Author Archives: simeioseis

Η ιστορία και η Σφίγγα: Περί ταραχών και εξεγέρσεων

Αναδημοσιεύουμε ένα από τα κείμενα που περιλαμβάνονται στην εξαιρετική έκδοση “ΒΑΛΤΙΜΟΡΗ” από τη Σχολή Κακών Παιδιών, το οποίο μέσω της κριτικής που ασκεί στον Badiou επιδιώκει να αναδείξει τα όρια της παραδοσιακής πολιτικής (με Π κεφαλαίο, θα λέγαμε εμείς, που εσχάτως έγινε πολύ της μόδας σε εκείνους τους κύκλους οι οποίοι συστηματικά αποφεύγουν να συνδέσουν τα όποια επαναστατικά -τους- προτάγματα με τους πραγματικούς σύγχρονους αγώνες του προλεταριάτου παντού στον πλανήτη) απέναντι στις ταραχές. Η εν λόγω μετάφραση δημοσιεύτηκε αρχικά εδώ.

eksofullo-e1434723608750

Η ιστορία και η Σφίγγα: Περί ταραχών και εξεγέρσεων

Ο Jasper Bernes και ο Joshua Clover για το «Η αναγέννηση της ιστορίας: Εποχές ταραχών και εξεγέρσεων» του Alain Badiou

1.

Οι ταραχές είναι η Σφίγγα της αριστεράς. Κάθε δήθεν ριζοσπάστης διανοούμενος αισθάνεται υποχρεωμένος, απ’ ό,τι φαίνεται, να απαντήσει στο αίνιγμα που ακούει να τίθεται από τις ταραχές του σήμερα, στο Μπαχρέιν ή τις Αστούριες, τη Χιλή ή τη Βρετανία: Γιατί τώρα; Γιατί εδώ; Γιατί στασιάζουν; Και οι απαντήσεις γενικά ανήκουν σε λίγες απλές κατηγορίες. Πρώτον, αν η εξέγερση φαίνεται να στερείται εστίασης ή να μην παρουσιάζει ξεκάθαρα αιτήματα – αν δηλαδή, δεν μπορεί να διαβαστεί ως «διαμαρτυρία», όπως στην περίπτωση των ταραχών του Λονδίνου το καλοκαίρι του 2011 – ο διανοούμενος θα τις ζωγραφίσει ως «άνευ νοήματος ξεσπάσματα» (Slavoj Žižek), που τα κάνουν «άμυαλοι ταραξίες» (David Harvey). Πάντα, οι αποδόσεις της απουσίας νοήματος πρέπει να βρουν στήριξη σε μια απολογητική κοινωνιολογία, καθιστώντας έτσι τους στασιαστές απλές παρενέργειες μιας άνισης κοινωνίας, συμπτώματα του νεοφιλελευθερισμού, της καπιταλιστικής κρίσης και της επακόλουθης λιτότητας. Συχνά, τέτοιου τύπου σχολιασμός εμμένει στην υποχωρητική ρητορική δομή του «ναι μεν, αλλά…» Με τα λόγια του Tariq Ali από το London Review of Books:

Ναι, ξέρουμε ότι η βία στους δρόμους του Λονδίνου είναι κακή. Ναι, ξέρουμε ότι το πλιάτσικο στα μαγαζιά είναι λάθος.
Αλλά γιατί συμβαίνει τώρα; Γιατί δε συνέβη πέρσι;
Γιατί οι αδικίες συσσωρεύονται με την πάροδο του χρόνου, γιατί όταν το σύστημα επιθυμεί το θάνατο ενός νεαρού μαύρου πολίτη από μια υποβαθμισμένη κοινότητα τότε, ταυτόχρονα αν και υποσυνείδητα, θέλει την απάντηση.

Πολύ χειρότερος από τέτοιες χλιαρές και απρόθυμες απολογίες είναι ο ισχυρισμός που επαναλαμβάνεται με ανησυχητική συχνότητα από ανθρώπους που θα έπρεπε να ξέρουν καλύτερα, ότι οι ταραξίες στο Λονδίνο δρούσαν ως αποτέλεσμα των αντιφατικών επιταγών της νεοφιλελεύθερης κοινωνίας. Τέτοιος σχολιασμός είναι παρομοίως μια συμπτωματική αναφορά. Για τον Harvey, οι εξεγερμένοι δεν είναι τίποτε άλλο από απλές αντανακλάσεις της απληστίας και της πλεονεξίας του μετα-θατσερικού καπιταλισμού. Για τον Πολωνό κοινωνιολόγο Zygmunt Bauman, το πλιάτσικο είναι απλά μια βίαιη και ριψοκίνδυνη εκδοχή του να κάνεις ψώνια, μια έκφραση της υλιστικής κοινωνίας των καταναλωτών.

Έπειτα, υπάρχουν και οι σχολιαστές που βλέπουνε τις ταραχές ως απλώς παραπλανημένες, και όχι ως αντανακλάσεις της καπιταλιστικής ιδεολογίας. Τέτοιοι συγγραφείς αντιλαμβάνονται τις ταραχές ως μια μηχανή που στερείται τις σωστές ράγες. Η αποτυχία ακολούθως ανήκει στην εξαθλιωμένη/ ξεχαρβαλωμένη αριστερά γενικά, που απέτυχε να παρέχει μια «εναλλακτική» ή ένα «πολιτικό πρόγραμμα» το οποίο να μπορέσει να τιθασεύσει, να σχηματοποιήσει και να κατευθύνει την οργή των ταραχοποιών. Ρωτά ο Žižek: «Ποιος θα καταφέρει να κατευθύνει την οργή των φτωχών;» Ξεχάστε την πιθανότητα οι φτωχοί να είναι ικανοί να κατευθύνουν μόνοι τους την οργή τους.

Μπορεί κανείς να δει τις θεμελιωδώς πατροναριστικές γραμμές που είναι κοινές σε όλες τις απαντήσεις. Σε κάθε μία, ο διανοούμενος καταλογίζει ένα είδος ψευδούς συνείδησης στους ταραξίες, προκείμενου να καταστεί αυτός (και συνήθως είναι αυτός) όλο και πιο αναγκαίος ως η φωνή της απούσας εξουσίας. Αυτοί οι διανοούμενοι ακούνε στις εξεγέρσεις μια ερώτηση στην οποία πρέπει να απαντήσουν. Δεν αντιλαμβάνονται ότι οι ταραχές είναι μάλλον, μια απάντηση στην ερώτηση που αρνούνται να διατυπώσουν.

2.

Ο Alain Badiou δεν είναι κάποιος που κρύβεται από τη Σφίγγα. Παρόλα αυτά, είναι ένας παράδοξος υποψήφιος για να αφιερώσει ένα ολόκληρο βιβλίο στην εκτυλισσόμενη εποχή των ταραχών. Από τη μία πλευρά είναι απολύτως λογικό: Ο Badiou έχει διατηρήσει μια σύνδεση με τη μαχητικότητα από τις μέρες του ως νεαρός μαοϊκός Γάλλος ως την τρέχουσα θέση του ως δεσπόζων αρχι-μαέστρος της ευρωπαϊκής φιλοσοφίας: Πράγματι πρόκειται να εκδώσει ένα κάποιου είδους εγχειρίδιο που μεταφράζεται ως Φιλοσοφία για Αγωνιστές. Από την άλλη υπάρχει μια περίεργη αναντιστοιχία μεταξύ του στοχαστή και του θέματος – υποκειμένου εδώ, που προκαλείται εν μέρει από τους δυσανάλογους ρυθμούς και τονικότητες της θέσης των διανοούμενων και της παγκόσμιας κρίσης. Ο συλλογιστική του Badiou όσο στρατευμένη κι αν είναι, διατηρεί πάντα ένα σημαντικό βαθμό αφαίρεσης (ως φιλόσοφος, είναι ιδιαίτερα γνωστός για την προαγωγή του τομέα της οντολογίας διαμέσου της αυστηρής εφαρμογής της θεωρίας των συνόλων).

Όσον αφορά την πολιτισμική ιστορία, όμως, η μεγαλύτερη σημασία του Badiou έγκειται στη δια βίου πίστη του σε αυτό που ονόμασε «η κομμουνιστική υπόθεση1». Στα χρόνια που ακολούθησαν την πτώση του Ανατολικού Μπλοκ όπου ο κομμουνισμός – ως όντως υπαρκτή πολιτική, θεωρητικό σχήμα, και κοινωνική επιθυμία – έπεσε παγκοσμίως σε αχρηστία, ο Badiou και ελάχιστοι ακόμα διαχειρίστηκαν με σύνεση οιαδήποτε σπίθα παρέμενε εντός των πνευματικών κύκλων. Με αυτή την έννοια είναι κατά πολύ μια κατοπτρική εκδοχή αυτού που ο ο Hugh Kenner, ο μεγάλος βιογράφος του Pound, έλεγε «ο άνθρωπος της δίνης», στο κέντρο μιας ιστορίας που συσπάται και μεταλλάσσεται με την ώρα. Ο Badiou είναι ένας άνθρωπος της ερήμου: μια φιγούρα του μεσοδιαστήματος άνευ ορίζοντα, όπου οι νεοφιλελεύθερες πολιτικές με τον περίφημο δυναμισμό τους, παρήγαγαν ένα μονόχρωμο πολιτικό τοπίο στο οποίο κάθε σοβαρός ανταγωνισμός είχε κατά βάση εξουδετερωθεί (καίτοι υπήρξαν κάποιες συγκεκριμένες εξελίξεις στη Νότια Αμερική.) Αν η ιστορία δεν είχε ακριβώς πεθάνει, πάντως φαινόταν κάτωχρη.

Όταν πια τα ενδιαφερόμενα μέρη συναντήθηκαν για το συνέδριο «The Idea of Communism» το 2009 στο Birkbeck Institute, αυτή η σαν έρημος μικρο-εποχή είχε περάσει. Σχεδόν παντού, αν και άνισα, είχαν ξεσπάσει μαχητικοί αγώνες ενάντια στα συσπειρωμένα καθεστώτα του κεφαλαίου και του κράτους. Έλαμψαν φωτεινά, αργόσβησαν, καταστάλθηκαν βίαια ή έφαγαν τις ουρές τους2, αλλά ως γενική τάση, εξαπλώθηκαν. Η πίεση για τους φιλοσόφους να «αναθρέψουν» μια θεωρία «αντίστασης/αντίθεσης» με την ελπίδα των μελλοντικών ανταγωνισμών δε σταμάτησε, παρά σε ένα άλλο χωροχρόνο. Αναπόφευκτα (όπως χιλιάδες συνελεύσεις του Occupy μαρτυρούν), διανοούμενοι στρέφονταν στο να εμπλακούν με αυτές τις αλλαγμένες συνθήκες, εκστρατεύοντας από την έρημο για να εξετάσουν τη δράση στους δρόμους «εν τω γεννάσθαι» – ανάμεσα τους σε εξέχουσα θέση και ο Badiou.

Το συνέδριο του 2009 στο Birkbeck γέννησε πολλά βιβλία, που όλα τους ποντάρουν πολλά στο στοίχημα ότι η παρούσα περίοδος μπορεί να παρουσιάσει μια ανανέωση της «κομμουνιστικής υπόθεσης» και να κλείσει τη μακρά περίοδο νεοφιλελεύθερης αντίδρασης που κρατά από τη δεκαετία του ’70. Αλλά οι αξιώσεις για μια τέτοια ανανέωση βασίζονται μόνο σε επιλεγμένες περιπτώσεις από παρατηρημένες ιστορικές εξελίξεις, από νέες μορφές κομμουνιστικής πρακτικής ή αγώνα. Ακόμα συχνότερα, φαίνεται να ποντάρουν με βάση την αλλαγή στις κουβέντες καφενείου μεταξύ φιλοσόφων – περισσότερο μάλλον στην ιδέα του κομμουνισμού, παρά στην πολιτική πρακτική του. Αυτό έρχεται σε αξιοσημείωτη αντίθεση με την εκπόνηση του κομμουνισμού που βρίσκει κανείς για παράδειγμα, σε ένα βιβλίο όπως το «η Εξέγερση που Έρχεται», του οποίου οι συγγραφείς βασίζουν τη θεωρητική εκπόνηση ενός νέου κομμουνισμού στην κριτική εξέταση των πρακτικών, των αγώνων και των κοινωνικών κινημάτων της τελευταίας δεκαετίας. Αλλά όσοι είναι εξοικειωμένοι με τη φιλοσοφία του Badiou και το πόσο βασίζεται σε λογικές αποδείξεις, αξιώματα, και στοιχειώδη επιχειρηματολογία, δε θα εκπλαγούν που, για αυτόν, η κομμουνιστική πρακτική ακολουθεί την κομμουνιστική ιδέα. Η πρωτοκαθεδρία της ιδέας είναι ολοφάνερη στον Badiou, αν μη τι άλλο επειδή εμφανίζεται κεφαλαιογράμματη: «Ιδέα», όχι «ιδέα». Γυαλίζοντας την πλακέτα με τον τίτλο του από νωρίς, ισχυρίζεται ότι «Η μόνη πιθανότητα αφύπνισης είναι η λαϊκή πρωτοβουλία στην οποία θα ριζώσει η δύναμη μιας Ιδέας.

Έτσι και το «The Rebirth of History» χρησιμοποιεί την Αραβική Άνοιξη και άλλες εξεγέρσεις των τελευταίων ετών ως εμπειρική επικύρωση του πιο αφηρημένου πλαισίου που αναπτύσσεται στο βιβλίο «Η Κομμουνιστική Υπόθεση». Πρώτα η Ιδέα, έπειτα η ανάδυσή της στον κόσμο. Σίγουρα η σχέση μεταξύ της ιστορίας και της Ιδέας είναι πιο περίπλοκη από ότι η παραπάνω περιγραφή μπορεί να την κάνει να φαίνεται, μιας και οι «οι πολιτικές αλήθειες» που σχηματίζουν τη βάση για την «Ιδέα» παράγονται από την ιστορία κατά το ξεδίπλωμά της. Κι όμως, την ίδια στιγμή, όσο η Ιδέα είναι προϊόν της ιστορίας άλλο τόσο, παραδόξως, προηγείται αυτής: «η Ιδέα αναφέρεται σε ένα είδος ιστορικής προβολής του ιστορικού τι μέλει γενέσθαι μιας πολιτικής – ένα γίγνεσθαι που αρχικά επικύρωσε η εξέγερση». Αυτή η κυκλική χρονικότητα επιτρέπει στον Badiou να αμφιταλαντεύεται ανάμεσα στο να εισηγείται ότι η Αραβική Άνοιξη απέτυχε εξαιτίας της έλλειψης μιας ανθεκτικής Ιδέας, και ότι ταυτόχρονα διευκόλυνε την αφύπνιση της Ιδέας στην παρούσα περίοδο.

Ανάμεσα σε αυτό που ο Badiou αποκαλεί «ενδιάμεση περίοδο» καπιταλιστικής παλινόρθωσης που ξεκινά στη δεκαετία του 1980 και σε μια νέα ακολουθία επαναστατικής πολιτικής δράσης κινούμενη από την Ιδέα, βρίσκεται η εξέγερση. Το «The Rebirth of History» είναι ουσιαστικά μια γραμματική των ταραχών, που χρησιμοποιεί τα πρόσφατα γεγονότα για να διακρίνει τις ταραχές σε αυτές που παράγουν «πολιτική αλήθεια» και εκείνες που δεν το κάνουν. Ο Badiou – ακούραστος κατασκευαστής κατηγοριών, σχημάτων και διαγραμμάτων – ταξινομεί τις ταραχές σε τρεις κατηγορίες, τις οποίες πραγματεύεται κατά σειρά αυξάνουσας πολιτικής σημασίας: οι «άμεσες», οι «λανθάνουσες» και οι «ιστορικές». Δοθέντος ότι, οι «άμεσες», αντιμπατσικές εξεγέρσεις των φτωχών όπως αυτές που έλαβαν χώρα στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο το καλοκαίρι του 2011 ή στα γαλλικά προάστια το 2005 ταξινομούνται ως αντανακλαστικά ξεσπάσματα μη στοχευμένης βίας, «αναρχικής και εν τέλει χωρίς μια ανθεκτική αλήθεια», ενώ αντίθετα οι ιστορικές ταραχές που παρακολουθήσαμε με τις Αραβικές εξεγέρσεις έδειξαν την ικανότητα να αντέχουν και να γενικεύουν.

Σε αντίθεση με τους περισσότερους σύγχρονούς του, ο Badiou έχει τουλάχιστον το προτέρημα ότι τουλάχιστον εξετάζει τις ταραχές από μια στρατηγική κι όχι ηθική σκοπιά, και διακρίνει μέσα τους κάτι άλλο από μια μανιασμένη αναπαράσταση της καπιταλιστικής κατανάλωσης. Δηλαδή, σε αντίθεση με τους Harvey, Žižek, Ali, και Bauman, αντιλαμβάνεται την εξέγερση ως κάτι περισσότερο από μια εκδήλωση της «κουλτούρας», κάτι περισσότερο από την έκφραση μιας υποκείμενης κοινωνικής αλήθειας που δε μπορεί παρά να επιβεβαιώνεται με τα καμένα αμάξια και τα λεηλατημένα καταστήματα. Οι ερωτήσεις που ο Badiou ακούει να εκστομίζει η Σφίγγα είναι οι σωστές: Πώς γενικεύουμε και επεκτείνουμε την επιθετική ικανότητα της εξέγερσης; Πώς και γιατί οι ταραχές εξαπλώνονται και γίνονται μια ανοιχτή εξέγερση – επανάσταση;

Αν και έχουμε ενδοιασμούς για τη διάκριση που κάνει ο Badiou ανάμεσα στις άμεσες και τις ιστορικές ταραχές, αξίζει να εμπιστευτούμε τον τρόπο με τον οποίο μετρά την επέκταση των ταραχών από την άποψη αφενός της διάδοσης στο φυσικό χώρο και αφετέρου δια μέσου των κοινωνικών κατηγοριών. Κατά την εκτίμηση του Badiou, ενώ οι άμεσες ταραχές εκτείνονται από τα προάστια του Παρισιού ως αυτά της Marseille, ή από τα council houses3 του Λονδίνου ως αυτά του Manchester, αυτό το κάνουν διαμέσου μιας μοναδικής κοινωνικής κατηγορίας: νέοι προλετάριοι άνδρες. Οι ιστορικές ταραχές, όμως παρουσιάζουν μια επέκταση σε διάφορες κατηγορίες, εξαπλωνόμενες σε άνδρες και γυναίκες, νέους και γέρους.

Ο Badiou κάνει λάθος όταν υποστηρίζει ότι οι «άμεσες» ταραχές απαρτίζονται αποκλειστικά από νέους άνδρες – άλλο δείχνουν τα αρχεία των συλλήψεων από τις ταραχές στη Βρετανία, και ακόμα, σε πολυάριθμες ταραχές της τελευταίας δεκαετίας που ορίζονται ως τέτοιες εμπλέκονταν γυναίκες, ηλικιωμένοι και παιδιά, αν και μάλλον όχι αναλογικά όσον αφορά τον αριθμό τους. Παρόλα αυτά, είναι απολύτως απαραίτητο να κατανοήσουμε το πώς οι ταραχές και οι εξεγέρσεις φτάνουν στο να περιλαμβάνουν (ή να παραμένουν περιορισμένες σε) διαφορετικές κοινωνικές ομάδες. Ένα πράγμα που διαχωρίζει σαφώς την Αιγυπτιακή εξέγερση από τις ταραχές του Ηνωμένου Βασιλείου ας πούμε, είναι ότι ως αποτέλεσμα κατά μεγάλο βαθμό της εδαφικοποίησης – στρατοπέδευσης στην πλατεία Tahrir, υπήρχαν πολυάριθμοι τρόποι να συμμετέχεις στον ξεσηκωμό που δεν εμπεριείχαν την άμεση μάχη με την αστυνομία και τα τσιράκια της. Αυτό δε συνεισέφερε μόνο στην επέκταση της εξέγερσης αλλά και στηn ανθεκτικότητα & διάρκεια της. Παρόλα αυτά, δε φτάνει μια εξέγερση να συντίθεται κι από άλλο κόσμο πέρα από νεαρούς προλετάριους άνδρες αν οι σχέσεις μεταξύ των κοινωνικών ομάδων εξακολουθούν να ακολουθούν τον καθιερωμένο καταμερισμό της εργασίας στην καπιταλιστική κοινωνία – με τους άνδρες να συγκρούονται με την αστυνομία και τις γυναίκες να αναλαμβάνουν τις δουλειές φροντίδας, για παράδειγμα, ή τους προλετάριους να συγκρούονται και τη μεσαία τάξη να παρακολουθεί τις συνελεύσεις και να παίρνει τις σημαντικές αποφάσεις. Πρέπει να εξετάζουμε όχι μόνο το πώς μια εξέγερση εξαπλώνεται ανάμεσα σε διαφορετικές κοινωνικές ομάδες αλλά και το πώς καταργεί (ή διαιωνίζει) τη βία τέτοιων κατηγοριών.

Επιπλέον, ο ίδιος ο διαχωρισμός που κάνει ο Badiou – ανάμεσα σε άμεσες ταραχές που δυναμώνουν και πεθαίνουν σα μια κραυγή, και ιστορικές ταραχές που ριζώνουν στο έδαφος του χρόνου – δεν περιλαμβάνει συνταρακτικά γεγονότα που κάθε σοβαρή μελέτη των ταραχών θα έπρεπε να λογαριάζει. Έτσι, για παράδειγμα, η διακεκομμένη σειρά ταραχών που συγκλόνισαν τη Θεσσαλονίκη και την Αθήνα δεν αναφέρεται καν. Είναι μια σκανδαλώδης παράλειψη. Αυτές οι ταραχές είναι ομολογουμένως δύσκολο να σχηματοποιηθούν. Είναι, σύμφωνα με την ταξινόμηση του Badiou, απλά μια ασύνδετη ακολουθία άμεσων ταραχών; Ίσως κάθε περιστατικό είναι στην κατηγορία του «άμεσου»: τα επεισόδια σπάνια διαρκούν τόσο όσο, για παράδειγμα, οι ταραχές στο Los Angeles που ακολούθησαν την ετυμηγορία της υπόθεσης του Rodney King το 1992 (οι οποίες επίσης δεν αναφέρονται). Βέβαια, στην ελληνική περίπτωση, το γενεσιουργό γεγονός ήταν, όπως είναι χαρακτηριστικό γνώρισμα των άμεσων ταραχών του Badiou, η δολοφονία ενός νεαρού άνδρα από την αστυνομία. Αλλά είναι αδύνατο να μιλήσουμε για «τις ταραχές των Εξαρχείων του 2008» με άλλον τρόπο πέρα από αυτόν με τον οποίο κάποιος μιλά για το πρώτο βιβλίο της ιστορίας του πελοποννησιακού πολέμου του Θουκυδίδη: ήταν αναμφισβήτητα μια αρχή, και ως εκ τούτου κομμάτι μιας ευρύτερης ενότητας. Η ελληνική εξέγερση συνεχίζει να εκτυλίσσεται, ανομοιόμορφα αλλά διαρκώς ενώ οι μήνες γίνονται χρόνια, πότε στρεφόμενη ενάντια στους μπάτσους, πότε ενάντια στις τράπεζες, τα σούπερ μαρκετ, τη βουλή. Οι πρωταγωνιστές της, είτε μας αρέσει είτε όχι, είναι συχνά νέοι άνδρες αναρχικοί και/ ή φοιτητές. Την ίδια στιγμή, ξεπέρασε αυτήν ακριβώς τη δημογραφική σύνθεση, γεμίζοντας την πλατεία Συντάγματος με μεγάλα κομμάτια του σώματος των πολιτών, που συχνά γεύονταν για πρώτη φορά δακρυγόνο.

