C4SS Senior Fellow Gary Chartier talks to right libertarian John Stossel about Markets Not Capitalism and why advocates of freed markets should oppose capitalism.
http://youtu.be/INfSOUgLHG8
Enjoy review 10!
William Pfaff discusses how history will remember Obama
Elizabeth Goiten discusses “good guys” and “bad guys” in the War on Terror.
Bruce A. Dixon discusses how Obama won a court case to keep sentencing disparities intact.
Chris Floyd discusses the murderous character of the American system.
Chris Floyd discusses the NSA spying scandal.
Scott Anderson reviews America’s Great Game.
Chris Floyd discusses the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
Robert Fatina discusses the status of forces agreement with Afghanistan.
Jacob Hornberger argues for a lifting of the Cuban embargo.
Nitin Rao discusses the criminalization of gay sex in India.
Dmitry Minin discusses the Jihadi warriors of Syria.
Arthur Silber discusses problems with Glenn Greenwald on whistleblowing.
Corey Robin defends campus activism and BDS.
Logan Yershov discusses the problems with assassination markets.
Arthur Silber discusses leaking.
Arthur Silber discusses the doctrine of exceptionalism.
Trevor Huitner discusses school shootings and thought crimes.
Christy Thornton discusses NYU grad student unionization.
Patrick Cockburn discusses the bankruptcy of the West’s Syrian policy.
Ann Jones discusses ROTC and child soldiers.
Hayes Brown discusses 5 surprising places that the U.S. military operates.
David Swanson discusses fighting for peace.
Tony Newman discusses the top ten Drug War stories of 2013.
Joshua Holland discusses the massive U.S. prison population.
Sheldon Richman asks whether Obama really wants an agreement with Iran or not.
Dr. Cesar Chelala discusses stopping Iran’s human rights abuses.
Patrick Cockburn discusses the humanitarian emergency in Syria.
Lucy Steigerwald discusses this year’s bad cops.
Chess Cafe offers its annual “year in review” for 2013.
An article at C4SS has had to be corrected due to factual inaccuracies that came out after publication. I regret the error I made in the commentary, “Music Piracy as Market Correction,” and have made the necessary changes to reflect the new information. At the top of that post you’ll find a shorter version of this statement.
One of the great things about working at an anarchist think tank like C4SS is that everyone I write with is also my editor, proofreader and ombudsman. I thank my colleague Jonathan Carp for alerting me to the developments in the commentary’s news hook – mainly that the source of the original Iron Maiden story, Citeworld journalist Andy Patrizio, reported incorrectly on information obtained by analytics company MusicMetric. Citeworld has posted a correction of their own, saying:
Update and correction: Due to writer error, an original version of this article stated that Iron Maiden used MusicMetric’s analysis to plan its South American tours. MusicMetric did not work directly with Iron Maiden. The analysis described in this article was carried out without the band’s participation or knowledge, and we have no confirmation that the band ever saw or used it. CITEworld deeply regrets this error, and we apologize to our readers.
Luckily, the phenomenon described in the commentary – that artists are taking advantage of the tools that brought the recording industry to its knees – is occurring with enough frequency to make this a relevant topic of discussion, with or without an Iron Maiden hook.
At C4SS, news commentary is the main source of content, with feature articles and other work interspersed throughout. This means that we rely somewhat heavily on what is essentially secondhand information – news reports or blog posts about events and issues that display relevance to our mission statement – to form the basis of our work. Every article we publish is discussed, edited and fact-checked to the best of our ability, but sometimes it isn’t enough. To quote a colleague, getting things wrong sometimes is “hard to avoid if you’re trying to be topical.”
Personally, it stings to see an article have to undergo surgery because an element of it doesn’t ring true. And personally, I feel like I got lazy in relying on the Citeworld article to provide my hook. So I do apologize for the error, and I will work to eliminate future such errors before you even read my work as much as possible.
Walter Block recently penned a piece arguing that libertarianism is neither left nor right. In it he argues that libertarians share an anti-unionist bias with the right. It may be true that many libertarians possess an anti-union bias, but that says nothing about the normative compatibility of unions with libertarian principles. It also ignores those left-libertarians who embrace labor unionism like Kevin Carson. His Labor Struggle: A Free Market Model comes to mind.
Walter Block presumably identifies unionism with state or government coercion. This ahistorical take ignores the fact that labor unions have often had an adversarial relationship with the state or government. It wasn’t until the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that unions received any government or state protection/recognition. Not to mention that government or the state has frequently suppressed unions throughout American history. Some notable examples are the Homestead Strike of 1892, Pullman Strike of 1894, and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903.
