The identification of libertarians with conservatives seems never ending. At the recent International Students for Liberty conference Justin Amash equated the two. Many leftists make similar equations with the intent of demonizing libertarians as right-wingers. What is the truth of the matter? We’re most definitely not conservatives. Liberty is a radical and revolutionary idea. One whose promise has yet to be fully realized.

Let’s do a point by point comparison of conservatism and libertarianism.

1) The warfare state is an issue where there is a major divide between libertarians and conservatives. We seek to eliminate war and abolish the nation-state. Conservatives often seek to preserve both as the record of Republican presidents on war demonstrates. The loyalty to traditional notions of family, god and country trump individual rights for many conservatives. We libertarians are not handicapped by such a perspective.

2) The War on Drugs and morality police is another area where conservatives and libertarians diverge. We libertarians seek to end the persecution of cultural dissidents, while many conservatives seek to uphold it in the name of the traditional values. Liberty demands variety and experimentation. Conservatives demand uniformity and conformity.

3) The preservation of the state itself is one area where conservatives and radical libertarians often take different sides. Conservatives are hidebound by their respect for authority and traditional order. The state represents the keeper of law and order to many conservatives. We libertarians see it as destructive of freedom in all its expressions. It is not a necessary instrument for the realization of beneficent order or law.

4) The question of civil liberties often, also, sees libertarians and conservatives on different sides. The conservatives are more likely to surrender civil liberties when patriotism or nationalism is invoked. Libertarians believe in no such nonsense and do not readily surrender their individual rights upon the altar of statism. The record of the Bush administration is enough to prove this point.

5) A final area of discrepancy between left-libertarians and conservatives is on the character of their economic proposals. Left-libertarians seek a world without bosses or corporatist overlords. Conservatives fetishize traditional hierarchies and can therefore demand no such thing. Conservatives are more predisposed to celebrate the existing economic actors on top while left-libertarians champion the underdog.

I hope the reader has been persuaded of the clear difference between left-libertarianism and conservatism. They are two different ideologies with mutually incompatible goals.

Previous columns in this series explored briefly the hows and whats of studioless podcasting. This final installment hopes to explain the “why”. Why is studioless podcasting important?

Podcasting represents a radical decentralization of the airwaves that can’t actually take place on the airwaves, for a few reasons.

Most people conceive of FM radio as being one giant mass of differently-formatted radio stations and content providers. In actuality, there are three tiers:

1. FM Commercial Radio Broadcast Stations
2. FM Noncommercial Educational Radio Broadcast Stations
3. Low Power FM (LPFM) Noncommercial Educational Radio Broadcast Stations

The first tier, commercial radio, is your average music, talk and sports programming; the FCC allows commercial radio to potentially take up every slot from 92.1 MHz to 107.9 MHz. The second tier is where “public radio” can be found, and the FCC generally allots 88.1 MHz to 91.9 MHz to public radio stations. This is the realm of NPR and its competitor-partners. The third tier, LPFM stations, are generally smaller community outfits that can cover neighborhoods with their broadcasting power, but little else. They have a smaller budget and don’t operate through NPR; they also tend to hire more amateur and independent producers on a volunteer basis. Due to the low transmission power, it’s rare that these producers can get their work heard by more than a few hundred people at any given moment.

Podcasting does for these producers what national syndication does for Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition and All Things Considered: it gets their work out there to potentially anyone. Of course, the latter shows aren’t exactly done by independent producers, which brings me to the second barrier to entry for radio decentralization: just about every production company operates in the realm of old media.

With one notable exception, the companies that operate and compete in public radio hire much in the same way that a newspaper or television station does; only producers that are credentialed (usually in the form of a college degree followed by so many years interning or working at low-power FM stations) can get even entry-level jobs at National Public Radio, Public Radio International, or American Public Media. This is not a good or bad thing – this is just something that they do. Unfortunately, there’s a side-effect: not everyone currently producing audio has a college degree, and not everyone who wants to be in radio can actually afford to go to college for it; therefore, the demographic of people who are actually working at one of the major content providers tends to be very… monochromatic.

That notable exception? The Public Radio Exchange, or PRX. Its slogan is “Making Public Radio More Public,” and its entire infrastructure is set up for exactly that task. Anyone can sign up as a producer for free, and the entry cost to actually make money with PRX is only $50 a year. Unfortunately, the free producer account has a data upload limit of two hours – not exactly conducive to doing a long-run podcast. Also, there are some technical barriers to using PRX as your main distribution tool – barriers that, if you’re not familiar with the inner workings of public radio, might be very difficult to overcome. Studioless podcasting comes with very few of those barriers; plus, it’s all-online.

This is really the crux of what makes podcasting special: its ability to open up new spaces for more voices in almost infinite capacity. You can podcast for fun or for a living; your success isn’t tied to which market you’re doing the best in and you don’t have to worry about broadcast clocks. You don’t have to worry about your show being canceled because the station lost money or didn’t raise enough in the periodic fundraiser to keep it going. Podcasting is made for everyone.

Trigger warning: Rape and sexual assault

A recent investigation by the US Department of Justice found rampant sexual assault and abuse by male guards at the Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama. As the New York Post reported, “The lengthy list of indignities includes, officers forcing women into sexual acts in exchange for basic sanitary supplies, male guards openly watching women shower and use the bathroom, a staff-organized strip show, and a constant barrage of sexually offensive language, according to investigators.” Such offenses were rampant, with at least a third of guards having sexually assaulted inmates.

