[baddox]

Okay, I don't like Rothbard, but here I go defending him. The context of that quote is important. It turns out that Rothbard was making the point that arguing over the etymology of these labels is not as important as arguing about actual policies. He concedes that historically those who label themselves "anarchists" have very different and mutually exclusive beliefs than anarcho-capitalists. But he also maintains that they are "without archons" because they oppose coercive rulers.

The entire paragraph of that essay:

> We must conclude that the question "are libertarians anarchists?" simply cannot be answered on etymological grounds. The vagueness of the term itself is such that the libertarian system would be considered anarchist by some people and archist by others. We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude 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: nonarchist. Then, when, in the jousting of debate, the inevitable challenge "are you an anarchist?" is heard, we can, for perhaps the first and last time, find ourselves in the luxury of the "middle of the road" and say, "Sir, I am neither an anarchist nor an archist, but am squarely down the nonarchic middle of the road."

https://mises.org/library/are-libertarians-anarchists