In addition to the above, the courts interpreted labor unionism as a violation of anti-trust law until the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Other legal restraints are contained in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Not to mention that the National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act itself had issues. As Kevin Carson explains:
“This attitude was at the root of the Taylorist/Fordist system, in which the labor bureaucrats agreed to let management manage, so long as labor got an adequate share of the pie. (25) Such a social contract was most emphatically in the interests of large corporations. The sitdown movement in the auto industry and the organizing strikes among West coast longshoremen were virtual revolutions among rank and file workers on the shop floor. In many cases, they were turning into regional general strikes. The Wagner Act domesticated this revolution and brought it under the control of professional labor bureaucrats.”
Block never mentions any of this history.
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.
The Canadian Supreme Court recently struck down the anti-prostitution laws of the country. This sound legal decision provides an occasion for a deeper discussion of the dynamics of sex worker politics. In particular, it allows for a dialectical or contextual left-libertaian analysis. Chris Matthew Sciabarra ably describes dialectics as:
“Dialectics is the art of context-keeping. It is a thinking style that emphasizes the centrality of context in the analysis of systems across time. As applied to libertarian social theory, it counsels us not to disconnect politics from economics, culture, social psychology, ethics, epistemology, and other factors. It views these seemingly disparate aspects as interrelated within a wider totality. Hence, any attempt to understand–or change–society must entail an analysis of its interrelations from the vantage point of any single aspect. This brings forth an enriched portrait of society, and underscores the indivisible connection between theory and practice.”
This brief exploration follows in his footsteps.
Contextually speaking, political legality is important, but it doesn’t exhaust all the factors necessary for sex worker liberation. There is still the necessity of addressing the economic and cultural levels of analysis. Both of which help to provide us with a broader more systemic view of the issue at hand. Without this broader context we risk losing sight of the total picture. This comprehensive picture allows us to grasp the interconnections spoken of by Sciabarra above.
Economically speaking, the mere political legality of sex work matters not without assurances that property owners will not discriminate against sex workers. It also matters not without sex workers receiving a comfortable share of the economic pie. It’s certainly true that the absence of coercive political penalties by the government assists in this, but it isn’t the end of relevant analysis. Private property owners could still use control of economic resources to deny access to sex workers. This is still true with formal legality.
Our final level of analysis is the cultural. In the absence of a sex worker friendly culture, formal legality could be rendered irrelevant by the restrictions of oppressive social mores. This would lead to the economic discrimination mentioned above and induce agitation to restore the laws on the political level. All the more reason to wage an interrelated struggle for sex worker liberation. These three levels of analysis are preferably dealt with simultaneously.
Christmas is full of exhortations to work towards a more peaceful world. But when you get right down to it, what can we actually do, today, to help usher in that world? While there’s no magic button that can be pressed or perfect argument that can be made to bring about peace on Earth, there are a few things we can do to work for peace.
The first thing I’ll mention is something I have some experience with- counter-recruiting. Counter-recruiting is just what it sounds like- counterprogramming the messaging from military recruiters particularly and from our entire culture generally. Young people can go their entire lives without hearing anything bad about the military, and when the recruiter comes calling and they are faced with the choice between mountains of student debt, immediately entering an uncertain work force, or a full-time job with generous benefits that offers to pay for college later, the choice, for far too many, is easy. It’s easy because, as those of us with military experience know, they don’t have all the facts. This work will come naturally to anti-war veterans- just go in there and tell them why the military sucks!- but the venerable American Friends Service Committee offers resources and guides for those, veteran or no, who want to pursue this very rewarding line of work. Convincing even one young person that she has better choices than state servitude is immensely gratifying and makes a tiny but real and material dent in the war machine.
Another great option is Iraq Veterans Against the War’s ongoing Operation Recovery, a project to stop the re-deployment of traumatized troops. What makes Operation Recovery so effective is that it is something even the most bloodthirsty hawks have a hard time arguing with, and yet every step towards the goal puts a little more grit in the military’s gears. At Ft. Hood Operation Recovery, led by the great folks at the Under the Hood Cafe, has made great strides, forcing the commanding general to issue policy guidance to the entire post directing that soldiers not be impeded in their efforts to seek mental health care and that commanders respect physicians’ orders regarding soldiers’ mental and physical health.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, just be a consistent voice for peace. When the hawks start beating the drums of war and the compliant news media start baying for blood, it can feel awfully lonely to be a dove, but you almost certainly are not alone. As we recently during calls for American bombing in Syria and as polling has consistently shown over recent years, war is unpopular and the people are sick to death of it. Rather than letting ourselves be cowed by the talking heads on TV and the screeches of the bloodthirsty maniacs in government, let’s educate ourselves on the crisis du jour and make consistent, persistent arguments against war. It’s a little scary being the first voice at the office or the holiday table to speak out against a war, but I can tell you from experience that once you open the door, others will join you.
