Announcing the Bookshelf!

If you look over on the sidebar, there's a new section called the Bookshelf. This is where all writings longer and/or more important to me than a standard blog post will go, whether essays or full-length books. I've written or partly written several of these while out in the field in Nevada, when ideas came to me in a cannabinoid haze and I had to write them down. In many cases I would drive to town with a burning question to look up that would absolutely not leave me alone until I did. This blog is here in large part because I came to the conclusion that self-publishing this work was the only way I could guarantee that it would ever see the light of day.

Those of you who know me in real life will know that the only thing of any value I own is my book collection. I couldn't have assembled it all with the meager wages I've earned, but I was lucky enough that my academic career caught the interest of the leftist professors in my undergraduate years the way it didn't catch the interest of my liberal professors in my graduate years. As they died or retired, they left me their professional history and political science collections, and on those subjects I have a tiny little library that outshines most. It is the most bourgeois thing I have owned or will ever own, but I've put it to the service of humanity. The books I didn't need or could find copies of online, I sold so that I could finance the agricultural collective in Nevada. But I couldn't part with most of it, and if I did, I know I could never replace it. This collection belongs to the working class; I am merely its custodian for now. But I consider myself lucky for all that; books have brought me delight my whole life, and continue to now.

I have used those bookshelves in real life to amass the knowledge necessary to write the works I will place on this online bookshelf. The most important book I've been working on, that I began before I even left for Nevada, is to be called Class Analysis and Revolution. It isn't done yet. The last couple of chapters are the spiciest, and I'm calculating the precise amount of indigestion I need to inflict on my audience, the precise amount of bridges that must be burned, and where. It's slowly dawning on me that though I'm anonymous now, but correct theory does not and cannot stay anonymous. As I write, I speak not only for myself, but for a future only beginning to be born. I must choose my words carefully, and be certain that I only burn the bridges we will never need to cross.

However, as I do that, the most important part of Class Analysis and Revolution is held hostage to this strategizing. So I wrote a smaller article that sums up its single most important chapter, but with different examples, and filling in the gist of the context in a couple simple paragraphs that the rest of my forthcoming book will spend chapters delving into with far more detail. This article is called "How to Class Analyze Anything," and it is the very first addition to the Bookshelf. If that's not enough to pique your interest, observe the image next to this paragraph. That is the true political compass, not the square we're all more familiar with. This triangle is the most fundamental contribution I have to make to the immortal science, because literally every other shred of political theory I've ever written ultimately springs from it. If you want to know more, you'll just have to check it out.

I split the article up into four roughly equal parts, and I think I will continue to break up my longer works like this in future. The reason is twofold.

First off, I intend for people to cite these works in their arguments, in their academic papers. In an online medium without page numbers, breaking it up into sections allows for greater citability. You can direct your debate opponents to the particular snippet that's relevant to the debate at hand instead of handing them a huge stack of website and saying "the answer's in there somewhere."

Second off, the people who will be most loyal to the principles of our immortal science are workers who cannot afford expensive books. If I want my ideas to change the world, the workers must be able to access the things I write. That means I need to make it available for free if at all possible. But I too need to eat, need to put fuel in my tank, need to feed the cat who is my only companion in the unforgiving desert. Advertising is the easiest way to square both these circles. I've chosen my ads based on the cost-per-mille model where advertisers are looking more to raise awareness of their brand or campaign and paying me for views, instead of paying me for clicks or (God forbid) purchases. Advertising links my interests to theirs somewhat, but this model links them less, and allows me to turn greater readership into greater revenues more easily. And why get paid once per writing if I can get paid several times? It's not as if I expect to get rich off of this, and every cent I raise beyond my immediate needs will go towards building socialism in Nevada in any case. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway, so I may as well turn your eyeballs into a resource socialism can use. So I hope you'll forgive the ads, and if you see something that interests you or that you find useful, that you'll even click on a couple. But breaking up my larger works in such a manner lets me sell more ads, keep it free for everyone, and keep myself able to keep writing more. And, should you represent a socialist enterprise or publishing house, and you'd like to reach some hard-left comrades, email me about buying long-term ad space somewhere. I'd be eager to work something out of mutual benefit for some comrades.