The widely noted transition from the “old economy,” based in the production of physical commodities, to the “new economy” of the information age—with its capital base concentrated not in heavy machinery and land, but in human beings and in knowledge—has been attended by a concomitant sea change in the legal framework surrounding business. Where ingress…

Knowing Brazilian law is my trade, but I still get scared when I learn about the powers the Brazilian state possesses. During the World Cup, the government established so-called “trade exclusion zones” in FIFA’s benefit, in a law called the “FIFA Act.” Article 11 of the act establishes that the government guarantees “to FIFA and…

If you follow the news, you regularly hear of various treaties — GATT’s Uruguay Round, NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP — described as “Free Trade Agreements” whose purposes are to “reduce trade barriers.” This is a lie. Without exception, such agreements actually strengthen the one form of protectionism most vital to safeguarding corporate interests against competition in…

Eric Blattberg, writing for VenturBeat, reports (“Tesla Motors: Please infringe on our patents for the greater good,” June 12) that electric car manufacturer Tesla will henceforth permit all comers to exploit its innovations. “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology,” says Tesla CEO Elon Musk. I…

Left-libertarianism has been getting a lot of buzz recently in the broader American libertarian community. The term “left-libertarian” has been used many ways in American politics, and there seems to be some confusion within the libertarian community itself as to who left-libertarians actually are. The basic ideas of left-libertarianism, as we at the Alliance of…

Discussions of technological change in the media are generally coupled with discussions of technological unemployment and the increasing polarization of wealth. A good example is a piece by Eduardo Porter in the New York Times (“Tech Leaps, Job Losses and Rising Inequality,” April 15). Amid talk of all the technological wonders issuing from Silicon Valley,…

As a boy in the southeast African nation of Malawi, William Kamkwamba harnessed the wind.  In 2002, drought and famine — common problems in one of the world’s least-developed countries — forced the boy and his family to forage for food and water as thousands starved. Kamkwamba, however, knew if he could build a windmill…

Everyone seems to like privacy — so much so that we often expand the term into the social concept of “privacy rights,” indicating that privacy isn’t just a good thing but something to which we are all entitled. This leaves unanswered an important question: “To what degree and in what respects?” Last month the European…

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses why U.S. soldiers aren’t defending our freedoms. Dave Lindorff discusses why the U.S. empire is in decline. Gary M. Galles discusses how compulsion is not cooperation. Jacob G. Hornberger discusses the U.S. support for military coups. Cesar Chelala discusses the CIA and the misuse of public health. Ian Urbina discusses the…

In this recent post at Students for Liberty (SFL), Clark Ruper calls for libertarians to stop fighting between themselves and to band together in the name of spreading freedom. Using the story of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) as a parallel, he decries going too far down a “rabbit hole” of “reflective thinking.” It is Ruper’s…

In Seattle, St. Louis and elsewhere, “ridesharing” services such as Uber and Lyft are causing a kerfuffle. These services, which allow users to submit orders via a smartphone app that are then filled by individuals driving their own cars, run afoul of long-standing regulations requiring the special licensing of taxis by municipal authorities. These licenses,…

A lot of recent libertarian commentary has treated Uber and Lyft as the greatest thing since Bitcoin and 3D-printed guns. On the other hand, a lot of critics — including not only liberals but anarchists who should know better — have demonized it as a corporate gentrification tool straight out of the fever dreams of…

Gabe Newell — Valve‘s CEO, a company that develops games such as Half-Life and Portal, and also manages the virtual video game store Steam — famously noted, a while ago, that piracy is a service problem, rather than a pricing one: We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and…

In “Private Property, When and Why,” Joseph writes, “At best, private property is a neutral concept in itself; based on given natural conditions, it can be either good or bad.” While I disagreed with this position initially, I believe after further clarification, I am actually in full agreement with it. To determine if the concept…

In my last two blog posts, I responded to Lynn Stuart Parramore’s article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blew Up Libertarian Fantasies. At the end of the second one, I promised an explanation of the economic theory I used to critique her article. This post will be a brief introduction to said economic theory. Let’s…

A considerable portion of the Left has been diverted lately by a dispute between Lawrence & Wishart (the Marxist publishing house that owns the copyright to the multi-volume Collected Works of Marx and Engels in English) and the Marxist Internet Archive over the latter’s online digital version of the Collected Works. In surveying this dust-up,…

For decades taxi regulations have served as the textbook example of government regulations creating artificial enclosures, rents, and wage labor. In addition to a host of prohibitous regulations that even extend to the color of a driver’s socks, the “medallion” system dramatically limits the number of taxi in major cities while at the same time…

My name is Nick Ford and I would like to welcome you to this blog of mine, Hardly Working. The goal of this blog is to promote a future where none of us will have to work. And by “work” I don’t mean just giving effort, but labor that we give to others under systematic…

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…

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…