This site is about one thing: power that can’t be held to account. The state first, and then the private privilege the state props up.
I call myself a left libertarian, and here that means the same as the a-word, anarchist. The word started there. Joseph Déjacque coined it in 1857 for anarchism at full strength, and it took the American right another century to attempt to co-opt it, which is why “libertarian” now needs a left or right in front of it.
I don’t claim to be right. I claim a test anyone can use: is a person being used as an input, and can they leave? Slavery fails it. So does more of ordinary life than we like to admit.
Most of the writing here is mine. Some is borrowed, including the strongest arguments against my lines of reasoning, each with a note on why it’s here.
Entry points: Start Here: Am I Wrong? | The Unfinished Exclusions | Labor and Property: A Module in Political Economy (forthcoming)
Sections:
- Libertarianism — where the word came from, and why it belongs on the left.
- Stateless — consent, legitimacy, and the limits of democracy.
- Law — natural law, positive law, and how law works without a state.
- Propertarianism — the strongest case for self-ownership, the non-aggression principle and private property, and where each goes wrong.
- Economics — markets versus capitalism, labor, property, and who the rules are written for.
- Order — spontaneous order, exit, method.
- Post-Anarchism — what Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and the rest add to anarchism, and where they fall short.
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Martin Elson