"We have done this because we love liberty and hate authority." – Voltairine de Cleyre
Archive for January, 2010
The Apostasy of the Anarchist Vote
Jan 24th
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” declared Emma Goldman in a ringing indictment of the feeble mechanism by which the state claims to be restrained and directed. Of course, in invoking this quote anarchists argue against counting upon elections to change the status quo. We aren’t going to bring about the voluntary society by listening to politicians, casting votes for them, and pressuring them to abolish their own offices. The statist means and the anarchist ends are clearly opposed.
But there’s another argument against voting: that by casting a ballot, one registers endorsement of the state and its violence. Advocates of this argument do not hold that you must have chosen the politician who wields power. They disregard personal intent, interests, and any issues at hand. The argument is quite simple: by participating in the election, one is bound to its results. Given the anarchist view of those results – violence, fraud, and lies – one can only conclude that voting makes one an accessory to the crime.
This constitutes a body blow for those who define themselves by their rejection of the authoritarianism so intrinsic in the state. It’s one thing for voting to be a silly ritual. But a decidedly different attitude must be adopted if pulling the voting lever leaves one with blood-stained hands. Faced with such an awful truth, the task becomes one of avoiding complicity with the system. An absolute break with the state is the only path of conscience.
In theory, this break seems reasonable to achieve: one simply ceases to cooperate with its agents and directives. But the state reaches far into the world we live in. It doesn’t just direct the police, military, teachers, judges, and other bureaucrats that intervenes in obvious ways. The very civil society we seek to unleash through the spirit of voluntarism, mutual aid, freedom, and solidarity seems hopelessly bound up in the state.
It’s Not About Free Speech
Jan 24th
On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down several key restrictions on corporate campaign contributions. While many lament the expected influx of yet more corporate cash into an already compliant political system, does anybody really think McCain-Feingold had accomplished much of an improvement? These regulations only affect those who cannot afford the lawyers, accountants, and other professionals who spend their careers finding ways to circumvent the spirit of the laws.
There are two key elements to the court’s conclusion: the constitutional prohibition of free speech restrictions and the status of the corporation as a person. Libertarians should not complain about the court’s conclusions with respect to the first element. The government must abstain from interfering with any person’s political contributions, monetary or polemical.
Left Libertarian Leadership
Jan 14th
Left Libertarian Leadership
Chris Lempa & Keith Taylor
Leadership is essential to the growth of the anti- (or alternative) State movement. Ken Pigg, a rural sociology professor at the University of Missouri, notes that leadership is “influence,” and what are we seeking as libertarians if not influence? We need to build “organic” leadership to not only prosper libertarian thought, but also combat centralizing tendencies in our day to day life.
Leadership is a concept oftentimes criticized as amorphous, difficult to conceptualize, and laden in values. When one applies a set of values to the concept of leadership, however, it is not as difficult to conceptualize as one might believe. Leadership should be viewed from many perspectives. Corporate leadership certainly differs from small business leadership, which no doubt differs from political leadership. But as libertarians, we should care most about community leadership.
More >
“I beg you, don’t disturb this!”
Jan 13th
The Antikythera Mechanism.
“In 1900, some divers found the wreck of a Roman vessel off the Greek island of Antikythera.”
This is a far too benign an opening statement for an article introducing the Antikythera mechanism. I guess words are inadequate to convey the wonder and awe one experiences when one realizes how old the machine is, probably built around the year 150 BCE, how detailed and complex it is, the researchers speculate that it not only predicts lunar phrases and uses epicyclic gears, but keeps time of the Olympic games, and how small the device is, measured in centimeters.
I can’t recommend enough reading about this device and enjoying how excited and humbled the researchers are to be a part of the project. (CHT to Gary Chartier for bringing this latest development to my attention and thank Radley Balko for bring it to Gary’s.)
Followers of Dr. Roderick T. Long’s blog will recognize the device; he has blog about the item many times and uses a picture of it to decorate an earlier version of his Austro-Athenian Empire.
As this article and a corresponding mini-documentary speculate on the possible origins of the machine, my anarchist heart broke. (This seems to be its purpose with each travesty chocked news day.)
The type of calendar the device uses places its manufacturing origin around the ancient city of Syracuse. The researchers rush to point out that this particular machine could not have been made by the great mathematician and engineering genius Archimedes, he died before it was made, but it is very, very likely that someone in his tradition was its creator.
