Quella fazione del centrosinistra che va in estasi davanti a Elizabeth Warren ama citare la frase di Barney Frank, “stato è il nome che diamo a ciò che decidiamo di fare assieme”. Ora, l’idea secondo cui il governo è la personificazione di ciò che “noi” decidiamo di fare presuppone qualche correlazione significativa tra ciò che…

As far as it went, the Supreme Court generally got it right in the Hobby Lobby-Obamacare-contraception case. Unfortunately it didn’t go nearly far enough. The court ruled that “closely held corporations” whose owners have religious convictions against contraceptives cannot be forced to pay for employee coverage for those products. I wish the court could have…

When the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision came out Monday, I had a lot of negative feelings about it, and I’ve been mulling column ideas in my head ever since. But all my attempts to organize my thoughts into a coherent statement and put them in writing — including this one — have been less…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford’s “The Individualist Anarchist and Work” from the Students for a Stateless Society‘s Volume 1, Issue 2 of THE NEW LEVELLER read and edited by Nick Ford. The individualist anarchist may first notice in this situation that the individual is crushed not only by the political arrangements but the systematic and institutional arrangements of work….

In this talk, Karl Hess discusses his break with the Right of America. The ethic of the Old Right as isolationist, anti-federal and anti-state was destroyed by the alignment against international communism. He surveys the struggles of the radical figures of the anticommunist right to connect their historical opposition to centralized power with a new…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. Competition, next to the division of labor, is one of the most powerful factors of industry; and at the same time one of the most valuable…

The earth’s surface, the natural environment, human, animal and plant life, but also the culture, have all been mapped out for centuries. Old cartography and engravings often show this with striking images. How one understands and interprets this mapping and imaging will depend largely upon the state of scientific development at the time. The reasons why people begin this…

If you want a glimpse into the US bipartisan foreign policy establishment’s Heart of Darkness, you need look no further than Robert Kagan. He, along with his father and brother, was a signatory of the Project for a New American Century’s manifesto “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” — something normally associated with the neoconservative circles around George…

The segment of the center-left who swoon over Elizabeth Warren are fond of quoting Barney Frank’s statement that “government is the name for the things we decide to do together.” Now, the idea that government is the embodiment of things “we” decide to do presupposes some non-trivial correlation between public desires and what government actually…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jason Lee Byas‘s “Toward an Anarchy of Production, Pt. II” from the Students for a Stateless Society‘s Volume 1, Issue 2 of THE NEW LEVELLER read by Stephen Ledger and edited by Nick Ford. A new worry, then, might be that we’re just stuck between two equally unappealing alternatives: either rigidly conservative communism, or an alienating world…

Recent studies estimate that the federal regulatory burden has impaired the United States economy to the tune of almost $40 trillion, “act[ing] as a hidden tax on individuals.” Precluding new competitors and entrepreneurship, new regulations often favor established firms at the expense of both consumers and economic growth generally. What’s more, left-wing revisionists such as Gabriel…

Having netted a half-billion dollars and counting for Disney, Maleficent is the latest proof of just how lucrative successively building upon established properties can be in today’s economy. The film benefited from being uniquely able to draw on all the elements of Disney’s perennially popular animated feature version of Sleeping Beauty, which in turn overtly incorporated both the melodies…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Gabriel Amadej’s “A General Idea of Revolution” read by Stephen Ledger and edited by Nick Ford. This means we can short-circuit the political programs dreamed up by progressive-minded bureaucrats. Cody Wilson, famous for his involvement in constructing the first 3D printed gun, effectively killed “the gun-control debate” by publishing a tool of symbolic…

Se seguite le notizie, sentite parlare solitamente di trattati – Uruguay Round del Gatt, Nafta, Cafta, Tpp – descritti come “Accordi di Libero Scambio” che hanno l’obiettivo di “ridurre le barriere commerciali”. È una bugia. Senza alcuna eccezione, questi accordi in realtà rafforzano quella forma di protezionismo che più di ogni altra è vitale per…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Zoë Little’s “The Planet vs The State” read by Stephen Ledger and edited by Nick Ford. As a self-proclaimed environmentalist, I sincerely wish that it were somehow possible to entrust the protection of the environment to some perfect and benevolent central power that could magically fix all our problems by passing a bunch…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Andy Bratton’s “Liberty by Design” read by Stephen Ledger and edited by Nick Ford. I sometimes feel the need to justify my presence at these events and draw a specific connection between the work I do and the libertarian and anarchist philosophies I hold so dear. That’s what I will attempt to do…

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…

I leader cattolici, dal Cardinale Maradiaga allo stesso Papa Francesco, quest’anno hanno fatto notizia con le loro critiche alle presunte economie di libero mercato, paragonandole ad una forma di idolatria che sfrutta i poveri e nega loro l’accesso alle ricchezze. Partendo dal fatto che la dottrina sociale cattolica enfatizza l’assistenza e l’aiuto ai meno fortunati,…

If you follow the news, you regularly hear of various treaties — GATT’s Uruguay Round, NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP — described as “Free Trade Agreements” whose purposes are to “reduce trade barriers.” This is a lie. Without exception, such agreements actually strengthen the one form of protectionism most vital to safeguarding corporate interests against competition in…