William Pietz is a political activist who lives in Los Angeles. He received an interdisciplinary masters degree in philosophy and political theory from the New School for Social Research, New York, and a doctorate in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dedicated to building the Green Party in the USA, he is co-chair of the Printed Materials Committee of the Green Party of Los Angeles County, the largest aggregation of Green Party members in the United States. He is also co-chair of the California Instant Runoff Voting Coalition. He also writes and lectures in academic contexts. Recent academic writings include "Decency and Debasement," in Asian Marxisms, ed. Tani Barlow, Duke University Press (forthcoming), "Material Considerations: On the Forensics of Contract and Capitalization," Theory, Culture and Society (special issue, forthcoming), "Person," Critical Terms in the Study of Buddhism, ed. Donald Lopez, University of Chicago Press (forthcoming). His most recent non-academic writing is "A Remedy for Long-Empty Council Seats", Los Angeles Times, op-ed, June 1, 2001.