From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.
A few days ago, I heard Greg Gutfeld — a self-styled libertarian and host of Fox News’ Red Eye — grieve the “death of private property” in his comment on homeless people squatting in Bank of America-owned houses. As a free marketer, defender of private property, and a libertarian, I’m always offended, or at the very least peeved, at the predisposition of ostensible libertarians like Gutfeld to make common cause with the likes of Bank of America, member of “the brotherhood of thieves who prey upon labor.” Given many self-identified libertarians’ instinctive reactions about private property, the subject is observably susceptible to all of the difficulties that attend hazy definitions and even more confused applications of the definitions we actually have.
And if “private property” is simply — in A.H. Simpson’s words — “defined as the sum of legal privilege,” then Gutfeld is certainly correct in making B of A the paragon of property. As an individualist anarchist, however, I define it as something rather different, as nothing more than one of the ways we ensure the law of equal liberty in practice. Of course I take it for granted that such an explanation doesn’t by itself move the ball forward very much, but it is — even without more — a stark contrast to a mere defense of monopolists. Anarchists ought to take no issue with title to land, with ownership based on cognizable and concrete labors to improve and cultivate it. That kind of “private property,” put into practice as opposed to the system of coercive class rule that we have today, wouldn’t and couldn’t abide a real estate market that puts institutions such as B of A in the driver’s seat.
Developers and mortgage-lending banks sit behind high barriers to entry and enjoy relationships with governments (from the local, to state, to national levels) that ensure their dominance of real property. Further, banks’ monopolization of credit guarantees that the only way most people will ever own real property is through hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgage loans. All of this, apparently, is the “private property” that Gutfeld supposes we libertarians ought to be defending against the likes of squatters. Well, if this is “private property” and “libertarianism,” then I haven’t much use for either and will busy myself debunking them. I don’t, though, think that we ought to cede the terminology so easily, and neither did libertarians like Benjamin Tucker and A.H. Simpson.
C4SS Media would like to present Voltairine de Cleyre’s Our Present Attitude, read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
“This is the time to stand up boldly and say, ‘Yes, I believe in the displacement of this system of injustice by a just one; I believe in the end of starvation, exposure, and the crimes caused by them; I believe in the human soul regnant over all laws which man has made or will make; I believe there is no peace now, and there never will be peace, so long as man rules over man; I believe in the total disintegration and dissolution of the principle and practice of authority; I am an Anarchist, and if for this you condemn me, I stand ready to receive your condemnation.'” — Voltairine de Cleyre
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, my old friend and a top-notch economist, historian, and authority on money and banking, sat down with Nick Gillespie of Reason TV for an illuminating interview on what to expect regarding the federal government’s fiscal bog. In accessible language Hummel explains why the government will have no choice but to repudiate its debt (inflation, taxation, and spending can’t balance the budget) and why repudiation will be a good thing. I highly recommend this video.
C4SS Senior Fellow and Trustee, Gary Chartier, recently participated in an extensive interview with James Corbett of The Corbett Report. Their topic of discussion was the life, trials and anarchist thought of the individualist-abolitionist anarchist Lysander Spooner.
Gary Chartier’s interview (37:54) is a part of The Corbett Report’s nearly hour long, Shoulders of Giants: Lysander Spooner, exploration of the life of Lysander Spooner.
http://youtu.be/aDfWCX5O-oo
From the show notes: While statists across America (and around the world) were celebrating the inauguration of Obama last weekend, anti-statists celebrated a festive occasion of their own: the 205th birthday of Lysander Spooner. Join us this week on The Corbett Report as we explore the life, works, and thought of Lysander Spooner, lawyer, entrepreneur, Deist, abolitionist, freethinker, and one of the giants of the American anarchist tradition.
