Anarchism Applied to Economics Value is the exchange equivalency of something measured in terms of another thing. The fundamental quality upon which value depends is utility in satisfying desire. In economics, utility doesn’t mean the ‘real’ or ‘actual’ ability of a thing to accomplish or assist in accomplishing a result, but means the human estimate…

Right-libertarian apologists for capitalism seem to have a thing about using holidays as vehicles for their talking points. Every Thanksgiving, Reason trots out John Stossel’s ahistorical buncombe about how communism almost killed the Pilgrims before private property saved them from starvation (despite my debunking it every year). On Christmas, we get apologetics for Ebenezer Scrooge,…

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, four commercial airliners departing from Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey were hijacked mid-flight by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists who planned to crash each plane into a prominent building within the United States’ borders, causing mass casualties and property damage. At 8:46am, American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the North Tower…

Usually right-libertarians don’t come right out and say that robust bargaining power on the part of labor is directly opposed to capitalist interests, and that reduced bargaining power of labor as such is good for capitalism. And they sure don’t admit that they consider bigotry a good thing when it’s a useful weapon against labor….

I am the founding Executive Director of The Automotive Free Clinic. The AFC is a free and low cost automotive repair shop in Prattville, Alabama, a small town outside of Montgomery, that was designed on the principles of mutual aid and Marx’s labor theory of value. We were founded in March of 2020 as a…

Vaccine hesitancy is a common issue across the world concerning the COVID-19 vaccine.  There have been all kinds of misinformation, rumors, and conspiracy theories regarding the efficacy and the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, ever since the vaccines were made available to the public. Vaccine hesitancy is a historically well-documented phenomenon. Several factors concerning vaccine…

When we think about the term “abolition,” we think of removing our old notions or of breaking free from the constraints of tradition. We might conjure up the idea of wiping clean our slate and being left with the freedom to imagine things from the ground up, without being hindered by the structures of the…

The Floyd rebellion is changing the world before our very eyes. What type of change and to what degree it will shift the balance of forces between rulers and ruled, haves and the have-nots remains to be seen. What is clear is that there is an active and open political contest to shape the outcome….

Unless you’ve been under a rock the past month or so or are a total social media abstainer, you’ve seen some of the worst people on earth whining about how “nobody wants to work any more!” Indeed, so great is the outrage of many that only putting angry signs in the window of their business…

Anna Morgenstern is a trans woman and C4SS contributor whose mother has fallen on extremely hard times. She has a medical debt of $21,000 and has no way of paying it without outside assistance. And Anna herself needs funds for healthcare and paying off debt. The consequences could involve Anna becoming unable to work, so…

The question of human nature is often at the epicenter of important ideological struggles, including those related to the inevitability of competition or the necessity of authority for the functioning of societies. Of course, anarchist thinkers have not escaped this debate, since one of the most recurrent objections toward the movement claims its goals are…

Much is being made in England and throughout the English speaking or so-called anglophone world about the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire and its breakaway colony, the United States of America. Hollywood and the monopoly sector of entertainment capital have marked this anniversary with a major feature…

[Hear an in-depth discussion on this article and its topics in this episode of The Enragés] It may seem strange for an economist to write about abolition. After all, economists focus on choices at the margin. Even when we talk about violent crimes or pollution, we argue that the optimal quantity of these “bads” is…

[Hear an in-depth discussion on this article and its topics in this episode of The Enragés] As more people in the US get vaccinated against Covid-19 and infection rates continue to drop, many are thinking about what comes next. Is it “back to normal”? Is there now a “new normal”? Perhaps those of us who…

The Difference between Libertarianism and Psychopathic Dumbfuckery Rand Paul is in the news again for trying to blame the United States government, and Dr. Anthony Fauci in particular, for creating the COVID-19 pandemic. He and a few other mouthpieces have insisted, without evidence, that funding authorized by Fauci directly contributed to “gain-of-function” research in Wuhan…

[Hear an in-depth discussion on this article and its topics in this episode of The Enragés] The value of a human life is intrinsically linked to the need for autonomy and an existence with decency, self-respect, and liberties. These pillars are very important to social survival and collective growth. As human life prospers in a…

A No-Government Doctrine for the 21st Century Almost everyone today accepts at least one utopian idea: that slavery is so morally unacceptable that the practice must be stomped out wherever found, and any institution that depends upon it must immediately crumble. It’s probably even an understatement to just say people accept that idea. It’s the…

In Ohio prisons, pretty much everyone is in a gang whether they’re in a gang or not. If you’re an Ohio prisoner and you’re not in a gang, prison administrators will put you in one. And if there’s no gang for you, they’ll just create a new one. The reason is, it’s a federal bloc…

[This article was originally published on February 19, 2021 at Black Fire Notes] Capitalism as Religion and The Myth of Capitalist Nature A brief inquiry into the diagnosis provided by Walter Benjamin. “A religion may be discerned in capitalism – that is to say, capitalism serves essentially to allay the same anxieties, torments, and disturbances…

First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their…