Such sexual abuse is not new at Tutwiler. Indeed, this kind of rampant violence against women was among the catalysts that lead activists with Amnesty International to push to pass a law prohibiting custodial sexual misconduct, also known as sexual assault by guards, in Alabama prisons in the early 2000’s. C4SS Senior Fellow Charles W. Johnson spoke at a rally for this bill in 2002, and the bill eventually passed in 2004. While the law has enabled some terminations and prosecutions of abusive guards, the Justice Department’s recent findings at Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama show that it has not even come close to solving the problem of prison rape.  Only 18 cases of sexual misconduct by guards were sent by the Alabama Department of Corrections to the Elmore County District Attorney’s office between 2009 and 2013, while the DoJ’s report shows that sexual abuse continues to run rampant. And those are all the cases even sent to the District Attorney, not all of them necessarily resulted in any prosecution.

Abusive violence is a natural consequence of the structure of the prison, and thus simply attempting to regulate it will rarely make a dent. As Charles Johnson told me, “the first basic obstacle is no matter how unambiguously written and strongly worded the law is, it is always nearly impossible ever to safely try to get a hack prosecuted from inside your cell. There is just no way. The same overwhelming, full-spectrum life-and-death domination that facilitates the endemic, repeated rape also makes it impossible to defend yourself from them through legal processes.” Prisons entail a dynamic of brutal hierarchy, in which guards are given total power over prisoners. This is not unique to Alabama, and it always creates a dynamic in which guards can abuse prisoners and wield their power to shield themselves from accountability. In her book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Victoria Law documents cases from across the country in which women are punished and brutalized by prison guards for reporting sexual abuse.

These power dynamics are precisely why hard won legal reforms in Alabama have not changed the rampant rape culture within Tutwiler Prison. And they are also why, over a decade after the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, we still keep seeing new reports that reveal rampant rape in prisons across America. As Charles Johnson puts it, “The problem was, and remains, a problem of power, and a problem with the prison, not with the regulation of the prison.” This is why we must abolish prisons.

Max Borders discusses the rise of the libertarians.

Sheldon Richman discusses the sacralization of voting.

Ramzy Baroud discusses the implosion of Iraq.

Pratap Chatterjee and Tom Engelhardt discuss the surveillance state.

Marjorie Cohn discusses the NSA scandal.

Wendy McElroy discusses the immorality of government education.

Michael S. Rozeff discusses the nation-state.

Carlos Clemente discusses Chomsky’s view of Chavez.

Jonathan Carp discusses resistance to state violence.

David Swanson discusses preventing war.

Jacob Hornberger discusses the national security state.

Sheldon Richman discuses the failures of U.S.interventionism.

Nicola Nasser discusses the uprising in Iraq.

Ramzy Baroud discusses the culture of Abu Ghraib

Norman Solomon discusses Amazon’s involvement with the CIA.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the war in Syria.

Clancy Sigal discusses WW1.

Alison Weir discusses the Munich massacre and the Israeli response.

Kevin Carson discusses the labeling of activists as terrorists.

David R. Dow discusses extrajudicial killings and presidential power.

Glenn Greenwald discusses the charges that openness helps terrorists

Thomas L. Knapp discusses the history of state repression of journalists.

Jacob Hornberger discusses the power of the military to imprison Americans.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the civil war in Syria.

Medea Benjamin discusses the evil of drones.

Daniel J. Smith and Laura Grube discusses disaster relief without the state.

Jason Hirthler discusses the killing of American citizens.

John Pilger discusses the warfare state.

A nice game from Yury Shulman.

One of Bobby Fischer’s earliest and finest efforts.

Norman Solomon recently published a piece about Amazon.com’s connection to the CIA. The CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, claims to be a libertarian, but what kind of libertarian contracts with the CIA? A faux one. It’s not possible to be a libertarian and support one of the most odious agencies of the American state. An agency tasked with assassination and other nefarious practices. Jeff Bezos needs to check his premises.

Let us quote from Solomon’s piece:

As the largest Web retailer in the world, Amazon has built its business model on the secure accumulation and analysis of massive personal data. The firm’s Amazon Web Services division gained the CIA contract amid fervent hopes that the collaboration will open up vast new vistas for the further melding of surveillance and warfare.

We can see that corporations can suck up our data in a manner analogous to the government. It’s no surprise that the CIA has found an affinity with Amazon. There is clearly an interwining of state and corporate power here. One that needs to be opposed for the sake of liberty. It isn’t a choice between corporate or state domination. We can and should reject them both.

To quote Solomon again:

A free and independent press is crucial for confronting such dire trends. But structural factors of corporate power continue to undermine the potential of journalism. The Washington Post is a grim case in point.

Six months ago, Jeff Bezos — the CEO and main stakeholder of Amazon — bought the Post. But the newspaper’s ongoing CIA-related coverage does not inform readers that the CIA’s big contract with Amazon is adding to the personal wealth of the Post’s sole owner.

This refusal to make such conflict-of-interest disclosures is much more than journalistic evasion for the sake of appearances. It’s a marker for more consolidation of corporate mega-media power with government power. The leverage from such convergence is becoming ever-less acknowledged or conspicuous as it becomes ever-more routine and dominant.

A free society is harmed by this convergence of state and corporate power. If people are not free to publish damaging things about either institution, both are left off the hook for bad behavior. The punitive potential of both of these institutions is vast and needs to be opposed. People should be free of the power of either. This is a necessary aspect of total freedom. Let us work at making it a reality.

