title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Similarly, Karl Hess wrote that "libertarianism wants to advance principles of property but that it in no way wishes to defend, willy nilly, all property which now is called private ... Much of that property is stolen. Much is of dubious title. All of it is deeply intertwined with an immoral, coercive state system".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: By accepting an axiomatic definition of private property and property rights, anarcho-capitalists deny the legitimacy of a state on principle. Hans-Hermann Hoppe argues:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarchists view capitalism as an inherently authoritarian and hierarchical system and seek the abolishment of private property. There is disagreement between anarchists and anarcho-capitalists as the former generally rejects anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism and considers "anarcho-capitalism" a contradiction in terms, while the latter holds that the abolishment of private property would require expropriation which is "counterproductive to order" and would require a state.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: As opposed to anarchists, most anarcho-capitalists reject the commons. However, some of them propose that non-state public or community property can also exist in an anarcho-capitalist society. For anarcho-capitalists, what is important is that it is "acquired" and transferred without help or hindrance from what they call the "compulsory state". Deontological anarcho-capitalists believe that the only just and most economically beneficial way to acquire property is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarcho-capitalists state that there could be cases where common property may develop in a Lockean natural rights framework. Anarcho-capitalists make the example of a number of private businesses which may arise in an area, each owning the land and buildings that they use, but they argue that the paths between them become cleared and trodden incrementally through customer and commercial movement. These thoroughfares may become valuable to the community, but according to them ownership cannot be attributed to any single person and original appropriation does not apply because many contributed the labor necessary to create them. In order to prevent it from falling to the "tragedy of the commons", anarcho-capitalists suggest transitioning from common to private property, wherein an individual would make a homesteading claim based on disuse, acquire title by the assent of the community consensus, form a corporation with other involved parties, or other means.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Randall G. Holcombe see challenges stemming from the idea of common property under anarcho-capitalism, such as whether an individual might claim fishing rights in the area of a major shipping lane and thereby forbid passage through it. In contrast, Hoppe's work on anarcho-capitalist theory is based on the assumption that all property is privately held, "including all streets, rivers, airports, and harbors" which forms the foundation of his views on immigration.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some anarcho-capitalists strongly oppose intellectual property (i.e., trademarks, patents, copyrights). Stephan N. Kinsella argues that ownership only relates to tangible assets.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: The society envisioned by anarcho-capitalists has been labelled by them as a "contractual society" which Rothbard described as "a society based purely on voluntary action, entirely unhampered by violence or threats of violence" The system relies on contracts between individuals as the legal framework which would be enforced by private police and security forces as well as private arbitrations.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Rothbard argues that limited liability for corporations could also exist through contract, arguing that "[c]orporations are not at all monopolistic privileges; they are free associations of individuals pooling their capital. On the purely free market, those men would simply announce to their creditors that their liability is limited to the capital specifically invested in the corporation". However, corporations created in this way would not be able to replicate the limit on liabilities arising non-contractually such as liability in tort for environmental disasters or personal injury which corporations currently enjoy. Rothbard acknowledges that "limited liability for torts is the illegitimate conferring of a special privilege".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: There are limits to the right to contract under some interpretations of anarcho-capitalism. Rothbard believes that the right to contract is based in inalienable rights and because of this any contract that implicitly violates those rights can be voided at will, preventing a person from permanently selling himself or herself into unindentured slavery. However, Rothbard justifies the practice of child selling. Other interpretations conclude that banning such contracts would in itself be an unacceptably invasive interference in the right to contract.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Included in the right of contract is "the right to contract oneself out for employment by others". While anarchists criticize wage labour describing it as wage slavery, anarcho-capitalists view it as a consensual contract. Some anarcho-capitalists prefer to see self-employment prevail over wage labor. David D. Friedman has expressed a preference for a society where "almost everyone is self-employed" and "instead of corporations there are large groups of entrepreneurs related by trade, not authority. Each sells not his time, but what his time produces".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Different anarcho-capitalists propose different forms of anarcho-capitalism and one area of disagreement is in the area of law. In "The Market for Liberty", Morris and Linda Tannehill object to any statutory law whatsoever. They argue that all one has to do is ask if one is aggressing against another in order to decide if an act is right or wrong. However, while also supporting a on force and fraud, Rothbard supports the establishment of a mutually agreed-upon centralized libertarian legal code which private courts would pledge to follow, as he presumes a high degree of convergence amongst individuals about what constitutes natural justice.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Unlike both the Tannehills and Rothbard who see an ideological commonality of ethics and morality as a requirement, David D. Friedman proposes that "the systems of law will be produced for profit on the open market, just as books and bras are produced today. There could be competition among different brands of law, just as there is competition among different brands of cars". Friedman says whether this would lead to a libertarian society "remains to be proven". He says it is a possibility that very un-libertarian laws may result, such as laws against drugs, but he thinks this would be rare. He reasons that "if the value of a law to its supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law ... will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarcho-capitalists only accept the collective defense of individual liberty (i.e. courts, military, or police forces) insofar as such groups are formed and paid for on an explicitly voluntary basis. However, their complaint is not just that the state's defensive services are funded by taxation, but that the state assumes it is the only legitimate practitioner of physical force—that is, they believe it forcibly prevents the private sector from providing comprehensive security, such as a police, judicial and prison systems to protect individuals from aggressors. Anarcho-capitalists believe that there is nothing morally superior about the state which would grant it, but not private individuals, a right to use physical force to restrain aggressors. If competition in security provision were allowed to exist, prices would also be lower and services would be better according to anarcho-capitalists. According to Molinari: "Under a regime of liberty, the natural organization of the security industry would not be different from that of other industries". Proponents believe that private systems of justice and defense already exist, naturally forming where the market is allowed to "compensate for the failure of the state", namely private arbitration, security guards, neighborhood watch groups and so on. These private courts and police are sometimes referred to generically as private defense agencies (PDAs). The defense of those unable to pay for such protection might be financed by charitable organizations relying on voluntary donation rather than by state institutions relying on taxation, or by cooperative self-help by groups of individuals. Edward Stringham argues that private adjudication of disputes could enable the market to internalize externalities and provide services that customers desire.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: In the context of revolution, Rothbard stated that the American Revolutionary War was the only war involving the United States that could be justified. Some anarcho-capitalists such as Rothbard feel that violent revolution is counter-productive and prefer voluntary forms of economic secession to the extent possible. Retributive justice is often a component of the contracts imagined for an anarcho-capitalist society. According to Matthew O'Keefee, some anarcho-capitalists believe prisons or indentured servitude would be justifiable institutions to deal with those who violate anarcho-capitalist property relations while others believe exile or forced restitution are sufficient.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Bruce L. Benson argues that legal codes may impose punitive damages for intentional torts in the interest of deterring crime. Benson gives the example of a thief who breaks into a house by picking a lock. Even if caught before taking anything, Benson argues that the thief would still owe the victim for violating the sanctity of his property rights. Benson opines that despite the lack of objectively measurable losses in such cases, "standardized rules that are generally perceived to be fair by members of the community would, in all likelihood, be established through precedent, allowing judgments to specify payments that are reasonably appropriate for most criminal offenses".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Morris and Linda Tannehill raise a similar example, saying that a bank robber who had an attack of conscience and returned the money would still owe reparations for endangering the employees' and customers' lives and safety, in addition to the costs of the defense agency answering the teller's call for help. However, they believe that the robber's loss of reputation would be even more damaging. They suggest that specialized companies would list aggressors so that anyone wishing to do business with a man could first check his record, provided they trust the veracity of the companies' records. They further theorise that the bank robber would find insurance companies listing him as a very poor risk and other firms would be reluctant to enter into contracts with him.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarcho-capitalism as proposed by Murray Rothbard advocates the ownership of children and their sale. According to Rothbard: "the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children. Superficially, this sounds monstrous and inhuman. But closer thought will reveal the superior humanism of such a market." Walter Block also supports the sale of children, stating that adoptive parents not being able to pay biological parents "is responsible for the trauma and heartbreak which attend adoption in the United States today".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Murray Rothbard has listed different ideologies of which his interpretations, he said, have influenced anarcho-capitalism. This includes his interpretation of anarchism, and more precisely individualist anarchism; classical liberalism and the Austrian School of economic thought. Scholars additionally associate anarcho-capitalism with neo-classical liberalism, radical neoliberalism and right-libertarianism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: In both its social and individualist forms, anarchism is usually considered an anti-capitalist and radical left-wing or far-left movement that promotes libertarian socialist economic theories such as collectivism, communism, individualism, mutualism and syndicalism. Because anarchism is usually described alongside libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement and as having a historical association with anti-capitalism and socialism, anarchists believe that capitalism is incompatible with social and economic equality and therefore do not recognize anarcho-capitalism as an anarchist school of thought. In particular, anarchists argue that capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which is incompatible with an anarchist society. The usage of "libertarian" is also in dispute. While both anarchists and anarcho-capitalists have used it, "libertarian" was synonymous with "anarchist" until the mid-20th century, when anarcho-capitalist theory developed.