Gary Chartier gives the talk “Achieving Social Justice Through Liberty” in September of 2013 at the University of Oklahoma.
http://youtu.be/yYGYH3eC5yI
Commentary
Around the country, consumers are greeting newly arrived rideshare and taxi alternative companies like Lyft and Uber with fanfare. Some people, though, aren’t so happy. Taxi companies, for example, are lobbying city and local governments to heavily regulate and outright ban these services from the streets — ostensibly for “safety” reasons. One group in Seattle has taken their opposition even further — going so far as to attempt to block Uber cars from delivering their passengers on Saturday.
The group of self-proclaimed anarchists calls itself “Counterforce,” and has a predictably laughable credo on its website. There’s no need to quote here, as the themes are common: Uber takes jobs from poor people and only caters to the wealthy. The solution is to use city and local governments to cap the number of Uber cars if not ban them outright.
The bitter irony of so-called “anarchists” calling upon governments to ban things notwithstanding, the claims of “Counterforce” actually do ring in many city halls across the country, and it is admirable to advocate for the interests of the poor.
The bitter truth, however, is that the very governments that people so often call upon to protect working class and local businesses are actually responsible for many of the transportation hardships of those same people. They also keep small, local business owners from providing alternatives for these people, and, in turn, make the pickings ripe for the types of large companies that people mistrust to come in and crush local competition.
Consider the current structure of individualized transportation services in most major metropolitan cities. Many large cities already do put a cap on the number of taxi-like cars which can be on the street. This creates a system in which companies must pay the government for permission to own a cab or cab business, usually through purchased “medallions.” The prices for these medallions are astronomically high. In New York, the price of a medallion is a cool $1 million. In Chicago, it is $360,000.
The number of medallions is fixed, so as the demand for cabs goes up, the price of the medallion goes up as well. These high prices completely shut out any individual or local business that may want to start up and provide services to low-income or under-serviced communities — which makes them ripe for the picking for larger companies like Uber, who have the capital to invest.
When the prohibitive cost of entry is not an issue, sometimes the government itself comes after independent driving services, often spurred by unions and large companies who want to push out competition. This should make anyone wary of governments like Seattle, Los Angeles or Chicago which seek to heavily regulate or ban rideshare services. The public’s interests are not served by them.
Taxi cab companies — the ones that are large enough to afford the a steep opening investment — rule the streets and can operate as they like. This is not good for customers, particularly low-income customers, as prices either hold steady or rise due to the lack of competition. And as for service to these communities? Taxi cabs are infamous for not picking up minority passengers or servicing low-income areas, while Uber claims that up to 40% of their business goes to underserviced areas.
And the drivers? Many are jumping ship to work for these rideshare services, which can pay upwards of $40 per hour with the added benefit of allowing drivers to set their own schedules. This benefits those who cannot jump ship too, for the increased competition in the labor market will create an incentive for cab companies to raise their drivers’ pay and benefits as well.
Ultimately, it is the protectionist policies of city and local governments that set the stage for large cab corporations and businesses like Uber and Lyft to “move in.” It is this lack of market competition that creates the current transportation climate for poor and underserviced communities, even as Uber and Lyft have the potential to fill that gap. Citizens seeking to ban or heavily regulate Uber or Lyft do so at their own peril — and the peril of the underserviced communities that they seek to help.
Commentary
Brazil is a violent country. A sizable part of the population experiences many aggressions in its streets. However, violence in Brazil is present in prisons too. There, it can take very subtle forms, which very few people – except those who suffer from it – come to know about. Among these subtle forms of violence are the “vexatious searches.” On April 23, Rede Justiça Criminal launched a national campaign against vexatious searches in prisons.
The campaign’s website splash page warns us: “This campaign contains offensive language, and dramatizations are based on real accounts from the victims.” When we proceed, there is a new warning: “Close your eyes, put on a headset and feel the victims’ pain.” The stories are very moving. They speak of women and children who went to visit their incarcerated family members and had to strip and spread their genitalia open as well as squat three times before being allowed in the prison. “We can’t see inside. Open your vagina with your hands. There, that way I can see it properly,” a prison officer says in one of the accounts.
In a handwritten letter publicized by Rede Justiça Criminal, a woman denounces what happens in a São Paulo penitentiary:
We suffered constant humiliation and embarrassment; we had to pry our intimate parts open with our hands, lift our legs and rest them on the counter, put the finger in, crawl on all fours, and (…) if we are having our period, we cannot visit our relatives.
The institution defines vexatious searches as the “procedure to which people are submitted when they visit their family members in prison. This practice is known as vexatious search exactly because of its humiliating and abusive character. These people, children, adults, or elders, are required to take off their clothes, squat several times, and often have their genitals inspected (with no attention to hygiene whatsoever).”
Rede Justiça Criminal also notes that it is a harsh reality that approximately half a million people weekly in Brazil endure, while its effectiveness to prevent the entry of drugs or cell phones in the penal institutions is debatable: According to a survey, only .03% of the people searched in São Paulo penitentiaries are ever caught holding banned items. It affects disproportionately adult women, who make up 70% of the searched.
Researchers Raquel Lima and Amanda Oi also stress that the practice’s perceived legitimacy distorts the officer’s view of the situation:
And … those women who cry, try to cover their body with their hands, or demand their rights to be respected are treated as undisciplined and not as people reacting instinctively to an act of violence. Many end up being punished with loss of visiting privileges for at least 30 days, under the justification that they slow down work by the prison personnel.
We should not be surprised: Obedience to authority is an instrument of psychological desensitizing, as described by Milgram’s famous experiment. Without a culture of questioning power, there can be no respect to basic individual rights.
For that reason, the group calls for the approval of a new law which would forbid this practice (nowadays it’s left to each state to regulate it) and propose, as an alternative, the so-called “humanized search,” already employed in the state of Goiás.
A large public debate was needed about the subject in Goiás so that it would enact change. It was spurred by the publication by the Public Prosecution of a video in 2010 called “Vexatious Search – Visiting a Brazilian Prison.” According to prosecutor Harold Caetano da Silva, it was brought about by the “courage of a woman who allowed filming of her search under the old system and was willing to denounce, even if it meant exposing her own body, the abject institutional violence committed by the State of Goiás against the people, mainly women, of all ages, that experience the duress of having a relative, friend or partner convicted and incarcerated.”
As David Schmidtz and Jason Brennan pointed out, the existence of civil rights, and even the existence of a libertarian society, depends on a culture of freedom and individuality, where specific heroic acts are catalysts for change. Despite the human tendency to social conformity, the example of someone who rebels against an unjust rule makes it easier for other people to question it, creating a new opposing trend. The example of this woman in Goiás is firmly within this social dynamic, bringing about change that prevented many people from going through the same situation as her.
Prisoners’ families should not be penalized by vexatious searches. It is necessary to liberate Brazilians from yet another state violence. As libertarians, we cannot tolerate it if we ever want to live in a free society.
Translated from Portuguese into English by Erick Vasconcelos.