One of the books I’ve been reading is titled The KGB Plays Chess: The Soviet Secret Police and the Fight for the World Chess Crown. It’s a fascinating read that provides copious detail on the inner workings of the KGB with respect to not only chessplayers but Soviet athletes in general. I’ve just finished the first part of the book. It’s a lengthy historical essay by Vladimir Popov and Yuri Felshtinsky. The former is an ex-KGB agent while the latter is a well known author. Let me quote some choice bits:

Spassky’s departure and Kortschnoi’s defection were not the KGB’s only defeat in the sports arena in 1976. The Summer Olympics in Montreal also caused the KGB a great deal of trouble. It was an established rule that Soviet sports delegations and tourist groups for sports experts and journalists should include undcover state security officers. These state security officers would constitute an “operational group” from the KGB. Major General Abramov, the then-deputy head of the Fifth Directorate, was placed in charge of such a delegation during the Summer Olympics.The operational group headed by Abramov consisted of thirteen people. It was assisted by agents from the KGB’s local rezidentura, operating undercover in the USSR’s consulate in Montreal.

And another choice bit:

Karpov’s main opponent in his fight for the world championship would be Kortschnoi, who had four times been a champion of the USSR. In order to put psychological pressure on the “contender” — as Soviet propaganda referred to Kortschnoi in those years, without mentioning his first or last name — his son Igor was immediately drafted into the army. The term of service in the army was two to three years. But after serving his term, a member of the armed forces was automatically classifed as having had access to state secrets and, by Soviet law, forbidden to leave the USSR for at least another five years. In this way, by drafting Igor Kortschnoi, the Soviet government was making it impossible for him to join his father for the next seven years, if not more. The level of a person’s exposure to state secrets, and its term of expiration, was determined by the KGB. It was perfectly obvious that for the soon of Kortschnoi, “the enemy of the people,” that term would not be brief.

The book has much more, such as a plot to have Kortschnoi killed should he win the world championship match against Karpov. The interested reader is encouraged to pick up a copy. This book sheds light on what happens when sports are taken over by the state. Left-libertarians have a useful history to point to as evidence for this contention.

After reading last week’s column, you went out (or stayed in, depending on the weather) and bought/downloaded/rigged up your own podcast studio, and now you’re… stuck. You’re staring at your phone, the app you’re recording with is running, and no words are coming out. You might feel the urge to panic; I’ve spent more time recording and deleting things out of fear than I have recording and keeping pieces, but it’s okay. Take a breath. Let’s talk about technique.

Pick Your Niche

Unlike public radio, or anything produced professionally, by the book, in a studio, podcasting is limitless in terms of both creativity and coverage. This is a double-edged sword, and it is the primary reason you need to take some time to think about what you want to say with your show. Interested in news and politics? As a quick glance at iTunes shows, so do 500 other producers. Narrow things down to a specific topic, and run with it – especially if you believe that topic isn’t covered well in the rest of the media.

KISS – Keep It Short and Simple

The very best advice I ever got was from a podcaster I interviewed, Abby Wendle. She told me that the best idea for a show was one you could implement in a few minutes, as that’s generally what radio stations look for. While I’m not so worried about radio stations, this concept applies to your listener as well. (Note: I said listener, singular, for a reason.) Your casual listener has an attention span that will feel stretched if you go longer on a topic, story or episode than five to ten minutes. Obviously, if you go over that time frame, no one is going to, like, sue you, but your listener might not stick around for the whole thing — at least, not when you just start out.

Learn to write like you speak

This is actually a professional technique. I didn’t learn that until recently, when I was flipping through Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide To Audio Journalism And Production while bored the other day. Here’s what Jonathan Kern, the author of that book, has to say:

First, and foremost, say your sentences before you write them down; or at the very least, say them out loud after you’ve written them. […] As you write, ask yourself: Would I ever say this sentence in my regular life, when I am not writing a news story? If the answer is no, change it. […] Remember, expressing your thoughts in short declarative sentences doesn’t require you to eliminate any of your ideas — just to ration them out. You aren’t sacrificing anything by writing less convoluted prose.

I’ve tried podcast writing a number of ways, including: reading from the Associated Press wire; writing whole essays on a topic, the way I would if I were still in school; going scriptless. None of them have worked nearly half as well as when I’m writing the entire episode of a show like I’d speak the show naturally, without any pauses in thought. If you do this alone, the quality of your podcast will improve regardless of what equipment you’re rocking.

Next week: the significance of studioless podcasting.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of ALL Distro’s “CAPITALISM” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with ALL Distro’s “CAPITALISM“.

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

Three provocative libertarian perspectives on the liberation, corporation, and the Big C.Charles Davis writes that libertarians are very confused about capitalism, and that a radical re-appraisal of the debate shows that libertarian principles should go a lot further than mainstream libertarians have been willing to take them. David S. D’Amato argues, against business reformists, that inclusive capitalism is a contradiction in terms. And while many more libertarians are beginning to wake up to the structural problems in the corporate economy, Kevin Carson points out it’s the capitalism, not the cronyism that’s at the root of the problem.

“Let’s start over. The wealthy elite are too tainted by the current system of state capitalism for us to rely on a “good” and “bad” distinction when it comes enormous wealth. No one worth more than $10 million is able to get that much money without systemic state violence. There is no reason they should get a head start in Liberty Land. . . . no matter what one replaces it with, dismantling an unjust system requires addressing the injustices that system created. If you don’t, then your idea of “freedom” will be attacked as the freedom to be exploited by the same people running the world today. And with good reason.” — Charles Davis.

