Barney Frank’s statement, “Government is simply a word for the things we decide to do together,” is getting a lot of recirculation lately in goo-goo circles desperate for a glib answer to those who view government as a threat. Anyone who says a damfool thing like this and seriously means it is a gullible idiot…

A call to raise the minimum wage is happening all over the United States, a call Michigan just answered. The way Michigan went about implementing the raise is a different story, which may also shine light on how other states may implement their changes. Michigan’s Public Act 138 of 2014 to raise the minimum wage is…

“Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” This blithe, sunny-sounding phrase, attributed to former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, is frequently called up in the service of the advancing march of the American state. It sounds very nice. Certainly government is one of the things people do together….

A couple of recent news items demonstrate once again — if such a demonstration is necessary — that “consent of the governed” as a source of legitimacy for representative democracy is absurd and impossible. In North Carolina, governor Pat McRory signed the Energy Modernization Act, which includes a provision criminalizing (reduced in the final version,…

King Juan Carlos I of Spain’s announced abdication has instigated a flurry of commentary contrasting dictatorship and democracy. The consensus views the remaining non-honorary power of the dozen remaining monarchies in Europe, particularly in diminutive monarchies like Liechtenstein and the Vatican, as vestigial holdouts from the relentless trend towards the representative-democratic nation-state as “the end of history.” A beloved monarch’s…

Center for a Stateless Society No. 17 (Winter-Spring 2014), download this study PDF Introduction: The Primacy of Everyday Life David Graeber chose, as the epigraph to his book Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, a quote from Pyotr Kropotkin’s article on Anarchism for the Encyclopedia Britannica. In it Kropotkin stated that, in an anarchist society, harmony…

Al Carroll recently penned a piece titled The Moral and Practical Failures of Libertarianism and Small Government Conservatism. This will be a point by point refutation. Let’s begin. Al writes: In economics, both orthodox Communism and Libertarianism are equally wrong, callous, and dangerous examples of ideological blindness, a set of principles taken to an extreme…

Gli Stati Uniti hanno una storia variegata con l’ambientalismo. Gli americani sono sempre stati orgogliosi del loro retaggio ambientale. Il conservazionismo di fine ottocento, promosso da persone come John Muir, diede origine ad istituzioni civiche, pubbliche e private dedicate alla conservazione dell’ambiente. La rivoluzione industriale, però, accoppiata all’ascesa del capitalismo moderno, il New Deal e…

The second part of Richard Ebeling’s discussion of individual self-determination vs Russian or Ukrainian or Russian nationalism. Andrew J. Bacevich reviews The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansionism. Justin Raimondo compares the American invasion of Afghanistan with the Russian invasion of Crimea. Philip Giraldi discusses Gareth Porter’s new book titled Manufactured…

The innovative initiatives of occupation of (nominally) public spaces, which have arisen here and elsewhere at the start of the 21st century, are still quite biased against trade and commerce. They imagine that an event (or program) that intends on promoting togetherness in public squares and city streets is not supposed to be profit motivated;…

Os Estados Unidos têm uma história inconsistente com o ambientalismo. Os americanos sempre tiveram orgulho de sua herança natural. O movimento de conservação dos anos 1890, liderado por John Muir e outros, deu origem a instituições cívicas, públicas e privadas dedicadas à proteção da natureza. A revolução industrial, porém, em conjunto com o advento do…

The United States has a varied history with environmentalism. Americans have always taken pride in their natural heritage. The conservation movement of the 1890s, championed by the likes of John Muir, gave rise to civic, public and private sector institutions dedicated to conservation. The industrial revolution, however, coupled with the rise of modern capitalism, the…

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…

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…

Last week, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers announced an astonishing breakthrough in an ongoing campaign to win wage increases for 80,000 -100,000 seasonal laborers picking tomatoes for Florida farms. Even more surprising, C.I.W. announced that the concessions came from Walmart, in a negotiated, government-free agreement with one of the more die-hard enemies of union contracts in corporate America. Reported…

Nel 2010 Newt Gingrich spiegò che il presidente americano Barack Obama “non si capisce” se non si tiene conto del suo orientamento “anticoloniale keniano” come punto di riferimento interpretativo del suo comportamento bizzarro. Certo che Obama è riuscito a nascondere benissimo il suo odio profondo verso il colonialismo; tanto che ha elogiato l’Europa, in un…

Back in 2010 Newt Gingrich explained that US president Barack Obama lies “outside our comprehension” unless we use his “Kenyan, anti-colonial” ideological orientation as a reference point for understanding his bizarre actions. Obama has been amazingly successful at concealing his deep-seated hatred of colonialism — to the point of praising Europe, in a speech last…

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…

Liberals are prone to conflate all forms of decentralism and self-organization with the right wing, framing the range of possibilities as a stark contrast between their own managerial-centrist approach on the one hand and Paul Ryan, Marvin Olasky and Newt “Culture of Dependency” Gingrich on the other. A good example is Mike Konczal’s recent column…

California is in its third year of a severe drought. Some scientists believe this will be the driest year in the last five hundred. Among other measures for dealing with the water shortage, the state has announced it will not provide subsidized irrigation water from dams this year. The large-scale capitalist agriculture model touted by…