Italian, Stateless Embassies
Quelli che non hanno risposto alla richiesta di “registrazione biometrica”, che ha coinvolto circa 14 milioni di elettori in diverse città brasiliane, perderanno il diritto di voto, la possibilità di iscriversi ad un’istituzione scolastica pubblica, di godere di assistenza pubblica e di fare domanda per un lavoro pubblico. Non potranno neanche fare cose banali ed essenziali come aprire un conto in banca o richiedere un passaporto. Fortunatamente, il governo è stato così generoso da offrire ai ritardatari la possibilità di “regolarizzare” la loro posizione entro il 7 maggio “senza multe”. Rassicurante, vero?
Lo stato brasiliano vuole acquisire i dati biometrici di oltre 140 milioni di elettori in modo da rendere le prossime elezioni “sicure”. Per arrivare a ciò si pensa che sia necessario catalogare le impronte digitali di tutte le dita, la fotografia e la firma di ogni persona. Il nuovo certificato elettorale riflette queste informazioni. Senza questo certificato, lo stato non può imporre l’embargo economico contro l’individuo, che a questo punto non potrà più richiedere un passaporto per scappare dal paese.
Il certificato elettorale non è che uno dei tanti strumenti di identificazione e sorveglianza nelle mani del governo brasiliano: la carta d’identità (che tutti dovrebbero portare sempre con sé), il CPF (il codice fiscale brasiliano), la patente di guida, il certificato che attesta il servizio militare o l’esenzione (obbligatorio per gli uomini), il libretto di lavoro, il passaporto, il certificato di nascita, il certificato di matrimonio…
Uno pensa che il governo ha già abbastanza informazioni sui suoi soggetti ma, apparentemente, il bisogno di rendere “sicura” la “celebrazione della democrazia” vuole che la gente dia informazioni ancora più personali alle autorità. Se occorrono tutte queste informazioni per rendere il voto sicuro, non è che le elezioni passate erano una frode? Chissà.
Ovviamente è tutta una finzione, una cortina di fumo che serve a nascondere l’ennesimo passo verso la concentrazione del potere totalitario nelle mani dello stato. La scusa relativamente innocua delle elezioni sicure è solo un precedente messo su per garantire allo stato un potere di controllo della popolazione ancora più ampio e, più in là, chiedere ulteriori informazioni private.
Niente di tutto ciò è necessario. Neanche l’obbligo di voto è necessario. Lo stato continua a far finta che l’obiettivo sia garantire elezioni esenti da frodi quando, in realtà, potrebbe benissimo abolire l’obbligo di voto e smetterla di punire chi non vota. Senza l’obbligo di voto, le ragioni alla base della schedatura degli elettori sono irrilevanti.
La più grande ironia è che il Brasile avrà, teoricamente, un sistema di identificazione sicurissimo e, allo stesso tempo, un sistema di voto elettronico immune da contestazioni. È praticamente impossibile sapere se la macchinetta elettorale non è soggetta a frode, visto che non esiste un sistema indipendente di verifica e revisione, né esiste una ricevuta per l’elettore. La macchinetta è una scatola nera, contestata solo da frange estreme dell’élite, come Leonel Brizola, deriso e disprezzato ogni volta che sollevava dubbi al proposito.
Questo è il sistema elettorale perfetto per la classe di governo: Combina il massimo della sorveglianza, l’obbligo di voto che garantisce un’affluenza altissima, e nessuna possibilità di verifica e conteggio indipendenti. Legittimità totale dello stato, dunque, e nessun dubbio sul suo potere.
Il sogno del totalitarismo tropicale morbido.
Missing Comma, Stigmergy - C4SS Blog
So, this is pretty exciting. As of today, C4SS podcasts is a thing! You can grab the RSS feed here, and very soon we will have confirmation from iTunes and Stitcher Radio that we’ve been added to their sites as well.
So why podcasts? Don’t y’all have YouTube?
The Center does indeed have a YouTube channel, but as we’ve been increasing our output of audio recordings, the demand for an audio-only podcast version of these recordings has risen as well. Also, YouTube is a great medium, but it’s designed with a captive audience in mind. Podcasts are easily downloadable and can be taken anywhere. Plus, you don’t have to sit there and wait for your video to buffer.
Will all previous recordings be posted to the podcast feed?
Unfortunately, no. We’re starting the podcast stream with Gary Chartier’s “We Should Abandon The Term ‘Capitalism,'” and going forward we’ll be posting recordings simultaneously, but we don’t have the audio files for previous recordings.
Will the podcasts only be available on iTunes or Stitcher Radio?
No! If you use a podcatcher that isn’t iTunes or Stitcher, you can always ask us to submit the RSS feed to it! Also, in most cases you can copy-paste the RSS feed into whatever you use, and download new episodes as they arrive.
What’s going to be on the C4SS Podcast Network, or C4SS Media?
Well, that’s a great question. Right now, the only thing we know for sure is that we’ll be posting the article recordings, and I know that I’ll be doing a podcast version of Missing Comma, but that’s all for the moment.
C4SS Media is still in its infancy, and as time goes by, more stuff will be added to it. We’re always willing to take suggestions!
Portuguese, Stateless Embassies
No Brasil, costuma-se dizer que “texto fora de contexto é pretexto”. O jogo de palavras traduz uma verdade valiosa: se alguém interpreta o texto fora do contexto, pode ser para usá-lo como pretexto para alguma coisa. Ou seja, interpretar algo sem o contexto acaba servindo a interesses ou motivos bem diferentes do que o original se pretendia.
Isso deve servir de alerta para o nascente e crescente movimento libertário brasileiro. O exame de fenômenos políticos e sociais deve ser feito em seus adequados contextos de análise.
Infelizmente, tenho visto muitas instâncias de “liberalismo descontextualizado”. Esse tipo de liberalismo resulta da aplicação de princípios liberais à determinada questão política, mas de forma isolada, sem examinar com atenção o contexto. Isso vicia a análise de modo assustador.
Um exemplo é o caso da reintegração da Oi, sobre a qual falei em texto anterior. Alguns liberais elogiaram a reintegração pela decisão judicial ter sido cumprida rapidamente. Isso pode ser uma aplicação tecnicamente correta do princípio de que a propriedade deve ser protegida contra sua tomada por outros. Mas não falta algo a esta técnica? Isso mesmo: contexto.
Milhares de pessoas foram desapropriadas por conta das obras da Copa do Mundo, e indígenas e ribeirinhos estão sendo desapropriados por conta da construção de Belo Monte. A mesma eficiência com que o Estado, por meio de sua polícia, efetuou a reintegração de posse da Oi é que o permite desalojar pessoas mais pobres. A reintegração da Oi, em contexto, revela um modelo de Estado que combina proteção à propriedade da terra das corporações e dos ricos com uma persistente desproteção da posse das pessoas mais pobres e uma ânsia em controlar o acesso destas à terra.
Um segundo exemplo é a tendência, em alguns círculos, de criticar o bolsa-família e seus recebedores. Escutem Kevin Carson: não devemos sentir raiva das pessoas que recebem assistência social, pois os verdadeiros parasitas estão mais acima na pirâmide social.
