Kevin Carson

Kevin Amos Carson (born 1963) is an American author, anarchist and political theorist on the topics of mutualism, individualist anarchism, left-libertarianism, and freemarketism. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1987.

In November 2008, Carson became a research associate at the Center for a Stateless Society. He was the center's first paid staff member. Additionally, he holds the center's Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory.

Since January 2009, Carson has produced several studies and commentaries for the center.

Carson agrees with individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker regarding the "big four" monopolies (land, money, tariffs, and patents). However, he goes further arguing that the state has also transferred wealth to the wealthy by subsidizing organizational centralization, in the form of transportation and communication subsidies.

Unlike some other market anarchists, Carson defines capitalism in historical terms, emphasizing the history of state intervention in market economies: "It is state intervention that distinguishes capitalism from the free market."

He does not define capitalism in the idealized sense but says that when he talks about "capitalism," he is referring to what he calls "actually existing capitalism." He believes that "laissez-faire capitalism, historically speaking, is an oxymoron" but has no quarrel with anarcho-capitalists who use the term and distinguish it from "actually existing capitalism."

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