I’m pleased to announce that the 2008 anthology Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?, edited by the late Tibor Machan and myself, is about to be released in paperback from Routledge (formerly Ashgate). It’s scheduled for the end of November, but can be pre-ordered now at Amazon (US here, Canada here, UK…

[Di Sheldon Richman. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 25 settembre 2016 con il titolo Neither Democracy nor Elitism. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] Quando noi libertari facciamo notare gli incentivi perversi della democrazia (come faccio qui), rischiamo l’accusa di elitarismo. Ma chi dà per scontato che l’unica alternativa al governo del popolo…

Abolish Work: A Lazy Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia (LBC Books 2016), by Nick Ford It’s “no class but the leisure class” in Nick Ford’s new book: Abolish Work: A Lazy Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia. Before continuing, I must acknowledge that this book includes two essays written by yours truly, which are credited to “Mr. Wilson”. Both…

Listen. I’m genuinely afraid of a Trump presidency, and I’m really not looking forward to a Clinton presidency either. Do I think one is more-or-less “preferable” to the other? Yeah I do. Ultimately, though: the next president will have just as much blood on their hands as, if not more than, the last 44 have….

[Trascrizione di Chad Nelson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 12 ottobre 2016 con il titolo Long Live Anarchy: An Interview with Robert Anton Wilson (PartII). Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] Questa è la seconda parte di “Long Live Anarchy!”, intervista con Robert Anton Wilson trasmessa da Pacifica Radio. La trascrizione della prima…

[Trascrizione di Chad Nelson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society l’otto ottobre 2016 con il titolo Long Live Anarchy: An Interview with Robert Anton Wilson (PartI). Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] Ad un certo punto tra la fine degli anni cinquanta e i primi sessanta, Charlie Hayden di Pacifica Radio intervistò l’inimitabile Robert Anton…

The following is Part 2 of Pacifica Radio’s “Long Live Anarchy!” interview with Robert Anton Wilson. Part 1’s transcript can be read here. The interview ends abruptly, and unfortunately Pacifica was unable to find additional reels in their archives. –cn Hayden: How do you answer the charge that anarchism’s an outmoded political belief? That it…

Ever since the famous communist Joseph Déjacque coined the political use of the term libertarian in a letter to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon back in 1857 as a way to differentiate his views from those of the authoritarian communists within the anti-capitalist movement, the philosophy of libertarianism has always implied working class rebellion. At least until a…

Whenever we libertarians point out democracy’s perverse incentives (as I do here) we risk being accused of elitism. However, those who assume that the only alternative to rule by the people is rule by an aristocracy reveal a tragically incomplete awareness of the choices before us. Rather than choose among rulers, we should ask why anyone…

Formed from an ideological split between members of the First International, the Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (AIT), more commonly known to the English speaking world as the International Workers’ Association (IWA) was founded in December of 1922. The First International was an organization aimed at uniting left-wing socialist, communist, and anarchist labor unions and…

(TW: Brief discussion of suicide) The Washington Post reports that the state of Texas has begun its court case against the federal government for setting guidelines about treatment of transgender students. The Department of Education has stated that because Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex for institutions that receive federal funding, that…

(Content Warning: Discussion of suicide and suicide attempt) The ACLU reports that due to Chelsea Manning’s attempted suicide on July 5th in the Fort Leavenworth military prison she could face additional charges including “resisting the force cell move team;” “prohibited property;” and “conduct which threatens.” The punishment could include, “indefinite solitary confinement, reclassification into maximum…

In “An Anarchist FAQ after 20 years” (Anarchist Writers, July 18), the FAQ’s principal author Iain McKay — writing as Anarcho — provides an engaging retrospective on that document. It’s an anniversary worth celebrating for me because An Anarchist FAQ played a major formative role in my development as an anarchist. I began thinking of…

There’s an old saying that someone who kills a man is a murderer but one who kills a million is a conqueror and killing them all makes you god. If you add the words “unintentionally” and add loaded terminology that is supposed to passively excuse murder, then you get the current US foreign policy. In…

If anarchism is to get anywhere as a movement, it requires us to build the world we wish to see. To paraphrase the classic wobbly mantra, our goal is and should be to “build a new world within the shell of the old.” In order to do this we must actually create the structures which…

“By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.” – Attributed to Mikhail Bakunin in Paolo Novaresio’s The Explorers ŸŸŸA revolutionary is someone who knows the political world in which they want to…

“America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited” by Sheldon Richman. 2016.   The American abolitionist, and pioneering individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner once wrote of the US Constitution “…this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit…

On June 28th 2016 history was made when not only one but two openly transgender candidates won their respective congressional primaries. The victories were even more momentous given the current climate and opinions about the way that trans folks should live their lives. Whether it is about which restrooms they use, the protections they do…

I see there’s another upcoming installment in The Purge series of films — a franchise whose basic premise is that there’s one night each year in which all crime is legal and police and rescue services are unavailable, setting the scene for lots of dramatic action footage of terrified people barricading themselves in their houses…

If you ask an economist to suggest areas where the state should be involved, one answer you’re likely to hear is that states should provide “public goods.” A public good is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rival. By non-excludable, economists mean that once the good is produced individuals cannot be excluded from consuming…