ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER Q. Are anarcho-capitalists part of the anarchist movement? A. Anarcho-capitalism, a philosophy taken up by the Libertarian wing of the New Right in the United States, has nothing to do with anarchism. Capitalist societies do not need the State to survive, but they do need privatised defence forces to survive. When you have one group of people amassing wealth (anarcho-capitalists) and another group working to amass that wealth for them, you have all the ingredients that are needed to create private armies. These armies are needed to protect the assets of those people who use other people's labor to amass their wealth. The twentieth century reformist state evolved as a direct consequence of the rising levels of violence that were occurring between those who produced wealth and those who amassed it. A limited state apparatus, the type that anarcho-capitalists need to survive, has limited functions, it protects those with power and wealth and does not interfere when those who amass wealth exploits those who make wealth for them. The reformist state has evolved to protect those with power and wealth from violence by limiting their ability (not removing their ability) to exploit those who make wealth for them. Anarchism cannot exist without people having both the power to determine their own affairs, as well as having access to the common wealth. You can make all the decisions you like, but if you don't have access to the resources to make those decisions a reality, having the power to make decisions doesn't mean much. Anarcho-capitalists believe in and accept inequalities in wealth. They want to create a society where they can amass all the wealth they like, without having to worry about a state apparatus, setting limits on the methods they use to acquire that wealth. They want to replace the reformist state with private armies that they control, that's why they want to break the power of the centralized State. They have no interest in creating societies that hold wealth in common and that allow the people involved in a decision to make that decision.