Instead of a Blog

“So if it’s not a blog, what is it?”

I’ll tell you a secret. It is a blog. But if the word got out, I’d be expected to write in it more often and I’m too busy. It says so in the subtitle. So please, let’s just keep this secret between us.

“Well, the title doesn’t tell me what the blog it is about.”

That’s because you probably aren’t familiar with Benjamin Tucker, a 19th century individualist and libertarian socialist. His most famous work was called Instead of a Book: By a Man Too Busy To Write One. It contained his collected articles and essays on individualist anarchism, mutualism and free-market voluntary socialism. That, in a nutshell, is what I write about here, among other things, like autogestionnaire firms.

“Auto-what?”

Autogestionnaire firms are labor-managed businesses.

“Yeah, that sounds kinda ‘socialist’ but you said something about ‘free markets’ and ‘anarchism’? No, thanks. I’m a peace-loving leftist. Go, Obama! Yes we can!”

Well, I’m a leftist too. Specifically, I’m a mutualist anarchist and associate myself with what is known as the libertarian left.

“Libertarian?! Ugh!”

Well, you are probably most familiar with “vulgar libertarianism” or perhaps the big-L Libertarian Party. They are both quite different animals from the tradition behind the left. I’ll have plenty to say about that but to put it simply I’ll quote left-libertarian Prof. Roderick T. Long, who defines it as…

… an integration, or I’d argue, a reintegration of libertarianism with concerns that are traditionally thought of as being concerns of the left. That includes concerns for worker empowerment, worry about plutocracy, concerns about feminism and various kinds of social equality.

Prof. Gary Chartier also has a new primer on the subject, as does Brainpolice.

“Fine. But anarchism? You can’t be serious. We need law and order or we would beat each other over the head with clubs. Anarchy means chaos. It’s in the dictionary.”

Who said anything about rejecting law and order? Anarchism is, to put it simply, the opposition to rulership. It comes from the Greek anarchos, meaning “without a leader, head or chief”. If you want more evidence, look around.

“Interesting. More, please.”

That’s what this unblog is for. If you don’t want to read my drivel, check out the blogroll and resource links on the main page. But I hope you will subscribe anyway and enjoy what I have to write about when I have time to write it.

“Before I get to it, what’s that crazy-looking chicken scratch on the main page?”

It’s Ama-gi, a Sumerian cuneiform word thought to denote “freedom” or “liberty” (literally “return to the mother”).

“That’s extremely geeky.”

Yeah, I know.