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarcho-capitalists are distinguished from the dominant anarchist tradition by their relation to property and capital. While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism share general antipathy towards power by government authority, the latter exempts power wielded through free-market capitalism. Anarchists, including egoists such as Max Stirner, have supported the protection of an individual's freedom from powers of both government and private property owners. In contrast, while condemning governmental encroachment on personal liberties, anarcho-capitalists support freedoms based on private property rights. Anarcho-capitalist theorist Murray Rothbard argued that protesters should rent a street for protest from its owners. The abolition of public amenities is a common theme in some anarcho-capitalist writings.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: As anarcho-capitalism puts "laissez-faire" economics before economic equality, it is commonly viewed as incompatible with the anti-capitalist and egalitarian tradition of anarchism. Although anarcho-capitalist theory implies the abolition of the state in favour of a fully "laissez-faire" economy, it lies outside the tradition of anarchism. While using the language of anarchism, anarcho-capitalism only shares anarchism's antipathy towards the state and not anarchism's antipathy towards hierarchy as theorists expect from anarcho-capitalist economic power relations. It follows a different paradigm from anarchism and has a fundamentally different approach and goals. In spite of the "anarcho-" in its title, anarcho-capitalism is more closely affiliated with capitalism, right-libertarianism, and liberalism than with anarchism. Some within this "laissez-faire" tradition reject the designation of "anarcho-capitalism", believing that "capitalism" may either refer to the "laissez-faire" market they support or the government-regulated system that they oppose.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Rothbard argued that anarcho-capitalism is the only true form of anarchism—the only form of anarchism that could possibly exist in reality as he maintained that any other form presupposes authoritarian enforcement of a political ideology such as "redistribution of private property", which he attributed to anarchism. According to this argument, the capitalist free market is "the natural situation" that would result from people being free from state authority and entails the establishment of all voluntary associations in society such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations, businesses and so on. Moreover, anarcho-capitalists, as well as classical liberal minarchists, argue that the application of anarchist ideals as advocated by what they term "left-wing anarchists" would require an authoritarian body of some sort to impose it. Based on their understanding and interpretation of anarchism, in order to forcefully prevent people from accumulating capital, which they believe is a goal of anarchists, there would necessarily be a redistributive organization of some sort which would have the authority to in essence exact a tax and re-allocate the resulting resources to a larger group of people. They conclude that this theoretical body would inherently have political power and would be nothing short of a state. The difference between such an arrangement and an anarcho-capitalist system is what anarcho-capitalists see as the voluntary nature of organization within anarcho-capitalism contrasted with a "centralized ideology" and a "paired enforcement mechanism" which they believe would be necessary under what they describe as a "coercively" egalitarian-anarchist system.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Rothbard also argued that the capitalist system of today is not properly anarchistic because it often colludes with the state. According to Rothbard, "what Marx and later writers have done is to lump together two extremely different and even contradictory concepts and actions under the same portmanteau term. These two contradictory concepts are what I would call 'free-market capitalism' on the one hand, and 'state capitalism' on the other". "The difference between free-market capitalism and state capitalism", writes Rothbard, "is precisely the difference between, on the one hand, peaceful, voluntary exchange, and on the other, violent expropriation". He continues: "State capitalism inevitably creates all sorts of problems which become insoluble".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Traditional anarchists reject the notion of capitalism, hierarchies and private property. Albert Meltzer argued that anarcho-capitalism simply cannot be anarchism because capitalism and the state are inextricably interlinked and because capitalism exhibits domineering hierarchical structures such as that between an employer and an employee. Anna Morgenstern approaches this topic from the opposite perspective, arguing that anarcho-capitalists are not really capitalists because "mass concentration of capital is impossible" without the state. According to Jeremy Jennings, "[i]t is hard not to conclude that these ideas", referring to anarcho-capitalism, argued to have "roots deep in classical liberalism" more so than in anarchism, "are described as anarchist only on the basis of a misunderstanding of what anarchism is". For Jennings, "anarchism does not stand for the untrammelled freedom of the individual (as the 'anarcho-capitalists' appear to believe) but, as we have already seen, for the extension of individuality and community". Similarly, Barbara Goodwin, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, argues that anarcho-capitalism's "true place is in the group of right-wing libertarians", not in anarchism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some right-libertarian scholars like Michael Huemer, who identify with the ideology, describe anarcho-capitalism as a "variety of anarchism". British author Andrew Heywood also believes that "individualist anarchism overlaps with libertarianism and is usually linked to a strong belief in the market as a self-regulating mechanism, most obviously manifest in the form of anarcho-capitalism". Frank H. Brooks, author of "The Individualist Anarchists: An Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908)", believes that "anarchism has always included a significant strain of radical individualism, from the hyperrationalism of Godwin, to the egoism of Stirner, to the libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of today".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: While both anarchism and anarcho-capitalism are in opposition to the state, it is a necessary but not sufficient condition because anarchists and anarcho-capitalists interpret state-rejection differently. Austrian school economist David Prychitko, in the context of anarcho-capitalism says that "while society without a state is necessary for full-fledged anarchy, it is nevertheless insufficient". According to Ruth Kinna, anarcho-capitalists are anti-statists who draw more on right-wing liberal theory and the Austrian School than anarchist traditions. Kinna writes that "[i]n order to highlight the clear distinction between the two positions", anarchists describe anarcho-capitalists as "propertarians". Anarcho-capitalism is usually seen as part of the New Right.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Historian and libertarian Ralph Raico argued that what liberal philosophers "had come up with was a form of individualist anarchism, or, as it would be called today, anarcho-capitalism or market anarchism". He also said that Gustave de Molinari was proposing a doctrine of the private production of security, a position which was later taken up by Murray Rothbard. Some anarcho-capitalists consider Molinari to be the first proponent of anarcho-capitalism. In the preface to the 1977 English translation by Murray Rothbard called "The Production of Security" the "first presentation anywhere in human history of what is now called anarcho-capitalism", although admitting that "Molinari did not use the terminology, and probably would have balked at the name". Hans-Hermann Hoppe said that "the 1849 article 'The Production of Security' is probably the single most important contribution to the modern theory of anarcho-capitalism". According to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, one of the 19th century precursors of anarcho-capitalism were philosopher Herbert Spencer, classical liberal Auberon Herbert and liberal socialist Franz Oppenheimer.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Ruth Kinna writes that "anarcho-capitalism" is a term coined by Murray Rothbard to describe "a commitment to unregulated private property and laissez-faire economics, prioritizing the liberty-rights of individuals, unfettered by government regulation, to accumulate, consume and determine the patterns of their lives as they see fit". According to Kinna, anarcho-capitalists "will sometimes label themselves market anarchists because they recognize the negative connotations of 'capitalism'. But the literature of anarcho-capitalism draws on classical liberal theory, particularly the Austrian School – Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises – rather than recognizable anarchist traditions. Ayn Rand's laissez-faire, anti-government, corporate philosophy – Objectivism – is sometimes associated with anarcho-capitalism". Other scholars similarly associate anarcho-capitalism with anti-state classical liberalism, neo-classical liberalism, radical neoliberalism and right-libertarianism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Paul Dragos Aligica writes that there is a "foundational difference between the classical liberal and the anarcho-capitalist positions". Classical liberalism, while accepting critical arguments against collectivism, acknowledges a certain level of public ownership and collective governance as necessary to provide practical solutions to political problems. In contrast anarcho-capitalism, according to Aligica, denies any requirement for any form of public administration, and allows no meaningful role for the public sphere, which is seen as sub-optimal and illegitimate.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Murray Rothbard, a student of Ludwig von Mises, stated that he was influenced by the work of the 19th-century American individualist anarchists. In the winter of 1949, Rothbard decided to reject minimal state "laissez-faire" and embrace his interpretation of individualist anarchism. In 1965, Rothbard wrote that "Lysander Spooner and Benjamin R. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy they left to political philosophy". However, Rothbard thought that they had a faulty understanding of economics as the 19th-century individualist anarchists had a labor theory of value as influenced by the classical economists, while Rothbard was a student of Austrian School economics which does not agree with the labor theory of value. Rothbard sought to meld 19th-century American individualist anarchists' advocacy of economic individualism and free markets with the principles of Austrian School economics, arguing that "[t]here is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics', a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung". Rothbard held that the economic consequences of the political system they advocate would not result in an economy with people being paid in proportion to labor amounts, nor would profit and interest disappear as they expected. Tucker thought that unregulated banking and money issuance would cause increases in the money supply so that interest rates would drop to zero or near to it. Peter Marshall states that "anarcho-capitalism overlooks the egalitarian implications of traditional individualist anarchists like Spooner and Tucker". Stephanie Silberstein states that "While Spooner was no free-market capitalist, nor an anarcho-capitalist, he was not as opposed to capitalism as most socialists were."


