Volume 20, Number 1 (2006)

First, I must begin by affirming my conviction that Lysander Spooner and Benjamin R. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and that nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy that they left to political philosophy. By the mid-nineteenth century, the libertarian individualist doctrine had reached the point where its most advanced thinkers in their varying ways (Thoreau, Hodgskin, the early Fichte, the early Spencer) had begun to realize that the State was incompatible with liberty or morality.

Kevin Carson’s studies in Mutualist Political Economy (2004) is an impressive work. It first attempts to rehabilitate the classical labor theory of value (by giving it a subjectivist spin), and then traces the history of capitalism to show that it was founded by, and necessarily relies upon, State aggression. Carson finally ends by sketching his vision of a just world based on the principles of “mutualism,” in which labor retains its product and every actor internalizes the full costs of his or her decisions.

According to Walter Block, Kevin Carson’s (2004) Studies in Mutualist Political Economy is an infuriating book. In this article, he explains why.

Volume 20, Number 1 (2006)

Kevin Carson’s New Book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy centers on the incredible claim, self-contradictory on its face, that capitalism, including laissez-faire capitalism, is a system based on state intervention, in violation of the free market.

Volume 20, Number 1 (2006)

Dialogue between the so-called “capitalist” and so-called “socialist” branches of free-market libertarianism has declined. The publication of Kevin Carson’s Studies in Mutualist Political Economy provides a welcome opportunity to renew the conversation.

Volume 20, Number 1 (2006)

In this article, Kevin A. Carson responds to the numerous reviews of his book Studies in Mutualist Political Economy.

Volume 20, Number 1 (2006)

In section 1 we will discuss the property rights aspect of public works in The Wealth of Nations. Section 2 will clarify the role of the sovereign in establishing private joint stock companies in order to collect the vast amounts of capital needed for the supply of public works, especially those supporting commerce. Finally, in section 3, the case of education will be similarly analyzed from the point of view of economic institutions.

Volume 20, Number 2 (2006)

In almost every discussion of the FCC specifically, or American spectrum policy in general, someone will assert that radio spectrum is a unique resource that belongs to the public. This will be said as if it were axiomatic—a starting point rather than the historical consequence of special interests pretending to misunderstand economics. More harm has been done to the public in the name of “the public interest” than could ever have been done by private interests in a free market. Yet the public tends to call for more intervention instead of less. The case of radio is typical.

In this article, Robert P. Murphy and Gene Callahan review of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s argument for defense of the justice of a social order based exclusively on private property.

Volume 20, Number 2 (2006)

In this article, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel reviews Thomas E. Woods, Jr’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

Volume 20, Number 2 (2006)