Property and the family are two ideas, for the attack and defense of which legions of writers have taken up arms during the last half century. Recent systems, founded upon old errors, but revived by the popular emotions which they aroused, have in vain disturbed, misrepresented, sometimes even denied, them. These ideas express necessary facts,…
Download a PDF copy of Grant Mincy’s study Power and Property: A Corollary. The concept of property is widely discussed by social theorists and is a hot button issue within political circles. This is mostly because property is somewhat of an abstract concept. Property is a possession — it belongs to someone or something. Seems simple enough,…
Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869), the English economics writer I discussed previously, is an enigma — until his philosophy is seen in its entirety. He was an editor at The Economist of London from 1846 to 1855, during the period author Scott Gordon called “the high tide of laissez faire, yet he is considered a Ricardian socialist,…
Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience. A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and…
Libertarians tend to see two worlds: one with private property that works reasonably well, and one without that farcically implodes. What they often miss, however, is that this dichotomy is conditional. Private property isn’t morally meritorious or great in itself, but only insofar as it is the best and only way to avoid conflict given…
Reuters reports that this year the United States Supreme Court will hear its highest proportion of intellectual property (IP) cases in history. The justices are set to decide eight cases on IP — six on patent laws and two on copyright. A sign of the times, really. In a world of open source content and the…
An all-private system can be oppressive, just as an all-public one can be.
Less Antman: Anarchy is not a system. It is an attitude of respect for other people, and a rejection of master-slave relationships (with no exception for government officials).
David D’Amato finds a recent court decision makes an excellent opportunity to examine the concept of property.
Thomas L. Knapp puts “intellectual property” on the slippery slope, to see how far down it rolls.
D’Amato: “Intellectual property” is an affront to free markets.
Kevin Carson explains that so-called “intellectual property” adds to GDP only by perversely counting unnecessary costs as productivity.
Kevin Carson explains that the notion that intellectual property somehow protects “the little guy” is a fraud.
Thomas L. Knapp on so-called “intellectual property”: “…big money got to be big money by using government to restrain trade and ban competition.”
…A Guide For Right-Wing Polemicists and Other Sycophants In recent months the public outcry against concentrated wealth and inequality, and the growing influence of progressives and democratic socialists with anti-billionaire rhetoric on Democratic politics, has evoked a corresponding alarm from the center, center-right, and right. The counter-cry in defense of billionaires has come from organized…
If you’re a leftist who frequents online spaces at all, you’ve almost certainly been mocked for not “understanding economics” or told to “go study economics” by some right-wing dudebro (probably with a black and gold header and #Bitcoin in his profile, if he’s on social media). When a podcast by Larken Rose (“Appreciating Capitalism”) for…
Today is Murray Rothbard’s centennial birthday. Many things have been written about Rothbard’s legacy for libertarians more generally, but what about left-libertarians in particular? Rothbard’s legacy? For left-libertarians? Most left-libertarians and most Rothbardians would recoil. Rothbard is usually viewed as either a right-wing villain or right-wing hero. Often, the right-wing classification has merit. But it’s…
Radical Technology and Neighborhood Power At Reason (“The Anarchist and the Republican,” April 13), Jesse Walker writes of a period in the 1970s when an Old Rightist speechwriter for Barry Goldwater turned New Leftist (Karl Hess), and a Nixon Republican and future Reagan speechwriter (John McClaughry), could reach unlikely consensus around values like worker self-management…
What Matt Zwolinski Gets Wrong About Left-Libertarianism Over at The Bleeding Heart Libertarian,1 Matt Zwolinski has a recent post about what we left libertarians get right and get wrong. According to Matt, we left libertarians are correct in going after traditional right libertarians for being vulgar libertarians. Further, he argues that we left libertarians are correct…
At Foundation for Economic Education, Patrick Carroll (“Responding to Reich, Part 10: How to Have Infinite Growth on a Finite Planet,” Feb. 18) Patrick Carroll attempts to explain why critics of capitalism are wrong to say that infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet. As for the idea of infinite growth on a finite…