In my Christmas op-ed I wrote about some of the Psalms and other scriptures I remember from my church-going youth, but the hymn I remember most clearly is somewhat sappy ditty written by a husband and wife in 1955. The organist would announce it most often as the recessional, and we’d all stand, open our hymnbooks, and tunelessly drone in that inimitable Catholic way these words: “Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.” It’s a long, hard, and uncertain road to peace, but it starts with us, today.
The ACLU has spent years in court trying to get a look at a top-secret FBI interrogation manual that referred to the CIA’s notorious KUBARK torture manual. The FBI released a heavily redacted version at one point — so redacted as to be useless for determining whether its recommendations were constitutional.
However, it turns out that the FBI agent who wrote the manual sent a copy to the Library of Congress in order to register a copyright in it — in his name! (Government documents are not copyrightable, but even if they were, the copyright would vest with the agent’s employer, not the agent himself). A Mother Jones reporter discovered the unredacted manual at the Library of Congress last week, and tipped off the ACLU about it.
Anyone can inspect the manual on request. Go see for yourself!
There’s really nothing to add to this. It’s beautiful all by itself.
Sad news today of the death of Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the iconic AK-47. Designed by then-sergeant Kalashnikov, a wounded Red Army conscript, in response to what he saw as the inadequate weapons he was issued, the AK-47 has become the most popular rifle in the world, seeing use in virtually every armed conflict since.
While the rifle was designed for a government and mass produced by governments, it’s hard to dislike the design itself. In many ways the Avtomat Kalashnikova, to give the weapon its full, Russian name, prefigures the open source, distributed production ideals we hold so dear today. Designed to be manufactured cheaply anywhere out of simple stamped sheet metal and with high tolerances that not only made manufacturing a snap but also made the rifle legendarily reliable, the AK-47 rapidly became the favorite weapon of insurgents and resistance movements everywhere, aided by the Soviet government’s admittedly self-serving policy of distributing the design for free.
And what an incredible design. The standard issue American rifle of the Second World War, the M1 Garand, could fire around 40 rounds a minute, if the person wielding it managed to avoid getting his thumb caught in the action while reloading. The AK-47 can sustain one hundred rounds per minute of automatic fire; in other words, the Kalashnikov puts into an individual’s hands the firepower of an entire company of Napoleonic soldiers. Furthermore, unlike many more elaborate designs, the AK-47 can fire under virtually any conditions with very little maintenance. US Army colonel David Hackworth, fed up with the finicky American M16s his men were issued, once famously buried an AK-47 in mud, dredged it up, loaded a magazine and fired it on full auto until it was empty without a single malfunction- truly a people’s rifle.
Mikhail Kalashnikov designed his great weapon while working for one of the most vicious governments ever to blight the Earth, but let that not blind us to the brilliance of his design, and to what it represents. The Avtomat Kalashnikova was the earliest forerunner of the great work of Defense Distributed today, and presaged a future when power will truly be open source and fully distributed.
The annual digests continue. Let’s get moving on number 9!
Stephen Masty has a quiz to decide whether you’re an imaginative conservative or not.
Matthew Feeney discusses 5 hot foreign policy subjects of 2013.
Gene Healy discusses the myth of isolationism surrounding a foreign policy of non-intervention.
Laura Carlsen discusses the setbacks for women’s rights in Honduras.
Sheldon Richman discusses why 2016 will be a good year for the corporate state.
Justin Raimondo discusses Max Blumenthal’s new book about Israel titiled Goliath.
David Swanson discusses the continued U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.
Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn pontificate on police killings.
Ron Jacobs discusses the lies of the powerful about war.
William D. Hartung asks whether the Pentagon needs another 20 billion dollars.
Biony Kampmark discusses the prospect of a digital bill of rights.
Mark O’ Brien discusses seeing a sex surrogate.
James Peron discusses the death of Barbara Branden.
Grant Mincy discusses police violence.
Thomas L. Knapp discusses government spending.
Dawie Coetzee discusses the Mandela administration.
Never Gordon discusses the possibility of a nuclear free zone in the Middle East.
Kevin Carson reviews The End of Politics: New Labour and the folly of managerialism.
Chris Hedges discusses the business of mass incaracertion.
Barbara Branden discusses Ayn Rand’s inner life.
Ronald Bailey argues for the abolition of software patents.
Uri Avnery discusses the lack of attendance by major Israeli leaders at Mandela’s funeral.
Alyssa Figueroa discusses a recent civilian killing drone strike.
Arturo Lopez-Levy discusses how the embargo on Cuba makes diplomacy impossible.
Jeremy Brecher discusses a non-violent insurgent approach to climate activism.
Jeremy Brecher discusses climate activism.
