In 1897, then well-known anarchist-without-adjectives, Voltairine de Cleyre, addressed the question of why she was an anarchist by answering “because I cannot help it.” In her honor, I seek to address the same question with my own personal reasons. It is our responsibility to honestly evaluate all sides of an issue, and to follow whichever…

The good news about the presidential election season is that so many voters seem disgusted with career politicians. The bad news is that these voters are naively opting for “outsiders” who in reality are just politicians in another form. They are anti-politician politicians. This, I submit, is not progress. It is certainly a hopeful sign…

A disconcerting part of the (small g) greenish, cooperative and alternative economy movements is fond of proposals for “New Deals” of one kind or another (Green New Deal, and so forth). I say “disconcerting” because, given the broad tendency of those movements to favor decentralism, economic relocalization and horizontal governance, the New Deal is —…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Steven Horwitz. As with Derek Wall, I’m gratified by the thoughtful tone of Steven Horwitz’s response to my lead essay. Where he agrees with me, he makes some good points of his own that add to what I was trying to say — particularly in regard to “free markets” not meaning the…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Derek Wall. I appreciate the thoughtful tone of Derek’s response, and I’m certainly gratified by whatever role I may have played in inspiring him to take up brewing beer. And having been strongly influenced by the work of Elinor Ostrom myself, I was pleased to learn that an Ostrom scholar was…

Steven Horwitz’s Response to Kevin Carson. There is much to like in Kevin Carson’s lead essay and even where I think he goes astray, he performs a valuable service by reminding us of the ways in which the state has affected the evolution of really-existing capitalism and he thereby challenges us to think more critically…

Derek Wall’s Response to Kevin Carson. My background is in ecosocialism. I am not an anarchist; in fact, I am currently International Coordinator of the Green Party of England and Wales. I would see ecosocialism as rooted in Marxist thought. So unsurprisingly I would tend to argue that non-capitalist markets tend to lead to the…

Somehow left-libertarianism (or at least my article “What Is Left-Libertarianism?” Center for a Stateless Society, June 15, 2014) has come to the attention of Heather Johnson, a Libertarian candidate for Senate in Minnesota. And not in a good way. “Left-libertarianism,” she says on her Facebook page, “is as much bull***t as right-libertarianism,” because it “violates……

Some anarchists and socialists argue that, even if markets can theoretically be non-capitalist, and non-capitalist market economies can exist, the dynamics of the market will eventually lead to the restoration of capitalism. The argument used by non-market anarchists and socialists is that, in a competitive market — even a competitive market of widespread distribution of…

Introducing Mutual Exchange: Do Free Markets Always Produce a Corporate Economy? What would a free market look like? Most people agree that totally freed markets are nowhere to be seen in today’s world. States intruding on voluntary exchange and standing in the way of free association is commonplace across the globe. There are some markets, yes. But…

Introduction by Chad Nelson Involvement in the anarchist movement sometimes feels like a futile enterprise. How to get from here to there in a “real” world dominated by statists and authoritarians is a dilemma that confounds even the most sure-footed of anarchists. And when attaching oneself to an anarchist organization, it’s easy to be pessimistic…

Introduction by Gary Chartier Americans are likely to be thinking more about Dorothy Day than usual just now, in the wake of Pope Francis’s affirming reference to her in his address to the US Congress. But people unfamiliar with Day’s life and work will find it easy to imagine that ​she was, in the unfortunately…

Two Letters from Voltairine de Cleyre on the McKinley Assassination: McKinley’s Assassination from the Anarchist Standpoint (1907) Six years have passed since William McKinley met his doom at Buffalo and the return stroke of justice took the life of his slayer, Leon Czolgosz. The wild rage that stormed through the brains of the people, following…

The laws of God, the laws of Man, He may keep who will, and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me. –A.E. Housman Political Myth and Self-Hypnosis A rose by any other name Would never, never smell the same And cunning is the nose that knows An…

Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist. But is he an individualist and a…

Libertarians are individualists. But since individualist has many senses, that statement isn’t terribly informative. Does it mean that libertarians are social nonconformists on principle? Not at all. Some few libertarians may aspire to be, but most would see that as undesirable because it would obstruct their most important objectives. Lots of libertarian men have no…

A common liberal or “progressive” criticism of so-called “sharing economy” entities like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb (usually appearing in venues like Salon or Alternet) is that they’re “unregulated.”   This implicitly assumes, of course, that regulations like the taxi medallion system exist for some idealistic purpose of serving the “public welfare” and not simply guaranteeing…

Cass Sunstein is such an excellent, if unintentional, parody of liberal goo-gooism that it’s hard to tell him from a creation of The Onion. As proof that “our democratic system structures” are not rigged — whatever Gloomy Guses like Elizabeth Warren and Lawrence Lessig may think — Sunstein (“The American System Isn’t Rigged,” BloombergView, August…

Amid claims by U.S. officials that a “golden key” to all forms of encryption software is necessary to fight terrorism, a UN Report released in May asserts that securely encrypted communications among private citizens aren’t just permissible, but a human right. The report’s author, UC Irvine professor David Kaye, notes the problem of creating a…

Karl Hess: Presidential Speechwriter Turned Homesteader Interview by Anson Mount (Mother Earth News) (Originally published in Mother Earth News, January/February, 1976 issue) Introduction It was so easy back then — during the 1950’s and early 60’s — to be a Right Thinking Citizen of the United States. Easy because we all knew who wore the…