C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. In 2008, we heard a lot of stuff from Obama about the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping and Gitmo; and then in January 2009 Obama turned on a dime and enacted George Bush’s third term on such issues….

Well, kind of. Obviously Benjamin Tucker had no direct opinions about “anarcho-capitalism,” because the term was not even coined until many years after his death, and several decades after his retirement from radical politics. But Tucker did have quite a bit to say about the relationships among anarchism, socialism, and capitalism, and it may be…

It’s hardly news that Charles and David Koch are longtime supporters of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). For example, Institute for Humane Studies “Koch fellows” are heavily represented in staff jobs at ALEC, and frequently go on to head the task forces that draft model legislation. The Kochs stated some time ago their preference…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “‘Intellectual Property’ Kills’” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. The key agenda at the center of all the so-called “free trade agreements” is the imposition, at the behest of the giant corporations that depend on “intellectual property” monopolies for their profits, of a form of protectionism…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford‘s “The NSA is Phoning it in Again” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. The fact that Alexander needed convincing that the program was a failure is proof enough that it was mostly talk. If you need to convince your boss of something that is widely known…

In a recent email, a professor of sociology expressed some skepticism about what she regarded as over-enthusiastic treatment of the possibilities for new education models in a stateless society. Among other things, she questioned the apparent claim that new media, online courses and free lectures would “save the education system” or provide access to education….

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Platonic Productivity” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Roderick Long, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. “Nothing I’ve said shows that men and women are equally productive; it’s only meant to show that, given prevailing cultural norms and power relations, we might well expect to see a gap between men’s…

1. “Rejoinder” to Murray Rothbard This is not, properly speaking, a rejoinder — obviously, since Rothbard’s article predates my book. But since it was chosen to set the tone for this symposium issue, and includes some comments on individualist anarchism in general, I’ll make a few remarks anyway. On the land issue, I reserve comment, since that is also…

An article at Medium (Tim O’Reilly, “Networks and the Nature of the Firm — What’s the Future of Work?” August 14) describes Uber and Airbnb as “textbook examples” of “the way that networks trump traditional forms of corporate organization, and how they are changing traditional ways of managing that organization.” Um, no. What Uber and…

C4SS Feed 44 presents James C. Wilson‘s “The Problem With Electoral Politics” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. Those with great wealth inevitably find ways to use it to secure more political favors for themselves at the expense of the rest of us. The system inevitably becomes increasingly rigged in their favor….

In 1888, France’s leading libertarian periodical, Gustave de Molinari’s Journal des Économistes (stronghold of Lockean property theory and proto-Austrian economics) published a largely favourable and appreciative (if somewhat condescending) review of the United States’s leading libertarian periodical, Benjamin Tucker’s Liberty (stronghold of Mutualist property theory and Proudhonian economics). [1] Tucker’s journal returned the favor in…

…Mutualism is a social system based on reciprocal and non-invasive relations among free individuals. The Mutualist standards are: Individual: Equal freedom for each — without invasion of others. Economic: Untrammeled reciprocity, implying freedom of exchange and contract — without monopoly or privilege. Social: Complete freedom of voluntary association — without coercive organization… The libertarian ideal…

Freedom is Slavery: Laissez-Faire Capitalism is Government Intervention: A Critique of Kevin Carson’s Studies in Mutualist Political Economy By George Reisman [1] Kevin Carson’s new book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy centers on the incredible claim, self-contradictory on its face, that capitalism, including laissez-faire capitalism, is a system based on state intervention, in violation of…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “We Need More Treason, Not Less” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. Let’s get something straight: The American state is and always has been, regardless of the political party controlling it, the executive committee of the propertied classes who use the state to extract rents from…

…Left-libertarians share with other leftists the recognition that big businesses enjoy substantial privileges that benefit them while harming the public. But they stress that the proper response to corporate privilege is to eliminate subsidies, bailouts, cartelizing regulations, and other state-driven features of the legal, political, and economic environments that prop up corporate power rather than…

Three and a half years ago I wrote an essay about why Americans should stop participating in the presidential election — either as voters, as supporters of one candidate or another, or as participants in the endless social media and conversational back-and-forths. In short, that they should pay as little attention as possible to the election campaign…

Standing in an office while two kids beg me to go back to their home, I begin retreating back into my inner-child. I imagine how I would have felt if I was seven years old and a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator told me I couldn’t stay with my mom anymore. Their mother had committed…

Kevin Carson as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde By Walter Block [1] Kevin Carson’s (2004) Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is an infuriating book. On the one hand, its author shows great familiarity with many of the most important libertarian [2] contributors to the field of political economy. Taking them in alphabetical order, they include:…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “Toward a New Lexicon of Liberty” read by Dylan Delikta and edited by Nick Ford. Libertarianism is viewed in the mainstream political conversation as the ideology of capitalism, of corporate greed and a toxic expression of globalization, McDonalds, Nike, and all the rest nodding along to rote libertarian…

Bernie Sanders thinks open borders are a “right-wing proposal” that “would make everyone in America poorer.” Sanders’s comments not only display a shocking ignorance of the economics of immigration, but also a disappointing, racist, xenophobic tendency among the mainstream left. While Sanders also thinks we have a “moral responsibility” to “work with the rest of…