Why marginalized groups are not attracted to pro-capitalist libertarianism.

Black people are among the poorest in the country. One can try to explain this away with racial pseudo science which proclaims this economic disparity is due to an inherent racial flaw as people like Rothbard and Rockwell have, or you can acknowledge that it is an instance of racial hegemony perpetuated by the institution of private property which grants a legal entitlement to the value created from productive labor to property owners. You see, when one group of people is descended from the owning class which has reaped the benefit of the institution of private property for hundreds of years, and another is descended from people who were property themselves, you cannot simply expect to wave magic free market wand and pretend that individuals and their material conditions result from their own merit and abilities. Quite simply put, when poor black people and other people of color look at the principles of US libertarianism, they see the new boss the same as the old boss. They see a system that perpetuates their material conditions based on hundreds of years of the accumulation of wealth through slavery, genocide, and white supremacy through the social enforcement of private property rights.

Pro-capitalist libertarianism is inherently more beneficial to those in society who have a greater access to capital, and that happens to be white men. You can’t expect people with the least amount of property and wealth to want to sign up to be the underclass in a propertarian utopia where access to property and capital directly grant one greater social mobility and privilege. It doesn’t take a political science major or economist to figure this out.

My thoughts on identity politics and why it’s destroying “the left”.

The general argument of people espousing identity politics is that oppressed groups should be able to define their own oppression, but this is a very silly concept we wouldn’t accept in any other form of scientific analysis. We don’t base the study of cancer in humans on the emotional experiences of cancer patients. Being shot by a gun doesn’t make you an expert on firearms safety and training. Living through a natural disaster doesn’t make you a meteorologist. Point being, experiencing something does not make you an expert on it, nor does it grant you the right or ability to redefine socially accepted terms and what kind of things they entail. Oppression is a very specific term in social science denoting a form of human social interaction where one person or group of people is politically or socially dominated by another person or group of people. You do not get to redefine that term based on your personal feelings of offense.
By giving individuals the ability to define their own oppression based on personal experiences we are giving them an empty dictionary and telling them to fill in the blanks, and what results is the lunacy we see today that passes for legitimate social analysis. The most mundane and trivial things like disagreeing with a person of color about what constitutes racism, or complimenting a woman, or having consensual sex is redefined as oppressive.
The word oppression is thrown around so loosely now that it has lost nearly all of its potential for calling attention to serious social injustices and removing the marginalization of minorities from society. This actually does a huge disservice to actually oppressed peoples by making the word oppression hollow and meaningless, taking our focus away from correcting those social injustices and instead to playing this semantic game where disagreeing with or offending someone is equated to an actual social relationship where a person or group of people is being dominated and stripped of their human rights. Even this very article is highly likely to be subjected to claims of oppression, or being written with the intention of “defending privilege”, when in fact it is being written with the exact opposite intention.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of civil rights, argues that a just society requires a common basis for society to function. In his view, basing politics on group marginalization fractures the civil polity, and therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that “movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the culture, rather than perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference.”, and so do I.

Many leftists participate in what political analyst John Mcwhorter calls “therapeutic alienation” wherein they target specific characteristics of an oppressor class and then attribute negative connotations to them. Such accusations as “all white people are racist” and “all men are rapists” become the norm for those that subscribe to these concepts, but it is no better or more justified to attribute negative characteristics to all people of a certain race or gender when it is done to males rather than women, or to “white” people rather than people of color. Not only is it unjust to attribute negative connotations to individuals based on physical characteristics they did not choose, it also serves to perpetuate the myth that race is a legitimate biological category, or that the differences in gender are legitimate to justify different treatment between genders in society, while they are not.

This article is not intended to spark a conspiracy theory, but the concepts of identity politics and therapeutic alienation are so destructive and divisive that they might as well be psychological operations concocted by COINTELPRO to make leftist organizations completely irrelevant, and splinter “the left” as a current for social change into a thousand pieces. As leftists, as radicals, as generally good people fighting for social justice and equality we need to move past these poisonous premises and get back on the path to constructing a society devoid of oppression, that is, the social and political domination of people.

