Ostrom begins by noting the problem of natural resource depletion—what she calls “common pool resources”—and then goes on to survey three largely complementary (“closely related concepts”) major theories that attempt to explain “the many problems that individuals face when attempting to achieve collective benefits”: Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons,” the prisoner’s dilemma, and Olson’s “logic…
Anarchists tend to look embarrassed when the subject of economics comes up. Or we mumble something about Proudhon and then sheepishly borrow ideas from Karl Marx. It has always struck me as ironic that anarchism began largely as an economic theory, think only of Josiah Warren, Proudhon and Tucker, but then abandoned the field to…
Unlike many dissident histories of the United States, which attempt to portray racial minorities, sexual subcultures and subordinate classes as “worthy victims” in terms of the social mores of the white middle class, Thaddeus Russell celebrates the kind of people that your parents may have warned you about: the low-down, no-count, not-respectable people. You know,…
Kevin Carson: If you can get past the flaws in Shermer’s book (things others might prefer to think of as my fixations, hangups, and dead horses), it’s quite an enjoyable read.
Kevin Carson: My first book, Studies in Mutualist Political Economy (Blitzprint 2004, CreateSpace 2007; Kindle edition) has been translated into Polish through the gracious efforts of a collective of translators including Krzysztof Śledziński.
Nathan Goodman reviews the new film from Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill.
Seth Goldin: When is a contract not enforceable? When shouldn’t a contract be enforced?
Jeremy Weiland: To all left libertarians, anarchists, and advocates of a voluntary society, I give this book the very highest recommendation possible.
Download the free audiobook version of Markets Not Capitalism.
Wally Conger: I can ask for no better guidebook to fighting for and living the stateless life.
American politics has been a shifting coalition between two factions of capital.
Carson v. the Hegemon
David D’Amato reviews AK Press’s collection of anarchist writing on economics
Why on earth would anyone trust the state as a reliable mechanism for protecting the interests of the weak against those of the strong, when the state itself is a center of power?
Carson: I learned a lot of interesting new things about people whose thought I had already encountered.
Kevin Carson reviews Scott Crow, Black Flags and Windmills
David D’Amato discusses the notable book by Thaddeus Russell, “A Renegade History of the United States”.
This book is an attempt to revive individualist anarchist political economy, to incorporate the useful developments of the last hundred years, and to make it relevant to the problems of the twenty-first century. We hope this work will go at least part of the way to providing a new theoretical and practical foundation for free market socialist economics.
“This nearly 700-page book is quite simply THE definitive collection on free-market anarchism. Its forty chapters include contributions from Randy Barnett, Bruce Benson, Bryan Caplan, Roy Childs, Anthony de Jasay, David Friedman, John Hasnas, Hans Hoppe, Jeff Hummel, Don Lavoie, Murray Rothbard, the Tannehills, and many more. (Full disclosure: it also contains a chapter by…
