Recently, ATS/ARV associate Jeremy Weiland put forth some questions that are well worth considering. Here goes:

- Is opposition to the state something that can genuinely serve as a rallying point for broad-based revolutionary change? What kind of language would this need to be articulated in?

“Anti-statism” in the more abstract sense that libertarians and anarchist theoreticians conceive of it is not something that can be a “rallying point” for the average person. Most people are not ideological or philosophical by nature. Most people do not have the aversion to authority that is implicit in libertarian ideologies. No movement calling itself “anarchist” is ever going to be a mass movement, nor will the dogmatic libertarianism of the anarcho-capitalists. Simply trying to convert “the masses” to anti-statism of the kind that, for instance, Tolstoy or Alexander Berkman or Rothbard preached will be no more successful that an attempt to convert them to Scientology. However, a rebellion against a state that has lost its perceived legitimacy is far more probable, and has many precedents throughout all sorts of cultures. The particular rhetoric employed should be strongly rooted in the cultural, political and historical traditions of the particular society in question. Therefore, for the U.S., the rhetoric of secession, self-determination, “sic semper tyrannis,” and appeals to the legacy of 1776  are appropriate because it resonates well with the political education of the ordinary person. These things seems familiar, while exotic ideologies simply seem weird. Of course, that doesn’t mean that leaders, activists, organizers, intellectuals, writers or particular groups cannot be influenced or motivated by such ideologies.

- What would a single issue, cross-ideological coalition look like, and what would keep disparate parties united in action? I’ve seen arguments on either side about this matter, but it seems we’re merely speculating.

I agree that at this point in the game it’s merely a matter of speculation. However, I do not think it would be different from similar coalitions that have existed in the past. For instance, the movement to oppose the extension of slavery into the western territories of the pre-Civil War period included racists and nativists who opposed slavery because they did not want the black population to expand westward, and it also included abolitionists who wanted to see an end to slavery for it’s own sake, and believed that containing it in the South would bring its eventual demise. The New Deal coalition included Northern blacks and civil rights activists, and Southern segregationists. These kinds of political coalitions of seemingly opposite groups are not as uncommon as many seem to think. Because the center-left is likely to be dominant for the forseeable future, the question is what kind of political re-alignment would need to take place in order to effectively challenge the hegemony of the center-left? My guess is that it would not be any kind of “conservatism” as presently understood, though it could include issue-oriented factions that are currently part of the official “conservative” milieu. Most probably, the future of radicalism is with some kind of anti-liberal left. For instance, something like Norman Mailer’s “left-conservatism,” which is in many ways polar opposite from conventional “conservatism.”

- Similarly, is it possible to promote a program for political change that is motivated by radically different political / ethical / philosophical constructions and analyses? Can we agree on the means and not the ends, or do we have to be agreed on both, or maybe just the latter?

Thus far in the secessionist movement, there are everything from socially conservative Christians to left-wing environmentalists, and some of the latter have anarchist backgrounds. So the seed is already being planted.

- What is the relationship between political belief and identity, and how does coalition deal with this effectively? Seems like a lot of the talk in the thread centers around whom one “rejects” or “is happy to work with”. Well, what does that mean, and to what extent does either affect our sense of what “side” we’re on, and therefore what the constellation of possible coalitions actually is?

Those who spend so much time discussing whom they “reject” tend to be ideologues who wish to maintain a level of purity and enforce a set of cultural values in a such a way that simply doesn’t work when it comes to practical politics. American politics operates on the basis of shifting coalitions of divergent political interest groups, which is why you find everything from the Log Cabin Republicans to the disciples of Rev. Pat Robertson among the Republicans, and everything from the traditional labor unionists and the gay lobby among the Democrats. Many of my harshest critics in the “anarchist” and “left-libertarian” milieus are not really the kinds of folks I would envision as being leaders or constituents for a pan-secessionist movement, anyway. The reason I participate in those forums is not to convert them en masse, but to reach those isolated individuals who may be sympathetic to what I’m saying, because it is an individual of that type that might very well play a leadership role at some future point.

How do we evaluate progress towards the goal of decentralizing power? This to me is a crucial problem: the coalition must be useful to these different interests. How much of this anarcho-pluralist idea depends on actual subsidiarity vs. the symbolic dissolutions of the state and other centralized institutions as such? The former seems much more fundamental but more slippery; the latter serves as a definite milepost, but could be superficial as well.

Well, how do we evaluate the success of the expulsion of the forces of King George III during the American Revolution? How do we evaluate the success of the attempted secession of 1861? For any one faction to remain in a political coalition, the faction’s leadership and members must believe they have more to gain by staying put than by leaving. At the same time, it is the nature of coalitions that some factions are more successful at achieving their objectives within the context of the coalition than others. Among Democrats, pro-NAFTA neoliberal business interests were successful than anti-NAFTA union interests. Among Republicans, neocons have been more successful than traditionalist conservatives and right-libertarians.