Αυτή δεν είναι η μοναδική παράλειψη του Badiou, αλλά λέει πολλά. Όπως ακριβώς το θέμα της διάρκειάς της διαφεύγει από την ταξινόμηση του Badiou, έτσι και η ελληνική εξέγερση δε φαίνεται να αποκαλύπτει αν κατέχει ή όχι την Ιδέα. Τι είναι αυτό που έχει τροφοδοτήσει την οδοντωτή επιμονή της, τη μισο-εκφρασμένη ικανότητά της για γενίκευση η οποία, παρ’ όλες τις παλιρροιακές της μεταβολές της και την ελλιπή της φύση, δεν είναι ένα ασήμαντο γεγονός; Αν η κατάσταση έχει μια σταθερά, αυτή δε βρίσκεται στο βασίλειο του αφηρημένου: σίγουρα είναι η βία των πολιτικών λιτότητας, που διαπερνά τις κοινωνικές κατηγορίες. Ή για να στραφούμε πίσω στα θεωρητικά μας μητρώα, φαίνεται ότι όλες οι ταραχές που συμβαίνουν στην ιστορία, υπόκεινται σε υλικές δυνάμεις. Αντί να επιμένουμε να ρωτάμε σαν τη μάγισσα Γκλίντα4 «είσαι καλή εξέγερση ή κακή εξέγερση;» θα μπορούσαμε να εκμεταλλευτούμε την ευκαιρία για να κατανοήσουμε τους τρόπους με τους οποίους η ελληνική περίπτωση είναι καταφανώς διαφορετική από αυτή της Αιγύπτου ή του Ηνωμένου Βασιλείου – και συγκεκριμένα το πώς βρίσκουν τους εαυτούς τους μέσα στη διάρθρωση της παγκόσμιας κρίσης, αναμιγμένη η κάθε μία με τις αποκλίνουσες πορείες της τοπικής πολιτικής διαχείρισης.

3.

Τούτου λεχθέντος, οφείλουμε να καταπιαστούμε με αυτά που ο Badiou έχει γράψει, όχι με ό,τι δεν έχει. Σωτήρια στην αφήγησή του είναι η ευθεία αποκήρυξη του πολιτικού κόμματος και της σύνδεσής του με το κράτος, που είναι πλέον οριστικά παρωχημένο ως μηχανισμός για ένα επαναστατικό πρόγραμμα: «Η μορφή-κόμμα είχε τη μέρα της, που εξαντλήθηκε σε ένα σύντομο αιώνα από τα κρατικά της είδωλα». Αυτή ήταν η (μη-)κομματική γραμμή του φιλοσόφου για κάποιο διάστημα, και ασφαλώς σκοπεύει να αφήνει ένα παράθυρο για να αρπαχτεί από οτιδήποτε θα μπορούσε να είναι προσωρινά καινούριο όσον αφορά την πολιτική αστάθεια του παρόντος. Αλλά είναι ακριβώς σε αυτό το σημείο που ο Badiou και το βιβλίο αποτυγχάνουν. Γιατί, όντας ακόμα σκλάβος της Ιδέας που δείχνει το δρόμο, συνεχίζει να θεωρεί δεδομένη και να απαιτεί από εμάς την ίδια τη δραστηριότητα που είναι πιο στενά ταυτισμένη με τη μορφή – κόμμα: την οργάνωση. «Εν πάση περιπτώσει, εξακολουθεί να ισχύει,» γράφει, «ότι συγκεκριμενοποιώντας & μορφοποιώντας τα στοιχεία που συνθέτουν το γεγονός, η οργάνωση καταφέρνει να διατηρηθεί η εξουσία της… Η οργάνωση μετατρέπεται στον πολιτικό νόμο της δικτατορίας του αληθινού από τον οποίο η πραγματικότητα της ιστορικής εξέγερσης άντλησε το καθολικό της κύρος.

Έτσι: για τον Badiou, η Ιδέα έχει υπό μία έννοια αντικαταστήσει το κόμμα. Ή υπάρχει ένα τρίγωνο ταραχών/ κόμματος/ Ιδέας, και τώρα θα πρέπει η Ιδέα αντί για το κόμμα να καθοδηγεί τις ταραχές από άμεσες σε ιστορικές, στον κομμουνισμό. Ωστόσο, όντας η ίδια μη υλική, η Ιδέα θα απαιτεί κάποιου είδους πρακτική για να πραγματοποιηθεί στο εδώ και στο τώρα – και αυτή η πρακτική δράση μοιάζει πολύ με αυτό που έκανε κάποτε το κόμμα. «Υποστηρίζω ότι ο χρόνος της οργάνωσης,» γράφει σε μια ανακεφαλαίωση, «το χρονικό διάστημα της κατασκευής μιας εμπειρικής διάρκειας της Ιδέας στη μετά τις ταραχές περίοδο, είναι κρίσιμο.» Ιδού η Δικτατορία της Ιδέας.

Αυτή η προτροπή για οργάνωση ακούστηκε πολλές φορές κατά τη διάλυση των διαφόρων Occupy εδώ στις ΗΠΑ, από μια τόσο ευρεία γκάμα αριστερών στοχαστών που περιλαμβάνει από τον Noam Chomsky, τον Doug Henwood, ως και τη Jodi Dean. Και το «να οργανωθούμε», από μια άποψη, είναι αυτό που πρέπει να κάνουμε, στο μέτρο που ως έκφραση απηχεί την κοινή λογική και χωράει άπειρες ερμηνείες μέσα στην ασάφειά της. Κινδυνεύει να γίνει αυτό που ο Fredric Jameson αποκαλεί «ψευδής έννοια»: η αναγκαιότητα «να οργανωθούμε» καταλήγει στο να κάνεις αυτό που σε κάνει περισσότερο αντί για λιγότερο αποτελεσματικό. Αλλά ελλείψει οποιασδήποτε περαιτέρω στρατηγικής διαύγειας, καταλήγει να επιστρέφει σε αυτό που σήμαινε την τελευταία φορά που ήταν εδώ γύρω ως έννοια, με μια μυρωδιά θλιβερών ακτιβιστών που προσπαθούν να σου πουλήσουν Ριζοσπάστη5. Ενώπιον αυτής της τεράστιας και ασταθούς έκρηξης που το βιβλίο του Badiou επιθυμεί να καταγράψει, το κάλεσμα για «οργάνωση» λειτουργεί προς το παρόν όπως το ρεφραίν σε ένα παράδοξο τραγούδι: αυτή η νέα πολιτική είναι φανταστική, αλλά μοιάζει να έχει αγγίξει τα όριά της, χρειαζόμαστε… την παλιά πολιτική!

Τοιουτοτρόπως ο κομμουνισμός του Badiou οδηγεί τον εαυτό του αυτοστιγμεί στο χαντάκι που χωρίζει το νέο από το παλιό: «σε μια απόσταση από το κράτος», αλλά ακόμα ουσιαστικά προσανατολισμένος προς απαρχαιωμένες ιδέες σχετικά με το μαρασμό του κράτους. Αν και πλέον οργάνωση δε σημαίνει ένα κόμμα ικανό να καταλάβει την κρατική εξουσία και να στρέψει τη στρατιωτική και γραφειοκρατική του δύναμη προς συγκεκριμένους προγραμματικούς σκοπούς, σημαίνει όμως ότι «αποφασίζεις τι πρέπει να κάνει το κράτος και βρίσκεις τα μέσα να το εξαναγκάσεις να το κάνει, κρατώντας πάντα την απόστασή σου από το κράτος…» Παρά ταύτα, αυτός ο προσανατολισμός προς το κράτος – άσχετα από το ότι στηρίζεται στην τηλεκίνηση αντί στην άμεση επαφή – αναπαράγει τη βασική αδυναμία των ταραχών και των εξεγέρσεων του παρόντος, ακριβώς αυτό που προσπαθεί να ξεπεράσει. Είτε διαθέτουν είτε όχι συγκεκριμένες απαιτήσεις, αυτές οι ταραχές ακούγονται πάντα από το κράτος και τις υπάρχουσες εξουσίες ως πρακτικές εκκλήσεις για μεταρρυθμίσεις: «Να φύγει ο Mubarak!» και «Όχι άλλα μέτρα λιτότητας!». Κάπως έτσι ακούγονται παραφρασμένες οι εξεγέρσεις στην Αίγυπτο και την Ελλάδα. Αυτό δεν έχει να κάνει τόσο με τις πραγματικές ιδέες των συμμετεχόντων, που μπορεί να έχουν αντικαπιταλιστικές και αντικρατικές φιλοδοξίες, όσο έχει να κάνει με τις συγκεκριμένες τους επιλογές στρατηγικής και τακτικής: για παράδειγμα το ότι συγκεντρώνονταν αμυντικά στην πλατεία, ή το ότι επιτίθονταν στο κτίριο της βουλής τη βραδιά της ψήφισης νέων μέτρων λιτότητας. Ακόμα και η δήθεν «άνευ νοήματος» βία των ταραχών του Λονδίνου ακούγεται ως έκκληση για μεταρρυθμίσεις, για τη βελτίωση της φτώχειας, του κοινωνικού αποκλεισμού, και των ρατσιστικών οχλήσεων της αστυνομίας.

Είναι ασαφές λοιπόν, ποια είναι η λύση που μπορεί να παρέχει το κάλεσμα του Badiou για «οργάνωση» στα όρια των ιστορικών ταραχών, που ο ίδιος πολύ σωστά επισημαίνει «δεν παρέχουν από μόνες τους καμία εναλλακτική στην εξουσία που αποσκοπούν να ανατρέψουν». Με την παρέκκλιση της αμφίβολης γενικά περίπτωσης του «σοσιαλισμού της Λατινικής Αμερικής» και της συνθηματοποίησης του κινήματος κατά της παγκοσμιοποίησης, καμία τέτοια εναλλακτική δεν έχει αναδυθεί στον 21ο αιώνα. Μπορούμε να αναρωτηθούμε, αντ’ αυτού αν η ίδια η έννοια της εναλλακτικής ανήκει στις πλέον ξεπερασμένες πολιτικές του κόμματος, του κράτους και του προγράμματος.

4.

Ίσως, τότε η ίδια η αμεσότητα των άμεσων ταραχών να έχει να μας διδάξει πιο πολλά από ό,τι φαίνεται. Ο Badiou προσεγγίζει για μια στιγμή την αλήθεια της αμεσότητας όταν αναφέρεται στη «συναρπαστική αίσθηση μιας απότομης μεταβολής στη σχέση μεταξύ του πιθανού και του απίθανου», η οποία θα μοιάζει οικεία σε κάθε θιασώτη της εξέγερσης. Αλλά, όπως θα μπορούσε κανείς πλέον να περιμένει, υποχωρεί άμεσα πίσω στην πολιτική αφαίρεση ρεμβάζοντας σχετικά με την «από-κρατικοποίηση του θέματος του τι είναι δυνατόν». Εδώ υπερπηδά την πραγματική εμπειρία των ταραχών, και κάνοντάς το, χάνει κι αυτό που θα μπορούσε να μάθει από αυτές: Το πρώτο είναι η συνειδητοποίηση ότι υπάρχουν πολλοί σαν κι εσένα και η αστυνομία δεν αρκεί για να σας ελέγξει, και στη συνέχεια το άμεσο άλμα να υποψιαστείς ότι επίσης μπορεί και να είσαι ελεύθερος από την πειθαρχία της αγοράς, του μισθού και του εμπορεύματος, και του κόσμου που οργανώνεται από αυτές τις αλλότριες δυνάμεις. Αντί για μια μορφή ακραίου καταναλωτισμού υψηλού κινδύνου, η λεηλασία των καταστημάτων κατά τη διάρκεια των ταραχών είναι ίσως ένα από τα καθαρότερα παραδείγματα κομμουνιστικής πρακτικής που έχουμε την παρούσα στιγμή. Και χωρίς την πρακτική η κομμουνιστική Ιδέα δε μπορεί να σημαίνει τίποτα. Πράγματι, θα μπορούσαμε να ισχυριστούμε ότι σε αυτό το σημείο που βρισκόμαστε, ο κομμουνισμός μπορεί να σημαίνει μόνο την ανάπτυξη πρακτικών που αφαιρούν τα πράγματα που χρειαζόμαστε και θέλουμε, τα πράγματα που φτιάχνουμε, από τον κλοιό της ιδιοκτησίας – ένας κλοιός για την υπεράσπιση του οποίου εκατομμύρια άνθρωποι καθημερινά καταδικάζονται σε λιμοκτονία, ασθένειες, φυλάκιση και χιλιάδες ακόμα μορφές βασάνων επιπλέον.

Αν και θα έπρεπε να είναι αυτονόητο, ας θυμηθούμε ότι o καταναλωτισμός εξαρτάται από το να πληρώνεις για πράγματα, με χρήματα που κερδήθηκαν με την εργασία. Το να κάνεις πλιάτσικο ένα ζευγάρι παπούτσια βασίζεται στο μίσος για τη μορφή-εμπόρευμα και τη σχέση της με την κοινωνική τάξη, κι όχι από μια σαγήνευση από το εμπόρευμα. Αυτός είναι ο λόγος που κατά τη διάρκεια των ταραχών, τα εμπορεύματα καταστρέφονται αναίτια και παιγνιδιάρικα τόσο συχνά όσο τα βουτάνε για κατανάλωση. Όπως έγραψε ο Guy Debord για την άμεση εξέγερση του Watts το 1965:

τη στιγμή που η περιβόητη αφθονία λαμβάνεται στην ονομαστική της αξία και άμεσα καταλαμβάνεται… αληθινές επιθυμίες αρχίζουν να εκφράζονται μέσα στη γιορτή, στην παιχνιδιάρικη αυτοεπιβεβαίωση, στο potlatch6 της καταστροφής. Ο άνθρωπος, που καταστρέφει εμπορεύματα, φανερώνει την ανωτερότητα του ανθρώπου πάνω στα εμπορεύματα…Από τη στιγμή που δεν αγοράζεται πλέον, το εμπόρευμα είναι ανοιχτό στην κριτική και τη μετατροπή.7

Αυτή είναι η «ανθεκτική αλήθεια» που επιβιώνει και πέρα από τις άμεσες ταραχές.

Αντί να ηθικολογούμε αντικρίζοντας περιστατικά αντικοινωνικής βίας που, αν και θλιβερά, προκύπτουν εξίσου σε καιρούς ταραχών όσο και σε καιρούς κοινωνικής ειρήνης, θα μπορούσαμε να εξετάσουμε τις άμεσες ταραχές από μια στρατηγική σκοπιά: Πώς θα μπορούσαν τέτοιες πράξεις απαλλοτριώσεων και το να παίρνεις πράγματα χωρίς αντίτιμο να αναπτυχθούν και να ενταθούν, και ποιες άλλες πρακτικές θα μπορούσαν να τις συνοδεύσουν και να βοηθήσουν στην επέκτασή των απαλλοτριώσεων; Πώς γίνεται όλο και περισσότερα άτομα να αναμιγνύονται στο ξεδίπλωμα της εξέγερσης, και τι μέτρα θα ήταν απαραίτητα για να την υπερασπιστούμε απέναντι στην επακόλουθη βία του κράτους; Η οργάνωση, υπό αυτήν την έννοια, σημαίνει κάτι πολύ διαφορετικό από αυτό που έχει στο νου του ο Badiou. Αντί για ένας μηχανισμός αναπαραγωγής της Ιδέας, γίνεται ένα μέσο για την ανάπτυξη, τη διάχυση και το συντονισμό των πρακτικών που περιέχουν μέσα τους τις ιδέες, και από τις οποίες θα ανθίσουν άλλες, άγνωστες ως σήμερα ιδέες. Είναι αξιοσημείωτο ότι ο Badiou δεν έχει τίποτα να πει για τη δημιουργία κουζινών και ιατρείων, αυτοσχέδιων σταθμών φόρτισης κινητών τηλεφώνων και εκθέσεων τέχνης σε μέρη όπως η πλατεία Tahrir. Αυτά είναι όντως τα είδη της οργάνωσης – μορφές αλληλοβοήθειας και προσφοράς χωρίς αντίτιμο – που μπορεί να βοηθήσουν να επεκταθεί το «να παίρνεις πράγματα χωρίς αντίτιμο» στις ταραχές, και να διευκολύνει το πέρασμα από τις ταραχές στην ανοιχτή εξέγερση, στην επανάσταση. Αυτό με τη σειρά του θα μπορούσε να μας κάνει να ξανασκεφτούμε την ουσία του κινήματος Occupy τώρα που έχει φτάσει στην πρώτη του επέτειο: δεν είναι η εισαγωγή νέων όρων στον εθνικό διάλογο, ούτε το κάλεσμα για έναν λιγότερο δηλητηριασμένο πολιτικό μηχανισμό, ούτε καν η καταγραφή των διαστάσεων της τρέχουσας καταστροφής, αλλά τα ανιχνευτικά και μερικά και παρόλα αυτά ισχυρά πειράματα αυτοοργανωμένης μέριμνας, άμυνας και πρόνοιας.

Αυτό που διαπραγματεύεται η προηγούμενη κριτική δεν είναι μόνο οι ιδέες πάνω στο πώς προκύπτει η κοινωνική αλλαγή, αλλά και οι ιδέες σχετικά με τον ρόλο των ιδεών, καθώς και οι διάφοροι διανοούμενοι που θα μπορούσαν να τις ποιμάνουν μέσα στους αγώνες που αναδύονται. Αναποδογυρίζοντας τη δήλωση του Μαρξ ότι «η ανθρωπότητα δεν θέτει στον εαυτό της παρά μόνο προβλήματα που είναι ικανή να επιλύσει», ο Badiou γράφει ότι «η Ιστορία δεν περιέχει μέσα της λύση στα προβλήματα που θέτει στην ημερήσια διάταξη». Η λύση που φαντάζεται αναδύεται πέρα από την ιστορία, από τη λογική επεξεργασία της Ιδέας και τους πιστούς υποστηρικτές της, που μεταφράζουν την αλήθεια των αγώνων του σήμερα σε οργανωτικές δομές και αρχές που νικούν. Αν και βρίσκουμε καλούς λόγους να αποφεύγουμε την αισιοδοξία του Μαρξ, ωστόσο, δεν μπορούμε να δούμε κανένα άλλο μέρος από το οποίο μπορεί να προκύψουν λύσεις αν όχι από τις πρακτικές των ταραχών, των εξεγέρσεων και των αγώνων του σήμερα. Αντί να βλέπουμε τη θεωρία ως ένα μάθημα το οποίο πρέπει να διδαχθεί στους συμμετέχοντες των εξεγέρσεων του σήμερα, μπορούμε να τη δούμε ως κάτι που ενυπάρχει μέσα σε αυτά που κάνουν. Θα μπορούσαμε να αφουγκραστούμε τον κόσμο στον οποίο ζούμε. Η απάντηση στο γρίφο της Σφίγγας είναι πάντα μια άλλη ερώτηση.

Σημειώσεις/ σχόλια της μετάφρασης:

  1. Aντιγράφοντας από το οπισθόφυλλο της ελληνικής έκδοσης του βιβλίου του: ο Αλαίν Μπαντιού πρότεινε να ονομάσουμε «κομμουνιστική υπόθεση» αυτό που εμψύχωνε -από τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση και μετά- τις επαναστατικές πολιτικές ή πολιτικές χειραφέτησης. Η ετυμηγορία που επιχειρεί να επιβάλει η επίσημη ιστορία είναι ότι όλες οι προσπάθειες για την πραγμάτωση αυτής της υπόθεσης κατέληξαν σε τραγικές αποτυχίες, ενώ η ίδια η υπόθεση ακυρώθηκε από την Ιστορία. Το ανά χείρας βιβλίο θέλει να εξετάσει άμεσα την περίφημη ιστορική απόδειξη αυτής της «αποτυχίας» διαμέσου τριών θεμελιακών παραδειγμάτων: της Παρισινής Κομμούνας, της Πολιτιστικής Επανάστασης και του Μάη του ’68. Διατυπώνει τη θέση ότι, όπως συμβαίνει εξίσου σε θέματα πολιτικής και επιστήμης, η τοπική αποτυχία μιας προσπάθειας δεν μας δίνει το δικαίωμα να αποφύγουμε το πρόβλημα του οποίου αυτή η αποτυχία πρότεινε μια λύση· ότι σήμερα πρέπει να φανταστούμε νέες λύσεις για τα προβλήματα στα οποία προσέκρουσε αυτός ο πειραματισμός. Αυτό ακριβώς κάνει το τελευταίο κείμενο του ανά χείρας τόμου, το οποίο εκφωνήθηκε στο Λονδίνο, τον Μάρτιο του 2009, σε ένα σημαντικό συνέδριο που είχε ακριβώς τον τίτλο «Η ιδέα του κομμουνισμού». Και μεταφράζοντας από το αγγλικό αντίστοιχο: Ξέρουμε ότι ο κομμουνισμός είναι η σωστή υπόθεση. Όσοι εγκαταλείπουν αυτήν την υπόθεση αυτομάτως εγγράφουν εαυτούς στην οικονομία της αγοράς, την κοινοβουλευτική δημοκρατία – τη μορφή του κράτους που ταιριάζει στον καπιταλισμό – και τον αναπόφευκτο και «φυσικό» χαρακτήρα των πιο τερατωδών ανισοτήτων.
  2. Kατά πάσα πιθανότητα πρόκειται για μια αναφορά στον ουροβόρο όφη: αρχαίο σύμβολο της αιωνιότητας και της συνέχειας του κυκλικού χρόνου.
  1. Tα councilhouses είναι σύστημα ενοικίασης (φτηνής) οικίας στην Αγγλία. Για μια γενική εικόνα του πώς λειτουργεί το σύστημα (λίστα αναμονής – πλειοδοσία κτλ) αξίζει να επισκεφτείτε το https://www.gov.uk/council-housing
  1. Glinda: Η κατά την επίσημη ανάγνωση του «Μάγου του Οζ» καλή μάγισσα του Νότου. Για όσους δεν αρέσκονται σε επίσημες αναγνώσεις και απεχθάνονται την εξίσωση όμορφος = καλός & άσχημος = κακός, για όσους φαίνεται περίεργο να κλέβεις – τηλεμεταφέρεις τα παπούτσια μιας νεκρής στα πόδια μιας άσχετης χωρίς καν την άδεια της δεύτερης, πράγμα που οδηγεί σε ένα κυνηγητό από την αδερφή της νεκρής, και τέλος πάντων θέλουν να δουν όλους τους λόγους για του οποίους η Glindaείναι ο πιο αχρείος, φαύλος και κακοήθης χαρακτήρας που έχει γραφτεί ποτέ, μπορεί να ανατρέξει στο http://www.cracked.com/article_18881_5-reasons-greatest-movie-villain-ever-good-witch_p2.html
  1. socialistworker στο πρωτότυπο
  2. potlatch: Το πότλατς –ή όπως το ονομάζει ο Μαρσέλ Μώς «ολική παροχή αγωνιστικού τύπου»-είναι ένα έθιμο ανταγωνιστικών πλουσιοπάροχων προσφορών και σπατάλης, ομαδικής κατανάλωσης ή και καταστροφής αγαθών που προασπίζει γόητρο και δύναμη στους δωρητές. Στο πότλατς ο ανταγωνισμός φτάνει μέχρι την επιδεικτική καταστροφή του συσσωρευμένου πλούτου για να επισκιαστεί ο αντίπαλος αρχηγός και εντέλει δε πρόκειται για μια απλή τελετουργία προσφορών και δωρεών από ένα κλάν ή μια φυλή αλλά από υπερβολικές, επιδεικτικές και ανταγωνιστικές παροχές προς τα μέλη των παραληπτών. πηγή: Κατερίνα Βαλασίδη anthropologia.gr

