I recently read This is Burning Man by Brian Doherty, chronicling the remarkable phenomenon of the Burning Man annual festival/event/blowout in the middle of the harsh Nevada desert. Despite the occasional slip into Sixties hippyspeak which might suggest a sort of communalistic mushiness, the book contained at its core the profoundly rational message that we can enjoy civil society by reducing the state to its barest minimum. Very subversive of statism, Doherty writes with obvious passion for the festival and affection for the often nutty but loveable characters who have developed the event. A great way to while away the hours while waiting to catch my delayed flight out of Nice after a business conference yesterday. Money quote:
“Any political virtue I saw in Burning Man always had to do with its avoidance of politics as I see it – the game of some people telling other people what to do. Burning Man to me was about liberty, and ordered anarchy, the inherent strength and possible joys of a civilisation in which all the “government” you need can be purchased in a freely chosen market.”
I may even go there one day and try and combine a Burning Man trip with a visit to the magnificent Reno air race festival. Yowza!
Brian is a great reporter. I met him a few years ago when he came up here to write about the Free State Project.
If you go to Burning Man, be sure to find Patri Friedman (Milton’s grandson), who is an avid ancapper, working on his Seastead Project(Link), and occasionally does fun stunts like flying with weather balloons(Link). Patri’s always got something wacky going on, exemplifying the anarchist ethic of Burning Man.
“Strinking”?
tomwright, the headline on my article was completely changed from the original. Gentle note to the editors here who want to change my choice of headline: the spellchecker is our friend!
Kinda like Woodstock, without the music and the mess.
Oy.
I’ll be spending my Labor Day weekend teaching some teenagers how to shoot. “Fear and Hope”, my aching fat African-American ass.
From wikipedia:
“Commerce-free event. No cash transactions are allowed at Burning Man. The participants instead rely on a gift economy, a sort of potlatch. Since the earliest days of the event, an underground barter economy has also existed, in which burners exchange material goods and/or favors with each other; however, this is largely discouraged by the event organizers. The only commerce that has been allowed are sales of coffee and ice at Center Camp.”
“Once participants have arrived in Black Rock City, they are expected to leave their cars or other motor vehicles parked and travel around the city under their own power.”
I don’t see how that jives with the quote:
“Any political virtue I saw in Burning Man always had to do with its avoidance of politics as I see it – the game of some people telling other people what to do. Burning Man to me was about liberty, and ordered anarchy, the inherent strength and possible joys of a civilisation in which all the “government” you need can be purchased in a freely chosen market.”
I think their idea of minimal government is the one that the communists were selling, i.e. the government will fall away once people are reconditioned to think like good collectivists. That is, you can be free to do what you want, so long as you are an enlightened egalitarian who would never think of engaging in capitalist exploitation.
A truly subversive and “radical” example of self-expression would be to conduct some financial transactions on the premises. Much too radical for these folks.
Oh, the evil! SELLING ice and coffee at Burning Man? Capitalist pigs! Don’t they realize that The People need ice and coffee and it’s a fundamental right? What an oppressive regime!
REVOLUTION!!!!!!!
lobelover, you miss the point: Burning Man festival is a place that folk can choose to enter or leave, so the rules about how folk interact, ie, whether they use money or not, is hardly comparable to statism. If I set up a community and we barter rather than use money, what’s the problem? In fact there is commerce at the event, which anyway is a major business these days.
The point that Doherty is making is that in a large, mostly free country like the United States, it is possible to have lots of events such as Burning Man in which the creators of said can make the rules and do so with the consent of those who take part.
Fairly simple idea, when you think about it.
I remember a quote from some California college students who went to Burning Man expecting much more than they found,
” Man this sucks, all the people who should be naked aren’t and those who shouldn’t be naked are.”