So long as one uses the Marxist propaganda term “capitalist” (other than in quotes to refer to the term rather than use it) one is surrendering the language to the statists. –Fred Foldvary
Au contraire. Definition: Capitalism is state rule by and for those who own large amounts of capital. Corollary: the purpose of such rule is to restrict innovation, arbitrage and re-allocation of investment, i.e, to eliminate Enterprise (that which entrepreneurs do).
Definition: Free Enterprise is unobstructed, unregulated and unintervened entrepreneurial human action, which, by its nature, cannot have any form of Statism, including Capitalism, present.
Anarcho-Capitalism should mean a social system wherein large holders of capital exist but do not attempt to use the State to capture or maintain their predominance; that’s legitimate if you also accept anarcho-communism to mean a system where Communists do not attempt to create or use a State to have everyone ruled by Communes, and Anarcho-Syndicalism to be distinguished from State Syndicalism (aka Guild Socialism or Fascism) accordingly.
Remember, the term Capitalist was invented as a pejorative by free-market advocate Thomas Hodgskin back in the 1830s and then picked up by Marx (who admired Hodgskin for inventing schools for labourers).
Freely as ever, SEK3 (Samuel Edward Konkin III) [July 24, 2000].
The most important thing in trying to establish Anarchy is to rid the minds of my fellows of the belief in the necessity of government. The next thing in point of importance is to get them to do something to help on the propaganda; to cease advocating and upholding law; to stop patronizing legal institutions when by association the necessity for so doing can be removed; to openly defy, or to ignore such laws as interfere more directly with their personal liberty.
— Henry Addis, “How to Get Anarchy”, THE FIREBRAND (Feb. 23, 1896)
C4SS Media would like to present Kevin Carson’s Libertarian Self-Marginalization, read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
We hope to improve our presentation and production value, but in the meantime: Release Early, Release Often!
Individualist anarchist, guerrilla abolitionist, insurgent against state monopolies, anti-constitutional legal scholar… Happy Birthday Lysander Spooner!
What could be said about Lysander Spooner that would not be hopelessly inadequate at capturing his spirit, intelligence, generosity or tenacity? Here is just a sample of Lysander Spooner:
Abraham Lincoln did not cause the death of so many people from a mere love of slaughter, but only to bring about a state of consent that could not otherwise be secured for the government he had undertaken to administer. When a government has once reduced its people to a state of consent – that is, of submission to its will – it can put them to a much better use than to kill them; for it can then plunder them, enslave them, and use them as tools for plundering and enslaving others. And these are the uses to which most governments, our own among the rest, do put their people, whenever they have once reduced them to a state of consent to its will. Andrew Jackson said that those who did not consent to the government he attempted to administer upon them, for that reason, were traitors, and ought to be hanged. Like so many other so-called “heroes,” he thought the sword and the gallows excellent instrumentalities for securing the people’s consent to be governed. The idea that, although government should rest on the consent of the governed, yet so much force may nevertheless be employed as may be necessary to produce that consent, embodies everything that was ever exhibited in the shape of usurpation and tyranny in any country on earth. It has cost this country a million of lives, and the loss of everything that resembles political liberty. It can have no place except as a part of a system of absolute military despotism. And it means nothing else either in this country, or in any other. There is no half-way house between a government depending wholly on voluntary support, and one depending wholly on military compulsion. And mankind have only to choose between these two classes – the class that governs, and the class that is governed or enslaved. In this case, the government rests wholly on the consent of the governors, and not at all on the consent of the governed. And whether the governors are more or less numerous than the governed, and whether they call themselves monarchists, aristocrats, or republicans, the principle is the same. The simple, and only material fact, in all cases, is, that one body of men are robbing and enslaving another. And it is only upon military compulsion that men will submit to be robbed and enslaved, it necessarily follows that any government, to which the governed, the weaker party, do not consent, must be (in regard to that weaker party), a merely military despotism. Such is the state of things now in this country, and in every other in which government does not depend wholly upon voluntary support. There never was and there never will be, a more gross, self-evident, and inexcusable violation of the principle that government should rest on the consent of the governed, than was the late war, as carried on by the North. There never was, and there never will be, a more palpable case of purely military despotism than is the government we now have.