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: In "The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View", Rothbard explained his disagreements. Rothbard disagreed with Tucker that it would cause the money supply to increase because he believed that the money supply in a free market would be self-regulating. If it were not, then Rothbard argued inflation would occur so it is not necessarily desirable to increase the money supply in the first place. Rothbard claimed that Tucker was wrong to think that interest would disappear regardless because he believed people, in general, do not wish to lend their money to others without compensation, so there is no reason why this would change just because banking was unregulated. Tucker held a labor theory of value and thought that in a free market people would be paid in proportion to how much labor they exerted and that exploitation or usury was taking place if they were not. As Tucker explained in "State Socialism and Anarchism", his theory was that unregulated banking would cause more money to be available and that this would allow the proliferation of new businesses which would, in turn, raise demand for labor. This led Tucker to believe that the labor theory of value would be vindicated and equal amounts of labor would receive equal pay. As an Austrian School economist, Rothbard did not agree with the labor theory and believed that prices of goods and services are proportional to marginal utility rather than to labor amounts in the free market. As opposed to Tucker he did not think that there was anything exploitative about people receiving an income according to how much "buyers of their services value their labor" or what that labor produces.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Without the labor theory of value, some argue that 19th-century individualist anarchists approximate the modern movement of anarcho-capitalism, although this has been contested or rejected. As economic theory changed, the popularity of the labor theory of classical economics was superseded by the subjective theory of value of neoclassical economics and Rothbard combined Mises' Austrian School of economics with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state he had absorbed from studying the individualist American anarchists of the 19th century such as Tucker and Spooner. In the mid-1950s, Rothbard wrote an unpublished article named "Are Libertarians 'Anarchists'?" under the pseudonym "Aubrey Herbert", concerned with differentiating himself from communist and socialistic economic views of anarchists, including the individualist anarchists of the 19th century, concluding that "we are "not" anarchists and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground and are being completely unhistorical. On the other hand, it is clear that we are not archists either: we do not believe in establishing a tyrannical central authority that will coerce the noninvasive as well as the invasive. Perhaps, then, we could call ourselves by a new name: "non"archist." Joe Peacott, an American individualist anarchist in the mutualist tradition, criticizes anarcho-capitalists for trying to hegemonize the individualist anarchism label and make appear as if all individualist anarchists are in favor of capitalism. Peacott states that "individualists, both past and present, agree with the communist anarchists that present-day capitalism is based on economic coercion, not on voluntary contract. Rent and interest are the mainstays of modern capitalism and are protected and enforced by the state. Without these two unjust institutions, capitalism could not exist".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarchist activists and scholars do not consider anarcho-capitalism as a part of the anarchist movement because anarchism has historically been an anti-capitalist movement and see it as incompatible with capitalist forms. Although some regard anarcho-capitalism as a form of individualist anarchism, many others disagree or contest the existence of an individualist–socialist divide because individualist anarchism is largely libertarian socialist. In coming to terms that anarchists mostly identified with socialism, Rothbard wrote that individualist anarchism is different from anarcho-capitalism and other capitalist theories due to the individualist anarchists retaining the labor theory of value and socialist doctrines. Similarly, many writers deny that anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism or that capitalism is compatible with anarchism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: "The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism" writes that "[a]s Benjamin Franks rightly points out, individualisms that defend or reinforce hierarchical forms such as the economic-power relations of anarcho-capitalism are incompatible with practices of social anarchism based on developing immanent goods which contest such as inequalities". Laurence Davis cautiously asks "[I]s anarcho-capitalism really a form of anarchism or instead a wholly different ideological paradigm whose adherents have attempted to expropriate the language of anarchism for their own anti-anarchist ends?" Davis cites Iain McKay, "whom Franks cites as an authority to support his contention that 'academic analysis has followed activist currents in rejecting the view that anarcho-capitalism has anything to do with social anarchism'", as arguing "quite emphatically on the very pages cited by Franks that anarcho-capitalism is by no means a type of anarchism". McKay writes that "[i]t is important to stress that anarchist opposition to the so-called capitalist 'anarchists' does "not" reflect some kind of debate within anarchism, as many of these types like to pretend, but a debate between anarchism and its old enemy capitalism. ... Equally, given that anarchists and 'anarcho'-capitalists have fundamentally "different" analyses and goals it is hardly 'sectarian' to point this out".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Davis writes that "Franks asserts without supporting evidence that most major forms of individualist anarchism have been largely anarcho-capitalist in content, and concludes from this premise that most forms of individualism are incompatible with anarchism". Davis argues that "the conclusion is unsustainable because the premise is false, depending as it does for any validity it might have on the further assumption that anarcho-capitalism is indeed a form of anarchism. If we reject this view, then we must also reject the individual anarchist versus the communal anarchist 'chasm' style of argument that follows from it". Davis maintains that "the ideological core of anarchism is the belief that society can and should be organised without hierarchy and domination. Historically, anarchists have struggles against a wide range of regimes of domination, from capitalism, the state system, patriarchy, heterosexism, and the domination of nature to colonialism, the war system, slavery, fascism, white supremacy, and certain forms of organised religion". According to Davis, "[w]hile these visions range from the predominantly individualistic to the predominantly communitarian, features common to virtually all include an emphasis on self-management and self-regulatory methods of organisation, voluntary association, decentralised society, based on the principle of free association, in which people will manage and govern themselves". Finally, Davis includes a footnote stating that "[i]ndividualist anarchism may plausibly be re regarded as a form of both socialism and anarchism. Whether the individualist anarchists were "consistent" anarchists (and socialists) is another question entirely. ... McKay comments as follows: 'any individualist anarchism which supports wage labour is "inconsistent" anarchism. It "can" easily be made "consistent" anarchism by applying its own principles . In contrast 'anarcho'-capitalism rejects so many of the basic, underlying, principles of anarchism ... that it cannot be made consistent with the ideals of anarchism'".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Several anarcho-capitalists and right-libertarians have discussed historical precedents of what they believe were examples of anarcho-capitalism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Economist and libertarian scholar Bryan Caplan considers the free cities of medieval Europe as examples of "anarchist" or "nearly anarchistic" societies, further arguing:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: According to the libertarian theorist David D. Friedman, "[m]edieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions". While not directly labeling it anarcho-capitalist, Friedman argues that the legal system of the Icelandic Commonwealth comes close to being a real-world anarcho-capitalist legal system. Although noting that there was a single legal system, Friedman argues that enforcement of the law was entirely private and highly capitalist, providing some evidence of how such a society would function. Friedman further wrote that "[e]ven where the Icelandic legal system recognized an essentially 'public' offense, it dealt with it by giving some individual (in some cases chosen by lot from those affected) the right to pursue the case and collect the resulting fine, thus fitting it into an essentially private system".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Friedman and Bruce L. Benson argued that the Icelandic Commonwealth saw significant economic and social progress in the absence of systems of criminal law, an executive, or bureaucracy. This commonwealth was led by chieftains, whose position could be bought and sold like that of private property. Being a member of the chieftainship was also completely voluntary.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: According to Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill, the Old West in the United States in the period of 1830 to 1900 was similar to anarcho-capitalism in that "private agencies provided the necessary basis for an orderly society in which property was protected and conflicts were resolved" and that the common popular perception that the Old West was chaotic with little respect for property rights is incorrect. Since squatters had no claim to western lands under federal law, extra-legal organizations formed to fill the void. Benson explains:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: According to Anderson, "[d]efining anarcho-capitalist to mean minimal government with property rights developed from the bottom up, the western frontier was anarcho-capitalistic. People on the frontier invented institutions that fit the resource constraints they faced".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: In his work "For a New Liberty", Murray Rothbard has claimed ancient Gaelic Ireland as an example of nearly anarcho-capitalist society. In his depiction, citing the work of Professor Joseph Peden, the basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath, which is portrayed as "a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes" with its territorial claim being limited to "the sum total of the landed properties of its members". Civil disputes were settled by private arbiters called "brehons" and the compensation to be paid to the wronged party was insured through voluntary surety relationships. Commenting on the "kings" of tuaths, Rothbard stated:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some libertarians have cited law merchant, admiralty law and early common law as examples of anarcho-capitalism.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Economist Alex Tabarrok argued that Somalia in its stateless period provided a "unique test of the theory of anarchy", in some aspects near of that espoused by anarcho-capitalists David D. Friedman and Murray Rothbard. Nonetheless, both anarchists and some anarcho-capitalists argue that Somalia was not an anarchist society.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarchists such as Brian Morris argue that anarcho-capitalism does not in fact get rid of the state. He says that anarcho-capitalists "simply replaced the state with private security firms, and can hardly be described as anarchists as the term is normally understood". In "Libertarianism: Bogus Anarchy", anarchist Peter Sabatini notes:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Similarly, Bob Black argues that an anarcho-capitalist wants to "abolish the state to his own satisfaction by calling it something else". He states that they do not denounce what the state does, they just "object to who's doing it".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Paul Birch argues that legal disputes involving several jurisdictions and different legal systems will be too complex and costly. He therefore argues that anarcho-capitalism is inherently unstable, and would evolve, entirely through the operation of free market forces, into either a single dominant private court with a natural monopoly of justice over the territory (a "de facto" state), a society of multiple city states, each with a territorial monopoly, or a 'pure anarchy' that would rapidly descend into chaos.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Randall G. Holcombe argues that anarcho-capitalism turns justice into a commodity as private defense and court firms would favour those who pay more for their services. He argues that defense agencies could form cartels and oppress people without fear of competition. Philosopher Albert Meltzer argued that since anarcho-capitalism promotes the idea of private armies, it actually supports a "limited State". He contends that it "is only possible to conceive of Anarchism which is free, communistic and offering no economic necessity for repression of countering it".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Robert Nozick argues that a competitive legal system would evolve toward a monopoly government—even without violating individuals' rights in the process. In "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", Nozick argues that an anarcho-capitalist society would inevitably transform into a minarchist state through the eventual emergence of a monopolistic private defense and judicial agency that no longer faces competition. He argues that anarcho-capitalism results in an unstable system that would not endure in the real world. While anarcho-capitalists such as Roy Childs and Murray Rothbard have rejected Nozick's arguments, with Rothbard arguing that the process described by Nozick, with the dominant protection agency outlawing its competitors, in fact violates its own clients' rights, John Jefferson actually advocates Nozick's argument and states that such events would best operate in "laissez-faire". Robert Ellickson presented a Hayekian case against anarcho-capitalism, calling it a "pipe-dream" and stating that anarcho-capitalists "by imagining a stable system of competing private associations, ignore both the inevitability of territorial monopolists in governance, and the importance of institutions to constrain those monopolists' abuses".


