Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Moral Tyranny

Outside philosophy departments, most self-identified anarchists are social anarchists who reject both the legitimacy of the state and private property. By contrast, most anarchist philosophers are of the pro-market variety. As a result, a philosopher has yet to write an analytic defense of social anarchism. Jesse Spafford fills this gap by arguing that social anarchism is a coherent philosophical position that follows from a more basic, plausible principle that constrains which moral theories are acceptable. In the process of articulating and defending social anarchism Spafford stakes out a number of bold and original positions (e.g., that people own themselves and nothing else), while providing novel solutions to some of the classic problems of political philosophy (e.g., luck egalitarianism’s problem of stakes). His distinctive study offers an overarching, unified political theory while also advancing many of the more fine-grained debates that occupy political philosophers. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Jesse Spafford is a lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. His work explores debates between libertarians, socialists, and anarchists over the moral status of the market and the state. He is the author of a number of articles in journals including Philosophical Studies, Synthese, and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.