To Whom it May Concern

Effective immediately, I have resigned as a senior fellow (and any additional/supplemental titles) at the Center for a Stateless Society.

This is not intended as one of those angry, ugly or melodramatic separations. The Center and I have been moving in divergent directions for some time now. Recent events tell me loud and clear that no re-convergence is likely, so I'm just going to accept that and move on. It's an amicable separation, at least on my side of things. I wish the Center and all of the people affiliated with it the best.

Left, Right, Left

Note: The content of the following post prior to the "additional thoughts" section was made available to my Patreon supporters three days ago. Become a KN@PPSTER patron and get previews of new content, etc.!

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Sean Gabb: "If Kevin Carson can have an outreach to the left, why can't some of us have an outreach to the right?"

My reply (with some typos corrected):

Libertarianism and leftism are coterminous. That is, they are the same thing with the same originating point. Libertarianism is the extreme leftmost point on the political spectrum. Therefore, to the extent that someone is a libertarian he is also a leftist and vice versa and all libertarian outreach to non-libertarians is outreach "to the right."

The question is whether such outreach is aimed at pulling those it's aimed at toward libertarianism -- that is, aimed at pulling them to the left -- or whether such outreach is conducted in the false belief that it's possible to remain on the right while simultaneously becoming libertarian.

Note: "Conservatism" is neither "inherently" left nor inherently "right." It is about "conserving" (in the sense of keeping intact in the now, returning to from a not too distant future, or slowing the evolution or abandonment of) some particular value, institution or status quo. It is left/libertarian or right/not-libertarian to the extent, and only to the extent, that that value, institution or status quo is libertarian or non-libertarian. So, for example, an American "conservative" who wants to roll history back a bit to not have mandatory Social Security is libertarian in that preference, while the same "conservative" who wants to roll it back to once again have mandatory government-imposed marriage apartheid is anti-libertarian in that preference.

Additional Thoughts

Political leftism and political libertarianism as I understand them start in the same era (the late 18th century) and even, to an extent, with the same person (Thomas Paine). That's not to say that there weren't instances of political libertarianism and of proto-libertarian thought prior to that time, but it all seemed to come together in revolutionary and post-revolutionary America and France.

The political "left" originated in the French Estates General: The first and second estates (the clergy and the nobility) sat on the right and represented the political class; the third estate ("commoners" -- bourgeoisie, artisans and peasants) sat on the left and represented the productive class.

Marxism was the first major right deviation from libertarianism, aka leftism. Marx's three great right-deviationist errors were:

• Re-defining the left/right conflict from a battle between the productive class on the left and the political class on the right to a battle between "labor" on the left and "capital" on the right;
• Historically re-theorizing the bourgeoisie away from the old left (where they had always been and rightfully belonged and belong) and into his own new "right;" and
• In the name of constructing a "classless" society, calling for his new "left" -- which was actually to the right of the old libertarian left -- to seize, rather than to shatter, the inherently rightist power of the state (to be followed by a far-future "withering away" of the state, yes ... but as he himself said, the state is the executive committee of the ruling class; seizing control of that executive committee seems nearly certain to result in a perpetuation of the class system; see the course the Russian Revolution took for an existence proof).

Of course, it's entirely possible that the bourgeoisie would have found themselves sucked in by the siren song of the political class anyway, but Marx certainly helped that process along by denouncing them as class enemies of a growing socialist -- and, in the hands of Marx and his followers, increasingly statist --movement.

By the end of the 19th century, the political class had theatrically clasped the bourgeoisie to its bosom, simultaneously draining its wealth in general while promoting selected specimens to its ranks. As of the end of that century, libertarianism remained firmly ensconced in the political left.

Over the course of the 20th century, mutant versions of libertarianism ranging from the Chamber of Commerce variety to Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Murray Rothbard's "anarcho-capitalism" came to prominence. The real libertarian movement found itself crushed between the statist left and the theoretically (but unfortunately only theoretically) anti-statist right.

A few luminaries -- the two that come immediately to mind are Samuel Edward Konkin III and Karl Hess -- kept the notion of a "libertarian left" alive in the last half of the 20th century, but it wasn't until the 21st that a new organizational infrastructure including (but by no means limited to) the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, the Molinari Institute and the Center for a Stateless Society emerged, took the Konkin/Hess taper in hand, and used it to light a real bonfire.

Eess Not a Gang, Eess a Bleg

I've been working with the Center for a Stateless Society for several years now, first as a News Analyst and for the last year-and-a-half as Media Coordinator (and "Senior News Analyst," which means I write occasional, rather than twice-weekly, op-eds).

Like most of the operations I work with, it's a shoestring kind of deal that does a lot with what money it raises. The Center's financial nut at present is somewhere below $1,500 a month.

What do we accomplish with that money?

For starters, an average of one "mainstream media published" market anarchist op-ed every weekday -- 445 of'em since we started keeping track in June of 2010.

