We all have biases, and for many people nationalism (even the smallest degree of it) is one of them. However, if your goal is to understand the world, nationalist sentiments won’t give you the sturdiest foundation to do so. Nationalism shortcuts our thinking about the world. It awards a disproportionate amount of virtue points to…

It’s conventional to start an obituary article with a brief biographical summary, so here it is. One of David’s pet peeves was being referred to as an anarchist anthropologist, so I’ll say that David Graeber, an anarchist and an anthropologist, died at age 59 Wednesday, September 3rd in Venice of as yet unreported causes.  He…

A common idea on some parts of the internet is this idea of “redpilling,” and that if you take the “red pill,” you awaken to a new way of thinking. This darkly ironic appropriation of a term coined by trans women, the Wachowskis, usually includes becoming a TERF and anti-feminist, (although it may also include…

Those against firearm ownership often lead their objections with a distaste for over-enthusiastic attitudes about guns that they say verges on cult-like worship. The claim is also made that these attitudes encourage a needlessly violent approach toward conflicts that have alternative resolutions. At most, those passionately opposed to gun ownership may allow an exception for…

In times past, people emptied buckets of shit from their windows to the streets below. We can remember this as a historical fact without the streets continuing to be covered in human waste. If you were violently assaulted, you would want people to recognise the injustice but probably wouldn’t be campaigning for a statue of…

Di Asem. Originale pubblicato il 13 aprile 2020 con il titolo Benjamin Tucker’s Four Property Regimes and the Spirit of Capitalism. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Molte discussioni sull’economia politica sono reazioni a problemi attuali: aumentare o abbassare le tasse, come imporre le leggi sul lavoro, e questioni simili di centrodestra o centrosinistra, con tutto un…

Here’s our interview with Libertarian Party presidential hopeful Vermin Supreme. You might know Vermin as the candidate from the last few election cycles who ran on a platform of free ponies and mandatory tooth brushing, or you might just know him as that guy with a boot on his head. But this year, he’s running…

Di Asem. Originale pubblicato il 16 marzo 2020 con il titolo The Four Day Workweek is Ripe for the Picking. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Se chiedete ad un anarco-sindacalista per quale ragione ci si dovrebbe iscrivere alla sua associazione, lui vi fornirà un lungo elenco di cose che oggi appaiono scontate ma che sono il…

Some years ago, I coined the term “vulgar libertarianism” to refer to a particular, egregiously bad form of right-libertarian analysis. I did a long series of posts (“Vulgar Libertarianism Watch”) at my now mostly inactive blog, in which I applied the concept to a considerable volume of absolutely wretched material from the right-libertarian commentariat. I…

Come evitare che i porci pascolino tra i beni comuni della conoscenza Di Asem. Originale pubblicato l’undici marzo 2019 con il titolo General Intellect as a Vanguard: Keeping the Pigs from Grazing in the Knowledge Commons. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna. Non è un caso se quando in documenti o discussioni formali si parla di brevetti…

Introduction Once championed by anarchists, leftists, and liberals; in recent times, free speech has become a right-wing talking point. Where the free-speech movement of the 60s opposed government sanctions on protest and dissent, the political right largely focuses on the following issues; right-wing speakers being denied platforms, social media censorship, the use of accusations such…

James C. Scott’s latest book, Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States, is sure to become a classic and a brick in the wall of core anarchist theory. It covers somewhat different but complementary ground to Peter Gelderloo’s Worshiping Power: An Anarchist History Of Early State Formation. I have some significant critiques…

One week from the moment I am writing this, the 91st anniversary of the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell will come and pass. Ninety-one is admittedly not the nicest or roundest number for a remembrance, but this is not exactly the nicest subject matter, so perhaps it is fitting. I feel that there…

Obviously, I strenuously object to anarchism being classified as a “liberal” — I find Jason Lee Byas’ attempt to reclaim that term profoundly misguided and I’ve written my thoughts on this before. Jason claims that fascism cannot survive in liberalism and so seeks to disrupt it, but this is ass-backwards in a lot of ways….

Part 1: FASCIST RHETORIC You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with…

Individualist anarchism is the most radical form of libertarianism, which is in turn a radical form of liberalism. From this perspective, the threat of fascism poses a unique challenge. One reason for this is that fascism is individualist anarchism’s polar opposite, as far as one can go in a comprehensive rejection of liberalism. Fascism is…

In-group Preference and National Borders Fundamental to the danger of nation-states and borders are the paradigms of nationalism and in-group preference that exploit human quirks to justify violence. In-group preference is best understood in terms of the creation of teams through the dehumanization of an ‘other.’ In-group preference is mentally categorizing someone who is somehow…

The rampant dictatorial governments in Italy, Spain and Russia, which arouse such envy and longing among the more reactionary and timid parties across the world, are supplying dispossessed ‘democracy’ with a sort of new virginity. Thus we see the creatures of the old regimes, well-accustomed to the wicked art of politics, responsible for repression and…

As long as there has been something called “anarchism,” anarchists have been struggling to define it—and, as often as not, they have been in struggle against other self-identified anarchists. At this point in our history, this seems both hard to deny and pointless to regret.

This piece is the fourth essay in the June C4SS Mutual Exchange Symposium: “Anarchy and Democracy.” Democracy is a word that evokes an array of affective responses depending on time, place, and people involved. For the Patriot movement, democracy stimulates a constellation of ideals, values, and principles.