Pense comigo: o Estado, por meio de várias intervenções e leis no passado e no presente, tirou inúmeras oportunidades das pessoas mais pobres no Brasil e concedeu privilégios (sutis ou escancarados) a determinados grupos bem-conectados politicamente que muito os beneficiam. Você acha mesmo que ganhar o valor do bolsa-família é maior do que aquilo que foi tirado dos pobres em termos de oportunidades? Mesmo recebendo bolsa-família, essas pessoas ainda estão sendo prejudicadas pela política governamental. Mais vale criticar o BNDES e a insistência do governo brasileiro em financiar o surgimento de multinacionais brasileiras.
Um último exemplo: separatismo paulista. Existe, historicamente, um movimento de secessão no estado de São Paulo. Libertários defendem secessão, mas a secessão almejada por estes grupos separatistas não é libertária, uma vez que não reconheceriam o direito dos subconjuntos de São Paulo (como suas cidades) à separação.
Além disso, algumas pessoas desses grupos alegam que São Paulo deve se separar, porque “sustenta o resto do país” ao gerar riqueza cuja tributação vai para outros estados mais pobres. É impossível associar isso com libertarianismo, mesmo que superficialmente pareça possível. A Amazônia e o Nordeste brasileiros foram prejudicados pelas medidas protecionistas em favor da indústria paulista. Essas regiões mais pobres tiveram que comprar produtos mais caros para financiar o suposto “bem comum do desenvolvimento nacional” que, em suma, significa o bem da indústria paulista protegida da livre concorrência internacional. Atualmente, por exemplo, faria sentido que os estados amazônicos estivessem em livre comércio com os países do Pacto Andino, mas isso não é possível, porque, para Brasília, o Mercosul é sagrado.
Se há algo de formidável na tradição libertária de esquerda dos Estados Unidos é sua capacidade de tornar o libertarianismo uma poderosa ferramenta de análise contextual para crítica política. Albert Jay Nock, por exemplo, denunciava o uso de “termos impostores”, como laissez faire e individualismo, para encobrir o fato de que, desde o início do moderno sistema fabril, houve intervenção sistemática em favor de industriais. No Brasil, em cursos de Direito, um “termo impostor” conveniente é o de “estado liberal do século 19”, quando, na verdade, liberais clássicos foram oposição mesmo no século 19.
Portanto, a conclusão que podemos chegar é que, superficialmente e fora de contexto, a aplicação de princípios liberais parece coincidir com interesses de elites, mas sua aplicação de forma contextualizada e responsável coincide com os interesses de todas as pessoas, inclusive e especialmente das mais pobres. O liberalismo contextualizado tende a ser alguma forma de libertarianismo bleeding heart, que promove liberdade individual e justiça social ao mesmo tempo. Não iremos concordar sempre, porque a variedade filosófica no libertarianismo é impressionante e positiva, mas seremos mais coerentes com a alma do liberalismo clássico.
O Brasil precisa de um liberalismo contextualizado, que, consequentemente, será inclusivo, libertador e humanitário. Já o liberalismo sem contexto é pretexto para servir à “resistência daqueles interesses egoístas e cegos que se colocam além da necessária transformação da organização política e econômica que cessaram de ser adaptadas às condições da existência presentes das sociedades”, de que Molinari nos alertava desde o século retrasado.
Media Appearances
Kyle Platt chats with Sheldon Richman about the recent standoff between the Bureau of Land Management and Nevada Rancher Cliven Bundy. Who has a claim to the land? Can a government own land?
Commentary
After yet another terrifying botched execution, questions about whether the death penalty constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” once again fill the air. Perhaps, though, now may be time to pose even more radical questions about criminal justice.
The particular incident sparking national attention this time was a lethal injection in McAlester, Oklahoma that failed to immediately kill its intended victim. Instead, convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett died — of a heart attack — after 43 minutes spent writhing in pain and struggling to get out the words “Man,” “I’m not,” and “something’s wrong.”
Unsurprisingly, Amnesty International calls it “one of the starkest examples yet of why the death penalty must be abolished.” Even the White House — headquarters of worldwide mass drone assassinations — made a point to publicly state that the execution “fell short” of the standard for humane executions.
We might ask ourselves, though, why we find such a horrible death for such horrible crimes repugnant. If we think punishment should be retributive and proportionate to the crime committed, we ought to welcome particularly cruel punishments for particularly cruel crimes. If we think punishment should serve as a deterrent, we ought to welcome such gruesome, excruciating deaths in hopes that they make crimes like those committed by Lockett less likely.
In fact, we arguably passively accept more cruel punishments already.
As jokes in popular culture reveal, it’s socially understood that a prison sentence involves condemning a convict to a hell of constant abuse from both guards and fellow inmates. This looming threat lasts much longer than the 46 minutes of pain Lockett experienced, leaving permanent psychological damage. Even when sentences end and inmates leave with their bodies, they don’t always escape with their souls.
None of this is to downplay what happened to Lockett in McAlester, especially considering that his time on death row ensured he went through the torture of prison as well.
The problem is not just that what Lockett experienced was cruel and unusual. The problem is that the all too usual practice of punishment itself — the process of intentionally inflicting harm on another human being for the purpose of inflicting harm — is irredeemably cruel.
If this is where punishment has brought us, to systematic killings and mass incarceration, then it’s time to reexamine punishment. We must reflect on what it is we really want out of punishment, and whether or not we can achieve it some other way.
One of the most basic things we want out of punishment is a way to restore respect for victims and their dignity. When a murderer escapes conviction, our anger comes out of solidarity with the victim.
What better way to respond to crime, then, than by demanding restitution for victims or their loved ones? The focus there is placed firmly on showing respect for those harmed, and away from bringing new harm to the criminal.
The most obvious objection to such a proposal is that no amount of monetary compensation will ever bring back the dead, or undo an assault, making full justice impossible under restitution. While this is unfortunately true, it is also true of punishment — even if Lockett had suffered for three hours, his victim would still be just as dead.
The difference is that with a restitutive model of justice, we can at least go some way toward healing the wounds of crime. With a punitive model, no steps are taken in that direction at all and new injustices are committed.
When we look back at the history of criminal justice, most of us mark progress by the abolition of the cross, the rack and the guillotine. We take it as a mark of our humanity that our modern debates about lethal injections are about how we can punish with the least additional pain possible. When we fail in that goal, as Oklahoma did with Lockett, we are repulsed. Those who oppose capital punishment take it as a reason to abandon the practice altogether.
Each of these steps that we praise backs away from the principles used to justify punishment.
When we are disgusted by the unnecessary pain inflicted even on those who’ve inflicted unnecessary pain, we are disgusted with retribution. When we are outraged by the horror of a botched execution, we are outraged by the use of punishment to make an example out of its victims.
It is time to take the final steps on the path we’re already taking.
It is time to abolish the crime of punishment.
Commentary
The government of Oklahoma did not botch an execution on Tuesday. When the administration of an untested combination of drugs fails, we do not describe the treatment as “botched,” but simply as a failed experiment. Last night, the government of Oklahoma conducted an unsuccessful experiment on a human being without his consent.