How did Archimedes die?
He was murdered by a plundering Roman soldier.
There are different accounts as to what happen on the day of his execution. I do not doubt that depending on your personal philosophical perspective regarding the nature of the “state” and the default behavior of its agents that you will lean towards the account that doesn’t upset your apologetics too much. Unfortunately for the statist they are all ugly.
All, but one, of the accounts describe the genius deep in thought, determined to discover a solution to a complex geometric problem. The Roman soldier approaches and commands Archimedes, “cease and desist.”
The anarchist’s preferred response from Archimedes will be heroic and defiant, “Let them come at my head, but not at my line,” or “Stand away, fellow, from my diagram,” or, famously, “Don’t disturb my circles.”
The statist, not wanting to come right out and admit, “You mess with the government bull, you get the government horns,” will probably point out that in some of the stories the frail old man Archimedes calls out, “Somebody give me one of my engines,” and reached for what the scared Roman soldier thought was a weapon so he had to stab him to death. In the one exceptional account, where Archimedes is not deep in thought, but running through the streets burdened with gadgets, to present to the conquering General Marcellus, the statist could claim that the old my was running in a hostile manner brandishing what looked like a weapon so the terrified Roman soldier had to defend himself with his only available option, again, by stabbing him to death. Though in that account the author states that the soldier did it because he thought Archimedes was carrying gold and the soldier wanted it real bad.
The old man pleas.
A wonderful discovery takes us back to a proto-industrial tradition cultured by a genius who was murdered by a plundering soldier for solving a math problem. I am getting tired of the “someone murdered by a soldier for working” part.
In my opinion of all the accounts of Archimedes execution the one that seems the most honest and heart breaking is the version where the soldier draws steel and the old man pleas, “I beg you, don’t disturb this.”
We can hear this plea, now, from every corner: “I beg you, don’t disturb this” money I’ve earned.
“I beg you, don’t disturb this” house I’ve built.
“I beg you, don’t disturb this” family I love.
“I beg you, don’t disturb this” life I enjoy.
“Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.” –Malcolm X
“Don’t Mourn, Organize” –Joe Hill
Politics: A Survey of Anarchist Positions
Jan 6th
One of the perennial questions of anarchist theory and strategy is the proper role that politics should play in our liberation program. Politics, in this context, refers to any attempt to influence the institutions that constitute the State in order to undermine, subvert or destroy the State itself.
If the existing positions were represented on a continuum, showing the degree politics plays, then, to be sure, the advocate of %100 politics should be held in extreme suspicion. But if we move down this scale past %60 and %50 percent we find the population of libertarians and anarchists begin to grow and our suspicions, though always present, subsiding.
I would like to offer a brief survey of these positions through the testimony of the proponents who held them. I am not a scholar or researcher; indexing and cross-referencing are not my profession. This is not intended to be comprehensive; only sketch or outline, to be filled in, sooner or later, by other enthusiasts, like myself, hopefully within the pages of this journal.
My sources can be found in the articles and pamphlets found in Shawn Wilbur’s Corvus Editions, Wendy McElroy’s indispensible volume The Debates of Liberty, I Must Speak Out lovingly edited by Carl Watner, and Kevin Carson’s, must read, Studies in Mutualists Political Economy.
That landscape found below the %50 mark is populated by many different people from many different points of view; all wanting a liberated land where they can work, grow and love. It is because of this historical fact that questions of anarchist sincerity will not be speculated upon here; even though this has been a favored past time of other anarchists past and present.
Starting with some of the restored history found at Corvus Editions. I will assign “pro-politics” and “anti-politics” labels to the determined positions, but we should not conclude that a “pro” position that politics is regarded as the only or even as a constitutive means to our shared anarchist end.
Eliphalet Kimball holds an anti-politics position and a pro-violence position as you can see here.
“It is only by anarchy and violence that a great accumulation of social wrongs can be removed. Anarchy is a good word. It means ‘without a head.’ Violence is the healing power of Nature applied to society. The violence which would follow from the abolishment o flaw, would be proportion to the number and magnitudes of the wrongs that needed removal.” — Eliphalet Kimball, Law, Commerce, and Relgion, Anarchy is a Good Word
The wonderfully clear Henry Addis makes his anti-politics understood.