That's right -- for about the pay of one minimum wage worker, C4SS gets market anarchism into newspapers big (the Republic of Korea's Joongang Ilbo has a circulation of 2.2 million -- more than the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post combined), small (Florida's Hernando Today has been showing our stuff to a few tens of thousands of readers on a regular basis), left-wing (Counterpunch and the Canadian), right-wing (Arizona's Sonoran News and the Carroll County, Maryland Standard), you name it. We've been published on every currently above-sea Earth continent except Antarctica (and I recently started submitting the Center's material to McMurdo Station's Antarctic Sun).

We also produce (primarily through the efforts of our Research Associate, the estimable Kevin Carson) academic studies, and have been involved in various ways with the publication of important books (Gary Chartier's The Conscience of an Anarchist; Markets Not Capitalism, a collection edited by Chartier and Charles W. Johnson; and of course Carson's oeuvre).

Oh, and there's our Wikileaks mirror, launched to keep that vital information source available when the US government tried to suppress it. And our Tor node, which facilitates communications from and among revolutionaries and dissidents worldwide even when governments try to interdict or censor those communications.

And so on, and so forth. How much do we accomplish for the movement with that $1,500 a month? A lot, and there's no two ways about that.

Now for a sad story: As much as we do for a notional $1,500 a month or so, we're just not bringing in that amount.

Not being the money dude (our finances run through the Molinari Institute), I don't have the exact figures at hand, but IIRC we're bringing in about $800 per month in recurring donations (i.e. people sign up to send us $X every month). Based on our last fundraiser, I guesstimate we've been doing another $100-$150 a month in "one-time" donations.

Some costs like domain renewals, hosting for the sites and the Tor node, phone service (yes, phone service -- newspaper editors still expect to be able to pick up a phone and hear it answered "professionally" when the piece they're looking at claims to be from an "institution," so we spend $15 a month to make that happen), and so on and so forth, can't be deferred. We pay, or the stuff gets turned off.

What gets deferred is our workers' minimal (see that total above? One minimum wage worker's pay covers everything) pay, which pretty much always runs at least a couple of months behind schedule.

We don't complain. Much. And we keep working, trusting that the whole financial thing will get better over time. And it will ... if you decide that it should.

Another hundred anarchists ponying up $5 a month, or another 50 coughing up $10 a month, would put us on something like a stable financial footing, so that we can not only keep up the work we've been doing, but start looking for even more work that needs doing.

So pretty please, with sugar on top, support the Center for a Stateless Society.

Some C4SS updates ...

C4SS director Brad Spangler is going 24/7 with Occupy KC:



Our volunteer editor/proofer, Rocco Stanzione, has decided to move on to other things. We'll definitely miss him.

I've agreed to expand my role at the Center to encompass the work he was doing, but I demanded a $140 per month pay cut as part of the deal. Yes, you read that right -- I've normally contributed $100 per month of my C4SS pay back to the Center. Instead of continuing to do that, I'm just asking them to pay me $140 less per month ($500 instead of $640).

My other demand was that we get some focus going on raising the money to get pay caught up and kept up for all of the Center's paid personnel. Nobody's getting rich there anyway, and pay has tended to lag several months behind. So, I suppose I should focus myself ...

Please support our work!

Among the things that money buys is an average of one market anarchist op-ed actually published by a newspaper, magazine or popular web site per weekday. We're coming up on 400 such media pickups now. So far as I can tell, we are the world's foremost anarchist media center, and we're accomplishing that on total (requested, not necessarily received) funding that comes to a single individual middle-class income. Like I said, nobody's getting rich.

The Center cannot hold ...

... onto the gains it's been making for market anarchist access to the mainstream media, unless it has your support.

You know I'm a "matching funds" kind of guy, so here's the deal:

The Center for a Stateless Society pays me $640 a month, in return for which I work 20 hours a week on media stuff (building lists, submitting our commentaries to newspapers, posting our materials on the web, attempting to book our people on talk radio, etc.), as well as writing an original piece of my own once a week or so (here's my latest, which is a little bit "inside baseball" -- I usually do news-oriented stuff for mainstream media submission), helping edit and proofread other writers' submissions, and answering the Center's phone when it rings.

This month, I've pledged to donate $100 of my pay back immediately upon receipt, as well as to cover the $30 tab for extending the Center's phone service by two months (it's a prepaid cell linked to a Google Voice number) out of my own pocket.

Why not just tell them to dock me $100? Because I want my donation to show up on the "ChipIn" meter that totes up the fundraiser's progress:



When people see a bigger total and more donors on the meter, they tend to be more willing to "chip in" themselves.

This week, we've managed to get our pieces into two print newspapers, with notification from a major US newspaper that they'll be running a C4SS commentary on Monday, and from a Canadian monthly that they'll be running a second C4SS piece in their September issue.

