The Charleston, West Virginia Gazette reports that a federal grand jury charges Blankenship with “conspiring to cause willful violations of ventilation requirements and coal-dust control rules — meant to prevent deadly mine blasts — during a 15-month period prior to the worst coal-mining disaster in a generation.” The allegations come with a maximum prison sentence of 31 years.

I take no joy in the prospect of another dehumanizing incarceration, but regret that a coal baron held so much power in the first place.

Before industry came to the mountains a unique form of common governance existed. Communities obtained subsistence from the surrounding old growth forest. Everyone understood not to claim more than necessary from the commons. This governance naturally produced the maximum sustainable yield of resources. Locals labored, bartered and brought goods to market together.

As European expansion claimed the new world, land became the ultimate commodity and all eyes were fixed on the pristine forests of Appalachia. Enclosure movements commenced as a cash economy developed in the region for the first time. By the early 19th century violent confrontations ruined native populations. The mass slaughter of indigenous people culminated in the Trail of Tears, eradicating tribes from Appalachian governance.

Decades later, in post-Civil War America, mountain settlers were coaxed into selling mineral rights to would-be industry barons. Broad form deeds were developed to acquire local lands. Mineral rights were obtained for less than a dollar an acre as mountaineers maintained surface rights. Clauses in these deeds, however, allowed industrialists to take over the land at the company’s discretion for resource extraction — even if such acquisition would surprise grandchildren decades later. Locals were forced off of their property to line the pockets of absentee capitalists, often by rights that had been sold generations before. By the end of the Industrial Revolution coal reigned as king.

Industry came to own a vast amount of property in the Central and Southern Appalachians, affording barons incredible power over mountain communities. Company towns popped up near mining operations. Workers lived in company barracks, were paid in company scrip and were required to purchase goods at the company store. Mono-economies developed across the coalfields that still persist today.

Working conditions were incredibly hazardous for miners. Explosions, shaft collapse, Black Lung and Silicosis ran rampant in coal communities, as did poverty. Company scrip kept workers incredibly poor as billions of dollars were  extracted from the region. Worker organization was rather difficult in these company-owned communities, but rebellion and unionization did take place. Unionization failed to liberate labor, however, as class struggle fell to capital. The coal towns acted as an exploitative system of power, impacting every aspect of the lives of miners and their families. Powerlessness produced quiescence.

With the news of Blankenship’s indictment, we are reminded of this historical context and confronted with the realization that not much has changed to this day. Appalachian communities experience some of the worst poverty in the United States. Miner safety is set aside for the sake of capital. Vast ecosystems are destroyed as mountaintop removal blasts its way across the landscape. Broad form deeds, after the boom of strip mining in the 1970s, claimed family hollers throughout the 1980s and 90s. The regulatory state, charged with oversight, continually turns a blind eye to industry violations and worker injuries so coal mines can stay in operation, as recently reported by NPR.

But, for what it is worth, I am an optimist. Restorative justice and regeneration is coming to the coalfields. A beautiful anarchism awaits Appalachia.

Coal has established deep cultural roots in the region and will no doubt remain a market mainstay for some time to come. But coal will no longer reign. Deserved competition will significantly reduce its role. Pristine mountain ecosystems will reclaim prominence in emerging economic orders. Beneficial ecosystem services, far too important for the cash nexus, will reclaim their rightful place in the market. Holistic medicine, decentralized food production, eco-tourism, alternative energy markets and trade cooperatives are just a few examples of market forces that will empower mountain people to reclaim the commons. As opposed to capital, individuals will own the means of production, hold agency over their labor and signal the market.

There are no words to describe the complexity that will follow. Such a liberty can only be imagined by the people of this incredibly diverse, ancient terrain. Appalachia will be wild, wonderful and free.

There is much discussion over the environmental implications of the BP disaster. Rightly so, the blowout holds rank among the worst industrial disasters in environmental history. However, there is little discussion on how such disasters, all across the globe, continue to occur. In the wake of such disasters, there appears to be a rift between the state and big capital. The public often looks to regulators for habitat protection, biodiversity conservation and to levy punishment on the corporate sector. Industrial disasters do create conflict between these institutions, but it is latent. The state-corporate apparatus has ensured big industry will maintain a lock on the energy market. Because of this, the national economy is dependent on large corporate institutions and the conflict is short-lived. The real story is how big capital and state power produce quiescence and uncertainty within the public arena during and after disasters.

What happened in the Gulf is another unfortunate portrayal of glaring inequality. Most coastal communities in the deep south, especially in Louisiana, exhibit a domination of an elite over the non-elite. Local markets are dependent on healthy coastal ecosystems for resource (fisheries) harvesting and beneficial ecosystem services such as flood mitigation, water purification, storm buffering and more. Big oil maintains a strong presence in coastal communities as well, however, creating numerous problems for locals. From “Cancer Alley” to coastal erosion via dredging, big oil wrecks local economies.

