C4SS produced some hard-hitting material in March. But then again, that’s nothing new. We always aim to bring you the most radical commentary on world headlines.

Here are just a few of last month’s publications:

Nathan Goodman remarked on the cold-blooded manner in which Washington’s Killing Machine carries out its mayhem. James Wilson and Sheldon Richman both weighed in on the destructive Trump-Sanders bipartisan brand of protectionism.

H.C. opted not to mourn the passing of Nancy Reagan and got some push-back for his “incivility.”

Ryan Calhoun reported from the International Students for Liberty conference, where Ross & Lyn Ulbricht were snubbed by a whole lot of ungrateful “libertarians.”

I celebrated Open Borders Day by echoing a common C4SS theme — calling for the dissolution of all state borders. Kevin Carson opined on the Supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland, ultimately coming down in favor of permanent Washington gridlock. Nick Ford’s onslaught against America’s heinous prison system continued, with Ford penning several op-eds on the subject in March.

…and speaking of Nick Ford, expect some exciting news about a forthcoming book project that you will read about here in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Thanks again to all of our readers and generous financial supporters. We rely on you to keep us going. If you’re new to C4SS and enjoy our work, please consider making a donation to C4SS via Paypal, Patreon, or any of our other countless giving platforms.

Chad

C4SS Trustee Chair and Senior Fellow Sheldon Richman has some very exciting news regarding his forthcoming book, America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited. Stay tuned to this space in the coming days for more info.

From the book’s description:

This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire.

Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class.

Two panels organised by the Center for a Stateless Society are coming up at two different conferences next week, bringing a left-libertarian market-anarchist perspective to international relations and prison reform.

1. The Molinari Society will be holding its annual Pacific Symposium in conjunction with the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in San Francisco, March 30-April 3, 2016. Here’s the schedule info:

Molinari Society symposium:
Author Meets Critics: Gary Chartier’s Radicalizing Rawls: Global Justice and the Foundations of International Law

G6D. Thursday, 31 March 2016, 6:00-8:00 p.m. (or so), Westin St. Francis 335 Powell St., San Francisco CA, Elizabethan C, 2nd floor.

chair:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

critics:
David Reidy (University of Tennessee)
Zooey Sophia Pook (New Mexico State University)

author:
Gary Chartier (La Sierra University)

2. We’ve also organised a panel at the Association of Private Enterprise Education conference in Las Vegas, April 3-5, 2016. Here’s the schedule info:

Prisons: Reform or Abolition?

2.G.8. Monday, 4 April 2016, 4:00-5:15 p.m., Bally’s Hotel and Casino, 3645 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas NV, room TBA.

chair:
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

panelists:
Daniel J. D’Amico (Brown University)
Gary Chartier (La Sierra University)
Jason Lee Byas (Georgia State University)
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)

Another C4SS writer, Billy Christmas, will also be speaking at APEE on “Toward Methodological Anarchism,” on Tuesday, 5 April, in a session at at (horribile dictu) 8:00 a.m.

Conor Friedersdorf discusses civilain dead from drone strikes.

Dan Sanchez discusses peace and liberty.

Daniel Larison discusses the U.S. backed Saudi war on Yemen.

Sheldon Richman discusses Trump’s nationalism.

Ted Galen Carptenter discusses civil liberties and liberty during wartime.

Yves Engeler discusses the myth of Canadian govt opposition to the Vietnam War.

Thomas Harrington discusses Zionism and delegitimization.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses FBI attempts to spy on kids to prevent terrorism.

Christopher Preble discusses the possibility of another Libyan intervention.

Ramzy Baroud discusses the BDS movement.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses why the national security state has got to go.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses liberty and the next presidential election.

Uri Avnery discusses whether Hezbollah is a terrorist organization or not.

Graham E. Fuller reviews a book on humanitarian intervention.

Derek Davison discusses Ted Cruz’s national security team.

Roderick Tracy Long discusses feminist themes in ancient Greek plays.

Laurence M. Vance discusses the welfare-warfare state and the Hertiage Foundation.

Patrick Cockburn discusses Obama and the House of Saud.

Jane Stillwater discusses who AIPAC will suppport for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Nile Bowie discusses U.S.- North Korean relations.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses whether the U.S. should go to war with North Korea over the imprisonment of an American college student.

Dan Sanchez discusses Iran, Cuba, and U.S. imperialism.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses the prospects for liberty in the upcoming presidential election.

