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Decentralization

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Decentralization

To Avoid More Political Violence, Allow Americans To Escape Each Other's Control

Let people join with the like-minded to reject officials and laws that don’t suit them and to construct systems that do.

J.D. Tuccille | 1.19.2021 10:05 AM

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Central planning

In a Complex World, Politicians Have a Simple Demand: More Power

Circumstances change and the world may grow more complicated, but authoritarians never vary from their demand for more power over our lives.

J.D. Tuccille | 12.2.2020 12:45 PM

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Coronavirus

How to Track COVID-19 Without Mass Surveillance

Apple and Google's Bluetooth-based app would reportedly be voluntary and anonymous. Privacy advocates say we should accept nothing less.

Zach Weissmueller | 5.4.2020 2:00 PM

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Coronavirus

Snorkel Respirators, 3D-Printed Masks, and Other Grassroots Efforts To Fight COVID-19

People around the world are working together in unprecedented ways to help their neighbors and produce critical medical supplies.

Justin Monticello | 4.20.2020 10:10 AM

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Coronavirus

Will COVID-19 Help Americans Break the Habit of Deferring to Centralized Authority?

We may find that we like making our own decisions.

J.D. Tuccille | 4.17.2020 12:05 PM

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Cities

This Ohio Town Dissolved Itself Over a 1 Percent Tax Increase

And it's not alone.

Jesse Walker | 3.16.2020 6:00 AM

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2019 Year in Review

The 2010s: When the Media Lost Their Gatekeepers

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan's work best explains how the world changed in the 2010s—and what we can expect in the decade ahead.

Zach Weissmueller | 12.30.2019 10:14 AM

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Technology

The Decentralized Web Is Coming

Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter are in the federal government's crosshairs, but the technology necessary to undermine their dominance may already exist.

Zach Weissmueller | 9.27.2019 1:00 PM

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Charlottesville

Judge to Charlottesville: You Can Put a Statue Up, but You Can't Take It Down

A judge has ruled that the town's Confederate monuments must stay.

Billy Binion | 9.17.2019 1:35 PM

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Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin at 10

A new book aims to chronicle the digital currency's ideological origins.

Sonya Mann | 8.31.2019 6:00 AM

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Cities

Want to End Urban-Rural Conflict? Stop Looking for a Victor.

Whether red vs. blue or city vs. country, political tensions are best addressed by letting people run their own lives.

J.D. Tuccille | 3.13.2019 2:00 PM

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Blockchain

Blockchain Is Changing Lives in Africa

Startups from Cape Town to Nairobi think the budding technology is the future of the continent.

Jillian Keenan | 10.27.2018 6:00 AM

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Social Media

Facebook Slams Independent Voices With Latest Political Purge

It's time to move beyond the social media giants to a more decentralized world that's harder to control

J.D. Tuccille | 10.16.2018 12:01 AM

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Bitcoin

Can Bitcoin Become the Global Monetary Standard?

With its supply permanently capped at 21 million units, Satoshi Nakamoto's invention may turn out to be the best form of money ever conceived.

Jim Epstein | 7.22.2018 6:00 AM

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Freedom

'Warlords Will Take Over' and Other Lines Libertarians Are Tired of Hearing

We asked the attendees at PorcFest 2018.

Justin Monticello | 7.6.2018 1:37 PM

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Ronald Reagan

Exclusive: Ronald Reagan's 1980 Election Eve Speech Draft Was Lost to History. Until Now.

In a speech drafted but never delivered in the waning weeks of the 1980 campaign, Reagan was to say: "The overriding question is not one of Left or Right. It is one of reversing the flow of power and control to ever more remote institutions."

John McClaughry | 5.30.2018 4:20 PM

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Hierarchies

Toward a Unified Theory of Stalin, the Teamsters, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Facebook

John McClaughry | 5.6.2018 6:00 AM

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Radical Left

In Memoriam: Marcus Raskin, Radical and Decentralist

His critique of concentrated power is still relevant today.

Jesse Walker | 1.2.2018 10:33 AM

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Spain

Let The Catalonians Leave

Governments never want to give up power.

