"We have done this because we love liberty and hate authority." – Voltairine de Cleyre
Posts tagged anarchism
On Wage Slavery.
Dec 8th
Brad Spangler, Director of the Center for a Stateless Society, published this little gem under Talking Points: Wage Slavery: The Short Version.
From the body of the post:
The state acts to involuntarily transfer wealth from the productive class to a political class elite, thereby monopolizing/cartelizing capital. Additionally, the state forcibly cuts off opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. The result is that people are forcibly denied any alternative but to sell labor artificially cheaply in a buyer’s market, where the buyers are a political class plutocracy gorged on stolen loot and enjoying economic influence they are not rightly due.
From the comments section by the ever brilliant Neverfox:
There is also another way that I’ve discussed before: a situation where people are treated, through the wage relation, as a thing without responsibility for its actions, i.e. a legal non-person in some regard (though not necessarily every regard, which is why I don’t think it’s sufficient to point to some ways that they are treated as a legal person, e.g. by pointing out that they can voluntarily disassociate without fear of reprisal). The burden, I think, is on the capitalist (in the ideological sense, not the purely descriptive sense of someone who owns capital) to explain, other than by duration, why renting someone by the hour is substantively different from buying someone for a lifetime, even when it’s voluntary, if both happen to require that the worker give up something they have no right to give up, i.e. some aspect of their legal standing as a person.
Also checkout the C4SS Market Anarchism FAQ lovingly looked after by Ross Kenyon:
However, market forces naturally undermine exploitation. Market Anarchists tend to see economic domination of working people as the product of statism and not the market. In a free society without Benjamin Tucker’s Four Monopolies over land, currency, patents, and tariffs, the economic dependency proletarians have upon capitalists is virtually destroyed. Capitalism, in the sense of an unjust status quo characterized by state-driven monopolization of capital, depends upon a captive labor force whose better options are destroyed or precluded by state intervention in the market on behalf of a parasitic elite.
As a Wobbly I am committed to the end of the Wage System. I believe liberty, ethics and market forces, along with direct action, radical democracy, community building, P6 committed cooperatives and fighting unions will get us to that end. In a sense, I believe the whole universe is on our side. State-Capital is an upside down pyramid only held in place by violence, blood, oppression and silence. It will come down, it must come down. The only questions left are, “when?” And, ”how much more do we tolerate?”
As Kevin Carson has so eloquently put it in The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand:
“The current structure of capital ownership and organization of production in our so-called “market” economy, reflects coercive state intervention prior to and extraneous to the market. From the outset of the industrial revolution, what is nostalgically called “laissez-faire” was in fact a system of continuing state intervention to subsidize accumulation, guarantee privilege, and maintain work discipline.”
The Julian Assange Welcome Pledge
Dec 5th
I, James Tuttle, hereby pledge that if Julian Assange should call upon me in need of a place to stay, I will provide it to him with no questions asked, indefinitely, and with the highest degree of security and confidentiality I can provide. I’m easy to get a hold of. Jules, I just hope you don’t have cat allergies.
“Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act. It is inherently an anarchist act.” And I am an anarchist.
Now it’s your turn. Simply replace your name with mine and publish. Link here if you wish, but publish.
Opportunities & Announcements…
Nov 2nd
Dear Friends, ALLies and Fellow Workers,
Enrollment for C4SSdotorg’s Stateless University is open until November 8th. I will be the ombudsman for Introduction to Anarchism, Bravo Section. Check it out!
If you are a member of Students for Liberty, then you have the opportunity to earn a Stateless U. scholarship. Just write an op-ed for C4SS, to get your Anarchy on.
Charles “RadGeek” Johnson is requesting our support. He needs to raise around $600 to represent the Molinari Institute, Market Anarchism, Left-Libertarians and defend his paper Women and the Invisible Fist: How Violence Against Women Enforces the Unwritten Law of Patriarchy at the Ninth Biennial Radical Philosophy Association Conference.
Wobfest is the weekend of November 12th thru the 14th, Chicago, Illinois. Chris Lempa and I will be making the trip north to represent ALLiance. Hope to see you all there, if you can make it.
ALL the best,
–James
On the Ground Floor…
Oct 18th
Dear Friends, Fellow Workers and ALLies,
A grand opportunity present’s itself. We have the ability to aid a rising Anarcho-Star. Anna O. Morgenstern of C4SS.org and Tranarchism blog spot (and soon ALLiance Journal) fame is pursuing two literary projects, one fictional and the other non-fictional. At this time, and until the first of January, Anna is looking for donations to help her finish these ventures. Your donations will not be a grant, but a purchase of future goods; and you can even scale your “purchase.”
Check out this list of products:
$10 – will get you a free copy of one of my books, you can specify fiction or non-fiction.
$20 – will get you either an autographed copy of one book, or one of each book.
$40 – will get you an autographed hard cover of one book, or an autographed soft cover of both.
