With a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union on the way, I think this could be the best time for libertarians and conservatives of all parties and organisations to start making the case for the development of truly libertarian, small-state ideas alongside a commitment to vote ourselves out of the EU. By leaving this undemocratic, protectionist super structure, we have the potential to move towards free markets, free trade, localism and economic decentralisation in all areas of political and economic life. Continue reading →

The basis of law has been that of development of judiciaries and tribunals, setting precedents based upon particular cases that have become accepted as a core element of society. They provide a framework of normative laws that are understandable to the average person in a society and ground individuals and communities in basic concepts of what is right and wrong. This is in opposition to the increasing strength of civil law that is being seen in much of Western society, whereby a set of pre-ordained law is referred to by courts as a standard. This presents something that is based not on experience or tradition, but on the abstract. Continue reading →

Hobbes’s political doctrine is totalitarian. He bases his thought on premises of human nature and social contracts that are themselves wrong and paradoxical, with his particular view of the state of nature, “during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called warre; and such a warre as is of every man against every man”[1] being shown to have no basis but within muddled views of human nature based on anecdotal evidence. He sees humans as atomistically individual and out for themselves, meaning that only a central authority can control them. Continue reading →

A major facet of the majority of individual’s lives is owning and using a car or other form of automobile. In a stateless society, like the one envisioned by libertarians and anarchists, this reality would remain, being a central part of everyday life. Thus questions of licencing, insurance and road safety become key in determining how driving and using a vehicle in a stateless society would function. Continue reading →

Adam Smith did not present a true critique of free market capitalism, but instead critiqued both overt forms of state capitalism, which during the period he wrote in was known as mercantilism, and covert forms of state capitalism, such as subsidisation within the corporate form of businesses and business relations. Continue reading →

Within the biomedical field, the human body is commodified and taxonomised in a process of biocolonialism. By biocolonialism, I mean the “continuation of the oppressive power relations that have historically informed the interactions of western and indigenous cultures, and part of a continuum of contemporary practices that constitute forms of cultural imperialism”[1]. These biocolonial practices have created this commodified view of the human body as something that can be removed from its original structure, that of a living being, and put into a process of intellectual property rights and profiteering. Continue reading →

To effect change, we must work within the systems that exist and support individuals who can affect the change I want to see. As a libertarian anarchist, I believe in the decentralisation of political and economic power and the minimisation, and eventual elimination, of the state. This is why I’m a member of the Conservative Party and work in right wing political circles, as I see these movements as the best way of minimising the state and developing a truly free market. Continue reading →

Previously, I’ve suggested that the state should have a role within basic security provision, the courts and a basic income. However, upon continued studying of writers within the anarchist tradition, such as Rothbard and Carson, I have come to a new conclusion that there can be no parameters to the state, as the state itself is an illegitimate and coercive organisation that can have no real place within a libertarian world. Continue reading →

Economic action is only one part of the array of social actions that are played out within the modern economy, and does not subsume social action. Weber’s identification of four types of social action demonstrate this point succinctly. What Weber showed was that the economic basis of social action is only one part of other societal effects on our decision making, such as the culture we are raised in or the ethics we develop. Continue reading →

While List did believe in free trade as an end in it itself, he saw the means to that differently than many of the contemporary classical-liberal accounts of free trade and its development, such as those of Ricardo or Smith. Continue reading →