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Left Bank Distribution Debt

Left Bank Distribution began by supplying a handful of titles to other projects at wholesale prices then grew into the largest distributor of anti-authoritarian materials in North America. In its heyday Left Bank Distribution functioned as a gateway to innumerable, overlooked, or hidden spaces of history, knowledge, and resistant culture. A functioning worker’s collective, Left Bank recognized that a future of freedom would involve more than just the collectivization of the means of production, as absolutely critical as that is. Inspired by situationism, by surrealism, by the poetic impulse, Left Bank strove to go beyond "anarcho-fundamentalism", beyond a tightly clutched handful of libertarian leftist pieties, to embrace a cornucopia of perspectives and information, ranging from the topical to the arcane. Freedom would not be a world of sameness, but of riotous diversity.

The project was operated for a short time out of a used bookstore operated by the Left Bank Books Collective in the University District, AKA Used Books. After a few years the building was sold and the new landlords refused to renew the lease. The rental cost of retail space in Seattle by then had skyrocketed with the tech boom and, unable to find another suitable location, the store was forced to close. The decision was then made to operate Distribution as a stand alone project out of a warehouse space. This would prove to be a bad decision.

Without the income from the used bookstore to offset the costs of operation, Left Bank Distribution's debt to its publishers mounted steadily and, toward the end, rapidly. In the best spirit of mutual aid, our publishers continued to supply us with materials despite our worsening situation. Heated collective discussions about the rapidly increasing debt took place, but the semi-autonomous distribution crew did not make the decision to shut the project down. It was only after a new crew of people who took over at distribution had struggled with the crisis for about year and realized that distribution’s problems were unsolvable that that difficult decision was finally made.

Since then Left Bank has struggled to pay off an initial debt more than $75,000. The payments we have been able to make have been due to generous donations from our customers at our bookstore and from current and former collective members. The bookstore has also been able to occasionally subsidize payment of the debt as well.

The collapse of book distributors is, unfortunately, an all-too-frequent occurrence and one that has had and continues to have a devastating impact on small, independent publishers. Your donation to the distribution debt fund will help ensure the continuing viability of dozens and dozens of independent publishers. Their voices have perhaps never been more critical.