If rich people don’t pay us wages to create things how would there be any business?

Quite frankly your boss doesn’t pay you, the customer does. What the owner of a company or business does is take the agreed upon value that was payed by the customer for the service or product you create with your labor and gives you a small percentage in return, keeping the rest as their own profit based on the premise of their entitlement to it through investment. Any rational logical person can see that this is not at all fair. In comparison, that’s like watching you build a house and then charging you rent to live there simply because I owned the hammer you used. Sure, if the hammer was mine I should be entitled to compensation for any damage or wear incurred from using it, but that certainly wouldn’t justify my ownership of the entire product of your labor, that being the house itself.

But if my boss didn’t pay the bills, how would the business operate?

Again, the boss doesn’t pay the bills, you do, with the value generated by your labor. What the boss does is take the value generated by collective labor power, pays all the bills, gives a tiny percentage to the people who generated the value through their productive labor, and keeps the rest for his/her self as profit, based on his/her entitlement through investment and the collective enforcement of private property rights.

What would a business look like outside the confines of state enforced capitalist markets?

A co-op is the most likely business structure that would result from free market associations where people organize together within their own personal interests to create a product or service absent the state intervention on behalf of capital investment. Costs of operation, including the cost of materials, tools and any other necessary element that one could imagine, would be shared by everyone equally. In large corporations this generally already happens. If you’ve ever worked in a factory I’m sure you’ve heard the bosses justifying pay cuts or layoffs because they need to reinvest in new machines. They almost never use their own profit for reinvestment, which is ironically the basis for their entire premise of entitlement to the value generated by other peoples labor. The remaining sum that would generally be claimed as the owners profit would be divided evenly among the productive work force, most likely based roughly on the individual time and effort that is put forth by each worker, much like wages are now, only absent the unproductive leech that is taking a majority of the income based on their premise of entitlement.

How I Became A Social Anarchist

All property titles are physical representations of state protection. They are the embodiment of the will and desire to use collective force for ones private interests, tragically and ironically advocated by “self made” men.

Property is theft. I came to this conclusion long before I ever even knew what Socialism was or read any Socialist writings. I came to this conclusion by rationally analyzing the existing world.

I came to these conclusions about the existing world from a very young age, from looking out of the very small window that was my available perception, my own family. I looked at my Dad as a man of great character. He worked long and hard to provide for me the things I wanted or needed. He has had a full time job ever since he was 16 years old. He works tirelessly day in and day out for someone else, his boss. His boss gives him a small percentage of what he created with his labor and takes the rest. I asked myself the question, like many children do, why? What unforeseen occurrences could have placed my father, a hard working man of great character, into such a predicament as to labor not just for our survival, but the enrichment of others?

As I grew older I came to understand that this man who called himself my fathers boss had invested capital into what was called a company. At first I admit I didn’t fully understand the concept, but it seemed fair. This person took their money and risked it to start the business, sure they deserve some compensation. My dad had the same ability to invest his hard earned capital into his own company, but he had chosen not to. That’s freedom, god bless americuh. Or did he? There is that question I always ask popping up again. Why? Why would anyone choose to labor rather than profit from someone elses? “Who would choose this undesirable life of perpetual servitude?”, I asked myself, “especially a hard working man of great character”.

Upon further years of perception I came to hold a better understanding of economics and world history. I came to understand that the present is the result of the past, and that the past was REALLY fucked up. Especially the history of this country. Here I was a child, a product of sesame street, coming to the almost instantaneous and stunning realization that some of the people around me, all of whom individuals, were categorized by the color of their skin, and placed into forced servitude. I came to understand the vast differences of culture, and education, and opportunity available to individuals based on arbitrary social constructs. I could see the invisible chains. It was at this period in my life when the ghost of lady liberty vanished, and left a void in me yearning for understanding.