This man, a convicted rapist and murderer, is not someone I plan to mourn. His crimes, which included the rape and murder of a teenage girl, were as heinous as they were repulsive. His death was equally repulsive. Strapped to a gurney, he was injected with an untried cocktail of drugs intended to sedate him, stop his breathing and then stop his heart. The first drug, midazolam, commonly known as Versed, is a short-acting benzodiazepine (similar to Valium) typically used to sedate patients before uncomfortable procedures such as being executed while strapped to a gurney. The second drug, vecuronium bromide, is a particularly nightmarish substance. A paralytic, it blocks the transmissions of motor neurons. Patients who report being awake but unable to move or cry out during surgery are reporting the joys of vecuronium bromide when administered with insufficient sedation. The last drug, potassium chloride, is simply poison that stops the heart. KCl, as it is known, is common fodder for gallows humor in the medical community, with doctors and nurses “prescribing” a fatal injection of KCl to particularly obnoxious patients. Or, as here, fatal doses actually being prescribed.
The administration of these drugs failed to achieve the intended purpose — a clean, antiseptic death. Instead, the condemned man writhed on the gurney, called out and died in apparent agony of a massive heart attack. Clearly, this outcome was unacceptable — the state must kill in a controlled, clean and calm fashion, without embarrassing or distressing drama. Indeed today NPR told me I might find its reporting on the man’s death “disturbing,” presumably because of the writhing, not the death.
What is most curious about this experiment is how unnecessary it is. Millions of data points from killing fields and death camps, from the Einsatzgruppen and the NKVD, point the way clearly to the easiest, swiftest, most painless and cost effective way to kill. Have the condemned kneel. Place the muzzle of a small caliber pistol against the base of the victim’s skull. Pull the trigger once. The bullet destroys the brain stem, killing the condemned instantly. The total price of the execution amounts to a few minutes of the executioner’s wages and the price of a bullet. In the 20th Century, millions died this way. This is the most reliable method of execution known, and why in our data-driven age any other technique is used is a mystery. Or perhaps, it is no mystery at all.
A man on his knees, hands bound, blindfolded, is defenseless, helpless, a pitiful object. We cannot stomach killing this way. We cannot, truthfully, stomach the act of killing at all. Just as we long for remote-control wars and fill the skies with drones, we long for a robotic executioner killing without any of the horror of killing. We do not use lethal injection out of concern for the condemned, but out of concern for ourselves. We long to imagine that “the state” is killing these men and women, and that they aren’t really being killed at all, just antiseptically removed — “destroyed.” So we distance the lethal act from the proof of the deed; first the hangman, who simply pulls a lever, then the electric chair, with its switch, and now lethal injection, done at the press of a button, the same way the Air Force kills Yemeni children.
But if we can’t face the man on his knees, and if we don’t want to see ourselves as the man holding the pistol, should we be killing at all? Clayton Lockett was tortured to death last night so we could pretend we are somehow better than the man holding a pistol to the base of another man’s skull. If we are fine with killing, then why do we not kill the right way? If killing the right way troubles you, are you really fine with killing?
Italian, Stateless Embassies
Venerdì scorso (undici aprile), un terreno nei sobborghi di Rio de Janeiro è stato reso al gigante della telefonia fissa Oi. L’area, conosciuta come “favela da Jelerj” era stata occupata da 5.000 persone, provenienti soprattutto dalle favelas di Mandela, Manguinhos e Jacarezinho, che lì avevano costruito le loro case improvvisate. Ci sono stati scontri con la Polizia Militare durante l’applicazione dell’ordine di sgombero e un giornalista del quotidiano O Globo, che seguiva le operazioni della polizia, è stato arrestato.
Questa è la stessa Rio de Janeiro in cui migliaia di famiglie sono state espropriate delle loro case per fare spazio alle strutture dei mondiali di calcio 2014. Non solo sono stati sloggiati, ma mediamente hanno ricevuto un risarcimento minimo e sono stati trasferiti in zone molto lontane. Secondo il Comitato Olimpico e dei Mondiali di Calcio, che si è lamentato al proposito, gli espropri, che vanno oltre il necessario, spazzano via intere comunità povere per lasciare spazio a progetti di sviluppo urbano a beneficio delle imprese immobiliari.
Nel frattempo, l’Aneel (l’ente nazionale per l’energia elettrica) ha approvato l’esproprio di territori indigeni per la costruzione della diga di Belo Monte. Una lamentela fatta alla Commissione Inter-Americana sui Diritti Umani ha spinto quest’ultima nel 2011 a chiedere che lo stato brasiliano “garantisca subito il completamento del processo di regolarizzazione dei territori delle popolazioni indigene del bacino del fiume Xingu, adottando misure efficaci per la protezione delle terre, considerata l’occupazione e appropriazione illegittima da parte di popolazioni non indigene e il loro sfruttamento e spreco di risorse naturali”. Ma il governo ha fatto finta di nulla: Nel 2012 è stato formalizzato l’ultimo esproprio, che autorizza lo sfratto delle popolazioni lungo il fiume, nativi e piccoli agricoltori, per via amichevole o giudiziaria.
A vedere con quanta “efficienza” è stata restituita la proprietà alla Oi, uno potrebbe pensare ingenuamente che il governo brasiliano è un grande difensore della proprietà privata. Ma è lo stesso governo, e controlla la stessa polizia, che ha espropriato gli indigeni senza dare loro la possibilità di difendere effettivamente i loro possedimenti. Con il pretesto del “bene comune”, si fa carta straccia del diritto alla proprietà e ad una casa.
In un’intervista, il sindaco di Rio de Janeiro disse che non avrebbe permesso “privilegi agli occupanti abusivi”, che lui contrappose a quelli che sono in lista d’attesa in programmi come Minha Casa, Minha Vida (“La Mia Casa, la Mia Vita”). Questo è solo un piccolo esempio di quanto il governo brasiliano sia determinato a controllare l’accesso ai terreni edificabili.
Come nota Pedro da Luz Moreira, presidente regionale dell’Istituto Brasiliano di Architettura, “Minha Casa, Minha Vida viene promosso nelle periferie, molto lontano dal centro dove è il lavoro. La sopravvivenza delle famiglie dipende da questo. Non ho informazioni precise sull’occupazione del palazzo Telerj, ma so che si trova vicino al cuore della città, dove sono le opportunità di lavoro.”
Questo è un esempio di quello che l’anarchico individualista Benjamin Tucker chiamava “monopolio territoriale”. Scrivendo verso la fine dell’ottocento, Tucker si concentrò sugli aspetti rurali del problema, descrivendo il metodo usato dal governo per “garantire titoli di proprietà su terre che non sono né occupate né coltivate”.