A review of the second volume of Garry Kasparov’s series on himself. Garry Kasparov is one of the world’s best chessplayers. He is a former world champion with a rating peak of 2851. He was surpassed by Magnus Carlsen’s achievement of an 2872 rating. One of his most grueling matches was the first 1984-1985 World Championship match with Karpov. It lasted 48 games before being canceled.
Our second chess pick of the week also comes from Chesscafe.com. The book reviewed raises the question of whether chess is preferably treated as a fun game or serious work. The author comes down on the side of serious work. My own view is that chess can be both serious work and fun. It’s sheer joy to study and play chess better. The fun increases as you become better at the game.
“To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. … To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
The GOP ironically seeks control in rendering the country ungovernable through obstructionism. They are upset that the Democratic Party wing of the ruling class blocks their ability to exert total control and governance. This is borne out by the ironic fact that even the government shutdown involved giving orders to government agents to prevent people from visiting memorials or national parks. A further examination reveals the GOP establishment’s support for criminalization of abortion and persecution of undocumented immigrants. These are hardly people who truly despise government in any principled manner.
The above mentioned type of obstructionism needs to be clearly distinguished from the genuine desire of the anarchist to render things ungovernable for the structurally privileged ruling class. A humane anarchist would seek to obstruct the functioning of government in a manner conducive to the well-being of those still dependent upon government for survival. An example would be prioritizing the rendering of the DEA dysfunctional over the food stamps program. The abolition of food stamps preferably follows freed market forces creating a radically more equal distribution of wealth. This will allow for the organization of egalitarian working class mutual aid societies.
C4SS Senior Fellow and Chair Sheldon Richman “explores the critical distinction between capitalism and free markets; discusses corporation socialism, the challenges facing publicly funded schools, and much more.“
After a week of seeing stories of YouTube’s “ContentID” system wreaking havoc on independent content producers in the name of protecting intellectual property, I finally felt ready to sit down and bang out a commentary on this new, “legitimate” form of IP trollery.
As it turns out, Jim Sterling, the reviews editor for video game website The Escapist Magazine, beat me to it with this episode of his long-running “Jimquisition” series (NSFW language).
For a little context, ContentID is a way for major players in the entertainment industry to automatically scour YouTube for any instance of copyright infringement – real or perceived. According to YouTube:
Copyright holders use Content ID to easily identify and manage their content on YouTube. Videos uploaded to YouTube are scanned against a database of files that have been submitted to us by content owners. When Content ID identifies a match between your video and a file in this database, it applies the policy chosen by the content owner. Content owners may choose the following policies:
Monetize: If ads that you did not enable appear on or before your video, the content owner has applied a Monetize policy.
Block: If the content owner has chosen a Block policy, your video will either not be viewable on YouTube, or its audio will be muted. The owner may choose to allow content within your video to play in some countries while blocking it in others. While you may not be able to see your video, or hear its audio, people in other regions may still be able to view and interact with it as usual. You will still be able to view, moderate, and respond to comments on the video from the Comments page in My Messages.
Track: If the content owner has chosen a Track policy, your video will be unaffected. However, its viewership statistics will appear in the content owner’s YouTube Analytics account.
In other words, if you record yourself playing a video game and providing voiceover color commentary, or reviewing a movie using edited clips from the trailer, or anything else involving content derived from other content, companies can either forcibly place ads on your video to make them money, steal your viewers or eliminate your video altogether. Good times, right?
Review 8 time is here! Let’s get started.
James Bovard discusses the glut of police shootings.
Sheldon Richman explains why government is the problem.
Pepe Escobar discusses Erik Prince’s new book.
Binoy Kampark discusses the creeping fascism in Europe.
Uri Avnery discusses land theft in the Jordan Valley.
Patrick Cockburn discusses the complicity of Saudi donors in funding terror.
Kevin Carson discusses the sellout of Mandela to capitalism.
Mohammed Al Qawli asks why the U.S. and Yemeni governments killed his brother with a drone strike.
Eric Margolis discusses the faux pullout from Afghanistan.
Andrew J. Bacevich discusses how Obama can turn away from a warmongering path in the Middle East.
Chase Madar discusses the increasing criminalization of everyday life.
Tom W. Bell discusses how writers coped without copyright protection.
Aaron Ross Powell and Trevor Burns answer common questions about libertarianism.
Wendy McElroy has some advice on how to diminish your ties to the state or government.
Jacob Sullum discusses the faux drug reform policy of the Obama admin.
Patrick Coffey discuses drone war.
David Gordon reviews Lew Rockwell’s new book, Fascism vs Capitalism.
Sheldon Richman advocates for a non-punishment oriented legal system.
Sufyan bin Uzayr discusses Yemeni politics.
