Black is a longtime critic of democracy, which he regards as antithetical to anarchism. He has criticized democracy since the 1970s. Murray Bookchin, when he identified as an anarchist, was the most prominent advocate of anarchism as democracy. In the 1990s, Murray Bookchin became the most famous advocate of anarchism as democracy. For Bookchin, democracy — the "direct democracy" of face-to-face assemblies of citizens— is anarchism. A few contemporary anarchists agree, including the academics Cindy Milstein, David Graeber, and Peter Staudenmeier. Black, however, has always rejected the idea that democracy (direct or representative) is anarchist. He made this argument at a presentation at the Long Haul Bookshop (in Berkeley) in 2008. In 2011, C.A.L. Press published as a pamphlet "Debunking Democracy", elaborating on the speech and providing citation support. This too is reprinted in "Defacing the Currency".