Nella sua versione aggiornata al ventunesimo secolo, uno degli strumenti principali dello stato per l’emarginazione dei poveri è il controllo delle terre edificabili. Primo, con i regolamenti edilizi nega ai poveri l’accesso all’edilizia a basso costo (a Rio tramite il divieto di costruire condomini, che ha dato origine alle moderne favelas, e il divieto di entrare in possesso di una terra pubblica con l’usufrutto). Secondo, queste persone diventano soggetti dello stato quando si iscrivono in lunghe liste d’attesa per poter avere un terreno, fuori dalle aree urbane e sotto lo scrutinio attento della burocrazia.
Albert Jay Nock diceva che lo stato è stato creato con l’obiettivo criminale di creare una classe subordinata priva di accesso alla proprietà, a beneficio delle élite che hanno accesso alla terra. Lo stato brasiliano, con la sua difesa assidua della “proprietà privata” delle grandi imprese, combinata con lo sforzo costante di privare i poveri della loro proprietà e controllare il loro accesso alla terra, è la prova di questo obiettivo criminale. Dopotutto, a chi possono chiedere il risarcimento gli espropriati di Belo Monte e dei Mondiali di Calcio?
Life, Love And Liberty, Stigmergy - C4SS Blog
Lynn Stuart Parramore just can’t stop attacking libertarianism. In a recent article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blows Up Libertarian Fantasies, she targets libertarians on equality and wealth. She also continues to evidence no awareness of the existence of left-wing forms of libertarianism like left-libertarian market anarchism. This is the ideology both I and the site I write for adhere to. This will thus be a critique of her from a left-libertarian market anarchist perspective. Let’s get started.
She opens with:
Libertarians have always been flummoxed by inequality, tending either to deny that it’s a problem or pretend that the invisible hand of the market will wave a magic wand to cure it. Then everybody gets properly rewarded for what he or she does with brains and effort, and things are peachy keen.
Those of us who advocate anarchistic freed markets do indeed contend that unimpeded market forces will lead to drastically reduced inequality, but we do not regard it as magic. It’s the product of applying the insights of economic science to the problem of wealth inequality. Science is by definition not magic and doesn’t rely on magical processes to achieve its aims. Lynn constructs a strawman in accusing libertarians of regarding the market as magical. I know of no libertarian on either the left or the right who regards it as such.
As for everyone getting appropriately rewarded for what they do with brains and efforts, I am not an advocate of meritocracy. Freed markets are useful as a way to conduct economic activity without central command and control or non-coercively. In a certain sense, they do indeed reward brains and effort due to the fact that economic goods or services require both to be produced. That being said, there is also the element of the subjectivity of the buyer and seller. That has an impact on price.
Her article also states:
Basically, the lessons boiled down to this: Some degree of inequality is both unavoidable and desirable in a free market, and income inequality in the U.S. isn’t very pronounced, anyway. Libertarians starting with these ideas tend to reject any government intervention meant to decrease inequality, claiming that such plans make people lazy and that they don’t work, anyway. Things like progressive income taxes, minimum wage laws and social safety nets make most libertarians very unhappy.
Some degree of relative inequality is probably unavoidable in a freed market, but we don’t know how much will exist until we’ve tried it out. We can only predict it will be generally lower than in a society without freed markets. Income inequality in the U.S. is indeed very pronounced. I certainly don’t deny its existence. Lynn doesn’t provide us with any understanding of why libertarians reject the government interventions she mentions. The reason is that they rest on the initiation of force or the threat thereof. She also ignores the fact that some of us are anarchist welfare liberals who support non-governmental or non-state social safety nets.
After the Great Depression, inequality decreased in America, as New Deal investment and education programs, government intervention in wages, the rise of unions, and other factors worked to give many more people a chance for success. Inequality reached its lowest ebb between 1950 and 1980. If you were looking at the U.S. during that time, it seemed like a pretty egalitarian place to be (though blacks, Hispanics, and many women would disagree).
Government intervention may have reduced relative inequality, but it was also state intervention like regulatory protectionism, corporate welfare, tariff walls, IP monopolies, banking monopolies, land monopolies, and strike breaking by agents of the state that helped create that vast inequality in the first place. The rise of unions was indeed a factor, but the original unions were not government or state sanctioned. Kevin Carson has also shown that unionism is more successful or would be without government support/regulation. That’s all for now. I will write a second part to be released on Friday.
Portuguese, Stateless Embassies
O Brasil é um país marcado pela violência. Muitas das agressões são vivenciadas nas ruas, afetando grande parte da população.
Mas a violência no Brasil também está em suas prisões. Inclusive de formas sutis, que poucas pessoas – exceto às que sofrem por isso – tomam conhecimento. Uma delas é a revista vexatória.
Na tarde do dia 23/04, a Rede Justiça Criminal lançou uma campanha nacional contra a revista vexatória em presídios.
O site da campanha já alerta no início: “Esta campanha contém linguagem ofensiva, as dramatizações são baseadas em relatos reais de vítimas”. Quando você aperta o botão confirmando que deseja prosseguir, aparece novo alerta: “Feche os olhos, coloque um fone de ouvido e sinta na pele o drama das vítimas”.
Os relatos são fortes. Falam de mulheres e crianças que, como condição à visitação de um familiar preso, têm sua intimidade corporal invadida, pela obrigação de tirar a roupa e abrir as partes íntimas, agachando três vezes antes da entrada à unidade prisional. “Assim não tá dando para ver lá dentro. Abre a vagina com a mão. Isso, para que eu possa enxergar direito”, é o que determina a agente penitenciária em um dos relatos.
Uma mulher, em carta escrita à mão, divulgada pela Rede Justiça Criminal, denuncia o que acontecia em uma penitenciária em São Paulo: “sofremos constantes humilhações e constrangimentos com nossas pessoas; somos obrigados a fazer força abrir nossas partes íntimas com a mão, somos obrigadas a por a perna em cima do balcão e ainda colocar o dedo, ficar de quatro e ainda (…) se tivermos menstruadas não podemos visitar nossos parentes”.
A entidade define revista vexatória como “o procedimento pelo qual são submetidas as pessoas que pretendem visitar algum familiar na prisão. Essa prática é conhecida como revista vexatória, exatamente pelo seu caráter humilhante e abusivo. Essas pessoas, crianças, adultos ou idosos, são ordenadas a ficar nuas, agachar diversas vezes, muitas vezes terem seus órgãos genitais inspecionados (sem observância de qualquer cuidado mínimo de higiene)”.
A Rede Justiça Criminal ainda observa que é uma dura realidade que aproximadamente meio milhão de pessoas passa semanalmente no Brasil, enquanto sua eficácia para deter a entrada de drogas ou celulares na prisão é contestável: segundo levantamento realizado, apenas 0,03% das pessoas revistas em penitenciárias de São Paulo são flagradas portando itens proibidos. Seus efeitos afetam, desproporcionalmente, mulheres em idade adulta, uma vez que compõem cerca de 70% dos revistados.
As pesquisadoras Raquel Lima e Amanda Oi destacaram como a percepção da legitimidade da prática distorce a própria forma de encarar a situação:
“E (…) aquelas mulheres que durante a revista choram, tentam cobrir o corpo com as mãos ou reclamam pelo respeito aos seus direitos são tratadas como indisciplinadas e não como pessoas reagindo instintivamente a um ato de violência. Muitas acabam punidas com a perda da visita por ao menos 30 dias, sob o argumento de que retardaram o desenvolvimento dos trabalhos do pessoal penitenciário.”
