Why I Don’t Much Like Liberals

by Kevin Carson
http://c4ss.org/content/15599

Why I Don’t Much Like Liberals

Although people like Bill O’Reilly habitually refer to establishment liberals as the “far Left,” they are two very different things.

What we identify as mid-20th century, New Deal liberalism is rooted in the Progressivism of the turn of the 20th century. The Progressives came largely from the white collar managerial-professional classes that controlled large bureaucratic organizations — giant corporations, government agencies, universities, foundations and think tanks — that dominated American society after the Civil War. Many Progressives in the corporate world came from industrial engineering backgrounds. The kinds of people who made up the demographic base of Progressivism saw American society as an extension of the large, hierarchical institutions they managed, and thought society could be managed the same way way an engineer managed industrial processes.

Letter to the Guardian on libertarian

by Ian McKay
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/letter-guardian-libertarian

As long time readers of my work know, I’ve been somewhat critical of George Monbiot in the past (awarding him Muppet of The Week, twice). His account of anarchism in his book Age of Consent must be one of the worse ever, making his “critique” completely worthless. I was going to review that book at one stage, but it is so terrible it was impossible to summarise (or even know where to start!) and so that joined the “started but not finished” pile! Suffice to say, he really should do some research before writing about anarchism.

This is not to say he does not get it right at times. He does, particularly on green issues (such as refuting climate-change deniers). He gets it right in this recent article for the Guardian: This bastardised libertarianism makes ‘freedom’ an instrument of oppression. In response to Monbiot, a letter from Dr Sean Gabb, the Director of the so-called Libertarian Alliance was published. I replied to that and amazingly the Guardian published it on 24^th of December, unedited. This letter is included at the end of this blog, but first a few comments on the original article and the propertarian letter.

“Capitalism”: The Known Reality

http://c4ss.org/content/15558
“Capitalism”: The Known Reality

The following article was written by Chris Sciabarra and published on his blog Notablog, February 4th, 2005.

Reaching out to the Left has been the source of much good discussion at the Liberty and Power Group Blog. So I’d like to pick up on that thread, yet again.

After reading [a] comment by Jake Smith in response to my “Market Shall Set You Free” post, I took a stroll over to Kevin Carson’s Mutualist Blog, which he subtitles “Free Market Anti-Capitalism.” It’s a provocative subtitle, actually. I’ve been having an ongoing discussion with a friend of mine for months about the nature of capitalism, so any subtitle that calls for “Free Market Anti-Capitalism” is intriguing on the face of it. (Kevin also has a very interesting book out, entitled Studies in Mutualist Political Economy.) He writes:

Opt out of opting in or out

by Robert Henderson
http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/opt-out-of-opting-in-or-out/
Opt out of opting in or out

Robert Henderson

The government has refused to make an automatic filter for pornography a legal requirement for ISPs with those wishing to access it having to opt out of the filters. They have not done this out of any concern for freedom of expression but because the government has

Er…ummm…

David Davis

It falls to me, usually, in nominal charge of the Chipmanzee Duty-Type-Writors in the Lancashire Nissen Hut, to do something occasionally. One such duty is to scratch this organisation’s Christmas message in the tidal sands of ephemeral journalism, somewhere.

I have a feeling that last year got a bit hectic and I forgot to remind the little buggers to do it, but rest assured that something will be coming up this time: to either please or annoy all you people, on the day or just before.

Sean Gabb in The Guardian

Hugh Muir writes in The Guardian for the 19th December 2012:

“Still this is God’s work, and there will always be somebody willing to diagnose just where we have gone wrong and make public their plans for putting things right. Out there in front is Dr Sean Gabb, self-proclaimed writer of “a million words of journalism” and director of the all-seeing Libertarian Alliance. Gabbauthored a book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, in which he explains how the “current ruling class has turned England into a totalitarian police state, and how this ruling class can be overthrown and utterly destroyed”. He and the Scruton-ites don’t agree on everything, but one does see them shaking things up a bit. Making England England again.”

I was wondering about the sudden rush for copies of my various books. Happy Christmas, Mr Muir – though, since you’re a writer for The Guardian, I’ll not add wishes for a prosperous 2013!