So the revelation that C4SS staff member Stacy Litz served as a police informant for months comes as quite a shock to all of us. She is responsible for snitching on several of her fellow libertarians to escape jail time. The extent to which she attempted to mitigate the harm of her actions is unclear. None of us know for certain what we would do in her situation, and we can all have compassion for the horrible dilemna in which this person was placed – even as we regret and condemn what she chose to do.

The Center released a statement reflecting the decision to non-judgmentally but resolutely remove Stacy from her position. The debate that brought about that decision was very contentious. Some members pushed to keep her, arguing that cutting anybody the state flips sends two messages: (A) if you make a mistake, you cannot rehabilitate yourself, and (B) the state has only to flip people to break our movement. Theories were advanced that we somehow throw this back in the government’s face and turn it into some kind of PR coup. We’re not going to let the state tell us who we can and can’t work with!

Several members, including me, felt that this position did not incorporate our interests as local activists. We work with radical left organizations that have very material experiences with informants and police harrassment. Seeing friends from these groups go to jail is not unheard of. William Gillis’s friend is getting railroaded. Here in Richmond we have a guy who was framed by the police because they got sick of his work with CopWatch. Occupy Richmond has been surrendering cell phones before entering planning meetings because local activists have been raided under suspicious conditions lately that imply surveillance is occurring. Security culture is on everybody’s lips – especially with Occupy raising stakes.

While I don’t want to speculate too obscenely, I’d say there are also people in C4SS who come from more of an LP or philosophical libertarian background (I’m one of them). While many of them understand the above concerns, others refused to take them seriously. I think that’s because this fight isn’t on the ground, shoulder to shoulder, in the streets for them. Instead, it’s abstract; it’s theoretical. For some of them, debating the libertarian ethics of this – was she really coerced? OK, let’s have a pedantic debate about coercion! – is the most material concern. That’s because they’re not wondering whether their activism will send the cops knocking down their door. This is all on the internet and is therefore inescapably ephemeral, as is the vaguely articulated strategy to turn this scenario around and use it against the government.

What people in the latter group need to realize is that the people in the former group have a lot at stake. When we are asked to abide a snitch in an organization that we promote to our activist friends – many of whom are skeptical of us, not because of who we are so much as the label we attach to ourselves in solidarity with other left libertarians – we can’t help but wonder if, at the end of the day, the Center for a Stateless Society is another bourgeoisie, privileged libertarian group that only uses the rhetoric of the Left to appeal to it, not to join forces with it in common cause.

If the Center wants to incorporate itself into the larger leftist activist movement resisting corporate capitalism, the police state, etc. then it must consider the gravity of the struggle that’s local and on the ground. It can’t ask members who are working in their local communities to compromise themselves. What I found really troubling was not that people disagreed with me on how to handle Stacy, but that those local interests that matter to activists like me were so easily dismissed. It implies that this disconnect I’ve experienced for years between my politics online and my life offline has not been resolved. It implies that this is still abstract and theoretical for some of my friends at the Center.

If we can’t reconcile our polemics with our actions then we cannot be effective and credible. I know my life has become much richer by working in my community and testing those ideas I have been exposed to by many of my online comrades. Let’s ensure that the Center does not make itself irrelevant to our struggles and allies at home while it continues to do very fine work in the media.

It is so gratifying to see this maturity of thought from the anarchist sector I consider my closest allies. Let this powerful presentation start the conversation on how we prosecute this next era of the struggle against privilege. If this presentation is representative of the topics discussed at the recently concluded AgoraI/O conference, then I really missed out, and will be there with bells on next year!

Much like wars on victimless crimes, these attacks must be directed at people, since the ideas only exist in the mind. Individual human beings are often rejected in totality rather than merely rejecting their bad ideas. After all, individuals are sovereign within their own minds, and there is little power to force the adoption of values onto another (setting aside the countless problems with using force). The only real non-violent sanction one has against the beliefs of another is ridicule and withdrawal, which the left certainly employs often.

The question the alternative left poses to the mainstream and/or orthodox left is not whether these strategies are just - certainly, the defense of free association is a vital liberal tactic for non-violent social discipline. Sacrificing free association utterly endangers liberalism. Rather, its critique centers around the effectiveness of the tactic. Rather than a universal application of leftist ideology to every aspect of life, a lighter touch is suggested - not to let bad ideas and practices off the hook, but to better inculcate values conducive to sustainable social progress.

