Di Black Cat. Originale pubblicato il 7 ottobre 2019 con il titolo Money Without the State. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. David Graeber, in Debt, attacca quello che definisce “il mito del baratto”, l’idea che il denaro sia un’invenzione collettiva, uno standard universalmente riconosciuto per evitare i problemi del baratto. E ha perfettamente ragione: è un…

Graeber, in his Debt, attacks what he refers to as ‘the myth of barter’ — the idea that money is a communal invention and agreed-upon standard to avoid the problem of having to barter. He’s entirely correct — such a myth is false. However, some of his overzealous fans are incorrect — he at no…

Di Rai Ling. Originale pubblicato il 23 settembre 2019 con il titolo Postmodern Discourse in the Corporate Boardroom. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Ad un recente incontro d’affari ho capito come le gerarchie aziendali portino spesso a distorsioni della realtà e ad una concorrenza a somma negativa. Come analista, elaboro “quadri operativi” che forniscano istruzioni attendibili…

During a recent business meeting, I noticed some ways in which corporate hierarchy leads to negative sum competition and distortions of reality. At my current job in data analytics, I build live business “dashboards” to provide actionable insights to upper management; this includes working with different departments to create new data pipelines and ensure the…

This is not a review of Bullshit Jobs. My verdict on the book is simple: it is good, and you should read it. You should, actually, probably read it before you read this. I’ll be re-explaining some of the concepts in it, but I will not cover them in the same depth as the book…

Di Nick Ford. Originale pubblicato il 5 maggio 2016 con il titolo Airbnb isn’t Housin’ in Berlin. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Un recente articolo del Guardian cita un regolamento dell’amministrazione di Berlino che, dopo vent’anni di sonno, da alcuni anni viene applicata. La legge, chiamata “Zweckentfremdungsverbot” (!), limita le modalità di affitto di una proprietà immobiliare….

Several C4SS people (Jason Lee Byas, Kevin Carson, Gary Chartier, Billy Christmas, Nathan Goodman, and Roderick T. Long) are among the contributors to a forthcoming anthology, Dialectics of Liberty: Exploring the Context of Human Freedom, edited by Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Roger Bissell, and Edward Younkins. Other contributors, from a variety of libertarian traditions, include Robert…

You can now subscribe to Mutual Exchange Radio on Stitcher, and Spotify. Today’s guest is Kevin Carson, a senior fellow at the Center for a Stateless Society who holds the Center’s Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory. He has written books such as Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, and The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto, all of…

Burn the Black Flag In nearly every major city and most small towns, there are anarchists, or people with unlabeled anarchist values, plotting ways to create space for our radical projects promoting positive freedom. In most cities, our efforts are duly encumbered with the toil of filling in the abyss of gaps in state services:…

Yesterday C4SS’s own Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory, Kevin Carson, appeared on the popular libertarian podcast Liberty Chronicles, produced by Libertarianism.org. Together with podcast host Dr. Anthony Comegna, Kevin discusses the possibility of a post-capitalist world, the nature of capitalism as an economic system, and market alternatives to capitalist economics. Listen below, or at Libertarianism.com….

Abolish Work: A Lazy Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia (LBC Books 2016), by Nick Ford It’s “no class but the leisure class” in Nick Ford’s new book: Abolish Work: A Lazy Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia. Before continuing, I must acknowledge that this book includes two essays written by yours truly, which are credited to “Mr. Wilson”. Both…

With his latest book, C4SS senior fellow and regular contributor, Kevin Carson, shares a radical vision of a not-too-distant future where networks replace hierarchies, and co-operation and self-regulation make both the state other forms of authority obsolete.  The Desktop Regulatory State: The Countervailing Power of Individuals and Networks is the fourth in a series of…

Ordinarily the word “housing” means a person’s shelter, lodging or place of dwelling. But shortened to “housin” it refers to, according to Urban Dictionary, a show of dominance or authority. And when it comes to the dispute between Airbnb and the Berlin government, it’s clear Airbnb isn’t housin’ anything. The Guardian recently reported that new…

Introduction The capitalist economy has gone through another shock, and the potential for another, larger one is on the horizon. While it’s seemingly in its death throes, capitalism continues to fuel growth. Under such a system we have seen a vast improvement in general living standards across the globe, despite rigged markets and the omnipresent…

Seeing Iain Murray’s title, How the State Keeps You Working Long Hours, got me pretty excited. Especially as I’ve been trying to fuse libertarian concerns with work-critical sentiments for a few years now. And though the post had potential, it ultimately fell flat. For one thing, it mainly comes from a non-anarchist perspective. So the chance…

Imagine the following person. He believes all individuals should be free to do anything that’s peaceful and therefore favors private property, free global markets, freedom of contract, civil liberties, and all the related ideas that come under the label libertarianism (or liberalism). Obviously he is not a statist. But is he an individualist and a…

Muitos dos anarquistas individualistas do século 19, particularmente os pensadores associados ao jornal Liberty, editado por Benjamin Tucker, procuravam combinar uma teoria política baseada na soberania individual e na autopropriedade com uma teoria econômica baseada na teoria do valor-trabalho. Como os marxistas, eles tendiam a condenar o sistema de trabalho assalariado como opressivo e interpretavam…

Wolfi Landstreicher. “Anarchy on the Market? A critical look at Kevin Carson’s Studies in Mutualist Political Economy” Modern Slavery 2 (Fall-Winter 2012/2013). Landstreicher begins with a critique of my approach in defending the labor theory of value in terms of Ludwig von Mises’s a priorism: But what if someone doesn’t accept the a priori assumption that there…

McKay, Iain, 2008 An Anarchist FAQ, Section G: Is Individualist Anarchism Capitalistic? Anarchist Writers, accessed 25 May 2015, McKay, Iain (2012) An Anarchist FAQ: Volume 2 (AK Press) Section G: Is Individualist Anarchism Capitalistic?,   The Anarchist FAQ Collective’s “Anarchist FAQ“ is a massive work, which has been constantly maintained and updated since 1996. The FAQ gives very…

Markets and Motivation Guillaume Paoli’s Demotivational Training (2008, Cruel Hospice) is a tough egg to crack. I spent days of my time putting off reviewing this book, partly because I felt demotivated, but also because Paoli’s writing is fairly dense and hard to fully grasp at first. It’s the sort of book that requires a…