Trevor Timm discusses the renewed war in Iraq.

Gareth Porter discusses Obama’s break with the foreign policy establishment.

Kelly Vee discusses why open borders and feminism go together.

Kelly Vee discusses sexual liberation.

Kevin Carson discusses Bernie Sanders and so called free trade agreements.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses conservative outrage over Obama being photographed in front of a Che picture.

Andrew Levine discusses whether Hilary will be worse than Trump.

Save the Kids, a grassroots, all-volunteer organization dedicated to ending the school-to-prison pipeline, and youth incarceration more broadly, is hosting its first annual Anarchism, Crime, and Justice Conference.

From the event’s description:

Activists and scholars working within the realm of challenging the current punitive criminal justice system are welcome to submit for the 1st Annual Anarchism, Crime, and Justice Conference, an anarchist criminology conference. This conference is structured around challenging and abolishing punitive justice, while promoting community-based alternatives such as restorative justice, transformative justice and Hip Hop battling. This conference welcomes all those interested in providing performances, workshops, lecturers, teach-ins, roundtables, and film screenings. Topics of interest include prison abolition, prisoner support, critiques of political repression, police abolition, de-colonialism, abolition of zero tolerance policies and the school to prison pipeline, all forms of academic repression, corporate repression, state terrorism, all things pertaining to youth justice, total liberation, intersectionality, horizontalism, LGBTTQQIA, mutual aid, disability liberation, Black liberation, indigenous sovereignty, racial justice, animal liberation, environmental justice, green anarchism, anarchism, and justice. This conference also welcomes all forms of art and music for social justice such as Hip Hop activism.

The conference will take place this month, March 26th & 27th, at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. More details on the location and scheduling can be found at the event’s website.

For more information contact:
Dr. Anthony Nocella
Department of Sociology, Fort Lewis College
nocellat@yahoo.com or 315-657-2911

Dan Sanchez discusses two books on the Dulles brothers.

Ivan Eland discusses the follies of American foreign policy.

Gary Reed discusses libertarian women.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses conservatives and the national security state.

Doug Bandow discusses Rubio vs Trump.

Yossi Gurvitz discusses Israeli policy in the West Bank.

Jesse Franzblau discusses Hilary Clinton and the drug war in Mexico.

Thomas Nagel discusses drone warfare under Obama.

Medea Benjamin discusses Hilary Clinton and the Iraq War.

Medea Benjamin and Rebecca Green discuss arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen.

Kelly Vlahos discusses Bowie Bergdahl.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses killer bipartisanship.

Daniel Larison discusses the U.S. backed Saudi war on Yemen.

Neve Gordon discusses Israeli politics and liberal democracy.

Uri Avnery discusses Israeli politics.

Jon Schwartz discusses the signers of an anti-Trump letter on foreign policy.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses how big government worsens income inequality.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses an economist who stood up to Hitler.

Roderick Tracy Long discusses Ancient Greece and liberty.

Tom Engelhardt discusses the repititive character of American warmaking.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses the Middle East killing racket.

Sheldon Richman discusses Shay’s rebellion and the Constitution.

Sheldon Richman discusses Sanders and Trump on trade.

Laurence M. Vance discusses lawas banning pumping your own gas.

Chris Floyd discusses Bernie Sanders and foreign policy.

James Bovard discusses sugar subsidies in the U.S.

Binoy Kampmark discusses torture and Donald Trump.

Kelly Vee discusses why mental illness is no laughing matter.

Daniel Larison discusses Hilary Clinton’s judgment on foreign policy.

Some of the reactions to my recent piece on Nancy Reagan (“Nancy Reagan’s Dark Legacy” 7 Mar 2016) seem to lose the forest through the trees. After publishing the article at both C4SS and LewRockwell.com, I’ve received a few emails and comments which I believe misinterpret the intent of the article. Let me be clear, I’m not responding because I feel under attack, but rather because I’d like to double down on my assault on power.

The world today suffers from extreme deference to authority. There is a severe absence of challenges to power. That’s not to say that there aren’t lone wolves and small groups who succeed at holding the powerful accountable. But they’re few and far between. The media and others who have the platform to do so fail miserably. It’s as if they don’t view it as one of their central responsibilities. Essentially, the great majority of those tasked with attacking power do the exact opposite, and end up playing the role of P.R. for the elite.

