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The latest instalment in our ongoing monthly feature. You may be surprised to find that this month I am going to pass over the new fucking war that the Peace President has been kinetically pursuing against yet another Muslim country. Too obvious. Instead, we have…. Executive power In which Obama decides he’s in favor of [...]
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To mark the coming of May Day, we’re delighted to take part in the online debut of the subMedia film END:CIV, now available in it’s entirety—for free, of course—at our movie sub-site, the CrimethInc. Emergency Broadcast System.
The 76 minute film examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”
Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land, moving along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. Featuring interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.
4chan vs taringa: who’s gonna win?
There are a lot of criticisms of Anarcho-Capitalism around the place, but very few hit all the right notes. While the ideology itself is generally considered a footnote in wider Anarchist theory, it is not going to go away just because it has been ignored or marginalised. Even where critical analysis exist, it is often sensationalist at doesn’t strike a death blow. But with increasing numbers of former Anarcho-Capitalists reflecting on the theory and drifting Leftward over time, the critical response has become far more precise and far more threatening.
Though this is not intended to stand as a comprehensive, or even substantial, critical analysis of the ideology, it is hoped that providing more information will lead to better attempts. For the record, Brainpolice, who blogs at Polycentric Order, has offered a scathing critical analysis of the behaviour and culture among Anarcho-Capitalists. It is an experience that I share.
I don’t see a problem with going on a polemical, personally motivated critique and psychologizing[sic] of the culture that surrounds ancap. When obvious aristocrats are at the helm of its major institutions and when its major intellectuals all have ties to wishy washy neo-liberal public policy organizations, I think this is worth pointing out. Sure, one can bringing up the youth who subscribe to it that represent its more populist face, but it really seems like the most charitable thing to say is that such people are being manipulated by aristocrats – when they aren’t the children of aristocrats or virtual aristocrats themselves. I also have too much personal experience to avoid noting the degree to which ancap is a magnet for near-sociopathic personalities, but [I] don’t want to go on that tangent.
I’ve recently gotten familiar with the Australian libertarian and ancap scene, and it provides lots of fodder for the thesis about the younger generation of ancaps really are dominantly spoiled, rich college students who can’t see past their own privilege and pretty much are pawns for generally neo-liberal organizations. That pretty much defines the Melbourne libertarian scene, and the ancaps are virtually indistinguishable from the minarchists in practise. It’s alarmingly filled with college students in suits, turtle necks and bowties[sic] giving lectures at university and going to expensive cocktail parties to gossip, with numerous inheritors of legacy wealth with connections to actual governmental organizations being popular figures. Some of these people are virtually conservative career politicians in training (see David Nolan and Tim Andrews).
I don’t think stuff like this is irrelevant at all. Ideologies do have a connection to the social context surrounding the people who invent and subscribe to them. Libertarian ideology all to often does function as a justification for people’s already existing social positions and personalities. Ancap debate with other groups all too often does devolve into what is blatantly a highly personal defensive lashing out by an individual in which they feel that what they own (or their power in general) is threatened, and in which their idiosyncratic immoralities can be justified ideologically. This is all too telling to ignore. The truth of an ideology really can’t be completely disconnected from its use when we are dealing with rationalizations. We aren’t always dealing with an innocent truth claim, we’re dealing with positions handpicked[sic] to rationalize[sic] deeper, unanalyzed beliefs and behavioral[sic] patterns.
The “arguments” too often are underpinned by implicit premises that can’t be justified and are connected to the person’s desires. This includes the (often unargued for) belief in their own legitimacy and oppression in a certain social context. The ideology can’t be properly addressed without this being looked at. That legitmacy[sic] and claim to oppression can end up falling apart when seriously analyzed[sic]. There are too many false victimhood mentalities and dubious feelings of entitlement going around to ignore. It’s a little too convenient to present your personal prejudices in the form of an argument construeing[sic] it as a law of nature or economics or the one true ethical code or whatever. If one really wants to talk about appeals to emotion, you’ll find one underlying many ancap arguments.
Understanding the ideology is not entirely difficult. It begins by asserting that the Self is property and then asserts property as an extension of this fact. As a result, all actions against property are a direct action against the Self. From this, a series of axiomatic principles are extrapolated, such as the Non-Aggression Principle, Property as a Natural Right, Property as an Absolute.
