This November, don’t vote. As difficult as it may be to accept, you don’t have to, and it isn’t somehow morally wrong not to. Sometimes the single most powerful political statement you can make, your best option for expressing your preferences for the future of our country, is simply to lodge a conscientious objection by…

I’ve been writing at my site Abolish Work for a few years now and I’m really encouraged by all of the support that’s come in so many different shapes in sizes. That support has given me the confidence to reach out to Little Black Cart, an anarchist publisher whose books C4SS has reviewed many times,…

In a Feb. 1 article at Reason, Adrian Moore outlines his solution for the poison water crisis in Flint. He states his proposal straightforwardly enough in the title: “Here’s How to Fix Flint’s Water System: Privatize It.” This strikes me as curing the disease with more of the same disease. Some right-libertarians are sure to…

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…

Introduction The capitalist economy has gone through another shock, and the potential for another, larger one is on the horizon. While it’s seemingly in its death throes, capitalism continues to fuel growth. Under such a system we have seen a vast improvement in general living standards across the globe, despite rigged markets and the omnipresent…

The Attractions of Geo-Mutualism Appraisers Begone! I am neither a philosopher, nor an economist, nor a political scientist, and so I’ve found myself a bit out of my scholarly depth in this symposium. Prior to these exchanges, I had only slight understanding of Georgist land use proposals, and it had not occurred to me that…

The Moral Irrelevance of Rent Jason Byas’s Response to Folvardy, Schnack and Kirchner In my initial response to Kevin Carson, I briefly asserted that rent from land is morally irrelevant in determining property norms. Three of the respondents in particular — Fred Foldvary, Robert Kirchner, and Will Schnack — clearly think differently. Thanks to their…

The following interview with Robert Anton Wilson was conducted in 2002. It’s Part 3 of a 4-Part series. It took place after the publication of Wilson’s most overtly political tract, TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constiution. (TSOG stands for Tsarist Occupation Government.) Among the topics discussed in this segment: 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as…

Occupancy-and-Use Reflects Moral Imperatives …Implied by Land’s Unique Scarcity, Kevin Carson responds to Jason Byas Jason starts out by accepting my blurred lines between Lockeanism and occupancy-and-use, and agreeing that the difference between them is largely a matter of degree: Non-Proviso Lockeanism is just occupancy-and-use with a higher threshold for constructive abandonment. And the proper…

In the contemporary parlance, it is largely supposed that a capitalist is one who favors a free market economic system, yet this wasn’t always the case. In the nineteenth century, as the descriptor capitalist came into more frequent use, it was virtually always deployed as a term of abuse, in identification of exploiters; it was…

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…

Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist. But is he an individualist and a…

Illuminating Discord: An interview with Robert Anton Wilson By Jane Talisman and Eric Geislinger (Columbia Region New Libertarian Alliance) (Originally published in New Libertarian Notes/Weekly 39, September 5, 1976; reprinted at RAWillumination.net) CRNLA: Tell us a little about your background. RAW: I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family in Brooklyn 44 years…

On August 26th, C4SS’s Sheldon Richman appeared on The Scott Horton Show to discuss libertarian class analysis, its roots, and the contemporary class divide. The interview is about 28 minutes.  

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…

O movimento libertário americano não se recuperaria por décadas da cisão causada pela Guerra Civil dos Estados Unidos. Conflitos internos entre abolicionistas que eram favoráveis à guerra e à invasão do Sul, que enxergavam a guerra como inevitável e necessária para pôr um fim à escravidão, e aqueles que pensavam que a guerra era moralmente…

Uber: To Socialize or Not to Socialize? I’d describe myself, at best, as an occasional reader of the quarterly leftist publication, Jacobin. I’m by no means a long-time, consistent or even an enthusiastic reader. Sometimes I find things on their site that I think are interesting, such as their recent take on Thomas Paine from…

David S. D’ Amato discusses the political economy of Benjamin Tucker. Tom Engelhardt discusses how America made ISIS. Peter Harling discusses how ISIS is back in business. Jacob Sullum discusses pot related prisoners of the War on Drugs. Ronald Bailey discusses whether immigrants are more likely to commit crime or not. Kevin Carson discusses Reason…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Egoism And Anarchy” read and edited by Nick Ford. I’ve long held that Greek philosophy and modern libertarianism are natural allies, tailor-made for each other ‘ not because they are similar but because through their very differences each can supply the deficiencies of the other. This debate in Liberty is…

Perhaps because I live in Chicago, perhaps because I work with other attorneys, in my day-to-day life I’m surrounded almost exclusively by people who identify with the mainstream, American left, centrist Democrats for whom mere mention of the word “libertarian” calls forth nightmarish imaginings of the Tea Party right. Regrettably, identifying myself as a libertarian…