Intro
(posted by Kevin Carson)
My name is Kevin Carson. I’ve been invited to blog here, and I look forward to it, because I’ve been a regular reader of both Battlepanda and Unqualified Offerings for some time. One of my earliest contacts with Angelica was this post of hers: “Two Flavors of Libertarianism.” If you look in the comment thread, just about everybody in the left-libertarian blogosphere stopped by at some point.
My main gig is Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism. Things have slowed down there quite a bit, though, because I’m working on a book on anarchist organization theory that takes up most of my time. And Mutualist Blog’s turned into mainly an org theory blog when I do update it.
The general theme of this blog is the affinity, or even a possible coalition, of libertarian elements on the left and right. That’s very much my kind of thing. My background is in individualist anarchism, which is sort of a left-wing version of market anarchism (or a free market spin on libertarian socialism). So I’m sort of on the outer fringes of both free market libertarianism and socialism.
My path to libertarianism was pretty convoluted. I started out about twenty years ago as a sort of stuffy paleocon (Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver–you know the drill). I drifted into the agrarian-decentralist wing of paleoconservatism, what Clyde Wilson called “the Jeffersonian conservative tradition,” and got heavily into the Levellers and commonwealthmen, the antifederalists, the agrarians and distributists, and so forth (you know, all the Crunchy Con stuff). From there I stumbled across Kirkpatrick Sale’s Human Scale, discovered an affinity for libertarians and decentralists of the Left, and went on to Benjamin Tucker, Ralph Borsodi, Lewis Mumford, and Ivan Illich. Today I consider myself a Leftist and carry a red card from the Wobblies, but I still feel considerable affection for the homeschoolers and gun rights people on the Right. If there’s any hope for this country, it probably lies in a coalition of the libertarian Left and Right against the Corporate Center that currently dominates American politics.
Anyway, I know I’ll enjoy blogging here, and I hope you enjoy reading it at least some of the time.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
“Anarchist Organization Theory?” Sounds somewhat oxymoronic to me. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself…) In a more serious vein, I think you’ll find that true leftists (not liberals) generally support gun rights, as we don’t trust the State any more than Libertarians do.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I guess if Carson’s here I’ll have to check up on this blog occasionally.
LarryK’s comment reminds me of Per Bylund’s attack on “blueprint anarchists”, which in turn reminds me of Bob Black’s “My Anarchism Problem“.
March 8th, 2008 at 3:14 am
Man, a “anarchists can’t get organized” joke. Ho ho ho. Never heard one of those before.
“ANARCHISM … the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.” - P.A. Kropotkin
I don’t mean to be an old stick in the mud, but really, this old chestnut involves such a complete misunderstanding of what the overwhelming majority of anarchists in the history of the world (who have tended to assign a lot of importance to freely constituted, participatory assocations) have thought, that it really just fails as humor.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I think the “organized anarchists” joke illustrates the importance of Kevin’s book (and the appropriateness of the title).
I expect a number of people will see Kevin’s title and say to themselves “WTF? Maybe I don’t understand what anarchism is. Let me take a look…”
Then they’ll be hooked (if my experience with Kevin’s writing is typical)!
March 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
In my own defense, I have to say “anarchist” modifies “theory,” not “organization.” The books’ about organization, not necessarily in favor of most of it.
But in fairness to LarryK, I have to say I’ve seen (and probably contributed to) my share of the “herding cats” problem in the factional squabbling between libertarians.
Thanks for the comments, everybody.
March 8th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
My first real introduction to anarchism was at a protest in D.C., where I was arrested for the first and only time in my life. The Black Bloc kids was astonishingly organized, and completely prepared for how the police treated us — unlike me and my friends.
That didn’t make me into an anarchist, but I read Kevin’s first book, and it dovetailed well both with my experience and the studies I was doing at the time of fair trade. I’m still active in the Green Party, but things are strained, and if they don’t improve substantially, I’ll probably drop electoral activism entirely, and put my efforts into building economic structures that empower the worker at an individual level.