Sheldon Richman explains why Mandela wasn’t radical enough.
Moncia Lucas discuses her Progressive Libertarian vision.
James Bamford discusses Al-Qaeda’s magazine, Inspire.
Juan Cole discusses 5 women right’s activists who are shaking up the Middle East.
Franklin C. Spinney discusses the new Seymour Hersh take on Syria.
Kelly B. Vlahos discusses Ann Jone’s new book.
Ivan Eland discusses the pending security agreement with Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai.
Marie Arana discusses a book about the coup against Salvador Allende.
Kevin Carson discusses a libertarian theory on the use of ideology.
We end this review with the final two games of the recently concluded World Chess Championship:
Game 9 was a short win by Magnus Carlsen. Anand allows him to queen a pawn on move 27. The only explanation I can provide for my readers is that Rf4 was designed to result in Rh4 with mate on h7. Anand must have overlooked 28…Qe1. This move allows for 29…Qh4 with material advantage to black.
Game 10 was a fairly lengthy draw. 3. Bb5 took me by surprise. The subsequent exchange of the bishop contradicts the dogma of the advantage of the two bishops. White gets a nice Maroczy bind with 7. c4 and a centralized Queen on d4 in return. Otherwise; a fairly uneventul draw.
I confess that I’m not a Gary North fan. Usually I just ignore him. But since he started weighing in on Bitcoin and various libertarian writers have taken the time rebut his errors, I’ve sort of had to pay attention (here’s a Google search that should bring up most of his diatribes and the responses thereto). I guess it’s time to do my part and briefly fisk his latest compendium of ignorant assumption.
First, a brief note on where I don’t necessarily disagree with North:
He doesn’t believe that Bitcoin is “real money” as defined in Austrian economic doctrine. He may be right about that. It’s not backed by any physical commodity. It is not, at least at the moment, a reliable “store of value” (its value relative to various currencies and commodities has tended to fluctuate wildly; while I think we’ve seen the worst of that, I could be wrong).
But even if Bitcoin is not “real money,” it’s already proven its worth in one of the functions that money serves: As a “medium of exchange.” The aforementioned fluctuations do make that a somewhat dicey proposition (I recently bought a television with Bitcoin that, had I saved it for two more weeks would have been worth four times as much in US Federal Reserve Notes, for which I could have bought a much nicer TV and maybe a new guitar!), but so far it’s the best kludge I’ve seen for taking electronic (as opposed to physical “cash”) economic exchanges off the government regulation grid.
Now to the problems with the piece I link above.
North asserts that US government paper money is superior to Bitcoin in terms of privacy because:
[A]nyone with a bank account in the United States can obtain greenbacks. … As soon as an individual has paper money, he has total privacy. He also has total control over his money. He knows where the money is. He decides where the money will go. He decides how long he will keep the money. He can of course be robbed, but this is relatively rare.”
Pause for effect. OK, spit-take break over.
“Anyone with a bank account?” Really? Let’s see: In order to get a bank account, you have to present government ID and undergo a credit check. Once you have a bank account, the bank monitors all of your transactions on behalf of, and reports anything “suspicious” (including all transactions greater than $5k) to, the federal government.
But even setting that part aside, on every other count above Bitcoin is at least as good as paper money. Once you have Bitcoin, you have total control over it. You know where it is. You decide where it will go. You decide how long you will keep it. And if you’re careful, your chances of getting robbed of Bitcoin are considerably lower than your chances of getting robbed of paper money.
Just as an example of that last claim, let’s take the case of Ross Ulbricht, allegedly “Dread Pirate Roberts” of Silk Road fame. The US government stole his web site, and while they were at it they were able to steal a fraction of Bitcoin that was stored in transit/commerce accounts on its server. But even though they have physical possession of a copy of an account with 144,000 Bitcoins (as I write this, about $140 million USD worth) in it, that money is safe as houses. It’s encrypted. Well-encrypted. They can’t get to it without its owner’s consent. And if he has another copy stored somewhere, it will be waiting for him when he escapes the regime’s clutches. Assuming it’s his, which we can’t safely assume. Do you think he’d have been able to keep $140 million green pieces of paper, or a $140 million bank balance, out of their clutches?
And as far as privacy per se is concerned, yes, as I’ve said again and again, Bitcoin is not inherently anonymous. But it can be made so fairly easily.
North’s next line of argument:
Almost nobody knows how to buy Bitcoins. The person must buy them through a Bitcoins currency exchange company. He has no idea which ones are reliable. He risks getting into an exchange like the Silk Road, which the government shut down. He risks getting into an exchange like the one that replaced it, Sheep Marketplace, which was hit by a $100 million heist, and which shut down, leaving its users with a 100% loss. … He has to know how to use computers to get access to this kind of money. Not many people know how to do this online. In other words, there is a huge learning curve involved in gaining access to this privacy money.
