"We have done this because we love liberty and hate authority." – Voltairine de Cleyre
Posts tagged ATP-101
Stateless University, Registration Begins Tomorrow.
Jan 15th
Stateless University Registration begins January 16th for its first term of 2011.
I would like to offer the prospective “student” a taste-test of some of the issues and questions that we will wrestle with in Stateless University’s Bravo Section.
1. According to Karl Hess’ Anarchism without Hyphens, “Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist.”
Do you agree with Hess’ position on “anarchism” and what distinction, if any, can be made between the “anarchist” and the “anarchism?”
2. According to Karl Hess’ the Left/Right spectrum, the traditional “left/right spectrum” was a tool for analyzing regimes, policies and allies with regard to their relative tendencies towards centralized or de-centralized power.
Do you think this is a helpful tool for analysis, “relative tendencies towards centralized or de-centralized power”? If not, then what could be used in its place for evaluating “regimes, policies and allies?”
3. In “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism” Roy Childs describes the paradigmatic nature of historiography.
How does this help us explain the modern, inaccurate description of how State-Capitalism accumulates and condenses resources; and can it help us understand why free-market principles and dynamics are misdiagnosed and misapplied as the contributing factor to the economy we experience today?
4. Less Antman takes inventory of the peaks and valleys of the perennial debate on property theory. And he dares to hint at the question, “Is property valued for ‘peace’ or ‘status;’ are property norms consumer goods or producers goods?”
What do you think? Are property norms consumer goods or producer goods?
5. Melanie “Broadsnark” Pinkert offers a sober, yet needed, revaluation of resistance culture and its effectiveness.
If Protest is made illegal and virtually impossible, then what can we do to influence the dominate culture in any meaningful way?
6. In this interview (start @ 28:30), Derrick Jensen, the everything man, describes the terrifying fact that in most military organizations it is only 2% of the members that actively participate in violence. The vast, 98%, majority of the organization is mission support. If we, also, take into consideration institutional maintenance, then we would have to include every member of adjacent populations that support violent institutions by respecting or regarding its very existence as legitimate.
Add the former realization to the accelerating rate that natural resources, captial and wealth are being systematically and permanently destroyed by the “Political Class.” Could these observations be regarded as a compelling argument for “everything,” by way of tactics and strategy, to be reexamined?
ALL the best.
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
Bravo Section in Pictures.
Aug 10th
Bravo Section, the Introduction to Anarchism Class that I volunteered to administrate for C4SS, now has some crazy logos. Stickers, Buttons and T-Shirts should be on the way, enjoy.
If you are interested in jpeg copies of these items, email me or leave a comment. Feel free to promote the Center, Stateless U. or Bravo Section with these icons to your heart’s desire. ALL the best!
Welcome to Bravo Section…
Jul 5th
Dear Reader, I have volunteered to help the Center for a Stateless Society as an ombudsman (of sorts, a cheerful sort!) for one of their Introduction to Anarchism classes. Below is a quick bio and break down of some of my anarcho-proclivities. I hope you enjoy.
Dear Friends,
I want to take the opportunity to thank you for your support of the Center and to welcome you to the Bravo Section of An Introduction to Anarchism.
For the next ten weeks I have pledged to make my time, enthusiasm and perspective available to further our growth, understanding and confidence in Anarchism. Warning! Anarchist studies can become an obsessive habit; the more you grow within anarchism the more anarchism grows within you. …
A brief background will offer some insight into my approach to Anarchist Studies.
George H. Smith’s Atheism: The Case Against God was my first exposure Aristotelean thought and the word “Libertarian.” From the back cover bio: “Long a student and advocate of the libertarian point of view, George H. Smith studies philosophy at the University of Arizona”
With George H. Smith’s help I was able to become a Post-Objectivist without going through Objectivism and an Agorist/Voluntaryist without going through Anarcho-capitalism. Unfortunately those, and other, philosophical transformations began during a 5 year active enlistment in the U.S. Army. Full fledge acceptance of anarchism happened, for me, during the latter half of a 2 year tour in South Korea. U.S. Army South Korea is an Infernal Wonderland, where up is down, down is up, war is peace, freedom is slavery etc, etc…
Recently it has been the combined, Voltronic, forces of Shawn Wilbur, Kevin Carson, Gary Chartier, Roderick Long, and Charles Johnson that have challenged and encouraged my conceptions of anarchism, theory and practice.
A prospective student asked about my professed “brand” of anarchism (Wobbly-Left-Libertarian-Market-Anarchism) and how much of an influence “it” will play on this class:
“I would like to confirm your definition of Left-Libertarian Market Anarchist. I assume (given the “dues paying Fellow Worker of the Industrial Workers of the World”) you believe in the redistribution of wealth, as opposed to the Left-Libertarian view promoted by Konkin.
Although I realize it is impossible for a person to be 100% objective, how much of your course will be devoted to this side of anarchism? Or, put another way, how open is the class to a person that does not conform to this form of anarchy?”
My answer was as follows:
“First off, my role is that of a Fellow Traveler and to offer feedback, not to sort or to pigeon hole. I will, personally, determine my job a success if you come away from the class feeling confident about anarchism as a possible and desirous future social arrangement.
