Tag: politics
C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “Open the Borders Now and Forever” read and edited by Nick Ford. Free and open movement is the natural, unconditional right of every single individual, a prerogative that precedes governments and their arbitrary borders and policies. Confronted with this fact, even some self-styled libertarians will cavil and complain, puling that…
There can be no prescription old enough to supercede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.–James Otis, Jr. James Otis, Jr. (2/5/1725-5/23/1783) of West Barnstable, Cape…
Uno dei fatti più trascurati nel dibattito sull’attacco contro Gaza è il ruolo che Israele ha avuto nell’ascesa di Hamas. Proprio così. Lasciamo perdere il fatto che i razzi sparati da Gaza sono una roba amatoriale, che chiunque potrebbe fabbricare facendo un salto in un negozio di hobbistica, e che provocano appena l’uno percento delle…
Some people in the city of Detroit recently had their water shut off due to 90 million dollars of past unpaid water dues. Much of the discussion that will probably emerge or has already emerged will revolve around whether to privatize the water supply there. This would probably involve contracting out services to a for profit…
An anonymous reader of Center for a Stateless Society‘s Tumblr recently asked: Two questions: 1) How exactly do the theory and practice proposed by free market anti-capitalists challenge the cultural logic of capitalism? 2) Don’t all market institutions — whether a large corporation or a mom and pop shop — desire a state as part…
In the ongoing debate over the crony capitalist “Export-Import” bank, job statistics get thrown around a lot. On its website, the bank boasts that “Ex-Im Bank’s mission is American jobs,” claiming to have “supported 1.2 million private-sector, American jobs since 2009, supporting 205,000 jobs in 2013 alone.” Economist Veronique de Rugy points out that these job numbers…
Markets not Capitalism is a wonderfully compiled set of readings spanning 150 years of the market anarchist tradition. We must first commend Gary Chartier and Charles Johnson on their work in bringing all this great literature together and bundling it in a fantastic book for those interested in what market anarchism truly has to offer, as…
A man, an American citizen, sits in his car as a U.S. Border Patrol agent insists that he roll down his window. He refuses. Agents use battering rams to smash the windows. Still, the driver refuses to leave his car, so he is hit with a Taser from two sides. He screams. It would be…
Il mese scorso, con un tono che potrebbe essere definito da excusatio non petita, l’ex primo ministro britannico Tony Blair ha voluto rassicurare la popolazione dicendo che “noi” (il Regno Unito e gli Stati Uniti) “dobbiamo liberarci dell’idea che siamo stati noi a causare” la destabilizzazione dell’Iraq e l’emergere dell’Isis. Oh no, siete stati voi,…
Anyone living today only knows the term isolationist as a pejorative. It gained prominence during WWII as a way to slander Americans who opposed U.S. entry into that war. Then, as now, it was said that those who opposed war against (insert foreign enemy) wanted to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the…
Attorno alla metà di luglio il segretario del Tesoro americano Jack Lew, citando il bisogno di un “nuovo senso di patriottismo economico”, ha proposto che il Congresso vieti alle compagnie con sede negli Stati Uniti di trasferirsi all’estero verso ambienti fiscali più favorevoli. L’uso teatrale della parola “patriottismo” è l’aspetto notevole della proposta di legge,…
C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s “Weed Legalization as Privatization, Disempowerment” read and edited by Nick Ford. Marijuana’s legalization seems much more like neoliberal privatization of markets than true liberation of them. While I do not question the decency of these first major marijuana retailers, there are legitimate concerns. Those most victimized by the state’s rabid oppression…
A story I missed back in April just came to my attention today. It seems Fatah (the secular nationalist guerrilla organization that formed the single largest component of the PLO) and Hamas announced their reconciliation and plans to form a unity government — “a development that could see the Palestinian territories under a unified leadership for the…
Franz Kafka‘s The Trial follows the tribulations of Joseph K., a white-collar bank employee who finds himself amidst an incomprehensible penal system. He cannot figure out what he’s accused of, nor the steps of the trial, and his possibilities of defense are limited. A murky bureaucracy permeates everything and secrets reinforce the uncertainties of Joseph K.’s condition….
One fact that gets little attention in the debate over Israel’s attack on Gaza is Israel’s role in the rise of Hamas. That’s right. Never mind that the rockets fired out of Gaza are amateurish things that could be crafted from hobby shop supplies, causing barely one percent as many casualties as Israeli reprisals. Never mind…
American libertaranism has a reputation for being another species of that genus known as American conservatism. This is influenced by the American Libertarian’s penchant for lower taxation and less government spending. A position often described as fiscal conservatism. Fiscal conservatism must be understood contextually like any other term or issue. To what extent does the…
Just about every week another story comes to my attention confirming the complete and total government-dependency of fracking — beloved of so many self-proclaimed “free market” advocates on the libertarian right. Something about eminent domain to build the pipelines, or liability caps for spills, or regulatory approval of unsafe pipelines superseding tort liability for negligence, and…
In mid-July, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew proposed that Congress prohibit US-based companies from moving offshore in search of more favorable tax climates, citing an ostensible need for a “new sense of economic patriotism.” The resort to “patriotism” theater stands out as the most egregious aspect of legislation whose retroactive status would blatantly violate the…
“Are you interested in individualist anarchism, or at least so frightened by it that you want to keep an eye on its progress? Are you frustrated by capitalism’s love for central planning and communism’s conservative view of human potential? Do you suspect that abolishing the institution responsible for war, police brutality, and mass incarceration might…
C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s “We’re All Illegalists Now!” read and edited by Nick Ford. Being that the drug world is literally under siege by a domestic military operation, it is beyond anyone’s imagination how markets like the Silk Road could keep their doors open without a serious injection of class consciousness. All those involved in…