I began reading constantly. “Why would people choose their own perpetual servitude?” is the question I kept asking myself. Surely, it’s such an obvious question to be asked. So obvious that I asked it before I could even understand it. I asked many others in my small window for answers but they seemingly had none. No answers at all, just justifications for it. They had given up. They had died inside. The system had defeated them. But I won’t be like them. I can surely overcome this, this ludicrous and most ridiculous social order. This blatant hypocrisy and theft from good people. Surely others have asked this question, of their selves and others. Surely someone has found an answer.

The more I searched for an answer the more angry I became. I came to understand that nearly all the richest people in the world were descended from kings and slave owners. That the capital they possessed from doing despicable things to other people throughout history was now being used as leverage to force my Father, and millions of others like him, into perpetual servitude. That my Father never had a fucking chance. I began to feel like a modern peasant. Sifting through the decay of a time past dead, but had now been resurrected by the Christ of the free market, Ronald Reagan. A time of Union Busters and Robber Barons. Joblessness and poverty. Starvation and death. All the while there’s a party going on being furnished with all the stuff we built with our own hands. “Look at them dancing and singing and fucking” I said, “oblivious to the reality that nothing exists because of green paper. It all exists because of people like my Father, whom you have manipulated into creating wealth for you. You are despicable.”

And thusly, a revolutionary is born. With a yearning for peace, but the willingness to fight. I’m determined to crash that fucking party they have furnished with our labor, if it’s the last thing I do

Reasons why I am an anti-capitalist

1.) Because I find it morally and ethically repugnant to restrict access to the things one needs to survive for a profit. This is exploitation, and to me is no different than choking someone, depriving them of air, and then demanding a fee to let go of their neck.

2.) Because risk does not entail reward. Some cat burglars are very skilled, and take a great deal of risk when entering a house uninvited to steal someones belongings. This does not in any way confer a “right” to the belongings of others just as the possible risk of loss of investment does not confer ones right to the product of an others labor.

3.) Because labor is the true cost of everything. When you remove all forms of currency and all economic abstractions, the only thing required for production is labor and access to raw materials. Even their precious capital was at the very beginning the product of people’s labor, and while it can be argued that those initial laborers have a “right” to the product of their labor, this right does not confer an infinite entitlement to value produced with that product.

4.) Because nobody has claim to the earth. Private property is an intentionally created social construct designed to centralize wealth and perpetuate class society by granting entitlement to value produced by labor in a legally defined territory.  It is justified with the claim that purchase entails a right of increase from ownership, but since there was no original purchase of land there is no legitimate claim.

The Bane Prison Speech (How It Should’ve Been)

I and the people beside me are here today to tell you that you are no longer just a number in a system, but you are free men.  Many of us have made some mistakes, and have some regrets, myself included, but we must no longer look at each other and point fingers as to who is to blame for this chaotic climate of death and despair which drives men to commit petty crimes and aggressions against their neighbors to fulfill their wants and needs. We must look forward to the future that we can build with our labor combined.  I truly believe that each and every one of you can achieve something great if only you were granted the means to do so, and that is what I am proposing to you today. The beginning of a new society free from the plagues of corporatism and poverty which restricted you from attaining a decent education and the means to satisfy your natural human desires. A society where each and every individual has a legitimate stake in the full product of their labor and the ability to better themselves with free access to information. I ask of you today to help us build that new world, so that our children’s children may enjoy life without ever knowing the horrors of these prison walls. So that they may look back at history and reflect about how petty and absolutely barbaric we were to allow these institutions  to run amok over our societies.

Forward to victory! Untill all are free!

An Activists Guide for Dealing with COINTELPRO and The Legal System

1. Anyone who offers you high grade explosives is a cop. (Yes, anyone.) The best thing to do when you feel like someone is trying to entrap you is to state firmly that you do not agree with/wish to participate in the questionable action they are suggesting and disassociate with them.

