Anarchists take a hard stand against the prison system and carceral, punitive, and statist punishments schemas. As a result, we seek alternatives and tend to veer towards community and survivor-led accountability processes with a generally restorative and transformative intention. Restorative justice (RJ) is an approach towards dealing with harm done that focuses on repairing the…

After antifa clashed with right-wing protesters in Berkeley, Mayor Jesse Arreguin argued that California “should classify [Antifa] as a gang.” Later this month, juggalos – fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse (ICP) – will protest their own federal gang classification in Washington, DC. Gang classification is commonly misunderstood. ICP themselves were originally amused…

In-group Preference and National Borders Fundamental to the danger of nation-states and borders are the paradigms of nationalism and in-group preference that exploit human quirks to justify violence. In-group preference is best understood in terms of the creation of teams through the dehumanization of an ‘other.’ In-group preference is mentally categorizing someone who is somehow…

Since the Bernie Sanders campaign, there has been an uptick in interest in the ideas of democratic socialism among leftists. This has played a role in radicalizing both progressives and former democrats and refocusing the left on movements for labor rights and social justice. Seeing this as an opportune moment, many social anarchists have started…

Anti-fascism comes in all shapes and forms. Whether it be the ultra-patriotic types harking back to the legacy of WWII, the III% who put that Identity Evropa kid in a chokehold in Texas, the black bloc protester who punched out Richard Spencer, the antifa rioters who trashed Milo’s events, the programmers who are letting us…

One of the most emotional and difficult topics in contemporary discourse is the history of slavery and its lingering legacy. A common proposal for addressing slavery is reparations, compensatory payments to the descendants of Africans who had been enslaved as part of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The arguments for reparations are regularly met with two…

There is much debate in the current political climate over what to do about our broken healthcare system. Should we universalize it under a state monopoly? Should we provide a public option? Should we form health insurance cooperatives? Should we turn it over to crony corporations to reap a profit from our misfortune? No matter what…

Although Trump’s infrastructure agenda seems to be pretty much on the back burner — to the extent that it exists as as anything but a talking point — his public statements on it so far have mostly been about “public-private partnerships.” Hence, as you might expect, all the usual right-libertarian suspects are making happy noises…

Nearly everyone from across the political spectrum can agree that our current public education system in america is not ideal. Those on the statist left tend to fear that public education is under attack by private corporations and is completely underfunded. More progressive leftists go so far as to not only advocate for more funding…

As Computer Science, Information Technology, and the internet become increasingly important in, and vital to, the global economy, there are many concepts that will translate into significant political- and policy-relevance  in particular, for libertarians and anarchists. In the field of Algorithmic Game Theory and Mechanism Design, there is an important measure of inefficiency in a…

The non-hierarchical, consensus-based, mission-driven collective remains and pervades activist organizing bodies of every level. We love them, apparently. Yet I’ve seen the most collective energy drained to nothing when any one of those elements (the hierarchy, the consensus, the mission) is implicitly or explicitly challenged, and often from within. Someone is in some way not…

Reason Science Editor Ron Bailey (“Overpopulation Scaremongering Never Gets Old,” June 19) takes Eugene Linden to task for blaming Lesotho’s poverty on overpopulation. “That’s far too simple a story,” Bailey says — whereupon he hands his beer to Linden and demonstrates how a real pro oversimplifies things. Lesotho couldn’t be overpopulated, Bailey says, because it’s got…

To be a radical is often to feel hunted and vulnerable, but it can also be the pinnacle of what it means to be held in a beautiful way that the world represses. Much of how our radicalism feels is a question of with what we are engaging in our search for freedom, empathy, and…

Conservatives say that we need the right to bear arms so we can defend ourselves against tyrannical government. I agree. But NRA spokeswoman and conservative talk radio host Dana Loesch does not seem to agree. After the Women’s March celebrated Assata Shakur’s birthday on Twitter, Loesch condemned them, writing, “You celebrate cop killers.” I’m not…

University of Southern California medical school dean Rohit Varma reacted to revelations that his predecessor, Carmen Puliafito, a widely respected ophthalmologist, had regularly consumed hard drugs, by describing Puliafito’s alleged conduct as “horrible” and “despicable.” Puliafito is on leave from his position as a USC faculty member and isn’t being allowed to see patients. It…

Anarchism, for me, is less about “end goals” and more about a particular ethic and outlook. It should reject the idea of “final” states of existence altogether and instead emphasize the importance of a never-ending discovery process in producing a better world. This process is much to the contrary of Communism, which declares what the…

When considering the role that Copyright Law plays in perpetuating Knowledge-Oligarchies and stifling the seamless diffusion of knowledge, it is clear that it also perpetuates a form of ‘Neo-Colonialism’. Copyright is a “legal right that created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use…

At Slate Star Codex (“Considerations on Cost Disease,” Feb. 9), Scott Alexander has a long, long, LONG article speculating on possible causes for the “cost disease — that is, the escalating unit costs and prices in certain economic sectors relative to their outputs.

Last week, President Trump announced intentions to roll back the Obama administration’s opening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Trump called for stricter enforcement of the ban on Americans visiting Cuba as tourists, as well as doing business with Cuba’s Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group.

At a recent press conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said: “If you want to collect a drug debt you can’t file a lawsuit in court.” This was an attempt to justify his May 12th memo instructing federal prosecutors to pursue the strongest possible sentences for drug offenders, including non-violent ones.