Take Bill Maher for example. What a sad case of a comedian-turned-court jester. Maher’s good for an occasional diatribe on why pot should be legalized, or why Republicans are crazy, but leave him to his own devices and he’s soon begging for Barack Obama to come on his show, even going so far as advertising publicly how easy the interview will be. Marc Maron and Jimmy Fallon provide additional recent examples of pathetic Obama Court Jester-like interviews. This would’ve repulsed comedy’s renegade forefathers like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Richard Pryor.

The media is no different. Though there are notable exceptions, mostly gone are the days of counter-power journalists like Ida B. Wells, H.L. Mencken, and Garet Garrett, who slammed conventional wisdom, and had a generally adversarial relationship with the powerful. Those are the types of public figures we should be celebrating when they pass.

Most of us unwittingly play an enabling role in this unhealthy relationship with the elite. When a powerful figure like Nancy Reagan dies, our first instinct is to mourn her and celebrate her life and to blind ourselves to the conditions they created. It is the respectful and tactful thing to do, we’re told. I say take a sledgehammer to respect and tact.

Let their families and loved ones mourn them with opulent services and whitewashed retrospectives.

I wrote “Nancy Reagan’s Dark Legacy” because it needed saying amid the 24/7 hagiographic remembrances all over television and all throughout the news media. Those who lived under the Reagan regime need to hear an honest, clear-headed, biting critique of the effect Nancy Regan had on our lives. Anything less absolves Reagan of her role in the utterly horrific Drug War.

Behaving in such a sycophantic way when a member of the ruling class dies further entrenches the ruling class. Ignoring the profound harm the they cause the rest of us cultivates an atmosphere of obedience and empowers them to continue on their path of destruction. Not only will I not participate in it, I’ll attack it again and again, at every opportunity.

On April 19, 2015, C4SS’s Kevin Carson appeared on the Robot Overlordz podcast. Carson holds the Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory at C4SS. Carson’s Desktop Regulatory State is now available for purchase at Amazon. Don’t forget to Fund the Revolution and contribute to C4SS’s bottom line when you purchase your copy.

From the Robot Overlordz descrption of the interview:

Are we living through the end of capitalism? What will replace what has been the dominant economic system of the planet for the last several hundred years? We’re joined this episode by Kevin Carson of the Center For a Stateless Society to talk about the future of economics, markets and work. What will the society of the future look like? Plus a little bonus discussion of one of the earliest Internet philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson.

The clip is about a half hour long.

C4SS Senior Fellow Nick Ford was recently interviewed by Hector Combo for the Political Scams podcast. A few of the topics discussed include the philosophy of individualism and the differences between anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-communism. As the conversation unfolds, Nick describes his “cynical optimism” on the current presidential election. According to Nick, the 2016 elections present a good opportunity for anarchists to educate the American public on the ideals of a voluntarist society.

The clip is 41 minutes long.

C4SS Senior Fellow Kevin Carson’s book The Desktop Regulatory State: The Countervailing Power of Individuals and Networks, a project of five years work, is now in print. It’s also available online here. Here’s a description C4SS Senior Fellow Gary Chartier — who’s also responsible for the beautiful interior and cover design — wrote for the back cover:

Defenders of the modern state often claim that it’s needed to protect us — from terrorists, invaders, bullies, and rapacious corporations. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, for instance, famously argued that the state was a source of “countervailing power” that kept other social institutions in check. But what if those “countervailing” institution — corporations, government agencies and domesticated labor unions — in practice collude more than they “countervail” each other? And what if network communications technology and digital platforms now enable us to take on all those dinosaur hierarchies as equals — and more than equals. In The Desktop Regulatory State, Kevin Carson shows how the power of self-regulation, which people engaged in social cooperation have always possessed, has been amplified and intensifed by changes in consciousness — as people have become aware of their own power and of their ability to care for themselves without the state — and in technology — especially information technology. Drawing as usual on a wide array of insights from diverse disciplines, Carson paints an inspiring, challenging, and optimistic portrait of a humane future without the state, and points provocatively toward the steps we need to take in order to achieve it.

This month’s Editor’s Report may be brief, but that’s by no means an indication that our output has slowed. In fact, our prolific writers managed to produce a commentary or feature article almost every single day this month. My personal favorite was Nathan Goodman’s Don’t Change the Players, Change the Game. For those still under the illusion that Bernie Sanders represents revolutionary reform, I recommend reading Nathan’s views on the matter.

