C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “Charles Koch Clutches Pearls, Dies of Moral Rectitude” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Over two hundred years ago free market economist Adam Smith pointed out that, when businesspeople get involved in government, it’s to protect themselves against competition and rob the public. That’s just as true of the Kochs…

The Bundy ranch saga has been the subject of heated good guy/bad guy framing by both mainstream liberals and mainstream conservatives, who differ only on which roles to assign to Bundy and the feds, respectively. But I can’t really see any good guys in this. The respective echo chambers for the two sides differ on…

Those in power regularly reveal themselves to be oblivious to conditions in the real world, and to material constraints on transforming their commands into reality. There’s good reason for this: Their power insulates them from direct experience of the material world, and from direct experience of the constraints offered by material reality. For example, earlier…

Ahmad Barqawi discusses why the Arab League should be dissolved. Binoy Kampmark discusses the military dictatorship in Egypt. Roberta A. Modugno discusses the Levellers. Lucy Steigerwald discusses how the War on Drugs is literal. James Bovard discusses USDA’s regulation of raisin production and distribution. Ryan McMaken discusses Ron Paul, Richard Cobden, and the risky nature…

Part 1: Kolko at Home An earlier generation of libertarians was interested in Gabriel Kolko, a historian of the Left. Who was he? Born in 1932 in Paterson, NJ, historian Gabriel Kolko studied at Kent State, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University (PhD: 1962). From 1970 until his retirement he taught history at York…

Last Friday (04/11), a piece of land property in Rio’s suburbia was reinstated to telecom giant Oi. The area was known as “favela da Telerj” and had been occupied by 5,000 people, mostly from Mandela, Manguinhos, and Jacarezinho favelas, who built improvised homes there. There were serious confrontations with the Military Police in the enforcement…

If you thought the standards of the Famous Artists’ School (“Can You Draw the Pirate?”) on old matchbook covers were lax, wait till you see Reason magazine’s criteria for recognition as a “free market think-tank.” The American Federation of Teachers blacklists asset managers who manage public sector employees’ defined benefit pension funds, but have contributed…

Ivan Eland discusses U.S. security agencies. Uri Avnery discusses changing the Israeli flag. Eric Sommer discusses why journalists have blood on their hands. Patrick Cockburn discusses Saudi Arabia’s regret over supporting terrorism. Robin Philpot discusses Rwanda. Matt Peppe discusses terrorism directed against Cuba. Jacob G. Hornberger discusses treating people like garbage. Sheldon Richman discusses the…

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 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…

Here we go again: The US Supreme Court has relaxed some political contribution limits. Cue the hype. Last year, 2013, was the first year of the 2014 campaign cycle. Question #1: How much did federal elected officials spend on their 2014 campaigns last year? Answer:  At least $3.45 trillion — a little over $6.4 billion…

Alternet just can’t stop publishing attacks on libertarianism. The article is titled “10 Reasons Americans Should be Wary of Rand Paul’s Libertarianism, Especially Young People“. It mistakenly labels Rand Paul a libertarian. He has stated he isn’t one: They thought all along that they could call me a libertarian and hang that label around my…

Justin Raimondo discusses the pattern of disaster in U.S. foreign policy. Charles R. Pierce discusses the torture scandal and the Obama admin. Brian Cloughley discusses the warmongering of NATO. Alexander Reid Ross discusses Hollande’s trip to Nigeria. Brian Doherty discusses five gun rights cases to watch. Raphael Cohen and Gabriel Scheinmann discuss the Libyan war….

Charles Koch of Koch Industries, wounded to the core of his being by allegations from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others that his championing of the “free market” conceals lobbying efforts to rig the system in his favor, sufficiently recovered his composure to respond in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (“I”m Fighting to Restore…

Più di un decennio fa, i blogger neoconservatori coniarono il termine “Fisking” per indicare uno strumento polemico (usato per la prima volta contro il giornalista di sinistra Robert Fisk) che consiste nel fare a pezzi un commento, frase per frase, tagliuzzandone analiticamente ogni parte fino a ridurla a coriandoli. Anche se la posizione dei neoconservatori…

More than a decade ago, neoconservative bloggers coined the term “Fisking” for the polemical device (originally demonstrated against left-leaning journalist Robert Fisk) of taking apart a commentary, sentence by sentence,  analytically ripping each part to shreds. Although the neocon positions in this debate range from misguided to repugnant, the technique itself is a good one….

Nell’ambiente dei movimenti libertari dominanti l’accusa di “statalismo” è solitamente rivolta contro una serie di obiettivi facilmente immaginabili. Chiunque lamenti il razzismo, il sessismo o altri argomenti di giustizia sociale, lo sfruttamento economico dei lavoratori o il degrado ambientale è automaticamente accusato di statalismo sulla base del ragionamento secondo cui lo sfruttamento, l’ingiustizia e l’inquinamento…

A recent article by Deborah Small at Salon raises some genuinely valuable points about the likely pitfalls of prison reform and the broad scope of the problem of criminalization. Yet the headline, and the later paragraphs, package these important and interesting points into yet another one of the “progressives should fear and despise libertarians” pieces…

In the mainstream libertarian movement, accusations of “statism” typically focus on a fairly predictable set of targets. Anyone who complains of racism, sexism or other social justice issues, the economic exploitation of workers or degradation of the environment is reflexively accused of statism on the assumption that exploitation, injustice and pollution could only be problems…

La maggiore organizzazione del Tea Party in America, Tea Party Patriots, ha recentemente celebrato il suo quinto anno di attività promettendo di raddoppiare gli sforzi per ottenere il pareggio del bilancio federale e il ripagamento del debito pubblico. L’effetto, immagino non intenzionale, sarebbe la distruzione del capitalismo come lo conosciamo oggi. Il capitalismo corporativo, fin…