There has been much speculation and justified anxiety concerning how advances in Computer Science (in the field of Artificial Intelligence – AI – in particular) and Robotics could result in mass unemployment due to automation. However, the fact that compulsory education exacerbates this especially problematic aspect of technological progress is largely neglected in such discussions….

[Di Sheldon Richman. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 18 aprile 2016 con il titolo Buy American Hurts Americans. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] Mike Lindell, presidente di My Pillow Inc, sembra una brava persona, e a me piacciono i suoi prodotti. Ma c’è qualcosa nella sua pubblicità che mi irrita: “Ogni componente…

Entrepreneurs, or people who are alert to profit opportunities and act in order to obtain profits for themselves, exist in all societies. But the profit opportunities they seek will vary. Some entrepreneurs may seek to profit by providing consumers with goods they value, such as pizza or beer. Others may attempt to profit by seeking…

A recent article in Kentucky’s leading paper, The Lexington Herald Leader, discusses the down-fall of coal in the Bluegrass state. The statistics reported are alarming. Overall, the industry is at a 118-year low as more than 50% of coal jobs have disappeared over the past few years. In a region laden with poverty the hits…

Last week, I attended a local Fight for $15 rally with some fellow Wobblies and other union organizers and supporters. Echoes of rally cries demanding, “$15 and a union,” filled the streets outside of a local McDonald’s as fast food and child services workers from the Tampa and Orlando, Florida area, mostly workers of color,…

Mike Lindell, president of My Pillow Inc., seems like a nice guy, and I like his product. But he says something in his commercial that bothers me: “Every part of my product is made in the USA.” What could be wrong with that? Lots of things. First, is it true? Lindell may really believe what…

The continuing destruction of the steel industry in the UK has been a major news topic. And as usual, we see the typical narrative of either statist leftists who parrot nationalisation and subsidies as solutions, or the supposed market supporters, who take Ricardian economic arguments of specialisation and butcher them. What neither of these arguments…

In a Washington Post article (“What rich countries get wrong about poverty,” March 28), Ana Swanson summarizes an argument by Caroline Freund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, as follows: “Blaming the super-rich for global poverty would be a mistake.” In fact it might reflect an erroneous “First World mindset.” (Note: I…

On April 19, 2015, C4SS’s Kevin Carson appeared on the Robot Overlordz podcast. Carson holds the Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory at C4SS. Carson’s Desktop Regulatory State is now available for purchase at Amazon. Don’t forget to Fund the Revolution and contribute to C4SS’s bottom line when you purchase your copy. From the Robot…

I would like to emphasize that abolitionism is not a strategy that proposes an all-or-nothing stance or one that refuses cooperation and coalitions with non-abolitionists. It’s a particular theoretical framework for viewing social change and I think it can help libertarians and anarchists be better strategists. That said, there are, in my mind, three major,…

Neither Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist, nor Donald Trump, the self-described terrific businessman, knows squat about economics. If their polices were enacted, regular working people would be harmed. This is most clear with trade. Sanders and Trump are flaming protectionists, which means they peddle perhaps the oldest, most-thoroughly discredited economics doctrine ever spoken. (An…

In a recent commentary (“Economic Inequality,” January 2016), venture capitalist Paul Graham defends inequality on the grounds that it’s not necessarily the result of a zero-sum game. In fact, he says, it’s usually not. He accuses “the most naive” critics of growing levels of economic inequality of starting out from “the pie fallacy: that the…

Bernie Sanders wants to stay on message. So his presidential campaign has focused on economic issues. The American economy is rigged, Sanders says, in the interests of the wealthy and well connected. Banks and Wall Street brokerage houses get what they want at the expense of everyone else. The government should step in on the…

If you believed the talking heads, you might think concern with inequality in our society was just a product of envy and economic ignorance. That’s another reason not to believe the talking heads. The fact that someone has more wealth than I do doesn’t injure me or make me worse off. And the economy isn’t…

Conservative pundit Laura Ingraham has a strange understanding of small government. Unfortunately, she’s not alone. When Nikki Haley delivered the GOP response to Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, expressing concern about xenophobia and border paranoia, Ingraham was disappointed. She tweeted: “Too bad @NikkiHaley missed her oppty to stand w/ working ppl who…

C4SS presents Kevin Carson‘s “Anarchism Without Adjectives” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. The “anarchism without adjectives” position was a reaction to this kind of doctrinaire model-building, and the resulting conflicts between the proponents of various totalizing blueprints for society — most notably the late-19th century conflict between individualists, represented by Benjamin…

All’American Enterprise Institute, Mark Perry (“Yes, America’s middle class has been disappearing… into higher income groups,” 17 dicembre) spiega la contrazione della classe media e la crescita della disuguaglianza economica citando un recente studio del Pew Institute, dal quale risulta che, dell’11% per cento di americani che non fanno più parte del ceto medio, il…

At the American Enterprise Institute, Mark Perry (“Yes, America’s middle class has been disappearing… into higher income groups,” Dec. 17) justifies the shrinking middle class and growing economic inequality by citing the finding of a recent Pew Institute study that of the 11% shrinkage in the American middle class, 7% have gone to the top…

In a preview article at The Guardian last July for his new book Post-Capitalism (“The end of capitalism has begun,” July 17), Paul Mason — following a path previously trodden by John Holloway and by Toni Negri and Michael Hardt — argued that the emergence of a successor system to capitalism would resemble not so…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Gary Chartier‘s “The State, Big Business and Economic Privilege” (Part 2 of 7), read by Christopher B. King and edited by Nick Ford. …excerpted from Gary Chartier’s The Conscience of an Anarchist, available for purchase here. Feed 44: http://www.c4ss.org/ http://www.youtube.com/user/c4ssvideos https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/c4ss-media/id872405202?mt=2 http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/smash-walls-radio/c4ss-media?refid=stpr https://twitter.com/C4SSmedia Bitcoin tips welcome: 1N1pF6fLKAGg4nH7XuqYQbKYXNxCnHBWLB