Στις κοινωνίες του δώρου, οι έννοιες της υποχρέωσης και της ευγνωμοσύνης είναι αδιαχώριστες. Στα πότλατς της Μελανησίας και του Βορειοδυτικού Ειρηνικού, η προσφορά δώρων μπορεί να αποτελεί πράξη επίδειξης κοινωνικής δύναμης, ίσως και εχθρικότητας. Αλλά ακόμα και πέρα από αυτή την ακραία περίπτωση, σε γενικές γραμμές είναι γεγονός ότι, όπως λέει και η ανθρωπολόγος Mary Douglas, “σε ολόκληρη τη γη από την απαρχή της ιστορίας του ανθρώπινου πολιτισμού, η μεγαλύτερη διακίνηση προϊόντων γινόταν στα πλαίσια της υποχρεωτικής ανταπόδοσης των δώρων”  πηγή http://sacred-economics.com

Το δώρο σε τελική ανάλυση δεν είναι τίποτα άλλο παρά η παύση της λειτουργίας της αξίας και η κατάργηση της τιμής για κάποιο χρονικό διάστημα ή σε κάποιο συγκεκριμένο χώρο/τόπο. Ο κομμουνισμός ικανοποιεί ανάγκες, οποιουδήποτε είδους με έναν τρόπο που δεν είναι ούτε δωρεάν ούτε επί πληρωμή. […]το   πρόβλημα με την έννοια του δώρου είναι ότι μας οδηγεί στη σφαίρα της διανομής. Ότι διατηρεί το διαχωρισμό ανάμεσα στην ανάγκη και τα μέσα ικανοποίησης της. Εκτός από το ότι δε χρειάζεται πληρωμή. Bruno Astarian, (2011) Δραστηριότητα Κρίσης και Κομμουνιστικοποίηση μετάφραση πρακτορείο Rioters & Blaumachen

  1. Και για να συνεχίσουμε το απόσπασμα: Η κοινωνία της αφθονίας βρίσκει τη φυσική απάντηση της στη λεηλασία. Η αφθονία της δεν είναι με κανένα τρόπο φυσική κι ανθρώπινη αφθονία, είναι αφθονία εμπορευμάτων. Και η λεηλασία, γκρεμίζοντας προς στιγμήν το εμπόρευμα ως εμπόρευμα, φανερώνει το ultima ratio (ύστατο επιχείρημα) του εμπορεύματος: τη δύναμη, την αστυνομία και τα’ άλλα ειδικευμένα αποσπάσματα που μέσα στο Κράτος κατέχουν το μονοπώλιο της ένοπλης βίας. Τι είναι ο αστυνομικός; Είναι ο ενεργός υπηρέτης του εμπορεύματος, ο άνθρωπος που έχει ολοκληρωτικά υποταχθεί στο εμπόρευμα και χάρη στη δράση του το τάδε προϊόν της ανθρώπινης εργασίας παραμένει εμπόρευμα. Η μαγική θέληση του εμπορεύματος είναι να πληρώνεται και όχι απλοϊκά ένα ψυγείο ή ένα τουφέκι, δηλαδή ένα τυφλό, παθητικό κι αναίσθητο πράγμα που υποτάσσεται σ’ οποιονδήποτε το χρησιμοποιεί. Απορρίπτοντας την ταπείνωση της εξάρτησης του ανθρώπου από τον αστυνομικό, οι Μαύροι απορρίπτουν την ταπείνωση της εξάρτησης του ανθρώπου από τα εμπορεύματα. πηγή: internationale situationniste (1999) Το ξεπέρασμα της τέχνης – ανθολογία κειμένων της καταστασιακής διεθνούς, Αθήνα: ύψιλον/βιβλία

Η ΚΡΙΣΗ ΤΟΥ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ

Σε σχέση με προηγούμενο ποστ σχετικά με το νέο βιβλίο του Ζυλ Ντωβέ, επισυνάπτουμε παρακάτω μεταφρασμένο το εν λόγω κεφάλαιο από το αναμενόμενο καινούργιο του βιβλίο. Με την ευκαιρία αυτή να εκφράσουμε τις special ευχαριστίες μας στον σύντροφο Χαχ για την αφανή και αντιηρωϊκή μεταφραστική δουλειά του, την οποία μας παραχώρησε προς δημοσίευση (και δεν είναι η πρώτη φορά). Καλή ανάγνωση!

 

Circolo di ConversazioneΗ ΜΕΤΑΦΡΑΣΗ ΣΕ PDF

ΑΚΤΙΒΙΣΜΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΥΓΧΡΟΝΟΙ (ΑΤΟΜΙΚΟΙ) ΕΡΓΑΤΙΚΟΙ ΑΓΩΝΕΣ

Αναδημοσιεύεται (με δικό μας υπέρτιτλο) η τοποθέτηση της συλλογικότητας …σε τροχιά σύγκρουσης, η οποία κατατέθηκε σε πρωθύστερο χρόνο κατά τη διάρκεια δημόσιας εκδήλωσης σε κεντρική πλατεία του Αμαρουσίου το περασμένο φθινόπωρο και αφορά τη γνωστή υπόθεση του καφέ Scherzo στο Μαρούσι.

cropped-cafe4


 

Τοποθέτηση συλλογικότητας σε τροχιά σύγκρουσης για την εκδήλωση:

«νέες συνθήκες εκμετάλλευσης και εργοδοτική τρομοκρατία στους χώρους εργασίας, η περίπτωση των μεταναστ(ρι)ών εργατ(ρι)ών και σύγχρονοι εργατικοί αγώνες: Με αφορμή την υπόθεση του Scherzo καφέ στο Μαρούσι»

Το παρόν κείμενο αποτελεί τη βιωμένη εμπειρία μας από τον αγώνα που ξεκίνησε ο Γιασίρ τον περασμένο χειμώνα (2014) μετά τον ξυλοδαρμό του, την κλοπή μέρους των δεδουλευμένων του και την άρνηση καταβολής των χρωστούμενων από το αφεντικό της καφετέριας Scherzo στο Μαρούσι, Δ. Τυρολόγο. Η απόφασή μας να ασχοληθούμε με την υπόθεση της καφετέριας Scherzo δεν εξαντλείται σε συγκινησιακούς λόγους (ο ξυλοδαρμός του Γ.), αν και έπαιξαν το ρόλο τους, ούτε επειδή μας το επέβαλε αποκλειστικά η πολιτική μας ταυτότητα. Απορρέει και από το γεγονός ότι το ίδιο το υποκείμενο Γ. – όντας μέρος του πιο υποτιμημένου κομματιού του προλεταριάτου και της κοινωνικής ομάδας με τις λιγότερο σημαντικές να βιωθούν ζωές – επέλεξε να συγκρουστεί με το σύγχρονο καθεστώς παρανομοποίησης των μεταναστ(ρι)ών, διεκδικώντας με πολύ υλικούς όρους (ένσημα, μισθοί, αποζημίωση) την ορατότητά του στο δημόσιο πεδίο. Αφενός, δηλαδή, μέσω του αγώνα του Γ. έγιναν ορατές οι πτυχές της καταπίεσής του οι οποίες μέχρι τότε δεν εμφανίζονταν ως τέτοιες αφετέρου η ορατότητά του επιβεβαιώθηκε όταν έγινε μέλος του σωματείου του. [1]

Η οργανωτική μορφή του αγώνα αποτέλεσε ένα επιπλέον έναυσμα για τη στήριξη και συμμετοχή μας σε αυτόν. Συστάθηκε μια ανοιχτή συνέλευση αλληλεγγύης που έτρεξε και οργάνωσε τον αγώνα (με εβδομαδιαίο ραντεβού)· μια ανοιχτή συνέλευση που λάμβανε χώρα εντός μιας κατάληψης (και όχι σε μία κλειστή αίθουσα της ΓΣΕΕ!) και, αρχικά, απαρτιζόταν από πολιτικές συλλογικότητες, από καταλήψεις και στέκια, από μία λαϊκή συνέλευση και από μεμονωμένα άτομα, από το σωματείο βάσης στον κλάδο του επισιτισμού και από τον Γ. Η παντελής, δε, απουσία της αριστεράς –τόσο ως διαμεσολαβητή μεταξύ αφεντικού και εργάτη όσο και ως επιδίωξη άντλησης πολιτικής υπεραξίας –άφησε το πεδίο ανοιχτό ώστε να τεθούν με κινηματικό τρόπο τα διακυβεύματα του αγώνα.

Ξεκινώντας από αυτές τις πρώτες παρατηρήσεις ή/και διαπιστώσεις, είναι σημαντικό να πούμε ότι ο δηλωμένος στόχος που ένωσε (και συσπείρωσε) όλα αυτά τα ετερόκλητα υποκείμενα στον αγώνα αυτόν ήταν να κερδηθεί ο αγώνας του Γ. (αρχικά) μέσω των παρεμβάσεων στην καφετέρια Scherzo και (στη συνέχεια μέσω) των δράσεων στο πεδίο του Αμαρουσίου. Αυτό που εννοούμε είναι πως δεν έγινε κάποια προσπάθεια να συγκλίνουν τα πολιτικά σκεπτικά των συλλογικοτήτων και να σχεδιαστεί μια κοινή στρατηγική σε βάθος χρόνου αλλά συν-λειτουργήσαμε στη βάση της δράσης. Η οπτική μας διερευνά τον αγώνα αυτόν σαν ένα κομμάτι, (ιστορικό) αποτέλεσμα των ακηδεμόνευτων και αιτηματικών αγώνων των μεταναστ(ρι)ών που διεξάγονται τα τελευταία χρόνια (300 μετανάστες απεργοί πείνας, εργατικός αγώνας μεταναστών αλιερ-γατών στη Ν. Μηχανιώνα, διεκδίκηση δεδουλευμένων στη Μανωλάδα, εξέγερση στο στρατόπεδο κράτησης της Αμυγδαλέζας, απεργία μεταναστών εργατών γης στη Σκάλα Λακωνίας, αγώνες μεταναστών μικροπωλητών πέριξ της Ασοεε) και διαπλέκονται με ή/και συναντούν τις πολιτικές μας διαδικασίες ως α/α/α χώρου. Μέσα στη σχέση αυτή μεταβάλλονται οι αντιλήψεις και οι πρακτικές μας γύρω από μια σειρά ζητημάτων.

Όταν μιλάμε για έναν αγώνα με συνέχεια (εβδομαδιαίες παρεμβάσεις/ αποκλεισμοί του μαγαζιού και συνελεύσεις) και αρκετούς μήνες διάρκεια είναι προφανές ότι θα υπάρξουν “λαμπρές” στιγμές από άποψη μαζικότητας, διαθεσιμότητας και όρεξης του κόσμου, και στιγμές ύφεσης. Στην περίπτωση του αγώνα στο Scherzo, οι καλές του στιγμές (πορεία, πρώτοι αποκλεισμοί, παρέμβαση αντιπληροφόρησης στη γειτονιά που μένει ο Τ.) ήταν κυρίως στην αρχή του, αν εξαιρέσουμε την μοτοπορεία της Πρωτομαγιάς που μάζεψε πολύ κόσμο, μετά και το συμβάν με τους πυροβολισμούς του Τ. στην πίσω αυλή του μαγαζιού. Πολύ γρήγορα, η μαζικότητα υποχώρησε καταλήγοντας οι δράσεις να αφορούν στενά τον κόσμο γύρω από τη συνέλευση αλληλεγγύης. Παράλληλα και οι ίδιες οι δράσεις περιορίστηκαν στους αποκλεισμούς/ παρουσία κάποιων από εμάς, κάθε Σάββατο έξω από το μαγαζί για κάποιες ώρες.

Ψηλαφίζοντας τους λόγους που οδήγησαν τον περισσότερο αλληλέγγυο κόσμο να σταματήσει να έρχεται, καταλήγουμε στα εξής συμπεράσματα: πρώτον, η έλλειψη άμεσου διακυβεύματος για τους/τις αλληλέγγυους/αλληλέγγυες. Με άλλα λόγια, το ότι ούτε υπήρξε άμεση και σύντομη δικαίωση[2], κυρίως για την πράξη του ξυλοδαρμού, ούτε (υπήρξε) μία συγκρουσιακή απάντηση από εμάς (σαμποτάζ, φάπες στον Τυρολόγο[3]), θεωρούμε ότι έπαιξε έναν σημαντικό ρόλο. Δεύτερον, και σε συνάρτηση με το πρώτο, η αμφιθυμία απέναντι σε ό, τι έγινε αντιληπτό ως δίπολο «παρανομίας-νομιμότητας», όπου ως «νομιμότητα» κωδικοποιήθηκε η εργατική διεκδίκηση (και) μέσω της δικαστικής οδού, ενώ ως «παρανομία» παρουσιάστηκε η έκφραση άμεσης ταξικής οργής. Η φαινομενική[4]σύγκρουση «παρανομία-νομιμότητα» ήταν εξαιρετικά καθοριστική για τον αγώνα που διεξήχθη ακριβώς επειδή είναι σαφές ότι (εξακολουθεί να) συντηρεί την πολιτική αντίληψη ότι οι νόμοι έρχονται μόνο από τα πάνω. Σύμφωνα με την αντίληψη αυτή, το κράτος και η “κοινωνία” είναι δύο εντελώς ασύνδετοι πόλοι, όπου ό,τι κάνει ο καθένας δεν επηρεάζει τον άλλο –ή τον επηρεάζει με ένα μαγικό τρόπο.[5] Αντίθετα, βάσει της δικής μας οπτικής, οι νόμοι συνιστούν αποτυπώσεις των συσχετισμών των κοινωνικών ανταγωνισμών. Και από τη στιγμή που το κράτος διαμεσολαβεί όλες τις κοι-νωνικές σχέσεις, θεωρούμε ότι, δεν μπορούν οι όποιες εκφράσεις ταξικού ανταγωνι-σμού να αποφύγουν το «δικαστικό κομμάτι», δηλαδή την εμπλοκή του ελληνικού κρά-τους.[6] Για εμάς, δηλαδή, ενώ η σύγκρουση και η διεκδίκηση εμφανίζονται ως διαχωρισμένα το ένα από το άλλο, είναι/ ήταν ένα διακύβευμα το να προσπαθήσουμε να τα συνδέσουμε. Την ίδια στιγμή, κρίνουμε ότι αρκετός κόσμος περιχαρακώθηκε στον έναν από τους δύο πόλους, ενώ ούτε η ίδια η συνέλευση αλληλεγγύης μπόρεσε να ξεφύγει από αυτό το διπολισμό – παρότι έγιναν κάποιες προσπάθειες κυρίως μέσω συγκεκριμένων δράσεων. Τέλος – και σε σχέση με το ίδιο ζήτημα – αποφασίσαμε να παραμείνουμε ως συλλογικότητα στη συνέλευση και να στηρίζουμε τις παρεμβάσεις, παρότι είχαμε (και στο εσωτερικό μας) διαφορετικές αντιλήψεις σχετικά με το πώς θα έπρεπε να συμμετέχουμε στον αγώνα· βάρυναν ως πολύ σημαντικά και η σχέση που χτίσαμε με το Γ. και ο ίδιος ο αγώνας ως προοπτική.

Και στην περίπτωση του αγώνα στο Scherzo, η διεκδίκηση και με νομικά μέσα, αποτέλεσε ένα εργαλείο με άμεσα αποτελέσματα για το Γ., που δεν ήταν η νικηφόρα προοπτική του αγώνα με χρηματικούς ή/και ηθικούς όρους, αλλά η ορατότητα της εργασίας του (και της ύπαρξής του). Με άλλα λόγια, αποτελεί μία πράξη καταστροφής (μία ρήξη) της στρατηγικής που στήνουν οι από τα πάνω (κράτος, αφεντικά, μπάτσοι, δικαστές, κλπ) με τους από κάτω (ρατσιστές, αγανακτισμένοι πολίτες, έλληνες μικροαστοί) γύρω από την παραγωγή, διακίνηση και χρήση της «παρανομοποιημένης» εργασίας.[7] Για εμάς, δεν τίθεται ζήτημα ρεφορμισμού του αγώνα (επειδή αντί να τα κάνουμε γης μαδιάμ πήγαμε στην επιθεώρηση εργασίας) και ούτε αυτός (ο αγώνας) μπορεί να ταυτίζεται με τους ρεφορμιστικούς αγώνες της ΓΣΕΕ και της αριστεράς, για τους λόγους που εξηγήσαμε.

Ένα ακόμη σημείο αφορά τα υποκείμενα (δηλαδή όλους και όλες εμάς) που συμμετείχαν στον αγώνα και τις πρακτικές τους. Είναι σαφές ότι δεν μιλάμε για έναν αποκλειστικά συνδικαλιστικό αγώνα καθώς η σύνθεση του αλληλέγγυου κόσμου δεν εξαντλήθηκε στην ταυτότητα του/της εργάτη/εργάτριας και επειδή οι δράσεις δεν πε-ριορίστηκαν στον εργασιακό χώρο. Αντίθετα, ο αγώνας διαχύθηκε στο δημόσιο χώρο, σε τοπικό επίπεδο αλλά και σε κεντρικό (μέσω της μοτοπορείας της Πρωτομαγιάς και της παρέμβασης που ακολούθησε) ενώ κατάφερε να συσπειρώσει διαφορετικές ταυτότητες. Ο αγώνας αυτός μπορούμε να πούμε ότι ήταν αφενός «υβριδικός», με την έννοια πως η συνάρθρωση[8] των ταυτοτήτων του εργάτη και του μετανάστη ήταν εκείνη που μπόρεσε να βάλει τον Γ. σε μια τόσο υποτιμημένη θέση και επέτρεψε στον Τ. να ασκήσει τέτοια εξουσία πάνω στον Γ· αφετέρου ήταν και «συγκεκριμένος», γιατί συγκρούστηκε τόσο με τα αφεντικά αυτού του κόσμο, όσο και με ένα συγκεκριμένο ρατσιστή, ελληνά-ρα, μαφιόζο και σεξιστή: τον Τυρολόγο.

Ο αγώνας αυτός είναι ενδεικτικός μιας σειράς από σύγχρονους αγώνες που λαμβάνουν χώρα σε όλη την (αυτοαποκαλούμενη) ελλαδική επικράτεια. Στους αγώνες αυτούς αναδεικνύεται μια διαπλοκή των σχέσεων εξουσίας/ αντίστασης – στα πεδία του έθνους, της τάξης, της σεξουαλικότητας[9], και χωρίς να περιορίζεται σ’ αυτά – που συνθέτουν τα υποκείμενα που τους διεξάγουν (μετανάστες, αλληλέγγυες/οι). Παράλληλα, φανερώνονται οι προοπτικές, οι αδυναμίες και οι προβληματισμοί που πρέπει να αντιμετωπιστούν μέσα από την όξυνση και διεύρυνση των πεδίων των κοινωνικών ανταγωνισμών.

… σε τροχιά σύγκρουσης
10/2014

 

Σημειώσεις:

[1] Παρουσιάζοντας τη διαλεκτική σχέση ανάμεσα στους αγώνες και την ορατότητα/αναγνώριση. Εδώ, βέβαια, αναδεικνύονται και οι πτυχές της επιλογής του Γ. να “τρέξει” με αυτό το συγκεκριμένο τρόπο τον αγώνα και να μην απευθυνθεί λ.χ. σε κάποια μ.κ.ο. αναθέτοντας εκεί τη “λύση” των προβλημάτων του.

[2] Στο σημείο αυτό έχει μια σημασία να αναφερθεί ότι εντός της συλλογικότητάς μας έχει εκφραστεί και η αντίληψη που υποστηρίζει ότι η ηθική δικαίωση του Γ. δεν θα επέλθει μέσω ενός οικονομικού αντιτίμου· πόσο μάλλον αν λανθασμένα θεωρηθεί ότι η αστική δικαιοσύνη –που εξαρχής είναι εχθρι-κή απέναντί μας – θα δικάσει το δίκιο του Γ. – και μέσω αυτού, το “δικό μας”. Σύμφωνα με τη θέση αυτή, η οποία κεντράρει στην αξιοπρέπεια του εργάτη Γ., ο πρώτος στόχος (θα έπρεπε να) είναι το να έχει υλικές ζημιές/απώλειες το αφεντικό του και στη συνέχεια να υπάρξουν οι όποιες διεκδικήσεις.

[3] Θυμίζουμε ότι δεν είναι η πρώτη φορά που ο ίδιος ρατσιστής-αφεντικό έχει δράσει ξανά στο παρελθόν με παρόμοιο τρόπο, όταν είχε εκβιάσει και τραμπουκίσει δημόσια Αλβανό εργάτη που δού-λευε στο μαγαζί του.

[4] Στις σχετικές συζητήσεις που κάναμε (ως συλλογικότητα) διατυπώθηκε η άποψη πως ενώ αντιλαμβανόμαστε ως ψευδές το δίλημμα για τους λόγους που θα εξηγηθούν αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι δεν έχει πραγματικές συνέπειες ως δίλημμα. Κάτι που οφείλεται στο γεγονός πως ο διαχωρισμός αυτός έχει διαμορφωθεί κοινωνικά και ιστορικά ως κυρίαρχη πραγματικότητα.

[5] Άμεσο αποτέλεσμα της άποψης αυτής είναι και το ότι οι διεκδικητικοί αγώνες θεωρούνται ρεφορμιστικοί, αφού δεν οδηγούν σε μια άμεση κατάργηση του υπάρχοντος.

[6] Ακόμη και στην υποθετική περίπτωση όπου είχε υπάρξει μόνο μια φυσική-υλική σύγκρουση το κράτος δεν θα εμφανιζόταν εκ των υστέρων εκεί για να προσπαθήσει να επικυρώσει την ισχύ του (που για λίγο θα είχε χάσει);

[7] Αυτή η διαχείριση της εργασίας εντάσσεται στη σύγχρονη βιοπολιτική συνθήκη, όπου οι σχέσεις εξουσίας δεν είναι μόνο κατασταλτικές αλλά και παραγωγικές: διαμορφώνουν, δηλαδή, τα υποκείμενα και δεν τα αποκλείουν.

[8] Η εικόνα των εθνικά άλλων, με κατώτερη ταξική θέση, να εξεγείρονται είναι εκείνη που τρομάζει τόσο. Αυτό φαίνεται από το μένος με το οποίο αντιμετωπίζονται από τα αφεντικά οι μετανάστες που τολμούν να σηκώσουν κεφάλι και να ζητήσουν τα αυτονόητα. Στην ΟΙΚΟΜΕΤ που επιτέθηκαν με βιτριόλι στην Κ. Κούνεβα, στη Σαλαμίνα που ξυλοκόπησαν και βασάνισαν τον μετανάστη υπάλληλο που ζητούσε τα δεδουλευμένα του, στα φραουλοχώραφα της Μανωλάδας που επιτέθηκαν με πυροβολισμούς στους απεργούς μετανάστες, στη Σκάλα Λακωνίας που απάντησαν με πογκρόμ μπάτσων στην απεργία των εργατών γης, δεν συνέβη τίποτε άλλο παρά η επιβεβαίωση των κυρίαρχων ταυτοτήτων απέναντι στην έμπρακτη αμφισβήτησή τους από τους αγώνες των μεταναστών.