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some libertarians argue that anarcho-capitalism would result in different standards of justice and law due to relying too much on the market. Friedman responded to this criticism by arguing that it assumes the state is controlled by a majority group that has similar legal ideals. If the populace is diverse, different legal standards would therefore be appropriate.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either action (positive rights) or inaction (negative rights). Anarcho-capitalists believe that negative rights should be recognized as legitimate, but positive rights should be rejected as an intrusion. Some critics reject the distinction between positive and negative rights. Peter Marshall also states that the anarcho-capitalist definition of freedom is entirely negative and that it cannot guarantee the positive freedom of individual autonomy and independence.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Social anarchists argue that anarcho-capitalism allows individuals to accumulate significant power through free markets and private property. Friedman responded by arguing that the Icelandic Commonwealth was able to prevent the wealthy from abusing the poor by requiring individuals who engaged in acts of violence to compensate their victims financially.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Anarchists argue that certain capitalist transactions are not voluntary and that maintaining the class structure of a capitalist society requires coercion which violates anarchist principles. Anthropologist David Graeber noted his skepticism about anarcho-capitalism along the same lines, arguing:


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some critics argue that the anarcho-capitalist concept of voluntary choice ignores constraints due to both human and non-human factors such as the need for food and shelter as well as active restriction of both used and unused resources by those enforcing property claims. If a person requires employment in order to feed and house himself, the employer-employee relationship could be considered involuntary. Another criticism is that employment is involuntary because the economic system that makes it necessary for some individuals to serve others is supported by the enforcement of coercive private property relations. Some philosophies view any ownership claims on land and natural resources as immoral and illegitimate. Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger criticizes anarcho-capitalism by arguing that "capitalism requires government", questioning who or what would enforce treaties and contracts.


title: Anarcho-capitalism

text: Some right-libertarian critics of anarcho-capitalism who support the full privatization of capital such as geolibertarians argue that land and the raw materials of nature remain a distinct factor of production and cannot be justly converted to private property because they are not products of human labor. Some socialists, including market anarchists and mutualists, adamantly oppose absentee ownership. Anarcho-capitalists have strong abandonment criteria, namely that one maintains ownership until one agrees to trade or gift it. Anti-state critics of this view posit comparatively weak abandonment criteria, arguing that one loses ownership when one stops personally occupying and using it as well as the idea of perpetually binding original appropriation is anathema to traditional schools of anarchism.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf education, also known as Steiner education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Its educational style is holistic, intended to develop pupils' intellectual, artistic, and practical skills, with focus on imagination and creativity. Individual teachers have a great deal of autonomy in curriculum content, teaching methods, and governance. Qualitative assessments of student work are integrated into the daily life of the classroom, with standardized testing limited to what is required to enter post-secondary education. Many Waldorf schools have faced controversy due to Steiner's connections to racist ideology and magical thinking. Others have faced regulatory audits and closure due to concerns over substandard treatment of special needs children.


title: Waldorf education

text: The first Waldorf school opened in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany. A century later, it has become the largest independent school movement in the world, with more than 1,200 independent schools and nearly 2,000 kindergartens in 75 countries, as well as more than 500 centers for special education in more than 40 countries. There are also numerous Waldorf-based public schools, charter schools, and academies, as well as a homeschooling movement. Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands have the most Waldorf schools.


title: Waldorf education

text: Critics of Waldorf education (e.g. Roger Rawlings) point out the mystical nature of anthroposophy and the incorporation of Steiner's esoteric ideas into curriculum. Waldorf schools have also been linked to the outbreak of infectious diseases due to the vaccine hesitancy of many Waldorf parents.


title: Waldorf education

text: The first school based upon the ideas of Rudolf Steiner was opened in 1919 in response to a request from Emil Molt, owner and managing director of the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Company in Stuttgart, Germany. This is the source of the name "Waldorf", which is now trademarked in the United States when used in connection with the educational method. Molt's proposed school would educate the children of employees of the factory.


title: Waldorf education

text: Molt was a follower of Anthroposophy, an esoteric spiritual movement based on the notion that an objectively comprehensible spiritual realm exists and can be observed by humans, and of Rudolf Steiner, the movement's founder and spiritual leader. Many of Steiner's ideas influenced the pedagogy of the original Waldorf school and still play a central role in modern Waldorf classrooms: reincarnation, karma, the existence of spiritual beings, the idea that children are themselves spiritual beings, and eurythmy.


title: Waldorf education

text: As the co-educational school also served children from outside the factory, it included children from a diverse social spectrum. It was also the first comprehensive school in Germany, serving children of all genders, abilities, and social classes.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf education became more widely known in 1922 through lectures Steiner gave at a conference at Oxford University. Two years later, on his final trip to Britain at Torquay in 1924, Steiner delivered a Waldorf teacher training course. The first school in England (Michael Hall) was founded in 1925; the first in the United States (the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City) in 1928. By the 1930s, numerous schools inspired by Steiner's pedagogical principles had opened in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Hungary, the United States, and England.


title: Waldorf education

text: From 1933 to 1945, political interference from the Nazi regime limited and ultimately closed most Waldorf schools in Europe, with the exception of some British, Swiss, and Dutch schools. Rudolf Hess, the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Waldorf schools. The affected schools reopened after the Second World War ended. A few schools elsewhere in Europe (e.g. in Norway) survived by going underground. Some schools in East Germany were re-closed a few years later by the Communist government.


title: Waldorf education

text: In North America in 1967, there were nine schools in the United States and one in Canada. As of 2021, that number had increased to more than 200 in the United States and over 20 in Canada. There are currently 29 Steiner schools in the United Kingdom and three in the Republic of Ireland.


title: Waldorf education

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Waldorf schools again began to proliferate in Central and Eastern Europe. More recently, many have opened in Asia, especially China. There are currently over 1,200 independent Waldorf schools worldwide.


title: Waldorf education

text: The structure of Waldorf education follows a theory of childhood development devised by Rudolf Steiner, utilizing distinct learning strategies for each of three developmental stages or "epochs": early childhood, elementary, and secondary education. Steiner believed each stage lasted approximately seven years. Aside from their spiritual underpinnings, Steiner's seven-year stages are broadly similar to those later described by Jean Piaget and also theories described earlier by Comenius and Pestalozzi. The stated purpose of this approach is to awaken the "physical, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, social, and spiritual" aspects of each pupil.


title: Waldorf education

text: In Waldorf pedagogy, young children learn best through immersion in un-selfconscious imitation of practical activities. The early childhood curriculum focuses on experiential education and imaginative play. The overall goal of the curriculum is to "imbue the child with a sense that the world is good".


