Perhaps Wal-Mart or Amazon wouldn’t survive in a fully free market. Who knows. But to the extent that they face market competition, there’s nothing bad about their bigness or centralization that should make us want to end them. Any downsides present entrepreneurial opportunity to newcomers, and powerhouse companies are not safe forever. Markets are relentless.
Tag: monopoly
Statist Stockholm Syndrome
Stockholm syndrome is a psychological condition of traumatic bonding in which a victim comes to empathize with an abuser so much that they will identify with and defend them. It is evident in many who consider themselves compassionate and patriotic, as evidenced by the following statist hogwash I recently saw going around social media.
Voluntary Law and Order
People are not all the same, and they make different choices because they have different values, circumstances, and levels of understanding. Sometimes those choices are peaceful and wise; sometimes they are not. So what are the best ways to promote good choices and cooperation while preventing and providing resolution for conflict?
Schooling is Not Inevitable
As back-to-school time approaches and articles swarm on how to make the transition to September easier and more successful, maybe it’s worth pausing to ask: If something is so unpleasant for so many of us, why are we doing it?
Those Who Think Nothing of Voting Us into Compliance
It seems the government’s monopoly on education has finally eroded enough common sense over the decades that many can seriously argue that to pin blame on two sides is somehow excusing one, as if blame is somehow a rivalrous, consumable good.
How Mass Schooling Perpetuates Inequality
For kids like Matt, schooling can bring out the worst behaviors. Like a trapped tiger–angry and afraid–they rebel. Unable to conform properly to mass schooling’s mores, they get a label: troubled, slow learner, poor, at-risk. They will carry these scarlet letters with them throughout their 15,000 hours of mandatory mass schooling, emerging not with real skills and limitless opportunity, but further entrenched in their born disadvantage.
How I Changed My Mind on Intellectual Property
I’d been solidly libertarian for many years the first time I gave thought to “intellectual property” (copyrights and patents) at all. Someone mentioned the protection of property, including intellectual property, as the root of prosperity and freedom. I agreed without hesitation. It just seemed to make sense.
A Conversation Between Voluntaryists: What’s with IP?
Kilgore and I have had another discussion. This time about intellectual property (IP) laws and their role, if any, in a free society. This topic is not as much of a debate as the last, but still worth having.
Who Will Build The Roads? Anarchists.
The Portland anarchists at PARC are out to fix more roads and serve their community, by voluntary action. Without government permission and at government dismay. Only few anarchists are bandana-wearing, Molotov cocktail-wielding protestors, while many are peaceful, liberty-loving people who want to help their community via voluntary association.
An Argument for a Stateless Society
The state fundamentally violates the non-aggression principle. Only its death can absolve its infringement, and I think this simple fact alone is more than enough justification for its termination.