Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato l’undici maggio 2018 con il titolo Review: Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals, by Derek Wall. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Recensione di: Derek Wall, Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals: Cooperative Alternatives Beyond Markets and States, London, Pluto Press, 2017. Qualche tempo fa ho conosciuto su Twitter Derek Wall, ammiratore come me…

Di Frank Miroslav. Originale pubblicato il 14 maggio 2018 con il titolo The Economic Bandwidth Problem. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. In questi ultimi trent’anni a sinistra si è rinverdito l’interesse per organizzazioni economiche non di mercato. Alla base c’è una confluenza di fattori, uno dei quali è il fatto che, data l’ubiquità del capitalismo dopo…

In the last three decades, we’ve seen a resurgence in the popularity of left wing, non-market approaches to economic organizing. The rise results from a confluence of factors, one part of the story being that the economic left has largely been freed of material reality since the ubiquity of capitalism after the fall of the…

Derek Wall. Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals: Cooperative Alternatives Beyond Markets and States (London: Pluto Press, 2017). I’ve known Derek Wall for some time as a friend on Twitter, a fellow admirer of Elinor Ostrom, an Ostrom scholar, and an official in the Green Party of England and Wales. This is not my first introduction…

Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato l’undici febbraio 2016 con il titolo Inequality is a Zero-Sum Game. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. In un recente commento (“Economic Inequality”, gennaio 2016), l’investitore Paul Graham difende la disuguaglianza dicendo che non è necessariamente il risultato di un gioco a somma zero. Solitamente non lo è, dice. E accusa “gli…

[Di Vishal Wilde. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 20 novembre 2016 con il titolo Compulsory Education Exacerbates Job Losses from Automation. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.] C’è molta speculazione e ansia giustificata sul fatto che progresso informatico (soprattutto l’intelligenza artificiale, o IA) e robotica possano generare automazione e dunque disoccupazione di massa….

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…