It was a cool, blustery, October morning in 2007 when I realized the difference between work and labor. I was standing on the side of a country road in Tumwater, Washington waiting for my work crew to come pick me up. I had moved from Tennessee to the area just days before – a recent graduate with…

Now is very different from then. Over the last two hundred or so years, the most dramatic shift in human history since the adoption of agriculture has swept the world, as chemical energy released from coal and oil supplanted human and animal muscle as the primary source of productive power. For the first time since…

Liberals are prone to conflate all forms of decentralism and self-organization with the right wing, framing the range of possibilities as a stark contrast between their own managerial-centrist approach on the one hand and Paul Ryan, Marvin Olasky and Newt “Culture of Dependency” Gingrich on the other. A good example is Mike Konczal’s recent column…

The recent failure of United Auto Workers’ attempt to unionize the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant has become political fodder for Tennessee Republicans. In a recent interview, US Senator Bob Corker claimed the UAW is looking at VW workers as “a dollar bill” to further its union agenda. When questioned about his role in halting worker organization…

Know how southern Republican politicians who support “right to work” laws claim they’re not against unions as such — just against closed shop contracts that force workers to join a union as a condition of employment? They’re liars. The negative outcome of the recent UAW certification vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga proves that,…

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of ALL Distro’s “CAPITALISM” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with ALL Distro’s “CAPITALISM“. $1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional…

C4SS Media presents Natasha Petrova‘s “Walter Block’s Wrong Headed Anti-Unionism,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The final aspect to be discussed is whether unionism is compatible with the normative philosophical principles of libertarianism. An emphatic yes is the answer. Left-libertarian market anarchist unionism involves a voluntary association of free and equal workers working…

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of James Tuttle’s “Direct Action on the Job!” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with James Tuttle’s “Direct Action on the Job!” $1.00…

The 2008 global financial crisis has had far-reaching implications, depressing markets for years. Charged with US monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank, with its mantra of “too big to fail,” is empowered to manage the economic downturn. The central bank’s monetary policies effectively redistribute wealth to the upper tiers of society — and the proof is…

Qualche tempo fa la cantautrice Ani DiFranco ha dovuto cancellare il suo “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy”, un ritrovo di autori di canzoni ospitato nella Nottoway Plantation and Resort, una ex piantagione di schiavi in Luisiana. La scelta del luogo aveva provocato un meritato scontento, costringendo la DiFranco alla ritirata. La cantante ha poi…

Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco recently cancelled her “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy,” a song-writing retreat hosted at the Nottoway Plantation and Resort, a former slave plantation in Louisiana. The venue choice provoked well-deserved outrage, prompting DiFranco to cancel. DiFranco issued what Callie Beusman at Jezebel called “a remarkably unapologetic ‘apology,’” defending her actions more than apologizing…

Many statist-leftists in the Global North would probably bristle at the notion that their politics can promote disempowerment amongst marginalised and/or oppressed groups and communities. “On the contrary!” they might say, “My statist proposals will actively counter disempowerment of such groups and communities, by giving them more resources (e.g. financial aid), and preventing discrimination against…

Walter Block recently penned a piece arguing that libertarianism is neither left nor right. In it he argues that libertarians share an anti-unionist bias with the right. It may be true that many libertarians possess an anti-union bias, but that says nothing about the normative compatibility of unions with libertarian principles. It also ignores those…

Stephen Moss discusses Jeremy Scahil’s, Dirty Wars. Karam Filfian reviews Dirty Wars. Anthony Papa asks for a pardon of both drug war prisoners and the turkey. Deepak Tripathi discusses Obama’s Middle Eastern policy. David Macray discusses the plight of ex-convicts. Ahmad Barqawi discusses Bandar’s reign of terror. David Rosen discusses the private security threat to…

Montaigne famously held that one person’s profit always involves another person’s loss, and this apothegm has won him some hostility from libertarians; see Mises, for example, here, here, and here. But I think Montaigne’s meaning has been misunderstood. When the claim is taken out of context, it is easy to assume, first, that Montaigne is attacking profit, and…

In the airport-turned-town of Seatac, Washington, a ballot proposal to institute a $15/hour minimum wage clings to a narrow lead and faces a certain recount, while in Seattle a state socialist candidate has won election to the city council on a platform including a $15/hour minimum wage for the entire city. Across the United States,…

On November 13 Wikileaks published the leaked “intellectual property” chapter of the draft Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty. The IP section is a bundle of draconian provisions curtailing Internet freedom in the interest of protecting proprietary content industries like movies and music and imposing new restrictions on commerce to enforce corporations’ patent monopolies on genetically modified organisms…

Recentemente assisti a uma apresentação por Mark Hendrickson da Faculdade da Cidade do Pomar acerca do livre mercado e da Walmart. Na apresentação Hendrickson cobre em sucinto, mas informativo detalhe, como funcionam os mecanismos do livre mercado. Firmas que oferecem melhores preços no mercado subtraem clientes de outras firmas, e o resultado final é que novas empresas…

Amia Srinivasan has four questions for free-market moralists, specifically those who accept something like a Nozickian account of individual rights. My own take is more Rothbardian than Nozickian, but that still seems close enough to give her four answers, and to ask four questions in return about the assumptions that underlie her essay. Amia begins by asking: 1….

An October 20-22, 2013, Fox News national poll revealed that the implementation of ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) by the American state has been so chaotic that 60% of registered voters characterize the process as “a joke.” The economic reasons for the incompetence are well known by libertarians familiar with the Austrian tradition…