“To support government is to aid tyranny. To become a part of it is to join hands with organized murder. Political action is for the ignorant, the deluded and the knave.” –Henry Addis, Political Action, Essays on the Problem
“The more the powers of the State are curtailed the more nearly we approach a condition of Anarchy: the more powers of the State are increased the further we drift from it. How then can State Socialism, the governmentalization of everything, lead to Anarchy? It cannot. If you really want Anarchy, refuse to uphold the State. Decline to run for or hold office. Refuse to do jury duty, and in every way practicable weaken the powers of the State.” –Henry Addis, Through State Socialism into Anarchism., Essays on the Social Problem
The director of a clinic for the poor in the Chelsea district of New York City, Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly supports a pro-politics plan for state dissolution.
“Necessarily, therefore, the community, to protect itself in securing intelligent citizens, must enforce a compulsory education law. Though, as an Anarchist, I desire a radical change in present social conditions, I do not believe the public-school system is the place to begin. Manual and industrial training, though obtained at the expense of the taxpayers, are useful under present system, but only because that phase of education helps mitigate, somewhat, the evils under which we suffer. Such compulsory training the Anarchist believes would not be necessary if every man got what he really earned.” –Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly, IV, Some Socialist and Anarchist Views of Education
The anarcho-syndicalist Jay Fox has cast his lot in with the anti-politics and instead recommends General Strike for social and economic change.
“But you will ask, ‘What’s to be done?’ I trust we have at least learned something that should not be done, that is: We should not waste any more time striving to better our conditions through legislation. The attempts in Colorado has been a miserably failure, and all such attempts elsewhere must inevitably fail for the reasons aforementioned.” –Jay Fox, What’s To Be Done?, Economic Thought
In The Debates of Liberty Wendy McElroy gives an account of three positions and three men; all representing different philosophies regarding political participation.
“Possibly Brother [Benjamin R.] Tucker has yet to learn that compromise is a true scientific principle under Anarchism, and that in its proper sense it is logically enjoined upon the faithful. I have never found a final settlement of any problem yet, save that of my own ignorance: therefore do I rise for prayers, and ask Sister [Dr. Gertrude B.] Kelly and Brother [Benjamin R.] Tucker to keep me from going astray.” –Henry Appleton, “Anarchism and Expediency,” Liberty (April 17, 1886). Quoted from On the State and Politics, The Debates of Liberty page 22.
Interestingly Henry Appleton, as Wendy McElroy points out, is not referring to compromising Anarchism with regards to voting, but with regards to supporting popular labor organizations that used political activity; like the Knights of Labor, an organization that Appleton had infiltrated. Needless to say this puts Henry Appleton in the pro-politics camp.
“If my use of the ballot has been aggressive, some person must exist whose rights, whose legitimate freedom, have been invaded by the adoption of free trade, by my vote for free trade. But, since free trade is a corollary from equal freedom, no one’s rights are violated by the establishment of free trade. If no one’s rights are violated, those who vote for free trade are not guilty of any offence. When there are no aggressed upon, there are no aggressors.” –Victor Yarros, “Principle and Method,” Liberty 12 (November 1896). Partially quoted in On the State and Politics, The Debates of Liberty page 24.
Victor Yarros held many position, maybe all positions at one time or another within the anarchist and other radical social movements of his time, but I feel that it is safe to conclude that at this time young Victor Yarros presented a case for the pro-politics.
Our final sample from The Debates of Liberty will be from the “consummate” representative of plumb-line anarchism, Benjamin R. Tucker. Tucker smashes all doubts to his commitment to anti-politics with the following:
“If liberty has a weak-kneed friend who is contemplating a violation of his anarchist principles by voting just for once, may these golden words from John Morley’s “Compromise” recall him to his better self: “A principle, if it be sound, represents one of the larger expediencies. To abandon that for the sake of some seeming expediency of the hour is to sacrifice the greater good for the less on no more creditable ground than that the less is nearer.” –Benjamin R. Tucker, “Labor’s New Fetich,” Liberty 2 (August 23, 1884). Quoted in in On the State and Politics, The Debates of Liberty page 21.
