On the early summer morning of July 28, 2012, Megan Rice, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, the Oak Ridge Three, hiked down a wooded ridge to the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At the complex the hikers cut their way through three fences using bolt cutters, stealthily moved past guard dogs and then made their way…

I’ve been thinking about how my experiences with disabilities have shaped my perception of anarchism. Throughout western culture, there’s the tension between the idea that our value is innate in our humanity, and the idea that our value is dependent on our utility to others. But utility doesn’t exist in itself, it exists in its…

“The stupid — it hurts!” That’s just a figure of speech, to be sure, but in some cases it’s almost literally true. Bob Garfield’s Valentine for Big Government (“I Luv Big Gov,” Slate, Feb. 15) comes extremely close. Hard right-wingers are easier to take. They love the awful things government does because they’re awful people….

What if the best thing we could do for our children is just to leave them alone? Jay Griffiths on why modern parenting is making our children miserable I felt as if I were an unwilling accomplice to torture. Echoes of the victim’s screams rang off the varnished walls. The door, tight shut though it…

It was Thomas Hobbes, in his book Leviathan, that declared without a state man is in a constant climate of struggle and fight. He called this the “state of nature” whereby it is a “war of all against all”. He makes a compelling argument for the coming together of all peoples, and the creation of…

I’m alternately amused and exasperated by the constant refrain of calls to “Vote Harder!” from Progressive Democrats (the kind of people who use the #UniteBlue hashtag on Twitter). During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama made the most left-populist noises of any Democratic candidate in generations, and won by a landslide almost as big as LBJ’s…

The following article, “Cómo el Go se convirtió en el juego favorito de anarquistas y libertarios,” was written by David de Ugarte and published on El Correo de las Indias, January 17, 2014. When the British Go Association proposed to fund a strategy to promote the game and commissioned a study on its image, the result was surprising [PDF]:…

Recently, a rebuttal of my previous article “Anarcho-Capitalism is Impossible” was brought to my attention. The author, Christopher Cantwell, made some points that are worth addressing and my own thoughts on the matter have shifted somewhat over time. Therefore, I think it would be worth revisiting the topic with fresh eyes. In his introductory paragraphs,…

Transfer of Power Arguably the most powerful person in the United States (even rivaling the POTUS), Ben S. Bernanke, has left the Federal Reserve. Since 2006 he has sought to make the economy his marionette. Fed policies, under his direction, worked to manage a collapsed housing market, busted mortgage industry and the 2008 global financial crisis –…

In the 19th and early 20th century, anarchism was in many ways making strides into mainstream culture and thought. It was not through theory that this occurred, but rather through immediate expressions of one’s autonomy. This revolutionary method was known as direct action. Direct action emphasizes the right or duty of each individual to insist on the…

Remember when “Honest Bob” Murray of Murray Industries whined about a “War on Coal”? Most people in “Honest Bob’s” situation would’ve had the sense to keep their pie holes shut, considering he was responsible for the negligent homicide of the coal miners who died in one of his death traps just a few years earlier…

If I understand Princeton historian Sean Wilentz correctly, progressives ought not to be grateful to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald for exposing government spying because they are not card-carrying progressives. (“Would You Feel Differently About Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange If You Knew What They Really Thought?”) Apparently they have either hung out with…

“From Crossbows To Cryptography: Techno-Thwarting The State” [PDF] was written by Chuck Hammill and presented for Future of Freedom Conference, November 1987. Public Domain: Duplicate and Distribute Freely You know, technology—and particularly computer technology—has often gotten a bad rap in Libertarian circles. We tend to think of Orwell’s 1984, or Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, or the proximity detectors keeping East…

More than a few libertarians appear to hold the view that only rights violations are wrong, bad, and deserving of moral condemnation. If an act does not entail the initiation of force, so goes this attitude, we can have nothing critical to say about it. On its face, this is strange. If you observe an…

Millennials are disgruntled, and it’s no wonder. In 2008 they turned out in record numbers in support of a presidential candidate who used the most leftish-sounding rhetoric of any Democratic candidate since McGovern. This president came into office with a seemingly filibuster-proof Democratic Congressional majority, by the largest Democratic electoral margin since LBJ beat Goldwater….

The modern libertarian case against so-called intellectual property (IP) has been building steadily since the late 1980s, when I first encountered it. Since then, an impressive volume of work has been produced from many perspectives: economics, political economy, sociology, moral and political philosophy, history, and no doubt more. It is indeed a case to be…

Foundation The Industrial Revolution is typically regarded as a story of capitalism, free enterprise, and progress in technology and living standards. This paper attempts to disentangle the threads of capitalism, free enterprise, and progress, in the context of the Industrial Revolution, with a focus on Britain and the United States. It aims to bring some historical perspectives into…

“Building Creative Commons: The Five Pillars of Open Source Finance” was written by Brett Scott and published on his blog The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money. We are honored to have Brett Scott‘s permission to feature his article on C4SS. Feel free to connect with Scott through twitter: @Suitpossum. AHOY, THERE BE A CLOSED…

Many statist-leftists in the Global North would probably bristle at the notion that their politics can promote disempowerment amongst marginalised and/or oppressed groups and communities. “On the contrary!” they might say, “My statist proposals will actively counter disempowerment of such groups and communities, by giving them more resources (e.g. financial aid), and preventing discrimination against…

After working at the University of Sussex over the summer, myself and two of my best friends embarked on an interrailing trip around Europe. The trip was a wonderful experience and a fantastic chance to visit iconic cities and locations. We managed to see, and do, so much, as is evidenced by this brilliant video my friend made of our…