Anarchists tend to look embarrassed when the subject of economics comes up. Or we mumble something about Proudhon and then sheepishly borrow ideas from Karl Marx. It has always struck me as ironic that anarchism began largely as an economic theory, think only of Josiah Warren, Proudhon and Tucker, but then abandoned the field to the Marxists. A specifically anarchistic approach to economic analysis has lain dormant for the last 130 years. However, with the publication of Kevin A. Carson’s STUDIES IN MUTUALIST POLITICAL ECONOMY this period of dormancy has finally come to an end.
Carson starts off by critiquing post-classical economists such as the Marginalists, Marxists, and Austrians. But his critique is not a simple dismissal of these views, but is dialectical in form. What stands up after analysis, no matter what the school of economics, is incorporated into his anarchist synthesis. Without too much exaggeration, Carson has produced our Das Capital. ...