The government of Oklahoma did not botch an execution on Tuesday. When the administration of an untested combination of drugs fails, we do not describe the treatment as “botched,” but simply as a failed experiment. Last night, the government of Oklahoma conducted an unsuccessful experiment on a human being without his consent. This man, a…

Venerdì scorso (undici aprile), un terreno nei sobborghi di Rio de Janeiro è stato reso al gigante della telefonia fissa Oi. L’area, conosciuta come “favela da Jelerj” era stata occupata da 5.000 persone, provenienti soprattutto dalle favelas di Mandela, Manguinhos e Jacarezinho, che lì avevano costruito le loro case improvvisate. Ci sono stati scontri con…

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…

Ik weet zeker dat je dit al eens eerder hebt gehoord. “Als je niet stemt, dan mag je niet klagen” “Niet stemmen is een stem voor de winnaar en wat hun beleid ook mag zijn. Als je hen niet mag en niet wilt, dan had je moeten stemmen voor de andere partij.” Deze kleine stukjes…

Over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Fernando Teson is once again pounding the drums for … something. Presumably after being so hilariously, catastrophically, historically, possibly even supernaturally wrong on Iraq, Teson has decided not to overtly pound the drums of war. He’s just vaguely calling for “moral clarity” now, which is progress for Teson. After all,…

In a New York Times letter to the editor (“Invitation to a Dialogue: Unequal Schooling,” April 22), Heather Gautney – a professor of sociology at Fordham University – expresses understandable dismay at the inequitable distribution of resources in the public school system. After citing the common American belief that “education is the great opportunity equalizer –…

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…

In the latest example of a phenomenon as old as the state itself, Stan McCoy – formerly the US Trade Representative’s chief “intellectual property” negotiator, who wrote ACTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s IP chapter – was just given a cushy job at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He’s one of over a dozen…

The passing of Gabriel García Márquez last Thursday was a particularly painful moment for anyone in Latin America – or elsewhere – who ever indulged in the sublime pleasure of reading any of the literary master’s works. But for me, the pain of the event was not exclusively due to “Gabo” all of a sudden…

C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “Working Three Jobs to Make Ends Meet? This Might be Why” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. The state, the giant corporation, and large institutions of all other kinds are part of an interlocking culture designed to extract as much money from us as possible while delivering as little as…

The innovative initiatives of occupation of (nominally) public spaces, which have arisen here and elsewhere at the start of the 21st century, are still quite biased against trade and commerce. They imagine that an event (or program) that intends on promoting togetherness in public squares and city streets is not supposed to be profit motivated;…

C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “Charles Koch Clutches Pearls, Dies of Moral Rectitude” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Over two hundred years ago free market economist Adam Smith pointed out that, when businesspeople get involved in government, it’s to protect themselves against competition and rob the public. That’s just as true of the Kochs…

C4SS Media presents Joel Schlosberg‘s “Did Somebody Say McThor’s?” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford. Only in an industry with grotesquely overextended operating costs could a film like Hulk take significant creative risks, gross a quarter-billion dollars, and still be regarded as box office poison. Even in an economy stacked against their audience awareness, comics properties like Teenage Mutant…

Gary Chartier shows that market anarchism satisfies Rawlsian demands of a system of justice.

The Bundy ranch saga has been the subject of heated good guy/bad guy framing by both mainstream liberals and mainstream conservatives, who differ only on which roles to assign to Bundy and the feds, respectively. But I can’t really see any good guys in this. The respective echo chambers for the two sides differ on…

Last week I had the great pleasure of attending the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) annual conference. I saw many excellent presentations, including Ed Stringham’s talk on anarchism, Abigail Hall presenting a paper on how foreign wars bring repression home, David Skarbek discussing prison gangs as self-governing institutions that facilitate market exchange, Brian Meehan…

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:…

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…

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…