this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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No, I mean among all anarchists. Anarcho-capitalism is fringe within anarchists, and has no real presence historically outside of a few extreme libertarians. Anarchism historically is tied to communalized production, and while I don't personally think it has staying power practically, I also recognize it as a thoroughly left-wing ideology historically.
If you think it's thoroughly left-wing then I think you must not be familiar with individualist and libertarian anarchist thinkers. I don't think free-market anarchism involves much social production for example. In American political theory anarchism is what gave birth to libertarianism, which is pretty much a right-wing ideology.
I'm aware that they exist, being fringe implies that they do exist but are an extreme minority. Libertarianism is an extension of liberalism, and the anarchist offshoot of libertatianism is as such a more extreme offshoot of liberalism.
People like Thoreau and Emerson aren't fringe; they are extremely influential in American political philosophy, to the point where there's a long-ass Wikipedia page about them.
Now there's a lot that could be said about them and I don't want to start writing essays here, so to cut to the chase I will just write down a couple of bullet points.
As we can both see, that page considers itself "part of a series on socialism", which I believe is because these thinkers courted socialist ideas at their time, seeking to come up with an alternative more along the lines of their personal very American individualist philosophy. I think it should not be contentious to say that time has proven that individualism and socialism are not compatible ideologies.
I think time has also proven that this brand of anarchism did not survive contact with industrialization -- this is what I meant by it giving birth to libertarianism, because the same (very American) principles of individualism underpin both.
Nonetheless, this philosophy is a school of anarchist thought. They themselves called it that, other people at the time called it that, and scholars that came after call it that. Ergo, anarchism is a far broader category that contains more than just the clearly leftist schools of anarchist thought like anarchist communism, and therefore using just the word "anarchism" to refer to contemporary leftist anarchism is incorrect and going to confuse people.
I'm aware that it exists in the fringes of anarchism, the existence of an ideology doesn't care about how many follow it or its practical implementations. However, it remains true that anarchism historically has been dominated by leftist ideas and practice. I'm aware of the connection between individualist anarchists and the broader libertarian movement, however the influence of anarchism on the libertarian movement pales in comparison to liberalism. I'm not denying the existence of the fringes, just that the fringes matter as much as you posture.