For example, let’s say that the panarchist lobby achieves a significant amount of local autonomy for communities in America. How would this be regarded if it did not involve the formal dissolution of the U.S.?

The end result could either be that the U.S. is broken up entirely (like the Soviet Union) or the U.S. could remain in some kind of defanged, confederated form (like the Article of Confederation). I suppose how well this would be regarded would depend on one’s perspective. Hard-core anarcho-capitalists and “purist” anarchists of other kinds would probably say this is still too much government. Perhaps these could take things further still in their own local areas.

How would we be able to TELL that the decentralization meets the coalition’s requirements? Or would we require a formal renunciation of central authority to validate our mission? I see a great deal of possible confusion occurring because preserving but weakening the central state could serve some coalition interests and not others. I go back and forth on how important it is to smash the state vs. rendering it irrelevant.

Again, the devolution of power could take on a radical decentralist flavor within the context of the wider U.S. as a nation-state (the Bill Kaufmann/Norman Mailer vision) or involve dissolution into independent political units (the Kirkpatrick Sale/League of the South vision). Within the present secessionist movement, there are proponents of both perspectives: for instance, the differences between the Second Vermont Republic and the Free State Project, as the latter does not advocate formal secession.

It seems to me like the more diverse the cross-ideological coalition, the fuzzier the end goal is. What does it mean for a particular ideological / ethnic / lifestyle group to have sufficient autonomy, and are there any attendant formalities to achieving that condition? Otherwise, how do all parties determine their particularist interests are being met by the general mission?

I suppose each party would have its own standards as to how it judges it success as a coalition member. I don’t think there can be any generally agreed upon guidelines for that. The same is true of the various members of the Democratic and Republican coalitions. How does the NRA evaluate its success as a member of the GOP coalition? How does the NAACP regard its success within the Democratic Party?

There’s another problem of achieving the big sort on terms that make sense to the anarcho-pluralist project. How quickly could an even “bigger sort” occur, and how would we handle the quite likely situation where breaking up national state power does not coincide with the self-segregation of different political tendencies into distinct, homogeneous communities?

Well, if another “big sort” occurs, there can be another round of secession or division. It’s very likely the breakup of the central regime will lead to both some communities being organized along ideologically distinctive lines (like the Free State Project or Christian Exodus) while anothers may be the ideologically mixed administrative systems that we have now.

Decentralizing power right now with the current demographics would very likely just yield hundreds of little status quo Americas over the short and medium term.

So what? The purpose of decentralization is to create a marketplace of governments and communities that collectively acts as a constraint on what any one tyrant or political interest group can impose. What you’ve described here would also be the de facto end of the empire.

How do we build popular support for a position that, essentially, breaks up existing communities filled with the non-ideologically motivated population? If I don’t give a shit about decentralizing power, I don’t see why I’d be interested in picking up and moving just because some dick comes to power in my community.

My guess is that a pan-secessionist movement would be a coalition of regional and local movements representing the prevaling cultural and ideological currents in their respective regions and communities. Secessionism in large cities might have an African-American orientation. In Oregon or Vermont it might be green-oriented. Secession movements in the South, Texas or the Western states might have a more conservative/libertarian/populist approach. It could vary even more at the local level. For instance, I think a secession movement in Texas that had a generally conservative outlook would need to strengthen its positions by providing assurances that it would not rule tyrannically over liberal enclaves in places like Austin. This is one of the reasons why I think something like “states’ rights” by itself is not enough. Something like a Swiss cantonal system would be a means to autonomy for dissident communities within a seceded area. An even more serious problem would be something where multiple factions claim the same territory: for example, Aztlan Nation and the Republic of Texas both claim Texas, and the League of the South and some of the “new Afrika” groups claim the South. Christian Exodus has its sites on South Carolina, but I’ve also seen articles by gays in South Carolina who are sympathetic to secession. So a regional confederal system, perhaps one that is polycentric in nature, may be necessary in order to handle such differences.

With regards to the first question I asked, “How do we define success”, there’s a different way of asking it that may be more useful: has there ever been a successful revolutionary / secessionist movement that only articulated a negative platform? Is merely being against the state enough, or do we also need to unite around being “for” something as well? In other words, is there historical evidence for the kind of ideologically-neutral anti-statism you’re proposing, or is there perhaps a need to articulate a positive agenda?