Não é de surpreender: a obediência ao comando da autoridade é um instrumento de insensibilização psicológica, conforme famoso experimento de Stanley Milgram. Sem uma cultura de questionamento ao poder político, não pode existir respeito a direitos individuais elementares.
Por isso, o grupo solicita a aprovação do Projeto de Lei nº 480/2013, que vetaria esta prática (atualmente, deixada à discrição de cada estado da federação), e propõe, como alternativa, a chamada “revista humanizada”, que já é aplicada no estado de Goiás.
Inclusive, para a mudança ocorrida em Goiás, foi decisiva uma ampla discussão pública sobre o tema, que foi facilitada pela divulgação de um vídeo produzido pelo Ministério Público em 2010, sob o título “Revista vexatória – visitando uma prisão brasileira”, o qual, segundo o procurador Haroldo Caetano da Silva, foi “fruto da coragem de uma mulher que permitiu ser filmada durante o antigo procedimento e que se dispôs a denunciar, mediante a exposição do seu próprio corpo, a absurda violência institucional que era cometida pelo Estado de Goiás contra as pessoas, principalmente mulheres, de todas as idades, que passam pela dura experiência de ter um parente, amigo ou companheiro preso”.
Como apontaram David Schmidtz e Jason Brennan, a segurança dos direitos civis, e em última instância da própria sociedade liberal, depende tanto de uma cultura de liberdade e individualismo, como de atos heroicos individuais que sirvam como “catalisadores”. Apesar da tendência humana à conformidade social, o exemplo de alguém que se rebela contra uma regra discriminatória facilita que mais pessoas a questionem, criando nova tendência social em sentido oposto. O exemplo desta mulher em Goiás está dentro desta dinâmica social, facilitando uma reforma que poupou muitas pessoas de passarem pela mesma situação que ela enfrentou.
Familiares de presos não deviam ser penalizados por meio da revista vexatória. É preciso libertar os brasileiros de mais essa violência estatal institucionalizada, que seria inadmissível em uma ordem social livre como a que almejamos enquanto libertários.
Commentary
Americans have been conditioned to think of May Day as a “commie holiday,” one associated until recently with military parades in Red Square and leaders of Marxist-Leninist regimes exchanging “fraternal greetings” in the names of their respective peoples. They might be surprised to learn it was originally an American holiday, created by Chicago workers in commemoration of the eight-hour day campaign and the Haymarket Martyrs.
Perhaps even more surprising — as much so to modern American libertarians as anyone else — is the fact that May Day is part of the free market libertarian movement’s heritage. That’s counter-intuitive for obvious reasons. Since the time of Mises and Rand, American libertarianism has generally been identified — often justifiably — with a reflexive defense of capitalism and big business. But despite the rightward political shift of the free market movement in the 20th century, there was a very large free market Left in the 19th century, frequently with close ties to the labor and socialist movements.
Classical liberalism had common Enlightenment roots, overlapping considerably in its origins with the early socialist movement. A broad current of thinkers, like the British Thomas Hodgskin and the American individualist anarchists (or Boston anarchists) around Benjamin Tucker and Liberty magazine, belonged within both the free market libertarian and libertarian socialist camps. In their view capitalism was a system in which the state intervened in the market on behalf of landlords and other rentiers, enforcing the artificial property rights, monopolies and artificial scarcities from which profit, interest and rent derived. They saw the proper goal of socialism as abolition of these monopolies, allowing market competition in the supply of capital and land to drive the assorted rents derived from them down to zero, so that the natural market wage of labor would be its full product.
So perhaps it’s not so surprising after all that many of these thinkers would have close ties with, or be active participants in, the American socialist and labor movements. Benjamin Tucker himself, although a self-described socialist, was fairly lukewarm toward labor organization. He saw the chief avenues of action as organizing against absentee landlords and setting up interest-free mutual banks, and took an agnostic view of whatever particular forms of association people might choose in an economy free of such monopolies.
But several members of the Boston anarchist group and the Liberty circle were active participants in the New England Labor Reform League or William Sylvis’s National Labor Union, and later in the American Labor Reform League. There was also a significant contingent of individualists in the International Working People’s Association (formed by anarchists who withdrew from the First International as it became increasingly dominated by Marx’s followers), and in the nationwide movement and general strike for the eight-hour day. Some leading individualists involved in socialist and labor politics included Ezra Heywood, William Greene, J.K. Ingalls and Stephen Pearl Andrews.
Individualists like Dyer Lum later attempted to build bridges with the radical labor movement. Lum tried to fuse the individualist framework of economic analysis with radical labor activism. He was closely involved with the Knights of Labor and AFL. Lawrence Labadie went on to promote individualist anarchist and mutualist ideas within industrial unions — first in the Western Federation of Miners and then in the Wobblies.
The popular association of May Day with Marxist-Leninist parties and state communist regimes reflects an overwhelming ideological victory for the apologists of corporate capitalism in the 20th century. The ideological counter-offensive began with the cult of “Old Glory” and the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1890s, continued with the movement for “Americanization” within workplaces and public schools, and culminated in the War Hysteria and Red Scare of the Wilson administration and the brown-shirt terror tactics of the American Legion, Klan and local Red Squads.
This ideological victory was associated with another, largely contemporaneous victory: The association of “free markets” and “free enterprise” with corporate capitalism in the public mind, and the belief (also promoted by the authoritarian managerialists of the “progressive” movement who went on to steal the name “liberal”) that the regulatory state and big business are adversaries rather than allies.
Today is an excellent time not only to reclaim May Day as a quintessentially American holiday, entirely compatible with the love of liberty, but to reclaim free markets as the enemy of corporate power and capitalism.
Dutch, Stateless Embassies
Ik weet zeker dat je dit al eens eerder hebt gehoord.
“Als je niet stemt, dan mag je niet klagen”
“Niet stemmen is een stem voor de winnaar en wat hun beleid ook mag zijn. Als je hen niet mag en niet wilt, dan had je moeten stemmen voor de andere partij.”
Deze kleine stukjes wijsheid zijn gebaseerd op de bewering – soms expliciet gesteld, soms alleen impliciet – dat niet stemmen de toestemming geeft aan de keuzes gemaakt door degene die dit wel deden. Diezelfde conventionele wijsheid schrijft de beslissing om niet te stemmen in het algemeen toe aan onverschilligheid.
Ik ga je niet vertellen dat je niet zou moeten stemmen. Of je wel of niet gaat stemmen is een persoonlijke beslissing. Als u besluit niet te stemmen dan zou ik wel willen voorstellen dat je die beslissing meer betekenis toeschrijft door het te zien als een anti-politieke drol in het politieke buffet. Of, ter verduidelijking, je moet je best doen om je niet-stem geïnterpreteerd te krijgen zoals u dat wilt in plaats van dat de conventionele wijsheid van “stilzwijgende toestemming” er met uw niet-stem van door gaat.
