Did you know President Obama’s “core legacy” is free trade — and the centerpiece of this alleged “free trade” policy is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Neither did I. But that’s what Shikha Dalmia says, writing at the leading right-wing libertarian periodical Reason (“Why Is Hillary Throwing Obama’s Core Legacy on Free Trade Under the Bus?”…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Steven Horwitz. As with Derek Wall, I’m gratified by the thoughtful tone of Steven Horwitz’s response to my lead essay. Where he agrees with me, he makes some good points of his own that add to what I was trying to say — particularly in regard to “free markets” not meaning the…

Kevin Carson’s Rejoinder to Derek Wall. I appreciate the thoughtful tone of Derek’s response, and I’m certainly gratified by whatever role I may have played in inspiring him to take up brewing beer. And having been strongly influenced by the work of Elinor Ostrom myself, I was pleased to learn that an Ostrom scholar was…

Some anarchists and socialists argue that, even if markets can theoretically be non-capitalist, and non-capitalist market economies can exist, the dynamics of the market will eventually lead to the restoration of capitalism. The argument used by non-market anarchists and socialists is that, in a competitive market — even a competitive market of widespread distribution of…

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…

A common liberal or “progressive” criticism of so-called “sharing economy” entities like Uber, Lyft and Airbnb (usually appearing in venues like Salon or Alternet) is that they’re “unregulated.”   This implicitly assumes, of course, that regulations like the taxi medallion system exist for some idealistic purpose of serving the “public welfare” and not simply guaranteeing…

C4SS Feed 44 presents T.J. Scholl‘s “Border Authoritarianism is Not Only an Institution of the Outwardly Racist” read by Thomas J. Webb and edited by Nick Ford. Anti-immigrant sentiment has found a home in political platforms across the nation and on both sides of the aisle. One such politician is Wisconsin Governor and 2016 Republican…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nathan Goodman‘s “The New Deal’s Legacy of Corporate Welfare” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. Mainstream progressives tell us that the New Deal was a victory for the working class and the public interest. But New Deal corporate welfare programs like the Ex-Im Bank and the Raisin Administrative…

One proposal that periodically resurfaces in debates on managing endangered species is so-called “privatization.” Predictably, it has emerged once again in the context of Cecil the Lion’s death at the hands of a rich safari-hunting dentist. Of course proposals for “privatization” generally come from the Right, and what they mean by it is reorganizing some…

Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant nationalism has positioned him far to the right of his fellow 2016 GOP hopefuls and has given him a serious boost in the polls. Such support for a man who made, and repeatedly defended, the patently racist claim that undocumented Mexican immigrants are “rapists” should serve as a clear indicator of the depth…

The Export-Import Bank’s charter finally expired on June 30th. Ever since it was created during the New Deal, the Ex-Im Bank has supported exports by American corporations, all at taxpayer expense. The top recipients of Ex-Im Bank subsidies were big corporations, with the war-profiteers at Boeing receiving more Ex-Im largess than any other company. The…

Back on May 19th, 2015, the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution that would increase the minimum wage to $15 by the year 2020. Fast forward to May 27th, and we see labor “leaders” who intensely supported the increase pushing a last minute amendment to exempt companies from it if they let the unions…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Obama: The Bosses’ Friend” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. “Meanwhile, the dispute drags on because management is simply unwilling to meet workers’ demands: Higher pay for weekend work. To resolve the impasse, one side or the other will have to do something it not only currently finds…

Young, I. M. (1990). Five Faces of Oppression. (E. Hackett, & S. Haslanger, Eds.) Theorizing Feminisms, 3-16. “Five Faces of Oppression” by Iris M. Young (1990) attempts to create an objective criteria by which we can judge the existence and levels of oppression of different groups. Young argues that oppression is a structural concept, preserved…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “The Anarchism of Despair” read by Jeff Riggenbach and edited by Nick Ford. “There is a deep despondency hidden even within the most sanguine of anarchisms, for imagining and expecting a freer, fairer world tends unavoidably to throw into sharp relief the long and arduous journey ahead. The anarcho-pessimism typified…

Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan, by his own estimation the soul of reasonableness, has decided that now — when adjunct outrage has reached the boiling point over universities replacing 75% of their faculty with low-paid temporary workers while the numbers and salaries of administrators explode — is the perfect time to give adjuncts the Bronx…

Kevin Carson recently wrote in support of the Fight for $15 movement. While usually associated with the modern fight for a state mandated minimum wage, Carson rejects that argument and instead turns to other methods by which the labor movement fought for better conditions and wages in the 19th century, such as “information and pressure campaigns against employers”…

The Fight for $15 movement is usually identified with the fight for a $15 minimum wage. A call for government legislation is not the sort of thing you’d normally expect an anarchist to endorse. But in fact the movement to pay workers $15 or more is quite compatible with anarchist principles. Back in the late…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Those Who Control the Past Control the Future” read by Jeff Riggenbach and edited by Nick Ford. To begin with, there never was anything remotely like a period of laissez-faire in American history (at least not if “laissez-faire” means “let the market operate freely” as opposed to “let the rich and powerful…

“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen,” Adam Smith noted in The Wealth of Nations, “its counsellors are always the masters.” US president Barack Obama reaffirms this insight with his intervention in the dispute between shipping industry employers and longshore workers on the west coast. That intervention comes at the behest of…