[9]Στη συζήτηση εντός της συλλογικότητάς μας η σεξουαλικότητα ως πεδίο σχέσεων εξουσίας/ αντίστασης τέθηκε ως εξής: ο Τ. ξυλοκοπώντας το Γ. (μέσα από τη χρήση σωματικής βίας, δηλαδή) επιτέλεσε την ανωτερότητα της αρρενωπότητάς του. Η εργασία που εκτελούσε ο Γ. στο Scherzo (λάντζα), που κατατάσσεται στα επαγγέλματα αναπαραγωγής, σε συνδυασμό με το γεγονός πως εκείνος έφαγε το ξύλο τον καθιστά λιγότερο αρρενωπό. Μια αναπαράσταση που συναρθρώνεται με την ταξική του κατωτερότητα και την εθνικά υποτιμημένη του ύπαρξη. Ο τρόπος, δηλαδή, με τον οποίο διαπλέκονται οι ταυτότητες του Γ. (εθνικά άλλος – λιγότερο αρρενωπός – προλετάριος) σε σχέση με την αντίστοιχη άρθρωση των ταυτοτήτων του Τ. (έλληνας – άνδρας – αφεντικό) εγγράφει τη ζωή του Γ. ως μια ζωή που αξίζει λιγότερο να βιωθεί. Ο αγώνας του Γ. και η διεκδικητικότητά του μετέβαλαν την αναπαράσταση της αρρενωπότητάς του· αφού από μια υποδεέστερη θέση μπόρεσε να αντιπαρατεθεί στο αφεντικό του. Η αναταραχή της αρρενωπότητας του αφεντικού του δημιούργησε ένα τέτοιο άγχος ώστε ο μόνος τρόπος να το ξεπεράσει ήταν να το λύσει στο πεδίο που (σε τελική ανάλυση) φαίνεται ποιος-είναι-ο-άντρας. Έτσι, λοιπόν, ο Τ. μέσω του ξυλοδαρμού αποκατέστησε τη συμβολική τάξη που διαταράχθηκε από τον αγώνα του Γιασίρ: θέλησε να δείξει πώς επιβάλλονται οι άντρες. Ή τουλάχιστον αυτό προσπάθησε να κάνει. [Ας σημειωθεί εδώ ότι αυτή είναι μια θέση που δεν μας βρίσκει όλες και όλους σύμφωνες.]

CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION

Πριν από μερικές μέρες, δημοσιεύτηκε το τέταρτο κεφάλαιο από το υπό έκδοση βιβλίο του Gilles Dauvé από τις εκδόσεις PM Press με τίτλο “From Crisis to Communisation”. Αναδημοσιεύουμε το κείμενο αυτό παρακάτω, που φέρει τον εν λόγω τίτλο. Το πρωτότυπο μπορεί να βρεθεί εδώ.

 

Circolo di Conversazione

 

 

 

CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION

All historical crises are crises of social reproduction. We will try and investigate how the present crisis, like and unlike others in the past, forces society to face the contradictions which formerly stimulated its dynamics but now drive it into a critical juncture. (1)

     Every major crisis forces social groups to come to grips with the deep contradictions of society. In capitalism, class confrontation is the prime mover that drives society forward : it forces the bourgeoisie to adapt to labour pressure, to “modernize”. Crisis is when these formerly positive pressures strain the social fabric and threaten to tear it apart.

Contradiction does not mean impossibility. Up to now, all big crises have ended in the system managing to pull through and eventually becoming more adaptable and protean. No “ultimate” crisis is automatically contained in even the most acute contradictions.

 

1 : Why “Civilization” ?

Capitalism is driven on by a social and productive dynamism, and by an un-heard-of regenerative ability, but it has this weakness: by its very strength, by the human energy and the technical power it sets into motion, it wears out what it exploits, and its productive intensity is only paralleled by its destructive potential, as proved by the first civilization crisis it went through in the 20th century.

No value judgement is implied here. We do not oppose civilized people to savages (even good or noble ones) or barbarians. We do not celebrate “great civilizations” which would have been witness to the progress of mankind. On the other hand, we do not use the word in the derogatory sense it has with writers like Charles Fourier, who called “civilization” a modern society plagued by poverty, trade, competition and the factory system. Neither do we refer to those huge geo-historical socio-cultural constructs known as Western, Judeo-Christian, Chinese or Islamic civilizations.

The civilization we speak of does not replace the notion of mode of production. It merely emphasizes the scope and depth of a world system that tends to be universal, and is also capable of disrupting and then reshaping all kinds of societies and ways of life. The hold of wage-labour and commodity over our life gives them a reality and dynamics that were unknown in the past. Capitalism today is the only all-encompassing network of social relationships able to expand geographically and, with the respective differences being considered, to impact on Djakarta as well as Vilnius. The spread of a world capitalist way of life is visible in similar consumer habits (McDonald’s) and architecture (skyscrapers), but has its deep cause in the dominance of value production, of productivity, of the capital-wage labour couple.

The concept of a mode of production is contemporary to capitalism. Whether or not Marx  invented the phrase, it has become common since the 19th century because capitalism imposes on us the image of factors of production combined to beget a product or a service bought or sold on a market, and of a society ruled by supply/demand and productivity.

Then the concept was retrospectively applied (often inadequately) to other systems, past and present: the Asiatic or the domestic mode of production. (2) Whatever relevance these derivations have, they pay tribute to the overwhelming presence of the capitalist mode of production.

Capitalist civilization differs from empire, which has a heart, a core, and when the core withers and dies, the whole system around it goes too. On the contrary, capitalism is a polycentric world system with several rival hegemons, which carries on as a global network if one of the hegemons expires. There is no longer an inside and an outside as with Mesopotamian, Roman, Persian, Hapsburg or Chinese empires.

A crisis of civilization occurs when the tensions that formerly helped society to develop now threaten its foundations: they still hold but they are shaken up and their legitimacy is weakened.

As is well known, tension and conflict are a sign of health in a system that thrives on its own contradictions, but the situation changes when its main constituents overgrow like cancerous cells.

A century ago, capitalism experienced such a long crisis, of which the “1929 crisis” was but the climax, and capitalism only got out of it after 1945. Going back over that period will help understand ours.

 

2 : A European Civil War

At the end of the 19th century, capitalism as it existed was no longer viable, on both sides of the capital-labour “couple”: the productive forces of industry were too big to be managed by private owners, and the worker movement too powerful to be persistently denied a social and political role. Capitalism met the issue in a variety of ways. It did not turn “socialist” but it socialized itself, which took decades and included resistance, backlash and outright reaction. (Fascism was one of them, a forced top-down national socialization, as Stalinism was in a different way.) The evolution started with English trade-unionism in the late 19th century and culminated in the post-1945 consumer society.

Reaching that stage took no less than a European civil war.

14-18 and 39-45 were a lot more than inter-State conflicts, and their paroxysmal violence  was not only caused by the extermination capacity of industry. The political and military hubris unleashed by WW II remains a mystery if we neglect the 1920s and 30s confrontation between a restless militant working class, and a bourgeoisie wavering between repression and integration, combining both without opting for the one or the other. Imperial Germany and then Weimar were perfect examples of this situation, but so were Britain where the bourgeois waged a class war in the 20s, especially against the miners, and the US, where unionization was de facto made impossible for millions of unskilled workers.

In 14-18, mutual slaughter came close to a self-destruction of the belligerents, at least until US intervention in 1917. Military illimitation illustrated the explosive power of the contradiction of a system dedicated to eliminate the remnants of the past, while trying to reunite in the trenches the classes of each country. 1918 hardly solved anything. The most advanced country, the US, exported its capital to Europe at the same time as it withdrew from the continent politically. Four outdated empires crumbled and parliamentary democracy went headway, but lacked the means to act as a social mediator. The two structuring classes of modern society remained stuck in a deadlock.

1917-39 broke down the international economy born at the end of the 19th century (the “first globalization”). It was a time of dislocation, of nationalist upsurge, of conflicts between and within States, with the creation of new nation-States without real “national” basis, for lack of a domestic market that could have helped create a people’s unity. (Two of them, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, would break up at the time of the “second globalization”). The mutual dependence of national economies on the world market is essential to capitalism (even the USSR was never totally walled-in), but this process is achieved with a succession and combination of openness (liberalism) and closure (Nazism and Stalinism). Amidst these fault lines, the 1929 crisis added more class collision.

In Germany, it was not the huge unemployment rate that caused the rise of the Nazis: it was the German situation as a whole since 1918. The 29 crash accelerated the ascension of Hitler by aggravating the political factors that had undermined Weimar since 1918. From 1930, the crash facilitated the advent of an authoritarian State, which ruled by government-decrees that deprived parliament of real power. It reduced the reformist capacity of the SPD and Centrum to next to nothing, marginalized the KPD even more, and increased the discrepancy between a democratic façade and a reactionary drift to the past, illustrated by the spread of völkisch nostalgiawhich conveyed a growing nationalist-racist mood and culture. (Unfortunately, idealists like Ernst Bloch were better equipped to understand this time-warp – when the past overlapped the present – than most materialists captive of a linear vision of history. (3) ) 1929 finally signified the disunity of Germany and called for political forces able to reunite the country (the classes) through violence. Fortunes were ruined and beliefs as well. A political vacuum had to be filled, and it was not be done peacefully. Up to 1929, “conservative revolution” remained a contradiction in words: in the 30s, the oxymoron became reality. As it militarized Germany, Nazism re-forged a forced people’s community closed-in on the German race. (4)

Nazi warfare was a head-on pursuit in an all-or-nothing fight, involving planned genocide and implying the final self-immolation of the country: the regime sacrificed German unity rather than yield to clearly superior enemies. When the Nazis engaged in military competition with three great powers at the same time, this was absurd from a pragmatic point of view, yet consistent with the Nazi rise to power and the logic of the regime. This was no Clausewitz-style war aiming to achieve a decisive superiority and stopping when that goal was reached: for Hitler, annihilating the Jews and enslaving the Poles and the Russians were a priority.

In both world conflagrations, Germany stood at the epicentre, with at its heart a heavy industry constricted by a geo-political framework which prevented it from exporting as much as its productive power required.

Various authors have suggested the idea of a “European civil war” from 1917 to 1945, but arch-conservatives, like Ernst Nolte, best emphasized the class undercurrent of that period because of their “class reaction” and political bias. (5) Whatever we think of the Russian revolution and its demise, the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power was a death threat to the bourgeoisie worldwide. It is impossible to understand Mussolini and Hitler if we forget the fear (combining facts and fantasy) of the working class among the bourgeois, a fear shared by a large part of the petit-bourgeois.

Although the working class never seriously tried to overthrow bourgeois rule in Western Europe after 1918, what mattered was that unions and socialist parties were perceived of as a challenge to be met. Fascism differed from the previous variants of reaction throughout the 19th century: it had roots in the industrial world, it drew in crowds, it praised technique as much as it eulogized tradition, in that sense it partook of modernity. Against fascism, Roosevelt and the Popular Fronts reunited the worker movement and those bourgeois ready to let labour play its part politically alongside capital. In that contest, the bureaucratized worker movement led by Stalinism was both an ally and a rival of the Western bourgeoisies. It was therefore logical that national resistance against German occupation should often take on an anti-bourgeois look and discourse against traditional elites associated with fascism, in Yugoslavia, in Greece, and in Italy where patriotic war, civil war and class war mingled against the Nazifascist enemy.

In 1939-45, instead of a proletariat v. bourgeoisie fight, but as a by-product of that previously inconclusive fight, three forms of capitalism confronted each other: the Russian bureaucratic statist version temporarily allied to the Anglo-Saxon liberal variant, against the German (and to a lesser extent Japanese) attempt to create self-sufficient empires.

After 1945, in Western Europe and Japan, parliamentarianism and the constitutional State finally fulfilled their function: to get a “people” together as a nation that integrated the labouring class. In 1943, a Tory politician, Quintin Hogg, said about the English workers: “We must give them reforms or they will give us revolution”. The phrase was excessive, yet meaningful.

1945 was to be different from 1918. At the end of WW I, the most powerful capitalist country stepped aside from European politics: the US refused to be part of the League of Nations and showed little interest in the rise of Nazi Germany. While Roosevelt was busy with the New Deal, he hardly cared about the war in Spain. In 1945, the two major powers, the US and USSR, did not just rule their own countries: each had the ability and the project to extend its domination over other parts of the world. Likewise, the bourgeois were not content with having the upper hand over the workers: the ruling class organized the capital-labour relation in such a way as to consolidate and perpetuate it.

 

3 : How Capitalism Globalized its Crisis of the 1960s and 70s

The post-45 “social peace” was limited to a few dominant countries, and even there “the affluent worker” was a myth. (6) Still, Western Europe developed various forms of Welfare State to pacify the toiling masses Q. Hogg was worried about, and heavily indebted governments (backed by US and Canadian credit) managed to produce the funding. An unspoken bargain was struck.

In the final decades of the 20th century, worker pressure destabilized this consolidation.     Much is known about a crisis that started forty years ago. We will only make two points. The bourgeois managed to quell worker unrest in the 60s and 70s, but (a) did not address the real issue, and (b) the way this “victory” was won and its aftermath have led to more social unbalance. This § 3 analyzes point a. The following paragraphs will deal with point b.

In the early 1970s, capitalist production was running into its inevitable periodic predicament:  over-accumulation creates a mass of value so large that capital is unable to valorize it at the same rate as before. The all-too visible forms of overcapacity and overproduction, not to mention the State “fiscal crisis”, revealed profit deceleration.  (7)

Business re-engineering and globalization were supposed to have remedied that.

As the word suggests, globalization is perceived of as the creation of an open planetary  market where investment, goods and people could (or should) freely move as they please.

This is deceptive.

Firstly, monopolies and oligopolies have not put an end to State rule, which is in fact getting stronger in terms of law and order, and protectionism is not over.

Secondly, what is the bottom line of globalization ?

Downsizing, casualization, substitution of individual contract to collective bargaining, outsourcing of manufacturing from one continent to another, promotion of the service sector at the expense of industry… all the 80s and 90s “re-structuring” was based on one privileged  factor: the systematic lowering of labour costs.

Cutting down wages is a bourgeois constant. “The innermost secret soul of English capitalism [is] the forcing down of English wages to the level of the French and the Dutch. [..] Today, thanks to the competition on the world-market [..] we have advanced much further.” Marx quotes an English MP saying that “If China should become a great manufacturing country, I do not see how the manufacturing population of Europe could sustain the contest without descending to the level of their competitors.” Marx concludes : “The wished-for goal of English capital is no longer Continental wages but Chinese.” (Capital, vol. I, chap. 24, § 4)

Wages, however, though the most important variable in capitalism, are not the only one.

A remedy can prove worse than the cure.

Productivity gains were high again in the 1990s, especially in the US, thanks to computerization, the elimination of smokestack industries, and investment in low labour cost manufacturing in Asia. But, however much computers and containers help compress and transfer labour, they only patch up the causes of profit decline. All the critical features of the 70s are still here forty years later, masked by the profits reaped by a minority of firms and by the windfall profits in the finance sector.

The current huge technical changes, particularly the computerization of production and daily life, are misunderstood as a third “technological revolution” of comparable magnitude as those brought about by the steam engine in the early 19th century, and by electricity and the internal combustion engine late 19th-early 20th.  This is forgetting that productive forces are not mere technical tools. By themselves, petrol and chemistry would not have been enough to generate an industrial expansion between 1870 and 1914, and Taylorism-Fordism was a lot more than the conveyor belt.

The social dilemma of the interwar period (intensive accumulation without mass consumption) had been resolved in the post-45 boom: intensive accumulation with mass consumption by transforming part of productivity gains into higher wages. In the aftermath of WW II, the US would export goods that differed from those then known in Europe, manufactured by another type of management, and harbingers of an innovative lifestyle. On the contrary, in the late 20th century, the Asian tigers and dragons, “New Industrial countries” as they were called, and now China, all too quickly labelled “the workshop of the world”, make the most of existing techniques and manufacture the same objects as those made in the West, albeit at a lower cost. As supply exceeds demand, prices are pressed down… so are profits. The “long decline” that started in the mid-1970s has been compensated for but left unsolved. A new accumulation phase would imply more than technology, and require no less than the launching of new forms of production and labour, in other words a different regime of accumulation and a a different mode of regulation. On the contrary, emerging economies rely on a neo-Taylorism without Fordism(8)

The bourgeoisie has tried once more to short-circuit its partner-opponent by a roundabout technological fix, this time by a leap forward in MTC (Means of Transport & Communication): this is as successful as dosed-up growth can last.

Moreover, Chinese economy is not self-centred and at present no indicators show it is going to cease being over-dependent on exports.

Besides, as it is transferred from the old industrial metropolises to Asia, labour gets organized, presses demands, and wage rises in China start forcing companies to invest in countries with a supposedly more docile workforce.

Globalizing a problem is not enough to solve it. Internal production costs, as well as external and social costs (to remedy environmental damage) cannot be made up for by in-firm productivity gains, especially in countries which have opted for a service economy. The profitability revolution formerly experienced in agriculture and industry will never be on the same scale in the service sector: some of it is ideal for standardization (telecommunications), some is not (health care).

There is no need to dwell on the fact that since 2008, the ruling classes have treated the crisis by means that perpetuate it. Lowering labour income for the sake of reducing companies’ and governments’ deficit, and injecting more cash into banks, will not address the basic issue: insufficient value creation and investment, which no expanding trade can compensate, particularly an expansion souped-up by credit. The bourgeoisie is going the opposite way of what helped come out of the 30s Depression: demand support, public regulation, long-term investment.

So, if capitalism did make a fresh start at the fall of the 20th century, its victory was not what it seemed. The current crisis reveals that the 80s and 90s boom did not overcome the 1970s predicament: overcapacity, overproduction, overaccumulation, declining profitability. The worldwide growth of the last thirty years is undeniable and unsound. Its success is based on causes that contradict the system’s logic: capitalism cannot durably treat labour only as a cost to be reduced at all costs, prioritize the financial sector, live on debt, nor extend the American way of life on all continents. Each Earthling, or even a couple of billions, will not possess his own car, pool and watered lawn.

 

4 : Neo-Liberalism Fallacy

While each of us is personally encouraged to live on credit, States are increasingly supposed to be run on the « prudent man » principle of responsible management: “Let’s not spend more public money than we have”.

In fact, late 20th century neo-liberalism had little in common with 19th century liberalism, when the bourgeois used to cut down on public expenditure, arguing that those sums would deplete their own hard-earned money and decrease investment. The role of the State and its budget were to be kept to a minimum.

This is not at all what Thatcher and Reagan initiated. When they increased public spending by debt financing, it did not help resolve the fiscal crisis of the State, nor was it that policy’s goal : its dual purpose was to reduce the tax levy on companies, and to reduce labour ability to put pressure on profits. Privatizing and deregulating industry and banking (a process inaugurated in the US by J. Carter and continued by B. Clinton after 1993) aimed at shattering the institutional framework which provided labour with means to defend itself (the famous “Fordist compromise”). Neo-liberalism was doing away with mediations that gave a little individual and collective protection from market forces.

This had to occur at the core of the system: manufacturing, transport, energy, namely sectors which were (and still are) vital and where worker organization and unrest were the greatest. So the attack naturally targeted large factory and steel workers, miners, dockers, air traffic controllers… As those key sectors were defeated, finance took the opportunity to push for its own interest at the expense of industry: this was a side-effect of the evolution, not its cause.

The rise of Asia was another consequence of labour defeat. US, European and Japanese bourgeois started having products manufactured in Asia or Latin America, then opened their markets to Chinese imports, only after having crushed worker militancy in their own countries.

 

5 : Wages, Price & Profit

A Niagara of articles are being written to explain how the bourgeois (usually called the rich) have been stealing from the poor for the last decades. Quite true, but the relevant question is whetherafter 1980, the bourgeois counter-attack on labour was successful… or too much so. Systematic negation of the role of labour (i.e. systematic downsizing manpower and cutting down labour costs) brings profits in the short term, but proves detrimental in the long run. Global growth figures of world trade and production in the last thirty years obscure the essential: there are still not enough profits to go round. Faster capital circulation does not necessarily coincide with better profits. In 2004, a number of French companies increased their yearly profits by 55%, mainly because they freed themselves of their own less rewarding sectors. The question is how far insufficient profitability can be compensated by a strategy that benefits a minority entrenched in strategic niches (the expanding hi-tech business, companies with strong links to public spending, and last but not least finance). There is nothing new here. What was called the mixed economy or State monopoly capitalism in the 1950-80 period also relied on a constant transfer of money from business as a whole to a happy few companies. (9) But the running of such a system implied a modicum of dynamism: the most powerful firms would have been unable to take more than their share of profits if overall profitability had been lacking.

Capitalism is not simply an accumulation of money at one pole (capital) and an outright lowering of costs on the other (labour). And even less so an accumulation of speculative windfall profits made at the expense of the “real” economy, i.e. companies that make and sell items (be they mobile phones or on-line bought films). Capitalism cannot be just money sold for money.

From the mid-19th century onwards, capital has always had to take labour into account, even under Stalin and Hitler. (10) If there is one lesson to be learned from Keynes, it is that labour is both a cost and an investment.

There is a limit to what capitalism can exclude without reaching a highly critical stage: in a world where the economy and work reign, the continuity and stability of the existing social order depends on its ability to put at least a fair amount of proletarians to productive work.

Productive in more than one sense: productive of value for companies to accumulate and invest; productive of wealth for the ruling classes and of money for taxes; productive of what is needed for the upkeep and reproduction of the dispossessed as a distinct group and a pool of potential labour; productive of the necessary maintenance of what remains of other classes; and productive of “meaning”, of collective ideas, images and myths capable of getting classes together and taking them along towards some common goal: a society, and this applies to capitalist society as well, is not an addition of passive workers and atomized consumers.

The nexus here is how much capital’s treatment of labour affects the reproduction of society. The renewal of the labour force has to be global, both social and political.

On the contrary, re-engineering has been functioning since the 1980s as if labour was open to ruthless exploitation. Manpower looks inexhaustible (bosses can always hope replace insubordinate or aging proletarians by fresh ones), yet it is not.

In 19th century European factories (as in many factories in the emerging countries today), the bourgeois would exploit the worker until he wore out. This brought in lots of profits for years, but when the army called up millions of adult males in 1914, the military realized that the lower classes were plagued by malnutrition, morbidity, rickets and disability. It is fine for the individual boss to care only about the value produced in his company. Bosses as a class have to take into account the reproduction of the labouring class. Misery and profit do not always get on well:  labour is often more productive when he is better paid, housed, fed, kept in good health and even treated with a modicum of respect.

Socially, “rich” countries have abandoned their poorest 20% (the bottom fifth) to their dismal fate. The relative part of wage-labour in national income has gone down (sometimes by 10%) in the US and in most old industrial countries. Millions of young adults live in poverty, there are more and more working poor and new poor, blue collar and petty office workers (60% of the working population in France) are being levelled down, etc., yet upper class victory has its price. The drive to ultra-productivity causes work stress, loss of working hours and other expenses, the burden of which ultimately weighs on collective capital.  Likewise, cutting down the “social” wage is short-sighted policy: money spent on education, health and pension is an investment which benefits capital’s cycle. Too much cost-cutting has brought in quick profits, but the incidental expenses of globalization will have to be paid for.

The more and more unequal sharing of profits between capital and labour is one aspect of a lack of profitability, caused not by the greed of financiers (the bourgeois are no more or less greedy today than yesterday), but by the shortage of profits gained in industry and commerce. If one leaves the US aside, “the world economy proves incapable of sustaining a demand that would keep its productive (and particularly) industrial capacities busy”. This was the point made in 2005 by a French economist with no Marxist or leftist leanings, Jean-Luc Gréau. (11) He argued that the systematic worldwide lowering of labour costs is part of the problem, not the solution: “How do economists manage to publicly ignore the effects of wage deflation on the world situation ? [..] Wage deflation means deflation of value creation.”

As mass consumption is now a cornerstone of capitalism, systematic downsizing and outsourcing finally lower the purchasing power of wage-earners and unemployed. Far from being a mere fiction, money is substantified labour, and the relevance of money derives from the living labour that it represents. When labour is degraded, neither rich nor poor can endlessly buy on hire purchase, and sooner or later the debt economy meets its limits. Under-consumption is an effect, not a cause, but it intensifies the crisis.

Politically, the bourgeoisie needs workers who work and who keep quiet when they are out of work. As long as wage-labour exists, there will never be enough work for everyone. But there has to be enough of it for society to remain stable, or at least manageable.

Capitalism’s logic has never been to include everyone as a capitalist or wage-earner, nor to  turn the whole planet into middle class suburbia. Nevertheless, capital-labour relations necessitate some balance between development and underdevelopment, wealth and poverty, official and unofficial labour, job security and casual work, stability and flexibility. Otherwise, the privileged residents from suburbia will be afraid to go shopping downtown at the risk of being met by underclass gangs, muggers or looters. Too many gated communities coexisting with too many slums make a socially explosive cocktail. A society cannot be pacified only by police.