The next step is to appeal to policy, where that policy is usually a particular strain of economics or, in the case of the so-labelled “social issues”, usually all the standard conservative talking points that reaffirm the prejudice and privilege of the adherent. Mention that property, as constructed under Anarcho-Capitalism, works to legitimise and protect a racist in their discriminatory action against a particular minority, and the response is usually an accusation of “Marxism”, “political correctness” and a statement that, “who cares!?!” because “the market will sort it out”. The fact that issues such as racism or, say, discrimination based on sexuality threaten the lives and well-being of millions of people around the planet, daily, is ignored entirely. But if the government declares a tax hike on the rich, well the shit has really hit the fan.
Analysis of an issue or problem, from an Anarcho-Capitalist perspective, becomes little more than a repetitive, almost robotic, application of the Non-Aggression Principle and Absolute property rights to a set of facts in order to derive a conclusion on what makes for good economic efficiency. It is a tried and true formula.
But then the biggest challenge to the wider Anarcho-Capitalist framework comes in that it relies, almost entirely, on appeals to the universalism of Natural Law on account of the basis assertion that the Self is something which can be considered property. Something that can be owned and with ownership comes the right of use and abuse — and anyone that knows anything about property is generally well aware that property can be traded, transferred or given away and that with a right to ownership. This is called alienation — the right to give something away or sell it.
So if the idea of a person selling themselves into slavery does not appeal to you, then the idea of “Self-Ownership” is nothing more than an abstract metaphor for some basic sense of Individual Autonomy or the Self as independent, free and un-governed.
However.
“Self-Ownership” is phrased in terms of property for a reason. Entirely decoupled from property, the axiomatic principles extrapolated from this concept fall down. They simply become assertions and are not connected to some greater, higher, universal Natural Law. They are constructed by of the various thinkers associated with Anarcho-Capitalism.
While the “Non-Aggression Principle” may be a great principle and can find its theoretical and practical support elsewhere, others which derive their existence directly from Self-Ownership, do not. Property then, is not a Natural Right, but a social construct and the rights, obligations and basis on which property operates, can be questioned, reformulated and reapplied where problems arise. At this point, the point of application, Brainpolice’s critical analysis applies and we are forced to deal with a series of people who’s faith in their system produces the response, “the market will take care of it”, with all the linguistic lingo and peculiar use of language to confuse the situation a little more.
Anarcho-Capitalism is simplistic in theory and application. With time, there is a notable tendency of Anarcho-Capitalists to drift Left. If nothing else can be taken from this, the biggest question will still remain:
Why?
Actually just edited by Erjavec, the book is a series of essays about the art of the Eastern Bloc in the '80s, and is very, very, interesting. In a sense, it looks at the question: what happens when official state realism is relaxed and in its place more symbolic work is both possible and also able to be made in such a way that it criticizes official culture to a certain extent? This is what happens. The "Post-Modern" part looks at the critique of socialist society by these artists as being post-modern in the sense that industrialized Soviet Communism represented Modernism in a somewhat pure form. But perhaps it's too easy to see a rejection of the political considerations of Soviet socialism as being a rejection of modernity as a whole in its sense as a unifying myth or 'narrative', if you want to use the fashionable terminology.
There’s been a great deal of controversy (a lot of it manufactured by Christian fanatics) around my entry on the oxymoron of “Christian Anarchism.” My basic position is that Christianity and Anarchism are ideologies based on opposite premises. Anarchism is based on the concept that hierarchies are undesirable and unjustifiable, while Christianity sets God up as the supreme authority on morality and ethics. Anarchism is based on personal responsibility, while Christianity is based on the deliberate obliteration of responsibility.
The only sort of answer I’ve gotten by Christians and Christian sympathizers revolves around my definition of a Christian as being someone who believes in Jesus as his saviour, as revealed by the Bible. People have objected to this definition, saying that I am trying to define Christianity for them. They have claimed that their personal beliefs have nothing to do with this, and yet still call themselves Christians.
