C4SS Media presents Gary Chartier‘s “We Should Abandon The Term ‘Capitalism‘” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Advocating liberty means opposing the use of force to restrain peaceful, voluntary exchange. But it doesn’t have to mean calling a system of peaceful, voluntary exchange “capitalism.”

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…

Michael Uhl discusses the murder of a Brazilian torturer who confessed to his crime. John Grant discusses Losing Tim: A Memoir. Troy Camplin reviews Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture. Michael S. Rozeff discusses why libertarians should still embrace the non-aggression principle William L. Anderson discusses Republican governors who are against…

C4SS Media presents William Gillis‘ “The Retreat Of The Immediate” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The world is not a simple place and simplistic abstractions (even in the form of “shit’s too complicated” or “we’re sure to lose”) do violence through irresponsibility. Further they signal a cognitive surrender to the ossified and sweeping logic…

The debate on thick and thin libertarianism continues, and that’s a good thing. Libertarians can only gain by the discussion. Often one comes to appreciate one’s own philosophy more fully in the crucible of intellectual argument. So I, for one, welcome the debate — so long as it is a real debate and not merely a series…

Lynn Stuart Parramore just can’t stop attacking libertarianism. In a recent article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blows Up Libertarian Fantasies, she targets libertarians on equality and wealth. She also continues to evidence no awareness of the existence of left-wing forms of libertarianism like left-libertarian market anarchism. This is the ideology both I and the site…

Kyle Platt speaks with Jason Lee Byas about his new publication, The New Leveller, and about the history of individualist anarchism.

The second part of Richard Ebeling’s discussion of individual self-determination vs Russian or Ukrainian or Russian nationalism. Andrew J. Bacevich reviews The Education of an Anti-Imperialist: Robert La Follette and U.S. Expansionism. Justin Raimondo compares the American invasion of Afghanistan with the Russian invasion of Crimea. Philip Giraldi discusses Gareth Porter’s new book titled Manufactured…

Following the military defeat of the Southern Jeffersonians in the Civil War and the war reparations placed upon their property and livelihood, the American political world was left to the Hamiltonians for a generation. There were few options left. Jeffersonians in the North were tagged as Copperheads and rebel sympathizers. Southern Jeffersonians were disenfranchised in…

Ahmad Barqawi discusses why the Arab League should be dissolved. Binoy Kampmark discusses the military dictatorship in Egypt. Roberta A. Modugno discusses the Levellers. Lucy Steigerwald discusses how the War on Drugs is literal. James Bovard discusses USDA’s regulation of raisin production and distribution. Ryan McMaken discusses Ron Paul, Richard Cobden, and the risky nature…

What is the proper relation between legality and morality? To friends I stated that what was morally required is not what is legally required. This post is an exploration of my evolving thought on this issue. In the process of thinking further about it, I discovered a revised train of thought. As Ayn Rand stated:…

Charles T. Sprading was a libertarian activist and prolific writer in a number of causes, ranging from freedom and freethought advocacy, cooperativism, Irish Independence, publisher of libertarian books and periodicals, opponent of anti-blue laws, and, in his last years before his health failed him (d. approx 1960), supporter of the Bricker Amendment and strident opponent…

C4SS Media presents Sheldon Richman‘s “In Praise of “Thick” Libertarianism” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The freedom philosophy is intimately related to ethical, political, and methodological individualism. Therefore, the philosophy should be expected to detest any kind of collectivism — and particularly its “lowest, most crudely primitive form” — even in its nonviolent manifestations….

“The libertarian is in no sense a utopian. He argues only that in a world in which each imperfect individual was left free to make his own imperfect decisions and to act on them in any way that was peaceful, enjoying the fruits of his successes and suffering the agony of his mistakes, man could…

Last year the Nevada GOP decided to remove opposition to gay marriage and abortion from its platform. It’s not clear whether this is about votes or reflects genuine sentiment. It’s certainly out of touch with other GOP platforms across the country. This is definitely a good thing though. It also doesn’t go far enough. It’s…

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “Kontinued Keystone Konfusion” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Over the years, I’ve been skeptical of lefty claims that prominent “libertarian” think tanks just shill for whatever corporations are willing to write checks for favorable “analysis.” But this kind of thing makes me wonder.

If I were compelled to summarize the libertarian philosophy’s distinguishing feature while standing on one foot, I’d say the following: Every person owes it to all other persons not to aggress them. This is known as the nonaggression principle, or NAP. What is the nature of this obligation? The first thing to notice is that…

Well, give Miss Representation credit. The inescapable “It’s for the children!” is right there in their petition’s name: Join Our Family To Stop Advertising Hurting Our Kids; Support the Truth In Advertising Act. The proposed bill would require the Federal Trade Commission to regulate advertisers’ use of image alteration, as well as create and maintain…

Kyle Platt catches up with Prof. Roderick Long before his talk at the University of Oklahoma. They discuss why Eudaimonism is compatible with a libertarian philosophy, who libertarians should read, and themes of liberty in science fiction.

Among libertarians generally, there is a somewhat dependable tendency to hark back to the halcyon days of a supposed free age somewhere in the past, and to spotlight certain related features of Anglo-American legal history in service to that narrative. As those features are romanticized, they become totemic symbols of the classical-liberal tradition and its…