I Must Speak Out is a treasure trove of anarchism. It is a labor of love from the heart of Carl Watner, Wendy McElroy and George H. Smith. Every collected article is exciting and challenging. It is a must read for anyone who claims the mantle Voluntaryist or anyone of the minarchist persuasion who feel up to the challenge of dueling with some of the best. The Voluntaryist has not only staked a claim dead center in the anti-politics territory, they have built a barn and tilled the land.
From the Statement of Purpose, page 1, of I Must Speak Out:
“The Voluntaryists are advocates of non-political strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian principles. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods invariably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends.”
Before I conclude with Kevin Carson’s Studies in Mutualists Political Economy I would like to offer the position defended by the anarchist philosopher Roderick T. Long, who offers a position similar to Carson’s and for similar reasons. Roderick T. Long is a supporter of the pro-politics position, but I must emphasized, as he has always emphasized, it is the smallest “pro-politics” position one could have while still remaining pro-politics.
“Now I certainly agree that as libertarian strategies go, education and building alternative institutions are much more important than electoral politics. And I also agree that the danger of reinforcing people’s attachment to the State is a count against urging people to vote libertarian. … But I also think voting can be useful as a means of self-defense in the short run; and while the ultimate revolution will be primarily from the bottom up, it will certainly go more smoothly, and with less danger of a violent crackdown from a government desperate to maintain power, if we’ve got some support on the inside too.” –Roderick T. Long, http://aaeblog.net/2006/11/06/in-defense-of-voting-sort-of/ (italics added)
In the final chapters of the impressive and important Studies in Mutualists Political Economy, Kevin Carson gives his readers an introduction to the Mutualist program of Gradualism. It is important to understand that the concerns of the gradualist program is to dissolve the State while doing as little harm to the subject population as possible and, hopefully, protecting them from the violent death throws predicted to accompany the end of the ruling elites privileged position. This places Kevin Carson, by my lights, in the pro-politics edge of our scale.
“The problem with this line of argument is that the State is an instrument of exploitation by a ruling class. And exploiters cannot, as a group, be ethically “educated” into abandoning exploitation, because they have a very rational self-interest in continuing it. Coleman McCarthy can conduct “peace studies” classes, and quote Tolstoy and “the Rabbi Christ” till he’s blue in the face, but it isn’t likely to persuade a majority of the ruling class that they’d be better off working for a living.
If most ordinary people simply withdraw consent and abandon the political process altogether, the ruling class will just drop the pretense of popular control and resort to open repression. So long as they control the State apparatus, a small minority of dupes from the producing classes, along with well-paid police and military jackboots, will enable them to control the populace through terror. A majority of Italian workers may have supported the factory occupations of 1920, but that didn’t stop the blackshirts, paid with capitalist money, from restoring the bosses’ control.
In For Community, a pamphlet on Gustav Landauer, Larry Gambone argued that it was no longer possible merely to act outside the State framework while treating it as irrelevant. To do so entailed the risk that “you might end up like the folks at Waco.” An “anti-political movement to dismantle the State” was necessary.22
At some point, before the final dissolution of the State, its mechanism must be seized and it must be formally liquidated.” –Kevin Carson, Studies in Mutualists Political Economy page 319.
I hope that you have enjoyed this tour of obscure and contemporary anarchists and their varied relationships with the institutions of political power. I would like to stress, if I may, that between the two, often feuding, camps of pro-politics and anti-politics, that we remember their expressed reasons for their positions. All anarchist hope and work for an end to State violence directed towards spontaneous and free humanity. All are sensitive to every freedom lost and every freedom unexercised.
I find both positions compelling and inspiring. I look to the anti-politicians like Henry Addis, Benjamin R. Tucker and Carl Watner for strength; their commitment to living their values now and accepting the hardships that accompany a systematic withdrawal from State infected life and culture.
And I look to the pro-politicians like Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly, Victor Yarros and Kevin Carson for compassion; their sensitivity to the perils and hardships that will inevitably be faced by humanity during the State’s disintegration.
It is my belief that a robust anarchist movement needs both positions equally (dialectically equal); that both represent the core values of what anarchism is and desperate to achieve. We need to continue pushing forward, breaking new ground on new counter-institutions, reducing the crippling hierarchies of the State and ending the violence that maintains it, but we must not forget that that aggression, those hierarchies bows backs and breaks legs. We need to remember to show people that they can live free, help them to let go of their bonds and protect them from those final moments when the State, realizing its end, tries to take away our future.
