libertarianism

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• SOURCE: New Statesman
  5/12/2023
  

  Quinn Slobodian: Can Democracy be Safe from the Market?

  A new history of capitalist policy initiatives focuses on the "zone," a territory of radical deregulation where capital is free from constraint by democracy. A reviewer asks whether there can be a zone where democracy is insulated against the market. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3/23/2023
  

  Excerpt: How Apartheid South Africa Tried to Create a Libertarian Utopia

  by Quinn Slobodian

  As pressure grew to end Apartheid, South African libertarians experimented with a deregulated zone that would be "Africa's Switzerland." It failed to become a model market utopia, but with sweatshops, environmental hazard, and stunted democracy, it was an eerie predictor of 21st century societies. 

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• 12/11/2022
  

  The Selective Appropriation of Christopher Gadsden's Famous Flag

  by Jordan Baker

  The Gadsden Flag originally symbolized the unity of the American colonies against oppression by the Crown and Parliament. It's an irony of history that the symbol has been adopted by some who reject centralized authority. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  12/5/2022
  

  Libertarianism's Philosophers Come Out Worse For Wear

  by Rebecca Brenner Graham

  A fellowship at a leading libertarian institute convinced the author that the movement sees its luminaries as icons, not as historical figures. 

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• SOURCE: Aeon
  9/6/2022
  

  Ken Burns Got "Prohibition" Wrong

  by Mark Lawrence Schrad

  Burns largely accepts an individualistic and libertarian narrative of prohibition as a misbegotten campaign of moral scolds, missing the reformist, egalitarian, and humane demands of the movement and the exploitative nature of the "liquor traffic" it sought to disrupt. 

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  8/1/2022
  

  Raymond Craib: Rich Tech Libertarians Have Fantasies of Escape, but a Desire for Power

  by Jacob Bruggeman

  The most striking lesson from the history of failed attempts to create societies without states is that the libertarian impulse to strip the state of its power to control capital has already profoundly reshaped every society on earth. 

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• SOURCE: Slate
  5/21/2022
  

  The Brief Life and Watery Death of a 1970s Libertarian Utopia

  by Raymond Craib

  The Republic of Minerva was a product of a postwar moment when the wealthy sought to exit from a society they viewed as overbearing and doomed. 

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• SOURCE: Terra Nullius
  2/22/2022
  

  Raymond Craib on the History of Adventure Capitalism and Libertarian Exit Schemes

  "Silicon Valley tech culture seems convinced that its projects and schemes are new, innovative and sui generis… and they are not."

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• SOURCE: Institute for New Economic Thinking
  11/15/2021
  

  Why Mislead Readers about Milton Friedman and Segregation?

  by Nancy MacLean

  "One would think that today the facts about the long struggle of southern white leaders to preserve segregation are so well known that simple fact-checking would suffice to rule out attempts to whitewash their efforts."

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  9/16/2021
  

  New Heterodox Academy Leader's Ties to Koch Network Compromise Intellectual Diversity Mission

  by John Warner

  The leadership choice for Heterodox Academy shows the organization is more oriented toward fighting the left than truly promoting diversity of thought. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  3/17/2021
  

  The History of Freedom Is a History of Whiteness

  by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

  "A conversation with Tyler Stovall about his recent book White Freedom and whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination."

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  11/17/2020
  

  Charles Koch Got the Free-Market Dystopia He Wanted. Now He’d Like Your Approval

  "The problem isn’t simply which horses a newly contrite Charles Koch chooses to back, but the extent to which his extreme wealth and his commitment to a system that enshrines the power of the rich has shaped the entire racetrack."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/17/2020
  

  There’s a Word for Why We Wear Masks, and Liberals Should Say It

  by Michael Tomasky

  "Say this: Freedom means the freedom not to get infected by the idiot who refuses to mask up. Even John Stuart Mill would have agreed."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/15/2020
  

  In Fights Over Face Masks, Echoes of the American Seatbelt Wars

  The fight over seatbelt laws in the United States was fraught with trying to strike a balance between individual and public interests. Those concerns have also been reflected in similar matters of health and safety, including vaccinations, helmet laws — and masks.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  10/13/2020
  

  The Town That Went Feral (review)

  by Patrick Blanchfield

  In a United States wracked by virus, mounting climate change, and ruthless corporate pillaging and governmental deregulation, the lessons from one tiny New Hampshire town are stark indeed. Plus, bears.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/21/2020
  

  The Libertarian Ideas That Wrecked the Fed

  by Bruce Bartlett

  Friedman’s ardent libertarian faith was central to his monetarist thinking; like all libertarians, he was always extremely wary of anything that would cause the size of government to grow.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  9/23/2020
  

  Is Freedom White?

  by Jefferson Cowie

  In American mythology, there exists a gauzy past when white citizens were left alone to do as they pleased with their land and their labor (even if it was land stolen and labor enslaved). In the legend, those days of freedom and equality were, and still are, perpetually under assault. 

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• SOURCE: Reason
  9/7/2020
  

  Washington Post Journalist Radley Balko on Civil Rights, Militarized Policing, and the Power of Video

  Journalist and historian of policing Radley Balko discusses the changing perception of police and police abuse in an interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie. 

• 
• 8/30/2020
  

  U. S. Individualism Spikes Up Coronavirus Cases

  by Walter G. Moss

  The COVID-19 pandemic shows that American political culture has embraced individualism at the expense of our ability to imagine and act for the common good.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  8/20/2020
  

  No, There Isn’t A Constitutional Right To Not Wear Masks

  by Helena Rosenblatt

  Libertarian arguments against compulsory mask-wearing to fight COVID-19 claim the mantle of individual liberty but ignore the way that liberal theory has focused on both rights and duties as the core of the social contract.