Sheldon Richman’s commentary, Bush, 9/11 and Iraq: Trump Gets It Right, was reprinted by the Chicago Sun Times. This is a great pickup for C4SS. Although one of our goals is to counter the establishment media’s false narratives by offering an alternative platform where you can read about current events, I’ll never complain when we infiltrate a corporate media stronghold.

C4SS is excited to have published Kevin Carson’s latest study. It’s titled, Techno-Utopianism, Counterfeit and Real. Carson calls it “a survey of post-scarcity and p2p models on the Left and a response to Old Left types who see any kind of techno-utopianism (or anything at all on the Left that emphasizes decentralism and horizontality) as a Trojan horse for Newt Gingrich-style liberalism.” It’s available under the Studies section of the website, or as a downloadable PDF file.

Thanks again to all of our readers and generous financial supporters. We rely on you to keep us going. If you’re new to C4SS and enjoy our work, please consider making a donation to C4SS via Paypal, Patreon, or any of our other countless giving platforms.

Chad

The issue of property is a contentious one among market anarchists, as it has been historically within the greater anarchist tradition. Ever since Proudhon’s claim that “property is theft,” anarchists have argued about the proper resolution to the question of land ownership actually is. To free market anarchists, the answer is a bit more concise. Generally market anarchists are friendly to personal land-tenure. They see individual possession of land as non-exploitative in and of itself and an absolute tenet, as even Proudhon posited, to “liberty.” Positions among free market anarchists can range: Mutualists believe in private property so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use; Cousins to the mutualists, the Georgists, envision a system of land-tenure in which people live in contractual communities whose public goods are financed from land rent; Rothbardians generally see rights to property as “human rights” that belong to all human beings.

If readers are interested in finding out more on market anarchist views of land tenure and some of the property regimes we’d recognize as legitimate in an anarchist society, you’ll find C4SS’s Mutual Exchange Symposium titled Discourse on Occupancy and Use: Potential Applications and Possible Shortcomings quite informative.

<< Back to the Market Anarchism FAQ page

Richard M. Ebeling discusses how Lithuania helped take down the USSR.

Andrew Bacevich discusses U.S. foreign policy.

Dan Sanchez discusses herd think.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses diplomacy and hawks.

Sheldon Richman discusses Iran and U.S. foreign policy.

Dan Sanchez discusses the lottery and voting.

Dan Sanchez discusses the use of expendable assets in American foreign policy.

Ivan Eland discusses Obama, saber rattling, and appeasement.

Robert Parry discusses Hilary’s seeking of neocon shelter.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses the boots already on the ground in Iraq.

Branko Marcetic discusses how Sanders and Clinton both embraced a warmonger in their latest debate.

Medea Benjamin discusses Henry Kissinger.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses U.S. interventionism in Iraq.

Laurence M. Vance discusses freedom of choice.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses Albright and Kissinger bringing shame to Hilary Clinton.

Robert Fantina discusses the U.S. election and Palestine.

Soud Sharabani interviews Ramzy Baroud on Israel-Palestine.

Uri Avnery discusses Arab-Jewish cooperation in Israel.

Franklin Lamb discusses Iran and the U.S.

Sheldon Richman discusses ending the military draft.

Chris Ernesto discusses liberal hypocrisy and Bernie.

That’s right, I’m back! You can once again get your weekly dose of prison abolitionist opinion and analysis right here at the Center for a Stateless Society.

Throughout my absence, my C4SS colleagues have presented excellent prison abolitionist commentary. For example, Nick Ford argued that despite Tutwiler Prison’s formal demise, the rape-filled prison system it represents will live on until prisons are abolished. Similarly, Ryan Calhoun pointed out that President Obama’s valid arguments against solitary confinement of youth apply to the incarceration of youth more generally.

And C4SS’s prison abolitionist commentary isn’t limited to the written word.  Last fall at Students For Liberty’s Oklahoma Regional Conference, I joined social justice hacktivist Rebecca Crane and C4SS’s own Cory Massimino for a panel on prison abolition. Cory discussed the libertarian philosophical case for prison abolition, I explored how mainline political economy complements prison abolitionist analysis, and Rebecca discussed how technology is paving the way for new forms of security, justice, and governance independent of the carceral state.

Next week, C4SS will be bringing our prison abolitionist arguments and advocacy to the largest libertarian gathering in the world: the International Students For Liberty Conference (ISFLC). On Saturday at 4pm, C4SS’s Meg Arnold, Cory Massimino, and Jason Lee Byas will join prison reform activists Blake Feldman and Bryant Jackson-Green for “Reform to Revolution: Libertarian Perspectives on Criminal Justice.”