I think there needs to be a few overarching principles that serve as points of unity, like the legitimacy of secession, the legitimacy of decentralism or separatism as means of handling severe cultural and ideological differences, or recognition that the empire is a failure and that communities of scale are more beneficient. The thing to do is to promote and work to popularize these ideas in the wider political culture, just like proponents of gay rights, pro-life, gun control, gun rights, etc. do all the time. Beyond that, I would say that individual regional, local or private forces in a wider pan-secessionist movement could have whatever internal beliefs or practices they wished. As far as actual examples of revolutions with anti-statism as a primary item in the platform, there are a couple that have come close, like the American Revolution and the Anarchist uprising in Catalonia. I don’t think the idea of pan-secessionism is purely negative in content. It includes the positives of “self-determination” of distinctive cultures, regions, and communties; independence of subjugated populations from an oppressive overarching state, human scale institutions that maximize accountability to those whom they are supposed to serve; achievement of political peace among otherwise hostile ideological or cultural groups; and the proliferation of many different kinds of communities that allow an individual greater freedom of choice in terms of associations and lifestyles. A realistic pan-secessionist movement would likely have a number of other generally shared secondary ideas as a complement to the primary ideas. For instance, if pan-secessionism were rooted heavily in the lower classes and the less formally educated, then an economic outlook combining a variety of libertarian and populist themes would likely be present, as well as a social or cultural outlook that is generally disinterested in so-called “political correctness,” as the latter is generally the ideology of the left-wing of the educated, upper-middle class.

Of course, you do enounter the issue of groups that will not join a coalition that also includes other groups that they strongly disagree with. But these kinds of groups will necessarily have to fall by the wayside. The way to compensate for this is to focus on where we can get the greatest numbers. That’s why I’ve advocated synthesizing secessionism with populism and an emphasis on certain socio-economic classes, demographic and political groups. Generally speaking, I suspect a movement of this type that grew large enough to achieve something approaching actual success would include more lower class people than upper class, more lower educated than academic elites, more young than old. Also, while “right-wing populist” currents would likely be present in such a movement, I’m not yet convinced they would be the dominant current. Much of the populist right represents forces that are in decline and losing ground politically. I think the more relevant question for the future would be: If the center-left is likely to be the dominant ideological paradigm for some time to come, what would the opposition to the center-left from a more radical left look like? Some evidence indicates that the prevailing currents might well originate from what might be called the “independent” Left or even ethno-nationalist elements among the racial minority groups, given that research has shown that there is actually more support for genuinely radical ideas like secession among self-identified “liberals” and racial minorities. With regards to the former, I would say the real source of class conflict in modern American society is between the lumpenproletariat and the New Class. With regards to the racial minorities, I am no way suggesting that we regurgitate the “anti-racism” hysteria of the Left. I am simply saying that a future pan-secessionist political/military alliance might include secessionist movements of an African-American or Hispanic nature as core players. I am not making any PC suggestions here. I’m just recognizing that racial minority secessionists might be part of a pan-secessionist coalition in the same manner as particular nations in a military alliance. The emerging “alternative Right” might also grow into a “true left” (i.e., radical, revolutionary) opposition force at some point in the future. There is also the need for such a movement to identify those groups most under attack by the state, and with the least to loose by rejecting the state, or who lack political representation within the state, and cultivate these as constituents for a wider movement. This is what I tried to do in essays like this one.

Essentially, I see the dominance of center-left liberalism being eventually challenged by a political re-alignment that draws from the populist right, radical middle, independent left, minority nationalists, lumpenproletarian class, urban underclass, rural neo-peasantry, petite bourgeoisie, de class elements and eco-radicals. These groups would then break down into different issue-oriented groups, cultural factions and so forth. I suspect their will also be some big splits among the Left’s constituent groups in the future: genuine eco-radicals vs liberal enviros, elite vs lumpen racial minorities, upper middle class feminists vs poor and working women, etc. For instance, I recall seeing an exit poll after the Bush-Kerry election in 2004 that indicated that twenty-five percent of self-identified homosexuals actually voted for Bush. As the economy worsens and class divisions continue to widen, and as the police state continues to tighten its grip, I suspect there will be plenty of homos, lesbos, trannies, et.al who will put their own material and political survival first. For instance, I’ve seen occurrences of anti-Zionist demonstrations including Muslims and anti-Zionist Jews, left-anarchists and national-anarchists, homos/trannies and Communists, as part of the same demo, and I suspect there will be more of that in the future. So it’s not like the Left’s favored “oppressed” groups all have the same interests or politics. Collectively, all of these things might comprise constituent groups for a pan-secessionist movement that evolves into a mass secession movement like the secession of the colonies in 1776 or the attempted secession of the Confederacy in 1861

On the other side, would be neocons, jingoists, American nation-state -based nationalists, imperialists, globalists, liberal internationalists, neoliberals, totalitarian humanists, cultural Marxists, multiculturalists, elite members of traditional outgroups, the political class, the state-capitalist economic elite, the New Class, war and police state profiteers, Zionists, and others with a stake in maintaining the status quo.