Government is more than a territorial monopoly on aggressive force. It’s also the heir to a centuries-old manufactured mystique, reinforced through its schools and other institutions, regarding its sanctity and sacrosanctity. The mystique is generated by and tends to manifest itself in the dogma that one’s State is uniquely virtuous and deserves to be judged…

Introduction by Nick Ford Voltairine de Cleyre remains a timeless inspiration to me. There have been days where I’ve felt lost, confused, or even depressed and reading her has brought me peace. There have been countless debates where her words proved useful if not downright perceptive, even if she could never have anticipated today’s events. There…

Paul Mason. Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future (Allen Lane, 2015). Based on Mason’s preview of Postcapitalism in his article at The Guardian, I was predisposed to like it. And having read the book itself, I can’t say I’ve changed my mind much. Mason occupies a niche where there is plenty of room for more…

As if Thomas Sowell weren’t sufficient to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy of pro-capitalist apologetics, we now have corporate apologists trolling the #ResistCapitalism hashtag on Twitter. Although most of the people using it today seem to think it’s an original piece of wit they just came up with on their own, the “Lookit them tweeting #ResistCapitalism…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Voltairine de Cleyre‘s  “Our Present Attitude,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. I wish a sharp distinction made between the legal institution of property, and property in the sense that what a man definitely produces by his own labor is his own. It is the legal institution of…

C4SS presents Kevin Carson‘s “Anarchism Without Adjectives” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. The “anarchism without adjectives” position was a reaction to this kind of doctrinaire model-building, and the resulting conflicts between the proponents of various totalizing blueprints for society — most notably the late-19th century conflict between individualists, represented by Benjamin…

C4SS Feed 44 presents William Gillis‘s “Anarchy is a Scale-Independent Proposition” read by Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. Thinking or acting from a big-picture perspective is–if not The Problem–then at least a major root cause of everything miserable about our world. Any claims, theories, ideals, or motivations that extend our frame of reference…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Will Free Markets Recreate Corporate Capitalism?” read and edited by Tony Dreher. And when I say “free markets,” I am not referring to a society in which the majority of economic functions are organized through money exchange (the “cash nexus”) or business firms. By “free market” I mean only…

Recensione di: David Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Per gran parte del diciannovesimo e ventesimo secolo milioni di americani furono membri di organizzazioni di mutuo soccorso note come società benefiche, o di solidarietà. Queste società, organizzate democraticamente, fornivano ai loro…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Sheldon Richman‘s “The Campaign Needs a Radical, But Sanders Isn’t It” read and edited by Tony Dreher. Sanders cannot and will not see that expanding the welfare/regulatory bureaucracy would not help those outside the ruling elite. Beefing up the state won’t liberate us. Despite his intentions, Sanders is an unwitting defender…

Imagine it’s the week of Christmas and you’re far away from home. There is no chance that you will see your family or your once familiar friends in time. You miss the taste of pizza and there’s likely no gifts waiting for you around the corner. You’ve been far away from home for a while….

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Black Jurors Need Not Apply” read by Moses Sayre Sukin and edited by Tony Dreher. The way in which jurors are chosen in the United States is intended to ensure an unbiased jury; and part of that process is the right of “peremptory challenge,” by which the prosecution and…

In a preview article at The Guardian last July for his new book Post-Capitalism (“The end of capitalism has begun,” July 17), Paul Mason — following a path previously trodden by John Holloway and by Toni Negri and Michael Hardt — argued that the emergence of a successor system to capitalism would resemble not so…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Gary Chartier’s “The State, Big Business and Economic Privilege” (Part 3 of 7), read by Christopher B. King and edited by Nick Ford. …excerpted from Gary Chartier’s The Conscience of an Anarchist, available for purchase here. Feed 44: http://www.c4ss.org/ http://www.youtube.com/user/c4ssvideos https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c4ss-media/id872405202?mt=2 http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/smash-walls-radio/c4ss-media?refid=stpr https://twitter.com/C4SSmedia Bitcoin tips welcome: 1N1pF6fLKAGg4nH7XuqYQbKYXNxCnHBWLB

Proudhon on Land Value Taxation Those who have read all the contributions to this conversation so far might well marvel at how many different Proudhons had been invoked in its course. I think all of us are still in the blind man and the elephant stage with Proudhon, to some extent at least. His writings…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Gary Chartier‘s “The State, Big Business and Economic Privilege” (Part 2 of 7), read by Christopher B. King and edited by Nick Ford. …excerpted from Gary Chartier’s The Conscience of an Anarchist, available for purchase here. Feed 44: http://www.c4ss.org/ http://www.youtube.com/user/c4ssvideos https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c4ss-media/id872405202?mt=2 http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/smash-walls-radio/c4ss-media?refid=stpr https://twitter.com/C4SSmedia Bitcoin tips welcome: 1N1pF6fLKAGg4nH7XuqYQbKYXNxCnHBWLB

The Semantics of “Good” and “Evil” by Robert Anton Wilson The late Laurance Labadie once told me a parable about a king who decided that every time he met somebody he would kick them in the butt, just to emphasize his power. My memory may have elaborated this yarn a bit over the years, but…

A Review of David Beito’s From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, (University of North Carolina Press-2000) Through much of the 19th and 20th centuries millions of Americans were members of mutual aid organizations known as fraternal societies. These democratically organized groups provided their members with an assortment of…

I usually don’t dip my feet into the perilous waters of the gun-control debate for several reasons: I’m not a gun-owner, guns have never interested me as either a pastime or culturally, and having the capacity to end people’s lives easily unnerves me. Be this as it may, I still strongly oppose gun control and Obama’s…

Secondo la Reuters, domenica scorsa la Nsa ha chiuso il suo programma invasivo di sorveglianza telefonica. Il programma permetteva alla Nsa di raccogliere i cosiddetti metadati dei chiamanti. Informazioni come chi e quando veniva chiamato venivano immagazzinate in un database governativo. La chiusura del programma è un passo positivo verso il recupero della privacy perduta…