# Lifestyles & Discussion > Family, Parenting & Education > Books & Literature >  The Lord of the Rings: A Libertarian/Anarcho-Capitalist Message

## Vessol

I was watching The Fellowship of the Ring last night(I often do when I have trouble falling asleep, great movies and the music is very relaxing).

The main reason I love the Fellowship of the Ring movie and the book is because of The Shire.

The book goes into more details about it, but The Shire in LotR is a very libertarian/anarcho-capitalist society. They have no organized government. All they really have is a Mayor whom they all elect who pretty much officiates parties and such.

The only services the "government" offered was the post-service and the Sherrifs whom were volunteers whom wandered the land and protected the hobbits from natural dangers(such as wolves) and mediated disputes, in total for the entire Shire there were 12 of them. The Bounders were also an unofficial border control of militia volunteers whom protect the Shire from outside dangers such as gangs and ruffians, and many years ago: goblins.

There is also the Thain and the Master of Buckland, but these are rather hereditary titles granted to the heads of two families(the Tooks and the Brandybucks respectively) by the King of the North many years ago. They exercise little, if any power beyond ceremonial.

The Hobbits live in a completely voluntaryist society, where private property is respected and so is the rights of every individual.

At the end of the Return of the King it goes into great detail about how a bunch of ruffians and bandits took over the Shire(lead by Sauruman) and made tons of laws. It's hilarious how blunt Tolkien is when laws such as "redistribution for the poor" are introduced, one of the hobbits says "All they mean is that they take more food from us and redistribute it amongst themselves." The hobbits then muster a voluntary militia force in which they fight back the occupiers.

The rest of the books have a very libertarian message as well, I'll see if I can go over them more later.

But, definitely the best message is that of the One Ring. Even the most powerful of beings that are beyond mortal(Gandalf, Elrond, Galadrial) and even powerful mortals (Aragorn) know they cannot resist the ultimate power of the One Ring and must destroy it. A very good damnation of Big Government.

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## Nate-ForLiberty

The last time I read the book was before I became a Ron Pauler. You've just inspired me to read it again

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## heavenlyboy34

Wagner's Ring (of Niebelung) cycle is pretty libertarian too.  If you like opera (and speak German), check it out sometime.

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## MelissaWV

> The last time I read the book was before I became a Ron Pauler. You've just inspired me to read it again


Rereading the LOTR books is more fulfilling than the initial read, I think.  You know which parts to skim through.  Damn but there's a lot of pointless filler in those books!

Tom Bombadil needs to die in a fire.  Entirely.

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## Vessol

Tom Bombadil! Hi ho Merry Dol! I love Tom Bombadil <3.

He is the manifestation of Eru the creator. He shows a very Deistic approach to religion. A deity who does not interfere in the ways of the world.

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## Brian4Liberty

> But, definitely the best message is that of the One Ring. Even the most powerful of beings that are beyond mortal(Gandalf, Elrond, Galadrial) and even powerful mortals (Aragorn) know they cannot resist the ultimate power of the One Ring and must destroy it. A very good damnation of Big Government.


"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton  

Of course there could be a debate as to why the elven rings of power don't corrupt...

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## Kotin

> Rereading the LOTR books is more fulfilling than the initial read, I think.  You know which parts to skim through.  Damn but there's a lot of pointless filler in those books!
> 
> Tom Bombadil needs to die in a fire.  Entirely.


Yes.. Tolkien was quite fond of describing every piece of furniture, dinner plates, silverwear and carpets.. Pretty much every detail possible..

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## heavenlyboy34

I feel kind of left out, as I've never read LOTR

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## silverhandorder

> "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton  
> 
> Of course there could be a debate as to why the elven rings of power don't corrupt...


Elven nature is different then that of humans. They are more resistant to things like power. After all the only person that gets offered the ring freely was Galadriel and she is able to resist it. The same can not be said for Gandalf and Aragorn. Both warn Frodo that if freely given they will take it.

Anyways while I am going all geek on you guys add Sword of Truth to the list. I heard he came out of retirement and is writing more.

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## AutoDas

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/17475.aspxYouTube - J.R.R. Tolkien as Libertarian | by Jeff Riggenbachhttp://www.strike-the-root.com/abolitionist-argument-in-35-seconds

In short, the Lord of the Rings could be viewed as an allegory for anything you want to see and it does have libertarian messages, but the Shire is not an example of an "anarcho"-capitalist society.

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## Nate-ForLiberty

> Rereading the LOTR books is more fulfilling than the initial read, I think.  You know which parts to skim through.  Damn but there's a lot of pointless filler in those books!
> 
> Tom Bombadil needs to die in a fire.  Entirely.


