In this essay, the individualist Anarchist writer Charles
Johnson offers an analysis of the concrete mechanisms of
capitalism, and of how the revolutionary potential of free
economic relationships is diverted and deformed when markets are
constrained to labor under bosses, monopoly and government.
Johnson revisits, and updates, Benjamin Tucker’s classic “Four
Monopolies” analysis of state capitalism, arguing that the case
for Tucker’s free-market anticapitalism is stronger than ever,
as we take into account not only the growth and retrenchment of
the Land Monopoly, Money Monopoly, Patent Monopoly, and
Protectionist Monopoly, but also the metastatic spread of state-
capitalist monopolies into Agribusiness, Infrastructure,
Utilities, Health Care, and Regulatory Protectionism. For most
of the twentieth century, American libertarians saw themselves,
and were seen as, defenders of “capitalism.” Until nearly the
end of the 20th century, anticapitalist anarchism was sidelined
in political debate, and most simply ceas