Haskell frequently changed his political leanings, leading to his reputation in the labor movement as "brilliant but erratic".

[2] Inspired by Laurence Gronlund's 1884 Co-operative Commonwealth, he organized the Cooperative land Purchase and Colonization Association of California with James Martin the next year.

The group was closely connected with the anarchists, socialists, and unionists of the San Francisco International Workingmen's Association.

Haskell and Martin led 53 colonists to found the Kaweah Co-operative Commonwealth in the Sierra forest (now Sequoia National Park) of Tulare County, California, in 1885.

The colony dissolved in January 1892 between a government land suit, colonist factionalism, and difficulties with Haskell's personality.