Libertarians broadly agree that something is rotten in our criminal justice system. But they disagree on what to do about it. Most support incremental reforms implemented through the political process. However, there are strong reasons, both moral and pragmatic, to prefer an abolitionist approach. As Jason Lee Byas has argued, if we take non-aggression and proportionality seriously, prisons appear to be sources of illegitimate aggressive violence, even when used against violent criminals. On a more practical level, attempts to reform the criminal justice system through legislation and litigation have had perverse unintended consequences that further entrench carceral power. These unintended consequences largely result from the public choice incentives that pervade the political process. Abolitionist tactics that involve routing around the political system may be able to avoid these unintended consequences by undermining the power of political actors rather than attempting to persuade them to act against their self-interest. As a radical position, prison abolition seems utopian. But it may be more pragmatic than many approaches to prison reform, when the incentives that plague political decision making are taken seriously.

Whether you believe reform or abolition presents the best approach to ameliorating the ills of our criminal injustice system, I hope you will join us at ISFLC. The conversation promises to be a fruitful discussion of different approaches to bringing about a more just, equitable, and free world.

Thanks to many generous radicals, the Center for a Stateless Society has raised enough money to sponsor the International Students For Liberty Conference this February. Students For Liberty, an international non-profit organization dedicated to empowering pro-liberty student leaders and training them to be agents of change in their communities, hosts the biggest, loudest gathering of liberty-minded individuals in the world every year in the belly of the beast. Last year over 1,700 liberty lovers trekked to the most wretched place on Earth in order to learn, educate, network, party, and organize with SFL.

C4SS joined in on the fun last year, hosting a social with over 100 guests interested in the ideas of left-wing market anarchism, and putting together an exhibitor table, distributing countless zines, pamphlets, books, and pins to students from around the globe who are favorable to the Center’s synthesis of leftist concerns about social domination and economic exploitation with libertarian concerns about state oppression and dwindling personal freedom.

This year, the Center for a Stateless Society will again be making the journey to D.C. in order to represent the left-libertarian branch of the coalition that Students For Liberty aims to bring together once every twelve months. We will have our table in the exhibitor hall with all the left-libertarian goodies you can think of, giving a voice to those libertarians who feel at home with those who care about social justice and leftists who feel at home with those who care about liberty. We are also putting on another social this year, the details of which can be found here, if having lunch with dozens of other left market anarchists you’ve met on the internet is your thing.

The Center would like to thank its supporters, whether they had the ability to donate or not, for their continuing advocacy of a leftism that cares about the individual and a libertarianism that cares about the social. We hope you can join us in Washington D.C. on February 26-28 to build a community with fellow liberty-minded folks and see the amazing personal and professiona, opportunities that the ISFLC and the countless guests and sponsor organizations have to offer.

These are our numbers for January:

• Facebook: 4243 likes (+53)
• Twitter: 120 followers (+3)
• Tumblr: 31 followers (+0)

We also published two translations: Kevin Carson’s “Inequality Isn’t Something That Just ‘Happens’” and “Mobility, Meritocracy and Other Myths“.

The C4SS Portuguese social media operation had been my baby since I took over the duties of Media Coordinator in 2014. In a little over a year, our Facebook presence grew tremendously, we started doing Twitter, set up shop on Tumblr and we published dozens of articles each month. Brazilian visitors have come to represent a large chunk of C4SS’s readership, behind only the United States.

Unfortunately, my taking over other duties on C4SS (notably being the English Media Coordinator) and other responsibilities led me to neglect the work I had built in Portuguese. In January I set out to remedy that by bringing in Diogo Ladeira Sales to be our new Portuguese Social Media Analyst!

Diogo is a longtime supporter of C4SS and I couldn’t be happier that we were able to bring him into the fold. His duties will involve posting to our social media accounts, engaging with our fans, and sharing translation and writing duties with myself. Also, he should be giving us a more detailed insight of what’s going on social media and how we can increase our reach.

In the next few months, we should be hearing a lot more from him.

You can support our worldwide efforts to spread the word of anarchy! You can make a donation via PayPal and several other options.