 I <3 Tom Bombadil! Have you read the Silmarillion? If not, do! Mr. B makes much more awesome sense with a full back story of Middle Earth.



....such a nerd

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## PatriotOne

There are so many ways to view this movie and espcially the books.  Religously, politically, historically, esoterically, just for entertainment, etc.  It's a story that can be dissected through many lenses.  Most people haven't a clue the genius of the movie on so many levels.  

Though it promotes One World Order (King Aragorn) more than libertarianism.  Kings and freedom are like oil and water.  I sure wasn't dissapponted when I looked at Tolkien's biography to see ties into the manipulator's of the One World Order.  Just a couple of obvious clues:  Son of a banker and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

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## Nate-ForLiberty

> There are so many ways to view this movie and espcially the books.  Religously, politically, historically, esoterically, just for entertainment, etc.  It's a story that can be dissected through many lenses.  Most people haven't a clue the genius of the movie on so many levels.  
> 
> Though it promotes One World Order (King Aragorn) more than libertarianism.  Kings and freedom are like oil and water.  I sure wasn't dissapponted when I looked at Tolkien's biography to see ties into the manipulator's of the One World Order.  Just a couple of obvious clues:  Son of a banker and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.


I'm not so sure about the One World Order thing. Rohan and Gondor were two separate kingdoms although allied. And at the end of the story Aragorn orders that men are to stay out of the shire.

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## A. Havnes

> Tom Bombadil! Hi ho Merry Dol! I love Tom Bombadil <3.
> 
> He is the manifestation of Eru the creator. He shows a very Deistic approach to religion. A deity who does not interfere in the ways of the world.


LOL! I love Tom Bombadil!  I found a very extensive essay on him

http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Bombadil.html

On that note, I Tolkien wrote this in a letter to his son.




> My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ monarchy . . . Anyway, the proper study of man is anything but man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that — after all only the fatal weakness of all good things in a bad corrupt unnatural world — is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way.

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## MelissaWV

> I <3 Tom Bombadil! Have you read the Silmarillion? If not, do! Mr. B makes much more awesome sense with a full back story of Middle Earth.
> 
> ....such a nerd


I've read it, yes.

I still dislike the passages in Fellowship of the Ring about him.  The entire episode is overlong and seems to throw the pace entirely off-track.

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## libertybrewcity

Funny, I watched the fellowship of the ring two days ago and the two towers last night. But, I have never read the books. Judging by your comments it seems I have missed an incredible amount of stuff.

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## MelissaWV

> Funny, I watched the fellowship of the ring two days ago and the two towers last night. But, I have never read the books. Judging by your comments it seems I have missed an incredible amount of stuff.


Well, and you likely have a few things backwards, too.  The movies took a few liberties... some of which bothered me.  I'm not all geeked out on movies being precisely as written, but when the reason for changing something is stinky, it really is annoying.

Arwen is not some warrior princess who rides up and saves Frodo by getting him across the river, dammit.  I guess the movie had filled it's old dude quota and decided to change the whole scene.

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## PatriotOne

> I'm not so sure about the One World Order thing. Rohan and Gondor were two separate kingdoms although allied. And at the end of the story Aragorn orders that men are to stay out of the shire.


Yes, but they were both "kingdoms".  I suppose you could have a libertarian king but history says otherwise....lol.  One has to be pretty deep into researching the New World Order from many angles to see the fingerprints of them all over this film.

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## erowe1

Tolkien was an anarchist. And he did incorporate that message into LOTR.

But why do you specify "anarcho-capitalist"? Did anarcho-capitalism even exist when Tolkien wrote it?

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## A. Havnes

> Yes, but they were both "kingdoms".  I suppose you could have a libertarian king but history says otherwise....lol.  One has to be pretty deep into researching the New World Order from many angles to see the fingerprints of them all over this film.


Look at my last post; in his own words, Tolkien leaned towards anarchy.  I suppose that's also why he preferred the lifestyle of Hobbits to those of the other races.

On that note, I don't think LOTR was meant to be regarded as a political story, nor did Tolkien intend for us to be reading into it and clue hunting.  If anything prompted him to write it, it was his love of languages, not a political agenda.

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## tremendoustie

> Tolkien was an anarchist. And he did incorporate that message into LOTR.
> 
> But why do you specify "anarcho-capitalist"? Did anarcho-capitalism even exist when Tolkien wrote it?


He does seem to believe in property rights in LOTR. As I understand it, that's the main thing that differentiates an ancap.