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf preschools employ a regular daily routine that includes free play, artistic work (e.g. drawing, painting or modeling), circle time (songs, games, and stories), outdoor recess, and practical tasks (e.g. cooking, cleaning, and gardening), with rhythmic variations. Rhythm and repetitive patterns are considered important in Anthroposophy and are believed to hold spiritual significance. The classroom is intended to resemble a home, with tools and toys usually sourced from simple, natural materials that lend themselves to imaginative play. The use of natural materials has been praised as fulfilling children's aesthetic needs and reinforcing connections to nature, though some scholars have questioned whether the preference for natural, non-manufactured materials is truly a "reasoned assessment of twenty-first century children's needs", rather than "a reaction against the dehumanizing aspects of nineteenth-century industrialization".


title: Waldorf education

text: Pre-school and kindergarten programs generally include seasonal festivals drawn from a variety of traditions, with attention placed on traditions brought forth from the surrounding community. Waldorf schools in the Western Hemisphere have traditionally celebrated Christian festivals, though one sources states that some North American Waldorf schools also include Jewish holidays.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf kindergarten and lower grades generally discourage pupils' use of electronic media such as television and computers. There are a variety of reasons for this: Waldorf educators believe that use of these conflicts with young children's developmental needs, media users may be physically inactive, and media may be seen to contain inappropriate or undesirable content and to hamper the imagination.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf pedagogues consider that readiness for learning to read depends upon increased independence of character, temperament, habits, and memory, one of the markers of which is the loss of the baby teeth. Formal instruction in reading, writing, and other academic disciplines are therefore not introduced until students enter the elementary school, when pupils are around seven years of age. Steiner believed that engaging young children in abstract intellectual activity too early would adversely affect their growth and development.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf elementary schools (ages 7–14) emphasize cultivating children's emotional life and imagination. In order that students can connect more deeply with the subject matter, academic instruction is presented through artistic work that includes story-telling, visual arts, drama, movement, music, and crafts. The core curriculum includes language arts, mythology, history, geography, geology, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, biology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and nutrition. The school day generally begins with a one-and-a-half to two-hour, cognitively oriented academic lesson, or "Main lesson", that focuses on a single theme over one month's time. This typically begins with introductory activities that may include singing, instrumental music, and recitations of poetry, generally including a verse written by Rudolf Steiner for the start of a school day. There is little reliance on standardized textbooks.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf elementary education allows for individual variations in the pace of learning, based upon the expectation that a child will grasp a concept or achieve a skill when he or she is ready. Cooperation takes priority over competition. This approach also extends to physical education; competitive team sports are not introduced until upper grades.


title: Waldorf education

text: Each class remains together as a cohort throughout all elementary, developing as a quasi-familial social group. In elementary years, a core teacher teaches primary academic subjects. A central role of this teacher is to provide a supportive role model both through personal example and through stories drawn from a variety of cultures, educating by exercising "creative, loving authority". Class teachers are normally expected to teach a cohort for several years, a practice known as looping. Starting in first grade, specialized teachers teach many subjects, including music, crafts, movement, and two foreign languages from complementary language families (in English-speaking countries these are typically German and either Spanish or French).


title: Waldorf education

text: While class teachers serve a valuable role as personal mentors, establishing "lasting relationships with pupils", Ullrich documented problems when the same teacher continues into middle school. Noting that there is a danger of any authority figure limiting students enthusiasm for inquiry and autonomy, he cited a number of schools where the class teacher accompanies the class for six years only, after which specialist teachers play a greater role.


title: Waldorf education

text: Steiner considered children's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development to be interlinked. When students in a Waldorf school are grouped, it is generally not by a focus on academic abilities. Instead, Steiner adapted the pseudoscientific proto-psychological concept of the classic four temperaments – melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric. Steiner indicated that teaching should be differentiated to accommodate the different needs that these "types" represent. For example, Anthroposophists believe "cholerics are risk takers, phlegmatics take things calmly, melancholics are sensitive or introverted, and sanguines take things lightly". Steiner also believed that teachers must consider their own temperament and be prepared to work with it positively in the classroom, that temperament is emergent in children, and that most people express a combination of temperaments rather than a pure single type. No evidence exists for such "personality types" to be consistent in an individual across time or context, nor that such "types" are useful in providing more effective education.


title: Waldorf education

text: Today, Waldorf teachers may work with these pseudoscientific "temperaments" to design instruction for each student. Seating arrangements and class activities may take into account the supposed temperaments of students but this is often not described to parents, students, or observers.


title: Waldorf education

text: In most Waldorf schools, pupils enter secondary education when they are fourteen years old. Secondary education is provided by specialist teachers for each subject. The curriculum is purported to foster pupils' intellectual understanding, independent judgment, and ethics.


title: Waldorf education

text: In the third developmental stage (14 years old and up), children are supposed to learn through their own thinking and judgment. Students are asked to understand abstract material and expected to have sufficient foundation and maturity to form conclusions using their own judgment.


title: Waldorf education

text: The overarching goals are to provide young people the basis on which to develop into free, morally responsible, and creative beings. No independent studies have been published as to whether or not Waldorf education achieves these aims more than any other approach.


title: Waldorf education

text: The philosophical foundation of the Waldorf approach, anthroposophy, underpins its primary pedagogical goals: to provide an education that enables children to become free human beings, and to help children to incarnate their "unfolding spiritual identity", carried from the preceding spiritual existence, as beings of body, soul, and spirit in this lifetime. Educational researcher Martin Ashley suggests that the latter role would be problematic for secular teachers and parents in state schools, and the commitment to a spiritual background both of the child and the education has been problematic for some committed to a secular perspective.


title: Waldorf education

text: While anthroposophy underpins the curriculum design, pedagogical approach, and organizational structure, it is explicitly not taught within the school curriculum and studies have shown that Waldorf pupils have little awareness of it. Tensions may arise within the Waldorf community between the commitment to Steiner's original intentions and openness to new directions in education, such as the incorporation of new technologies or modern methods of accountability and assessment.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf schools frequently have striking architecture, employing walls meeting at varied angles (not only perpendicularly). The walls are often painted in subtle colors, often with a lazure technique, and include textured surfaces.


title: Waldorf education

text: The schools primarily assess students through reports on individual academic progress and personal development. The emphasis is on characterization through qualitative description. Pupils' progress is evaluated through portfolio work in academic blocks and discussion of pupils in teacher conferences. Standardized tests are rare, with the exception of examinations necessary for college entry taken during secondary school years. Letter grades are generally not given until students enter high school. Pupils are not typically asked to repeat years of elementary or secondary education.


title: Waldorf education

text: Though Waldorf schools are autonomous institutions not required to follow a prescribed curriculum (beyond what is required by local governments) there are widely agreed upon guidelines for the Waldorf curriculum.


title: Waldorf education

text: Main academic subjects are introduced through two-hour morning lesson blocks that last for several weeks. These blocks are horizontally integrated at each grade level in that the topic of the block will be infused into many classroom activities and vertically integrated in that each subject will be revisited with increasing complexity as students develop their skills, reasoning capacities and individual sense of self. This has been described as a spiral curriculum.


title: Waldorf education

text: Many subjects and skills not considered core parts of mainstream schools, such as art, music, gardening, and mythology, are central to Waldorf education. Students learn a variety of fine and practical arts. Elementary students paint, draw, sculpt, knit, weave, and crochet. Older students build on these experiences and learn new skills such as pattern-making and sewing, wood and stone carving, metal work, book-binding, and doll or puppet making.


title: Waldorf education

text: Music instruction begins with singing in early childhood and continuing through high school. Pupils also usually learn to play pentatonic flutes, recorders and/or lyres in early elementary grades. Around age 9, diatonic recorders and orchestral instruments are introduced.


title: Waldorf education

text: Certain subjects are largely unique to the Waldorf schools. Foremost among these is eurythmy, a movement art usually accompanying spoken texts or music which includes elements of drama and dance. Although found in other educational contexts, cooking, farming, and environmental and outdoor education are centrally incorporated into Waldorf curriculum. Other differences include: non-competitive games and free play in younger years as opposed to athletics instruction; instruction in two foreign languages from the beginning of elementary school; and an experiential-phenomenological approach to science. In this method, students observe and depict scientific concepts in their own words and drawings rather than encountering the ideas first through a textbook.


title: Waldorf education

text: The scientific methodology of modern Waldorf schools utilizes a so-called "phenomenological approach" to science education employing a methodology of inquiry-based learning aiming to "strengthen the interest and ability to observe" in pupils.


title: Waldorf education

text: Experts have called into question the quality of this phenomenological approach if it fails to educate Waldorf students on basic tenets of scientific fact. The Waldorf approach is said to cultivate students with "high motivation" but "average achievement" in the sciences. One study conducted by California State University at Sacramento researchers outlined numerous theories and ideas prevalent throughout Waldorf curricula that were patently pseudoscientific and steeped in magical thinking. These included the idea that animals evolved from humans, that human spirits are physically incarnated into "soul qualities that manifested themselves into various animal forms", that the current geological formations on Earth have evolved through so-called "Lemurian" and "Atlantiean" epochs, and that the four kingdoms of nature are "mineral, plant, animal, and man". All of these are directly contradicted by mainstream scientific knowledge and have no basis in any form of conventional scientific study. Contradictory notions found in Waldorf textbooks are distinct from factual inaccuracies occasionally found in modern public school textbooks, as the inaccuracies in the latter are of a specific and minute nature that results from the progress of science. The inaccuracies present in Waldorf textbooks, however, are the result of a mode of thinking that has no valid basis in reason or logic. This unscientific foundation has been blamed for the scarcity of systematic empirical research on Waldorf education as academic researchers hesitate in getting involved in studies of Waldorf schools lest it hamper their future career.


