Trading Places

“What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.” –Henry George When Donald Trump can propose tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, washing machines, and solar-panels without being roundly booed off the stage, one has to wonder if reason has any…

Can You Explain Why Slavery is Wrong?

We’ve encountered some reasonable refutations of this premise, with the biggest critique being around the claim that it’s “self-evident”. In that way, it looks like the other weak arguments. When I’m asked to prove that I own myself, I don’t have a quick and easy answer, I can’t produce a receipt. But I am responsible for my actions, and I chose how and when to use my body. These are qualities of ownership. And even with a gun pointed at my head, the decision to cooperate is still ultimately mine. I couldn’t forfeit control if I wanted to.

A Catch-22 in Organizing for the Pursuit of Liberty

There’s a Catch-22 in regard to efforts aimed at diminishing state domination and enlarging genuine liberty. A substantial number of people may support these goals, but in order to achieve real gains, they must organize to raise money, build public support, and obstruct the state’s attempts to plunder and bully them. The catch is that the organizations they create are run by organizers or managers who have incentives to turn their organizations into vehicles for their own power-quest or for workaday jobbery.