The idea of basic income is that work is not the centre of one’s life. While laziness is not meant to be encouraged, there is a tacit recognition that under an unconditional system it may well be, leading to a potential system where the productive are subsidising those who choose to be unproductive. While problematic under most understandings of political philosophy, this precedent is particularly problematic in the concept of a traditional society (that shaped by Burke’s little platoons of local and parochial institutions). Without a work obligation, one is receiving a right without reciprocating with duties. They’re receiving something for nothing.

An unconditional basic income has become an increasingly relevant and important proposal in the past decade. There is an increasing automation of work in manufacturing and services, a limitation of trade union involvement in worker’s lives, and the development of an increasingly large precariat[1] of semi-employed workers. This has led to an increasing decoupling of productivity and wages (due both to technological developments which decrease skilled work[2] and the destruction of trade union influence[3]) as well as the development of a rentier economy, where income earned “does not compensate productive activities”[4]. Of the current tranches of wealth found in the global economy, 74% comes from economic rent[5]. Much of this rent derives from monopolistic tendencies, including intellectual property[6], network externalities[7] and the concentration of wealth through technological innovation[8]. The modern economy is extremely unequal, with the majority of people having little access to these tranches of rental income. This is the opposite of a truly free society, where one’s “opportunities are being leximinned subject to the protection of their formal freedom”[9]. Such a society is one that guarantees a level of security while allowing for self-ownership and the attainment of leximin opportunities i.e. “some can have more opportunities than others, but only if their having more does not reduce the opportunities of some of those with less”[10]. Continue reading →

The gold standard regime in its international character existed from the late 19th century through to the First World War. As a system, the gold standard is generally conceived as a monetary system represented, directly or indirectly, by gold. While having elaborate systems of coinage and paper money surrounding it, the main element was that gold backed these forms of monetary media. This itself was subject more to belief than concrete reality though, as actual backing by gold was largely irrelevant. “For paper to represent gold, it must be regarded as equivalent to a given quantity and purity of gold. In general, this equivalence is achieved by “convertibility,” the commitment to exchange the notes for gold on demand”[1]. It was the belief in convertibility, rather than the reality of its being done. Such a system can be seen as integrated, with many flows and pathways, but with gold at its centre as the fulcrum of this regime. It was “a truly international system based on gold”[2]. Continue reading →

The libertarian conception of the non-aggression principle is lauded as the prize universalist idea. Above all else, and above all other philosophy, is said to sit the foundational NAP, which situates all individuals and collectivities. From it come the critiques of the state, governance and collectivism, and the support of unhindered individualism and natural rights. Continue reading →

Gramsci rightly identifies that in the modern political environment, simply recognising actors as either public or private, in the realm of states or markets respectively, is problematic. Unfortunately the crux of international political economy has accepted this modernist doctrine, tacitly deifying the rationalist discourses of action and modernity which underlie such conceptions. For a large bulk of IPE, as well as other social sciences such as economics and political science, this is the held belief. Rationalism guides human action, which inevitably means a continuous desire for capital accumulation, the expansion of capitalist cultural doctrines, and the belief that the individual is entirely the scope of investigation. Continue reading →

One of the most unexpected political results has now occured. Trump is the next US president. Against all the odds, all the polls, all the pundits and significant chunks of the world’s population, Trump has inched Clinton to become president. But while surprising, even in a year where we’ve seen many revolts against the general ‘establishment’, including Brexit, the rise of the Pirate Party in Iceland, the rise of national populism in many European countries and so on, it’s quite evident why Trump won. Continue reading →

This essay argues that markets are an ideational construct, constructed through a milieu of ideologies, power structures and authority relations. Rather than modern markets being spontaneously ordered mechanisms that have evolved naturally from the progressions of history, they are in instead constitutions of power and ideas, acting as a semiotic mechanism for underlying socio-economic realities. In this sense, markets are viewed through a critical and constructivist lens, as constituted realities which are not static as they are in neoclassical models of the economy. Further, the underlying reality, that of capitalism in its historic and modern contexts, does not actually correspond to market mechanisms. Rather capitalist social relations are reliant on and dominated by state interventions and the hierarchies of firms, with markets playing a peripheral role. Thus, markets (in their ideational construction) and capitalism together constitute a conflictual dialectic, with the former subordinated to the power relations of the latter. Continue reading →

With the advent of Brexit in the UK, and the rise on the one hand of national populism (combined with demagoguery) and on the other hand liberal cosmopolitanism in America, libertarianism could be basking in the glory of its own radical praxis. It could advocate for economic and political decentralisation, for political pluralism and for the development of truly freed markets which limit the effects of capital accumulation and rentierism. They could be showing the world examples of stateless and quasi-stateless societies that have existed for millennia, or simply demonstrating the multitude of free market systems that exist within the cracks of modern state capitalism. Fortunately there are some that actually do this. However the majority seem more interested in defending corporate largesse, intellectual property and the plethora of phony free trade agreements that abound. Continue reading →

The modern economy is stuck in a major rut. Productivity gains have not matched wage inflation, and productivity itself is relatively stagnant, particularly in the UK. Job provision is being increasingly concentrated in low-pay sectors, with temporary work and part-time contracts creating a modern precariat of working class individuals, students and other members of a general lumpenproletariat. Mechanisation and technology gains are captured by capitalist interests through IP rights and state-funding of corporate research, meaning that increasingly people are not just being made precarious, but are simply losing their jobs as well as any state-support. Such an existence is both undesirable and extremely distressing. Rather than markets freeing entrepreneurial spirits and creating a class of Konkinite contractors, free from the vagaries of state-capitalism, they have been wrought by the demands of that system and have created what I’ve described. Continue reading →

The major migration concepts which were defined in my recent paper An Unchallenged Arbiter have come under question. In particular, the concepts of xeno-racism, bonding and bridging capital, and the general framework of an Eriksen-defined multiculturalism have been questioned as a form of statist or academic leftism. I think it’s fair to clear up these definitions for greater clarity, and to frame them within my wider critiques of statism. Continue reading →