2. Never brag about illegal activities online or to friends. I don’t care how cool they are, or how long you’ve known them, everyone has a breaking point. When people get scared they will sing like a canary. The safest bet is to tell NO ONE.
3. The state almost never has a case until somebody talks. NEVER incriminate your comrades. They will use your fear against you. They’ll tell you they have all the evidence in the world and that you’re going to jail for the rest of your life. They will tell you that all your friends are turning on you. They are almost always lying.  In The United States there is no penalty for refusing to incriminate yourself, a.k.a. pleading the Fifth Amendment. Direct all tough guy harassing cops to your lawyer.

4. The public defender is not your friend. They are being paid to be there whether they win or lose. They have absolutely no professional investment in your case. Many times the public defenders are ex-prosecutors who work with the judges to get convictions by scaring their clients into plea deals. Do not reveal incriminating evidence to them if you can help it. NEVER admit guilt, even to them. If you can afford it, a paid attorney is your best legal defense.

5. The cops have no moral investment in whether or not you walk out of that court house or are led out in chains. Never trust them. Their job is to fuck you over in any way they can. They will not jeopardize their careers  to make moral decisions which are at odds with the legal system that they work for. They do not want to help you, so don’t fall for it.

Voluntaryism is an exploiters wet dream, whether voluntaryists intend it to be or not

Let me begin by saying that voluntaryism in my assessment is just a new word for anarchism being used by pro-capitalist, right-wing “libertarians” who got tired of defending their views on the wage system and absentee land ownership from criticism by actual anarchists. And yes, I have a right to say “actual anarchists”. Anarchists are historically and ideologically anti-capitalist.  Anarchism is the belief in the creation of human societies where all individuals are free to reach their greatest possible potential absent coercion, not a clean slate where individuals can position themselves above others in society and use that position to extract wealth from their labor.

Voluntaryists like to reduce all matters of moral action down to the voluntary consent of individuals while completely ignoring presupposed environmental variables which they sneak in the backdoor. For instance, one can easily say that I “voluntarily” pay rent to live in this apartment. And indeed, I of my own will cash my check and deposit the money into the landlord’s account on a monthly basis. Indeed, I signed the contract agreeing to pay this amount monthly. What voluntaryists ignore however, is that I by my very nature do not have a choice in whether I occupy space on the planet, or whether the “right” to occupy that specific space has been claimed by someone else. They ignore the consequences of not paying rent, homelessness, while claiming that the payment of rent represents a voluntary agreement. The threat of homelessness in this case could be easily equated to the threat of an armed robbers gun. Sure it can be said one voluntarily gives up their valuables to the robber if we choose to ignore the coercive variable which compel them to do so, their own necessity. It could just as easily be said that a 19th century English peasant voluntarily accepted monarchy by bowing to royalty if we ignore the law commanding them to do so.

These rationalizations for rent and usury are just logical extensions of what Walter Block called “Voluntary Slavery”. It stems from the idea that individuals should be able to barter their present liberty as a bargaining chip in an economic exchange. Rather than renting ones self to a capitalist, Block argues that you should be able to sell your future liberty indefinitely. While not all voluntaryists agree with this extreme example, they do agree in principle that a person should be able to sell their liberty, in part, for access to necessary property, i.e. wage employment.