Hmm, where to begin?
No, you don’t have to buy Bitcoins through a currency exchange company. In fact, I have never done so. There’s no problem at all with coming to a personal arrangement of any variety you like with someone who has Bitcoins to get them. You might sell them something. You might hand them those green pieces of paper that North seems to like so much. You might set up a “donate Bitcoin” button on your web site.
Secondly, neither Silk Road nor Sheep Marketplace were “Bitcoins currency exchange companies.” They were marketplaces in which goods and services were traded using Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. North doesn’t know what he’s talking about here.
Thirdly, complaining that people have to know how to use computers to get access to this kind of money is pretty weak. People have to know how to use computers to get access to Gary North’s articles at LewRockwell.com, too. People have to know how to use computers to get access to books at Amazon.com. Whoop de freaking do.
Yes, you need a little more than average computer knowledge and better equipment to “mine” Bitcoin out of the aether efficiently — or you can do it inefficiently right in your browser at bitcoinplus.com, or you can buy shares in mining operations, or you can earn Bitcoin at a number of those “pay per click” sites for viewing ads — but using Bitcoin in commerce is no more knowledge-intensive than using a credit card or Paypal in commerce.
Next:
There is no way to prosecute. There is no way for a depositor to get his digital money back. He bought secrecy with respect to any police agency, so nobody can find out where his money went, and he has no legal claim against anybody.
There are two ways to look at these claims.
The first way is from the perspective of someone who actually believes the state is there to “protect” us from these problems. I’d ask that person how he plans to prosecute someone who didn’t hand over the gram of cocaine in return for greenbacks, or whether he’d expect the police to roll out and turn on the sirens because he got ripped off for ten bucks on something “legitimate.” And I’d point out that some “mainstream” Bitcoin outfits are integrating themselves into the state system. I expect that within a year or so you’ll see protection systems similar to PayPal’s “buyer protection plan” operating in some Bitcoin markets. Of course, to take advantage of those protections, you’ll have to do the same things that take the privacy out of dollar exchanges — produce government ID or link a government-ID-backed bank account, etc.
The second way is to look at it from a libertarian or anarchist standpoint. Yes, one disadvantage of abandoning state “protection” is that you either have to do without it or develop new systems to replace it. At present, some people would rather do without it than pay the price for it, and I don’t see why North would object to their preferences in that regard. And I suspect that over time the “off-grid” Bitcoin users will also develop systems that make it easier to guarantee delivery of goods or services for payment — especially, but not only, after the state is no longer part of the picture.
Next, North moves on to “marketability”:
You cannot use Bitcoins to buy anything in approximately 99.9% of American retail establishments. This is probably too low an estimate. You cannot buy what you want, when you want, where you want with Bitcoins. There are search costs involved in locating anybody who will sell you anything with Bitcoins.
You can’t use gold bullion to buy anything in approximately 99.9% of American retail establishments. I’m trying to think of the last time I read Gary North complaining that gold is an awful, awful idea.
But my guess is that you can use Bitcoins to buy anything in far more than 0.1% of Internet retail establishments, either directly or indirectly, and that that percentage is growing. Here’s a VERY partial list of well-known establishments whose Internet storefronts I can buy gift cards for using Bitcoin through only one provider:
Barnes and Noble, CVS Pharmacy, GameStop, The Gap, Land’s End, Sephora, TGI Fridays, Home Depot, 1-800-Flowers, Belk, Brookstone, FTD, Groupon, JC Penney, K-Mart, Overstock.com, 1-800-Pet-Supplies, Sears, Wal-Mart, Applebee’s, Chili’s, Domino’s, IHOP, Maggiano’s Little Italy, Morton’s The Steakhouse, Papa John’s, Red Robin, Steak’n’Shake, Tony Roma’s, Banana Republic, Babies R Us, Foot Locker, Hot Topic, Old Navy, Sports Authority, Stein Mart, Zales, Dell, Staples, Toys R Us, Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Bath and Body Works, Nutri-System, Lowe’s, American Airlines, Carnival and Celebrity cruises, Hyatt and Marriott hotels …
By the way, I had never noticed that outlet before I started writing this post. It took me about 30 seconds to find it once I started looking. So I think we can write North’s notions of “marketability” off with relative ease.
The nut of North’s final bewildering argument is this gem:
The Bitcoins market operates only at the discretion of the central banks. The central banks allow Bitcoins for the moment, and only because of this toleration by the central banks does any market for Bitcoins exist.
In actuality, the truth is something close to the reverse of this claim. The central banks have precisely zero control over Bitcoin, and to the extent that they threaten regular banks with sanctions for accepting/dealing in it, they’re harming themselves and those banks, not Bitcoin.
