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

In my recent op-ed, P. Diddy as the Rational Voter, I made a mistake. I haven’t read Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter. I have seen a presentation by Caplan on the book, read numerous blog posts by him and have heard his argument restated by other libertarians. In my op-ed, I was going on…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Gary Chartier‘s “The State, Big Business, and Economic Privilege” (Part 1 of 6), 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

A disconcerting part of the (small g) greenish, cooperative and alternative economy movements is fond of proposals for “New Deals” of one kind or another (Green New Deal, and so forth). I say “disconcerting” because, given the broad tendency of those movements to favor decentralism, economic relocalization and horizontal governance, the New Deal is —…

…Mutualism is a social system based on reciprocal and non-invasive relations among free individuals. The Mutualist standards are: Individual: Equal freedom for each — without invasion of others. Economic: Untrammeled reciprocity, implying freedom of exchange and contract — without monopoly or privilege. Social: Complete freedom of voluntary association — without coercive organization… The libertarian ideal…

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,…