Review of Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis, Seven Stories Press (2003) Is it time to do away with the American prison system, and prisons worldwide? Civil rights activist, scholar and icon Angela Davis clearly answers Yes in her 2003 book. Davis is best known for her involvement with the civil rights and black power movements…

…from James Wasserman’s “Pulling Liberty’s Teeth,” published in the third (2008) edition of the anthology Rebels and Devils: The Psychology of Liberation: America’s first state and local gun laws were nearly all designed to keep guns out of the hands of slaves. These included laws passed prior to the American Revolution. After the Civil War,…

One of the more disturbing trends on the American Center-Left (which sees itself, entirely without justification, as “the Left”) is the increasing popularity of the right-wingers as “seditionists” or “traitors” meme. The most notable recent example, in the wake of the racially-motivated massacre in Charleston, is the identification of the Confederate battle flag with “treason.”…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Valdenor Júnior‘s “The Libertarian Struggle of the Black Movement” read by Erick Vasconcelos and edited by Nick Ford. Murray Rothbard attempted to establish a conversation between libertarianism and the New Left through the periodical Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought. Among the articles published, one of the best certainly is Rothbard’s own…

Nota: Questo articolo è stato scritto in occasione della Giornata della Consapevolezza dei Neri in Brasile. Negli anni sessanta, nomi famosi del movimento libertario americano entrarono in contatto con i movimenti di mobilizzazione della Nuova Sinistra che, al contrario della Vecchia Sinistra, era caratterizzata da diffidenza verso le strategie di uno stato centralizzato con ampi…

Nota: Questo articolo è stato scritto in occasione della Giornata della Consapevolezza dei Neri in Brasile. La schiavitù in Brasile, l’ultimo paese americano indipendente che a quei tempi aveva ancora questa istituzione, fu abolita ufficialmente il 13 maggio 1888. Certo non fu una legge firmata dall’aristocrazia a risolvere i problemi della popolazione nera che, per…

Note: this was written for the occasion of Black Awareness Day in Brazil. In the 1960s, notable names from the American libertarian movement established contact with mobilizations of the New Left, which was characterized, as opposed to the Old Left, by a mistrust of centralized and big government strategies, and by their emphasis on the inclusion of segregated…

Note: This article was written for the occasion of Black Awareness Day in Brazil.  Officially, slavery in Brazil, the last independent American country which still had this institution at the time, was abolished on May 13, 1888. However, it wouldn’t be a law signed by the aristocracy that would solve the problems of the black people, who, for centuries, had their labor and…

Brazil’s Congress just passed a Proposal of Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) known as “Slave Labor Amendment.”  The new law aims to broaden the power of land confiscation without compensation by the government, including  properties on which there is exploitation of slave labor. After the modifications, Article 243 of the Constitution reads as follows: “Rural…

Desertion is often treated as equivalent to cowardice, treason, and other such things generally considered distasteful. As any anarchist could tell you, treason only makes sense if you feel some kind of loyalty to the nation-state or government or state you’re born into or under. This left-wing market anarchist most certainly doesn’t. As for cowardice,…

Rudolph Rocker once said that there is a definite trend in the historical development of human civilization which strives for the “free, unhindered unfolding of the individual and social forces of life.” This is indeed an accurate account of human history — we strive for the beautiful ethic of liberty. Liberty can be described, rather simply,…

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…

MR. EDITOR: [by “B”] The discussion which occurred between Mr. Burleigh and Rev. Mr. Kimball, at the recent meeting at Framingham, though brief, was quite interesting and suggestive, and I had hoped to see the subject more particularly alluded to in THELIBERATOR. A doubt as to the correctness of Mr. Burleigh’s position occurred to me, which perhaps will need…

Qualche tempo fa la cantautrice Ani DiFranco ha dovuto cancellare il suo “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy”, un ritrovo di autori di canzoni ospitato nella Nottoway Plantation and Resort, una ex piantagione di schiavi in Luisiana. La scelta del luogo aveva provocato un meritato scontento, costringendo la DiFranco alla ritirata. La cantante ha poi…

Professor David Levy of George Mason University has pointed out that when Thomas Carlyle labeled economics “the dismal science,” he wasn’t referring to the pessimistic conclusions drawn by Thomas Malthus. No, what Carlyle found dismal was that market-based societies entail free labor and rule out slavery, specifically black slavery. That depressed Carlyle. Perhaps slavery was gone in Britain…

Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco recently cancelled her “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy,” a song-writing retreat hosted at the Nottoway Plantation and Resort, a former slave plantation in Louisiana. The venue choice provoked well-deserved outrage, prompting DiFranco to cancel. DiFranco issued what Callie Beusman at Jezebel called “a remarkably unapologetic ‘apology,’” defending her actions more than apologizing…

A few days ago, US Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) recycled his familiar contention that “[w]hat enables [the United States’] war-friendly philosophy is the fact that there is no military draft to dodge.” Yoking ordinary people to the decisions of the political class, he argues, would somehow disincentivize U.S. bellicosity abroad. In tandem with Rangel’s proposal…

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over…

Obama says some Americans are paranoid, fretting about an imagined tyranny lurking behind the corner. Progressives cheer as he mocks his lowly subjects. Yet some among them embrace one of the most despotic state powers imaginable: the draft. The draft is military slavery. It cannot be justified on any basis. Ever. It is wrong in…

Free Nation that undertook to enforce slavery contracts would not be a Free Nation worth fighting to build or to defend.