De conventionele wijsheid zegt dat niet stemmen een stem voor de winnaar is.
De conventionele wijsheid zegt dat als je niet stemt, dat waarschijnlijk is omdat het je niks kan schelen.
Kom voor jezelf op!
Verklaar duidelijk en publiekelijk dat uw beslissing om niet te stemmen als het ware beschouwd dient te worden als een stem voor NIEMAND. En dring er verder op aan dat die stem voor NIEMAND mee moet worden geteld.
Je bent niet onverschillig. Je mag de partijen simpelweg niet. Je gelooft niet dat een van hen je kan vertegenwoordigen. Je geeft geen toestemming om te worden bestuurd of vertegenwoordigd, althans niet door een van de mensen die aanspraak maken op de functie van jouw bestuur of vertegenwoordiging.
In elke verkiezing zouden de stemmen voor NIEMAND – waaronder de niet uitgebrachte stemmen, en de stemmen van diegene die niet mogen stemmen – , indien geteld, een algemene meerderheid van alle stemmen vormen.
Jouw veronderstelde vertegenwoordigers zullen je uiteraard angstvallig negeren, en over gaan tot de orde van de dag en doen alsof ze je terecht vertegenwoordigen, als ze daar mee weg kunnen komen.
Als je ze er niet mee weg laat komen – als u en andere niet-stemmers een echt geluid laten horen en luidkeels roepen dat deze vertegenwoordigers geen “vertegenwoordigers” zijn – dan wordt het pas leuk. Kent u het jankende geluid dat een hond maakt als hij betrapt word terwijl het de hapjes op de salontafel aan het jatten is? Het klinkt net als het geluid dat een politicus maakt wanneer hij gedwongen wordt te kampen met de bewering dat zijn “diensten” nodig noch gewenst zijn. Persoonlijk klinkt dat geluid mij als muziek in de oren.
Als je niet gaat stemmen verklaar dan in het openbaar, voor elke belangrijke verkiezing, dat je niet gaat stemmen. Schrijf een brief aan de redacteur van de lokale krant. Bel een lokaal radio station. Laat een bericht achter op een nieuwswebsite onder een artikel over de komende verkiezingen.
Ga na de verkiezing op dezelfde manier verder:
“Van de 400.000 mensen in deze stad stemde 300.000 niet op de winnende partij. Meer dan 200.000 mensen stemde op NIEMAND. De winnende partij kreeg de steun van minder dan 25% van zijn vermeende kiezers. Als dit echt een democratie is moeten de gewonnen zetels de komende regeringsperiode dan niet leeg blijven? Dat is namelijk de uitgesproken wil van de meerderheid.”
Nee, je gaat een verkiezing op deze manier niet “winnen” – het systeem is zo opgezet om dit ten koste van alles te voorkomen – maar dat is het punt niet. Als je je onthoudt van stemmen als uiting van je afwijzing van het systeem, dan is de volgende stap om die afwijzing te gebruiken als een uitgestrekte hand naar je mede-niet-stemmers. Verhef je stem, zodat anderen net zoals jij je kunnen horen en kunnen mee doen!
Stigmergy - C4SS Blog
The first double execution in Oklahoma since 1937 was botched badly tonight when the cocktail of chemicals that was supposed to kill 38-year-old Clayton Lockett failed to actually kill him.
Various news reports and tweets from the McAlester prison where Lockett was held reported that the new cocktail included the sedative midazolam, which is normally used as a seizure medication. The drug has seen an increase of inclusion in the lethal injection process after the manufacturers of phenobarbital, the process’ previous sedative, forbade its use.
According to Bailey Elise McBride and Sean Murphy from the Associated Press:
The execution began at 6:23 p.m. when officials began administering the first drug, and a doctor declared Lockett to be unconscious at 6:33 p.m.
About three minutes later, though, Lockett began breathing heavily, writhing on the gurney, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow. After about three minutes, a doctor lifted the sheet that was covering Lockett to examine the injection site. After that, an official who was inside the death chamber lowered the blinds, preventing those in the viewing room from seeing what was happening.
Patton then made a series of phone calls before calling a halt to the execution. He also issued a 14-day postponement in the execution of inmate Charles Warner, who had been scheduled to die on Tuesday, two hours after Lockett was put to death.
Lockett allegedly died of a massive heart attack 20 minutes after the initial injection, though not much is known past that.
Oklahoma is one of 32 states that still carry the death penalty as punishment.
It should be the next state to abolish it.
Stigmergy - C4SS Blog, Wars and Rumors of War
Over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Fernando Teson is once again pounding the drums for … something. Presumably after being so hilariously, catastrophically, historically, possibly even supernaturally wrong on Iraq, Teson has decided not to overtly pound the drums of war. He’s just vaguely calling for “moral clarity” now, which is progress for Teson. After all, the last time he took a big stand on foreign affairs, it was to help urge the United States into one of its biggest strategic blunders, a blunder which became an enormous humanitarian catastrophe.
And Teson’s reaction to being so outstandingly wrong? He is simply shocked that the Iraqis are not more grateful for the privilege of enduring a decade plus of chaos, civil war, and mass death. The last time Teson urged action, the United States suffered a tremendous strategic blow and the people of Iraq suffered a tremendous catastrophe. And now Teson urges us to “side with Ukraine against Russia,” because Russia has done a bunch of bad things. Curiously this moral logic only applies to foreign countries; Teson does not urge us to stand with Iraqis against American aggression or Yemenis against American bombing. No, we are simply to stand with Ukraine.
Fernando Teson, you were wrong on Iraq. Very wrong. And a great many people without your credentials and platform were right, and said at the time that you were wrong, and predicted accurately what would follow an American invasion. No one should pay you the least mind when it comes to foreign affairs. And if you want to stand with Ukraine, by all means, book a plane ticket to Kiev and see if they’ll have you. A fight with Russia is sure to be a desperate one, and I am sure they would be grateful to have you manning a machine gun or running an artillery crew. Good luck.
And what should we do on Ukraine? If you, dear reader, feel standing up for the Ukrainian government against the Russian government is important, by all means- join future Private Teson at the front. In all sincerity, as a former soldier, I will have the highest respect for your courageous, principled stand. But if you think the American government can do anything but make things worse, you haven’t been paying attention.
Of course, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine do not have the option of staying uninvolved. The wolf is at their door, it seems. While we of course wish them well, a sober analysis of the military situation does not hold out a great deal of hope for the Ukrainian government. However, not all is lost for the Ukrainian people; indeed, as recent events in Iraq have shown (paying attention, Comrade Teson?), a popular insurgency can achieve results a traditional military cannot. A complete after-action review on the successful insurgency in Iraq would run to hundreds of pages, but the bottom line is simple, classic guerilla warfare. Ukrainians today would do better to trust their liberty to themselves, rather than to a brittle, easily destroyed institution like the government in Kiev – or the one in Washington, D.C.