By its very nature, political activism orients itself towards formal institutions. Success in politics is measured by power - the power to realize visible and articulable policies, the power to direct the apparatus of an institution or organization, the power to compel individual behavior. Politics is practiced in spite of individual prerogative through capturing and dominating institutional vehicles for social influence. Certainly values can attempt to be promoted through these institutions, but ultimately they are the application of mechanistic policy or law to effect observable phenomena or measurable behavior.

Resisting or promoting particular institutions are valid forms of political activism because there’s something to resist or promote. For example, racist institutions - institutions that realize ends deemed racist - can be reformed or abolished. Unjust laws can be stricken and undermined. Organizations with objectionable values and goals can be disbanded or delegitimatized. Activists can target institutions with precision because they are easily identified entities with tangible assets, finite memberships, and/or express governing rules.

But the values that impel individuals to organize in the first place are not so easily eradicated. You can prevent the Ku Klux Klan from meeting and its members from acting, but you cannot force each member to renounce racial supremacist ideas. The Nazi party, its tenets, and its insignia are positively banned by law in Germany, and yet that poisonous belief system still lingers in the minds of many Germans. In fact, the attempt to stamp out such individuals for their beliefs can often create blowback: by marginalizing individuals for their beliefs, they become that much more dedicated to seeing them realized. They can come to identify with their ideology much more completely if their own well being is threatened.

How do people shed old belief configurations that are tied to their sense of who they are and adopt new ones? After all, lasting social and cultural change occurs through changing the behavior of the society’s or culture’s constituent members. And behavior follows from a person’s sense of their values and self-interest. So the key to long-term, lasting social progress of the kind we want is not political at all - it is changing minds and hearts.

People who are willing to be pariahs for their unpopular beliefs are unlikely to be cowed by ratcheting up hostilities. One can see this in military occupations where soldiers of one culture attempt to force those of another culture to change. One can also see this in movements here that embrace backwards approaches yet linger decade after decade, changing only in their application of beliefs and rarely in the bigotry motivating them.

Few people adopt their basic values on a rational basis. These values and beliefs are the basic “axioms” that inform their further reasoning, but the examination of these axioms usually reveals that some emotional or unconscious dynamic at play. Even the liberal belief in egalitarianism and justice is not one “supported” by any objective data; rather, we accept them as givens and use reason to find the best ways to achieve consonant goals.

In order to change one’s values, one must face the emotions, experiences and psychological background that convinced one to adopt them. I’m suggesting this is a deeply personal experience that requires a facing of the self, a “dark night of the soul”. It requires a vulnerability and honesty that is not well suited to the political project of influencing institutions and debating policy. We are asking people to dissolve basic parts of who they think they are and adopt new ones that are alien. This is a big step for anybody, and many go their whole lives without engaging in such a self-examination.

If our real desire is to convince people to substantively abandon bigoted and undesirable beliefs and values, and not simply eliminate the superficial vehicles informed by them, we must help people, not compel them. Decent societies are comprised of decent individuals, and if we rule out eliminating people for their beliefs then we have no choice but to work with them. This is a long, hard path that requires a dedicated ministering to deeply angry, hurt, or insecure people. It will also challenge our own beliefs and require honesty and transparency on our own part.

Building genuine trust among suspicious parties requires a light touch and a long view. But this is how a voluntary society and enlightened culture is created: individual by individual. The coarse means of political activism can stop large scale tragedies, but it cannot prevent them over the long run. To do that, we need to focus on being our better selves and bringing out the better selves of our neighbors. This scale of activity feels totally unequal to the task, and for precisely that reason it is too often ignored in favor of political activism. But while it feels unequal, it is the only viable route to sustainable, long-term social and cultural change.

At the time, Allies were debating the proper reaction to an inflammatory essay that had been written by a non-left libertarian. This debate turned into a crisis: one left libertarian denouncing the other as out of bounds and beyond the pale. As all parties stood their ground, things digressed into nasty insults and accusations that mainly exhausted us. It got to be surprisingly ridiculous, but what surprised me the most was the fact that, of all people, Wilbur - the one who likely understands the historic trajectory of this movement more than anybody else, and therefore would have the most to say about where all this is headed - was the one to leave.

Among Wilbur’s arguments, as I understand them, was the absence of any way to resolve the dispute to everybody’s satisfaction. The Alliance had always been a vague and inarticulable one, grounded in shared tendencies but no shared principles that had ever been made clear, let alone binding. Add to that the concept of ALL being a place where “we all agree to disagree” and you have the basis for neither ideological commitment nor ideological boundaries. Personal attacks were all anybody had, because there was no shared premise of alliance, and I imagine Wilbur couldn’t see the point of continuing to associate with such a meaningless brand. If all we were going to do was be an online club of likeminded malcontents, why bother winning this fight?