“The political-economic reality in this country, confirmed by recent studies as well as well-nigh everything we can observe about the political process, is that big capital keeps American policy­makers comfortably and securely in its pockets. And, sad to say, an ‘in­clusive’ kind of capitalism — oxymoron that it is — is not and never has been the order of the day. . . . In conditions of economic freedom — mean­ing circumstances in which land and opportunities are no co­erc­iv­e­ly monopolized — labor would simply enjoy far more bar­gain­ing pow­er, able to maintain self-sufficiency apart from the Big Business economy. In­deed, the way to fabricate a system wherein the vast majority of indiv­id­u­als are inclined to work for a pittance of a wage at huge, face­less org­an­iz­a­t­ion is to use the power of legal and regulatory authority to fore­close other options. . . .” — David S. D’Amato.

“Conservatives & rightwing libertarians drastically under­est­i­mate the extent to which state intervention has been struct­ur­al­ly central to capit­al­ism as a historical system since its very beginnings. The en­clos­ure of open fields for sheep pasture in late medieval and early modern times, the Parliamentary Enclosures of common woods, waste and past­ure in the 18th century, the colonial enclosure of land in the Third World and eviction of native cultivators, the engrossment of Third World mines and mineral resources, the enslavement of nonwhite populations – no­thing remotely resembling the contemporary concentration of economic pow­er and wealth, or the model of corporate capitalism most people think of as ‘normal’ . . .” — Kevin Carson.

“Libertarians Are Very Confused About Capitalism” was written by Charles Davis and published in November 2013 by the online magazine Salon.com. Charles Davis is a radical columnist, producer and researcher in Los Angeles, California. His work regularly appears in publications such as VICE, Salon, AlterNet, and Al Jazeera English. He keeps a website at charliedavis.blogspot.com.

Last Friday was an exciting day for me as a prison abolitionist. On Friday afternoon, I listened to an absolutely stellar discussion with Reina Gossett and Dean Spade of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project on prison abolition. The highlights were too numerous to discuss them all here, but I’ll mention a few.

One really excellent point Dean Spade made essentially concerned a knowledge problem that impacts attempts at broad prison policy reform. Spade has worked as an attorney for many prisoners, particularly queer and transgender prisoners, and he pointed out that for many of them the particular prison conditions that would make their stay more survivable varied substantially. This means that seeking top down prison reforms is not likely to benefit the human rights of all oppressed and brutalized prisoners, and that therefore we should advocate for the needs expressed by individual prisoners while also seeking to abolish the system that cages and brutalizes them. At another point in the discussion Reina Gossett mentioned the important work that a group called Creative Interventions does as one example of how we intervene to stop violence without the state. The full discussion, as well as four great videos with Gossett and Spade that preceded it, is available here. I highly recommend watching the entire thing.

Towards the end of the conversation, Dean mentioned some resources for those who want to learn more about prison abolition. He recommended Angela Davis’s excellent book Are Prisons Obsolete, as well as Towards Transformative Justice [pdf], which was developed by activists with the group Generation Five. He also mentioned the organizations Black and Pink, the Audre Lorde Project and their Safe OUTside the System Collective, FIERCE, No One Is Illegal, and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, all of which do work around prison abolition.

So that was Friday afternoon for me. On Friday evening I attended a presentation by Amanda Lickers, a Haudenosaunee woman who has been active in fighting against corporations that attempt to engage in fossil fuel extraction on indigenous land. Her website, Reclaim Turtle Island, documents the indigenous movements that are resisting this ongoing land theft and colonialism. Amanda has worked with submedia.tv to produce a variety of videos on these grassroots movements and the police repression directed against them. She is also a prison abolitionist who has done some excellent prisoner support work, and throughout her talk she made many important points that should be relevant to prison abolitionists. For example, the colonialist roots of many governments’ policing and prison systems. She showed footage documenting the Royal Colonial Mounted Police’s brutal attack on indigenous activists who were protecting their land from companies seeking to engage in fracking. She further noted that the RCMP is an institution founded to repress natives and secure colonial outposts. She also pointed out that the Canadian state’s laws criminalizing sex workers, some of which were recently struck down in court, were rooted in the Indian Act. These moralist assaults on bodily autonomy and free association are rooted in colonialism. Moreover, Amanda pointed us to the cases of multiple indigenous activists who have been held in Canadian prisons, often in solitary confinement, for standing against land theft. This belies the common claims that prisons are necessary to protect us from theft. To the contrary, they often are used to repress those who seek to defend their lands from theft by powerful corporations and governments. This post at Reclaim Turtle Island provides one example of political prisoners being abused by the Canadian state for defending their land. Reclaim Turtle Island is currently doing a fundraiser on Indiegogo to support their ongoing work against colonialist land theft by extractive industries.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the great news we had this week about Hank Magee. Police violently raided Magee’s home on suspicion that he was growing marijuana. Understandably, Hank Magee defended his home, and in the process a police officer was killed. Prosecutors attempted to charge Magee with capital murder, but last week a grand jury refused to indict. While Hank Magee still faces marijuana charges, he is free from the state’s cages for now. He’s with his family. My friend Jesse Fruhwirth reported on this story at his excellent blog Utah 4Ps. Radley Balko has a blog up on the case at the Washington Post. And Jonathan Carp wrote up an op-ed related to the case here at the Center for a Stateless Society.

I’m overjoyed that Hank’s free from prison walls. And I’m even happier to know that so many great people are acting to abolish the prison state itself.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Mikhail Bakunin’s “What is Authority?” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Mikhail Bakunin’s “What is Authority?”

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.75 for every additional copy.