In order to reproduce itself, capitalism must not only feed and house the wage-worker, but reproduce what constitutes his life, his family, education, health, etc., therefore the whole of daily life. The supposedly normal course of capitalism is far from peaceful, and social tensions are different in Turino, 2000, from Manchester, 1850: food riots are rarely to be seen in “rich” countries now, though millions of US citizens have to eat on food stamps. Poverty and want change with the times. If contemporary daily life has been successfully turned into a succession of purchases (millions of people trade on eBay and similar sites), that does not prevent the repetition of riots in the old capitalist centres as in the new ones. Looting is not revolution, but when the poor take to the streets to go looting, as in London, 2011, it shows the market unleashes forces it cannot control.

When the bourgeois wonder how to bring back solvability not only to large masses, but to whole countries, it is because the wage relation runs the risk of not adequately providing conditions for social reproduction any more.

 

6 : The Impossibility of Reducing Everything to Time

When driven to extremes, the permanent search for time-saving becomes counter-productive. Shortening time results in everything being treated short-time. In 1960, the success of the American way of life was proved by its ability to convince the motorist to buy a new car model every two years: fifty years later, our home computer recommends we update our software every odd week. Built-in obsolescence conflicts with sustainable growth and renewable energy: the essence of time is that it can neither be stored nor renewed.

There comes a point where social pressures no longer drive the system forward, but strain it. What previously made it strong – to separate, quantify and circulate everything at maximum possible speed – turns against it.

Time is a contemporary obsession, at work, at home, in the street, everywhere. When companies try to produce and circulate everything in real time, what they are really aiming at is zero time. Modern man cannot bear to be doing only one thing at a time. A Martian visitor might think we manufacture and consume not so much objects as speed. Competition forces each firm to minimize labour costs, and each worker’s contribution is to be counted in time – however debatable the resulting figure will be. Computers and experts are there to economize time, to absorb it, eventually to nullify it: “Time & space don’t exist any more”, says your HP Photosmart printer CD. Yet this never goes fast enough to make time profitable enough.

Capitalism always proves at its best in the short term, but nowadays it lacks some vision of the future and some public regulation that only work in long time-frames.

 

7 : A Class Outof Joint

When he is left to himself, the bourgeois seeks his own maximum profit, and follows his natural inclination to combine technical prowess with money grabbing.

One of his recent favourite ways has been to promote the domination of interest-bearing capital over industrial and commercial capital.

Since the Industrial Revolution, hypertrophied finance has usually been a sign of capital overdrive. Low break-even point in manufacturing and trade spawns a tendency to seek higher capital efficiency in money circulation, which inevitably results in crude and sophisticated speculation. This works fine – as long as it lasts – for the happy few in Wall Street and the City, but results in an imbalance between the various bourgeois strata.

There is a connection between labour’s defeat at the end of the 1970s, and the shake-outs which have occurred in finance since. Financial freewheeling is one of capital’s preferred methods of negating what creates it: labour. Credit means spending the money one does not have but hopes to get, for instance by turning the (expected) rise of one’s house on the property market into an increased borrowing capacity. Money however is not endowed with an endless power of self-creation: it only makes the world go round in so far as it is crystallized labour. Financial crash is a reality-check: between labour and capital, the cause and effect relation is not what the bourgeois would like to think. Labour sets capital (and money) into motion, not the other way round.

Speculation is a natural, and indeed indispensable feature of capitalism: over-speculation heralds financial storms.

As class struggle turned in favour of the bourgeois after 1980, they took maximum advantage of the situation, of course at the expense of the proletarians, but also with a power shift within the ruling class, and the rise of financial capitalists exacting two-figure profits when industrial profit rarely exceeds 3-4% per year in the long run.  Rent, formerly surplus profits obtained by monopolising the access to resources or technologies, has tended to become the dominant form of bourgeois income: securitization (transforming debt into commodities), derivative markets (literally selling and buying the future: insurance, options, risks, derived from existing assets), speculation on commodities, speculative bubbles (particularly on the property market), stock options, etc. Hi-tech and cyber-economy revive a rentier class Keynes wished to see euthanized in the interest of the system as a whole. Financial escalation and unprecedented money creation by banks are too well known for us to go into any detail here.

Some synergy must be found between financier and engineer, shareholder and manager. Share prices are not the only yardstick for deciding the optimum cost/benefit ratio. Financial products are as “real” as ironmongery, but only in so far as they are developed in parallel to manufactured and sold objects and services which are more than mere money flows.

All bourgeois share a common position as a class. It is the would-be reformers (often repentant intellectuals familiar with the corridors of power, like J. Stiglitz, policy maker in the World Bank and the Clinton administration) who theorize the “real” economy and hope to enrol true entrepreneurs in opposition to money-makers. The bourgeois are divided but stand as one against labour to defend their interlaced interests. There was no cohesion in the German ruling class in the 1920s, until it rallied behind Hitler. A lot will depend on whether financial, industrial and commercial sectors will remain disunited, or converge on a policy of reform – not the case so far.

 

8 : The Money God that Fails

When the worker struggles of the 60s-70s were contained, unchecked capitalism acted as if it was free to capitalize everything, the air we breathe, the human genome or the Rialto bridge. Anything is liable to become an adjunct to value production or an object of commerce.

Though this trend to universal commoditization is more proof of capital’s omnipresence, capitalism cannot do with an entirely capitalized society: it needs institutions and norms that are subordinate to it, but it also needs them not to directly comply with the profit imperative. Schools are not supposed to add value to a capital. Civil servants are not business men. “Research & Development” requires basic research. Accounting requires trustworthy figures. The same company which fiddles its own book expects to be provided with honest government statistics. Public services have to submit to capitalist standards and yet retain a certain degree of autonomy.

If the limits of homo economicus are now being debated, if Karl Polanyi and his critique (The Great Transformation, published in 1944) of the illusion of a self-regulating market become fashionable, it shows that even the liberals have to admit the necessity of restraining the grip of profit-making over society. Polanyi contended that the human propensity towards the market was historical, not natural: capitalism had disembedded the production of the means of existence from both social life and nature. No Marxist and certainly not a communist, Polanyi was not opposed to the existence of a market: his remedy to the autonomization of the economy was to re-embed productive activity within mutual links.    Written in the aftermath of the Great Depression, this critique coincided with a capitalist effort to regulate market forces. In the last decades, there has been a renewed interest in Polanyi’s emphasis on “embeddedness”: reformers would like the economy to be brought under social control, in order to create a sustainable relationship with nature..

Polanyi had a point : individualist money exchange erodes the social fabric. He only failed to see that we cannot expect capitalism to limit itself: the market always tends to over-develop. As the liberals are right to point out, the advantages of capitalism come with its defects. In the colleges where The Great Transformation is taught, managers dream of tying teacher pay to students’ performance on standardized tests. Polanyi was a naïve believer in the self-critique of capitalism.

 9 : Quantifying the Qualitative (When the disease becomes the medicine)

How does a system based on universal measuring react to excess quantitativism ? By quantifying quality. You can now do a Ph.D. in Happiness Studies : Gross Domestic Product is fine when complemented by Gross National Happiness.

At a time when the West doubts its own values and looks to the East for soul food, it is not by chance that GNH originated in Bhutan, the first country where it was first officially used. The concept was not born out of pure tradition: it was invented by the local rulers when Bhutan was going through a modernization process – a code phrase for entering the capitalist age. GNH was to act as a bridge between mercantile pressures and the prevailing Buddhist mind-set, and to provide Bhutanese society with an ideology presenting wage-labour and a money economy as suited to the well-being of people. Similar surveys followed in “modern” countries, and opinion polls now collect data on wellbeing. (12)

It is a well-known sociological “law” that in a survey the questions determine the answers : the sophisticated indicators used in interviews to measure the population’s well-being served to hammer into Bhutanese heads the idea that Bhutan’s evolution was good for them.

GNH is as manipulative as GDP, but also equally deceptive for its users, be they experts or the rulers that pay the experts. While it claims to be a guide to proper planning for the future, and to be taking into account non-strictly economic factors, GNH works with the same logic as value: it puts everything together, from the water-table to girl school attendance, and synthesizes it (or pretends to) in order to reach figures and graphs that bring down reality to common features. Applying econometrics to daily life cannot compensate for the lack of a general vision that the present competing world of States and companies is by its nature incapable of achieving, as everybody actually knows. It is an open secret that GNH compilations scarcely help upgrade sustainable development, cultural integrity, ecosystem conservation, and good governance. But never mind. As GNH fails to quantify well-being and happiness, new constructs see the light of day, like the Genuine Progress Indicator. As mental health does not suffice, emotional health is now deemed metrically measurable. When factual data prove inadequate, specialists compile memories. Whenwellness falls short of required norms, a long list of various wellnesses is made up, and new papers are written.

The figure society is also a report society. In 2005, the United Nations sponsored a Millennium Environment Assessment project, to evaluate nature according to what it gives us, and to know the cost if we lost it: its contribution for 1982-2002 was estimated at $180,000 billion. The figure has been contested, which requires more MEA studies. Productivism may be discredited in manufacturing, not in research.

Happiness teachers are the contemporary lay preachers that patch up the inadequacies and monstrosities of present times. It is quite natural that Happiness research should obey the reductionist figure-obsessed logic that prevails in intellectual and political life, or in education, where school-kids are assessed by box-ticking: we are all benchmarked now. Tellingly, this is not what critics object to. They denounce the fact that governments define GNH as it suits them: isn’t that the case with all statistics ? They deplore the un-scientific criteria : how could well-being fit in with any objective standard ? Only a scientistic mind can regard happiness as an object of science, or emotion as an analog to economic progress. They bemoan the national bias, but it was inevitable Bhutan should find comfort in its own version of GNH. A 21st century US GNH would validate the American way of life as the US likes to picture itself now, a multi-cultural, eco-conscious, minority-friendly society, certainly not as it was in 1950.

GNH is a product of a time when a GDP-led world is in crisis, and deals ideologically with its crisis. Zen wisdom goes well with GNH.

 

10 : Forbidden Planet ?

A system bent on treating labour as an infinitely exploitable asset acts the same with nature. As early as the 50s and 60s, far-sighted observers warned about ecological risks. (13) Yet, as a whole, post-1980 growth has meant more production, more energy (including nuclear energy) consumption, and more planned obsolescence.

A capitalist contradiction has become more visible and more acute than a century ago: if this mode of production is bound to commoditize everything, this process includes its environment (“nature”), which can never be completely turned into commodities. It is economically sound for a fridge or a video-on-demand to be indefinitely interchangeable and renewable. The same logic does not apply to trees, fish, water or fossil fuels. It is going to be harder to do something about CO 2 than it was in the 1930s to remedy the damage done by the dust bowl. Even if the US benefits from shale oil and shale gas (which remains to be seen), for most countries the cost of fossil energy will continue to rise and become increasingly uneconomical, which does not mean that this will block the system: there is always a way out of a severe profitability dilemma, a calamitous way.

Capitalism must find some balance between itself and what it feeds on, with its social as well as natural environment: “nature” is one of those indispensable not-to-be-fully capitalized elements.

What is involved here is first the wage versus profit issue, but also everything it implies. Company, wage-labour and commodity are indeed the heart of the system, but that heart only beats by pumping what fuels it, mankind and first of all labour power, and also nature.

One does not have to be an ecological catastrophist to realize the contrast between the beginning of the 21st century and the situation in 1850 or 1920. A huge difference with the 1914-45 crisis is that accumulation now meets ecological limits as well as social ones: overexploitation of fossil fuels, overurbanization, overuse of water, climate risks… combine so that the mode of production uses up its natural capital, while the decline of Keynesianism deprives the State of its former regulating capacities.

When private market forces are no longer checked by public counter-power, capital’s inherent illimitation is given free rein. Deregulation, privatization and commercialization have contributed to deplete natural conditions which cannot be infinitely renewed. In 50 years, chemistry and agribusiness have multiplied by 4 or 5 the yield of wheat-growing land… providing the farmer inputs 10 calories to get an output of 1. The day capital has to factor in all the elements necessary to production, overexploitation will start becoming economically unprofitable.

Up to now, business could regard energy inputs, raw materials and environment as expendable sources of wealth which were taken for granted. As long as the cost of water pollution by the aluminium factory for the rest of society would not be paid for by either the producers or buyers, business could ignore it. Such a “negative externality” must now be integrated into production costs: this, capital finds difficult to do, and so far there has been less action than talk, with “systems thinking” and “systemic approach” becoming buzz words. “De-growth”, “un-growth” or “zero growth” are incompatible with a system that still relies on mass manufacturing and buying of big (cars) or small (e-readers) items, planned obsolescence, and huge coal-fired or nuclear power stations. Smartphone is as much productivist as the Cadillac car.

Ecology is now part of ruling class ideology. It has even given birth to a new popular genre: doomsaying, which in true religious fashion thrives on fear and guilt: the fault lies in human acquisitiveness, in our ingrained materialistic foolish hedonism.

Yet the world is not determined by the opposition between man and nature, between technique and nature, between a destructive megamachine and the continuation of life. The biosphere is indeed one of the limits against which capitalism collides, but the connection between the human species and the biosphere is mediated by social relations. The “nature” we are talking about is not exterior to the present mode of production: raw materials and energy are part of the framework whereby labour produces capital.

Electricity, for instance (a form and not a source of energy), perfectly suits capitalism: it exists as a mere flow that is not easy to store, and therefore must keep on circulating. If its production costs happen to exceed its benefit, what can business do except passing on the buck to the State, but where does public money come from ? We are faced with the paradox of an amazingly mobile and adaptable system that has gradually built itself on an increasingly non-reproducible material basis.

Human, social and natural ability to adapt, for better or worse, are certainly larger than we think. Soon we might have to get used to living in a highly dangerous environment. The Japanese start to wonder what is worse for a child : having to play in an irradiated playground environment, or be banned from outdoor playing ? Nuclear power creates a situation when capitalist investment could stop being profitable. For its own reproduction, a social system feeds on (human and natural) energy and raw materials. If a  system spends more resources ( = money) on preserving its environmental conditions than it is getting out of them, if the social input exceeds the social output, society breaks down.

As present society is unable to address the issue on anything like the scale necessary, two options combine: mild accommodation, and playing the sorcerer’s apprentice. Science,  business and government are currently cooking up imaginative and (allegedly) profitable geo-engineering solutions : removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and depositing it elsewhere (like “advanced” countries shipping their industrial toxic waste to Africa), managing solar radiation to cool the planet by reflecting radiation into space, fertilising oceans with iron, brightening clouds, etc. If climate goes wrong, let’s have weather control, and if industry puts the environment at risk, let’s change nature. (14)

Dodging the obstacle by the same means that create it : one wonders which is worse, the failure or success of such science-fictional projects.

11 : No Capitalist Self-Reform

There is no shortage of lucid perceptive minds in capitalism. Indeed, some of its early theoreticians suggested restraint (A. Smith) or reforms (Sismondi). (15) Nevertheless, such moderating influence fell on deaf ears, unless it was backed by mass action, strike, riot, Chartism, the Paris Commune, fear of revolution, or in the US the violence narrated by Louis Adamic’s Dynamite (1931). It always takes more than books and speeches for a class to realize where its long-term interest lies.

Only organized labour forced doses of regulation upon reluctant bourgeois: no New Deal without the sit-down strikes.

On the contrary, in the ebb of struggles, freewheeling capitalism acts as if it could make the most money out of anything.

Today, the more data are collected, the more sophisticated software and applied maths become (high frequency trading), the less self-control there seems to be. A case in point is the reluctance to separate investment from commercial banking, as compared to the scope of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933. Instead, the rulers look for more control over work and over the people. Neo-liberalism never minds government when government deals with law and order, and it is quite compatible with bureaucracy. Laws, regulations, guidelines, protocols and codes of ethicshave proliferated with the computerized standardization of every domain from medical care to education or the stock exchange. The precautionary principle is hyped by the same society that keeps playing with fire (nuclear risk being just one example). Potentially unhealthy industrialized food is served by glove-wearing shop-assistants. The consensus is that the more information we read on packets or on the web, the safer we are. The “Knowing Is Doing” fallacy is typical of a world in disarray.

Self-control has never been capitalism’s strong point. The bourgeois excels in making use of human and natural resources to produce and accumulate but, despite thousands of think-tanks, he is unable to think of capitalism as a totality because it is not his business, literary. When a company invests in a factory or a mine, the managers make the most of manpower, raw materials and technology, and only take care of the rest (occupational accidents, toxic waste, water pollution, etc.) if and when they come under pressure from the work force, law, local authority or whistle blowers. Bourgeois priority is to increase the productivity of labour and capital: that is what they are bourgeois for and they prove good at it. Long-term and “holistic” thinking come second.

Paradoxically, the abundance of reform “road maps” is a sign of procrastination. Most schemes conform to the current tendency of increased individualization. Whenever the possibility of higher direct or social wage is raised, it is usually conditioned on the wage-labourer personally submitting to overtime, compulsory re-training, a private insurance policy, etc. This is neglecting the fact that a social compact is only viable if it is collectively entered into and respected: in other words, collective bargaining. Yet the bourgeoisie persists in treating society as an addition of single atoms free to associate or stay apart. Historical replies to social questions cannot be individual.

Capitalist challenge nowadays is to make labour more profitable, and also to restore a working balance between accumulation and natural conditions. The ruling classes are evading both issues.

European politics is a clear illustration of this. The rush to unity almost immediately followed the proletarian defeat of the 1970s. At the same time as China was busy accumulating dollars thanks to the US trade deficit, the euro was born. This single currency was groundless: it did not come out of any socio-economic, let alone political, coherence. What is sometimes called the biggest single world market is nothing more: the European Union is a 500 million-strong market devoid of common purpose and political leadership. Nation-building took centuries in Europe. State is now declared outmoded, whereas trade is regarded as a pacifier, equalizer and unifier. A single currency has been imposed upon unequal, rival and still national economies, as if Greece could quietly coexist with Germany (2/3 of German trade surplus comes from the euro-zone), while the European budget is a trifling amount  compared to the US federal budget. This is tantamount to diluting the social question by extending it over a larger and larger geographic area.

 

12 : Deadlock

The proletarians are not just victims of capitalist contradictions: their resistance deepens these contradictions. Chinese workers put forward wage claims. Thousands of miles away, Accor hotel cleaners fight for better working conditions. Even when defeated, and it often is, labour unrest aggravates the crisis, and contributes to a social stalemate in which up to now all classes take part, as between the two world wars.

Unlike the 30s, however, no New Deal is in sight. Far-reaching reform is impossible without a large deep social movement: deprived of mass pressure on the shopfloor and in the street, reformers remain powerless.

In the mid-20th century, in spite and because of proletarian defeats, the labour/capital confrontation finally entailed an adjustment of the exploitation of labour and began to regulate itself, with the “capital + labour + State” association.

Today, opposed classes counteract each other without any reformist nor (yet) revolutionary prospect. Up to now, capital disrupts and breaks apart labour far more than labour practically challenges its own reality. As we will see in the next chapter, few acts could qualify as anti-work or anti-proletarian.

Though the past is never re-enacted, the inter-war period offered a not too dissimilar picture, with the bourgeoisie proving unable to reform capitalism and the working class unable to overthrow it, until political and military violence unblocked the historical evolution.

As recalled in § 2, three forms of capitalism coexisted and fought in the 30s and 40s: a “market” type led by the US and Britain; a “State bureaucratic” type in the USSR; and a German very different but also State-managed type, where under Nazi rule the bourgeois kept their property and wealth but lost political leadership.

We now know what happened in 1945 and later in 1989, but in 1930 or 1950 very few (bourgeois or revolutionaries) were able to tell how it would all unfold. It is easy to explain today why the variant most adequate to the inner nature of capitalism would come out as the winner, but the other variants proved fairly resilient, to say the least. The vagaries of 20th century class struggle brought the unexpected: though they were indeed capitalist (and it was essential for radical critique to be clear on that issue, as it still is now), Stalinism and Nazism did not fit well with capitalism as communist theory was able to understand it at the time.

Because the State absorbs and concentrates society’s potential violence, intra- and inter-State contradictions, far from being neutralized, generate multiple tensions and conflicts, including those now called ethnic. Contemporary globalization inevitably comes with the prospects of war. The 1914-45 era reminds us that in the absence of revolution, disorder and cataclysm can throw a social system into turmoil without terminating it.

 

13 : No « Creative Destruction »… Yet

All the components of the crisis we have summed up refer to the degree of exploitation, to the relation between the two classes that structure the modern world.

When labour pressure is unable to moderate private capital and influence public policy, wages tend to go down, consumption to rely on hire-purchase, finance to dominate industry, privatization to develop at the expense of public services, money to colonize society, the market to evade regulation and short-termism to prevail over long term investment and planning. In Victorian days, later at the end of the 19th century, and then after the 1917-45 European civil war, each time worker unrest, in spite of its non-revolutionary character, threatened profits, until it forced the bourgeois into better adapted forms of exploitation.  Labour countervailing action periodically drives capital forward and both softens and worsens its domination: “taming” capital reinforces it.

The transition from Keynesian-Fordist national compromise to globalized unbridled bourgeois rule resulted from a shift in the social balance of power. After 1945, the business-union-State settlement depended on the ability of labour to impose some form of deal. The 1960s-70s struggles put an end to give-and-take. The ruling class won.

Today’s class struggle in the West combines labour resistance and bourgeois refusal to give up even a portion of its vested interests. The interlocking of the two forces results in a stalemate than cannot go on for ever.

Capital has acted as if it could disintegrate labour, or even obliterate it, as bluntly put by professor M. Hammer in 1990, whereas labour is the stuff capital is made of. It is sound capitalist strategy to lower the cost of labour in Denver by having local workers buy cheaper imported goods. This is what Britain did in 1846 with the repeal of Corn Laws that limited food imports : cheaper bread reduced labour’s cost of life, hence wages. But when US capital gives Denver labour the strictest minimum pay to buy mainly made in China goods, there is a flaw: what will be manufactured in Denver, and what to do with the local proles ? Not everyone has the chance to become a computer specialist, nor the ability to live on diminishing social benefits: will work in the future be (in the best of cases) casual, or (more likely) a succession of menial odd jobs and periods on the dole ? Bourgeois answer is yes : there will remain a lot of unemployed and working poor in Denver for quite a while, but it does not matter because they can still eat junk food and afford Asia-made cell phones. It is logical, but the logic is warped.

Prioritizing global over local, un-coupling the wage-worker income from the society and the market where he lives, would be feasible if labour was as flexible, fluid, separable and expandable as figures, indeed… as money, i.e. a substance that is transferable, interchangeable and dispensable with at will. And this precisely is the capitalist dream. The present condition of the world and the current crisis prove how strong this utopia is, and how wrong: virtuality is a fallacy. The “real” economy may not be as tangible as it seems, but it has a degree of reality which the financial universe is lacking. On can play with money, “liquefy” banks and launch credit lines at will for years. On the contrary, labour is neither virtual nor virtualizable.

Capitalism never overcomes its contradictions: it shifts them, adapts them to its logic while adapting itself to them.

“Capitalist production seeks continually to overcome these immanent barriers, but overcomes them only by means which again place these barriers in its way and on a more formidable scale.” (Capital, vol. III, chap. 15)

Capitalism is based on its ability to provide wage-labour with means of existence. It can keep going with billions of people starving, as long as the core – value production – perpetuates itself on a constantly enlarged scale (as required by competitive dynamics : today Shanghai is part of the centre of the system as much as Berlin). Manchester was prosperous while “the bones of cotton-weavers [were] bleaching the plains of India”, as the Governor General of India wrote in 1834. Utmost misery is no big news.