My definition of Left-Libertarian Market Anarchism would be a book length project, but I will give it a – standing on one foot – shot.
Left: New Left goals (anti-militarism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, LBGTQ liberation, etc) are not only consonant with libertarianism, but are indispensable for a proper understanding of libertarianism.
Libertarian: libertarianism is the continuous exploration in the application of a non-aggression. For me this translates into a principle of non-aggression, a presumption of liberty, and a historical perspective of liberty vs. authority.
Market: for me the fullest flourishing of human happiness is found in an open exploratory space. Trade is a natural and rewarding relationship between individuals with incalculable social value. The concept of market, for me, is tantamount to an endorsement of the values of peace, progress and harmony.
Anarchism: anarchism, for me, is a perpetual social critique. It knows no limits and gives no ground. It values liberty, equality and solidarity, but it only honors them by repeating three questions: “Is that really liberty?” “Is that really equality?” “Is that really solidarity?” It is up to us to answer these questions, then answer them again, then answer them again.
I do not regard redistribution as a value “in and of itself.” I do think that in a freed market you will see a massive redistribution of wealth from its current accumulations. Think of the current capital distribution as an upside down pyramid that is kept aloft by the state. If the state is removed and the forces of gravity (or market and social forces) are allowed to assert, then the pyramid will right itself.
My status as a dues paying, Fellow Worker of the Industrial Workers of the World is determined by a feeling of solidarity with working class people as a working class person. I approach the employee/employer relationship with suspicion; the labor contract as a contested or aggravated contract and not as some sort of performance bond or title transfer; and the industrially organized, fighting union as revolutionary force with great potential for peaceful social transformation.”
Straight Forward and Unenlightening.
Apr 27th
Week 6 of C4SS’s ATP-101 involves a critique of a statist classic:Would private for-profit or not-for-profit providers of defensive services go to war with each other in a stateless society? Why or why not?
The question “would defensive service providers go to war with each other in a stateless society” is a complex question fallacy similar to questions like: “Have you given up your evil ways? Do you still beat your wife? Or Are you still a communist?”
This is not to say that the question is illegitimate, lacking merit or does not require an answer; only that the way the question is framed is designed to illicit a simple answer to a complex series of questions. The audience is supposed feel that the apparent lack of a simple yes or no answer tips the discussion in the favor of the statist position and away from the anarchist’s.
A more honest or genuine modal appraisal of the question would be: Is it possible…? Yes. Is it probable…? Maybe, given the right circumstances. Is it certain…? No.
Straight forward and unenlightening.
But the same spectrum of answers would be given to any other question, e.g “Is it possible, probable or certain that the United States will ever stop fighting wars that kill thousands of innocent civilians?”
Yes, Maybe and No.
There are contextual issues to the question that I find puzzling. What does “go to war” mean in a stateless society? In a very generic presentation, “go to war” is a trial by ordeal. A trial by ordeal leaves the question of authority decided without an appeal to reason. We understand what it means in a state-full society as Karl von Clausewitz so aptly phrased it in his book On War, “War is thus an act of force to compel our adversary to do our will.” The public face of statist war is bombs, guns, crying orphaned babies, toppled buildings, reduced civil rights for everyone, but politicians and capitalist, etc, etc, but does “go to war” mean the same thing in a state-less society? In a stateless society it is more plausible that “go to war” could mean a best 2 out of 3 chess matches or a Step Up/You Got Served dance battle then a locked and loaded, street by street gun battle a la HEAT.
Positing this state-full “go to war” scenario in a stateless society, where the dominant cultural milieu is an explicit rejection of Clausewitzian war, sounds implausible divorced from a drawn out narrative. A spontaneous eruption of violence must be referring to children hashing it out on the playground or adults brawling in a pub parking lot, not bazooka and machine gun carrying infantry setting up a defensive position around client A’s house to protect it from B’s tank platoon.
The question assumes that a stateless society looks and feels the same way as society does today just minus the state. As if you could say “minus the state” and all the institutions that have developed around, along and in spite of the state would also look and feel the same way just minus the state.
It needs to be understood that anarchism is, as George Woodcock explains in his book Anarchism (pg 14.):
“… a system of social thought, aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society and particularly … at the replacement of the authoritarian state by some form of non-governmental cooperation between free individuals”
The phrase “aiming at fundamental changes in the structure of society” must be stressed and one of those fundamental social changes is to embrace direct action and rebellious activity as Mary E. Marcy stresses in Better Any Kind of Action Than Inert Theory:
“Let us remember that discipline and party obedience mean unpreparedness and inaction and that rebellion means initiative to think and to act. And above all we must remember that the revolutionary movement gains strength, experience, equipment and momentum to attack and resist through action alone.”
With this in mind I find hard to consider a society of anarchists standing ideally by while kids or adults pummel themselves, let alone allow defense providers to arm themselves for statism.
So to summarize and answer the question: Would defensive service providers go to war with each other in a stateless society? I would like to see them try; we anarchists need to stay sharp.
