Anarcho-capitalist literature

Anarcho-capitalism has been the subject of a number of works of literature, both nonfiction and fiction.

Nonfiction

The following a partial list of notable nonfiction works discussing anarcho-capitalism.

• David Friedman: The Machinery of Freedom
• Murray Rothbard:
• Murray Rothbard: The Ethics of Liberty
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe: A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe: Democracy: The God That Failed

Fiction

Anarcho-capitalism has been examined in certain works of literature, particularly science fiction. Vernor Vinge's short story The Ungoverned depicts anarcho-capitalists defending against an invading government. Example contract corporations in this story include Big Al's Protection Racket (a police service) and Justice, Inc. Anarcho-capitalism is also discussed in Vinge's novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime, which both occur in the same literary milieu as "The Ungoverned". The short story "Conquest by Default" depicts an anarcho-capitalist alien race which prevents monopolistic groups via antitrust religious customs.

Anarcho-capitalism also plays a major role in Neal Stephenson's novels Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. In Snow Crash, territory is primarily controlled by corporate franchises, termed "Franchise Operated Quasi-National Entities" such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" and "Nova Sicilia," with privately-operated police forces and justice systems, where the landscape has been turned into a patchwork quilt of franchise enclave communities, the roads are private entities one subscribes to, and the Federal Government is just one more competitor (albeit an inefficient one losing market share by the day) in a free market for sovereignty services. Its sequel, The Diamond Age, depicts a more mature anarcho-capitalist society where Common Law and other international private law conventions have evolved into a Common Economic Protocol to which all non-outlaw phyles and FOQNEs subscribe in their own legal systems.

Robert Heinlein's novel The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress also contains some descriptions of an anarcho-capitalist society.

The Hostile Takeover Trilogy by S. Andrew Swann depicts a world called Bakunin that operates on anarcho-capitalist principles, and examines the particular problem of an anarcho-capitalist society defending itself against a statist aggressor when that aggressor hires so many of the ancap society's own denizens as mercenary forces.

L. Neil Smith's series of novels starting with The Probability Broach take place in an alternate history where the United States becomes the "North American Confederacy", which is basically anarcho-capitalist in nature, although there is the vestigial remnant of a government whose Continental Congress might meet every few decades.

J. Neil Schulman's novel, Alongside Night , features a group called the "agorists" (from a Greek word for "marketplace") who form a literal "underground economy" (in a cavern beneath Manhattan) to practice anarcho-capitalism until their revolution takes over outside society.