The bourgeois problem is twofold:

(a) The core itself is in deep trouble. A social system can make do with starving masses, as long as its heart provides sufficient pump action: capitalist “heart” is a value pump, and for forty years the pump has not been delivering enough, however much profit is made by a minority of firms, and whatever money is created and going round.

     (b)The heart of the matter is not the whole matter. US, European, Chinese, etc., capitalism cannot go on in an eruptive explosive world. Though eruption does not mean revolution (to give just one example, social violence in Bangladesh is as much related to religion as to class), but business needs a minimum of law and order as well as political stability.

We are not talking about countries or parts of the world (North/South, the West/Asia), but about “unequal development” within nearly every country. The ruling classes are not particularly worried about what goes on in a backwater Bolivian province, a miserable London estate, or a deprived Islamabad district, and just deal with it by appropriate doses of police beatings and public relief. A very different situation arises when Bolivian villagers, rebellious English youths or rioting urban Pakistanis create unmanageable political confusion, disturb the flow of national capital, disrupt world trade, and indirectly cause war and geopolitical chaos. Class struggle strictly speaking (viz. merely involving bourgeois v. proletarians) is not the only factor that sets capitalism off course.

Capitalism is based on conditions that must be reproduced as a whole : labour first, also everything that holds society together, not forgetting its natural bases. “Crisis of civilization” occurs when the social system only achieves this through violent tremors and shocks, which eventually drive it to a new threshold of contradiction management.

In our time, if capitalism finds a way out of the crisis, recovery will not be soft and irenic. Social earthquakes, political realignments, war, impoverishment will come together with consumer individualism in the shadow of a domineering State, in a mixture of modernity and archaism, permissiveness and religious fundamentalism, autonomy and surveillance, moral disorder and order, democracy and dictatorship. The nanny State and militarized police go hand in glove. In the emblematic capitalist country, New Orleans after Katrina in 2005 provided us with glimpses of a possible future : infrastructure breakdown, overburdened public services, effective but insufficient grassroots self-help, law and order restored by armoured vehicles.

Defining a crisis is not telling how it will be settled. No European or North American country is now approaching the point where class disunity, political confrontation, ruin of the State and loss of control on the part of the ruling class would prevent the fundamental social relation – capital/labour – from operating, but conditions are building up to create such a situation.

One thing is certain. The historical context calls for an even much deeper response than in the 1930s, and no solution is on the way, no “creative destruction”, to use a phrase coined by Schumpeter in the middle of a world war.

 

14 : Social Reproduction, So Far…

Unlike a bicycle that can be kept in its shed for a while, capitalism is never at rest : it only exists if it expands.

Social reproduction depends on the relation between the fundamental constituents of capitalist society. There’s no objective limit here. Labour may go on accepting its lot with 10% unemployed as with 1%, and the bourgeois can go on being bourgeois even if the “average” profit rate goes down to 1%, because global or average figures have meaning for the statistician, not for social groups. War brings fortunes to some, huge losses to others. There are times when the bourgeois will accept a 1% or 0% profit if he hopes thereby to continue being a bourgeois, and times when 10% is not enough, and he’ll risk his money and position to get an unsustainable 15%: then the break-even point becomes a breaking point. Capitalism is ruled by the law of profit, and its crises by “diminishing returns”, but this diminishing can hardly be quantified. This is why there have been very few figures in a study that wishes to assess the break in the social balance, viz. the contradictions able to shape and shake up a whole epoch.

(a) Which irreproducibility are we talking about ? Capitalism does not render its own production relationships null and void. No internal structural contradiction will be enough to do away with capitalism. To speak like Marx, its “immanent barriers” do not stop its course, they compel it to adjust: they rejuvenate it. The system’s social reproduction remains possible if bourgeois and proletarians let it go on.

(b) Only communist revolution can achieve capitalism’s non-reproducibility, if and when  proletarians (those with jobs and those without) abolish themselves as workers.

(c) So far nothing shows that present multiple proletarian actions (defensive and offensive) point or lead to a questioning and overthrow of the capital/labour relationship.

(d) Therefore, capitalism nowadays has the means to reproduce itself. But as its long-term profitability deficit combines with growing geopolitical destabilization aggravated by globalization, its reproduction can only occur through disruption, violence and more poverty. Stalemate creates an ever more explosive situation, and present austerity now imposed on countries like Greece is a mild indicator of troubled times to come.

 

 

***

 

“The workers’ movement has not to expect a final catastrophe, but many catastrophes, political — like wars -, and economic, like the crises which repeatedly break out, sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly, but which on the whole, with the growing size of capitalism,become more and more devastating. And should the present crisis abate, new crises and new struggles will arise”, Anton Pannekoek wrote in 1934, before reaching his conclusion: “The self-emancipation of the proletariat is the collapse of capitalism.” Today, unless revolution does away with a system that reactivates itself by periodic self-mutilation, we are in for more extreme and devastating solutions. (16)

 

NOTES :

(1) This is the 4th chapter of a book to be published by PM Press, From Crisis to Communisation. Other chapters deal with “Legacy” (the 60s-70s), the “Birth of a Notion”, “Work Undone”, “Trouble in Class”, “Creative Insurrection”, and “A Veritable Split” (a critique of some exponents of communisation).

(2) Marshall Sahlins suggested the existence of a domestic mode of production, based on a peasant household-centred economy, with little exchange and hardly any money.

From a very different angle, Materialist Feminist Christine Delphy takes up Marx’s concept and duplicates it. Domestic labour (performed within the family by unpaid women for the benefit of men) is theorized as specific enough to be the basis of a domestic orpatriarchal mode of production, which according to Ch. Delphy coexists with the capitalist mode in capitalist societies.

(3) On historical progress/regress: Detlev J.K. Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity, 1992 (German edition, 1987).

(4) Conan Fisher, The Rise of the Nazis, 2002. For a good book on Hitler’s Germany: Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction. The Making & Breaking of the Nazi Economy, 2006. On the 1917-37 period, G. Dauvé, When Insurrections Die (1999), on the troploin site.

(5) E. Nolte’s The European Civil War 1917-45 (published in Germany in 1987) has not been translated into English. It is more ideology than history.

(6) E. Hopkins, The Rise & Decline of the English Working Class 1918-90: A Social History, 1991.

(7)J. O’Connor, The Fiscal Crisis of the State, 1973.

(8) There appear to be two trends among critics of capitalism in its neo-liberal phase. One school of thought, by far the best known, insists on the predatory role of finance over the “real” economy. Another school, without denying the impact of finance capital, doubts the present reality of this real economy. Though we won’t pretend to settle a difficult question in a few lines, that second tendency has the merit of questioning not so much the share of the profits appropriated by a tiny minority, but the materiality of these profits. According to writers like G. Balakrishnan (Speculations on the Stationary State, in New Left Review, # 59, 2009), technological and social development has been considerable  – above all, in labour control – but has “failed to release a productivity revolution that would reduce costs and free up income for an all-round expansion” (Balakrishnan). See also W. Streeck, How Will Capitalism End ?, in New Left Review, # 87, 2014.

(9) Paul Mattick, Marx & Keynes. The Limits of the Mixed Economy, 1969.

(10)  Tim Mason, Nazism, Fascism & the Working Class, 1995.

(11)Jean-Luc Gréau, L’Avenir du capitalisme, 2005. He used to be an economic expert for the main French business confederation.

(12) In Bhutan and abroad, critics have raised the point that Bhutanese society is far from the exotic heaven of peace and harmony that its elite claims to be ruling. Labour exploitation is fierce, traditions oppressive and minorities discriminated against. Well, only the gullible thought Shangri-La was real. But even if Bhutan was a tolerant, non-sexist, worker-friendly place, or if Gross National Happiness had been invented, say, in Denmark or Iceland, GNH would still be as misleading as GDP.

(13) For instance, as early as 1956, Günther Anders was writing on The Obsolescence of the Human Species.

(14) Clive Hamilton, Earth Masters. The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, 2013.

(15) Sismondi (1773-1842) was one of the first under-consumptionist theorists. Observing the early 19th century economic crises in England, he thought competition led to excessive cost-cutting, which lowered wages and prevented the workers from buying what they produced. Sismondi’s remedy was to pay them more so they would have enough purchasing power.

(16) Anton Pannekoek, The Theory of the Collapse of Capitalism, 1934.

 

ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΚΙΝΗΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΝΕΡΟΥ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΡΛΑΝΔΙΑ

Το Σάββατο 31.8.15 έγινε στο Δουβλίνο μια ακόμα μεγάλη διαδήλωση ενάντια στην αύξηση της τιμής του νερού. Εδώ μια σχετική ανταπόκριση, όπου επίσης μπορεί να βρεθεί ένα βίντεο μεγάλης διάρκειας για τη συγκεκριμένη διαδήλωση. Παράλληλα, επισυνάπτεται ένα pdf στα αγγλικά ,που αναφέρεται διεξοδικά στον εν λόγω κίνημα, με τίτλο:

The Irish water war, austerity and the “Risen people”

An analysis of participant opinions, social and political impacts and transformation potential

of the Irish anti-water charges movement

ministry of thirst

 

ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΚΙΝΗΜΑ ΤΩΝ ΣΚΟΥΠΙΔΙΩΝ ΣΤΟΝ ΛΙΒΑΝΟ

Αναδημοσιεύουμε το ενδιαφέρον άρθρο με τίτλο “Scents of an Ending” για το κίνημα των σκουπιδιών στον Λίβανο. Το πρωτότυπο μπορεί να βρεθεί εδώ.


 

Scents of an Ending
By MAHMOUD MROUEH

 

tumblr_ntndijWxA31r6dpwoo3_1280-383x383

 

 

 

The #YouStink protests will either consign the Lebanese regime to the dustbin of history, or go in its place.

We came from different backgrounds, we didn’t agree on much, but we hit the streets together. On the 8th of August, we assembled to voice our discontentment with the Lebanese government’s handling of a garbage crisis that had been 18 years in the making. Naameh, a small town by the sea 20 km south of Beirut, had functioned as the capital city’s garbage dump since 1997. The residents of Naameh had been demanding the closure of the landfill in their town for years with hundreds of protests, and it was finally slated to be shut on the 17th of July in 2015. When the day came, the residents of Naameh threatened direct action; they vowed to obstruct the entry of garbage trucks into their town using any necessary means. Their skepticism came from bitter experience. The government had reneged on its promises to close down the landfill twice in the preceding 18 months alone. The landfill was forcibly put out of business that day by the residents of Naameh, and without an alternative plan in place, the garbage began to pile on the streets of Beirut.

This wasn’t the first protest in response to the garbage crisis, but it was definitely the largest. Over a thousand people gathered in Beirut’s Martyrs Square that day. The streets of Beirut had been cleared of trash by then, but the government had yet to agree on a permanent solution to Beirut’s garbage problem. A temporary fix had been found, we were told, the specificities of which are still shrouded in mystery. Trucks carrying garbage were seen dumping their cargo into valleys and onto the roadside in the dead of night in different areas of the country. The protest attracted a varied group of people, including but not limited to civil society activists, environmental and student groups, academics, and a notable media presence. Infighting began almost immediately, which should not have come as a surprise. Those present belonged to a diverse spectrum of political and ideological camps, united despite it all in their denunciation of the government’s dismal attempts at finding a permanent and sustainable solution to the country’s waste management problem.

After listening to more than a few disappointing speeches by the “You Stink” campaign’s organizers and other “civil society activists,” some of the more radical protesters in the square began to call upon those present to join in trying to storm the parliament building in Beirut’s Place De L’Etoile, a two-minute walk away from where we were assembled. The anger in the square was palpable, and the majority of those present headed for parliament. We were met with baton-wielding soldiers of the Lebanese Armed Forces. Seeing as entry into parliament would not be possible, we then headed for the Grand Serail, the Prime Minister’s headquarters and where Lebanon’s cabinet holds its sessions. The building was cordoned off, and there dozens of riot police were not at all reserved when it came to subjecting us to their violence. We abandoned our project and headed for the Municipality of Beirut — where we were not expected. There, we almost stormed the building, but were once again beaten back by the police.

margin-ad-rightExactly two weeks later, we held our second protest. “You Stink” had now morphed into a mass movement. There were over 15,000 people in Riad al-Solh Square that day. The movement had also undergone a qualitative change. The protest in Martyrs Square two weeks before was overwhelmingly composed of the middle and upper-middle classes of Lebanese society. This protest two weeks later was considerably less exclusive, less bourgeois. There was a large turnout from some of Beirut’s impoverished suburbs and inner neighborhoods. The protesters’ demands had also evolved in reaction to the government’s handling of the previous protest. Calls for solutions to issues like Lebanon’s infamous electricity cuts and water shortages were now at the forefront. The garbage crisis may have spurred this movement into existence, but the it was only a symptom of the disease that ails Lebanon’s political system. The movement is becoming more radical: its focus with every protest has been slowly but surely edging towards addressing the root of the problem rather than its apparent manifestations. By now, many were chanting for revolution and openly calling for the fall of the regime.

The Lebanese state is not monolithic. It can neither be localized in an individual nor in a party. It is not a “regime” in the traditional sense. At the end of the Lebanese Civil War, warring factions signed the Taef Agreement, which only served to reinforce and perpetuate already-existing sectarian divisions through the tired notion of “mutual coexistence” between Lebanon’s different sects. This effectively insured the Lebanese old guard’s dominance over national politics for years to come. The same individuals who once commanded sectarian militias during the Civil War discarded their military fatigues for suits and ties, and ran for office (or were appointed). Aside from those with blood on their hands, a class of wealthy businessmen with hefty political ambitions also came onto the scene during the 1990s. Our government today is infested with individuals from both groups and/or their children and henchmen, who managed to seamlessly collude in joint pursuit of their private interests. Thus the marriage of private capital to the Lebanese state came to pass, and the Lebanese ruling class now treats the state as businesspeople would treat their private company.

It is not a secret that those who hold power in Lebanon are corrupt. You would be hard-pressed to find a single Lebanese citizen who would deny it. Many Lebanese politicians made massive fortunes when in office. In spite of this, the same names and faces are repeatedly voted into office come election season. They manage to invoke loyalty through sectarian fearmongering and what can only be described as blatant bribery of the electorate. It must also be said that a viable non-sectarian political alternative that is able to challenge the Lebanese ruling class’s grip on the populace has yet to emerge, and for this, we only have ourselves to blame. This current parliament, however, unconstitutionally extended its own term in May of 2013, and then again in November of 2014. As it stands, MPs will now hold office up until 2017. This had led many of those on the ground today to argue that our priorities must be to force a dissolution of parliament and hold immediate parliamentary elections.

The Lebanese state responded frantically to the protests on August 22nd and 23rd. We were targeted with rubber bullets, water cannons, tear gassed, beaten, and live ammunition was used to disperse the protesters. There was talk of “infiltrators,” supposedly sent to the protests by their political parties to provoke the police into a violent response. It is important that this be addressed, as many of the protesters themselves were peddling this propaganda. As someone who was present on the ground, I find these claims to be preposterous. “Infiltrator” was nakedly used as a fill-in for “poor”; it was meant to describe those who did not meet bourgeois standards of decency and respectability. These so-called infiltrators were nothing but angry, disenfranchised young men from working class backgrounds who had much to gain from this movement. But thanks to the bourgeois fear of genuine rage, Lebanese security forces were able to use the supposed presence of these infiltrators as pretext for carrying out mass arrests on the 25th of August.

More than 90 protesters were beaten and detained that day, and they were forbidden access to lawyers and medics. Many were severely injured, whether at the hands of the police in the square or from being beaten post-arrest at the police stations where they were held. One was shot and thought to be dead, though it turned out he was holding on in grave condition. We held a vigil for him under the hospital where he is being treated yesterday; hundreds showed up. Almost all those detained were subject to drug tests as a form of intimidation. They were then billed for these drug tests by security forces upon their release.

By August 23rd, the organizers of the “You Stink” campaign had largely lost control of the situation on the ground. Citing infiltration, the organizers asked that the protest be moved from Riad al-Solh square to nearby Martyrs Square. A large segment of the protesters heeded the organizers’ demand and vacated Riad al-Solh. Shortly after, the police in Riad al-Solh began to get violent, firing live ammunition and targeting us with water cannons and tear gas. The Lebanese Armed Forces were then asked to intervene, and armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and dozens of infantrymen came rolling in to “secure” downtown Beirut. We later found out that those who lead “You Stink” had collaborated with the police on getting protesters out of Riad al-Solh so that security forces may then deal with those “infiltrators” who remain. A strong backlash to this rhetoric is already taking place in the streets. “We are all infiltrators” has become a popular slogan of the movement, widely present at the protests on signs and banners. The term infiltrator itself is slowly being reclaimed by the protesters at large, to serve as a badge of honor rather than of shame.margin-ad-left

You Stink is not the only group organizing for these protests, but it is the one that is granted the most airtime. A number of left-wing organizations and student groups are also heavily present on the ground. The Socialist Forum for example, has been giving out flyers and putting out statements at almost every protest so far. There is a strong, left-wing element to these protests, but it is not dominant on the movement as a whole. There have been chants against banks, the patriarchy, and capitalism at every protest so far. Protesters chanted “against authority and capital, our cause is a class issue” on the 23rd of August in Riad al-Solh, while “down down with the rule of the banks” was a dominant chant on the 26th of August, when protesters gathered in front of the Lebanese Central Bank. The class nature of this struggle cannot be ignored.

Despite the existence of numerous contradictions that still need to be straightened out, there is hope for this movement. This is the first truly independent Lebanese movement for change that I’ve witnessed within my lifetime, and those taking part belong to every sect. The politics of identity which usually dominate the Lebanese political scene have taken a back seat to people coming together to fight for the direct material betterment of their lives. This movement will be doomed to fail, however, if those who “lead” it — that is, those who are given a platform to speak in its name — continue to push back against the participation of working class people in these protests by allying with security forces against so-called infiltrators. In the long run, it is clear that nothing short of the complete dismantling of the sectarian regime, its militias, and the socioeconomic conditions that perpetuate it will bring us justice. We still are a very long way from achieving this goal, and this movement on its own may not reach it. But at the very least, it will enlighten those who act with impunity from parliament and the Serail to the fact that we are not a passive population without agency, and their actions are not without consequence.

Clashes Break Out During Protests Over Trash Crisis in Lebanon

Αναδημοσίευση του ομότιτλου άρθρου από τους New York Times (όπου υπάρχει και σύντομο σχετικό βίντεο):

24LEBANON-articleLarge
By HWAIDA SAADAUG. 23, 2015

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Thousands of protesters streamed into downtown Beirut for a second day on Sunday to demand that the government resign over its inability to remove enormous heaps of garbage from the city’s streets. The demonstrations led to clashes with the police, who turned fire hoses and tear gas guns on the crowds.

At least 30 people were hurt, according to the Red Cross. Dozens of people were injured on Saturday, when the police also used rubber bullets.

On Sunday night, chaotic scenes unfolded as demonstrators refused to disperse and entered Martyrs’ Square, an expanse of empty space created by the destruction of Lebanon’s civil war a generation ago.

The garbage crisis has become the most glaring sign — at least to the senses of sight and smell — of the political paralysis that now grips the nation and has unified many Lebanese, usually divided by sect, religion and region, in what the protesters call the “You Stink” campaign.

Two more bags of trash were added to a mound of it near Floyd the Dog bar in Beirut. Garbage in the city has not been collected in over a week.Beirut Journal: Lebanese Seethe as Stinking Garbage Piles Grow in Beirut and BeyondJULY 27, 2015

The office of president has been vacant for more than a year, and Parliament essentially re-elected itself after being unable to agree on new elections, even as the country absorbed more than 1.2 million refugees from the Syrian civil war.

Fouad al Hassan, an actor known for his work in television comedies, said he took part in the protests outside the Grand Serail, the stately Ottoman-era building where Prime Minister Tammam Salam has his office, because “I want to change the system.”

“We want new blood or the country will stay the same,” added Mr. Hassan, 65. “Today, it’s too late for me, but I want it for my children. I want them to live a better life.”

Aline Shirfan, a 21-year-old civil engineer, said it was her first time participating in a demonstration. “I have nothing to lose, I’m so desperate,” she said. “If we don’t die from a bullet we will die from cancer from the trash smell.”

Men with covered faces threw stones at the police, but organizers of the You Stink campaign insisted that they were not part of it. In a telephone interview, Lucien Bourjeily, one of the organizers, described the men as infiltrators sent by “partisan elements” who were trying to tarnish a peaceful movement.

Martyrs’ Square was the site of huge rallies after the assassination of a former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, in a car bombing in Beirut in 2005. Those rallies eventually led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops and ended de facto Syrian control of the country, though Syria and the militant group Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally, denied any involvement in the assassination.

On Sunday night, clouds of tear gas reached Mr. Hariri’s tomb, which adjoins the Mohammed Al-Amin Mosque, which he financed. On a street leading to the Serail, traffic lights and shop windows had been smashed.

Before the violence on Sunday, Mr. Salam admitted at a news conference that “excessive force” had been used during the rallies on Saturday, and that the demonstrators had a legitimate grievance.

“What happened yesterday was the result of accumulating matters that have been building up and increasing the people’s suffering as the result of the vacuum we are living,” Mr. Salam said. He promised that he would hold government officials accountable and said, “I won’t cover anyone.”

 

Asked if he would resign, Mr. Salam said, “My patience is limited, and it’s linked to yours.”

For many years, Beirut’s trash and that of much of central Lebanon was sent to a landfill near Naimeh, a town south of the capital.

But the amount of trash long ago exceeded that landfill’s capacity, and communities nearby complained of the smell and blamed it for health problems. Protesters blocked the road to the landfill last summer, causing a pileup of garbage in Beirut.

They relented after the government promised to find alternatives. But when no alternatives materialized, the protesters blocked the road again last month, leading to the present crisis.

The complaints that brought ordinary citizens into the streets of Beirut over the weekend were not unlike the festering anger that prompted recent protests in Baghdad over the Iraqi government’s failure to provide enough electricity to power air-conditioners when temperatures soared well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In other countries, like Brazil, Honduras and Guatemala, largely leaderless protests have arisen suddenly and more or less spontaneously over allegations of government corruption and widespread perceptions of a lack of accountability.

On Sunday, some Lebanese who did not take part in the demonstrations expressed strong support for them. “Unfortunately, today is my shift so I can’t join. All my friends are already there,” said a woman who was working at a market and identified herself by her first name, Hiba. “This country is not functioning.”

As she was speaking, the electricity in the store went off. “Now you know what I mean,” she said.

Η κρίση γενικεύεται, αλλά δεν αρκεί

Αναδημοσιεύουμε εδώ ένα παλιότερο κείμενο του Woland, αναρτημένο εδώ στο ίδιο blog πριν από περίπου δυο χρόνια, λόγω της επικαιρότητας των παρατηρήσεών του.

897998_8a27_625x1000

Στα κράτη της “αραβικής άνοιξης” η κρίση παίρνει ολοένα και περισσότερο τη μορφή της κρίσης του ίδιου του Kράτους. Πέρα από την αποσάθρωση της Αιγύπτου, η κατάσταση γίνεται ολοένα και χειρότερη στην Τυνησία, και ποτέ δε βελτιώθηκε από το χάος που προέκυψε μετά το 2011 στη Λιβύη.  Στο κράτος αυτό δεν σταθεροποιήθηκε σε καμία στιγμή μια νομιμοποιημένη κρατική εξουσία. Αυτή η γενικευμένη αποσταθεροποίηση είναι δεδομένη στις τέσσερις δεκαετίες του κύκλου του νεοφιλελεύθερου-χρηματοπιστωτικού καπιταλισμού για την υποσαχάρια αφρική, και η Νότια Αφρική εντάσσεται τα τελευταία χρόνια ολοένα και περισσότερο στην “εποχή των ταραχών” με συγκρούσεις κυρίως των βιομηχανικών εργατών στα ορυχεία και των φτωχών που διαμαρτύρονται για τις άθλιες συνθήκες διαβίωσης τους.

