 Logo of the project | |
| Formation | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Libertarian Activism |
| Headquarters | Washington DC |
Region served | International |
Parent organization | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Website | Bureaucrash.com |
Bureaucrash was an international network of libertarian activists whose stated goals were "decreasing the scope of government" and "increasing individual freedom", and which engaged in culture jamming. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Bureaucrash was founded in 2001 by businessman Al Rosenberg and the Henry Hazlitt Foundation in an attempt to use the Internet to spread what the group calls "pro-freedom" ideals. [5] The following year, the Henry Hazlitt Foundation went out of business and was absorbed into the International Society for Individual Liberty. [6] Bureaucrash survived its parent organization, and in March 2006, an interview with then "Crasher-in-Chief" Jason Talley, on the Competitive Enterprise Institute's website, stated that "In March, Bureaucrash and CEI formed a new strategic partnership to combine the strengths of each organization to help spread the ideas of liberty." [7]
Initially, Bureaucrash pitched itself as "a network of guerrilla activists who oppose the growing disease of the bureaucratic state" and emphasized that "we come from all backgrounds and ideologies, but share in common a conviction that the bloated administrative government is the greatest threat to our freedom, creativity and sense of choice." [8] The following year the group's website was more explicit about its political slant stating that it "develops full scale campaigns and web resources for libertarian guerilla activism." [9]
Following Jason Talley's departure from the position of "Crasher-in-Chief," friend and fellow activist Pete Eyre became the new head of the organization [10] [11] [12] until his departure in early 2009 [13] to take part in a new project, [14] the Motorhome Diaries: Searching for freedom in America. Not coincidentally, Talley later worked with Eyre on the Motorhome Diaries. Eyre had previously worked at the Institute for Humane Studies, the Drug Policy Alliance and as an intern at the Cato Institute. [15]
Past actions by "crashers" have taken the form of holding counterdemonstrations at key progressive events and filming themselves either with provocative placards or interacting with the attendees. At a March 2001 rally against a speech by David Horowitz at the University of California, Berkeley, 'crashers staged a counter-protest on free speech grounds. [16] Actions have included demonstrating against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, [17] picketing the World Health Organization conference with the message that capitalism saves lives, [18] throwing powdered chalk on The Yes Men after The Yes Men failed in an attempt to infiltrate the Cato Institute, [19] and demonstrating at the movie Sicko to protest against socialized medical systems. [20] Bureaucrash took part in Tea Party protests on July 4 [21] and the July 17th protest against health care reform. [22] Bureaucrash is listed as a co-sponsor for Glenn Beck’s inaugural 9-12 Project march in Washington DC. [23]
Libertarian historian Brian Doherty described Bureaucrash in Radicals for Capitalism as "a gang of libertarian college kids who prank leftists at major international events by taking the implications of their policies to absurd extremes, which invariably fails, often spectacularly. Bureaucrash created a fake group it called 'Progressives Against Progress' whose symbol was a caveman with a club." [24]
Bureaucrash was called a group "where punk rock meets the gold standard" in The Wall Street Journal . [25]
The network's work has been favorably showcased by prominent British libertarian blog Samizdata. [26]
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership, which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private property would still exist and be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies selected by customers, which would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police.
The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that the Free State Project is not a political party but a nonprofit organization.
David Fraser Nolan was an American activist and politician. He was one of the founders of the Libertarian Party of the United States, having hosted the meeting in 1971 at which the Party was founded. Nolan subsequently served the party in a number of roles including National Committee Chair, editor of the party newsletter, Chair of the By-laws Committee, Chair of the Judicial Committee, and Chair of the Platform Committee.
Henry Stuart Hazlitt was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, that is a center for radical libertarian thought and the right-wing paleolibertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements in the United States. It is named after the economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) and promotes heterodox Misesian Austrian economics.
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The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a non-profit libertarian think tank founded by the political writer Fred L. Smith Jr. on March 9, 1984, in Washington, D.C., to advance principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. CEI focuses on a number of regulatory policy issues, including business and finance, labor, technology and telecommunications, transportation, food and drug regulation, and energy and environment in which they have promoted climate change denial. Kent Lassman is the current President and CEO.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is an American conservative, libertarian economic think tank. Founded in 1946 in New York City, FEE is now headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a member of the State Policy Network.
Jeffrey Albert Tucker is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties; emphasizing the rule of law, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, freedom of association, free trade, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, individualism, and voluntary association. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism. Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.
Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, right-wing libertarianism, or colloquially as libright is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. While anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, opposition to the state is not its central or sole definition. Anarchism can entail opposing authority or hierarchy in the conduct of all human relations.
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