Just about every week another story comes to my attention confirming the complete and total government-dependency of fracking — beloved of so many self-proclaimed “free market” advocates on the libertarian right. Something about eminent domain to build the pipelines, or liability caps for spills, or regulatory approval of unsafe pipelines superseding tort liability for negligence, and…

What is necessary for the use of land is not its private ownership, but the security of improvements. It is not necessary to say to a man, ‘this land is yours,’ in order to induce him to cultivate or improve it. It is only necessary to say to him, ‘whatever your labor, or capital produces…

My first call to Direct Action was sparked by the scores of undocumented immigrants from Central America that ICE has been shipping to Phoenix. An AZ Central article reports that “The Border Patrol says about 400 migrants were flown from Texas to Arizona because of [a] surge in migrants being apprehended in Texas.” This mass…

“For the last century, or more, we have been experimenting with the rule of democracy–the bludgeoning by governors whom majorities, drunk with power, impose on vanquished minorities. This last is probably the worst of all, for we stand to-day steeped to the lips in a universal corruption that is rotting every nation to the core….

The old “53% vs. 47%” meme that got so much attention in the 2012 election resurfaced this week when it came out that Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez apparently first coined it at a 2010 Rotary Club speech. The 47% who pay no income tax, he said back then, are “dependent on the largesse of…

The widely noted transition from the “old economy,” based in the production of physical commodities, to the “new economy” of the information age—with its capital base concentrated not in heavy machinery and land, but in human beings and in knowledge—has been attended by a concomitant sea change in the legal framework surrounding business. Where ingress…

Although it was overshadowed by reaction to Monday’s ruling on Hobby Lobby’s health insurance coverage of contraception, the Supreme Court made a ruling the same day that otherwise would have received more attention in its own right. Harris vs. Quinn at first glance covers only very narrow ground. It involves the rights of home health…

Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream — and How We Can Do It Again by Rich Lowry (HarperCollins 2013), 390 pages. One of the central themes in James Scott’s Seeing Like a State is the ideology he calls “authoritarian high modernism”: It is best conceived as a strong (one might even say muscle-bound)…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Eric Blattberg, writing for VenturBeat, reports (“Tesla Motors: Please infringe on our patents for the greater good,” June 12) that electric car manufacturer Tesla will henceforth permit all comers to exploit its innovations. “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology,” says Tesla CEO Elon Musk. I…

Left-libertarianism has been getting a lot of buzz recently in the broader American libertarian community. The term “left-libertarian” has been used many ways in American politics, and there seems to be some confusion within the libertarian community itself as to who left-libertarians actually are. The basic ideas of left-libertarianism, as we at the Alliance of…

One of the main functions the state serves in practice is to forcibly transfer wealth to politically connected interest groups. Prisons serve that function today, and they have served it historically. In The Enterprise of Law,  economist Bruce Benson documents the rise of state controlled law enforcement in England. Stateless customary tort law had previously prevailed,…

I coined the term “vulgar libertarianism” several years back to describe reflexive mainstream libertarian defenses of the existing corporate capitalist system as if it were the free market, and using “free market” principles to justify the evils of the corporate economy. I recently saw one of the worst examples of this phenomenon ever, courtesy of…

If I had to describe “The Conscience of an Anarchist” in one word, it would be beautiful. Gary Chartier’s 100 page anarchist manifesto concisely and elegantly explains the way anarchists analyze public policy discussions, such as foreign policy, the drug war, regulation, subsidies, education, the two party system, infrastructure, the criminal justice system, police violence,…

El Puño de Hierro Tras la Mano Invisible El Capitalismo Corporativo como Sistema de Privilegio Garantizado por el Estado por Kevin Carson Introducción Comúnmente, se reconoce que el feudalismo se fundó sobre la base del robo y la usurpación; una clase dominante se estableció por la fuerza, y luego obligó a los campesinos a trabajar…

When a descriptive term carries a negative connotation, there is a widespread tendency to associate the term with its worst referents. When critics of Obamacare call it “fascist,” for example, they are regularly accused of absurdly likening Obamacare to the Nazis’ campaigns of mass slaughter. Yet “fascism” is a word with a meaning, and the…

It’s been a pretty bad couple of weeks on the climate front. Two separate teams of climate scientists warn that the collapse of the western Antarctic ice sheet has already begun and is now too late to stop. The six glaciers already in retreat are enough, by themselves to add four feet to global sea…