A reader on Facebook offers the following comments, and asks the following questions.

I’m not so sure how realistic sustained statelessness is without severe technological regression and economic collapse, but the obvious answer is that the vast majority of people would rather bask in the lazy comforts of delegated responsibility than take on the burdens and risks of freedom. The mantle of anarchism is often taken up as an immature pose that is rationalized after the fact, usually quite badly, before being discarded with age for whatever underlying tribal affiliation existed in the first place. It’s a knee-jerk rebellion against constraints on the self, for good or ill, and a justification for engaging in unreasonable or criminal behaviors whose motives are ultimately more personal than political.

That being said, ATS/pan-secession, and perhaps some of the National Anarchists, seem to be the only contemporary anarchists worth their salt, with their heads in the game, the right set of priorities, and a strategic vision that is at least conceptually viable. All universalisms are tyrannical and one man’s utopia is another man’s hell. The best shot anyone has of carving out autonomous zones with whatever fringe, experimental economic paradigm or radically altered social order is through either some kind of hard federalism, or the dissolution of these giant continental empires to blocs of more reasonable size. I’m not really convinced that a real pan-secession movement would achieve anything resembling anarchy, though some areas may certainly be less restrictive. It would almost be worth it though anyway for the sheer thrill of the glorious, monumental clusterfuck such a movement could cause.

The question is, with so many unsatisfied with the current order, including many self described anarchists, why does no one seem to give a shit about your quite reasonable prescription? An idea ahead of its time? Lefty lobotomization by slave morality infused SJWism? Right wing denial that they will never wrest the state leviathan from technocratic neoliberalism or resurrect their dying traditions in this milieu? The state is the primary antagonist against both of these groups in many ways. Who is stopping lower income p.o.c. from resisting gentrification or alt-righters from walling off their cascadian whitopia? The state. Who sticks the guns in your face if you can’t pay your rent or propagandizes young children in legally mandated schools or makes unmolested living impossible with inescapable property taxes even if you own land outright? The state. You’d think anti-authoritarians and freedom lovers of all stripes would have enough common ground for a truce in favor of going after a common enemy. But you’d apparently be wrong.

One potential shortcoming of your approach from a sales perspective, is that you spend a lot of time talking about how under pan-secession, every extremist, kook, and cultist under the sun gets their own little slice of the pie, which sounds fair enough to me, but not alot of time elaborating on the specific attractive alternative possibilities this would open up (I mean maybe you have somewhere, I’m just not familiar).

What would life look like in Keith Preston’s little fiefdom after ATS wins, with D.C. in flames and the ATF and National Guard units waving white flags of surrender? Why would I want to live there? And why is that worth whatever insane levels of struggle and sacrifice against impossible odds it takes to get from a to b? That’s what’s gonna grab the people by the cahones, not necessarily the centrist “let’s just let everyone do their own thing, man.”

Legit curious on that one. I feel right wing libertarians put too much emphasis on negative freedom alone, with lefties over-preoccupied with positive freedom and equality. Some form of mutualism might be the sweet spot.

Here is my response.

I know some anarchists who believe such a “severe technological regression and economic collapse” will happen at some point in the future, and who embrace ideas such as anarcho-primitivism as a response. But it is obvious that such a perspective does not have mass appeal, and it therefore pointless to hold up this idea as a primary propaganda point. It is also clear that for many anarchism is indeed a kind of “pose” that ultimately gives way to a particular tribal affiliation, and which is often an inclination of the individual’s psychological predisposition as much as anything else. That’s also obvious enough.

The reader asks:

The question is, with so many unsatisfied with the current order, including many self described anarchists, why does no one seem to give a shit about your quite reasonable prescription? An idea ahead of its time? Lefty lobotomization by slave morality infused SJWism? Right wing denial that they will never wrest the state leviathan from technocratic neoliberalism or resurrect their dying traditions in this milieu?

Every one of these is a reason why there has yet to emerge any significant degree of interest in practical alternatives to “the system.” 

You’d think anti-authoritarians and freedom lovers of all stripes would have enough common ground for a truce in favor of going after a common enemy. But you’d apparently be wrong.

Another problem is that most radicals are more like cultists that are just about keeping out those who are impure in doctrine than actually achieving anything in the real world. At present, the rivalries between different political camps are more like rivalries between fan of different football teams or science fiction franchises (Star Trek vs Star Wars) than rivalries between different camps of actual revolutionaries.

One potential shortcoming of your approach from a sales perspective, is that you spend a lot of time talking about how under pan-secession, every extremist, kook, and cultist under the sun gets their own little slice of the pie, which sounds fair enough to me, but not alot of time elaborating on the specific attractive alternative possibilities this would open up (I mean maybe you have somewhere, I’m just not familiar).

What would life look like in Keith Preston’s little fiefdom after ATS wins, with D.C. in flames and the ATF and National Guard units waving white flags of surrender? Why would I want to live there? And why is that worth whatever insane levels of struggle and sacrifice against impossible odds it takes to get from a to b? That’s what’s gonna grab the people by the cahones, not necessarily the centrist “let’s just let everyone do their own thing, man.”

I am hesitant to offer prescriptions for future political arrangements because I am more about ending the state’s monopoly for the purpose of opening up competition where rival teams can form whatever experimental systems they wish. As for the more practical aspect of my approach, lately I have become interested in the startup societies idea, which is the closest thing I have seen yet to a movement to actually implement the kinds of stuff I talk about, in a way that is not merely about advancing an ideological perspective but actually engaging in practice efforts to implement a range of competing futuristic perspectives. The comments from an anarchist blogger than are cited in the “Vision and Wisdom” section of the ATS statement of purpose are also interesting as well.

Legit curious on that one. I feel right wing libertarians put too much emphasis on negative freedom alone, with lefties over-preoccupied with positive freedom and equality. Some form of mutualism might be the sweet spot.

I share these criticisms of both the libertarian-right and libertarian left. Too many on the libertarian right are “anarcho-Republicans” and too many on the libertarian left are “anarcho-Democrats.” I also have strong mutualist sympathies in the economics realm, though I don’t consider this to be compulsory or mandatory. Instead, I prefer to see competition between Ancapistans, communes, eco-villages, or mutualist federations in order to determine which team turns out to be the best in the long run.