Humans are social beings. We organize ourselves into groups, build relationships, enjoy creative labor and seek fellowship. From childhood to adulthood, who we are greatly depends on our relationships with those closest to us. We are also heavily influenced by the social, cultural and institutional circumstances of our lives. Institutions, then, have major implications for our rights,…

Recently Ezra Klein pointed out (“What liberals get wrong about single payer,” Washington Post, January 13) that single-payer healthcare wouldn’t solve the problem of America having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. American health insurance premiums aren’t so high because of the overhead cost or profit of insurance companies, but because of the…

A war has been raging in Mexico for almost ten years now. The nexus of American drug laws and Americans’ drug use has spawned outlaw cartels who, like the Prohibition-era Mob, use violence to enforce their control of the drug trade. In 2006, the situation was exacerbated when the government of then-president Felipe Calderon launched…

A half-century of the “War on Poverty” has not yet come close to making poverty in the United States a thing of the past. Even so staunch a defender as  Paul Krugman admits that “progress against poverty has nonetheless been disappointingly slow.” Supposedly, poverty is simply so intractable that even a gargantuan initiative cannot be expected to…

On Monday, January 13, two Fullerton, California police officers charged with the beating death of Kelly Thomas were acquitted, and the prosecutor announced his decision not to press charges against a third officer involved. Millions who had been following the story met the verdict with incredulity: How could anyone who watched that horrific video of…

On Thursday, January 9 a dangerous toxin, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, leaked from a busted tank and into the Elk River in West Virginia. It is believed that nearly 7,500 gallons of the toxin made its way from the 40,000-gallon tank into the river. It’s unclear how much actually entered the public water supply. The busted tank is…

A new report from the Swedish Prison and Probation Service claims that 46 percent of Sweden’s inmates are mentally ill, that 70 percent have severe drug problems and that these problems mostly have their origins in early life. As elsewhere, Sweden’s prison population is made up of the most disenfranchised, poorest and most vulnerable elements…

The trial of Fullerton, California police officers Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli for the killing of Kelly Thomas was unusual from the start. Usually when police officers murder civilians, they are put on “administrative leave” (paid vacation) until an “internal review” determines that they “acted according to policy.” In many cases, the killers’ identities are…

The media and talking heads have moved on from last week’s obsession — beating up on Dennis Rodman’s North Korea trip —  to the new scandal du jour: Chris Christie and Bridge-Gate. Without rehashing the entire story and timeline, Christie, or at the very least his administration, allegedly sought to cause major traffic obstacles and…

One question that libertarians and anarchists never stop hearing is “without government, who will build the roads?” Given Bridge-Gate — an intentionally manufactured traffic jam on New Jersey’s George Washington Bridge — one might ask “without government, who will block the roads?” The scandal emerged after four grueling days of inexplicably awful traffic turned out…

The beginning of this year saw the first fully-fledged legal weed markets open in America in nearly a century. Lines formed, similar those for a midnight movie premiere. Giddy stoners stood in shops in amazement at the ease, variety and quality of the shopping experience. Of course, this is not the introduction of a free market…

In the latest news story about collusive government-industry pipeline deals, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell announced a “partnership” between the Alaskan government, TransCanada, Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips to build a pipeline “attractive to North Slope oil and gas companies.” Such pipeline projects, all involving massive government subsidies including the use of eminent domain to condemn…

The verdict is in: All civilized people must hate Dennis Rodman. Politicians from John McCain to John Kerry and pundits from Bill O’Reilly to Chris Matthews are outraged that an American would visit the third member of the Axis of Evil. Earlier this week Rodman, along with six fellow former NBA players, arrived in Pyongyang,…

Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty of New York City is shaping up as a textbook example of Roderick T. Long’s account of how electoral politics works in practice: “… via a façade of opposition between a purportedly progressive statocracy and a purportedly pro-market plutocracy. The con operates by co-opting potential opponents of the establishment; those who…

Tech aficionados and privacy advocates took notice in late 2013 when Microsoft rolled out an attack on Google’s Chrome OS computers. For one thing, it’s unusual for any company to spend its advertising dollars attacking its competitors rather than promoting its own products. For another, Microsoft’s position atop the computer operating systems market is such that…

The Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne Jr., predicts that the reemergence of the Democratic left will be a major political story in 2014 (“The Resurgent Progressives,” January 1). He argues that the American right has been unwilling to compromise on policy matters with moderate Democrats. As a result the populace has been dragged ever farther to the right — even…

In recent years, “hoarders” — people who collect lots and lots of stuff, until it overpowers them — have become a hot topic in the news and on “reality television.” The mainstream consensus seems to be that “hoarders” are mentally ill, or at least socially abnormal, and need to be “helped,” or at least stopped…

Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco recently cancelled her “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy,” a song-writing retreat hosted at the Nottoway Plantation and Resort, a former slave plantation in Louisiana. The venue choice provoked well-deserved outrage, prompting DiFranco to cancel. DiFranco issued what Callie Beusman at Jezebel called “a remarkably unapologetic ‘apology,’” defending her actions more than apologizing…

Well, we’re about to wrap up another year, so it’s time to throw out my dual nominations for “The Most Impactful Person of 2013.” The envelope, please? And the co-winners are … Edward Snowden and Satoshi Nakamoto. Edward Snowden, because in 2013 his revelations of evil hijinks by the US National Security Agency brought a…

Recently Mike Konczal (“‘Corporatism’ is the Latest Hysterical Right-Wing Accusation,” The New Republic, December 15) attacked “corporatism” as a pernicious right-wing meme, ostensibly aimed at exposing Obama’s policies for “enriching the well-off” but in reality a “reactionary” agenda freeing big business from accountability. I think he underestimates the extent to which the “corporatism” and “crony…