For more on what's happening, see my weekly Media Coordinator Update. Since June, we've gone from pretty much zero on the media front to putting market anarchist pieces in newspapers large and small from coast to coast US-wise and and abroad.

We've got some momentum going here (I personally expect us to be at 5-10 US media pickups per week and 10 or more per week abroad -- I'm working on building an Australian media list at the moment, having covered much of central and southeast Asia yesterday and earlier today -- by the end of the year), but if we can't pay the bills we can lose that momentum quickly.

Obviously not everyone can match a $100 or $130 donation, but every little bit helps, so please do what you can. Thanks in advance.

Update, 08/28/10: I've now been paid for July, and have, as promised, donated $100 of that pay back to C4SS. It's impossible for me to tell for sure from here whether or not KN@PPSTER readers have been behind the jump in the Center's fundraising (from less than $500 to more than $1500 in a couple of days!), but based on exit pages, etc., my guess is "yes" and I thank you for it.

The blegging will continue until morale improves

I see that with two days to go, the Center for a Stateless Society's May fundraiser remains far short of meeting its goal.

A few months ago, the Center changed fundraising tacks: Instead of raising funds each quarter in advance for what it intended to do, it began raising funds each month for what it had actually done.

In May, the Center published 29 commentaries and seven feature articles. These weren't random blog posts, they were commissioned pieces keyed to current events and written for the purpose of building public awareness of, and support for, market anarchism.

In May, the Center also increased its investment in developing the Stateless University program. That program's pilot session began in March. Its second, expanded session starts in July. Stateless University will culminate in a certificate program including six required classes and a variety of electives.

Finally in May, the Center promoted me from within to spearhead a media outreach program. Writing the articles isn't enough. We have to take a serious approach to getting those articles published in "mainstream media" -- newspapers, magazines, etc. -- and getting our people onto talk radio and news television to discuss the issues the articles address.

My new job and its new pay didn't start until June 1st, but the Center paid up-front for two essential tools: A "pro" membership with a media list provider, and a phone for me to answer "Center for a Stateless Society, this is Tom, how may I help you" when the media responds to our op-ed submissions, guest pitches, etc.

To see the results of my new work so far, read my first report to the Center's supporters.

The Center's May fundraising goal, exclusive of recurring pledges, is $1,235 by June 9th. Next month it will be more, but still probably less than $2,000.

I cringe every time I make cross-institution comparisons, but they're worth making:

Last time I noticed, the Cato Institute's budget was about $18 million per year.

AntiWar.Com asks its supporters for $70,000 per quarter.

Both of those institutions do good and important work. C4SS is doing good and important work, too, and we're doing it on, by comparison, a shoestring. Please help us tie that shoestring.

Making myself scarce around here ...

... and I'm sorry about that, but it's been a busy week.

I spent last weekend (Friday thru Monday) at the Libertarian National Convention. I mostly mo/micro/phone-blogged (with the occasional assist from an Asus EEE PC netbook) from there as "The National Desk" (Tumblr | Twitter). Should have done more photography, but I tend to get caught up in things and forget that.

On Tuesday, I began my new job as media coordinator at the Center for a Stateless Society.

In theory, this will be a 20 hour per week position, but I'm trying to hit the ground running and have spent closer to 40 (in four days!). I'm building media lists, working old (and trying to develop new) radio and TV contacts, making unreasonable demands on the Center's fine people, etc. The idea is to turn the Center into a media resource that gets noticed -- Center op-eds in newspapers, Center talking heads on talk radio and cable news, etc.

Results so far this week include one radio booking and one newspaper pickup of a Center op-ed. A month from now, I hope to be able to report the same results on a daily basis and then some.

Yeah, you knew this would turn into a bleg, didn't you? The Center is doing a lot of work on a very small budget. That budget just went up some. Since the Center is transparent with its supporters, I'll be equally transparent with my readers.

C4SS put out $275 to get me started -- that went for a "professional" membership in a media contact service, and for purchase of a cell phone which I'll answer professionally on C4SS's behalf 8 hours a day in theory and 24/7 in practice.

They'll also be paying me $640 a month for that 20 (in theory) hours per week. I'm retaining the title of "Senior News Analyst" as well at my request, but I'll be writing at least one column a week (gratis, off the clock) instead of at least two (at $25 each).

I'd appreciate your support for the Center. Not just because I like groceries and beer (although I do, indeed, like groceries and beer), but because we're doing the important stuff and I want us to succeed at it.

There are various ways to support the Center, from a one-time donation to various levels of monthly contribution. And of course there's the monthly goal-meeting fundraiser:



Thanks in advance for your help. I hope to get back on a reasonably frequent blogging schedule here at KN@PPSTER starting next week.

C4SS Bleg

This is not a "disinterested" bleg. I work for C4SS, and they pay me. Or rather, they pay me if you pay them. So please, pay them ;-)



As you can see, it's not a big budget operation. They lay out exactly where the money goes, too.