The short fragment reprinted in this booklet, one of the most famous passages from Bakunin’s pen, is a widely quoted excerpt from his best-known essay, God and the State, which was itself an excerpt, written as Part II of a much longer planned book, to be entitled The Knouto-Germanic Empire. The incomplete manuscript was dis­covered in Bakun­in’s papers after his death, by his close friends and fellow anarchists Carlo Cafiero and Élisée Reclus, who translated the text into French and published what they could in 1882. English translations were later circulated by Anarchist publishers in the U.S. and England, including Benjamin Tucker, Henry Seymour and Emma Goldman.

“It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privi­leg­ed position to kill the mind and heart of men. The privi­leg­ed man, whether practically or economically, is a man de­prav­ed in mind and heart. That is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to entire nations as to clas­s­es, corporations and individuals. It is the law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. . . . Con­sequ­ent­ly, no external legislation and no author­ity — one, for that matter, being inseparable from the other, and both tending to the servitude of society and the de­grad­at­ion of the legislators themselves. . . .”

“Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the author­ity of the bootmakers; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their know­ledge, re­ser­v­ing always my in­con­test­able right of criticism and censure. But I recognise no infall­ible authority; I have no absolute faith in any per­son. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my under­takings; it would im­med­iately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others. . . .”

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (1814–1876) was a Russian-born anarchist revolutionary, speaker, traveler and phi­l­o­sopher. Born into a noble family in Prya­mukh­ino, he was later stripped of his titles, imprisoned, condemned at differ­ent times to death, to life imprisonment, to hard labor, and exiled from France, Prussia, Saxony, Austria, Russia, and the First International for his radical speeches and rev­ol­ut­ion­ary activities. One of the founders of collect­iv­ist anarchism, a leading theorist of liber­tarian social­ism, a friend and student of Proudhon, an enemy of Marx and a fierce critic of auth­or­i­tar­ian social­ism, Bakunin was in­volved in revolution­ary up­ris­ings in Paris, Prague, Leipzig, Dresden, and Lyon. An enor­m­ous influence on radicals throughout Russia, Eur­ope, and the Americas, he and his comrades in the anarchist faction of the Inter­nat­ion­al Working Men’s Association (1868–1872) are often credited as the principle founders of the social anarchist move­ment. Although constantly writing fiery pam­ph­lets, letters, short works and radical jour­nals, Bakunin never completed his ambitious plans for longer works on Anarchist philosophy, often re­mark­ing to his friends, “My life is but a fragment.”

Ahmad Barqawi discusses American imperialism.

William Sheppard discusses state violence and rape.

Sheldon Richman discusses how Obama and Kerry are jeopardizing peace with Iran.

Max Border discusses the rise of the new libertarians.

Murray Dobbin discusses Stephen Harper’s loyalty to Israel.

Michael Munger discusses what positive vision libertarians can offer.

Laurence M. Vance discusses hard questions about the drug war.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers discuss the Syrian peace conference’s laying of a foundation for war.

Franklin C. Spinney discusses the price of starting another Cold War.

Charles W. Johnson discusses freed market labor wins by the CIW.

Adam Federman discusses how U.S. evangelicals fueled the rise of pro-family sentiment in Russia.

Patrick Cockburn discusses the Syrian civil war.

Chris Hedges discusss the menace of the military mindset.

Lucy Sterigwald discusses the legalization of heroin.

John Glaser discusses why libertarians shouldn’t get to comfortable with GOP love.

Conn Hallinan discusses Canada’s complicity in Washington’s aggression.

H.H. Bhojani discusses the trauma and anxiety caused by drones.

H.H. Bhojani discusses 6 unanswered questions about Obama’s drones.

Conor Friedersdorf discusses how Dianne Feinstein exaggerates the threat of global terrorism.

Kathy Kelly discusses hunger in Afghanistan.

Sheldon Richman discusses the minimum wage.

Oliver Stone and Peter Kunzick discuss the right-wing Japanese prime minister’s plans.

Brian Terrell discusses the turning of Iowa into a war zone.

William Blum discusses how to end suicide bombings.

Carl L. Hart discusses the racist origins of laws against cocaine and crack.

Sheldon Richman discusses whether Edward Snowden is a lawbreaker or not.

Scott Stenholm interviews Jeremy Scahill.

Robert Scheer discusses the war in Afghanistan.

One of the finest rook endgames ever played.

A famous game between Capablanca and Botvinnik.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Kevin Carson’s “‘Privatization’ or Privateering?” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Kevin Carson’s “‘Privatization’ or Privateering?”

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

“A free market is not a society in which all of soc­i­ety’s functions are performed by private, for-profit business corporations. It’s a society where all fun­c­t­ions are performed by free, voluntary assoc­iat­ions. That means people get whatever services they need by organiz­ing them cooperatively with other willing partici­p­ants, or persuading someone to volunt­ar­ily supply them. And nobody is forced to pay for services they don’t want. . . .

“Capitalists don’t get rich by actually making things or providing services. They get rich by controlling – with the help of the state – the circumstances under which people are allowed to make things or provide services. If they do actually make things or provide services, they do so under carefully con­trolled circumstances where they get their money from involuntary customers who are conscripted into pay­ing by the state, or the state limits the ability of other firms to compete with them. You know, like Halli­b­urton and those military con­tractors. Or the private health insurance people have to buy under Obama­care. Under cap­i­tal­ism, privileged businesses make mon­ey by doing stuff on other people’s nickel. Big busi­ness gets its profits by external­iz­ing its operating expenses on the taxpayer. . . .

“Who cares if a corporation like Halliburton is nominally ‘private’ or ‘public?’ If it makes its money through force, it’s really just a part of the state. . . .”

This article was originally published as “‘Privatization’ or Cor­poratism?” in December 2013, as a syndicated column for the Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org).