So what is the justification for it all? Well natural rights, of course! “This man owns his property!” they cry, “who could dispossess him of it without being a thief or a tyrant?”.  They argue that legitimate property is made legitimate by voluntary purchase, and that that purchase grants them an absolute right to the use value of said property, again, without consideration of their presupposition that an absolute right to the use of physical matter, or property, is legitimate in the first place. They do not consider a voluntary agreement to this absolutist conception of property as a qualifier for voluntary action in regard to it, and they go to great lengths to hide that fact. Some even claim to reject natural rights, like Ludwig Von Mises, instead favoring “universal absolutes”, which are basically the exact same thing. They will say “Look around you, property is everywhere! One cannot even live without the use of property!” without ever reconciling the fact that they have merely just labeled all physical matter that can be potentially possessed by humans as their conception of “property”. One using or possessing something has absolutely no correlation to it being considered their property, therefore one cannot make the argument that things merely being used or possessed makes the concept of property a “universal absolute”. One may use the light of the moon to navigate in the darkness, yet they do not own it, likewise one may own a building they never step foot in. One is not mutually exclusive to the other.

So why does it matter? As an anarchist I believe in the unimpeded right of all individuals to reach their greatest possible potential. I see anarchism as the liberatory force which can free humanity from these imagined social spooks which cause unending social ills and are the source of exploitation of man by man. When I see people arguing for what I believe to be the complete subjugation of millions of people to propertied individuals under the title of anarchism I am compelled to speak out against it. When I see people arguing for the “liberty” to sell ones liberty for economic necessity under the banner of human liberation I am outraged and disgusted, and rightfully so. Anarchist apartheid? No, Roderick, this is a defense of anarchism from people who have clearly stated goals which are the antithesis of anarchism. This is an intellectual purging of the enemies of human liberty.

Until all are free

Private property is a social disease that over the course of human history has worked itself into the very fabric of society. One cannot imagine going almost anywhere or doing almost anything in the world without money. And what do we pay for? We pay for the RIGHT to access physical matter, to simply possess space that some other great ape made a fiat claim to. Imagine that, a whole world full of

physical mass and information with only a handful of people with the “right” to access it. How did we get here humanity? Who invented the central polity to enforce property rights and why? What does it have to do with your position in life as working class stiff? Why do you work every day only to end up with just enough to pay the rich for access to life sustaining property? You need to ask yourself these questions, for I am confident that if you do you will come to only one conclusion: Social Revolution.

It’s a fine line between comedy and counterrevolution.

I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with populists. Do they really want a revolution in name only? Do they really value popularity over principle? We don’t appeal to the masses simply because they are the masses. The United States population for example is full of social climbing, racist, misogynist, classist fucking assholes, with no solidarity or class consciousness and not a single care in the world about starving children down the block from them, much less in Ethiopia. We have to ask ourselves do we really want them running around calling themselves anarchists? People need to check themselves on this “tactic” of mass recruitment.

Sure, I want them to be anarchists too. It’s true, we need the people to be on our side. But that’s just it, I want them to BE anarchists, not say that they are anarchists and then exhibit every characteristic I fucking despise about this social order. I don’t want to hang out at the proverbial watercooler at a co-op with guys making rape jokes and laughing at African-American culture. I don’t want to be at the public seminar hearing about how “faggots are an abomination” from some asshole with a black and red flag. I’m glad anarchists are exclusive because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We don’t accept every batshit right-wing nutjob that walks around calling himself an anarchist for the same reasons we don’t call a mental patient a goose when they flap their arms like they have wings.

I’m tired of this knee-jerk reactionary hit squad of primarily teenage and college age white males who go around thinking that the freedom of speech means they can mock, ridicule and dehumanize any person or group they want without repercussion, and that anyone who dare defy them is an authoritarian monster equivalent to Joseph Stalin. That our criticism of their offensive language and attitude is comparative to the political executions attributed to the Bolshevik regime.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of comedians who use racially charged criteria to make hilarious political statements, but there is a difference between comedy and mockery. Comedy is when everyone is laughing together about a stupid stereotype that we know shouldn’t exist because we know people who don’t exhibit those characteristics, mockery is taking the stereotype as a standard and then laughing at the entire group. As radicals we need to have clearly defined lines about acceptable conduct or else we will find ourselves like so many other movements, far from our principles with a bunch of people talking the talk, but not walking the walk.