capitalism

14 Anti-Corn Law League
human history. ...The idea of ‘free contract’ between
the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps
worth some moments in an academic seminar
exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas,
but nowhere else.”
For these anarchists, the key issue is the existence of
power, not who wields it. By rejecting any meaningful role
for market forces and private property, however, social
anarchists leave unresolved the mechanism for coordinating
the economic activity necessary to sustain human existence
and generally retreat into evocations of the need for
community.
Some libertarians reject anarcho-capitalism and argue
instead for a government limited to dispute resolution and
preservation of order. They object to the variance in standards
of justice and procedure likely to occur when law
depends on market forces—law will vary among places
and persons, just as the varieties of breakfast cereals do.
The problem with this argument, as Friedman has
observed, is that it assumes the government is controlled
by a majority that shares a taste for similar principles of
law. If such a majority exists, market mechanisms also will
produce a uniform set of legal services. If such a majority
does not exist, however, anarcho-capitalism better serves
to produce a diversity of legal services that would satisfy
diverse tastes.
A further libertarian criticism of anarcho-capitalism is its
failure to limit the types of law that will be produced by
market forces. If almost everyone desires restrictions on
some particular behavior, an anarcho-capitalist society
might impose such restrictions, whereas a libertarian one
will not. Some anarcho-capitalists (e.g., Murray Rothbard
and his followers) have made similar criticisms of the analyses
of other anarcho-capitalists (e.g., David Friedman).
Andrew Rutten uses game theory to explore various problems
with an anarchist society, including this one. Given the
potential for abuse of power even in anarchy, these critics
argue, it is not necessarily clear that anarchy will be better at
protecting rights than the state. A related libertarian criticism
is that an anarchist system will break down as the result of
collusion between the firms providing law and order so that
eventually something like a state emerges, but without constitutional
limits on state power.
See also Anarchism; Friedman, David; Minimal State; Rothbard,
Murray
Further Readings
AM
Benson, Bruce. The Enterprise of Law: Justice without the State.
San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1990.
Cowen, Tyler. “Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy.”
Economics and Philosophy 8 (1992): 249–267.
Friedman, David D. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical
Capitalism. 2nd ed. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1989.
Kellogg, Robert, and Jane Smiley. The Sagas of Icelanders. New
York: Viking Penguin, 2000.
Morriss, Andrew P. “Miners, Vigilantes & Cattlemen: Overcoming
Free Rider Problems in the Private Provision of Law.” Land &
Water Law Review 33 (1998): 581–696.
Rutten, Andrew. “Can Anarchy Save Us from Leviathan?” The
Independent Review 3 (1999): 581–593.
ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE
In 1815, following the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain
imposed import duties on a large array of agricultural goods
from abroad. Known collectively as the “Corn Laws,” these
laws prohibited the importation of foreign agricultural
goods until the domestic price of wheat reached 80 shillings
per quarter. In 1828, the laws were amended to allow a sliding
scale of import duties—the duties fell as the prices at
home rose. Still the measures remained highly protectionist
and were condemned by liberal thinkers and statesmen
around the British Isles. Some 11 years later, in 1839, the
Anti-Corn Law League was founded to lobby for the repeal
of these laws. The leaders of this group were Richard
Cobden and John Bright, both of whom served in
Parliament. They argued for a comprehensive liberal
agenda, but at the forefront of their efforts were the causes
of international trade and peace. Their efforts proved successful.
In 1846, the Corn Laws were effectively repealed
(although modest tariffs on some farm goods remained),
and the league was disbanded.
Libertarians have long praised the efforts of the Anti-
Corn Law League, arguing that it serves as a model for
modern-day interest groups wishing to enact libertarian—
indeed, radical—reform. Historians and economists, however,
continue to debate whether the league was, indeed,
fundamentally libertarian in orientation. Some have
claimed that the league was composed primarily of selfinterested
manufacturers who believed that lowering
domestic tariffs on agricultural goods would open markets
for their industrial products. Foodstuffs would enter Britain
from the continent, and, in exchange, manufactured items
would flow abroad. These manufacturers, it is argued, had
the same goals as libertarian free-traders, but their reasons
were far from ideological. The efficacy of the league also
has been debated at length. The league, to be sure, saw its
goal achieved. But was it crucially instrumental in ending
the Corn Laws? Or, instead, were the tariffs repealed primarily
as a matter of simple economic necessity? On both
points, the evidence is mixed.
There were, no doubt, members of the league who had
little interest in a broader liberal agenda. But, in the main,
the league was indeed a radical group comprising people