Erick Vasconcelos
Media Coordinator

* * *

Relatório da coordenação de mídias em português, janeiro de 2016

Esses são os nossos números referentes a janeiro:

• Facebook: 4243 curtidas (+53)
• Twitter: 120 seguidores (+3)
• Tumblr: 31 seguidores (+0)

Também publicamos duas traduções: os artigos de Kevin Carson “A desigualdade não é algo que simplesmente ‘acontece’” e “Mobilidade, meritocracia e outros mitos“.

O trabalho em mídias sociais no C4SS era o meu xodó desde que eu havia começado a ser coordenador de mídias em 2014. Em pouco mais de um ano, nossa presença no Facebook cresceu muito, entramos no Twitter, fizemos uma página no Tumblr e passamos a publicar dezenas de artigos por mês. Os visitantes brasileiros passaram a representar uma grande fatia dos leitores do C4SS, atrás apenas dos americanos.

Infelizmente, o fato de eu ter assumido outros trabalhos no C4SS (como ter me tornado o coordenador de mídias em inglës) e outras responsabilidades me levaram a negligenciar o nosso trabalho em português. Por isso, em janeiro eu me propus a remediar essa situação, trazendo Diogo Ladeira Salles para ser o nosso novo analista de mídias sociais em português!

Diogo é um apoiador de longa data do C4SS e eu não poderia estar mais feliz em tê-lo com a gente. Suas tarefas serão postar nas nossas redes sociais, se envolver com nossos fãs e dividir as responsabilidades de tradução e escrita comigo. Além disso, ele também poderá sugerir novas formas de aumentar o nosso alcance nas plataformas online.

Você pode apoiar os nossos esforços mundiais para divulgar as ideias anarquistas! Faça uma doação pelo PayPal ou pelas nossas várias outras opções.

Erick Vasconcelos
Coordenador de mídias

Since I skipped last month’s report, here are our numbers and a few comments for both December and January.

December

• 19 commentary articles published
• 72 pickups or citations (3.73 per article on average)
• We had an interesting back and forth sparked by Kevin Carson‘s piece “Libertarian-splaining to the Poor.” It was responded to by the Future of Freedom Foundation‘s Jacob Hornberger and republished by a few outlets. Most interestingly, it was picked up by the Quad-City Times and the Muscatine Journal.
• Joel Schlosberg‘s tribute article “Carl Sagan and the Beginning of History” was picked up by the website Celebrating Sagan!
• Grant A. Mincy‘s ode to the season of peace at the end of December, “Aylan’s Shoes“, was picked up both by Counterpunch and, most unusually, by the Pakistanese website The News! Thanks a lot for that, Grant!
• Nick Ford was able to score another great pickup for us. Utah’s The Spectrum saw fit to republish his “End the Real War on Christmas: War.”

January

• 20 commentary articles published
• 63 pickups or citations (3.15 per article on average)
• Gary Chartier‘s defense of the Hammonds’ freedom also got the attention of The Spectrum.
• Nick Ford managed to get us into another unusual outlet. Connecticut’s Hartford Guardian liked his “Obama’s Tears for Ableist Fears“. Also of note: Nick’s “Flint’s Toxic Waters Reflect Government” was republished on a few networked African-American community websites. It ran on LA Black Post, Baltimore Black, and National Black Guide. January could be officially dubbed the Nick Ford month on C4SS, because he also got us on the Cop Block website with his “Ferguson, Accept No Substitutes: Abolish the Police!“
• The Arab-American News picked up Sheldon Richman‘s excellent “Hillary Clinton: Least Fit of All.”

Some general comments:

• It’s worth noticing we’ve maintained a steady output. Over the last two months, we had an op-ed for almost every week day of the month!
• Also, thankfully, we’ve been able to tackle subjects that are being picked up by several publications. A goal I had set myself when I started as Media Coordinator was to get an average of 3 pickups per article at least. I’ve been able to do it by expanding the pool of publications we send our work to. At the moment, we send our op-eds to almost 3,400 publications worldwide. And I’m still working on getting more newspapers and websites on our list (as well as trimming the fat!).
• Augusta Free Press has been a great partner of ours, republishing a lot of our work. In January, News LI has also started doing so. Thank you for getting our word out there!
• Sheldon Richman has been our runaway champion in pickups. In his 10 articles published in December and January, he had an average of 5.8 pickups. Congrats and thanks for all the great work, Sheldon!

This is it! As you can see, we’ve been doing a lot, but we can do even more with your help.

Please donate and help us spread the word of anarchy and freedom! You can do it via Paypal below or various other methods!