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## erowe1

> He does seem to believe in property rights in LOTR.


If you mean Tolkien includes something in LOTR that somehow defends the concept of property rights, especially property rights in a sense that clearly comports with anarcho-capitalism and not other forms of anarchism, then what part of LOTR do you have in mind?

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## tremendoustie

> If you mean Tolkien includes something in LOTR that somehow defends the concept of property rights, especially property rights in a sense that clearly comports with anarcho-capitalism and not other forms of anarchism, then what part of LOTR do you have in mind?


I'm no expert in "anarchism" -- I wasn't aware that there are forms of anarchy, other than anarcho-capitalist, that respect property rights. Really, the only other form I'm familiar with is anarcho-communist, and I know they don't respect property rights.

But, throughout LOTR I'd say property rights are respected. There are well defined homeowners and landholders almost every civilized place in middle earth. There is lots of trade, markets, pubs, stores, etc. 

I'm no LOTR expert either though ...

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## erowe1

> I'm no expert in "anarchism" -- I wasn't aware that there are forms of anarchy, other than anarcho-capitalist, that respect property rights. Really, the only other form I'm familiar with is anarcho-communist, and I know they don't respect property rights.
> 
> But, throughout LOTR I'd say property rights are respected. There are well defined homeowners and landholders almost every civilized place in middle earth. There is lots of trade, markets, pubs, stores, etc. 
> 
> I'm no LOTR expert either though ...


I don't think that including scenes that involve property and trade should be read as somehow advancing an anarcho-capitalist agenda, as opposed to an anarcho-communist one, as though an anarcho-communist author would not include those things in a book he writes. To say that Tolkien advances anarchism in LOTR (to the degree that he does at all, which I agree he does to an extent) isn't to say that everything he portrays throughout the whole story is one enormous picture of the kind of society he thinks is ideal, it's to say that some of the ethical messages that he embeds in the book are messages that especially comport with anarchy. I also am skeptical that anarcho-communists believe that nobody should live in homes, grow things on land, or engage in any trade with one another.

But at any rate, given the time that Tolkien wrote LOTR, I don't think that there was the same taxonomy of the same different kinds of anarchists as there is now, so it might be anachronistic to say he's either one or the other. We do know that when he wrote that he leaned toward anarchy in 1943 he didn't mean that term with any sense that could have been influenced by Murray Rothbard.

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## Original_Intent

> Rereading the LOTR books is more fulfilling than the initial read, I think.  You know which parts to skim through.  Damn but there's a lot of pointless filler in those books!
> 
> Tom Bombadil needs to die in a fire.  Entirely.


Will you marry me?

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## tremendoustie

> I don't think that including scenes that involve property and trade should be read as somehow advancing an anarcho-capitalist agenda, as opposed to an anarcho-communist one, as though an anarcho-communist author would not include those things in a book he writes. To say that Tolkien advances anarchism in LOTR (to the degree that he does at all, which I agree he does to an extent) isn't to say that everything he portrays throughout the whole story is one enormous picture of the kind of society he thinks is ideal, it's to say that some of the ethical messages that he embeds in the book are messages that especially comport with anarchy. I also am skeptical that anarcho-communists believe that nobody should live in homes, grow things on land, or engage in any trade with one another.
> 
> But at any rate, given the time that Tolkien wrote LOTR, I don't think that there was the same taxonomy of the same different kinds of anarchists as there is now, so it might be anachronistic to say he's either one or the other. We do know that when he wrote that he leaned toward anarchy in 1943 he didn't mean that term with any sense that could have been influenced by Murray Rothbard.


Sure, I mean, frankly, I wouldn't have guessed he was an anarchist at all just by reading LOTR. But, if he were, I was just saying he sounds more ancap.

I think most people, if you somehow made them anarchist, would be ancap. Not very many people actually advocate a usage based definition of property, for example (I believe that's the an-comm position). My understanding is that ancoms do not believe in land ownership at all, business ownership, or employee/employer relationships. They don't believe there should be such a thing as people who rent property to others.

I guess, I'm just saying, if you're telling me he's an anarchist, he really doesn't sound like some other, frankly far more extreme version of anarchist. I don't picture him throwing bricks through starbucks windows, that's for sure.

If you believe everyday life is more or less reasonable in the US, and would not drastically change how people interact on a daily basis -- selling goods, renting property, business ownership, etc, and you're an anarchist, you're ancap.

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Tolkien was an anarchist. And he did incorporate that message into LOTR.
> 
> But why do you specify "anarcho-capitalist"? Did anarcho-capitalism even exist when Tolkien wrote it?


