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ContemporaryIntermediateAnthology

Markets Not Capitalism

Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson

Left-wing market anarchism

It anchors the left-libertarian or market-anarchist tradition that refuses to let either side own the word freedom.

Synopsis

An anthology arguing that genuinely free markets, stripped of state privilege for the wealthy, would dissolve capitalism's hierarchies rather than entrench them.

Core passage idea

Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted work

What we call capitalism is not the free market but a system of state-granted privilege; real market freedom would undermine bosses, landlords, and concentrated wealth.

It splits the pro-market instinct from the pro-business one, claiming the left's enemies are products of coercion, not competition.

To avoid a bubble

Pair with Henry George, Progress and Poverty.

Reading note

Read it as a collection of arguments in conversation, not a single thesis, and watch how it redefines familiar terms.

Best paired with

Henry George, Progress and Poverty

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