction from the product of work as wage labour. If property is a 
"natural right" then they must be universal and so must be extended to everyone 
-- like all rights -- and this implies an end to absolute property rights 
(<i>"Because the right to live and to develop oneself fully is equal for all,"</i>
Proudhon argued, <i>"and because inequality of conditions is an obstacle to the
exercise of this right."</i> [quoted by John Enrenberg, <b>Proudhon and his Age</b>,
pp. 48-9]). However, saying that it is fair to suggest, given his arguments in favour 
of universal self-employment, that Spooner did not think that his system of property
rights would be abused to produce a landlord class and, as such, did not see the 
need to resolve the obvious contradictions in his ideology. Whether he was correct 
in that assumption is another matter.
</p><p>
Which indicates why Spooner must be considered an anarchist regardless of his
unique position on property rights within the movement. As we argued in 
<a href="secA3.html#seca31">section A.3.1</a>, only a system where the users of 
land or a workplace own it can it be consistent with anarchist principles. Otherwise, 
if there are bosses and landlords, then that society would be inherently hierarchical 
and so <i><b>Archist</b></i>. Spooner's vision of a free society, rooted as it is in 
self-employment, meets the criteria of being genuinely libertarian in spite of the 
property rights used to justify it. Certain "anarcho"-capitalists may subscribe to 
a similar theory of property but they use it to justify an economy rooted in wage 
labour and so hierarchy. 
</p><p>
Somewhat ironically, then, while certain of Spooner's ideas were closer to Rothbard's
than other individualist anarchists (most notably, a "natural rights" defence of 
property) in terms of actual outcomes of applying his ideas, his vision is the 
exact opposition of that of the "anarcho"-capitalist guru. For Spooner, rather 
than being a revolt against nature, equality and liberty were seen to be mutually 
self-enforcing; rather than a necessary and essential aspect of a (so-called) 
free economy, wage labour was condemned as producing inequality, servitude and a 
servile mentality. Moreover, the argument that capitalists deny workers <i>"all the 
fruits"</i> of their labour is identical to the general <b>socialist</b> position 
that capitalism is exploitative. All of which undoubtedly explains why Rothbard 
only selectively quoted from Spooner's critique of the state rather and ignored 
the socio-economic principles which underlay his political analysis and hopes 
for a free society. Yet without those aspects of his ideas, Spooner's political 
analysis is pressed into service of an ideology it is doubtful he would have 
agreed with.
</p><p>
As such, we must agree with Peter Marshall, who notes that Spooner <i>"recommends 
that every man should be his own employer, and he depicts an ideal society of 
independent farmers and entrepreneurs who have access to easy credit. If every 
person received the fruits of his own labour, the just and equal distribution of 
wealth would result."</i> Because of this, he classifies Spooner as a <b>left</b> 
libertarian as <i>"his concern with equality as well as liberty makes him a 
left-wing individualist anarchist. Indeed, while his starting-point is the 
individual, Spooner goes beyond classical liberalism in his search for a form 
of rough equality and a community of interests.</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 389] 
This is also noted by Stephan L. Newman, who writes that while right-"libertarians"
are generally <i>"sympathic to Spooner's individualist anarchism, they fail to
notice or conveniently overlook its egalitarian implications . . . They accept
inequality as the price of freedom"</i> and <i>"habour no reservations about
the social consequences of capitalism."</i> Spooner <i>"insist[s] that inequality
corrupts freedom. [His] anarchism is directed as much against inequality as 
against tyranny."</i> Spooner <i>"attempt[s] to realise th[e] promise of social
harmony by recreating [a] rough equality of condition"</i> and so joins the 
<i>"critics of modern capitalism and champions of the Jeffersonian idea of
the autonomous individual -- independent yeoman and the self-employed mechanic."</i>
<b>Liberalism at Wit's End</b>, p. 76, p. 74 and p. 91] 
</p><p>
In summary, as can be seen, as with other individualist anarchists, there is a 
great deal of commonality between Spooner's ideas and those of social anarchists. 
Spooner perceives the same sources of exploitation and oppression inherent in 
monopolistic control of the means of production by a wealth-owning class as do 
social anarchists. His solutions may differ, but he observes  exactly the same 
problems. In other words, Spooner is a left libertarian, and his individualist
anarchism is just as anti-capitalist as the ideas of, say, Bakunin, Kropotkin or 
Chomsky. Spooner, in spite of his closeness to classical liberalism, was no more 
a capitalist than Rothbard was an anarchist.</p>

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