Although Trump’s infrastructure agenda seems to be pretty much on the back burner — to the extent that it exists as as anything but a talking point — his public statements on it so far have mostly been about “public-private partnerships.” Hence, as you might expect, all the usual right-libertarian suspects are making happy noises…

If you consider yourself a centrist, you’re being played. (I assume I’m addressing ordinary people here who pride themselves on being one of the “adults in the room,” and not members of the establishments of either major party, leading figures in the military-industrial complex, affiliates of mainstream think tanks like Brookings, or talking heads like…

If you frequent mainstream right-libertarian publications on anything like a regular basis, you’ve probably seen more than one of those breathless articles about how capitalism is making the ordinary poor person richer than a medieval king. For example Calvin Beisner: “No matter how rich you might have been” 150 years ago, “You could not have…

As a libertarian anarchist, I will most likely vote to leave the EU on June 23rd. The EU, with its supranational corporatism and affirmation of legislation writ-large, goes against my fundamental principles, that of popular litigiousness expressed through common law and a belief in freed markets and radical decentralism. However, none of these principles are…

Local currencies in their praxis have many shortcomings when it comes to economic applications. Issues of supply chains and the adequacy of developed economies of scale are lacking in many local currency systems. However, such an economistic view ignores the actual political ramifications of local currencies. Certainly local currencies have issues when it comes their…

In a Washington Post article (“What rich countries get wrong about poverty,” March 28), Ana Swanson summarizes an argument by Caroline Freund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, as follows: “Blaming the super-rich for global poverty would be a mistake.” In fact it might reflect an erroneous “First World mindset.” (Note: I…

The increasingly globalised, transnational character of contemporary capitalism, with its attendant instability and crises, has led to the development of globally oriented social movements. These movements are an answer to the injustices and failures found in international capitalism, and aim to combat it through an equally internationalist outlook with heterogeneous characteristics and multiple sites of…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Riggenbach‘s “Why I Am a Left Libertarian” edited by Nick Ford and read by Riggenbach himself. Many libertarians say the traditional Left/Right political spectrum has become meaningless and useless. But to the extent that this is true for them, this is only because they have allowed themselves to be befuddled…

Cass Sunstein is such an excellent, if unintentional, parody of liberal goo-gooism that it’s hard to tell him from a creation of The Onion. As proof that “our democratic system structures” are not rigged — whatever Gloomy Guses like Elizabeth Warren and Lawrence Lessig may think — Sunstein (“The American System Isn’t Rigged,” BloombergView, August…

Many libertarians say the traditional Left/Right political spectrum has become meaningless and useless. But to the extent that this is true for them, this is only because they have allowed themselves to be befuddled by political fraud and, perhaps, by a weak background in political history. The spectrum is just as useful and meaningful as…

In a July 10 article at Reason, David Harsanyi (“Bernie Sanders is the Future of the Democratic Party“) describes the rise of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as “a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party’s trajectory,” and a portent of the party’s “socialistic future.” I’m more worried about what Harsanyi portends for the future…

Dilma Rousseff, durante la campagna elettorale per la presidenza del Brasile, accusò la rivale Marina Silva di voler “svendere ai banchieri” il controllo dell’economia brasiliana. Perché il bluff elettorale funzionasse, gli elettori avrebbero dovuto credere che i banchieri oggi non possono dettare le linee guida della politica economica nazionale. Non ci crede neanche Dilma: Appena…

Dilma Rousseff, in her bid for re-election to the presidency of Brazil, stated that opponent Marina Silva intended to “give away to the bankers” control of the Brazilian economy. Dilma’s electoral bluff assumed that voters would believe that bankers are nowadays unable to dictate the path the national economy should take. Not even Dilma believes this…

Lysander Spooner wraps up his 1875 pamphlet Vices Are Not Crimes with, [T]he poverty of the great body of mankind, the world over, is the great problem of the world. That such extreme and nearly universal poverty exists all over the world, and has existed through all past generations, proves that it originates in causes which the…

Zygmunt Bauman, in Postmodernity and Its Discontents, writes that religion, in its traditional form, used to celebrate human insufficiency. With a path more or less outlined for her entire life, the individual found herself powerless to change the conditions she was inserted in. In contrast to what he considers the “postmodern” condition, of uncertainty, premodern…

If you oppose mass incarceration, you should oppose empire. If you oppose imperialism and militarism, you should oppose the prison state. Empire and incarceration are two related institutions of brutal state violence, and they are mutually reinforcing. A new article by my friend Henia Belalia argues that immigrants’ rights should be understood in a context…

A trailer for the sequel to last year’s low-budget dystopian thriller, “The Purge,” was released on Thursday,  February 13, to fanfare about as modest as for the first film. If this trailer is any indication, the plot for “The Purge 2: Anarchy” looks almost note-for-note the same as its predecessor. The setting for both films…

El libertario Harry Browne una vez escribió que el gobierno «sabe cómo romperte las piernas, darte unas muletas y decir “¿Ves? si no fuera por el gobierno, no podrías caminar”». Pero con déficits y recesiones al acecho, los gobiernos han estado volviéndose más tacaños en cuanto a la entrega de muletas. La Cámara de Representantes…

On the 28th of September four European classical-liberal and libertarian parties signed the Utrecht declaration and covenant of European Classical liberal and Libertarian parties which provides the foundation for the new European Party for Individual Liberty (EPIL). The coming years will show if the EPIL can bring a new perspective on the principle of liberty…

Libertarian Harry Browne famously wrote that government “knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, ‘See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.’” But with deficits and recessions looming, governments have been getting stingier when it comes to handing out crutches. The U.S. House of Representatives recently…