C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “At Alternet, Every Day is Liberal Self-Parody Day” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. “But I want to focus instead on the internal inconsistency of Eskow’s statements on the sharing economy, and his incredibly naive understanding of how regulations work. Eskow’s argument about the sharing economy is: 1)…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Erick Vasconcelos‘ “It’s Time to Destroy DRM” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. “From Apple’s cat-and-mouse race with jailbreaking phone buyers, to Amazon’s move into “exclusive” programming for its streaming service, to Netflix’s region-blocking (enthusiastically supported by the Motion Picture Association of America, a powerful US IP lobby), to rampant…

One of my favorite anarchists and writers of all time was recently featured by actress Mary Tuomanen. Tuomanen read an excerpt from perhaps my favorite essay by de Cleyre called The Dominant Idea and it was presented during the 2015 Voices of a People’s History at Plays and Players in Philadelphia. Just for some background, the main…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “I Don’t Love America Either, Rudy” read by Trevor Hultner and edited by Nick Ford. “The America Giuliani loves is the one made up of, first and foremost, its government, which Giuliani and his fellow American exceptionalists claim have “allowed” for the greatest freedom and prosperity in mankind’s history. Giuliani and his…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “The End of Libertarians” read by Trevor Hultner and edited by Nick Ford. “Some people find it rhetorically useful to compare all the different forms to slavery by way of analogy; and in some cases it may actually be a useful analogy. But when you’re talking to a person whose ancestors experienced…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “Selective Hearing in the War on Terror” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. “Michael Scheuer, Former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden Unit, said about bin Laden: “[he] is remarkably eager for Americans to know why he doesn’t like us, what he intends to do about it and then…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “Brian Williams Shouldn’t Have Been Valorized to Begin With” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. “The problem with labeling Brian Williams, or any other journalist or soldier who comes under attack during war a hero, is that it glamorizes war’s senseless violence. War between feuding governments is insidious and…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Grant A. Mincy‘s “The Politics of Wilderness” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. “Regarding the ANWR proposal, sit back and watch the depraved political theater unravel before your eyes. This move for conservation depends on congressional Republicans. There is no chance the GOP will approve the wilderness title. Bloomberg notes Alaska…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “How “Intellectual Property” Impedes Competition” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Kevin Carson, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. Since intellectual property is not necessary to encourage innovation, this means that its main practical effect is to cause economic inefficiency by levying a monopoly charge on the use of existing…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Anarchism Without Adjectives” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. “So what can we say about the general outlines of a stateless society? First, it will emerge as a result of the ongoing exhaustion, hollowing out and retreat of large hierarchical institutions like state, corporation, large bureaucratic university, etc. It…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “The Two Simplest Arguments for Open Borders” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. “If someone in Spain and someone in Saudi Arabia want to meet in Bangladesh, preventing them by force from doing so simply because of their starting locations cannot be justified. The same two people, if living…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Toxic Waste and Inequality Are Good for You” read by Mike Godzina and edited by Nick Ford. After making the arguments above, Pagels slips and reveals the real source of his primary concern: “Most income inequality reports focus only on the most negative interpretation of the data, creating a narrative that the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Jeff Ricketson‘s “A Left-Libertarianism I Don’t Recognize” read by Tony Dreher and edited by Nick Ford. In fact, what left-libertarianism has as its central tenet is that every individual should have complete control over their life and no one else’s. Misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and the myriad other bigotries that can haunt the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Chad Nelson‘s “The Political Class’s War on Immigrants is a Diversion” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. Politicians rely on this hugely important power to maintain a stranglehold on their subjects. The right to bestow work upon their subjects, and all of the ancillary terms and conditions that come with granting…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Kevin Carson‘s “Mind Your Own Business, Bobby Jindal” read by Ian Anderson and edited by Nick Ford. The “English only” movement is especially clueless. In most places practical necessity is a far greater incentive to learn English than anything they can come up with. And people are generally pretty smart about learning whatever languages…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Ryan Calhoun‘s ““Terror” as Victim Rhetoric” read by Thomas J. Webb and edited by Nick Ford. All acts of war involve terror. The horror of war is not a byproduct, it is the intention. One cannot divorce terror from war anymore than one can divorce pleasure from sex. Treating an entire side of a…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Those Who Control the Past Control the Future” read by Jeff Riggenbach and edited by Nick Ford. To begin with, there never was anything remotely like a period of laissez-faire in American history (at least not if “laissez-faire” means “let the market operate freely” as opposed to “let the rich and powerful…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Nick Ford‘s “Mr. President, Chelsea Manning Would Like a Word” read by Mike Godzina and, again, edited by Nick Ford. But if I had to pick one of the most egregious quotes from Obama it’s this: “[W]e defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities,…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Individualism and Inequality” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Joe Peacott, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. The differences in wealth that arise in an individualist community would likely be relatively small. Without the ability to profit from the labor of others, generate interest from providing credit, or extort rent…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “A University Built by the Invisible Hand” read by Joey Clark and edited by Nick Ford. In the 12th century, Bologna was a center of intellectual and cultural life. Students came to Bologna from all over Europe to study with prominent scholars. These individual professors were not originally organized into a university;…