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…

So last Sunday in the midst of a second wave of blockades of tech company buses in San Francisco and Oakland, a bus window was broken by some anarchist activists and the action immediately sailed to the top of countless news sites. Activists had been trying to draw attention to how the buses (collectively termed…

In the wake of the Duck Dynasty controversy, Tom Woods recently made a post connecting the matter to his grievances surrounding “thick libertarianism.” Woods defines the distinction between “thin” and “thick” libertarians as follows: Some libertarians say the traditional libertarian principle of nonaggression is insufficient. That is merely “thin” libertarianism, they say. We also need…

Pope Francis wrote in his recent apostolic exhortation, “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality.” He’s right — but not in the way he intends. Before…

On his blog, libertarian bestselling author and Ron Paul homeschooling curriculum writer Tom Woods has written some thoughts about thin and thick libertarianism and how they apply to the Duck Dynasty controversy. If you’ve been living in a cave, the star of reality television show Duck Dynasty said some unfortunate things about gay people and…

There were two radical, anti-authoritarian movements of the 1960s which developed in very different ways yet compliment each other in ways which remain unappreciated. One is the newly formed Libertarian movement headed by people like Murray Rothbard and Leonard Read, both experts in economics who spent much of their time at the blackboard or the…

For a very long time, Miley Cyrus embodied everything I hated about contemporary pop music. Meticulously groomed as a picture-perfect Disney sponsored pop starlet she seemed indistinguishable from the legions of similar cookie-cutter manufactured singers who came before her except for being the daughter of one-hit wonder Billy Rae Cyrus, which added bizarreness and nepotism…

I am now prepared to state without reservation that the ongoing NSA/surveillance story ranks among the more momentous and nauseating charades perpetrated on a frighteningly gullible public. Any remaining doubt I had on this question — and, in truth, no substantial doubt remained in my own mind — has been obliterated by this story concerning the remarks…

Let’s briefly review several critical facts. If there is a single general theme to Glenn Greenwald’s career as a journalist, it is that he constantly confronts and challenges power and those who exercise power, primarily in the political sphere. Greenwald himself has often proclaimed this to be his major concern, and he repeated this conviction in…

The most revolutionary and significant aspect of the promise that WikiLeaks offered the world was its radical method of disseminating information. Beginning in very early childhood, all of us are taught to rely on authority figures for everything: for personal and professional advancement and fulfillment, for opportunities of all kinds, for survival itself. Most damningly,…