title: Waldorf education

text: One study of science curriculum compared a group of American Waldorf school students to American public school students on three different test variables. Two tests measured verbal and non-verbal logical reasoning and the third was an international TIMSS test. The TIMSS test covered scientific understanding of magnetism. The researchers found that Waldorf school students scored higher than both the public school students and the national average on the TIMSS test while scoring the same as public school students on the logical reasoning tests. However, when the logical reasoning tests measured students' understanding of part-to-whole relations, the Waldorf students also outperformed the public school students. The authors of the study noted the Waldorf students' enthusiasm for science, but viewed the science curriculum as "somewhat old-fashioned and out of date, as well as including some doubtful scientific material".


title: Waldorf education

text: In 2008, Stockholm University terminated its Waldorf teacher training courses. In a statement, the university said "the courses did not encompass sufficient subject theory and a large part of the subject theory that is included is not founded on any scientific base". The dean, Stefan Nordlund, stated "the syllabus contains literature which conveys scientific inaccuracies that are worse than woolly; they are downright dangerous".


title: Waldorf education

text: Because they view human interaction as the essential basis for younger children's learning and growth, Waldorf schools view computers as being first useful to children in the early teen years, after they have mastered "fundamental, time-honoured ways of discovering information and learning, such as practical experiments and books".


title: Waldorf education

text: In the United Kingdom, Waldorf schools are granted an exemption by the Department for Education (DfE) from the requirement to teach ICT as part of Foundation Stage education (ages 3–5).


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf schools have been popular with some parents working in the technology sector in the United States, including those from some of the most advanced technology firms. A number of technologically oriented parents from one school expressed their conviction that younger students do not need the exposure to computers and technology, but benefit from creative aspects of the education; one Google executive was quoted as saying "I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school."


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf education aims to educate children about a wide range of religious traditions without favoring any single tradition. One of Steiner's primary aims was to establish a spiritual yet nondenominational setting for children from all backgrounds that recognized the value of role models drawn from a wide range of literary and historical traditions in developing children's fantasy and moral imaginations. For Steiner, education was an activity which fosters the human being's connection to the divine and is thus inherently religious.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf schools were historically "Christian based and theistically oriented", as they expand into different cultural settings they are adapting to "a truly pluralistic spirituality". Waldorf theories and practices are often modified from their European and Christian roots to meet the historical and cultural traditions of the local community. Examples include Waldorf schools in Israel and Japan, which celebrate festivals drawn from these cultures, and classes in the Milwaukee Urban Waldorf school, which have adopted African American and Native American traditions.


title: Waldorf education

text: Religion classes are typically absent from United States Waldorf schools, but are mandatory in some German federal states, which require teachers who identify with each offered religion to teach such classes in addition to a nondenominational offering. In the United Kingdom, public Waldorf schools are not categorized as "Faith schools".


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf teacher education programs offer courses in child development, the methodology of Waldorf teaching, academic subjects appropriate to the future teachers' chosen specialty, and the study of pedagogical texts and other works by Steiner. For early childhood and elementary school teachers, the training includes considerable artistic work in storytelling, movement, painting, music, and handwork.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf teacher education includes social–emotional development as "an integral and central element", which is unusual for teacher trainings. A 2010 study found that students in advanced years of Waldorf teacher training courses scored significantly higher than students in non-Waldorf teacher trainings on three measures of empathy: perspective taking, empathic concern, and fantasy.


title: Waldorf education

text: One of Waldorf education's central premises is that all educational and cultural institutions should be self-governing and should grant teachers a high degree of creative autonomy within the school; this is based upon the conviction that a holistic approach to education aiming at the development of free individuals can only be successful when based on a school form that expresses these same principles. Most Waldorf schools are not directed by a principal or head teacher, but rather by a number of groups, including:


title: Waldorf education

text: There are coordinating bodies for Waldorf education at both the national (e.g. the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America and the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship in the UK and Ireland) and international level (e.g. International Association for Waldorf Education and The European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE)). These organizations certify the use of the registered names "Waldorf" and "Steiner school" and offer accreditations, often in conjunction with regional independent school associations.


title: Waldorf education

text: Independent schools receive complete or partial funding in much of Europe, particularly in Northern and Eastern Europe. Sweden, Finland, Holland, and Slovakia provide over 90% of independent schools' funding, while Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Hungary, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, and Portugal provide the majority of independent schools' funding. In countries outside of this region, funding for independent schools varies widely.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf-inspired home schools typically obtain their program information through informal parent groups, online, or by purchasing a curriculum. Waldorf homeschooling groups are not affiliated with the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), which represents independent schools and it is unknown how many home schools use a Waldorf-inspired curriculum.


title: Waldorf education

text: Educationalist Sandra Chistolini suggests that parents offer their children Waldorf-inspired homeschooling because "the frustration and boredom some children feel in school are eliminated and replaced with constant attention to the needs of childhood [and] connections between content and the real world".


title: Waldorf education

text: Some Waldorf schools in English-speaking countries have met opposition due to vaccine hesitancy among parents. In a 2011 article, Waldorf schools were identified as a risk factor for noncompliance of Measles vaccination.


title: Waldorf education

text: Other controversies have centered on Waldorf schools' educational standards and the mystical and antiquated nature of some of Steiner's theories.


title: Waldorf education

text: The first US Waldorf-inspired public school, the Yuba River Charter School in California, opened in 1994. The Waldorf public school movement is currently expanding rapidly; while in 2010, there were twelve Waldorf-inspired public schools in the United States, by 2018 there were 53 such schools.


title: Waldorf education

text: Most Waldorf-inspired schools in the United States are elementary schools established as either magnet or charter schools. The first Waldorf-inspired high school was launched in 2008 with assistance from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While these schools follow a similar developmental approach as the independent schools, Waldorf-inspired schools must demonstrate achievement on standardized tests in order to continue receiving public funding. Studies of standardized test scores suggest that students at Waldorf-inspired schools tend to score below their peers in the earliest grades and catch up or surpass their peers by middle school. One study found that students at Waldorf-inspired schools watch less television and spend more time engaging in creative activities or spending time with friends. Public Waldorf schools' need to demonstrate achievement through standardized test scores has encouraged increased use of textbooks and expanded instructional time for academic subjects.


title: Waldorf education

text: A legal challenge alleging that California school districts' Waldorf-inspired schools violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article IX of the California Constitution was dismissed on its merits in 2005 and on appeal in 2007 and 2012.


title: Waldorf education

text: The first state-funded Steiner-Waldorf school in the United Kingdom, the Steiner Academy Hereford, opened in 2008. Since then, Steiner academies have opened in Frome, Exeter, and Bristol as part of the government-funded free schools programme.


title: Waldorf education

text: In December 2018, The Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) judged the Steiner Academy Exeter as inadequate and ordered it to be transferred to a multi-academy trust; it was temporarily closed in October 2018 because of concerns, including significant lapses in safeguarding of students' wellbeing, mistreatment of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and misspending of funds. In July 2018, two 6-year-old children were found by police having walked out of the Exeter school unnoticed. Their parents were not informed until the end of the day. Subsequently, the Steiner Academies in Bristol and Frome have also been judged inadequate by Ofsted, because of concerns over safeguarding and bullying. A number of private Steiner schools have additionally been judged inadequate in the ensuing investigation. Overall, several Waldorf schools in the UK have closed in the last decade due to their administrations' failure to adhere to state-mandated standards of education (e.g. required levels of literacy, safety standards for child welfare, and mistreatment of special needs children).


title: Waldorf education

text: In November 2012, BBC News broadcast a segment about accusations that the establishment of a state-funded Waldorf School in Frome was a misguided use of public money. The broadcast reported that concerns were being raised about Rudolf Steiner's beliefs, stating he "believed in reincarnation and said it was related to race, with black ("schwarz") people being the least spiritually developed, and white ("weiß") people the most". In 2007, the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education (ECSWE) issued a statement, "Waldorf schools against discrimination", which said in part, "Waldorf schools do not select, stratify or discriminate amongst their pupils, but consider all human beings to be free and equal in dignity and rights, independent of ethnicity, national or social origin, gender, language, religion, and political or other convictions. Anthroposophy, upon which Waldorf education is founded, stands firmly against all forms of racism and nationalism."


title: Waldorf education

text: The British Humanist Association criticized a reference book used to train teachers in Steiner academies for suggesting that the heart is sensitive to emotions and also promoting homeopathy, while claiming that Darwinism is "rooted in reductionist thinking and Victorian ethics". Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said that Waldorf schools "seem to have an anti-science agenda". A United Kingdom Department for Education spokeswoman said "no state school is allowed to teach homeopathy as scientific fact" and that free schools "must demonstrate that they will provide a broad and balanced curriculum".