North’s premise is that merchants will only accept a currency that they can deposit in the traditional banking system. He may be right about some merchants, but even if he is, see that list above: The major merchants don’t have to accept Bitcoin in order for customers to buy from them using Bitcoin. Intermediaries who don’t give a tinker’s damn about government approval or access to the existing bank system will be glad to act as market makers for a cut of the action.
And if the two systems — government regulated banks and decentralized, encrypted, peer-to-peer currencies — separate completely, I know which one I’ll bet on myself (hint: I haven’t had a bank account in 13 years).
As I’ve said over and over, I don’t know if Bitcoin will be the state-killer currency app, but I do know such an app is coming and that it will require several of Bitcoin’s essential features.
North is all wet in every major area he addresses here.
[Cross-posted from KN@PPSTER]
Stephen Moss discusses Jeremy Scahil’s, Dirty Wars.
Karam Filfian reviews Dirty Wars.
Anthony Papa asks for a pardon of both drug war prisoners and the turkey.
Deepak Tripathi discusses Obama’s Middle Eastern policy.
David Macray discusses the plight of ex-convicts.
Ahmad Barqawi discusses Bandar’s reign of terror.
David Rosen discusses the private security threat to civil liberties.
John LaForge discusses whether the U..S really has the best military in the world.
Michael Desch discusses a new neoconservative book.
Gene Healy reviews Ira Stoll’s book titled JFK, Conservative.
Corey Robin discusses attitudes towards grad student unions.
Sheldon Richman discusses the pointlessness of deaths in the Afghan War.
Seamus Milne discusses Britain’s involvement in dirty wars.
Justin Raimondo discusses “isolationism” or what we usually call peace.
Ryan Holiday has a list of 43 books to read on war.
Eugene Robinson discusses the immorality of Obama’s drone war.
Jacob Hornberger discusses the recent airstrike that killed a child in Afghanistan.
Nelson P. Valdes discusses how to normalize relations with Cuba.
Davey D discusses how the new mayor of New York appointed a stop and frisk loving police chief.
William Blum discusses the qualities of statist murderers.
Steve Horn and Carl Gibson discusses how a globally renowned activist collaborated with Stratfor.
Fernando Teson discusses the pope’s statism.
Noam Chomsky discusses the 60 year oppression of the Iranian people by the U.S..
Conn Hallinan discusses the non-proliferation treaty and Iran.
Mark Weisbrot discusses the violence and fraud surrounding the recent Hounduran elections.
John Emerson discusses the empire of the Comanche Indians.
Paul Kerley has a slideshow on the Vietnam War to offer.
Chris Brock discusses Stephen Kinzer’s new book on the Dulles Brothers.
Alliance of Austin Agorists first networking party: An interview/Q&A with Charles W. Johnson. Due to some technical difficulties we were only able to capture three out of the ten questions that were actually conducted that night.
On the popular anarchist facebook page Anarchist Memes, an admin decided to exercise his private property rights in vocalizing his opinion that in a stateless society, unpopular opinions will not be dealt with peacefully.
Status:
“You think anarchism means we should all have some sort of right to say whatever you feel like?
So let me get this straight, people think that in a stateless society, everyone is going to allow others be a massive asshole whenever they talk? Without the police to uphold liberal ideas such as freedom to be bigot, I doubt people would tolerate intolerance with mere simple verbal disagreement.
Without state protection, oppression (from bigotry to patriarchy to capitalism) wouldn’t thrive as much as it does now. That’s sort of the point of the anti-state position of anarchism. “
In this short space, Anarchist Memes has shown us clearly why property rights are a necessity: So that individuals have a certain sphere of autonomy in which they can be themselves in any manner they desire. It is this communist’s dream that one day, anyone the commune deems as a threat can be easily shut up by whatever natural forces we allow to wreak havoc on the “bigots,” who are of course never themselves humans or victims of abuse.
To this style of anarchist, the brutality of the state lies in the protection of property rights, rather than the absolute and total destruction of them. As a left-libertarian, I wish to smash the state in order to free the individual. Soon, these communist anarchists imagine we shall be rid of the state, and that is when we can take care of the true dissidents. Anarchism to them is not freedom or liberation, it is punishment of thought and speech criminals.
Of course, in a free society racists, sexists, ableists, ageists and speechists will not have to be tolerated equally because of autonomy-enabling property rights. Under this model, social resistance to hateful viewpoints is entirely peaceful. We do not limit the autonomy of another, but we merely withdraw our consent from his influence on us. The individualist does not wish to control the thoughts of others, but finds the collectivistic basis of bigotry abhorrent and chooses not to associate with it. She does not expect the rights of another to decrease at the expense of her offense. She only expects equal freedom to express herself.