Kevin A. Carson is a mutualist writer living and working in northwest Arkansas, and the author of several incredibly influential works on contemporary mutualist anarchism, including “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand,” Studies in Mutualist Political Economy,Organization Theory: A Libertarian Per­spect­ive, The Homebrew Industrial Revolution, and numerous articles and research reports for the Center for a Stateless Society.

C4SS Media presents Natasha Petrova‘s “Walter Block’s Wrong Headed Anti-Unionism,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.

The final aspect to be discussed is whether unionism is compatible with the normative philosophical principles of libertarianism. An emphatic yes is the answer. Left-libertarian market anarchist unionism involves a voluntary association of free and equal workers working together for their freedom from arbitrary employer power. Voluntary association and freedom are core libertarian principles. They most emphatically apply to the working class.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of S. E. Parker’s “My Anarchism” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with S. E. Parker’s “My Anarchism“.

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

Originally published as an article in Free Life, the journal of the Libertarian Alliance (U.K.), in Vol. II, No. 2 (Spring 1981), “My Anarchism” defends a bracing individualism, and opens up a challenge to communist theories of ownership: if access to the means of production is mediated entirely through social relationships and communal connections, does this mean social liberation? Or does it just mean a new social capitalism, with the individual finding herself at the mercy of new monopolies, administered “horizontally” by the majority?

“The common ownership of the means of production would confront me with the choice: integrate or perish. Any group, or federation of groups, can be as powerful as any state if it monopolises in any given area the potentialities of action and realisation. The result would be social totalitarianism. . . .”

“What power could I exercise for example if I were stuck at the base of the pyramid of workers’ councils proposed as the administrative structure for indus­tries in the communist society? At best, and in its purest form, such a system might produce an ‘anarchism’ of groups. It would not produce an anarchism of individuals…”

“There is no vertical authority exercised by a State, but there is horizontal authority exercised by ‘soc­iety’ in the form of customs that are often more ubi­quit­ous and despotic than modern governments. . . . All col­lec­t­i­v­ities need norms to which their members must conform if they are to function. And these norms need sanctions to ensure that they are obeyed. Anarchism has never existed as a form of society, nor is it ever likely to. Indeed, I consider it a grave mistake to conceive of anarchism as asocial theory. Anarchism is not a form of society. It is the cutting edge of individualism. . . .”

Sidney Parker was a prolific individualist anarchist writer and editor best known for his long-running egoist journal Minus One, later retitled The Egoist and Ego, which ran from 1963–1993.

One of the virtues of Jacob Huebert’s Libertarianism Today is that it provides ample evidence for the high literacy rates of Americans prior to the introduction of compulsory education laws. The moral and the practical come together beautifully here. Not only is it unethical to initiate force for the purpose of compelling children to attend schools, it isn’t necessary for effectual education. The consequentialist statist is left without good evidence.

Let us turn to a select quotation from the book on page 114:

Professor Lawrence Cremin has estimated that male literacy ranged from 70 to 100 percent. Other research shows that from 1650 to 1795, male literacy rose from 60 percent to 90 percent, and female literacy rose from 30 percent to 45 percent. From 1800 to 1840, literacy in the North rose from 75 percent to somewhere between 91 and 97 percent. In the South during that same time period, it went from 50 to 60 percent to 81 percent. Writer and educator, John Taylor Gatto notes that “by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100 percent wherever such a thing mattered.” In 1850, just before Massachusetts imposed compulsory schooling, literacy in that state was at 98 percent.

A highly literate population is clearly possible without state intervention in education. This goes along well with the moral principle of freedom of thought for children idenitfied by the late radical educator, John Holt. This principle demands that young people be free to control their own learning. When allowed to do so, a child is able to fit learning how to read into his or her own desires/interests. A self-directed process of discovery that can strengthen a child’s drive to learn more.

The joy of reading is preferable when not tainted by the evil of aggressive coercion. We left-libertarians are uniquely positioned to encourage literacy without coercion. There are revolutionary alternatives to an statist regime of compelled learning. They include unschooling, Sudbury schools, and Montessori schools. Among these choices, unschooling is my favorite. It provides the most radical alternative to statist models of education. In its respect for individuality, choice, and freedom, it’s the most compatible with libertarian principle.

Cultural change requires a corresponding educational transformation. If we wish to move society towards greater freedom, we will have to raise our children differently. They are to be allowed a great deal of freedom to pursue their own dreams and interests. The educational alternatives mentioned above can help make this a reality. Let’s get started on it!

Translations for this article:

• Turkish, Zorunlu Öğretim, Okuryazarlık, Ve Eğitim Alternatifleri.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of James Tuttle’s “Direct Action on the Job!” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with James Tuttle’s “Direct Action on the Job!”

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

This article is a transcript of a talk by Director Tuttle, entitled “The Libertarian and Radical Labor Dis­con­nect,” on the culture, techniques and ideas of radical labor organizing, originally presented at the Dallas Students for Liberty Regional Conference in October 2012.

“The case that I’d like to build is threefold. I want to say there’s a distinction between radical labor and conservative labor, and radical labor is, can be de­fin­ed as, solidarity power: decentralized, apolitical — ex­plicit­ly apolitical — and direct action based. And that they’re org­anizing in order to displace power, or gain power where there is none. So from this kind of model, we can understand or start to understand how they operate, operat­ing along — how are they thinking of targets and tactics? — and how are they reacting to them? — where does this militancy come from?

“I would like to suggest there are three themes that are formed in radical organizations. One of them is solidarity. Another one is the concept called ‘visceral orientation:’ you feel it in your gut when you look around. And a culture of resistance, which will start to demonstrate why you’re operating this way, and why they ally in some instances with this group and why not in another instance. . . .

