C4SS Media presents Trevor Hultner‘s “Missing Comma: Concerning ‘Horizontal Loyalty’” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. I think, for a long time, we’ve been trying to look for new ways to talk about concepts like mutual aid and solidarity; horizontal loyalty, at least as Krulwich describes it (and as Friedman uses it), serves exactly this…

C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “How Not to Respond to Charges of Hypocrisy” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Idealistic” Kennedy liberalism, like the process for making sausage, doesn’t bear much looking into. In reality, behind all the talk of promoting the “ideals of the Enlightenment” and “global community” and “human rights,” the state does…

C4SS Media presents Joel Schlosberg‘s “The Forever of Anti-Capitalism” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Some radicals not usually thought of as economists foresaw the essential principle. Howard Zinn envisaged a time when “[c]ertain basic things would be abundant enough to be taken out of the money system and be available — free — to everyone.” Even…

C4SS Media presents Jason Lee Byas‘ “A Thick and Thin PSA” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. So, the right question to discuss is not “thin libertarianism vs. thick libertarianism” (especially since the two depend on each other), but 1. “is it possible to have libertarianism without thickness, and if so, does this mean thickness…

C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “Magical Thinking and Authority” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Anyone who works within a corporate or government hierarchy, and has to do their job despite constant interference and irrationality from higher-ups, will recognize the truth of this phrase from Dilbert: “Bossworld, where the laws of time, space and mathematics…

C4SS Media presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The New Economy and the Cost Principle” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “As free marketers, decentralists and individualists, we occupy a corner of the libertarian movement. At the same time, as critics of wealth inequality and champions of the poor and working classes, we find ourselves within today’s…

C4SS Media presents Jonathan Carp‘s “Eleven Years of War” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “The Iraq War was, as wars go, not an especially harsh or brutal one, and was largely conducted according to all the latest precepts of “humanitarian intervention.” The free-fire zones of Vietnam were largely absent, as were the brutalities of massed, prolonged…

C4SS Media presents Christiaan Elderhorst‘s “Bitcoin Must Self-Regulate — The State Can Only Destroy” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Currently there is no system by which Bitcoin marketplaces can be held accountable. Resorting to government legal systems might indeed be the only way by which Mt.Gox customers can receive the restitution they deserve. What…

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “Future Of Bitcoin “In Doubt?” I Doubt It.” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “The only entities and organizations with anything to fear from Bitcoin and its offspring are governments (which rely on the ability to tax) and the political class (including pseudo-”private” parasites who make their livings sucking…

The Center, C4SS, had a rather interesting 2013, that ended with us having a large sum of money to play with. But our fun will not continue without your help, your continued support and donations. In order to make the case for why you should forgo a cup of coffee every month and donate to…

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “The Problem Isn’t ‘Patent Trolls.’ The Problem Is Patents.,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Apple’s complaint, in its essentials, is that patent “trolls” just buy up patent “rights,” then search for infringement to cash in on, rather than going to the trouble of making real products. But why…

C4SS Media presents Grant Mincy‘s “Common Property, Common Power,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “What we are seeing is social power at work. The courts, legislature and special interests are powerless in the new public arena. The liberated market is not interested in the ownership of ideas, but rather progress, innovation and co-operative labor….

C4SS Media presents Grant Mincy‘s “Which Side Are You On?” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “The challenges that face Appalachia are indeed great. To solve them, one must question why our “national interest” still lies in an “above all” energy policy. One must question how so much wealth has been extracted from the…

C4SS Media presents Natasha Petrova‘s “Good Piece In The Jacobin,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “The key word here is ‘most’. A left-libertarian market anarchist transformation would involve a free market anti-capitalist or laissez faire socialist democratization of the market through freed market means. This could conceivably involve expropriation of state corporatist or…

C4SS Media presents Natasha Petrova‘s “Hayek vs Rothbard On Coercion,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “An expansive definition of coercion allows libertarians to achieve a greater depth of understanding about the various ways in which people can be coerced. If we wish to comprehensively eradicate initiatory coercion; we will have to understand the…

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “Depends On What “Corruption” Is,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “We don’t need the politicians or their cronies. We don’t have to put up with them. And we should stop doing so.”  

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “When Killer Cops Get a Pass, There are Consequences,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “The jury’s acquittal of Ramos and Cicinelli was a vote for the latter outcome. It was also a vote for continuing and escalating police lawlessness. The less the specifically guilty individuals pay for…

C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “On The Worship Of Authority,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Until most people abandon their state-inculcated respect for uniformed authority, and their willingness to treat officially defined outsiders as the “other,” the Rodney King and Kelly Thomas verdicts — and uncounted such verdicts yet unnamed — will continue.”

C4SS Media presents Natasha Petrova‘s “Walter Block’s Wrong Headed Anti-Unionism,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The final aspect to be discussed is whether unionism is compatible with the normative philosophical principles of libertarianism. An emphatic yes is the answer. Left-libertarian market anarchist unionism involves a voluntary association of free and equal workers working…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The Libertarian Road to Egalitarianism” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. But we needn’t regard inequality as a weak point in our arguments for economic freedom, or as an issue on which we simply cannot win. Existing economic relations are not the product of freedom of exchange or…