Posted by Phil Dickens on 25/11/2010 · 2 Comments
Unemployment in Britain currently stands at roughly two and a half million. This is not far from the three million mark of the Thatcher era, which became a watermark for social discontent. With public sector job losses – and the private sector fallout – expected to claim another million people, it is unsurprising that people … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with adam smith, Beyond Hypocrisy, Capitalism, casualisation of work, Conservative Nanny State, Dean Baker, economics, Edward Herman, Hugh Stretton, job security causing unemployment, Karl Marx, laissez-faire, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, NAIRU, Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Employment, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private feudalism, retail price index, trade unions, unemployment, wages
Posted by Phil Dickens on 26/07/2010 · 10 Comments
The terms “capitalism” and “the free market” carry a lot of historical weight and baggage. For the right, they are basic neccesities for freedom and prosperity. For the left, they are the root of social and class inequality, the primary source of misery and injustice in the name of human greed. For the vast majority … Read more
Category Anarchism, Capitalism · Tagged with anarchist, anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism, Benjamin Tucker, Capitalism, communism, corporatism, Emma Goldman, free markets, Kevin Carson, libertarian, murray rothbard, mutualism, petty bourgeois, private property, scarcity, socialism, state-capitalism
Posted by Phil Dickens on 18/07/2010 · 1 Comment
Media pundits, politicians, and the outraged chattering classes often go on about the “underclass.” Faced with levels of crime, poverty, and social anger that they are neither willing nor able to understand, the term is one of blame and accusation. It’s a useful catch-all for the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, the homeless, petty criminals, drug … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with Capitalism, Fascism, mikhail bakunin, BNP, South Africa, ANC, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign, EDL, Leon Trotsky, Karl Marx, underclass, lumpenproletariat, scum, Raoul Moat, Frederich Engels, Communist Manifesto, reactionary, middle class, lazy workers, immigrants, dregs of society, Landless People's Movement, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Take Back the Land, Homeless Workers' Movement, Kerry Katona, Jade Goody, IWCA, LCAP, London Coalition Against Poverty, Independent Working Class Association, Jeremy Kyle, The Sun, The Daily Mail, chavs
Posted by Phil Dickens on 31/05/2010 · 17 Comments
Yesterday was Tax Freedom Day. That is, it was “the first day of the year that Britons work for themselves rather than the taxman,” at least according to the Adam Smith Institute. As such, it seems a rather apt time to discuss the right-wing libertarian notion of freedom. The basic goal of (right) libertarianism, according … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Chris Mounsey, Chris Wilson, Devil's Kitchen, feudalism, Hans Hermann Hoppe, homestead principle, John Demetriou, libertarian socialist, libertarianism, monarchy, murray rothbard, Philosophy of Liberty, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private property, right-wing, Tax Freedom Day, The state
Posted by Phil Dickens on 23/03/2010 · 7 Comments
Anarchists are against hierarchy and coercion, and as such oppose the structures of the state. From this simplistic premise, there are those who find it hard to comprehend anarchist support for public services and the public provision of welfare. Right-wing “libertarians” and “anarcho”-capitalists are the most vocal in their criticisms of such a stance. Murray … Read more
Category Anarchism, Capitalism · Tagged with An Anarchist FAQ, Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Capitalism, collectivism, communism, consumers, Diego Abad de Santillan, dogma, free market, Hans Hermann Hoppe, homestead principle, Kevin A Carson, laissez-faire, libertarianism, liberty, Ludwig von Mises, market socialism, mikhail bakunin, murray rothbard, mutualism, neo-liberalism, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private monarchy, private property, private sector, public sector, public services, scoial welfare, social democracy, Steve Millet, usury, welfare state, workers
Posted by Phil Dickens on 10/01/2010 · 3 Comments
One of the key components of anarchism is class struggle. This struggle has many forms, from picket lines, through anti-racist and anti-fascist movements, to the fight for migrants’ rights and armed insurrection against imperialism. However, the aim remains the same. Agitation, organisation, and education for the working class against their exploitation and repression by the … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with activism, Anglo-Irish War, army mutinies, border agents, class struggle, class traitors, class war, coffeeehouse movement, Dahr Jamail, education, enforcing the state, Listowell Police Mutiny, Manilla, native policemen, organisation, police, prison officers, repression, Russian Revolution, soldiers, the military, working class
Posted by Phil Dickens on 18/12/2009 · Leave a Comment
One of the basic rights of workers in the industrialised world is the right to organise. Under the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948,workers “have the right to establish and, subject only to the rules of the organisation concerned, to join organisations of their own choosing without previous authorisation.” … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with anti-worker attitudes, BA strike, class consciousness, communism from below, industrial action, Industrial Workers of the World, IWW, labour struggles, Mr Block, pro-business media, propaganda model, reformism, revolution, strikes, the Commune, trade unions, union militancy
Posted by Phil Dickens on 05/12/2009 · 4 Comments
In September 1869, Mikhail Bakunin delivered a Report on the question of Inheritance to the Basel Congress of the International Working-Men’s Association. In it, he posed the following question; But what separates property and capital from labour? What distinguishes the classes economically and politically from one another, what destroys equality and perpetuates inequality, the privilege … Read more
Category Capitalism · Tagged with Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Capitalism, economic inequality, heredity, mikhail bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, propertarianism, Property rights, socialism, the right of inheritance, wealth accumulation
Posted by Phil Dickens on 04/09/2009 · Leave a Comment
When the subject of climate change arises, there are several things that we can expect to hear about quite consistently; The Kyoto Protocol and how well one or other government is living up to their responsibilities. The “green credentials” of various corporate bodies. The introduction of some new “green” tax which will, depending on the … Read more
Posted by Phil Dickens on 22/04/2009 · 1 Comment
For as long as the ideology has existed, proponents of capitalism have invoked the “free market” in defence of their ideas. To use the definition of “anarcho”-capitalist Murray Rothbard, a “free market” is one in which the “array of exchanges that take place in society” are “undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or … Read more