“Work as we experience it and recognize it to­day contains features that undermine or act against radicalism. And that, due to our shared kind of radicalism, that this is a con­cern not just for labor but for libertarianism. I think we can charitably re­gard liber­tar­ian­ism as a project that is the opposite of, or in op­pos­i­t­ion to, authority. . . . Liberty should not be a condition that you clock in and out of. . . If we’re going to be active and political off of work, then why are we clocking in and accepting situations where we can’t actively in­put? It feels weird to fight for liberty, but only after work.”

F.W. James Tuttle is a left-libertarian anarcho-os­tro­m­ite living and working in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Coordinating Director of the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS), a Co-Editor of the left-libertarian zine ALLiance Journal, and a proud organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World. A video recording of this talk was uploaded to YouTube by the DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left; the transcript was prepared through the generous assistance of L.B., and edited for the booklet format by Charles Johnson of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left Distro.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man Under Socialism“.

$2.00 for the first copy. $1.00 for every additional copy.

Originally circulated in 1891 as a privately printed book, by the world-renowned gay Anglo-Irish Aesth­et­icist poet, play­wright and critic Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). Wilde declared himself an anarchist following his encounter with the Russian expatriate anarchist Peter Kropotkin. His artistic work, and his later persecution, trial and imprisonment for his sexual relationships with male lovers were widely and sympathetically discussed in the Anarchist press during the 1890s, and his Anarchist writings were later reprinted by Emma Goldman and Alex­ander Berkman’s Mother Earth publishing company. The essay offers a fascinating exploration of the cultural impacts of anarchistic socialism and individualism — not as a tearing-down of all in the name of rigidly formal equality, but rather a liberating opportunity for all to fully express what makes them unique, and and flourish in their idiosyncrasy.

“We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are un­grate­ful, dis­con­tent­ed, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculous­ly in­ade­qu­ate mode of partial rest­it­ut­ion, or a sentimental dole, usually ac­com­panied by some im­pert­i­n­ent attempt of the senti­mentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? Dis­obe­d­ience is man’s original virtue. It is through dis­obed­ience that pro­gress has been made, through dis­obed­ience and through rebellion. . . .

“It is clear, then, that no Authoritarian Socialism will do. . . . Under an industrial bar­rack sys­tem, or a system of economic tyranny, nobody would be able to have any such freedom at all. Every man must be left quite free to choose his own work. No form of compulsion must he ex­er­c­is­ed over him. . . . All association must be quite voluntary. It is only in vol­unt­ary associations that man is fine. . . . Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to Individualism.

“Art is Individualism, and Individ­u­alism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. Therein lies its immense val­ue. For what it seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyr­an­ny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. . . . Self­ish­ness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness re­cog­nises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it.”

I recently finished reading the second edition of Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. It was a fantastic read and is highly recommended. There is a comprehensive review in the works, but I want to use this blog post to touch on a particular quotation from We the Living. Kira is quoted thus:

I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone — to live!

This quotation captures a dialectical transcendence of the false dualism between submerging your individuality in an organicist collectivist conception of the people and sacrificing the mass of people. Kira simply wants to be left alone to live in freedom rather than having to choose between fighting for an elite against the people or on behalf of a mass that demands the sacrifice of her individuality.

The question left unanswered is how a left-libertarian should approach this quotation, because we left-libertarians do strive to improve the living standards of the vast majority of people. A left-libertarian could approach it by embracing the message of individual freedom contained therein while still engaging in militant action against elite power structures. The goal is to transcend the collectivism of both elitism and majoritarian estatism.

The above is best accomplished by making sure that revolutionary organization is structured in a way that discourages intrusions upon individual freedom. Left-libertarians are uniquely placed to fight a revolution without sacrificing individual rights in the process. The Marxist states of the 20th century showed what happens when you abandon respect for the individual. Left-libertarians seek to become the left and avoid the mistakes of the past. They can learn from the failed Marxist experience.

Does this mean abandoning all collective action? Not at all. Collective action carried out by autonomous individuals coming together with a shared purpose is eminently libertarian. Collective action is not the same thing as collectivism. The latter is an organcist doctrine that holds that the individual is a mere cell of a social super organism that is an entity unto itself. This is obvious mysticism and not supported by the evidence of the senses. This doesn’t mean that society doesn’t exist. It exists through the individuals that compose it. Kira’s statement is a cry for privacy and individuality within a social context. Let us help to realize her dream and push towards more freedom.

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of SEK3’s “Counter-Economics Our Means” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with SEK3’s “Counter-Economics Our Means“.

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

Counter-Economics is the practice of direct action in economic life — the cultivation of economic relationships that evade, avoid, and defy both the State and the legally-compliant, corporate dominated white-market economy. “Counter-Economics: Our Means” is the classic presentation of Counter-Economics by the man who first coined the concept and developed the theory, Samuel Edward Konkin III of the Movement of the Libertarian Left. The essay reprinted here was originally published as Chapter 3 of the New Libertarian Manifesto (1980), first published by Anarcho­sam­is­dat Press, then in later editions by Koman Publishing Co. / KoPubCo.

“The function of the pseudo-science of Establishment economics, even more than making predictions . . . for the ruling class, is to mystify and confuse the ruled class as to where their wealth is going and how it is taken. An explanation of how people keep their wealth and property from the State is then Counter-Est­ab­lish­ment economics, or Counter-Economics for short. The actual practice of human actions that evade, avoid and defy the State is counter-economic activity. . . .”

