C4SS Feed 44 presents Dawie Coetzee‘s “Dieselgate: Why VW Will Come Out Smelling Like Roses” read and edited by Tony Dreher. The last thing VW wants is their customers getting their hands dirty. A clue into VW’s real aspirations is given by the 1999 Audi A2 with its “service panel” in lieu of a conventional…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Dylan Delikta‘s “Assist the Refugees, Abolish the Borders” read by Katrina Haffner and edited by Nick Ford. We cannot let the tyranny of borders continue. It is apparent, especially with the current mass migration of Syrian refugees without shelter or safety in Europe or elsewhere, that borders are inhumane and need…

Some anarchists and socialists argue that, even if markets can theoretically be non-capitalist, and non-capitalist market economies can exist, the dynamics of the market will eventually lead to the restoration of capitalism. The argument used by non-market anarchists and socialists is that, in a competitive market — even a competitive market of widespread distribution of…

Introducing Mutual Exchange: Do Free Markets Always Produce a Corporate Economy? What would a free market look like? Most people agree that totally freed markets are nowhere to be seen in today’s world. States intruding on voluntary exchange and standing in the way of free association is commonplace across the globe. There are some markets, yes. But…

Introduction by Chad Nelson Involvement in the anarchist movement sometimes feels like a futile enterprise. How to get from here to there in a “real” world dominated by statists and authoritarians is a dilemma that confounds even the most sure-footed of anarchists. And when attaching oneself to an anarchist organization, it’s easy to be pessimistic…

Introduction by Gary Chartier Americans are likely to be thinking more about Dorothy Day than usual just now, in the wake of Pope Francis’s affirming reference to her in his address to the US Congress. But people unfamiliar with Day’s life and work will find it easy to imagine that ​she was, in the unfortunately…

C4SS Feed 44 presents James C. Wilson‘s “Australian Government Should Get Out of the Marriage Business” read by Katrina Haffner and edited by Nick Ford. If heterosexual marriage is such a strong, time-tested institution, subject it to a competitive marketplace and let it continue to thrive. If you’re among the dying breed who seeks to…

I hope to review Gary Francione‘s Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog? here next month. I’ve found much of what I’ve watched and read thus far from Francione compelling. In the meantime, here is a good snippet on the topic of animal rights from Corin Bruce’s essay, Green Anarchism: Towards the Abolition of Heirarchy,…

Details have been emerging this week of a clever trick pulled by Volkswagen in North America. The German-based automaker is alleged to have been using software to cheat EPA emissions tests for millions of its turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine Volkswagen and Audi cars dating back to 2009. New vehicles pretty much the world over are…

While the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party has injected some novelty into the utterly stale state of affairs that is British party-politics, he leaves much to be desired for those seeking radical change. My fellow traveller, Pete James put it rather well: It took me most of the week…

The Middle East is in great turmoil. It is plagued with war fought by factions of varied political, ethnic and religious tendencies. Some are fighting for liberation, some for nationalism, and others for religious fundamentalism. Whilst the carnage continues, two things have become certain: First, these wars are the result of decades (arguably centuries) of…

Over at Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux remarks on the arrogance of Pope Francis. Boudreaux is troubled by the Pope’s “jetting ostentatiously around the globe” telling other people how to arrange their economic affairs. Amen. Unfortunately, Boudreaux’s criticism is limited solely to the Pope’s economic pronouncements. More troubling is the monopoly all Popes, the Catholic Church,…

A little ways into The Utopia of Rules, an anarchist critique of state and corporate bureaucracy, author David Graeber asks, “Why are we so confused about what police really do?” It’s an important question, as the problem of police violence and impunity in America can no longer be ignored. For far too long, argues Graeber,…

Cass Sunstein is such an excellent, if unintentional, parody of liberal goo-gooism that it’s hard to tell him from a creation of The Onion. As proof that “our democratic system structures” are not rigged — whatever Gloomy Guses like Elizabeth Warren and Lawrence Lessig may think — Sunstein (“The American System Isn’t Rigged,” BloombergView, August…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford‘s “The Police Don’t Deserve Peace” read by Thomas J. Webb and edited by Nick Ford. It’s been three years and neither of the officers who shot Diaz have been brought to court, nor has anyone else in law enforcement been prosecuted for the crimes during the peaceful protesting or through the…

Karl Hess: Presidential Speechwriter Turned Homesteader Interview by Anson Mount (Mother Earth News) (Originally published in Mother Earth News, January/February, 1976 issue) Introduction It was so easy back then — during the 1950’s and early 60’s — to be a Right Thinking Citizen of the United States. Easy because we all knew who wore the…

Smashing the State for Fun and Profit Since 1969 An Interview With the Libertarian Icon Samuel Edward Konkin III (a.k.a. SEK3) (originally published at spaz.org) Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3), author of the “New Libertarian Manifesto” coined the term “agorism” to describe his ideology.  Although very similar to anarcho-capitalism, unlike anarcho-capitalism it opposes intellectual property. …

Oath Keeper presence in Ferguson has been an issue boiling beneath the surface since the 2014 riots. Members began showing up when community hostility spilled over into the streets; Oath Keepers appointed themselves protectors of Ferguson property from looters. Reception was mixed, but some members of the community welcomed them and allowed them to patrol their storefronts.

Well, kind of. Obviously Benjamin Tucker had no direct opinions about “anarcho-capitalism,” because the term was not even coined until many years after his death, and several decades after his retirement from radical politics. But Tucker did have quite a bit to say about the relationships among anarchism, socialism, and capitalism, and it may be…

In a recent email, a professor of sociology expressed some skepticism about what she regarded as over-enthusiastic treatment of the possibilities for new education models in a stateless society. Among other things, she questioned the apparent claim that new media, online courses and free lectures would “save the education system” or provide access to education….