The Individualist Anarchists were a diverse group of anti-authoritarian reformers and radicals who regarded individual sovereignty and free market competition as the answer to the social and economic problems of the day. They saw the State as the source and protector of big business titans’ monopoly power and accordingly of the laboring classes’ suffering and deprivation. Building on the ideas of classical economists like John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the Individualists developed theories and experiments addressed to issues ranging from money and banking to private property in land. Because they regarded labor as the source of value and exchanges of unequal values to be exploitative, they may be regarded as a part of the broader socialist movement. Because they opposed governmental and all other coercive authority over the individual and advocated free and open exchange, they may be regarded as the forerunners of today’s free market libertarians.
This site is presented as a learning tool to ventilate the ideas of those thinkers who fall within the somewhat unsung tradition of American Individualism — to summarize their philosophy and positions on a number of important issues. As a great admirer of the Individualist Anarchists, I hope that you will find it useful and enlightening.
To learn more about Individualist Anarchism, read my Libertarianism.org article here.