“Now we can see clearly what is needed to create a libertarian society. One the one hand we need the edu­cat­ion of the libertarian activists and the consciousness-rais­ing of counter-economists to liber­tar­ian understanding and mutual sup­portiveness. . . . On the other hand, we must defend our­selves against the vested interests or at the very least lower their oppression as much as pos­sible. If we eschew reformist activity as counter-productive, how will we achi­eve that?

“One way is to bring more and more people into the counter-eco­n­omy and lower the plunder available to the State. . . Slowly but steadily we will move to the free society turning more counter-economists onto libertarianism and more libertarians onto counter-economics, finally integrating theory and practice. The counter-economy will grow and spread to the next step we saw in our trip backward, with an ever-larger agorist sub-society embedded in the statist society. . .”

Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947–2004) was an anarchist libertarian active from the late 1960s until his untimely death in 2004. Founder of the Movement of the Libertarian Left and editor of several irregularly published movement papers (New Libertarian Notes, New Libertarian Weekly, New Libertarian), he became an influential critic of smaller-government reform­ism, electoral politics, and the “Libertarian” Party. He is best known for his role in developing the philosophy of agorism, a direct-action movement of revolutionary market anarchism, to be achieved through the conscious practice black and grey market activities to grow the ‘counter-economy.’

(Emilie Rensink at the Anti-Media has a really, really good basic intro post to independent journalism. Go check that out over here. Read this blog, split up into two parts, when you’re done.)

I’ve been on a podcast binge recently, thanks to my job graciously granting me a forced, unpaid two-week vacation. Over the past couple of days I’ve listened to dozens of podcasts, including a more objective analysis of a few episodes of my own show. I’ve got podcasting on the brain.

If we’re friends (all of you are now my friends), you know I’ve been podcasting for years. I’ve done a music show, many political shows, an attempt at a straight news podcast for my college paper, and more. I recently worked on a freelance piece for a podcast called Radio Dispatch.

Let’s be honest, everyone is podcasting, and no one outside of the NPR bubble is doing it in the studio. One of the most popular podcasts around, WTF with Marc Maron, is recorded in the dude’s garage. Another popular show I listen to is an unedited recording of a Skype call. Podcasting is an incredibly accessible medium, and you can start doing it almost immediately – no studio required.

Recording Equipment

So, if you’ve decided to start podcasting, take out your phone. Most smartphones come with native recording apps now, and they produce sound of variable quality. I was using my iPhone 4s and iPod 3 to record whole episodes, from the interviews to the monologues, and while the sound wasn’t great, it was better than most basic digital recorders – plus, it didn’t cost me anything.

The native recording apps are great if you’re just getting used to talking into a microphone for any extended period of time, but they’re not the best options available. There are several great free iPhone apps that produce professional broadcast quality sound, including Soundcloud, the Tascam PCM Recorder, 1st Video, Hindenburg Field Recorder Lite, and more. A lot of those apps are also available on Android phones as well.

(Don’t have a smartphone? You can still podcast. BlogTalkRadio is a free solution, where you can host a live talk show straight from your phone. And if you’re interested in getting a smartphone but don’t want to enter into a contract with AT&T, Verizon, or other carriers, Motorola has made a phone that only costs $179 unlocked – six times cheaper than the full retail price of the average contracted smartphone – and is just as powerful.)

If you’re not me, and you don’t have two phones lying around (one has been deactivated but I can still use its microphone), it’s going to be difficult to interview someone hundreds of miles away. Skype is a good internet call program and it’s what I use, but there are others out there that aren’t hindered by the bloated carcass of Microsoft.

Editing Equipment

If you have a computer that runs Windows, Mac or Linux and live on a budget of “free,” Audacity is hands-down the best audio editing software. Coincidentally, it’s also the only software I’m going to recommend here; Adobe Audition is much more powerful and comprehensive, but its current asking price of $19.99/month via Creative Cloud is a bit steep. Also, Audition is incredibly complicated – while Audacity suffers from its own problems of initial opacity, Audition takes that to the next level. Basically, don’t bother with it unless you already know what you’re doing (in which case, why are you here?).

Another thing I’m going to recommend is external storage. Whether you decide to do this the free way and take advantage of cloud storage or bite the budget bullet and buy an actual brick you can put on your desk and take with you when you’re done, external storage is incredibly important. Recording audio takes up a lot of room on a hard drive if you’re not compressing the files to within a hair’s breadth of their lives, and if your computer isn’t pre-built with 131524512134TB of storage, you’re gonna have a bad time once you’ve collected more than 24 hours’ worth of audio.

Finally, I wish I could say that the computer you use isn’t important, and in some senses that’s true, but I started on a laptop that used Windows 7, I went backwards to early-version Windows XP, and now I’m on a Linux machine that I’m 89 percent certain isn’t configured properly. It matters. Oh god, does it matter. Use what you have, but if an opportunity arises to get a usable, faster computer for cheap, do it. Don’t even hesitate. (And if you have a Chromebook, god help you.)

Recording Environment

Your environment is as important, if not more so, than your equipment. You can have all the best microphones and soundboards and fancy studio tools the market has to offer, but if you’re sitting in the middle of a construction zone, you’re going to have a bad time.

Find a place – it doesn’t have to be your home – where everything is reasonably quiet, then make it ten times quieter. If you or your friends have a bunch of egg cartons lying around, use those as a do-it-yourself form of soundproofing. Some producers just hide their heads and the microphone under a blanket and they get good results. Try to minimize as much background noise as you can, especially if you use your smartphone.

(Next week: Part Two – Find your voice)