In Part I of this article, I responded to William Gillis’ review of Worshiping Power: An Anarchist Vision of Early State Formation. I wanted to give special attention to what I found to be his most interesting critique. Gillis takes me to task for focusing too much on the anthropological definition of the state, analyzing…

There is a common joke in computing circles to announce at the beginning of a course that “The last person in the room must close the door.” Though at first blush the request seems reasonable, this is an example of an uncomputable function. The last person to enter the room has no way of knowing…

When “The Market” Is Just Money Laundering the Bloodsoaked Riches of Statism When the USSR fell one of the “privatization” schemes was to just hand workers stock certificates in the companies they worked at. The problem of course was that the economy was seized up and everyone was starving. So gangsters and the children of…

By definition no consistently anti-statist libertarian believes that government property is legitimate. The state, by its very nature, cannot be meaningfully consented to; its claims to ownership are the claims of a ranting madman armed to the teeth and soaked in blood. It is also broadly recognized that, because the state is aggression at its…

In 2012, sixteen-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodríguez was murdered in Nogales, Mexico by a Border Patrol agent across the wall, on the U.S. side. The agent shot from behind the rusted iron slats, the existing border wall in Sonora, about 50 feet above the boy. The murderer claimed that the boy was “throwing rocks in…

Since its publication, I have come across two reviews of Worshiping Power that I would like to respond to, not to bat a discursive ball back and forth, but to engage with the flow of conversations that form an integral part of our interaction with the world around us. One is William Gillis’ “The Tangled…

When anarchists talk about counter-economic action, we envisage exchanging goods and services independent of state jurisdiction. Our purpose is to press the bounds of the regulatory state. It doesn’t matter if our efforts are illegal per se. Legality is not a moral prescription. A proper concern for institution building is uncommon in counter-economic philosophy. The…

Everyone is bad at consent but it’s worth getting better anyways. No one is perfectly autonomous but it’s worth respecting agency anyways. Many of our problems are endemic to the tools we use. These are parts of the truth that often get left out. Sometimes better consent and autonomy practices look like sloppy, complicated cry-fests,…

There are many threads in Will’s post, spiraling out in several different directions, and it would be impossible for me to fully respond to all of them within the length appropriate for a response post. Furthermore, much of what I have already said can be cross-applied to his post – for instance, he seems to…

Emmi Bevensee & Logan Yershov’s “Free Speech Dreams and Fascist Memes” is probably the single most thoughtful and nuanced defense of violently disrupting fascist assembly. Of particular note is the way that it draws out something lingering implicit in most other defenses of that tactic. This is what I will call the “disease theory of…

Common Ground It’s worth mentioning that there is some shared intent here. I take issue with Jason’s framing of it as being ‘liberal’ but appreciate his search for common ground. I assume that we are all: Opposed to fascism: Although we debate its exact boundaries, there is a clear center mass that we are all…

Obviously, I strenuously object to anarchism being classified as a “liberal” — I find Jason Lee Byas’ attempt to reclaim that term profoundly misguided and I’ve written my thoughts on this before. Jason claims that fascism cannot survive in liberalism and so seeks to disrupt it, but this is ass-backwards in a lot of ways….

I’m old enough that I can remember when even showing up to oppose fascists was considered controversial. Never mind the fact that the best way to stop racist scum from organizing in public is through a strong show of resistance, or that NOT having a show of resistance on the ground helps fascists in their…

In my first post, I explicitly avoided phrases like “No Platform,” “de-platform,” “denying fascists a platform,” etc., because they’re used to refer ambiguously between some strategies that are good and some that are bad. I still think that’s true, but here I’ll be using those terms in a way that allows for that ambiguity. This…

Fascist movements are made with political violence. At any stage of their development they pose a threat to the safety of individuals they target. As fascism gains momentum it becomes a threat to society in general. If national leaders open the doors of political power to fascists, disaster results. Authoritarian nationalists, like those currently in…

In this piece I ask readers of whatever anti-fascist persuasion to contemplate critiques of stereotypically violent no-platforming as well as defenses of that controversial practice. Though I’m personally guided by a utopian vision of anarchist nonviolence, I’m not convinced popping Richard Spencer in the face conflicts with this dream. It’s a long slog from here…

I am not here to discuss political strategy but historical memory. I grew up in that European country that had the dubious historical distinction of having invented fascism. Since the end of the Second World War the country’s national holiday has been dedicated to the Antifascist Resistance, on that day of the year when, in…

Commitment to freedom of speech is a weighty political litmus test for liberalism—libertarians and anarchists often engage with radical liberalism’s awesome propensity towards freedom. However, within the anarchist and anti-fascist locus there is an intense scrutiny of liberal ideals, a sentiment which grows seemingly in proportion with alt-right publicity. I commend libertarian thinkers for generally…

CW: descriptions of war, violence, and torture One of the key debates around antifascist action centers on the question of defense and aggression. For many in the liberal and libertarian milieus, the heuristic for acceptable versus unacceptable violence is the non-aggression principle (NAP), which states that the only justified violence is that which seeks to…

When discussing political nonviolence and its various means, one is likely to encounter much sneering and indignation. Advocates of political violence not only appear not to understand our disagreement, they often appear to find it reprehensible and cowardly. The charge of ‘cowardice’ especially fascinates me, and I would like to examine it more closely. For…