Yes. Molinari penned the first Voluntaryist scholarship soon after Bastiat's death in the 1850s. He was Bastiats protege.

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## Meatwasp

I read in an old book called University of knowledge, that Gollum was a bogey man to European Jews.
I also did not like Tom Bombadil.

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

> Look at my last post; in his own words, Tolkien leaned towards anarchy.  I suppose that's also why he preferred the lifestyle of Hobbits to those of the other races.
> 
> On that note, I don't think LOTR was meant to be regarded as a political story, nor did Tolkien intend for us to be reading into it and clue hunting.  If anything prompted him to write it, it was his love of languages, not a political agenda.


Eh, I've heard it was his experiences in WWI which contented himself to write it. Though I must say most of it is mere conjecture as he never permitted his thoughts to pen on this matter (To the best of my knowledge).

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## Nate-ForLiberty

Too many Bombadil hatez in HEEA

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## Vessol

> There are so many ways to view this movie and espcially the books.  Religously, politically, historically, esoterically, just for entertainment, etc.  It's a story that can be dissected through many lenses.  Most people haven't a clue the genius of the movie on so many levels.  
> 
> Though it promotes One World Order (King Aragorn) more than libertarianism.  Kings and freedom are like oil and water.  I sure wasn't dissapponted when I looked at Tolkien's biography to see ties into the manipulator's of the One World Order.  Just a couple of obvious clues:  Son of a banker and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.


You must be reading the Spark Notes of Lord of the Rings..

One World Order?

Not even close.

At the end of the Return of the King he only seeks to reunite the ruined kingdom of the North, Arnor to the Kingdom of the South, Gondor. Which had been divided for many years.

He leaves much of Middle Earth alone. Breelands is still self-administered in a similar, albeit not exactly like the Shire. The other lands of Men, such as Dale and the Beornlings he leaves completely alone.
He leaves Mordor alone, and he gives the only hospitable land, Nurn to the slaves of Mordor to keep as their own land.
He never really occupies Harad or Umbar either, only defends from their incursions.

Gondor's society is relatively undefined, so while we know it is a monarchist society we know little on how Tolkien meant for it to be ordered. To that end I imagine he mainly used Gondor as a story-telling device when compared to the society of the Shire which he described in great detail.

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## Flash

> The Lord of the Rings: A Libertarian/Anarcho-Capitalist Message


See I've heard the complete opposite. I had heard a theory that Saruman and the Orcs represented an evil side of a capitalist society, one that does not care about the environment and one that wants to keep growing and expanding its power/wealth. 




> You must be reading the Spark Notes of Lord of the Rings..
> 
> One World Order?
> 
> Not even close.
> 
> At the end of the Return of the King he only seeks to reunite the ruined kingdom of the North, Arnor to the Kingdom of the South, Gondor. Which had been divided for many years.
> 
> He leaves much of Middle Earth alone. Breelands is still self-administered in a similar, albeit not exactly like the Shire. The other lands of Men, such as Dale and the Beornlings he leaves completely alone.
> ...


Didn't Aragorn also take over the land that belonged to the Easterlings?

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## keh10

Ok, first of all property rights were blatantly criticized throughout the books. In fact, the whole book is about showing the inherent flaws of property rights. Case and point: the one ring clearly belonged to Sauron, but was stolen from him and subsequently destroyed despite his best efforts to recover it. So much for property rights...

Also if you go back to the Silmarillion, all of middle earth rightfully belonged to Melkor, but the Valar (government) came in and took everything from him.  

Haha jk btw.

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## Vessol

I lol'ed. 

Speaking of property rights, I wanted to make a quick addon that there is a specific mention of Frodo having to give the deed of Bag End to the Sacksville-Baggins, so the concept of private property is respected in the Shire.




> Didn't Aragorn also take over the land that belonged to the Easterlings?


If I remember right, the land that he took back from the Haradim and the Easterlings was Gondor's original boundaries to begin with before those hostile forces took them.

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## specsaregood

> You know which parts to skim through.  Damn but there's a lot of pointless filler in those books!


Now Melissa, I know that you know full well that the "filler" was not pointless.  It all has a very good reason for being.

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## Srg1

I think LOTR is based off the ancient indian stories mahabharata and kurukshetra war.When i read and watch the movies it reminds me of these stories.Some of these stories have been dated back 3000bc to 6000bc.Here a basic idea


YouTube - Purpose of Kurukshetra war

The north west india looks similar to the lotr map

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## AZJoe

'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'

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