I must admit that I have little patience for such nitpicking. As far as I know, this definition of “Christianity” I have used is the most widely accepted. But even if this remain under contention, I am fine with using the terms Ethical Christian and CINO (Christian In Name Only). Someone who does not express his Christian belief into any actions whatsoever, I think, rightly deserves to be called CINO, since there is no discernable difference for us between someone who believes but doesn’t act on it and someone who does not believe.
Now, I want to make clear that my use of the term CINO is most definitely not an attack; in fact, I am entirely in favour of people who may have some Christian beliefs but live as if they were atheists. I have no qualms about them calling themselves Christians if they want. I have no qualms about them calling themselves Anarchists either. It’s the Ethical Christians I am arguing against.
If you accept the fundamental premise of Christianity, then you cannot be an Anarchist. I think I’ve proven that well enough. But for those people who do not accept it and yet call themselves Christians, I say to you that you are a CINO, and that I like you very much. Keep acting like an atheist and we’ll get along just fine.
But to those of you who are engaged in spiritual warfare against the world, and whose most ardent desire is to make every knee bend, know that you are not our friends, but our enemies. I will kill you before I bend the knee to any power but myself. That’s a promise.
Over the course of my experiment in low-income tax resistance, I have periodically run a budget check to make sure I’m living sustainably on this lower income. To do this, for a month I carry around a notebook with me and keep track of every time I spend money. Then I add in any other regular expenses and use the numbers to try to come up with an estimate of my rate of spending.
You can see my reports from past years in the following entries:
I’m overdue for another budget check. I was also curious as to how my spending has changed since I moved from living as a half of a couple in an apartment in San Francisco to living in a room in a house as a single guy in Berkeley.
So last month I started keeping my notebook. I think I may have jumped the gun. Several of my larger expenses were the sort of exceptional things that happen when you move in to a new place, and don’t probably represent typical spending patterns. That distorts the picture quite a bit. But, for what it’s worth, here’s what I found:
| Category | Daily expense | Monthly expense |
|---|---|---|
| Total | $56.49 | $1,719.56 |
| Rent | $21.67 | $650.00 |
| Food (groceries) | $11.69 | $355.84 |
| Miscellany | $5.55 | $168.94 |
| Cat stuff | $5.01 | $152.50 |
| Homebrewing | $4.34 | $132.11 |
| Transportation | $2.96 | $90.10 |
| Food (eating out) | $1.44 | $43.83 |
| Commercial beer/wine | $1.18 | $35.92 |
| Utilities & internet | $1.02 | $31.05 |
| Coffee | $0.88 | $26.79 |
| California sales tax | $0.75 | $22.83 |
Among the reasons why I think this month is probably inflated relative to what my typical spending will be:
I may have to wait a few months and try again to see if I can get a more stable pulse.
That said, here’s how my current burn rate compares with past years (I’ve had to rejuggle the numbers a bit so that the categories remain the same from year to year):
| Category | 2003–2010 average | March 2011 |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly total | $1,055.79 | $1,719.56 |
| Yearly total | $12,670 | $20,635 |
| Rent | $470.06 | $650.00 |
| Food (groceries) | $159.60 | $355.84 |
| Food (eating out) | $33.73 | $43.83 |
| Coffee/tea/beer/wine/booze | $88.25 | $194.82 |
| Utilities | $52.43 | $10.00 |
| Transportation | $63.20 | $90.10 |
| Internet fees | $15.47 | $20.98 |
| Miscellany | $173.05 | $344.27 |
Not included in any of the above totals were any business expenses (since I write these off against my business income), my health insurance premium (which, as a self-employed person, I can also write off), or any medical expenses that I paid for from my pre-tax Health Savings Account. This year, for the first time, I separated California state sales tax into its own line item in the results shown at the top of the page, just out of curiosity.
A $20,635/year burn rate is not sustainable given my current technique of staying below the tax line by keeping my adjustable gross income below $16,750. If I go ahead and factor out all the genuinely weird one-time expenses from last month, my spending is still a little high: $16,803/year. This just encourages me further to try this again later on in the year to see if things settle down as I expect, or if I need to adopt some more deliberate cost-cutting measures.
Sheldon Richman writes:
In Tuscaloosa Obama said he’s never seen such devastation. Doesn’t the Pentagon show him the bombing reports?