Written by Charles Johnson, as published at the Center for a Stateless Society. We libertarians defend economic freedom, not big business. We advocate free markets, not the corporate economy. And what would freed markets look like? Nothing like the controlled markets we have today. But how often do we hear mass unemployment, financial crisis, ecological…
Category: Free Markets
How “Intellectual Property” Impedes Competition
Written by Kevin Carson, as published at the Center for a Stateless Society. Any consideration of “intellectual property rights” must start from the understanding that such “rights” undermine genuine property rights and hence are illegitimate in terms of libertarian principle. Real, tangible property rights result from natural scarcity and follow as a matter of course…
The Solution to Gun Control
Written by Michael Eliot for The Voluntaryist Reader. With all the (nauseating) discussion I have seen on the inter-webs and in real life, back and forth, about what could be done, should be done, will be done in response to yet another horrific school massacre, I would like to paint a picture of possible responses were we…
I Do Have a Choice
Written by R.S. Jaggard for The Voluntaryist, June 1991. I want to be productive. I want to produce goods and services of value to my neighbors, and, I want to deal with them in willing exchange for mutual benefits. My life-long ambitions, my training and experience, and my present position all add up to the…
How the State Will Die
Written by Jeffrey Tucker for Laissez Faire Today. Today, YouTube hosts vast quantities of material that, two years ago, was considered to be pirated and illegal. It is all there serving hundreds of millions of users who don’t pay a dime to get to it. It is doing what Napster did at the turn of…
Monopolization of a Water Supply
Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. A charge occasionally levied against libertarianism is that a vital natural resource, such as a water supply, could be monopolized by an astute businessman, who could then hold society hostage with the threat of cutting off its ability of replenishing its bodily fluids. This is a most curious…
Scandalous Regulators
Written by Mark Thornton for Mises Daily. Regulation simply does not work. It is designed with hopes of success, but with no mechanism to achieve this success. We hope for efficiency, but what we get is bureaucracy. We hope for effectiveness, but what we get is rules and red tape that serves neither producer nor…
Freer Is Safer
Written by John Semmens for The Voluntaryist, February 1990. One of the most common delusions of our age is that government is enforcing regulations that will actually help improve safety. In the wave of deregulation that hit the economy in the last decade, many observers have found comfort in the knowledge that safety was not…
The Christmas Story’s Hidden Capitalism
Written by Jeffrey Tucker for Laissez Faire Today. People talk like capitalism is some strange foreign invader, a mechanical system that was imposed on the world a couple hundred years ago, fueled by burning coal and emitting smoke, and certainly not anything organic to the social order. This is preposterous. The Christmas story that surrounds…
But Wouldn’t Robots Take Over?
Written by Wheylous for The Voluntaryist Reader. Economists agree that the accumulation of labor-saving capital is responsible for the great growth of wealth experienced in recent centuries. It has allowed the productivity of the public to soar, which has in turn improved wages and working conditions. Yet parallel to the phenomenal betterment of the life…