So where’s the rebellion? Why is it that such social deprivation and threats to public/environmental health have failed to yield democratic participation? Perhaps it is the existence of a positive feedback loop between power, capital and quiescence.

Quiescence is often used to portray the legitimacy of systems of power and domination. The state seeks social and economic stability and utilizes power to ensure such stability. Because of this, systems of power and domination are maintained not because of their legitimacy, but because of quiescence itself. This is the very nature of power: Maintain the existing order by further centralization. Sociologist John Gaventa, in his book Power and Powerlessness, discusses this phenomenon:

Power is exercised not just upon participants within the decision-making process but also towards the exclusion of certain participants and issues altogether… The most effective and insidious use of power is to prevent such conflict from arising in the first place.

In regards to natural disasters, the prevention of conflict is achieved by the production of uncertainty. This is important, because it is in discourse over ones own socio-economic environment that the true character of a power system is revealed. Anthropologist and disaster expert Gregory Button, in his book Disaster Culture, notes we live in a highly professionalized culture where public debate is pushed aside by privileged arguments. Button writes:

Lay questions, objections and attempts to resolve uncertainty are often dismissed as uninformed, lacking in scientific vigor, irrational, and at times, almost hysteric. One woman whose life had been changed by the TVA ash spill recalled an exchange with a TVA official who avoided answering her questions and dismissed her reasoning. In response, she said, “Why do you treat us as stupid, why do you reject our arguments while upholding yours as the only reasonable ones?” This frustration typifies the kind of rejection and frustration many disaster victims suffer in contesting official versions of reality.

The tools of uncertainty manufacture consent. From disasters such as the TVA ash spill, the BP Horizon incident, or any industrial disaster, the public arena is dismissed while government/industry scientists, state agencies and the corporate sector dominate the discussion. This allows systems of power and domination, as explained by Button, to both define and control the distribution and interpretation of knowledge, while community members are made to feel as if they are arbitrators of uncertainty. Furthermore, Sociologist Max Weber notes that power systems wish to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping knowledge and intention a secret. This allows the elite to hide knowledge and keep their actions protected from criticism. The control of the discussion governs what is understood about disasters — manufactured uncertainty produces quiescence.

As for the BP Horizon blowout, the facts and uncertainties surrounding the disaster reflect these methods. The actual size of the spill is still unknown and until the PNAS publication we did not know the fate of the sequestered crude. The ecological impact of the spill, especially on rare species, such as migratory sea turtles, is now extended to the ocean dwelling habitat. If public discourse of the study ensues, however, some BP spokesperson will talk about how large spills like this are uncommon or pull out the big guns and call the spill “unprecedented.” There will be an ad campaign managed by BP that will discuss all the money and all the good they have done in the wake of the spill. The Environmental Protection Agency will boast a record of strict oversight. Even though the oil was thought to be in the deep ocean, the public will be ensured, by both state and corporate bureaucrats, that environmental contamination will be mitigated and public health will be protected. The same old song and dance that has occurred for the last four years, even though locals have continuously raised concerns over the official narrative. Of course, all of this ignores that oil spills are a very common occurrence and each raise public and environmental health concerns in their own right. Nevertheless, quiescence will remain because of the production of uncertainty.

There is much discussion in political circles, libertarian and otherwise, over the rise of freed markets and alternatives to fossil fuels. These are good discussions to have, and they are important to thrust into the public arena. It is important to keep the market as liberated as possible — this allows new technology and alternative institutions to develop. It is important to remember that recent shifts to adaptive governance and collaborative models for resource use/extraction are an option for local communities. There is much to be said about decentralization these days, and this is a good thing. It reminds us that social power is still in the fight, chipping away at systems of power and domination. It is equally important to know how entrenched authority manufactures consent and works to suppress social progress. On the road to the decentralized society we must understand power and its hurdles to transition.

Social power is the rebellion: it will lead to the end of uncertainty and thus the end of quiescence.

This study calls for pause and careful reflection. Rising sea level is a particularly dangerous aspect of global change which may eventually produce millions of climate refugees. Eustatic change could displace entire island nations, swallow coastal cities, increase flood damage and reduce the availability of important ecosystem services offered to our societies from coastal wetlands. Following such reflection, the natural question to ask is what exactly is human civilization to do about climate change?

Most discourse over climate change from the body politic simply asks after the role of the nation, or state, in addressing the problem.  There are many problems with this type of debate, not least of which is that actually existing capitalism is incredibly reluctant to change its ideology and abandon practices which perpetuate environmental degradation and social injustice. Take for instance the Obama administration’s National Climate Assessment, which warns that the effects of climate change are “immediate and widespread.” Obama himself touts the new assessment (in a solar paneled Wal-Mart surrounded by socks, gaudy flip-flops and other items produced for mass consumption) by announcing a series of corporate pledges to increase renewable energy use and boost solar generation. In his speech Obama declares: “Together, the commitments we are announcing today prove that there are cost-effective ways to tackle climate change and create jobs at the same time.”