Η κρίση του Κράτους όμως δεν περιορίζεται μόνο στις χώρες του Μαγκρέμπ ή/και της Αφρικής γενικότερα. Στη λατινική αμερική, η κατάσταση επιδεινώνεται συνεχώς. Στη Βραζιλία τις τελευταίες μέρες έγιναν και πάλι βίαιες διαδηλώσεις σε αρκετές πόλεις. Η εισβολή σε τράπεζα, η καταστροφή εισόδου τηλεοπτικού σταθμού αποτελούν ενδείξεις του σημείου που βρίσκεται ακόμη η κοινωνική ένταση. Στη Χιλή εδώ και πολλούς μήνες συνεχίζονται οι συγκρούσεις για την εκπαιδευτική αναδιάρθρωση, στην Κολομβία οι συγκρούσεις των αγροτών, αρχικά, με την αστυνομία τείνουν να πάρουν τη μορφή εξέγερσης με τη συμμετοχή φοιτητών και άλλω προλετάριων σε αυτές, και εχθές, επίσης, έγιναν μεγάλες διαδηλώσεις στο Μεξικό ενάντια στην ιδιωτικοποίηση της κρατικής εταιρείας πετρελαίου, η οποία για να συμβεί απαιτεί αναθέωρηση του συντάγματος του κράτους αυτού.

Στην νότια Ευρώπη η κρίση του Κράτους (αναδιάρθρωση με μοχλό τη συνεχή κρίση δημόσιου χρέους) εμφανίζεται ως κατάρρευση του πολιτικού σκηνικού και αδυναμία δημιουργίας ενός άλλου (κάτι που επηρεάζει έμμεσα και τις ανατολικές χώρες στις οποίες η πολιτική σύγκλιση με το νεοφιλελεύθερο καπιταλισμό ήταν ταχύτατη, τα αποτελέσματα είναι εμφανή σε Βουλγαρία, Σλοβενία αλλά και Ρωσία). Στη Σουδία μετά την Αγγλία, οι ταραχές των αποκλεισμένων όρισαν την κρίση του Κράτους ως κρίση ενσωμάτωσης/αποκλεισμού του προλεταριάτου στην διαδικασία παραγωγής αξίας. Στις ΗΠΑ και στη Βρετανία η αδυναμία του κράτους να δημιουργήσει συναίνεση γύρω από έναν ακόμη ιμπεριαλιστικό πόλεμο (έναν πόλεμο που εξάγει το κοινωνικό ζήτημα του κράτους που επιτίθεται) είναι επίσης μια μορφή εμφάνισης της κρίσης του Κράτους. Η αδυναμία συναίνεσης γύρω από αυτόν τον πόλεμο είναι σημαντική καθώς η δεύτερη φάση της αναδιάρθρωσης αποτελεί μεταξύ άλλων και παραγόμενη διευθέτηση της κρίσης της ζωνοποίησης του κεφαλαίου. Η νέα περιφερειοποίηση που είναι αναγκαία πτυχή της δεύτερης φάσης της αναδιάρθρωσης (και επίλυση της κρίσης του Κράτους που κυοφορεί) δεν μπορεί να συμβεί χωρίς την εμπλοκή της ταξικής πάλης στα κράτη που προσπαθούν να την επιβάλλουν όπως φαίνεται (μια εξέλιξη που σχετίζεται με το γεγονός ότι η ζωνοποίηση αναπαράγεται και στο εσωτερικό των “ανεπτυγμένων” κρατών).

Στα κράτη της ανατολικής και νοτιοανατολικής ασίας στα οποία βασίζεται σε σημαντικό βαθμό η παγκόσμια συνδιασμένη συσσώρευση κεφαλαίου (και είναι πιθανό να βασιστεί ακόμη περισσότερο στο μέλλον μετά από τη διαφαινόμενη κατάρρευση της χρηματοπιστωτικής σταθερότητας των BRIS και της Τουρκίας) η κρίση παίρνει επίσης τη μορφή της κρίσης του Κράτους, παρά τις επιμέρους διαφορές. Στο Μπαγκλαντές η σύγκρουση έχει και στοιχεία εργατικού κινήματος και στοιχεία που προσομοιάζουν στα κινήματα του Μαγκρέμπ και της Τουρκίας, στην Κίνα το εργατικό στοιχείο είναι εντονότερο και συνδιάζεται με σκληρές συγκρούσεις γύρω από την απαλλοτρίωση γης, οι οποίες μορφοποιούν την πολιτική κρίση στο κράτος αυτό.

Η κρίση του Κράτους είναι ο τρόπος που παράγεται η καπιταλιστική κρίση στο επίπεδο της αναπαραγωγής των τάξεων, είναι μια σημαντική μορφοποίηση της εποχής των ταραχών και της άνισης δυναμικής της. Στο Κράτος, στη δυσκολία του να αναδιαρθρωθεί,  να ενσωματώσει την ταξική πάλη στις δομές του, να επανορίσει τους όρους της κοινωνικής ειρήνης, να τιθασεύσει το υπεράριθμο προλεταριάτο, να κατανείμει την εργασιακή δύναμη ικανοποιητικά με βάση το φύλο, την ηλικία ή/και τη φυλή της και να διασφαλίσει την διαφοροποιημένη υποτίμηση της εργασιακής δύναμης συνολικά, να συνεχίσει την πορεία του μέσα σε ευρύτερα περιφερειακά υπερ-κρατικά σχήματα και πιθανόν να απο-εθνικοποιηθεί μέσα σε αυτά, σε όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία είναι που συναντιούνται προς το παρόν όλες οι ετερόκλητες αντιφάσεις, σε όλα αυτά τα στοιχεία και στη συνάρθρωση τους μορφοποιείται ο τρόπος σύνδεσης της εκμετάλλευσης με όλες τις αντιφάσεις της αναπαραγωγής των τάξεων (φύλο-οικογένεια, θρησκεία, φυλή, νεολαία-εκπαίδευση, ένταξη/αποκλεισμός) και τους παραγόμενους συνδυασμούς των αντιφάσεων αυτών.

Το τέλος του εργατικού κινήματος, δηλαδή το τέλος του ορίζοντα μιας κοινωνίας στην οποία όλοι θα είναι εργάτες, είναι επίσης στοιχείο της κρίσης του Κράτους. Οι προλετάριοι και οι προλετάριες δεν έχουν ως ορίζοντα της δραστηριότητας τους την κατάκτηση της εξουσίας από το κόμμα “τους”, άρα δεν έχουν ως σαφή ορίζοντα τους τη διαχείριση ενός “άλλου τύπου” Κράτους. Αυτή η απουσία είναι ιδιαίτερα σημαντική, γιατί θέτει το πρόβλημα της επανάστασης με αρνητικούς όρους.  Όταν δεν υπάρχει ο ορίζοντας μιας κοινωνίας στην οποία όλοι θα είναι εργάτες, υπονομεύεται ταυτόχρονα και η επίλυση των αντιθέσεων τις οποίες “τακτοποιούσε” η ηγεμονία του κοινωνικού ρόλου του εργάτη. Οι πρώην δευτερεύουσες αντιθέσεις παράγονται στον κύκλο αυτό ως άλυτες αντιφάσεις, όλα είναι σε καθεστώς αμφισβήτησης όχι όμως ως προς την ιεραρχία τους, όπως συνέβαινε μέχρι τον προηγούμενο κύκλο, αλλά ως προς την ύπαρξη τους. Δεν τίθεται θέμα “ισότητας” πλέον, τίθεται θέμα κατάργησης των ρόλων και των ταυτοτήτων, δηλαδή, θέμα κατάργησης του προλεταριάτου. Αυτή η απουσία του ορίζοντα της κοινωνίας των εργατών και της κατάληψης της κρατικής εξουσίας, όμως, ενώ ορίζει το πρόβλημα (την κατάργηση όλων των κοινωνικών ρόλων) αρνητικά, και παράγει την ανάδυση των πρών δευτερουσών αντιφάσεων στην επιφάνεια της συγκυρίας, αδυνατεί να θέσει το ζήτημα της κατάργησης των κοινωνικών ρόλων με θετικό τρόπο. Ενώ απουσιάζει η κατάληψη της κρατικής εξουσίας από τον ορίζοντα και τη δυναμική της συγκυρίας, δεν ηγεμονεύει η κατάργηση του ίδιου του Κράτους ως ορίζοντας, ένα στοιχείο αναγκαίο για την κατάργηση όλων των διαμεσολαβήσεων που συγκροτούν την ταξική κοινωνία.

Το αποτέλεσμα αυτής της αντιφατικής κατάστασης είναι η μεταβατική περίοδος, η δεύτερη φάση της αναδιάρθρωσης που συντελείται από την αρχή του κύκλου του νεοφιλελεύθερου-χρηματοπιστωτικού καπιταλισμού (από τη σκοπιά του κεφαλαίου), η μορφοποίηση της φάσης αυτής ως “εποχή των ταραχών” (από τη σκοπιά του προλεταριάτου). Ο ορίζοντας της κατάργησης του Κράτους, ως αναγκαίου κομμουνιστικού μέτρου, δεν μπορεί να αποτυπωθεί σε επίπεδο πολιτικού προγράμματος και να διαδοθεί από μια “πεφωτισμένη ηγεσία” στις προλεταριακές μάζες (οι αναρχικές πολιτικές οργανώσεις που ευαγγελίζονται την κατάργηση του Κράτους ως πρόγραμμα επιβεβαιώνουν με αυτόν τον τρόπο την καθήλωση τους στον προηγούμενο κύκλο αγώνων). Κάθε πολιτικό πρόγραμμα, ακόμη και το πιο ριζοσπαστικό προυποθετει την ύπαρξη θεσμών διαμεσολάβησης των κοινωνικών σχέσεων (ακόμη και “αμεσοδημοκρατικής” ή συμβουλιακής!) για την υλοποίηση του. Συνεπώς το Κράτος, μέσα σ’αυτό το θεωρητικό σύμπαν, για να καταργηθεί πρέπει πρώτα να κατακτηθεί, να υπάρξει μια μεταβατική περίοδος κατάργησης του (μια προοπτική που εξαντλείται στη συνεχή επίκληση της ανάστασης του νεκρού εργατικού κινήματος και της εργατικής δημοκρατίας που του αντιστοιχεί, εκεί είναι που συναντιούνται οι πολιτικές οργανώσεις όλου του “επαναστατικού” φάσματος).

Ο ορίζοντας της κατάργησης του Κράτους μπορεί να παραχθεί μόνο μέσα στη συνεχή ανανέωση των συνθηκών ύπαρξης των αγώνων που συναποτελούν την εποχή των ταραχών. Η ίδια η αναπαραγωγή του αγώνα, η ταύτιση της δραστηριότητας του αγώνα με το στόχο του, μόνο αυτή η δυναμική που έρχεται συνεχώς σε ρήξη με τον εαυτό της, που αμφισβητεί συνεχώς την καθήλωση στις όποιες “επιτυχίες” της, μπορεί στην ιστορική περίοδο που διανύουμε να είναι η παραγωγή της επανάστασης.

Στη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια οι μπουλντόζες παίρνουνε φωτιά

Αναδημοσίευση από το blog της ελευθεριακής συλλογικότητας ΑΝΑΖΩΠΥΡΩΣΗ, το πρωτότυπο εδώ.

prasinoi-kadoi1

Στη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια οι μπουλντόζες παίρνουνε φωτιά

Στις 10 Νοεμβρίου 2014 δημοσιεύθηκε το σχέδιο τεχνικού προγράμματος και προϋπολογισμού του δήμου Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας – Ν. Χαλκηδόνας για το οικονομικό έτος 2015, το οποίο ψηφίστηκε από το δημοτικό συμβούλιο στις 3 Δεκεμβρίου 2014. Σε αυτόν τον προϋπολογισμό συμπεριλαμβάνεται η κατεδάφιση της κατάληψης Στρούγκα. Οι καταληψίες της Στρούγκας κληθήκανε από τη δημοτική αρχή να συμμετάσχουν σε συζήτηση μαζί της, ώστε η τελευταία να τους ενημερώσει για τις προθέσεις της σχετικά με το χώρο. Φυσικά, οι καταληψίες αρνήθηκαν να παρευρεθούν σε μια τέτοια συνάντηση. Η οικονομική επιτροπή του δήμου μάλιστα προχώρησε στις 8 Δεκεμβρίου στην απευθείας ανάθεση επιμέρους εργολαβιών που απαιτούνται για την υλοποίηση της πολιτικής απόφασης της δημοτικής αρχής του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, με πρόσχημα “να μη χαθούν τα ευρωπαϊκά κονδύλια”. Στις 5 Αυγούστου 2015, η ίδια δημοτική αρχή κατεδαφίζει την κατάληψη Κένταυρος στο άλσος της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας.

Αυτές οι μπουλντόζες δεν ήταν οι μόνες που κόβουν βόλτες -ή ίπτανται ως απειλές ενός ζοφερού μέλλοντος- στους δρόμους της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας. Πριν δώδεκα χρόνια, τον Μάιο του 2003 είχαν εμφανιστεί μπουλντόζες ανάπτυξης στην περιοχή, με σκοπό το γκρέμισμα του ποδοσφαιρικού γηπέδου της ΑΕΚ και την ανέγερση νέου. Το παλιό γήπεδο γκρεμίστηκε, όμως νέο γήπεδο δεν χτίστηκε. Λεφτά δεν υπήρχαν, νομικά πλαίσια δεν υπήρχαν. Το μόνο που υπήρχε ήταν αντίδραση από κατοίκους στην περιοχή ενάντια στην κατασκευή μεγαλύτερου γηπέδου, υπόγειου πάρκινγκ κι εμπορικών καταστημάτων.

Πλέον, τα πράγματα μοιάζουνε καλύτερα για την ΑΕΚ. Ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ ως κυβέρνηση πλέον διακυρρήτει ότι θα βρει άκρη στα νομικά προβλήματα για την ανέγερση του γηπέδου. Η συριζαίικη δημοτική αρχή της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας ενώ δείχνει να εναντιώνεται στην ανέγερση επαγγελματικού γηπέδου κι εμπορικού κέντρου, κάνει ότι καλύτερο μπορεί ώστε οι “πιέσεις” της να είναι όσο πιο νομικά μικρές, ανώδυνες κι ανούσιες γίνεται. Ίσα-ίσα για να μπορεί να εμφανίζεται ως εκπρόσωπος των αγωνιζόμενων κατοίκων για την προστασία του άλσους ενάντια στα συμφέροντα του Μελισσανίδη και κάθε λογής επιχειρηματία.

Η “Δικέφαλος 1924 Κατασκευαστική ΑΕ”, συμφερόντων Μελισσανίδη, είχε καταθέσει έγγραφο το οποίο υποτίθεται ότι τη νομιμοποιούσε να ζητήσει οικοδομική άδεια για την ανέγερση νέου γηπέδου. Το έγγραφο όμως κρίθηκε αόριστο και ανεπαρκές από το Αυτοτελές Τμήμα Νομοθετικής Πρωτοβουλίας και Εργου του ΥΠΑΠΕΝ (Υπουργείο Παραγωγικής Ανασυγκρότησης, Περιβάλλοντος κι Ενέργειας), που αποφάνθηκε ότι πρέπει να διερευνηθεί αν η εταιρεία του Μελισσανίδη ανήκει σε αυτούς “που σύμφωνα με τα οριζόμενα στην παρ. 3 του άρθρου 42 δύνανται να υπογράφουν με το ως άνω ερασιτεχνικό αθλητικό σωματείο ΑΕΚ ειδικές προγραμματικές συμβάσεις αθλητικής ανάπτυξης”. Τότε ο Μελισσανίδης, στις 3 Φεβρουαρίου 2015, συγκάλεσε γενική συνέλευση της ερασιτεχνικής ΑΕΚ, στην οποία αποφασίστηκε η μεταβίβαση όλων τα δικαιωματών της ερασιτεχνικής ΑΕΚ στην εταιρεία του Μελισσανίδη, και στη συνέχεια η εταιρεία κατέθεσε αυτή τη σύμβαση στη ΔΑΟΚΑ (Διεύθυνση Αρχιτεκτονικής, Οικοδομικών Κανονισμών και Αδειοδοτήσεων), ζητώντας την έκδοση άδειας ΜΠΕ (Μελέτης Περιβαλλοντικών Επιπτώσεων) για την κατασκευή και λειτουργία του “Κέντρου Αθλητισμού, Μνήμης και Πολιτισμού στη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια Αττικής”. Η ΔΑΟΚΑ διαβίβασε αυτή τη σύμβαση στο Αυτοτελές Τμήμα Νομοθετικής Πρωτοβουλίας και Έργου η οποία θα αποφανθεί αν η σύμβαση ανάμεσα στην ερασιτεχική ΑΕΚ και τη “Δικέφαλος 1924 ΑΕ” μπορεί να θεωρηθεί έγκυρη για την ανέγερση γηπέδου. Η απάντηση εκκρεμεί και δεν πρόκειται να εκδοθεί πριν από τον ερχόμενο Σεπτέμβριο του 2015.

Νομότυπα, ο χώρος για το γήπεδο έχει παραχωρηθεί προς χρήση από την ερασιτεχνική ΑΕΚ για τις δικές της ανάγκες, οπότε ούτε η “Δικεφάλος 1924 ΑΕ” μπορεί να χτίσει το γήπεδο, ούτε οποιοδήποτε γήπεδο χτιστεί μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί από την ΠΑΕ ΑΕΚ. Όμως, το κράτος δεν παραχώρησε ένα κομμάτι του άλσους στην ερασιτεχνική ΑΕΚ για τον άθληση ερασιτεχνών. Η ιστορία μυρίζει χρήμα, και πολύ χρήμα δεν μπορεί να βγει από τον ερασιτεχνικό αθλητισμό. Κι αυτό φαίνεται, καθώς ενώ το Αυτοτελές Τμήμα Νομοθετικής Πρωτοβουλίας και Έργου του ΥΠΑΠΕΝ δεν έχει αποφανθεί ακόμα σχετικά με την εγκυρότητα της (παράνομης) σύμβασης ανάμεσα στην ερασιτεχνική ΑΕΚ και τη “Δικέφαλος 1924 ΑΕ” του υιού Μελισσανίδη, η Διεύθυνση Περιβαλλοντικής Αδειοδότησης έχει θέσει σε δήμοσια διαβούλευση τη ΜΠΕ για την ανέγερση του “Κέντρου Αθλητισμού, Μνήμης και Πολιτισμού στη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια Αττικής” που έχει καταθέσει η “Δικέφαλος 1924 ΑΕ”. Και ποιο είναι το “κέντρο αθλητισμού”; Σύμφωνα με το έγγραφο που κατέθεσε η εταιρεία δεν πρόκειται για τίποτα άλλο από επαγγελματικό ποδοσφαιρικό γήπεδο προδιαγραφών της UEFA και χωρητικότητας 32.000 θεατών. Και φυσικά, στο έγγραφο προβλέπεται πως η “Δικέφαλος 1924 ΑΕ” θα έχει το αποκλειστικό δικαίωμα πάσης φύσεως οικονομικής εκμετάλλευσης του γηπέδου για τα επόμενα 49 χρόνια.

Παρόλα τα νομικά προβλήματα, τα πράγματα ύστερα από τόσα χρόνια βρίσκονται σε καλό δρόμο για την ΑΕΚ. Τα προβλήματα εύκολα μπορούν να λυθούν είτε με κάποια αλλαγή στη σχετική νομοθεσία είτε κάνοντας τα “στραβά μάτια” και προσπερνώντας την -βλέπε και την περίπτωση του Athens Mall. Για τους δύσπιστους, ας αναφέρουμε ότι η νομοθεσία σχετικά με τις παραχωρήσεις ακινήτων από το κράτος για κοινοφελείς σκοπούς (στην προκειμένη περίπτωση για την ανέγερση γηπέδου για τις ανάγκες των αθλητών της ερασιτεχνικής ΑΕΚ) προβλέπει ότι η παραχώρηση ανακαλείται “αν ο χρήστης δεν εκπληρώσει το σκοπό της παραχώρησης εντός πενταετίας από την έκδοση της απόφασης παραχώρησης ή αν αλλάξει ο σκοπός της παραχώρησης, χωρίς τη συναίνεση του οργάνου που εξέδωσε την πράξη αυτή”. Από τότε όχι πέντε, αλλά δώδεκα χρόνια έχουν περάσει κι η ερασιτεχνική ΑΕΚ δεν έχει χτίσει ακόμα γήπεδο για τις ανάγκες της. Όμως ο χώρος δεν ανακλήθηκε ποτέ από το κράτος. Αφού λοιπόν το κράτος δεν ανακάλεσε τον χώρο για την πρώτη περίπτωση, θα τον ανακάλεσει για την δεύτερη; Για το χτίσιμο δηλαδή γηπέδου από την “Δικέφαλος 1924 ΑΕ” για την ΠΑΕ ΑΕΚ;

Όπως έχουμε γράψει και παλαιότερα (βλέπε το περσινό μας κείμενο με τίτλο “Μαφία”), η κατασκευή του γηπέδου θα δώσει νέα πνοή στην οικονομική ζωή της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας. Πέρα από τις νέες επιχειρήσεις που θα εμφανιστούν (εντός κι εκτός του άλσους), κι οι ήδη υπάρχουσες θα ανθίσουν από τη δημιουργία του γηπέδου. Μικροεπιχειρηματίες, μικροβιοτέχνες και γενικά μικροαφεντικά της περιοχής θα δουν τις δουλειές τους να “ανοίγουν”. Από τα περίπτερα και τα ψητοπωλεία μέχρι τα αθλητικά είδη και όχι μόνο, τα καταστήματα της περιοχής θα αποκτήσουν νέο αγοραστικό κοινό. Οι καταναλωτές που θα επισκέπτονται τη Ν. Φιλάδελφεια κάθε Κυριακή για να εκτονώνονται στο γήπεδο, θα διασκεδάζουν και θα κάνουν τα ψώνια τους στα καταστήματα της περιοχής.

Η καπιταλιστική ανάπτυξη ήδη καλπάζει στη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια. Τα τελευταία χρόνια τα καταστήματα εστίασης (bar, καφετέριες, ταχυφαγεία κλπ) πληθαίνουν με ρυθμούς γεωμετρικής προόδου στις περιοχές της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας και Ν. Χαλκηδόνας. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, από το 2010 έως σήμερα, τα καταστήματα εστίασης στην περιοχή έχουν αυξηθεί περισσότερο από 47% και πλέον ξεπερνούν τα 440. Πλέον, πεζοδρόμια και πεζόδρομοι είναι ασφυκτικά γεμάτα από τα τραπεζοκαθίσματα των καταστημάτων σε τέτοιο βαθμό που πολλές φορές μπορείς να τα διασχίσεις μόνο με μεγάλη δυσκολία. Και σαν να μην έφτανε αυτό, η συριζαίικη δημοτική αρχή θέλει να επικαιροποιήσει το προεδρικό διάταγμα της προστασίας του προσφυγικού συνοικισμού με βάση τον Ν. 4269/14 “περί χωροταξικής και πολεοδομικής μεταρρύθμισης”. Ο νόμος αυτός καταργεί την προστασία των περιοχών αμιγούς κατοικίας και ενθαρρύνει την εκμετάλλευση της γης για εμπορικούς σκοπούς, απορρυθμίζοντας τους περιοριστικούς πολεοδομικούς μηχανισμούς του παρελθόντος. Δηλαδή, ακόμα περισσότερα μαγαζιά για την περιοχή.

