More Anti-Statism

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“The purpose of government is to make people miserable. If some people are more miserable than others it is only because government has failed to make everyone equally miserable.”—Alan Koontz

About Joseph A. Labadie

Some background information on Joseph A. Labadie lifted from James J. Martins book, entitled, Men Against the State. A biography by Carlotta Anderson, titled, All-American Anarchist: Joseph A. Labadie and the Labor Movement, has been published by Wayne State University Press and is available through retail booksellers. A web site dedicated to her grandfather, the subject of her biography, is located here.

Introduction to Laurance Labadie: Selected Essays

James J. Martin's personal reflections and reminiscences about his long association with the essayist, son of Joseph A. Labadie. The original curator of the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan is remembered as well.

Origin and Nature of Government

A sample essay from Selected Essays, by Laurance Labadie. It was originally published in Balanced Living, Vol. I, No. 2 (February 1958), pp.18-19.

Anarchy without Fear

Conservative columnist Joseph Sobran reveals a remarkable familiarity with the uniquely American brand of anti-statism in this unterrified look at the subject from the vantage point of the omniscient narrator with a keen eye for irony of the dramatic variety. Well thought out and wonderfully succinct. Frank Chodorov would've been proud.

The Criminal State

An article by Albert J. Nock originally published in H.L. Mencken's American Mercury, March, 1939. Nock, author of Our Enemy, the State, was a regular contributor to the publication under Mencken and champion of the 'saving remnant.'

Last Words

A little gem by H.L. Mencken that originally appeared in his Notes on Democracy, published in 1926. This version comes from A Mencken Chrestomathy, a collection of his choicest writings, edited and annotated by HLM and published in 1949.

Business & the New Deal

James J. Martin examines "the large number of New Deal innovations which still touch the lives of nearly every person in this country, and the immense part played by Big Finance, Big Industry and Big Agriculture in making the New Deal possible in the first place."

The Alienation of a Homeland: How Palestine Became Israel

Attorney Stephen Halbrook traces the origins of Palestinian displacement from their homeland to the organized band of robbers known as the Ottoman Empire who presumed to transfer title to land long inhabited by Palestinians to absentee Arab and Turkish landlords. These State-enforced titles were in turn transferred to Zionist organizations who were in turn backed by organized bands of Zionist terrorists—the earliest manifestations of the statelet of Israel.

Emma Goldman's Life Story in a Nutshell

This article on Emma Goldman was one of several entries in the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences contributed by James J. Martin. Despite the volume of literature on the renowned anarchist, this piece remains a singular summary of her life.

Give Me Liberty

Rose Wilder Lane's celebrated ode to freedom appears here in abridged form as the result of the labors of Wendy McElroy who wrote the introduction for this version.

The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

Étienne de la La Boétie wrote this essay while still a law student at the University of Orléans in the early 1550s. Gene Sharp, author of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, had this to say about it: "[La] Boétie's Discourse is a highly significant essay on the ultimate source of political power, the origins of dictatorship, and the means by which people can prevent political enslavement and liberate themselves. The Discourse should have a prominent place in the history of political theory, and also of the development of the power analysis in which the technique of non-violent struggle is rooted."

Demystifying the State

Wendy McElroy's initial contribution to the Voluntaryist movement. It was originally published as a pamphlet by The Voluntaryist representing the views of Voluntaryists, an anti-poltical group so named to distinguish themselves from the politically-oriented latter-day libertarians.

The Political Economy of Liberal Corporativism

One of three essays published in pamphlet form by the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1977 on the subject of state capitalism. This one, by Joseph R. Stromberg, attempts to show how historically in America anti-competitive combines have depended upon government intervention for their continued existence and how this proved to be pathological.

The Dogma of Our Times

This is an essay by Frank "Out-of-Step" Chodorov who among other things contributed regularly to the conservative weekly tabloid, Human Events, and for a time taught at Robert LeFevre's Rampart College when it existed in Colorado in the 1960s. It comes from a posthumous collection, titled, Fugitive Essays, published by LibertyPress in 1980. As with Albert J. Nock, Chodorov was a Georgist individualist and a part of the Olde Right eventually displaced by William F. Buckley, Jr.'s National Review brand of conservatism.

An Interview with James J. Martin

The dean of historical revisionists fields questions about revisionism, WW2, the Cold War, the Columbus complex, Tucker vs. Spooner, libertarian activism, and the relative number of libertarians in the world on any given day.

Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty

In this 1875 essay, the unterrified Lockean, Lysander Spooner, makes an early case for decriminalizing vice. The persistence of legal paternalism makes it as timely now as it was then. This article comes courtesy of the Personal Empowerment Resources site.

For Reasons of State

This passage appears at the beginning of Noam Chomsky's For Reasons of State, a superb analysis of the most telling Pentagon Papers—the Pentagon's own history of U.S. involvement in Indochina. It was lifted from Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism by Michael Bakunin.

On the Nature of the American Revolution

John Adams explains to his correspondent in this letter the nature of the American Revolution and its implications. The reader should come away from this with the insight that revolutions are not made of wars or other manifestations of political or social strife so dependent as they tend to be upon the institutionalization of violence.

Civil Disobedience

This famous essay by Henry David Thoreau is probably more heard of than read. For those who haven't gotten around to reading it, it is being made available for this purpose herewith.

Anti-Statism: Serials List

A rather lame listing of little magazines with anti-statist/libertarian slant. Some of them may or may not exist anymore. The source was rather dated.

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