ABSTRACT
Liberty's affinity to both liberalism and socialism is nowhere more evident than in its economic principles. An uncharitable interpreter might see all this as evidence of theoretical and practical confusion; a more charitable one might label anarchist economics as "eclectic" or "ambivalent". Another line of criticism is the Marxist one, condemning the individualist anarchists in the same terms as Marx himself critiqued their hero, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. This chapter probes the general outlines of anarchist economics in Liberty. A few general economic principles, then, the individualist anarchists hoped to achieve socialism by removing the obstacles to individual liberty in the economic realm. Many of the individualist anarchists believed that consumer and producer cooperatives could help to insure that workers would receive the full product of their labor. Even in an anarchist economy, characterized by the abolition of rent, interest, and profit, the criteria of "political economy" are relevant.