Erick Vasconcelos
Media Coordinator

C4SS kicked off 2016 with a bang.

In January, Gary Chartier produced several op-eds, including the left-libertarian masterpiece What’s Wrong With Inequality? It reached the front page of Real Clear Markets. Kevin Carson looked at the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, ripping into vulgar libertarian calls for more water “privatization” as the remedy. Sheldon Richman exposed Hillary Clinton’s long history of warmongering, concluding: “No one is fit to exercise power, but Hillary Clinton is the least fit of all.” In Lego and the Building Blocks of Patriarchy, Roderick Long examined the complex web of factors that shape modern day gender roles in light of Lego’s attempts to market products to girls.

C4SS added yet another gem to its Left-Libertarian Classic catalog with a reprint of Voltairine de Cleyre’s The Past and Future of the Ladies’ Liberal League. Nick Ford introduced the essay.

Kevin Carson reviewed Paul Mason’s Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future.

Last but not least, we’re in the process of deciding on the next Mutual Exchange topic. We hope to have an announcement in the next couple of weeks.

Many thanks to all of our readers and generous financial supporters. We wouldn’t be able to do this without your help. Please consider making a donation to C4SS via Paypal, Patreon, or any of our other countless giving platforms.

Chad

I recently wrote an article, available here, on the idea of thick libertarianism. Below I outline the core of the argument.

Starting from Austro-libertarian premises, thick libertarianism is unavoidable. Austro-libertarians are committed to the non-aggression principle (NAP) and in order to identify acts of aggression in the real world, in some cases, have to make judgements which necessarily call upon moral and political considerations outside of the NAP itself. It seems that some of these considerations are going to be more in keeping with the reasons a libertarian has for endorsing the NAP than others. In Charles Johnson’s taxonomy, this is application thickness: The idea that there are moral and political reasons for interpreting certain acts as aggression rather than others that are more coherent with thin libertarian commitments.

From an Austro-libertarian perspective, aggression is a praxeological type. That is to say it’s a category of action that has certain logical structure that can be grasped a priori. We do not need to observe aggressive acts a certain number of times, and see that they all constitute the non-consensual crossing of a property boundary in order to induce that non-consensual boundary crossings all seem to be aggressive. Rather, non-consensual boundary crossings are necessarily aggressive. Therefore, without any empirical observation, we know that if a non-consensual boundary crossing occurred, the NAP was violated. There was a victim of this aggression, and there was a perpetrator, and some sort of redress is due. Praxeological reasoning can therefore be done from the armchair. If x was a non-consensual boundary crossing, x violated the NAP. Identifying x as a boundary-crossing however cannot be done from the armchair. One must look at the actual incident in question, and interpret it as such. Physical movements of human bodies in the world do not come ready-tagged as whatever praxeolgical types they are; they must be interpreted as such by real persons.

Two praxeological types which are centrally important for the sake of identifying NAP violations in the world are consent and the initiation of aggression. When consent is given to a boundary crossing, the NAP is not violated, and if A initiated aggression against B before B used force against A, then B’s boundary crossing against A is justifiable as self-defense. Therefore, when and where we identify human behaviour as constituting these praxeological types has profound moral and political implications.

In the paper, I discuss two cases. The first is a boss who takes his secretary to have consented to having sex with him whenever he wants by her signing of her employment contract. The second is a white man who takes a black man’s behaviour to be a threat, and shoots him in purported self-defense. These cases illustrate that the interpretation one takes of the action of others means one can believe oneself to be respecting the NAP, but under a different interpretation of those actions, one violated it.

The two different interpretations, moreover, might be perfectly reasonable given the agent in question’s background. Which interpretation we take as the one that bears legal consequence has enormous moral and political implications, and as such is subject to moral and political evaluation. One ought, therefore, have the best moral and political reasons for taking whatever interpretation one does. These reasons might be consistent with the reasons one has for endorsing the NAP, or they may be inconsistent. Either way, thick libertarianism is possible if we can find the reasons to guide how we interpret other people’s actions which best fit with our reasons for being libertarians. Application thickness is thus unavoidable for an Austro-libertarian.

The C4SS prison abolition panel, originally scheduled for last year’s APEE but sadly cancelled, is being revived for this year. The panelists will be Dan D’Amico, Gary Chartier, Jason Byas, Nathan Goodman, and myself. Jason and Nathan need some financial assistance getting to the conference; if you’d like to help, please check out our GoFundMe page.