Un titolo recente su The Week diceva: “NSA: Stavamo per smettere di spiare tutti poco prima che parlasse Snowden” (30 marzo 2015). A prima vista si direbbe una buona imitazione di un titolo satirico di The Onion, se non fosse che la realtà è più strana della finzione. La Associated Press dice: “A sentire alcuni…

Megan Erickson’s article on techo-fixes for education (“Edutopia“) in the March issue of Jacobin is an excellent critique of corporate-driven education “reform” efforts like those of the Gates Foundation and IDEO. As a critique of attempts to build an alternative educational model around decentralizing technology in general, it’s… not so excellent. The immediate object of…

A recent headline from The Week says “NSA: We were just about to stop spying on everyone before Snowden spoke out” (March 30, 2015). At first glance this may seem like a good imitation of an Onion headline but truth is stranger than fiction. The Associated Press tells us, “The proposal to kill the program…

Una recente indagine della Associated Press sulle pratiche dei tribunali del Tennessee durante il patteggiamento ha messo in allerta gli americani su una delle tradizioni governative più agghiaccianti e finora considerate proibite: la sterilizzazione forzata dei carcerati. Secondo la giornalista della AP Sheila Burke, un caso recente ha riguardato una donna del Tennessee con disturbi…

According to the received version of “interest group pluralism” in J.K. Galbraith’s book American Capitalism, there’s supposed to be a sort of check-and-balance system (Galbraith called it “countervailing power”) between big business, government regulatory agencies and organized labor. But what usually happens in the real world, when the allegedly “opposing” centers of power are so…

Recent investigations by the Associated Press into the practices of Tennessee prosecutors during plea-deal negotiations have alerted Americans to one of their government’s most gruesome and supposedly forbidden traditions: forced prisoner sterilization. According to AP reporter Sheila Burke, a recent example of this practice involved a mentally ill Tennessee woman whose infant child died under…

I hear expressions like “I don’t see race” or “I’m color-blind” a lot from people who want to ignore the issues of structural power imbalance or privilege in race issues. The same people are fond of equating racism to simple bigotry; by this standard, white bigotry against blacks and black bigotry against whites are equally…

James R. Otteson. The End of Socialism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Otteson’s book is an eloquent defense of an economic system which maximizes decentralism and autonomy; it’s just not, as he supposes, a defense of capitalism. Likewise, it’s a good critique of centralized planning and top-down authority — but not of “socialism.” Otteson…

David Graeber. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2015). This book is, properly speaking, not a book at all, but a collection of essays loosely clustered around the common theme of bureaucracy. Of the material in the book, only the long introductory essay…

Murray Bookchin. The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies & the Promise of Direct Democracy. Foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin (New York and London: Verso, 2015). This book is a collection of Bookchin’s essays on libertarian municipalism and communalism, extending from the period when he still considered himself an anarchist until his final post-anarchist phase. In…

In an anti-libertarian rant titled “You’re Not the Boss of Me! Why Libertarianism Is a Childish Sham,” David Masciotra charges that libertarianism amounts to the petulant selfishness of a child who resents all restrictions on his or her behavior. Masciotra conveniently focuses on libertarians’ saying “you have no right to impose stuff on us,” while…

I keep resolving not to comment on any more of Alternet‘s by-the-numbers anti-libertarian puff pieces, but a recent one from David Masciotra (“You’re Not the Boss of Me: Why Libertarianism is a Childish Sham,” February 26) is in its own category of wretchedness. Masciotra’s commentary includes two seemingly contradictory lines of argument. In the first,…

Various. Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader (AK Press/Dark Star 2002) The people involved with Dark Star Collective sought to provide an introductory anthology to the ideas of anarcha-feminism after numerous visitors to their bookstand wondered if they had anything on the subject. Anarcha-feminism is the radical synthesis of feminism and anarchism, or the idea that destroying…

As a libertarian masochist who keeps up with the regular by-the-numbers attacks on libertarianism at Alternet and Salon, I almost dared to hope for something at least marginally better from Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect (“The Libertarian Delusion,” Winter 2015). I was disappointed. “The stubborn appeal of the libertarian idea persists,” Kuttner writes, “despite…

Il venti febbraio è scoppiata una rivolta nella struttura correttiva di Willacy, un carcere texano per “immigrati illegali”. Duemila detenuti hanno protestato contro l’incuria e il superlavoro. La situazione è peggiorata rapidamente quando i detenuti sono venuti in possesso di armi contundenti, invadendo il cortile e smantellando o bruciando quelle strutture a cui erano incatenati…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “Radicalism as Revolution: A Call for a Fractal Libertarianism” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. Ruper, in all fairness, does say he appreciates libertarians’ intense self-analysis. He seems to just want libertarians to redirect their energies toward spreading broadly libertarian ideas, rather than converting members of the libertarian movement…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “Direct Action as Entrepreneurship” read by Dylan Delikta and edited by Nick Ford. A less well-received idea in popular discourse is that of direct action, and rightly so. Direct action intentionally sidesteps popular discourse. By simply ignoring popular opinion and working to achieve their ends outside of entrenched systems, activists can bring…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The Biggest Baddest Gang in Town” read by Ryan Calhoun and edited by Nick Ford. Police departments do exactly what monopolies always do — abuse and cheat consumers and, in the words of Benjamin Tucker, “furnish poison instead of nutriment.” As monopolies, police departments are exempt by law from any competitive…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Charles Johnson‘s “Against All Nations and Borders” read by Ryan Calhoun and edited by Nick Ford. A recent post at the “Libertarian Realist” blog (actually, they are neither) claims to take issue with Sheldon Richman’s defense of free immigration. The post is an example of astonishing sophistry, beginning with a long attack on Sheldon’s…

In an article I wrote several years ago (“Free Market Reforms and the Reduction of Statism,” The Freeman, Sept. 1, 2008), I stated some principles that are relevant to the current debate on “net neutrality”: Some forms of state intervention are primary. They involve the privileges, subsidies, and other structural bases of economic exploitation through…