Many of the nineteenth-century individualist anarchists, and in particular those thinkers associated with Benjamin Tucker’s journal Liberty, sought to combine a political theory based on individual sovereignty and self-ownership with an economic theory based on the labor theory of value. Like Marxists, they tended to condemn the wage system as oppressive, and interpreted profit, rent,…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “It Doesn’t Even Matter What the Law Is” read by Dylan Delikta and edited by Nick Ford. States exist to serve economic ruling classes. Trying to capture the apparatus of the capitalists’ state and reform the system is a losing game. In any case, with liberatory technologies like cheap,…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “‘Redistribute Wealth By Heavy Taxes’? It’s Already Been Done” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. The main thing governments have existed for, since the beginning of history, is to levy taxes on workers and producers in order to provide rents for the economic ruling classes that…

Steven Fake discusses what Israel could have taught Dixie. Lucy Steigerwald discusses U.S. sensitivity to civilian deaths. David S. D’Amato discusses anarchism and minarchism in American history. Sheldon Richman discusses Clarence Thomas. John Feffer discusses ISIS and the terrible twos. Franklin Lamb discusses Palestine and ISIS. Robert Parry discusses Libya and Hilary Clinton. Chris Toensing…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Debt: Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. The problem is that the tendency of state capitalism is to increasing levels of stagnation, with larger and larger deficits required to prevent depression. Even in the upswing phase of the business cycle,…

Un sondaggio recente della Gallup ha scoperto che gli americani, con un margine di 52 contro 45, pensano che lo stato “debba… ridistribuire la ricchezza aumentando le tasse sui ricchi” (Matt Yglesias, “Americans want the government to ‘redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich,’” Vox, 5 maggio). Tra il 1940, quando la domanda fu…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The Free Market as Class Warfare” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. That is, if a “free market” just means a system in which free individuals are able to associate and contract with one another without outside interference, protected in their legitimate private property rights, then the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Jerry Brown’s Phony Conservation Plan is Real Corporate Welfare” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. Notably missing from the order is any measure, whether usage caps or rate increases, materially affecting heavily subsidized irrigation water for California’s giant agribusiness operations. When you consider that agribusiness accounts for about…

Images circulated, in the aftermath of Dylann Roof’s racially motivated mass shooting at the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, included not only numerous pictures of Roof brandishing the Confederate battle flag but one of him squatting over a rumpled U.S. flag and trampling it underfoot. His disrespect to Old Glory suggests that he…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “We Are Market Forces” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Charles Johnson, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. It’s convenient to talk about “market forces,” but you need to remember that remember that those “market forces” are not supernatural entities that act on people from the outside. “Market forces” are…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Chomsky’s Augustinian Anarchism” read by Jeff Riggenbach and edited by Nick Ford. “Chomsky might object that my defense of market accountability ignores the fact that such ‘accountability’ involves voting with dollars, so that the wealthy have more votes than the poor – whereas in a democratic state everyone has an equal…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “I Don’t See Class” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. “See, welfare — like racism and sexism — is welfare, regardless of who receives it. Welfare for giant corporations is morally equivalent to welfare for poor people. Structural issues of class and economic privilege have absolutely nothing to…

Una caratteristica ricorrente del ciclo economico è il fatto che durante una dura recessione lo stato accumula grossi deficit annuali come conseguenza del calo dei proventi dalle tasse, dell’aumento della spesa per sussidi di disoccupazione e aiuti ai poveri, e degli stimoli vari. Questo manda il debito pubblico alle stelle. Nel caso della “Grande Recessione”…

There is no doubt that the last twelve months have been a watershed period concerning the greater visibility of transgender, genderqueer, and other gender‑diverse people in both mainstream and social media. Two examples from recent times most readily spring ready to the mind. The actress Laverne Cox graced the front cover of the iconic Time…

Download a PDF copy of Mikayla Novak’s full C4SS Study: Gender Identity and Libertarianism Abstract People who do not identify with a gender status consistent with conventional fixed, binary gender stereotypes remain the target of a complex array of typically intertwining state policies and civil societal norms which greatly inhibit their liberties. Transgender and other gender-diverse…

A recurring feature of the business cycle is that in deep recession years governments run huge annual deficits as a result of declining tax revenue, increased spending on unemployment and poverty relief and assorted stimulus. This causes government debt levels to skyrocket. In the case of the American “Great Recession,” this manifested itself as a…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “Dissolving Borders” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. “When feuding parties are unnaturally forced apart by walls, be they real or metaphorical, you can count on their disputes escalating into outright aggression against one another. And the states who govern such borders would have it no other way….

In Free Market Fairness [1] John Tomasi lays out a way in which the gap between broadly libertarian (or classical liberal) and high liberal (or liberal egalitarian) political philosophies can be bridged. Since F. A. Hayek’s methodologically individualist rejection of the concept of social justice, and Robert Nozick’s liberty-based rejection of egalitarian distributive justice, there…

One of the best things about The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy is that David Graeber finally tackles issues directly relevant to anarchists. While his prior work has had value, it’s also largely been about rather obvious topics and punctuated with a need to apologize for or defend…

Back on May 19th, 2015, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution that would increase the minimum wage to $15 by the year 2020. Fast forward to May 27th, and we see labor “leaders” who intensely supported the increase pushing a last minute amendment to exempt companies from it if they let the unions…