"We have done this because we love liberty and hate authority." – Voltairine de Cleyre
Posts tagged C4SS
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 Center Needs Your Help!
Nov 30th
Dear Fans of the Center (Centerians?),
So this is how the story goes, retold for the recently Centered: C4SS asks the internet for donations and support. Out of the gate, there is a sudden influx of funds followed by a long period of nothing. This is when the writers and volunteers begin to bite their nails. But fear not! In the end, the fans come through, we thank you for all for your support and the Center knuckles back down to dissolving the state. Rinse/Repeat.
We are currently in the “long period of nothing.”
Instead of begging, I would like to take a moment to describe a mini-miracle. In my home state of Oklahoma, the majority thought it necessary to outlaw Sharia Law. There is zero political opposition in Oklahoma, only some Libertarian Party Members struggling for ballot access and some Democrats that can’t even field a candidate. Oklahoma is prime minority opposition territory, and this minority has reached out to C4SS. That’s right; anarchist commentary from the Center was published in the Urban Tulsa. Emma Goldman was quoted in the Urban Tulsa! This is why the Center is important. This why we need your support; the more blue or red the state the more desperate the population needs alternatives.
The Center has a pretty steep price tag this time, for sure, but let’s take a quick look at what projects we offer: Blackvanguard.net, Groundbreaking Case Studies, Stateless University, a Nuanced Political Orientation Quiz, Op-ed Boot Camp, and biting News analysis and Commentary. All in one location with an easy four character address. C4SS!
Donate a little or a lot. Whatever you saved from participating in No Shave November, a Thanksgiving Potluck or Black Friday’s crazy discount deals, the Center will use it to continue the fight against the continued encroachment of State madness.
Thank you and happy holidays.
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.
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!
