I often hear people make casual remarks like, “Well, the State has a right to collect taxes,” “the State has a right to punish criminals,” or “the State has a right to controls its borders.” Inside, I am always somewhat horrified at how very easily these kinds of assumptions are made, at how obvious the…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Socialism: What It Is” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Benjamin R. Tucker, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. Now, Socialism wants to change all this. Socialism says that what’s one man’s meat must no longer be another’s poison; that no man shall be able to add to his riches…

It’s no secret that economists and libertarians have developed a bad habit of assuming things about history and other societies on first principle without actually checking archaeological or anthropological findings. On occasion the divide can be quite stark. David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years gets a lot of momentum by attacking a widely circulated…

According to Damon Linker, spontaneous order “might be the silliest and most harmful of all” libertarian ideas (“Libertarianism’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea,” The Week, Sept. 26). He summarizes spontaneous order, popularized by Hayek in the 20th century, as the belief that “when groups of individuals are left alone, without government oversight or…

Parsing Political Divides in the Mainstream and in Anarchism CNBC describes the Corporate Perception Indicator as “a far-reaching survey of business executives and the general population from 25 markets,” “research firm Penn Schoen Berland survey[ing] 25,012 individuals and 1,816 business executives.” The results of the survey show quite unsurprisingly that the general public associates government…

What would it be like if everyone loved everyone else? 10 out of 10 people agree, it’d be pretty fucking great. Unfortunately we are all, at this point, human. Our capacities to embrace each and every individual as a truly beautiful and unique creature are far beyond us. We also exist within social structures which…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Sheldon Richman, read by Charles Johnson and edited by Nick Ford. Abstracting from the numerous, often mutually exclusive details of specific cultural projects that have been recommended or condemned in the name of libertarianism, the question of general principle has to…

A day on which everyone can remember where they were is seldom a good memory. On September 11, 2001 we added another day to that list of days we’d rather forget. I was in an optimistic frame of mind when my radio alarm woke me that morning. My first real print publication, the pamphlet “Iron…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Roderick Long‘s “Egoism And Anarchy” read and edited by Nick Ford. I’ve long held that Greek philosophy and modern libertarianism are natural allies, tailor-made for each other ‘ not because they are similar but because through their very differences each can supply the deficiencies of the other. This debate in Liberty is…

All’inizio di settembre, la Reuters ha reso nota una ricerca commissionata dalla Federal Reserve che dimostra che negli Stati Uniti cresce la disuguaglianza in termini di reddito e ricchezza. “Tutta la crescita del reddito,” dice la Reuters, “è concentrata nella parte alta… con il 30,5% nelle mani del 3% della popolazione.” La ricerca della Federal…

My Center for a Stateless Society colleague Roderick Long once described full anarchy as the golden mean, not a form of zealotry or extremism, but a middle way “between mandating what should be optional and prohibiting what should be optional.” Professor Long’s point is not mere framing or spin, attempting to pitch anarchism to an…

In early September, Reuters reported on a new Federal Reserve survey showing widening wealth and income gaps in the United States. “All of the income growth,” Reuters reports, “was concentrated among the top earners …  with the top 3 percent accounting for 30.5 percent of all income.” The Fed survey will no doubt disconcert those…

It is a testament to Paul Avrich’s talents as a historian and writer that his book on the Modern School Movement, a libertarian educational movement of the early twentieth century, remains not only the essential text on an unfortunately obscure topic, but also a worthwhile resource for understanding the various currents of American radicalism and…

The political economy of Benjamin Tucker represents an alloy of its major influences, synthesizing the work of radical thinkers such as Josiah Warren, William B. Greene, Ezra Heywood, and Lysander Spooner to create a mature, comprehensive individualist anarchism. From Heywood came Tucker’s trademark analysis of the wrongs of rent, interest, and profit, “follow[ing] closely the…

The book I will discuss below develops and defends the idea of law without a state. The book’s blurb tells us the following: This book elaborates and defends the idea of law without the state. Animated by a vision of peaceful, voluntary cooperation as a social ideal and building on a careful account of non-aggression,…

The following article was written by Benjamin R. Tucker and was first published in The Twentieth Century, 1892. Why am I an Anarchist? That is the question which the editor of The Twentieth Century has requested me to answer for his readers. I comply; but, to be frank, I find it a difficult task. If the editor or…

C4SS Feed 44 presents David S. D’Amato‘s “Avowals of Selfhood: Review of Egoism” read and edited by Nick Ford. For the egoist, individualism must precede anarchism, for the affirmation of self is the source of the denial of all authority — individualism being the more general thing, anarchism a specific implication. Any anarchism that sets itself…

Anarchism and hierarchy have a tricky and messy relationship. Some anarchists proclaim to be against all hierarchy (sometimes even defining anarchism as such) and others proclaim they are simply against the state and don’t care about hierarchy itself. I believe individualist anarchism, rightly understood falls somewhere in between these extremes. Individualist anarchism, in short, is…

C4SS Feed 44 presents “Anarchism Without Hyphens” from the book Markets Not Capitalism, written by Karl Hess, read by Stephanie Murphy and edited by Nick Ford. But anarchism is not an ideological movement. It is an ideological statement. It says that all people have the capacity for liberty. It says that all anarchists want liberty. And then it is…

People are drawn to a commotion. In the marketplace of ideas, winners are often simply the loudest and as anarchists we hold ideas inherently more combative and attention grabbing than those regularly seen on a college campus. This is precisely what makes the campus perfect for radical activism, and was the philosophy which guided the…