Portuguese, Stateless Embassies, Stigmergy - C4SS Blog
O que os números mostram sobre a atuação do C4SS em português? Em primeiro lugar, tivemos 57 republicações em diversos veículos. Os textos mais repúblicados foram O totalitarismo da identificação, escrito por mim mesmo, que teve 25 republicações, e A quem os pobres pedem reintegração de posse?, de Valdenor Júnior, com 10 republicações.
No Facebook, nossa página em português tinha 282 curtidas e agora já temos 536, quase dobrando nosso alcance em apenas um mês. O Twitter @C4SSPT, criado este mês, saiu de zero para 48 seguidores.
Tivemos 25 traduções para o português este mês (8 a mais que em março) e a adição de Valdenor Júnior, mais um escritor brasileiro, para o nosso time, já tendo contribuído com 5 artigos (todos devidamente levados para o inglês e para outras línguas).
Com um pouco mais de agressividade na nossa comunicação, tenho poucas dúvidas de que todos esses números serão superados em maio.
Vale lembrar que minha tradução de O punho de ferro por trás da mão invisível ainda está em andamento!
Como sempre, não deixe de ajudar o C4SS. Sua doação é extremamente importante para a manutenção dos muitos projetos que temos em andamento. Dez reais mensais fazem muita diferença!
Erick Vasconcelos
Coordenador de Mídias
Centro por uma Sociedade Sem Estado
Portuguese Media Coordinator Update: April 2014
What are the cold hard numbers show about C4SS’s work in Portuguese? First of all, we had 57 pickups by several outlets. The most republished articles were my own O totalitarismo da identificação, with 25 pickups (!), and Valdenor Júnior’s A quem os pobres pedem reintegração de posse?, republished 10 times.
On Facebook, our fanpage had 282 likes and now it has 536, almost doubling our reach in only one month. Our Portuguese Twitter, started this month, went from zero to 48 followers.
We had 25 translations to Portuguese this month (8 more than in March) and the addition of another Brazilian writer, Valdenor Júnior, to our team. He should be able to help me cover Brazilian and Latin American subjects more effectively and has already contributed 5 articles (all of them translated to English and some of them to other languages).
A little more aggressiveness in our communication and I have little doubt that we will surpass all these numbers in May.
Oh, and my translation of Kevin Carson’s The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand is still underway!
As always, do not hesitate to help C4SS. Your donation is extremely important to our ongoing projects. A few dollars every month make all the difference!
Erick Vasconcelos
Media Coordinator
Center for a Stateless Society
Media Appearances
Kyle Platt speaks with Jason Lee Byas about his new publication, The New Leveller, and about the history of individualist anarchism.
Feed 44
C4SS Media presents Jonathan Carp‘s “Wars and Rumors of Wars” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
What we want is peace and freedom — no war but class war — but to get there we must understand our enemy.
Stigmergy - C4SS Blog, The Weekly Abolitionist
The following article contains graphic description of a sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
Occasionally I see a headline that makes me want to cheer. “Corporations Divest Nearly $60 Million From Private Prison Industry” was such a headline. As Katie Rose Quandt reported in Mother Jones:
Scopia Capital Management, DSM North America, and Amica Mutual Insurance pulled nearly $60 million in investments from CCA [Corrections Corporation of America] and GEO Group in the final quarter of 2013, marking full divestment for DSM and Amica and a 27 percent decrease in shares for Scopia. (Scopia has decreased its private prison stock by 59 percent since December 2012.) Their announcements mark the first round of success for civil rights nonprofit Color of Change, which has been pushing over 150 companies to divest from for-profit incarceration companies since last year. Color of Change is one of 16 organizations working towards these divestment goals as part of the National Prison Divestment Campaign.
This is a victory I’m delighted to see. Corporations like CCA and GEO Group are monstrous creatures of the state. Their profits come from taxpayer dollars, and their business is locking people in cages where they are abused and brutalized. Every dollar invested in a prison profiteering firm is a dollar invested in aggression, coercion, and destruction rather than production for individual desires and needs.
CCA and GEO Group have both been involved in many horrific instances of state criminality. CCA, for example, operates the Eloy Detention Center, an immigration detention center where migrants are held for deportation, often without charges or access to an attorney. Tanya Guzman Martinez, a transgender woman, was locked up with men in this facility. Guards and inmates alike repeatedly degraded her with misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic slurs. One guard told inmates that in exchange for “three soup packets” they could “have” Guzman-Martinez, essentially an offer of forced prostitution. And one guard and CCA employee, Justin Manford, masturbated into a cup, and forced Tanya Guzman-Martinez to drink semen from the cup.
GEO Group operated the Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, a juvenile detention center where guards have raped, beaten, and pepper sprayed children and teens. Michael McIntosh Jr., one prisoner at the facility, “was beaten so badly…he sustained brain damage from which he’ll never recover.” GEO Group also operates the Northwest Detention Center, another due process deficient immigration detention center where migrants recently staged a hunger strike.
These corporations have an incentive to lobby politicians for ever more draconian criminal laws and immigration laws. They donate money to politicians, and until recently they wrote bills with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), all to gather more lucrative government contracts and fill their cages with more non-consenting residents. They are a concentrated and wealthy interest group, while the taxpayers they profit from are dispersed and their inmates are systematically disenfranchised. These perverse incentives create a continual demand for more prisoners. I have written previously about how the interests of prison employees create similar incentive problems for public prisons.
But many for-profit prisons have a vulnerability that public prisons lack. They trade stocks. This means that, while their profits directly come from taxpayers rather than consumers, many of their investors are companies that rely on consumers in a market. These companies can be pressured through boycotts to divest from prison profiteering firms. Consumers can give companies good reasons to drop prison stock, and move their money away from this institutionalized violence back towards the productive sector. That’s why the Prison Divestment Campaign can be effective at combating prison profiteers and balancing out some of the perverse incentives they help create.
The Prison Divestment Campaign can be thought of as a way to use our decisions in the marketplace to help starve the beast of the prison state. Taxes are taken from us by force to pay for this monstrous prison system. But while we have little choice in that, we can choose to boycott companies that invest in rapacious prison profiteers.
There are other ways to starve the prison state. A big one is building alternatives to the state’s monopoly on law. I call this entrepreneurial direct action. Many people consider the state’s monopoly on law and the reliance on criminal law and imprisonment as core parts of law are inevitable and necessary to protecting people from violence and plunder. But this ignores the historical record. In his book The Enterprise of Law, economist Bruce Benson documents the history of stateless systems of customary law, such as the lex mercatoria. A recent post at The Umlaut argues that Bitcoin’s cryptographic protocols can be used to build a new form of common law, a new stateless method of protecting people from theft and fraud. This kind of innovation could allow new law to developed consensually and voluntarily without the state, in a way that concretely meets people’s needs. This is the kind of innovation that a monopoly like the state has no incentive to produce.
People acting peacefully in the market have the potential to help starve the violent and abusive prison state that has claimed so many of our fellow human beings. Whether that means boycotting and pressuring companies that invest in prison profiteers or just building alternative legal systems outside the state, we should all take steps to move our resources away from institutionalized violence and towards peaceful, consensual forms of interaction.