Fast forward to earlier this year: the Center for a Stateless Society had been building momentum with a new funding model and a solid record of publishing op-eds for a year or so. However, Wilbur left the advisory board because he was increasingly uncomfortable with the term “market anarchist” as a description of his beliefs. Read his blog and you’ll feel a yearning expressed over and over: to get beyond the ideological factions and locate the common principle that impels us to use fancy terms like “individualism” and “market”. Where C4SS offered a brand, Wilbur sought substance.

It appears the same concerns that led to Wilbur’s departure from the Alliance contributed to his departure from the Center. In the comments for a recent C4SS op-ed that caused many of us discomfort, Wilbur persistently argued not just against the article but against the nebulous constellation of ideas and tendencies that comprise the Center’s mission:

I’ve gradually distanced myself from left-libertarianism, market anarchism, the ALLiance and the Center, largely because the sorts of “agreement” that seem most common look more like disagreement to me – and because they seem to open the door more often to those who elevate “private property” over individual liberty (despite their rhetoric) much more often than they admit those whose concern for individual liberty makes them resistant to “private property.” I’m not being stubborn about disagreement. The ALLiance was initially built around a certain amount of active disagreement. The notion that we “really agree” really just seems dismissive to me, given the obvious gulf between our positions.

Now, I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter of the Center for a year or so. It is not everyday that you get a chance to push op-eds promoting anarchism to mainstream media sources. Given the people involved in the project - Brad Spangler, Gary Chartier, Kevin Carson, Darian Worden - I felt like the left libertarian credentials of this organization needed no vetting whatsoever. The biggest motivator for me was being able to support those writers whom I appreciate and whom I think are as potentially convincing to others as one was to me. Kevin Carson is probably the reason I ever considered anarchism in the first place.

However, I do have reservations. For one, I do not consider myself a “market anarchist”, for many of the reasons Wilbur articulates. For another thing, the Center has a tendency to extend its language beyond what I would consider the left libertarian consensus into narrow agorist or market fundamentalist language, where all we seek to advocate is expressed in pure economic terms. I don’t want to single out specific articles or authors; it suffices to say that these misgivings are shared by more than a couple of supporters, so it’s not just me.

In fact I don’t think it’s the authors’ fault - they do what they can to further the work of the Center as they understand it, and none of them understand it any worse than the rest of us. Without a clear consensus on the Center’s mission, why shouldn’t they just write about whatever they feel like? The problem is not their understanding of the C4SS consensus so much as ours.

What vision and principles do we share? When we support the Center, what are we saying with that support? How do we judge the efficacy of the Center when there’s no clear statement of the advocated “stateless society”? Why stop at “market anarchism” as the only articulation of statelessness - why not be more ecumenical towards the variety in the anarchist movement?

All of the articles that bother me are perfectly consonant with market anarchism, broadly constructed. We can say, “So what? We disagree on certain points. Big deal.” But I don’t consider that a sustainable situation, any more than it was in the Alliance. It’s even more urgent because the Center is not merely a debate club, affinity group, or online brand; it’s an outreach organization designed to generate real results: new anarchists. What is at stake here is bigger than competing visions and ideological formulations of market anarchism; this agitprop will influence future left libertarians and market anarchists who will expand upon our work for years to come. Little in our corner of the universe could demand more accountability.

Until we take the difficult leap towards defining the positive goals, values, and dreams that unite us, as well as the outcomes we mutually reject as unacceptable even in a stateless society, it will be difficult for people to feel they understand exactly what they are funding. Every time a member reads an article that strays from their personal vision, they will question the Center’s mission. The Center’s success cannot be judged by its supporters if there is no sense of our common approach and aspirations, or at least an understanding of the contested areas that are likely to divide us. Remember: this is not about all of us agreeing so much as all of us deciding how to package and sell this “market anarchism” to which we all supposedly adhere (and yes, that alone gives me pause).

I don’t know how to go about organizing the discussion that would articulate or ratify such a consensus. But if this Center for a Stateless Society is going to advocate for us, especially when capably and admirably run by such steadfast organizers and generous writers on a shoestring budget, the least we can do is give them guidance and not just criticism. Wilbur’s departure was an indication that we cannot simply rally around a black flag; revolutionary consensus requires us to be honest about the change we seek, and to ally on the basis of that honesty. It might be painful, but if we could find such a consensus that all sides of the market anarchist / left libertarian milieu could get behind, we would have the basis for a powerful advocacy and outreach group, indeed.