Most of Lysander Spooner’s writings can be found, lovingly maintained, throughout the internet. If you are interested in owning a physical copy of his No Treason; The Constitution of No Authority or other classic essays, follow the links below. Purchases also go towards supporting The Center for a Stateless Society through our partnership with the Distro of the Libertarian Left.
Check out David de Ugarte’s latest and incisive blog post on the recent French military intervention in Mali:
“…the worst is yet to come. What begins with a military escalation of France’s own, today, will eventually end with the region in the hands of private military businesses and warlords, following the US model. Decomposition is characterized by fragile alliances, and if the Tuareg, who were recently allies of AQMI, offer their help to the French army, tomorrow, some of them might break away into local feifdoms that happen to be tempting to those occupying them.”
C4SS writer and Senior Fellow, Darian Worden, presents for Alt Expo “A Left Libertarian Approach to Politics”.
With the continued success of the Distro of the Libertarian Left and C4SS partnership, we would like to offer similar referral-donation services to our Homebrew inspired supporters.
A supporter and friend of C4SS, has put together a “small batch” screen print of the C4SS “box” logo with a DIY finish.
If you decide on purchasing one of Ian’s shirts, let him know that you also want to support C4SS with your purchase and C4SS will get a 10% of purchase price donation.
If you think this kind of partnership or something similar would be helpful to your Homebrew (ad)venture, then let C4SS know. We are happy to work out details and provide graphics. Email C4SS with the title “Support-Donations” to faq@c4ss.org
In probably the most unbelievably smug move the state could have taken in the wake of Aaron Swartz’s death, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz dropped the case against Swartz in a US District Court in Massachusetts late Monday.
“Pursuant to FRCP 48(a), the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, hereby dismisses the case presently pending against Defendant Aaron Swartz,” Ortiz wrote in a submission to the court on Monday. “In support of this dismissal, the government states that Mr. Swartz died on January 11, 2013.”
Despite Swartz’s family literally placing the blame for his death on the state, and both MIT and JSTOR releasing public statements that were largely positive in how they portrayed him, a spokesperson for Ortiz told the Los Angeles Times, “We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time.”
After a year and a half of state harassment, the threat of over 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine hanging over Swartz’s head, after both JSTOR and MIT dropped their criminal charges (though MIT still wanted to go ahead with their civil suit), the government went after Swartz like a rabid dog – and got a kill.
And now it is gloating.
I highly recommend this new video from Dan D’Amico and Learn Liberty on how America’s criminal justice system promotes racial inequality. D’Amico does an excellent job explaining the enormous racial inequalities in who the state cages. But, perhaps even more importantly, he makes it clear that this isn’t just an issue about individual racist cops, judges, or jurors. Rather, perverse incentives and laws that appear colorblind have created a structural problem of racism.
http://youtu.be/Hfie5bHG1OA
Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) on Victory To Save Open Internet, Fight Online Censors
C4SS Media would like to present Kevin Carson’s Authority is the Enemy of Rationality, read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
We hope to improve our presentation and production value, but in the meantime: Release Early, Release Often!
C4SS Media would like to present one of our signature political position pieces, from C4SS Senior Fellow Gary Chartier:
The C4SS Media team is working on generating weekly content for the C4SS YouTube channel. If you are interested in helping this project or staying up to date, email us — under the subject line: C4SS Media Support — at faq@c4ss.org or subscribe today.
From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.
From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.
In three days, thanks to our wonderful and charitable supporters, we have successfully funded the C4SS Tor node for another quarter.
We did receive a couple of comments and questions about the Tor Project, what is it and how it works.
Wendy Seltzer – what is the tor project?
How governments have tried to block Tor.
http://youtu.be/GwMr8Xl7JMQ
Thank you again for your support. The state is damage, we will find a route around it.