$80 – will get you an autographed hard cover of bothFor $25 extra I will include your choice of:
1. A pin up photo of me, set up Gil Elvgren style. This will be sent along with the book and autographed.
2. A custom short story where you get to have input on the characters and some plot details.
I would like to offer you a sample or two of Anna’s writing in order to give you an idea of the revolutionary potential you could help unleash upon the world.
From her work for C4SS:
“Anarchism, truly, is simply the understanding that the state is merely a social fiction and has no legitimacy. When you live that truth, you will not follow the law simply because it is the law. You will let your conscience be your guide. At that point you are no longer being ruled, though you might have crimes committed against you by the “government” and its lackeys. When the Mafia forces someone to pay protection money, that guy isn’t being ruled, he’s being robbed.
So what then is liberty? Liberty is the absence of crime. Real crime, crime that has a victim. Crimes that all persons’ conscience would acknowledge as such. A libertarian then, is someone who wishes to abolish (or more realistically) minimize crime.
Not all anarchists are libertarians (some Stirnerites come to mind), but most are, at least to some extent. But all anarchists understand that no one has any special authority to commit crimes that no one else has.” Without Adjectives.
And from her blog Tranarchism:
“The truth is, it’s entirely possible to have high technology, prosperity and even mass production of a sort, without having any organizations larger than 150 or so people (my guess as to the large-end of organizations under anarchy). We don’t need to rely on the current model of intensive, inefficient subsidized resource consumption, unless we want to produce enormous surpluses that go right into the hands of our “leaders”. It’s just another scammy revisitation of the hydraulic empire model, just like mercantilism before it. There would be no reason to “tax the rich” if the rich hadn’t scammed us out of our capital in the first place. What they lose from taxation is a tiny fraction of what they have gained from being allowed a license to steal(fractional reserve banking), relatively cheap security services(“public” police and military) and infrastructure by the government (not to mention all the other ways that government creates a “winner take all” model of economics). Take that away, and the rich as we currently know them no longer exist.” Liberal Arrogance and the Hydraulic Empire.
I hope you consider helping Anna out and tell all your anarcho-friends about this opportunity.
Diogenes’ Barrel.
Aug 20th
The always insightful and wonderful Broadsnark has asked an important question:
So I guess what I’m wondering is: Do you market anarchist types envision a world full of artisans trading labor with one another or actual employment relationships? Do the majority of anarchists, who don’t subscribe to capitalist or market ideologies, envision a world based entirely on a gift economy? (A New Yorker goes to Hong Kong and has immediate access to what she needs to meet her needs?) Do you object to any sort of trading of labor for stuff?
My response:
Dear Mel,
This is a great question and a keen observation. Why would an Anarchist, one who finds hierarchy undesirable, volunteer or consent to an Employee/Employer relationship, a hierarchy? I would be suspicious of all contexts or circumstances that would bring such a relationship about; I smell authority and monopoly.
As a Wobbly I am committed to the eventual Direct Action dissolution of the wage-system and the promotion of Industrial Organized Labor into the mutually supportive industries of One Big Union, de-central and monumental.
As a market anarchist I foresee an economic landscape of communes, collectives, co-operatives, IWW closed-shops, Time Stores, Garage Networks, Self-employed micros, Family Mom & Pops, Gift Econs, Charity Non-Profits, Monastic Orders from Benedictines to Zen Buddhists, Strangers passing through towns nobly demanding to “earn their keep,” but let’s not forget Hermits, Homesteads and squatters. Everything in between, all of the above to include the stuff not even thought of yet. The “market” in market anarchy, for me, is a vocational, lifestyle, life-path bazaar; the more options the better I feel that authority is curbed and monopoly buried. I see/want a world where people can browse, taste test, try on, kick the tires and hassle free return any life they fancy; or knuckle down on one thing and feel the novel sensation of fusion with or mastery of one skill or craft, pushing it into new boundaries, ripping it up and starting again whether it be post-punk music, cabinet making or Starcraft II.
The only thing I ask is that the anarcho-culture understands, recognizes and supports the institutions of “opt-out,” “push-back” and the “benign busybody.” That the culture allows anyone to “opt-out” of anything whenever they don’t feel comfortable, or for any other reason really, without fear of reprisal. That the culture accepts “pushing back” as a natural, acceptable and corrective reaction, if someone is feeling controlled, dominated or marginalized. And that the cultural sees the pondering busybody who asks, “Is that really liberty? Is that really Equality? Is that really Solidarity?,” as benign and healthy for cultural anarcho-maintenance; meeting their questions with curiosity, reflection and concern for anarcho-sustainability.
I may be asking for too much from, but this is my commitment to you and everyone. I will be open and scrupulous, if you let me be fussy and indecisive.
Anarchy: dumping the bosses off our backs and unleashing our inner weirdo since Diogenes’ Barrel.
Keep us Honest,
–James