John Stossel | 10.11.2017 12:15 AM

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Jane Jacobs

How Jane Jacobs Challenged the Centralized Urban Planning Groupthink

The death and life of a great American urbanist

Sam Staley | 7.9.2017 6:00 AM

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Food Freedom

Maine's Food Sovereignty Win Is a Big Deal

Cities will be able to set local rules governing food production and sales.

Baylen Linnekin | 7.1.2017 8:00 AM

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Internet

Princeton-Trained Computer Scientists Are Building a New Internet That Brings Privacy and Property Rights to Cyberspace

Meet the developers behind Blockstack, who are using blockchain technology to reconfigure the web. It'll make NSA mass data collection impossible.

Jim Epstein and Nick Gillespie | 6.22.2017 1:13 PM

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Decentralization

The Decentralist

A look back at the idea that small is beautiful

John McClaughry | 4.22.2017 6:00 AM

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History

The Brief, Half-Serious, and Sort of Visionary Political Career of Jimmy Breslin

The candidate who told an audience of cops that he'd abolish the New York Police Department

Jesse Walker | 3.20.2017 10:59 AM

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Natural Disasters

Disasters Should Be Dull

But as long as distant authorities are in charge, that's impossible.

Stefanie Haeffele-Balch and Daniel Rothschild | 1.28.2017 7:00 AM

Police

Centralized Policing Is the Wrong Solution

Elinor Ostrom and the case against centralization

Jesse Walker | 12.17.2014 4:30 PM

Detroit

Reanimating Detroit

A new book offers some decent ideas for revitalizing the Motor City—but it doesn't go far enough.

John McClaughry | 6.27.2014 1:30 PM

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History

Forgetting Jefferson

The long decline of the decentralist political tradition

John McClaughry | 4.24.2014 10:00 AM

Civil Society

You Could Make a Radical Push for Grassroots Empowerment, Or You Could Just Cut a Country-Pop Record

The "Points of Light" program and the path not taken

Jesse Walker | 1.13.2014 11:47 AM

Republican Party

From Moderate Republican to Green Reaganite

John McClaughry's memoirs

Jesse Walker | 11.25.2013 12:30 PM

Decentralization

All Power to the Neighborhoods

Jesse Walker | 7.10.2012 12:23 PM

Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom, Scholar Who Argued for Decentralization, RIP

Jesse Walker | 6.12.2012 11:22 AM

Obituaries

Mark O. Hatfield, RIP

Jesse Walker | 8.8.2011 11:36 AM

Spain

Spanish Devolution

Jesse Walker | 11.26.2008 3:10 PM

Cities

Postmodern Politics in Action

Ten signposts, past and present, to the coming decentralized political order

Robert Nelson | 4.2.2006 12:00 AM

Local Government

Welcome to the New—and Private—Neighborhood

Local government in a world of postmodern pluralism

Robert Nelson | 4.1.2006 12:00 AM

Cities

Beyond Public and Private

Business improvement districts don't fit our ordinary categories.

Jesse Walker | 11.1.2003 12:00 AM

Argentina

Argentine Revolution

Spontaneous assemblies

Jesse Walker | 12.1.2002 12:00 AM

Cities

Mustering the Little Platoons

One mayor's attempt to create active citizens

John McClaughry | 12.1.2002 12:00 AM

Decentralization

Going Bezirke

Where little platoons and little governments meet

John McClaughry | 4.1.2001 12:00 AM

Proprietary Communities

Private Idahoes

John McClaughry | 8.1.1995 12:00 AM

Libertarian History/Philosophy

In Memoriam: Karl Hess

Lynn Scarlett | 7.1.1994 12:00 AM

Decentralization

Local Matters

John McClaughry | 5.1.1993 12:00 AM

Culture

One Country—Two Cultures

Karl Hess | 6.1.1984 12:00 PM

Decentralization

What's This New Age Stuff?

John McClaughry | 8.1.1980 12:00 PM

Anarchism

Living In Freedom

Reflections on a free society by America's leading drop-out

Karl Hess | 5.1.1978 12:00 PM

Decentralization

De-Managing America

John McClaughry | 7.1.1976 12:00 PM

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