P-J Proudhon’s understanding of democracy is a classic example of the concerns about the representative democratic process which many classical liberals expressed. The following was written a few weeks after the February (1848) Revolution in Paris had replaced the constitutional monarchy of King Louise-Phillipe with that of a nominally democratic republic. The illusion of democracy…

Anarchism: What It Is and What It Is Not by Joseph A. Labadie So you want me to tell you what Anarchism is, do you? I can do no less than make the attempt, and in my own simple way try to make you understand at least that it is not what the uninformed and…

Introduction by Nick Ford Voltairine de Cleyre remains a timeless inspiration to me. There have been days where I’ve felt lost, confused, or even depressed and reading her has brought me peace. There have been countless debates where her words proved useful if not downright perceptive, even if she could never have anticipated today’s events. There…

Protected firms can get away with abusing workers. By way of Roderick Long I’ve learned that Amazon.com has some pretty rough rules for its employees. (Long draws on the Huffington Post and the Times Online.) According to the Times, employees at the Bedfordshire (UK) warehouse were: Warned that the company refuses to allow sick leave,…

Over the weekend CNN breathlessly reported as “Breaking News” — it breathlessly reports everything as “Breaking News” — a new poll indicating that people are increasingly frightened about terrorism. The accompanying web story stated, “Terrorism has eclipsed the economy as voters’ top pick for the biggest issue facing America, a New York Times/CBS News poll…

The Semantics of “Good” and “Evil” by Robert Anton Wilson The late Laurance Labadie once told me a parable about a king who decided that every time he met somebody he would kick them in the butt, just to emphasize his power. My memory may have elaborated this yarn a bit over the years, but…

It’s about time someone challenged the phrase radical Islamic terrorism. The most objectionable part is the word radical since it is now popularly associated with aggression — violence against innocents — as an acceptable means to politico-religious ends. But nothing about the word radical implies approval of aggression or terrorism. Rather, the word signifies an approach that goes to the…

Considering that what liberty we continue to enjoy in the West is a product in large part of competing legal institutions operating within overlapping jurisdictions hundreds of years ago, it’s curious that so many libertarians still believe such an order — an essential feature of free-market, or natural-law, anarchism — would be inimical to liberty. Why wouldn’t…

While Franklin Roosevelt may not have said that Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza “may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” he probably thought it — just as other presidents have had similar thoughts about myriad brutal rulers. So if the U.S. government has forced the American people to support useful dictators, why is…

My post about Donald Trump’s immigrant-deportation proposal was picked up by Newsweek. This screen shot is featured in an anti-Trump ad produced by presidential contender John Kasich. The ad, suggesting a comparison between Trump and the Nazis, has been widely discussed by news outlets and other sites. (HT: Joel Schlosberg.)

From the start, opponents of the American empire warned that the government could not violate the rights of foreigners without eventually violating the rights of Americans. An excellent example is William Graham Sumner’s post-Spanish-American War classic The Conquest of the United States by Spain. The anti-imperialists were spot-on, and the evidence for their case keeps…

The following interview with Robert Anton Wilson was conducted in 2002. It’s Part 3 of a 4-Part series. It took place after the publication of Wilson’s most overtly political tract, TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constiution. (TSOG stands for Tsarist Occupation Government.) Among the topics discussed in this segment: 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as…

Hysteria over the Islamic State is now focused on the refugees seeking to escape the violence in Syria and Iraq. Predictably, the Republican-controlled House yesterday voted to increase background checks on potential refugees, a demand for omniscience that would amount to exclusion. The bill faces trouble in the Senate, however, and President Obama, who wants…

Look, even authoritarian and totalitarian states can’t prevent domestic terrorism. What hope do relatively open societies have? Open societies abound with “soft targets”; that is, noncombatants going about their everyday lives. They are easy hits for those determined to inflict harm, especially if the assailants seek to die in the process. We also know, as…

Property and the family are two ideas, for the attack and defense of which legions of writers have taken up arms during the last half century. Recent systems, founded upon old errors, but revived by the popular emotions which they aroused, have in vain disturbed, misrepresented, sometimes even denied, them. These ideas express necessary facts,…

We could use a radical in the presidential race — someone who really challenges the status quo — but Bernie Sanders isn’t it. Sanders of course calls himself a democratic socialist, but that tells us almost nothing. One gets the impression the socialist label was pinned on him and after resisting it, Sanders decided “socialist”…

A huge sign outside a local tire store really irritated me a couple of weeks ago. Its large letters blared: “WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS.” I was tempted to get out of the car and demand that the owner tell me what he was actually doing besides displaying the sign, which probably didn’t cost much in…

So, going through the final rounds of work on Markets Not Capitalism with Gary Chartier and the rest of the Collective has really been reminding me that I’ve accumulated a lot of occasional and fragmentary writing — papers, paragraphs, notes, etc. — that I really ought to have been collecting for this blog and sharing more…

Ρу́сский: Рынки, не капитализм — Введение Türkçe: Kapitalizm Değil, Piyasalar – Bir Giriş Indonesia: Pasar Bukan Kapitalisme Español: Mercado, no capitalismo – Introducción Italiano: Mercato, non Capitalismo Português: Mercados não capitalismo — Introdução The individualist anarchist tendency is alive and well. Markets Not Capitalism offers a window onto this tendency’s history and highlights its potential…

Donald Trump’s indictment of the Bush II administration for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks presents an opportunity for more of a bird’s eye view of American foreign policy in the Middle East, a policy that has killed many hundreds of thousands, maimed countless more, and laid waste to entire societies. As Peter Beinart reminds…