Mutualism in the JLS

I see that Kevin Carson‘s book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is the subject of an entire symposium issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Kevin runs the very interesting Mutualist blog and has even been known to comment here from time to time.

I haven’t read Kevin’s book, but from what I’ve been able to glean from his blog, following in the tradition of certain radical libertarians, he believes that capitalist exploitation is the result of the absence of a free market rather than its consequence, as mainstream socialists believe. In his view, most of what people think of as the ills of an “unfettered market” are actually caused by state-granted privileges and would thus vanish in a genuinely free market. Thus the slogan “free market anti-capitalism.” It appears, on the other hand, that many of Kevin’s JLS critics have a sunnier view of “actually existing” capitalism, as do most mainstream libertarians.