Tag: labor
Jiminykrix recently commented on my last post about how we left-libertarian market anarchists aren’t socially liberal capitalists. He had a point to make about private property that’s worth mentioning. The inspiration for his commentary on it was my defining capitalism as the separation of labor from ownership rather than markets or private property per se….
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,…
Rudolph Rocker once said that there is a definite trend in the historical development of human civilization which strives for the “free, unhindered unfolding of the individual and social forces of life.” This is indeed an accurate account of human history — we strive for the beautiful ethic of liberty. Liberty can be described, rather simply,…
In Seattle, St. Louis and elsewhere, “ridesharing” services such as Uber and Lyft are causing a kerfuffle. These services, which allow users to submit orders via a smartphone app that are then filled by individuals driving their own cars, run afoul of long-standing regulations requiring the special licensing of taxis by municipal authorities. These licenses,…
A lot of recent libertarian commentary has treated Uber and Lyft as the greatest thing since Bitcoin and 3D-printed guns. On the other hand, a lot of critics — including not only liberals but anarchists who should know better — have demonized it as a corporate gentrification tool straight out of the fever dreams of…
Da decenni i regolamenti sui taxi sono un esempio da manuale di come le norme governative creino artificialmente barriere, rendite e lavoro salariato. Oltre ad una serie di normative di stampo proibitivo che arrivano a definire anche il colore dei calzini di un tassista, il sistema dei “medaglioni” (come sono chiamate le licenze dei taxi…
In “Private Property, When and Why,” Joseph writes, “At best, private property is a neutral concept in itself; based on given natural conditions, it can be either good or bad.” While I disagreed with this position initially, I believe after further clarification, I am actually in full agreement with it. To determine if the concept…
Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and…
In my last two blog posts, I responded to Lynn Stuart Parramore’s article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blew Up Libertarian Fantasies. At the end of the second one, I promised an explanation of the economic theory I used to critique her article. This post will be a brief introduction to said economic theory. Let’s…
C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “With ‘Socialists’ Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists?” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. For the forces of information freedom, and other movements associated with the successor economy, to attempt to fight the established interests of the existing system for control of the state, is like an army…
A considerable portion of the Left has been diverted lately by a dispute between Lawrence & Wishart (the Marxist publishing house that owns the copyright to the multi-volume Collected Works of Marx and Engels in English) and the Marxist Internet Archive over the latter’s online digital version of the Collected Works. In surveying this dust-up,…
May Day, also called Labor Day, is a Brazilian national holiday. Since the Second International adopted May 1st as Labor Day, in support of Chicago’s labor unions struggle for the 8 hour day in 1886, the day had become a sensitive topic for many western governments by the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century – agitation and labor activism built…
Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside…
For decades taxi regulations have served as the textbook example of government regulations creating artificial enclosures, rents, and wage labor. In addition to a host of prohibitous regulations that even extend to the color of a driver’s socks, the “medallion” system dramatically limits the number of taxi in major cities while at the same time…
This is the second part of my two part series on Lynn Stuart Parramore’s recent article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blew Up Libertarian Fantasies. Let’s get started. She writes: By 1987, Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan had taken over as head of the Federal Reserve, and free market fever was unleashed upon America. Alan…
Gli Stati Uniti hanno una storia variegata con l’ambientalismo. Gli americani sono sempre stati orgogliosi del loro retaggio ambientale. Il conservazionismo di fine ottocento, promosso da persone come John Muir, diede origine ad istituzioni civiche, pubbliche e private dedicate alla conservazione dell’ambiente. La rivoluzione industriale, però, accoppiata all’ascesa del capitalismo moderno, il New Deal e…
Around the country, consumers are greeting newly arrived rideshare and taxi alternative companies like Lyft and Uber with fanfare. Some people, though, aren’t so happy. Taxi companies, for example, are lobbying city and local governments to heavily regulate and outright ban these services from the streets — ostensibly for “safety” reasons. One group in Seattle…
Americans have been conditioned to think of May Day as a “commie holiday,” one associated until recently with military parades in Red Square and leaders of Marxist-Leninist regimes exchanging “fraternal greetings” in the names of their respective peoples. They might be surprised to learn it was originally an American holiday, created by Chicago workers in…
In the latest example of a phenomenon as old as the state itself, Stan McCoy – formerly the US Trade Representative’s chief “intellectual property” negotiator, who wrote ACTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s IP chapter – was just given a cushy job at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He’s one of over a dozen…
Os Estados Unidos têm uma história inconsistente com o ambientalismo. Os americanos sempre tiveram orgulho de sua herança natural. O movimento de conservação dos anos 1890, liderado por John Muir e outros, deu origem a instituições cívicas, públicas e privadas dedicadas à proteção da natureza. A revolução industrial, porém, em conjunto com o advento do…