title: Waldorf education

text: Australia has "Steiner streams" incorporated into a small number of existing government schools in some states; in addition, independent Steiner-Waldorf schools receive partial government funding. The majority of Steiner-Waldorf schools in New Zealand are Integrated Private Schools under The Private Schools Integration Act 1975, thus receiving full state funding. In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta, all private schools receive partial state funding.


title: Waldorf education

text: The first Steiner school in Russia was established in 1992 in Moscow. That school is now an award-winning government-funded school with over 650 students offering classes for kindergarten and years 1 to 11 (the Russian education system is an eleven-year system). There are 18 Waldorf schools in Russia and 30 kindergartens. Some are government funded (with no fees) and some are privately funded (with fees for students). As well as five Waldorf schools in Moscow, there are also Waldorf schools in Saint Petersburg, Irkutsk, Jaroslawl, Kaluga, Samara, Zhukovskiy, Smolensk, Tomsk, Ufa, Vladimir, Voronezh, and Zelenograd. The Association of Russian Waldorf Schools was founded in 1995 and now has 21 members.


title: Waldorf education

text: Steiner's belief that all people are imbued with a spiritual core has fueled Waldorf schools' social mission. The schools have always been coeducational and open to children of all social classes. They were designed from the beginning to be comprehensive, 12-year schools under the direction of their own teachers, rather than the state or other external authorities, all radical principles when Steiner first articulated them.


title: Waldorf education

text: Social renewal and transformation remain primary goals for Waldorf schools, which seek to cultivate pupils' sense of social responsibility. Studies suggest that this is successful; Waldorf pupils have been found to be more interested in and engaged with social and moral questions and to have more positive attitudes than students from mainstream schools, demonstrating activism and self-confidence and feeling empowered to forge their own futures.


title: Waldorf education

text: Waldorf schools build close learning communities, founded on the shared values of its members, in ways that can lead to transformative learning experiences that allow all participants, including parents, to become more aware of their own individual path, but which at times also risk becoming exclusive. Reports from small-scale studies suggest that there are lower levels of harassment and bullying in Waldorf schools and that European Waldorf students have much lower rates of xenophobia and gender stereotypes than students in any other type of schools. Betty Reardon, a professor and peace researcher, gives Waldorf schools as an example of schools that follow a philosophy based on peace and tolerance.


title: Waldorf education

text: Many private Waldorf schools experience a tension between these social goals and the way tuition fees act as a barrier to access to the education by less well-off families. Schools have attempted to improve access for a wider range of income groups by charging lower fees than comparable independent schools, by offering a sliding scale of fees, and/or by seeking state support.


title: Waldorf education

text: In 2008, 24 Waldorf schools in 15 countries were members of the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network. The Friends of Waldorf Education is an organization whose purpose is to support, finance and advise the Waldorf movement worldwide, particularly in disadvantaged settings.


title: Waldorf education

text: Although studies about Waldorf education tend to be small-scale and vary in national context, a 2005 independent comprehensive review of the literature concluded there was evidence that Waldorf education encourages academic achievement as well as "creative, social and other capabilities important to the holistic growth of a person".


title: Waldorf education

text: In comparison to state school pupils, European Waldorf students are significantly more enthusiastic about learning, report having more fun and being less bored in school, view their school environments as pleasant and supportive places where they are able to discover their personal academic strengths, and have more positive views of the future. Twice as many European Waldorf students as state school pupils report having good relationships with teachers; they also report significantly fewer ailments such as headaches, stomach aches, and disrupted sleep.


title: Waldorf education

text: A 2007 German study found that an above-average number of Waldorf students become teachers, doctors, engineers, scholars of the humanities, and scientists. Studies of Waldorf students' artistic capacities found that they averaged higher scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking Ability, drew more accurate, detailed, and imaginative drawings, and were able to develop richer images than comparison groups.


title: Waldorf education

text: Some observers have noted that Waldorf educators tend to be more concerned to address the needs of weaker students who need support than they are to meet the needs of talented students who could benefit from advanced work.


title: Waldorf education

text: Professor of educational psychology Clifford Mayes said "Waldorf students learn in sequences and paces that are developmentally appropriate, aesthetically stimulating, emotionally supportive, and ecologically sensitive." Professors of education Timothy Leonard and Peter Willis stated that Waldorf education "cultivates the imagination of the young to provide them a firm emotional foundation upon which to build a sound intellectual life".


title: Waldorf education

text: Professor of education Bruce Uhrmacher considers Steiner's view on education worthy of investigation for those seeking to improve public schooling, saying the approach serves as a reminder that "holistic education is rooted in a cosmology that posits a fundamental unity to the universe and as such ought to take into account interconnections among the purpose of schooling, the nature of the growing child, and the relationships between the human being and the universe at large", and that a curriculum need not be technocratic, but may equally well be arts-based.


title: Waldorf education

text: Thomas Nielsen, assistant professor at the University of Canberra's education department, said that imaginative teaching approaches used in Waldorf education (drama, exploration, storytelling, routine, arts, discussion and empathy) are effective stimulators of spiritual-aesthetic, intellectual and physical development, expanding "the concept of holistic and imaginative education" and recommends these to mainstream educators.


title: Waldorf education

text: Andreas Schleicher, international coordinator of the PISA studies, commented on what he saw as the "high degree of congruence between what the world demands of people, and what Waldorf schools develop in their pupils", placing a high value on creatively and productively applying knowledge to new realms. This enables "deep learning" that goes beyond studying for the next test. Deborah Meier, principal of Mission Hill School and MacArthur grant recipient, while having some "quibbles" about the Waldorf schools, stated: "The adults I know who have come out of Waldorf schools are extraordinary people. That education leaves a strong mark of thoroughness, carefulness, and thoughtfulness."


title: Waldorf education

text: Robert Peterkin, director of the Urban Superintendents Program at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and former Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools during a period when Milwaukee funded a public Waldorf school, considers Waldorf education a "healing education" whose underlying principles are appropriate for educating all children.


title: Waldorf education

text: In 2000, educational scholar Heiner Ullrich wrote that intensive study of Steiner's pedagogy had been in progress in educational circles in Germany since about 1990 and that positions were "highly controversial: they range from enthusiastic support to destructive criticism". In 2008, the same scholar wrote that Waldorf schools have "not stirred comparable discussion or controversy... those interested in the Waldorf School today... generally tend to view this school form first and foremost as a representative of internationally recognized models of applied classic reform pedagogy" and that critics tend to focus on what they see as Steiner's "occult neo-mythology of education" and to fear the risks of indoctrination in a worldview school, but lose an "unprejudiced view of the varied practice of the Steiner schools". Ullrich himself considers that the schools successfully foster dedication, openness, and a love for other human beings, for nature, and for the inanimate world.


title: Waldorf education

text: Professor of Comparative Education describes Waldorf education as embodying original pedagogical ideas and presenting exemplary organizational capabilities.


title: Waldorf education

text: A UK Department for Education and Skills report suggested that Waldorf and state schools could learn from each other's strengths: in particular, that state schools could benefit from Waldorf education's early introduction and approach to modern foreign languages; combination of block (class) and subject teaching for younger children; development of speaking and listening through an emphasis on oral work; good pacing of lessons through an emphasis on rhythm; emphasis on child development guiding the curriculum and examinations; approach to art and creativity; attention given to teachers' reflective activity and heightened awareness (in collective child study for example); and collegial structure of leadership and management, including collegial study. Aspects of mainstream practice which could inform good practice in Waldorf schools included: management skills and ways of improving organizational and administrative efficiency; classroom management; work with secondary-school age children; and assessment and record keeping.


title: Waldorf education

text: American state and private schools are drawing on Waldorf education"less in whole than in part"in expanding numbers. Professor of Education Elliot Eisner sees Waldorf education exemplifying embodied learning and fostering a more balanced educational approach than American public schools achieve. Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching commended the significant role the arts play throughout Waldorf education as a model for other schools to follow. Waldorf schools have been described as establishing "genuine community" and contrasted to mainstream schools, which have been described as "residential areas partitioned by bureaucratic authorities for educational purposes".


title: Waldorf education

text: Ashley described seven principal ways Waldorf education differed from mainstream approaches: its method of working from the whole to the parts, its attentiveness to child development, its goal of freedom, the deep relationships of teachers to students, the emphasis on experiencing oral traditions, the role of ritual and routine (e.g. welcoming students with a handshake, the use of opening and closing verses, and yearly festivals), the role arts and creativity play, and the Goetheanistic approach to science.