There you have it: “Growth at any cost” economics and the corporate state championed as an answer to the anthropogenic influence on climate change. Obama’s speech was nothing but an endorsement of the status quo. Of course the administration also advocates cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and other regulations to slow anthropogenic change, but this rhetoric serves the sole purpose of green-washing the inherit reluctance of the current political economy to embrace real change.

As seas change there is an emerging necessity for a corresponding sea change in politics — enter the market left.

The market, or libertarian, left, largely endorses the idea that human-kind strives for the free, unhindered unfolding of the individual and social forces of life (to borrow from Rudolf Rocker) — and institutions that contain such development are illegitimate unless democratically (small d) justified. If any authority is illegitimate, which is usually the case, it is to be dismantled and only reestablished, if need be, from the grassroots. Under such a socio-economic order society would be freed from political guardianship, liberating individual labor from concentrated private capital.

The market left simply seeks the true market form — an alliance of liberated individuals based on co-operative, inclined labor and community interests. Such an order can only exist in a massively decentralized society. The market left envisions a society where political boundaries are dissolved thus leaving only natural boundaries — watersheds, landscapes and ecosystems. Here, the individuals relationship to community and the environment will be much more understood. Only in liberty will the body politic be empowered enough to manage a changing global climate.

The answer to the aforementioned climate question is the stateless society.

I had of course labored before this day, but this experience sticks out because I was fortunate enough during my time on the mountain to wake up every day and enjoy my labor. I enjoyed the manual exercise, crafting trail, working lightly on the land and exploring the forest. These activities were required of the job, but they did not feel like work. I viewed these tasks favorably, I was disposed towards these activities – to labor with the rock and soil of Earth. The job felt different from anything I had done before, it fit with my belief system and attitude towards life. I was practicing conservation and further developing a sense of wildness.

During this service year I befriended a fellow corps member by the name of Nicholas Wooten. We would talk science and philosophy, argue politics, talk about how things could/should be and would sometimes just get wild and drunk. Most of the time, however, Nick and I talked philosophy (and still do). During one of our conversations, Nick shared with me a quote that is rather important to him – it is now rather important to me. It is from the work of Marcus Aurelius in his piece The Meditations:

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?- But this is more pleasant.- Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according to thy nature?- But it is necessary to take rest also.- It is necessary: however nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed bounds both to eating and drinking, and yet thou goest beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient; yet in thy acts it is not so, but thou stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou lovest not thyself, for if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature and her will. But those who love their several arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed and without food; but thou valuest thy own own nature less than the turner values the turning art, or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or the vainglorious man his little glory. And such men, when they have a violent affection to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep rather than to perfect the things which they care for. But are the acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of thy labour?

How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility

There is much to say about this quote. Personally, it has helped me mold together an idea that I call inclined labor. I write about inclined labor often but I have never defined the concept. It is my wish to do so in this blog post.

To be inclined is to feel a willing to accomplish, or a drawing toward, a particular action belief or attitude. Labor is physical or mental exertion – but it is very different from work. Work is a series of tasks that must be completed to achieve a certain goal – be it to gain a wage or to see that something functions properly. Labor is categorically different. Individual labor happens on its own terms, willed by the desire to complete a task. Work must be done, it is an intended activity. Inclined labor, however, is the physical and mental exertion that human beings are drawn to.

Inclined labor, then, is directly tied to the opening of Marcus Aurelius’s passage:

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present- I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?

Inclined labor is the true work of a human being – and it can only be actualized in liberty.

Today we work plenty but struggle to find time and energy to award ourselves the opportunity to truly labor. Work for economical means is a relatively new activity of human beings. Every civilization has had to work – chores need to be carried out for society to function. For the vast majority of our 200,000 year history as a modern species, however, our societies were much more egalitarian. In our early history there was much more labor – individuals knew their interests and carried out their functions and roles within their communities. It was not until the rise of power structures in the age of the ancients that human labor was viewed as something to command and control. Such authority has only exacerbated under the rise and fall of nation-states. Work as we know it today has only been dominant across the whole of society since the advent of industrial capitalism. Work is no longer something that is shared cooperatively for the functioning of society – work now defines a controlled economic system.

But we are a vigilant species. Over the millenia, and ever persistent today, human beings have continued to labor. How could we not when labor is inclined?

Imagine an economic system crafted by liberated human beings. What are the possibilities of humanity? How would the products of self directed labor progress and build society? What can we craft together during our time in the sun? What will liberated labor gift to future generations as we progress for millenia to come? How wondrous our civilizations and progress will be!

Inclined labor, whether a physical or mental exercise, is the creative expression of our interests and ingenuity – it is what we are driven to do. Our labor deserves to be liberated for it is ours and solely ours. Inclined labor is the true calling of human beings.