Part 1: Kolko at Home An earlier generation of libertarians was interested in Gabriel Kolko, a historian of the Left. Who was he? Born in 1932 in Paterson, NJ, historian Gabriel Kolko studied at Kent State, the University of Wisconsin, and Harvard University (PhD: 1962). From 1970 until his retirement he taught history at York…

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 you thought the standards of the Famous Artists’ School (“Can You Draw the Pirate?”) on old matchbook covers were lax, wait till you see Reason magazine’s criteria for recognition as a “free market think-tank.” The American Federation of Teachers blacklists asset managers who manage public sector employees’ defined benefit pension funds, but have contributed…

The US Center for Medicare Services recently published a database of physician Medicare billing histories. One interesting bit of information from data release is the fact that a leading source of expenditures for big billers is drugs. As it turns out, Medicare incentivizes physicians to choose the most expensive drugs by reimbursing them for the…

As the radical, insurrectionary affirmation of self, egoism is a direct and hostile challenge to politics, society, civilization, and economics. Unlike the various philosophical identifications and ideologies that it challenges, it is no pretender to the thrones of any mode of thought based upon duty or obligation, no attempt to place itself above or outside…

C4SS Media presents Christiaan Elderhorst‘s “Bitcoin Must Self-Regulate — The State Can Only Destroy” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Currently there is no system by which Bitcoin marketplaces can be held accountable. Resorting to government legal systems might indeed be the only way by which Mt.Gox customers can receive the restitution they deserve. What…

I continue to be confused by “libertarian” support for the Keystone XL pipeline. As I noted last month, my objection to Keystone is simple: It can’t be built without having the government steal land to build it on, from people who don’t care to sell. For anyone operating under the label “libertarian,” that should be…

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…

Nell’ambiente dei movimenti libertari dominanti l’accusa di “statalismo” è solitamente rivolta contro una serie di obiettivi facilmente immaginabili. Chiunque lamenti il razzismo, il sessismo o altri argomenti di giustizia sociale, lo sfruttamento economico dei lavoratori o il degrado ambientale è automaticamente accusato di statalismo sulla base del ragionamento secondo cui lo sfruttamento, l’ingiustizia e l’inquinamento…

In the mainstream libertarian movement, accusations of “statism” typically focus on a fairly predictable set of targets. Anyone who complains of racism, sexism or other social justice issues, the economic exploitation of workers or degradation of the environment is reflexively accused of statism on the assumption that exploitation, injustice and pollution could only be problems…

La maggiore organizzazione del Tea Party in America, Tea Party Patriots, ha recentemente celebrato il suo quinto anno di attività promettendo di raddoppiare gli sforzi per ottenere il pareggio del bilancio federale e il ripagamento del debito pubblico. L’effetto, immagino non intenzionale, sarebbe la distruzione del capitalismo come lo conosciamo oggi. Il capitalismo corporativo, fin…

Since reading 1984 as an adolescent, I’ve remained perpetually amazed at George Orwell’s prescience. The Edward Snowden/Glenn Greenwald surveillance state strip-tease has recently focused attention on one aspect of that predictive acumen, but “we have always been at war with Eastasia” is returning to the fore due to the … “situation” … with Ukraine, Crimea and…

Joel Schlosberg discusses how privacy and sausages are unlike laws. Patrick Cockburn discusses the road from hell in Syria. JP Sottile discusses drones. Ryan McMaken discusses crony capitalism and the transcontinental railroads. Justin Raimondo discusses Israel and the conservative movement. Stephen Kinzer discusses the end of American hubris. Ted Snider discusses 21st century coups. Kenan…

C4SS Media presents Thomas L. Knapp‘s “The Problem Isn’t ‘Patent Trolls.’ The Problem Is Patents.,” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. “Apple’s complaint, in its essentials, is that patent “trolls” just buy up patent “rights,” then search for infringement to cash in on, rather than going to the trouble of making real products. But why…

On both sides of the argument over the efficacy of the Universal Basic Income (UBI), there is the claim that the UBI might encourage unemployment. The critics of UBI claim this is a defect, but the Left often argues that employment is not the only value we should have, and that a universal net will…

Joe Nocera devoted a recent column (“Will Digital Networks Ruin Us?” New York Times, January 6) to Jaron Lanier‘s “universal theory” that the tendency of “network efficiencies” to benefit but also destabilize large organizations are the root cause of a host of problems in domains with nothing else apparently in common. Such brittleness and dysfunction is everywhere,…

The largest Tea Party organization in the U.S., Tea Party Patriots, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary with promises of redoubled efforts to balance the federal budget and pay down the national debt. Of course this would have the — presumably unintentional — effect of destroying capitalism as we know it. Corporate capitalism, since it coalesced…

Matthew Yglesias may be the most left-libertarian friendly liberal commentator out there. Not only is he unusually open to free market ideas, but he’s also repeatedly shown strong sympathies for open-source and post-scarcity approaches to economic organization. In fact, he’s practically built his brand around setting himself against the two defining features of American liberalism…

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be by Moisés Naím (Basic Books 2013), 320 pages. The topic of Moisés Naím’s book is the decay of power — the shift of power “from brawn to brains, from north to south and west…

Dit is zo’n tijd geweest waarin een reeks willekeurige, schijnbaar losstaande gebeurtenissen allemaal een algemene les voor mij hebben versterkt. Allereerst werd op 21 januari gemeld dat Canadese en Amerikaanse veiligheidsdiensten—Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), de Mounties, de FBI, Homeland Security, en provinciale, staats- en lokale politie—nauw hebben samengewerkt met Enbridge, TransCanada en andere energieleveranciers…