See Charles’ reply to Juan Cole’s tirade against the Ron Paul/Noam Chomsky anarchist axis.
In related news, Charles is going to be a guest blogger at BHL.
Tag Archives | Molinari/C4SS
Let’s Ignore Hitler
Libertopia, the marvelously radical libertarian event where I’ll be speaking again this year (21-23 October, in San Diego; y’all should come!), has a blog for speakers. My first post, Beyond Government, is up now.
Check out some of the other entries too; I particularly like Gary Chartier’s, Spencer MacCallum’s, and Stefan Molyneux’s.
Saying It Again
The following letter appeared in today’s Opelika-Auburn News. Regular readers of this blog will find no surprises here:
To the Editor:
D. W. St. John (“Regulations often needed in today’s world,” Thursday) blames both the BP oil spill and the financial crisis on a lack of government regulation.
On the contrary, both disasters were caused by pro-big-business regulations.
BP took unnecessary risks because they’d been given a liability cap of $75 million. Small wonder that they engaged in riskier behavior when they could count on regulations limiting their victims’ right to sue.
As for the financial crisis, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s manipulation of interest rates distorted price signals and encouraged unsustainable investments, thereby making a collapse inevitable. Calling this longtime regulator a messiah of unregulated markets is ludicrous.
Most government regulations are pro-plutocracy in their effects, regardless of how they’re marketed. Both liberal and conservative politicians are reliable supporters of the big-government/big-business partnership that dominates our economy, though of course they’re careful to wrap that support in anti-big-business rhetoric and anti-big-government rhetoric, respectively.
It’s no coincidence that most of the supposedly anti-big-business legislation of the Progressive Era was lobbied for, often even drafted by, the corporate elite, who understood that big businesses thrive when small businesses are choked by regulations.
The grain of truth in the idea that crises are caused by deregulation is that when government grants special privileges to banks and corporations, and then removes restrictions on how these privileges are exercised, perverse incentives take over and catastrophic results predictably ensue.
But the problem is the initial regulations that create the privileges in the first place.
Unchaining a state-privileged entity is not a decrease in state intervention; rather the contrary.
To learn more about why government regulation systematically serves the interests of the wealthy at the expense of everybody else, check out the websites of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and the Center for a Stateless Society.
Roderick T. Long
Anarchy In Seattle: Call For Papers
The Molinari Society
Call for Papers
for the Society’s Symposium to be held in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meeting, April 4-8, 2012, Seattle.
Symposium Topic:
Explorations in Philosophical Anarchy (II)
Submission Deadline:
September 30, 2011
The past two decades have seen a resurgence of interest, both in activist and academic circles, in Anarchist politics and theory, with new and challenging work from several different directions. Renewed academic interest in Anarchism has drawn attention to the importance, vitality and philosophical fruitfulness of key Anarchist arguments and concepts – such as the conflict between authority and autonomy; tensions between collectivism and individualism; critical challenges to hierarchy, centralized power, top-down control and authoritarian conceptions of representation; and the development of concepts of spontaneous social order, decentralized consensus, and the knowledge problems and ideological mythologzing inherent in relations or structures of domination.
Most of this discussion has, naturally enough, taken place within the field of political and moral philosophy. But Anarchist theory (like marxist or feminist theory) embodies more than a policy orientation or a system of moral or political theses. The Anarchist tradition offers a wide-ranging, diverse and vigorously argued literature, concerning the nature and foundations of human society, with implications for every aspect of philosophy, including not only political and moral theory but also aesthetics, social-science methodology, epistemology, and the philosophies of science, religion, history, language and logic. We are looking for papers that address possible connections, approaches, challenges or insights that anarchy and its conceptual environs may suggest for philosophy broadly – or that philosophy may suggest for anarchy – beyond the familiar territory of political and moral theory, especially in such areas as epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and metaphilosophy or philosophical method. Papers from all analytical and critical standpoints (both with regard to philosophy and with regard to Anarchism) are welcome.
Please submit complete papers of 3,000-6,000 words for consideration for the 2012 Symposium by September 30, 2011. Papers should be of appropriate scope and length to be presented within 15-30 minutes. Submitting authors will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of their papers by October 10, 2011.
Submit papers as e-mail attachments, in Word .doc format or PDF, to longrob@auburn.edu or feedback@radgeek.com.
For any questions or information, contact us at the above email addresses.
* * *
Some possible topics include – but are by no means limited to:
- Authority and Epistemology
- Anarchy and Logic
- Illusions of control in philosophy
- Decentralism or spontaneous order in philosophy of language
- Philosophical implications of the work of “canonical” Anarchist theorists (Godwin, Proudhon, Molinari, Tucker, Spooner, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, De Cleyre, Goodman, Bookchin, Rothbard, Wolff, Zerzan…)
- Anarchy and Rationality
- Hierarchy, legibility and knowledge problems
- Philosophical Method and Anarchism
- Claims of representation and claims of knowledge
- Etc.
Please spread the word to anyone who you think would be interested in the symposium topic!
Addendum:
More info here.
Wanna Think Some Liberty?
I’m going to be on Thinking Liberty tonight, with hosts Darian Worden, Tennyson McCalla, Bosco, and bile. The show will be livestreamed from 8-10 Eastern (7-9 my time), during which I believe you can ask questions via chat room; the episode will also be available for download later.
I’d assumed that they wanted me to talk mainly about the prospects for a Smurfs / Jar Jar crossover, but apparently the discussion will focus on “philosophy and left-libertarian market anarchism,” whatever those are.
I think I can guarantee that listeners will get more out of this episode than the last time I was on.
Kevin Carson Speaks!
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Thompson will not speak to you tonight. His time is up. I have taken it over. You were to hear a report on the world crisis. That is what you are going to hear.
For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is Kevin Carson? This is Kevin Carson speaking.
I’ve been too busy Misesing to have a chance to listen to it yet. But here it is.