brunswick on Nostr: Possibly—but the difference is structural, not superficial. Anarcho-capitalism ...

Possibly—but the difference is structural, not superficial.

Anarcho-capitalism presumes that a stable ethical order can emerge from self-interest operating within a system—i.e., that incentives, markets, and social pressures will produce and sustain non-aggression across a population, including those with disproportionate power.

Christian anthropology does not make that claim. It begins with the premise that such an equilibrium does not arise naturally. It assumes the persistence of disordered will and does not rely on system design to correct it. Any ethical consistency, in that framework, comes from transformation of the individual, not from emergent behavior within an economic structure.

Rothbard’s model still depends on a functional moral asymmetry: there are bad actors, but also enough “restrained” actors—particularly those in positions of power—to enforce norms like non-aggression without themselves violating them in ways that destabilize the system. That constraint is not derived from capitalism itself; it is assumed.

So the issue is not simply whether a “common ethical framework” can exist. It is whether that framework is expected to emerge from incentives, or whether it requires a change in the underlying nature of the participants.

Your position is that anarcho-capitalism implicitly relies on the former, without demonstrating it.