title: Waldorf education

text: In US states where nonmedical vaccine exemption is legal, 2015 reports showed Waldorf schools as having a high rate of vaccine exemption within their student populations, however, recent research has shown that in US state schools, child immunization rates often fall below the 95-percent threshold that the Centers for Disease Control say is necessary to provide herd immunity for a community. A 2010 report by the UK Government said that Steiner schools should be considered "high risk populations" and "unvaccinated communities" with respect to children's risks of catching measles and contributing to outbreaks. On 19 November 2018, the BBC reported there was an outbreak of chickenpox affecting 36 students at the Asheville Waldorf School located in North Carolina. Out of 152 students at the school, 110 had not received the Varicella vaccine that protects against chickenpox. The United States Advisory Committee on Immunization, the Centers for Disease Control, and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services all recommend that all healthy children 12 months of age and older get vaccinated against Varicella. "The Guardian" reported that several Waldorf schools in California had some of the lowest vaccination rates among kindergarten pupils in the 2017–18 school year, with only 7% of pupils having been vaccinated in one school. In the same article, however, "The Guardian" also reported that, in a 2019 statement, the International Center for Anthroposophic Medicine and the International Federation of Anthroposophic Medical Associations stressed that anthroposophic medicine, the form of medicine Steiner founded, "fully appreciates the contributions of vaccines to global health and firmly supports vaccinations as an important measure to prevent life threatening diseases".


title: Waldorf education

text: Rudolf Steiner founded the first Waldorf school several years before vaccinations for tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough were invented. After such vaccinations became widespread in Europe, Steiner opposed their use in several contexts, writing that vaccination could "impede spiritual development" and lead to a loss of "any urge for a spiritual life". Steiner also thought that these effects would carry over into subsequent reincarnations of the vaccinated person.


title: Waldorf education

text: The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America wishes to state unequivocally that our educational objectives do not include avoidance of, or resistance to, childhood immunization. The health, safety, and wellbeing of children are our forefront concerns.


title: Waldorf education

text: In 2021, Waldorf schools in Germany were associated with outbreaks of COVID-19 during a pandemic of the disease, as well as reticence to incorporate public health measures relating to disease outbreak.


title: Waldorf education

text: The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) and European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education have put out statements stating that "racist or discriminatory tendencies are not tolerated in Waldorf schools or Waldorf teacher training institutes. The Waldorf school movement explicitly rejects any attempt to misappropriate Waldorf pedagogy or Rudolf Steiner's work for racist or nationalistic purposes." Similar statements were put out by the Waldorf school association in Britain ("Our schools do not tolerate racism. Racist views do not accord with Steiner's longer term vision of a society in which such distinctions would be entirely irrelevant & modern Steiner Waldorf schools deplore all forms of intolerance, aiming to educate in a spirit of respect & to encourage open-hearted regard for others among the children they educate") and Germany.


title: Waldorf education

text: These statements are the necessary response to Rudolf Steiner's contradictory beliefs about race: he emphasized the core spiritual unity of all the world's peoples, sharply criticized racial prejudice, and articulated beliefs that the individual nature of any person stands higher than any racial, ethnic, national or religious affiliation, yet he asserted a hierarchy of races, with the white race at the top, and associated intelligence with having blonde hair and blue eyes.


title: Waldorf education

text: In 2019 a school in Christchurch, New Zealand began considering removing "Rudolf Steiner" from the name of the school "so that the our best ideals are not burdened by historical, philosophical untruths." In 2014, after an investigation by the NZ Ministry of Education, a small school on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand was cleared of teaching racist theories. An independent investigation concluded that while there were no racist elements in the curriculum, the school needed to make changes in the "areas of governance, management and teaching to ensure parents' complaints were dealt with appropriately in the future...[and that]...the school must continue regular communication with the school community regarding the ongoing work being undertaken to address the issues raised and noted that the board has proactively sought support to do this."


title: Waldorf education

text: Racist attitudes and behaviour have been reported in particular Waldorf schools, and some teachers have reportedly expressed Steiner's view that individuals reincarnate through various races, however, Kevin Avison, senior advisor for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship in the UK and Ireland, calls the claim of belief in reincarnation through the races "a complete and utter misunderstanding" of Steiner's teachings.


title: Thymus

text: The thymus is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system. Within the thymus, thymus cell lymphocytes or "T cells" mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders. The thymus is located in the upper front part of the chest, in the anterior superior mediastinum, behind the sternum, and in front of the heart. It is made up of two lobes, each consisting of a central medulla and an outer cortex, surrounded by a capsule.


title: Thymus

text: The thymus is made up of immature T cells called thymocytes, as well as lining cells called epithelial cells which help the thymocytes develop. T cells that successfully develop react appropriately with MHC immune receptors of the body (called "positive selection") and not against proteins of the body (called "negative selection"). The thymus is largest and most active during the neonatal and pre-adolescent periods. By the early teens, the thymus begins to decrease in size and activity and the tissue of the thymus is gradually replaced by fatty tissue. Nevertheless, some T cell development continues throughout adult life.


title: Thymus

text: Abnormalities of the thymus can result in a decreased number of T cells and autoimmune diseases such as autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1 and myasthenia gravis. These are often associated with cancer of the tissue of the thymus, called thymoma, or tissues arising from immature lymphocytes such as T cells, called lymphoma. Removal of the thymus is called thymectomy. Although the thymus has been identified as a part of the body since the time of the Ancient Greeks, it is only since the 1960s that the function of the thymus in the immune system has become clearer.


title: Thymus

text: The thymus is an organ that sits beneath the sternum in the upper front part of the chest, stretching upwards towards the neck. In children, the thymus is pinkish-gray, soft, and lobulated on its surfaces. At birth it is about 4–6 cm long, 2.5–5 cm wide, and about 1 cm thick. It increases in size until puberty, where it may have a size of about 40–50 g, following which it decreases in size in a process known as involution.


title: Thymus

text: The thymus is located in the anterior mediastinum. It is made up of two lobes that meet in the upper midline, and stretch from below the thyroid in the neck to as low as the cartilage of the fourth rib. The lobes are covered by a capsule. The thymus lies beneath the sternum, rests on the pericardium, and is separated from the aortic arch and great vessels by a layer of fascia. The left brachiocephalic vein may even be embedded within the thymus. In the neck, it lies on the front and sides of the trachea, behind the sternohyoid and sternothyroid muscles.


title: Thymus

text: The thymus consists of two lobes, merged in the middle, surrounded by a capsule that extends with blood vessels into the interior. The lobes consist of an outer rich with cells and an inner less dense . The lobes are divided into smaller lobules 0.5-2mm diameter, between which extrude radiating insertions from the capsule along .


title: Thymus

text: The cortex is mainly made up of thymocytes and epithelial cells. The thymocytes, immature T cells, are supported by a network of the finely-branched epithelial reticular cells, which is continuous with a similar network in the medulla. This network forms an adventitia to the blood vessels, which enter the cortex via septa near the junction with the medulla. Other cells are also present in the thymus, including macrophages, dendritic cells, and a small amount of B cells, neutrophils and eosinophils.


title: Thymus

text: In the medulla, the network of epithelial cells is coarser than in the cortex, and the lymphoid cells are relatively fewer in number. Concentric, nest-like bodies called Hassall's corpuscles (also called "thymic corpuscles") are formed by aggregations of the medullary epithelial cells. These are concentric, layered whorls of epithelial cells that increase in number throughout life. They are the remains of the epithelial tubes, which grow out from the third pharyngeal pouches of the embryo to form the thymus.


title: Thymus

text: The arteries supplying the thymus are branches of the internal thoracic, and inferior thyroid arteries, with branches from the superior thyroid artery sometimes seen. The branches reach the thymus and travel with the septa of the capsule into the area between the cortex and medulla, where they enter the thymus itself; or alternatively directly enter the capsule.


title: Thymus

text: The veins of the thymus end in the left brachiocephalic vein, internal thoracic vein, and in the inferior thyroid veins. Sometimes the veins end directly in the superior vena cava.


title: Thymus

text: Lymphatic vessels travel only away from the thymus, accompanying the arteries and veins. These drain into the brachiocephalic, tracheobronchial and parasternal lymph nodes.


title: Thymus

text: The nerves supplying the thymus arise from the vagus nerve and the cervical sympathetic chain. Branches from the phrenic nerves reach the capsule of the thymus, but do not enter into the thymus itself.


title: Thymus

text: The two lobes differ slightly in size, with the left lobe usually higher than the right. Thymic tissue may be found scattered on or around the gland, and occasionally within the thyroid. The thymus in children stretches variably upwards, at times to as high as the thyroid gland.


title: Thymus

text: The thymocytes and the epithelium of the thymus have different developmental origins. The epithelium of the thymus develops first, appearing as two outgrowths, one on either side, of the third pharyngeal pouch. It sometimes also involves the fourth pharyngeal pouch. These extend outward and backward into the surrounding mesoderm and neural crest-derived mesenchyme in front of the ventral aorta. Here the thymocytes and epithelium meet and join with connective tissue. The pharyngeal opening of each diverticulum is soon obliterated, but the neck of the flask persists for some time as a cellular cord. By further proliferation of the cells lining the flask, buds of cells are formed, which become surrounded and isolated by the invading mesoderm.