Property rights are ultimately the tool of individualists, though. To the anarchists who seem to believe in the divinity of the will of society, the concerns of the individual mean nothing if they do not approve. All thought must be bureaucratically investigated, and then a glorious calculus shall be applied to determine how much less you now “need” as a result of your views. Perhaps it is your free time, your car, your house, your life. In the case of the commune the property rights of bigots, I am on the side of the latter as an individualist. I say this not in defense of bigots, but in defense of myself and in defense of any minority who sees their equal freedom receding. Property rights are an enforcement of equality and autonomy. The society run purely on social capital is a danger not only to bigots but to all who wish to be free.
Welcome to my 6th review! Time to begin.
Graham Peebles discusses the oppression of Ethiopian migrants in Saudi Arabia.
Alexander Cockburn discusses the parallels between JFK and Obama.
Ivan Eland examines JFK’s actual record.
Jonathan Carp proposes a revolutionary alternative to raising the minimum wage.
Jacob Hornberger discusses the post-911 dilution of civil liberties.
Sarah Lazare discusses the new security deal with the Afghani government.
Sarah Lazare discusses the corporate infiltration of activist groups.
Ann Jones and Nick Turse discuss the plight of America’s wounded soldiers.
Anthony Gregory explains why closing Gitmo isn’t enough.
Kelly Vlahos discusses the politics of drones.
Cole Stangler discusses the second annual Code Pink drone summit.
Matthew Robare discusses Noam Chomsky’s anarchism.
Sheldon Richman responds to Matt Brueing on property rights and force.
Michael Brenner discusses the U.S. failure to leave Afghanistan.
Medea Benjamin discusses the drone strikes in Pakistan.
James Kilgore discusses the massive fraud of a security company.
Chris Steele interviews Noam Chomsky.
David Rosen discusses the mainstreaming of sexual fetishes or “perversions”.
Rick Perlstein discusses whether JFK would have withdrawn from Vietnam.
James K. Galbraith discusses whether JFK would have withdrawn from Vietnam too.
An excerpt from a book on meth use among suburban women by Miriam Boeri.
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Hakim discuss opposition to U.S. military bases.
Ryan Calhoun discusses the Kennedy assassination.
Carlos Clemente discusses patriarchy in Venezuela.
Link to the video of Nathan Goodman’s presentation at the Genderevolution conference.
Conor Friedersof discusses the likelihood of America torturing again.
Darryl W Perry discusses the myth of the hero cop.
C4SS Fellow, Jason Lee Byas, joins the podcast team of Rachel, Eamon, and Mark of the The El Paso Liberty Hour. They discuss Market Anarchy, the Center for a Stateless Society and the Anarchist movement within Libertarianism.
Check Out Politics Conservative Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Be First In Media on BlogTalkRadio
Review number five is upon us! Let’s begin.
Ashley Smith discusses the imperial roots of sectarian violence in Iraq.
Horace G. Campbell discusses counter-terrorism and imperial hypocrisy.
Daniel White offers us some notes on the American Empire.
Sheldon Richman discusses the urgency of stopping war with Iran.
Dave Lindorff discusses the question of whether security or freedom is more important.
Prashanth Kamalakanthan discusses Ann Jones new book titled They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — Untold Wars.
Lynn Stuart Parrmore discusses the anarchist labeling of her mother.
Jason Lee Byas has four questions for Amia Srinivasan.
Thoughts on torture by Ximena Ortiz.
Ed Pilkington discusses how more than 3,000 non-violent offenders are imprisoned for life.
Joseph R. Stromberg reviews the book, Coolidge.
Justin Doolittle requests that people stop thanking the troops for him.
Sheldon Richman discusses the universalist philosophy of libertarianism.
Ryan Calhoun discusses the relaunch of the Silk Road.
Jenny Brown discusses a rank and file labor victory at Boeing.
Brian Cloughley discusses the deaths from drones in Pakistan.
Jodie Gummow discusses the complicity of Pepsi Co. and Coca-Cola in land clearances.
Medea Benjamin discusses how drone victims are showing up in D.C. to tell their stories.
Kevin Carson discusses the fraud of so called “free trade” agreements.
Kevin Carson talks about an op-ed defending Obama.
James North discusses the fighting unions of Bangladesh.
Majorie Cohn reports on the drone summit.
Bill Quigley writes about representing New Orleans immigrant workers.
Bill Berkowtiz discusses the doctors that engaged in torture.
Kenan Malik discusses the issue of veil.
Kenan Malik discusses an incident involving immigrants.
Justin Raimondo discusses the new “withdrawal” plan for Afghanistan.
We end with the third and fourth games of the now ended World Chess Championship:
