(Originally published by Rad Geek People’s Daily on May 29, 2008) Here’s a great post from a bit more than a year ago at Anomalous Presumptions (2007-02-26), which I just got around to reading: I was responding to this key point: [P]eer production isn’t an assault on the principles of a free society, but an extension of…
A little over 100 years since anarchists, socialists, communists, libertarians, and radical unionists in the so-called united states successfully won the long, difficult, and bloody battle for the eight hour workday, we are still overworked and underpaid despite technological advancements necessitating less and less labor to maintain the same quality of life. To quote Bertrand…
Monopolies are pretty much universally bad. This perhaps one of the most uncontroversial position amongst anarchists, who principally define themselves in opposition to the state, which Max Weber, in “Politics as Vocation,” defines as the monopoly on force and the approval of the use of force in a geographic area. Benjamin Tucker, the great U.S….
What is C4SS? Politically, C4SS was founded to help promote the diverse perspectives found in left market anarchist circles. Our target audiences have long run the gamut from complete mainstream normies, to anarchist insurrectionaries, to libertarian academics. We are anarchists because we oppose every form of domination, but we are also rooted in one of…
Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged is a work whose reputation precedes it. Some may love and some may hate it, but most readers of this site, including ones who have not read this book, will likely have some knowledge of its major plot points and the ideological views of its author. Therefore this review…
It’s common for right-libertarians to attack — with some justification — the stupidity of those who equate opposing a law or government agency with opposing some value or goal in its name. Wanting to abolish the Department of Education, for example, doesn’t mean you’re against education. But right libertarians are guilty of a somewhat related…
In “The Problem of Scale in Anarchism and the Case for Cybernetic Communism,” Aurora Apolito writes: I don’t believe that markets can be “liberated” from capitalism, nor that they can do anything good anyway, regardless of their liberated status. In essence, this is because I view the market mechanism as running on a steepest descent…
[Hear an in-depth discussion on this article and its topics in this episode of The Enragés] In a previous column, I examined the way in which those who praise Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk for their “creative genius” or “value creation” are misplacing the credit. All the components of Tesla designs, and of…
I want to begin by praising Apolito’s piece. It both tackles the strongest argument against anarchism, the problem of achieving coordination at scale, and models the problem using insights from the cluster of fields that lie at the base of complex systems. Whatever my disagreements with them over markets, this is a welcome addition to…
Bourgeois Dignity‘s line of inquiry — at least as stated — is into the causes of what Deirdre McCloskey calls “the Fact” — the tenfold or more increase in the average person’s standard of living in a couple centuries’ time. Her thesis that “the Fact” owed its origins to a culture of innovation, of openness…
I’m a big fan of Aurora and hope that her contribution to this symposium helps encourage more anarchists to engage fearlessly with the mathematical dynamics of an anarchist society. But I must admit my disappointment, I was hoping her contribution would seriously engage with the arguments for markets and either present a novel alternative or…
The calculation problem, as stated by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, has been central to most libertarian arguments against non-market or non-price forms of economic coordination. The Misesian variant, argued in Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth and Socialism, is based on the role of factor input pricing in allocating inputs among competing uses….
When massive Western corporations provide relief and assistance during a pandemic, these stories are easily framed by corporate communications teams, the government, and mass media as some sort of angelic benevolence. This is, at most, half the story. Many have hailed these companies for “stepping up” as they turn their productive capacities to producing things…
The great advantage of the anarchist movement is our decentralization, but without resilient protocols and networks we’re always at risk of losing pieces of our history and knowledge. There have been a number of compilations of anarchist and left-market anarchist pamphlets and zines over the years, and unfortunately most of them have decayed or fallen…
Please pardon our absence! As you can probably guess, the pandemic and related stresses led to a bump in our production schedule. But now, we’re back on track — and have two fresh episodes to boot… First, check out our interview with Libertarian Party presidential hopeful Vermin Supreme. You might know Vermin as the candidate…
Our next episode is with C4SS fellow Jason Lee Byas. Jason is also a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Michigan and his academic work focuses on punishment (and its alternatives), rights theory, and justice beyond the state. Today, we discussed some recent work he’s been doing on “methodological anarchist” approaches to political…
[Listen to a Mutual Exchange Radio Podcast discussing this essay here] Ideas related to Universal Basic Income (UBI) have been gaining some traction lately with the goals of mitigating inequality, addressing the increasing precarity of technological unemployment, and attempting to ensure that people can meet their basic needs. As an anarchist seeking freedom for all,…
The end of the world is upon us, or so it may seem. With COVID-19 spreading rapidly worldwide, a mixture of fear, precaution, and opportunism has led state governments to react in predictably authoritarian ways. While some officials have been fighting for moratoriums on evictions and utility shut-offs, paid sick leave, subsidized childcare services, Medicare…
Anarchists face the question: Without nations and states wouldn’t a free society be especially ravaged by pandemics? Who would enforce quarantines without rebuilding a centralized institution of violence? It’s a fair question. Anarchism isn’t about a finite goal, but an unending vector pointed towards increasing liberation. We’re not in the habit of “good enough” compromises,…
If you’re involved at all in the micromanufacturing, hardware hacking, or open-source hardware communities, or interested (as I am) in their potential for economic relocalization and for undermining corporate power, you’ve probably seen a story going around about makers in Italy 3D printing valves to keep ventilators running for COVID-19 patients in critical condition. According…
