On the Open Manufacturing Google Group, an email list for people interested in open-source industrial design and commons-based peer production models for physical production, Nathan Cravens raised the question of why peer-production of physical goods has had such a hard time gaining traction as an alternative to the corporate capitalist model: Open source projects seem…

Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war in the Phillipines is unique in its policy of extrajudicial murder of all drug dealers and users. It’s as much a cleansing of one’s population as any genocide. Still, I think Americans should understand that the logic underlying Duterte’s drug war isn’t dissimilar to ours. Once you’ve declared a “war” on…

Peace on Earth and goodwill to all — in a world of conflict, ’tis the season of peace. A season of peace it is. Thankfully my family and friends are safe, happy and (mostly) together. I greatly enjoy the Christmas/holiday season. Winter has arrived in my scruffy town of Knoxville, Tennessee. The weather is cold….

Reports of sexual abuse of youth footballers by their adult coaches continues to rock Britain, especially since the list of incidences and clubs involved continues to grow. It is crucial that instances of paedophilia be brought to the forefront, and the enabling role played by compulsory education examined. Children are the most oppressed peoples in society and they continue, most…

President-elect Donald Trump’s recent call for a year’s prison term or loss of citizenship for those who burn the American flag – incidentally a reversal of Trump’s previous support for flag-burners on the Letterman show two years ago – leaves me with some questions. Four questions, specifically: two for Trump’s conservative supporters, and two for…

You’re probably aware that Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson — just as you’d expect from a former ExxonMobil CEO — is a big fan of fracking and pipelines. He’s a big fan of them with one exception. He’s joining a lawsuit to prevent a fracking operation next to his wife’s $5 million…

For reactionary populism to win, it needs to tell stories about a golden past and about a future that can be great if old values are recovered and given strength. For liberty and tolerance to win, we need to tell a better story than our opponents. Against those throwing out truth and reason for comforting…

As you might have predicted, the incoming Trump regime is hostile to labor unions. In fact Raymond Hogler, professor of management at Colorado State University, predicts that Trump’s policies — including packing the National Labor Relations Board, appointing anti-union Supreme Court justices, and encouraging right-to-work laws — will be a “fatal blow” to organized labor…

The land remaining to America’s First Nations, after centuries of robbery and genocide, currently stands at the roughly 2% of U.S. territory enclosed within reservations. Now Trump’s incoming crew wants to “privatize” (loot) it (Valerie Volvovici, “Trump Advisors Want to Privatize Oil-Rich Indian Reservations,” Reuters). The fact that this two percent of the land may…

Reading the news, you might get the impression that oil and natural gas pipelines are something people are fighting in faraway, thinly populated places like North Dakota. But the issue — and negative consequences — are probably a lot closer than you think. The Atlantic‘s CityLab tabloid (“30 Years of Oil and Gas Pipeline Accidents,…

In this day and age under the United States government, it’s nearly impossible to legally get a skilled job without a professional license. According to Matt Miller of the Texas Institute for Justice, the issue of over-licensing has become so rampant that “[a]bout one in three people now need the government’s permission to work.” It…

We’ve seen a lot of panic on climate change issues, and understandably so, since Trump’s election. But let’s not overestimate what Trump can actually do to derail progress, or underestimate what we’ll continue to do despite him. First, whatever you think of government policies on such matters, the national and local governments of a major…

At Reason, editor Nick Gillespie interviews Dan Griswold of the Mercatus Center (“Donald Trump and the End of Free Trade,” Nov. 21) on Trump’s likely abandonment of TPP and his trade policies in general. Trump’s views on economics, like his views on everything else, are obviously nonsense; but they’re not nonsense because TPP embodies “free…

Most of the hatred directed at Center for a Stateless Society these days comes from the paleo-conservatives at Mises.org and LewRockwell.com, and their almost indistinguishable friends on the alt.right. So it’s kind of refreshing to get some negative attention from the Old Left for a change — namely, the anarcho-syndicalists at Workers’ Solidarity Alliance (Geoff…

Donald Trump will soon begin his first 100 days in office. The transition of power will fuel executive actions and build momentum for some of his boldest and most contentious proposals. As transitions can either build momentum or engender resistance, Trump will undoubtedly look for some early wins to build an excess of political capital….

In all the damage assessments and recriminations following the presidential election, one theme I’ve seen way too much of is blaming Trump’s victory on “political correctness.” One person blamed the Left for “demonizing white men” for the past eight years instead of focusing on economic and class issues. Another clutched his pearls about what a…

The Owl of Athena awakes from her slumber to view a sea of ominous clouds stretching bleakly across the horizon. As dusk falls she contemplates the current era of human civilization. Her thoughts are tragic, questions abound. Who are the masters of humankind?  Who owns the Earth and all her wildness, order, breath, and water?…

As my C4SS comrade Charles Johnson has pointed out, circumventing state authority and capitalist monopoly is far more cost-effective than lobbying and organizing to reform the law. This is confirmed, once again, by news of open-source hardware projects that offer much cheaper versions of two outrageously expensive medical devices: the EpiPen and the MRI machine….

At first glance, Missoula, Montana’s agricultural non-profit, Garden City Harvest, might seem like an ill-advised target for the Animal Liberation Front’s graffiti. By most accounts, Garden City Harvest does some fantastic work in its local community. According to GCH’s website, its mission is “to build community through agriculture by growing food with and for people…

Turtle Island (or as the illegal immigrants renamed it, North America) has a long and storied history of labor activism. After the Civil War, the nation saw a rise in union activity. With the fight for the eight hour workday, libertarians, socialists, communists, and anarchists alike joined together to fight for working class liberation. Eventually…