Το γήπεδο της ΑΕΚ, οι μέλλουσες επιχειρήσεις εντός κι εκτός του άλσους, και ο σχεδιαζόμενος σταθμός της νέας γραμμής 4 του μετρό (είτε γίνει τελικά στην ίδια τη Ν. Φιλαδέλφεια είτε στον Περισσό σε σημείο 7 λεπτά περπατήματος από την πλατεία Πατριάρχου, δηλαδή το κέντρο της Ν. Φιλάδελφειας) θα επιφέρουν την πολυπόθητη από το κεφάλαιο ανάπτυξη της περιοχής. Μια ανάπτυξη της τσέπης τους και της εκμετάλλευσης της εργασίας μας. Μια ανάπτυξη του τσιμέντου και της μόλυνσης. Η ανάπλαση της Ν. Φιλάδελφειας πλησιάζει απειλητικά, κι από γειτονιά εργατών προσφύγων θα μετατραπεί σε ένα τεράστιο κέντρο διασκέδασης και κατανάλωσης. Και σαν μην έφταναν αυτά, υπάρχει κι ο κίνδυνος της “πειραιοποίησης” της Ν. Φιλάδελφειας. Ο κίνδυνος δημιουργίας ιδιωτικού στρατού του Μελισσανίδη -μεταμφιεσμένο σε οπαδικό σύνδεσμο- που θα φέρνει σε πέρας τις βρώμικες δουλειές του ιδίου κι άλλων επιχειρηματιών, μαφιόζων και φασιστών της περιοχής, ο οποίος θα προσπαθεί να γίνει ο απόλυτος κυρίαρχος στην εξέδρα και στους δρόμους της περιοχής. Και για να μπορέσει ο κύριος “Τίγρης” να πραγματοποιήσει τα σχέδιά του ευκολότερα χωρίς να χρειάζεται τη μεσολάβηση του πολιτικού προσωπικού του δήμου, δεν θα μπορούσαμε να αφήσουμε έξω απ’την ενδεχόμενη “πειραιοποίηση” και την πιθανότητα να κωλοκαθήσει ο ίδιος σε κάποια καρέκλα του δημοτικού συμβουλίου με τη δημιουργία κάποιας νέας παράταξης, ακουλουθώντας τον δρόμο που χάραξαν ο Μαρινάκης κι ο Μπέος. Μην ξεχνάμε πως ήδη στις τελευταίες δημοτικές εκλογές, ο Μελισσανίδης “κατέβασε” υποψήφιο δήμαρχο τον Γεωργαμλή, παλαίμαχο παίκτη και πρώην βοηθό προπονητή της ΑΕΚ, με την παράταξη “Ένωση Δημοτών”. Η προεκλογική καμπάνια της “Ένωσης Δημοτών” στηρίχτηκε στην προώθηση της ανέγερσης του γηπέδου και στις κατηγορίες των πολιτικών της αντιπάλων ως… φανατικοί οπαδοί του Ολυμπιακού, μέχρι κι ανδρείκελα του Μαρινάκη!

Με όλα αυτά λοιπόν, πως θα μπορούσαν να μην δεχτούν επιθέσεις τα ανταγωνιστικά εγχειρήματα της γειτονιάς; Πέρυσι, ακύρωση των ανοιχτών εκδηλώσεων και δράσεων του Συντονιστικού Κατοίκων Ν. Φ. – Ν. Χ. για το ζήτημα του άλσους αρχικά μέσω τραμπουκισμών και τελικά μέσω δολοφονικών επιθέσεων και το σπάσιμο κι απόπειρα εμπρησμού της κατάληψης Στρούγκας. Φέτος, από πλευράς του δήμου, η εξαγγελία πλάνου κατεδάφισης της Στρούγκας και η κατεδάφιση του Κενταύρου.

Όταν όμως καταλάγιασαν οι ήχοι από τις μπουλντόζες στον Κένταυρο, απλώθηκε “σιωπή”. Τα περισσότερα κείμενα που βγήκαν γύρω από το ζήτημα δεν μιλήσαν άμεσα κι ανοιχτά ούτε για τα επιχειρηματικά συμφέροντα που λυμαίνονται το άλσος, ούτε για την αγωνιστική παρακαταθήκη των περασμένων ετών για την υπεράσπισή του. Αντί αυτού, αρκέστηκαν σε μια αντικατασταλτική ρητορεία για τον ΣΥΡΙΖΑ. Για εμάς που υπογράφουμε το παρών κείμενο, η κατεδάφιση της κατάληψης του Κενταύρου έγινε επειδή στάθηκε, και στο μέλλον θα στεκόταν ακόμα μεγαλύτερο, εμπόδιο στα ευρύτερα καπιταλιστικά πλάνα για την περιοχή.

Οι μπουλντόζες παίρνουνε φωτιά στη Ν. Φιλάδελφεια. Προσπαθούνε να γκρεμίσουν τα προλεταριάκα μας συμφέροντα και να οικοδομήσουν αυτά τα κεφαλαίου. Η Στρούγκα, ο Κένταυρος κι όλοι οι αγωνιζόμενοι κάτοικοι της Ν. Φιλαδέλφειας μάχονται, ο καθένας με τον τρόπο του, ενάντια στην καπιταλιστική ανάπτυξη της περιοχής. Μάχονται ενάντια στην καταστροφή ενός απ’τους ελάχιστους εναπομείναντες ελεύθερους χώρους πράσινου μέσα στη τσιμεντένια Βαβυλώνα. Μάχονται ενάντια στην “πειραιοποίηση” της γειτονιάς τους. Στεκόμαστε δίπλα τους κι έχουμε να πούμε μόνο ένα πράγμα:

Το μόνο γήπεδο στο οποίο θα παίξουμε ποδόσφαιρο θα είναι τα συντρίμμια των ναών του εμπορεύματος

Πρωτοβουλία ατόμων από την ελευθεριακή συλλογικότητα
Αναζωπύρωση

Global working class

Αναδημοσίευση ενός άρθρου από το τελευταίο τεύχος του γερμανικού περιοδικού Wildcat no.98 σχετικά με την εξέλιξη της ταξικής πάλης τα τελευταία χρόνια, το πρωτότυπο εδώ.


Global working class – Wildcat Germany

Indonesian workers' demonstration during national strike for higher wages, 2013.

 

Uprising or Class Struggle?

The concept of class has become popular again. After the most recent global economic crisis, even bourgeois newspapers started posing the question: “Wasn’t Marx right after all?” For the last two years Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ has been on the bestseller list – a book which describes in a detailed way how historically, the capitalist process of accumulation resulted in a concentration of wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of capital owners. In western democracies too, significant inequalities have led to an increase in fear of social uprisings. This spectre has haunted the world in recent years – from riots in Athens, London, Baltimore, to the revolts in North Africa, which at times got rid of whole state governments. As usual during these times of unrest, while one faction of the rulers call for repression and weapons, the other raises the ‘social question’, which is supposed to be solved by reforms or redistribution policies.

Global crisis has de-legitimated capitalism; the politics of the rulers and governments to make the workers and poor pay for the crisis has fuelled anger and desperation. Who would still dispute that we live in a ‘class society’? But what does that mean?

‘Classes’ in the more narrow sense of the word only emerge with capitalism – but the disappropriation from the means of production on which the property-less state of the proletarian is based, has not been a singular historical process. Disappropriation is a daily reoccurrence within the production process itself: workers produce, but the product of their labour does not belong to them. They only get what they need for the reproduction of their labour power, or that according to the living standard that they have claimed through struggle.

In principle, class societies don’t recognise any privileges by birthright, rather the ownership of money determines one’s position in society. In principle capitalism makes it possible to have a career that starts from being a dishwasher to becoming a stock market speculator (or at least a small entrepreneur, which is the hope of many migrants). At the same time, members of the petty bourgeoisie or artisans can descend into the ranks of the proletarians. Climbing up the social ladder is rarely the result of one’s own labour, rather of the ability to become a capitalist and to appropriate other people’s labour. (The mafia, as well, possesses this ability.)

In actual fact, a process of class polarisation takes place, which Marx and Engels had already grasped as an explosive force and precondition for revolution. “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority.” (Manifesto) Immanuel Wallerstein declared Marx’s thesis of class polarisation to be his most radical one, which – once related to the world system – has been proven to be true. Polarisation means, on one hand, proletarianisation, on the other hand bourgeoisification.

Capital is not simply wealth accumulated in the hands of a few. Capital is the precondition and result of the capitalist process of production, in which living labour creates value, which is appropriated by others. For capitalism is not typically the ‘exploitation’ of a single worker by an artisan master, but the exploitation of a big mass of workers in a factory. It is a mode of production based on the fact that millions of people work together although they don’t know each other. They produce value together, but together they can also refuse this work and question the social division of labour. As labour power, workers are part of capital; as the working class, they are capital’s biggest enemy within.

Generations of ‘scientific management’ researchers have tried to expropriate workers’ knowledge of how to produce in order to become independent from them. They have established parallel production units in order to be able to continue production in case workers go on strike. They have closed down and relocated factories in order to be able to increase exploitation of, and control over, new groups of workers. But they were not able to exorcise the spectre. During the strike-waves of 2010, for the first time it haunted all parts of the globe simultaneously. These struggles are currently in the process of changing this world. Even academia has become aware of it and after a long time has turned the working class into an object of their research again – as numerous publications, new magazines and web-pages demonstrate, through which left-wing social scientists try to create links between workers in different continents. In Germany for the last 25 years, workers were left alone with their struggles – here, as well, social movements and intellectuals have started referring to them again.

Retrospective 1978 – the working class at the height of their power

Up to 1989, we were able to explain to ourselves what was happening in this world, or rather, the class struggles were able to explain it to us. The revolutionary awakening around 1968 led to a new surge of workers’ struggles in most countries, and brought forth a comprehensive critique of the factory system and culture of work backed by the trade unions in the metropolis. At the end of the 1970s the working class was at the height of their power. Wages and incomes were secured by collective bargaining and permanent and relatively secure employment was still the norm. In the industrial nations, the material conditions of workers within the framework of their total social wage were better than ever before in history. And their struggles in the industrial core sectors enforced better conditions for everyone.

As early as during the crisis of 1973/74, their productive power had started to be undermined through the relocation of labour intensive mass production to Southeast Asia and restructuring within the factories. Capital wanted to get rid of workers who had become combative and confident. The coup in Chile in 1973 and the ascent of the ‘Chicago Boys’ indicated the direction the counter-revolution of 1979/80 would take, which was identified with the names of Thatcher and Reagan, and which lead to secular defeats of what was, up until that point, central parts of the working class (defeat at FIAT in 1980; the military coup in Turkey; the 1979-81 counter-revolution in Iran after the workers’ council had been smashed; military rule in Poland at the end of 1981; the 1985 defeat of the miners in England…). Direct attacks in the form of mass redundancies and segmentation of the workforce followed. The working class on a national level [nationale Arbeiterklassen] barricaded themselves behind their workplaces and was able – though with big differences according to each country – to fight off direct deteriorations of conditions for a substantial period of time.

For people at the time, the 1980s in Western Europe were contradictory times: on the one hand massive attacks, on the other hand, radical social movements. But seen from today’s perspective it was a decade of dramatic defeats. Austerity politics lead to a dismantling of welfare entitlements and/or these were more tightly linked to actively seeking work. Images from the US showed long queues of unemployed people in front of recruitment agencies, portraying the new dimension of impoverishment of the US working class – a working class that used to be so powerful. In Germany during the mid 1980s, trade union mobilisation for working-time reductions (to combat unemployment!) in return for the flexibilisation and casualisation of ‘normal permanent work contracts’ marked a watershed. The 1980s are represented by military dictatorships and economic decline in large parts of Latin America, state bankruptcy in Mexico, the debt crisis and IMF dictates to enforce ‘structural adjustment programs’.

Since the mid-1980s, the high economic growth rates of the four young ‘tiger-states’, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, turned old assumptions of dependence theory upside-down. The massive strike movements of 1984 focused everyone’s attention on South Korea. Under the ruling conditions of a western-oriented developmental dictatorship, which had massacred a workers’ uprising only seven years earlier, a working class had emerged that challenged South Korea capital and its’ factory regime with radical forms of struggle. Thanks to high wage increases, within the span of a few years, workers were able to catch up with their counterparts in the west. During the late 1980s in Europe, as well, a new class composition seemed to develop within a series of struggles (the nurses’ movement, nursery strikes, train drivers in Italy and France, truck drivers in France, the wildcat strike at VW…) – but then a crisis and war followed, and a massacre that changed the world…

Crisis and surge in proletarianisation in the 1990s

In June 1989 the army opened fire on Tiananmen Square mainly because masses of workers appeared in support of the students. Not students, but workers’ leaders were given the death penalty or long prison sentences. Unofficial unions were immediately declared illegal and their leaders thrown into jail.

This example did not repeat itself in Berlin or Leipzig. There the regime surrendered. When the wall fell in 1989, Wildcat approached the collapse of real existing socialism optimistically. In 1988/89 class struggles in West Germany had intensified and in the course of the regime-change in the east we witnessed mass debates in local workplaces and on the streets about a social future beyond capitalism and GDR socialism – which today has been long forgotten. The economic devastation of the former GDR initially triggered a broad movement of struggle against factory closures and the deterioration of social services.

Following the massacre of the Gulf War in 1991 and the onset of the economic crisis, which was delayed in Germany due to the post-reunification boom but then kicked in even harder in 1993, we saw a massive collapse of existing conditions in the metal industry in the former West Germany. Trade unions did their bit to rescue Germany as the ‘export-nation’, for example in 1994 the IG Metall (metal union) accepted an intensification of work and massive flexibilisation of working times in the ‘Agreement of Pforzheim’. In addition, welfare benefits were attacked across the board.

Struggles that were hoped for – mainly in the factories that were in the process of being dismantled in the former east of Germany – largely did not materialise. The migration of high-skilled workers from east to west worked as a safety valve for social pressure – and resulted in wages dropping for the first time in the west during the post-war period. Mass unemployment in the east was buffered through various means e.g. companies would send workers on training programs continuously because they wasn’t any work, hours of work were reduced, sometimes to zero-hours. At the same time, when we pointed out that the workmate next to us earned double as much as we did for the same work, we would suddenly start hearing comments on the shop-floor like, “The main thing is that we have a job”. The ‘industrial reserve army’ was back! From then on they were increasingly able to divide workers on the shop floor through the massive use of temp work and short-term contracts.

In West Germany in the 1970s, we had learned that, to a large extent, the function of the unemployed ‘reserve army’ to build pressure on employed workers had been undermined: as long as it was no problem to find a job, you could enjoy paid unemployment as a welcome break. Therefore, we were cautious of using terms like ‘reserve army’ and, above all, argued against a premature capitulation. We then also witnessed a rapid deterioration of conditions for unemployed workers. The Hartz laws (unemployment benefit reforms in 2004/2005) resulted in a much larger drop of income in cases of (longer term) unemployment.

The dissolution of the ‘Eastern Bloc’ was also a rupture in regards to triggering a new boost in proletarianisation of the global population. While in the Eastern European countries, a type of ‘primitive accumulation’ took place with former political officials robbing and amassing huge financial wealth through wild privatisations and the masses of workers losing their entitlements to land, accommodation and pensions, which had previously been mediated through the socialist state. On a global scale all regimes shifted towards ‘neoliberalism’, in addition to increased war scenarios – and for the first time since WWII, also in Europe itself.

Return of the proletarian condition

When the threatening image of ‘globalisation’ was manufactured in Germany during the early/mid-1990s (after ‘lean production’ and ‘Toyotism’ in previous years), Wildcat, on one side, tried to emphasise the trump card workers still possessed (“they need workers’ knowledge”, “they face high costs for transport and transactions”), and on the other side, to analyse the potentials that lay in the socialisation of production. If the whole world has become capitalist, then there are no non-capitalist sectors available anymore that could provide capital with a reserve of fresh labour power, which means that at some point, capital faces a global working class.

“Instead of consolidating the mirage of the over-bearing power of capital and subjugation of workers, we have to ask where the new dependencies of capital on the working class are situated… And does the fact that workers cooperate across continents bear new potentials of fighting capital on a global scale.” [1]

Similarly, we did not regard the formation of the EU immediately and automatically as a deterioration of the possibilities for struggles. These were thoughts, which, at the time, only few wanted to share. Our proposal of militant research on a European scale of various sectors – the automobile industry, hospital work, migration, casualisation – petered out. For most of the left, other questions had higher priority: the end of the ‘socialist bloc’, the new wave of nationalism and racism; migrants; the creation of alternative trade unions…

With his publication of, ‘The return of the proletarian condition’ in 1993, Karl-Heinz Roth called upon the left to engage with the question of ‘work’ again. Countering the propagandists of a postmodern society, he sketched out the “tendency towards ‘one’ new proletariat in ‘one’ capitalist world”. He saw a ” homogenisation of employment relations towards casualisation, contract work and ‘dependent’ self-employment “. His idea though that a left milieu, which was subjected to casualisation itself, should have a specific interest in the militant research of class relations, contained a basic flaw: On one side the dissolution of left-wing (infra-)structures and the tendency towards individualisation had already progressed considerably, and on the other side, left academics were still able to find some financial support from universities or research foundations. The traditional left criticised Roth in a rather harsh and dogmatic manner, because he had allegedly given up on central parts of the working class prematurely; his vision of ‘proletarian circles’ as nuclei for organisation were discarded as sectarian.

His prophecies made at the time are astonishingly accurate once they are related to today’s conditions. This is despite the fact that, at the time, the changes that he mentioned with regard to the “globalisation of production” were just about to become visible and access to the internet and electronic communication was barely available to the common user. Many hopes regarding an expansion of social revolts have since then been disillusioned and many of his preliminary proposals – mainly formulated in response to his critics – to form international associations were not taken up, or rather, are still waiting to be turned into practice. The main reason though why such proposals were not greeted with a broad-based agreement was the fact that the 1990s in Europe was a decade of defeats, internalised in preemptive obedience by the left through postmodern and poststructuralist theories and its search for the right kind of identities. All attempts of generalisation were destroyed from within.

Since its origin, Wildcat’s role has been to spread the word of worldwide class struggles in its local surroundings, but after the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc this did not work anymore. Many readers, as well, resigned, facing the declared victory of capitalism. Wildcat did not want to just continue as normal and to keep the flag raised high. In 1995 the editorial collective put the publication of the magazine on halt for several years and continued the debate in the form of the Wildcat-Zirkular.

Anti-Glob

The emergence of the EZLN in the Lacandon Jungle during the beginning of the NAFTA agreement in 1994 put revolution back on the agenda again and opened the way for completely new discourses and high hopes. Even more so when an ‘anti-globalisation movement‘ came together with the organised labour movement in response to the WTO conference in Seattle in 1999.

Radical struggles seemed to be taking place in the ‘global south’ and in the countryside, in the form of struggles against ‘enclosures’ and ‘valorisation’, rather than in the global factories. In the factories people were put under pressure, their jobs were cut back, they were supposed to work more etc. – and then read newspaper articles which explained to them why things were like they were: globalisation means increased competition and we are only able to stay afloat if we lower our wages. That sounds logical, right? Finally, these are all assumptions that confine you to the role of a victim of all-powerful developments. Therefore we made an effort to criticise the notion of globalisation and its propagandistic application: The debate about ‘globalisation’ tries to, “on an ideological level, sell a 30-year phase of capitalism’s global stagnation as a triumphal series of victories”. [2]

Instead of using the terms ‘globalisation’ or ‘neoliberalism’ we continued writing about capitalism and referred to the tumultuous developments in Asia.

Asia is where it’s at…

The term ‘global working class’ (“Weltarbeiterklasse”) appeared for the first time in Wildcat Zirkular no.25 (April 1996). The article ‘World in a Radical Change’ [3] described the process of proletarianisation from Bangladesh to Indonesia to China, which was accompanied by intense struggles and riots and the emergence of a new workforce migrating from the countryside to the urban world: young women, who prefer factory work to the patriarchal rule in the village. These young workers are declared as being a vanguard of the making of a new working class, which is a reason to give us hope again. The article assumes that an “explosion of needs/desires” is the material basis of ‘neoliberalism’, which dissolved workers’ rigidity in the old industrial nations and which now initiates a global transformation of class relations starting from Asia. The workers in the old industrial centres will soon lose their position of being the only workers able to manufacture cars. The article was a call for inquiry of these changes in Asia, Latin America, and Africa – and for a reconsideration of theoretical “ballast” e.g. in the form of theories about “the new enclosures” or the “end of development”.

What followed was an intense debate in Wildcat Zirkular about the validity of seemingly self-explanatory press releases about workers’ unrest and the significance of the working class in East Asia. Parts of the editorial collective denied the “crisis of capital” und relocated all revolutionary hope towards the “new” working class in Asia:

“What is it that we want to hint at: the global working class recomposes itself in an unprecedented scope and speed. This has two aspects and both improve the potentials for communism.

1. The proletariat has become the quantitative majority of the global population or put another way: the departure of the masses in search of their luck is a step towards the completion [4] of developed capitalism. Only now can what Marx and Engels postulated 150 years ago in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ become true.

2. The ‘old’ working class, which is synonymous with social-democracy, trade unions, communist parties, blue overalls, workers’ pride, company-based interests… loses significance worldwide and dissolves itself in equal measures through escape from the factories, being thrown out of the factories and in defensive struggles. In principle this process is the same here as it is, for example, in China. But in turn there emerges a new working class consisting of young workers, and above all, first generation female workers. And it is wholly unnecessary to explain why a seventeen-year old girl embodies more revolutionary hope than a 35-year old family man.” [5]

A different part of the editorial collective merely saw a repetition of the mass-workers’ history, but no new quality, and insisted on a theoretical grounding of the notion of ‘global working class’:

“The emergence of a ‘global working class’ is based on the question of whether a real socialisation through a global productive cooperation takes place, meaning, the question of to what extent the global production of capital opens the possibility of communism. […] To answer this question we first of all have to understand the inner connection between exploited people around the globe, namely, that they already produce this (inverted/upside-down) world – and that they are therefore able to change it.” [6]

” One of the main problems of revolutionary politics today lies in its inability to criticise theoretically and practically the global production process in such a radical demystifying way.” [7]

Worldwide proletarianisation and supply shock

In January 1998 Karl-Heinz Roth, too, claimed that 150 years after the Communist manifesto, the proletariat has constituted itself for the first time objectively worldwide – and that contrary to Rosa Luxemburg’s presumption, non-capitalist sectors have been completely integrated too. ” For the first time in history the property-less, who have to offer and sell their labour power in order to live, quantitatively constitutes the majority of the world population” . [8]

This assumption raises questions on at least two levels: Do we understand this process as a first step in the constitution of a class without the means of subsistence, followed by a second step in the form of the transition of landless proletarians into waged workers? Or does a universe of different relations of exploitation develop? What does this mean for the development of struggles? [9]

Throughout the 1980s the autonomous left in Germany related more to the subsistence economy (or to what one read into it) and riots by those who had been excluded from the capitalist production process than to ‘wage workers’. In 1983 Wallerstein had already pointed out that the large majority of the world population today works harder and longer and for less income than 400 years ago. This process of increasing dependency on wage income we could call, in Marx’s sense, ‘proletarianisation’. This means: an increase of real purchasing power; it is therefore in the long-term interests of capital, but against the interests of individual capitalists who are interested in low reproduction costs of their workers, meaning, they are interested in a ‘semi-proletarianisation’: a household economy based on income from different sources and the subsistence economy or in-house-work. [10]

In contrast, full proletarianisation (meaning: both wife and husband are free wage-labourers and buy all of their means of subsistence) is desired rather by the proletarians. Full proletarianisation requires a ‘welfare state’, which transfers income to those who don’t work. East Germany was a role-model case for ‘full-proletarianisation’ – which solved its labour shortage problems with migrants from Vietnam and Mozambique. Based on Luxemburg’s thesis that capitalism is not able to reproduce the workforce it exploits, Wallerstein demonstrates that large parts of the global population never achieves full-proletarianisation, but rather that households stay dependent on subsistence production and self-employed activities of all kind.

Forces of Labor

Wildcat pointed out the vulnerability of the new transport chains within the new global landscape, which were otherwise difficult to comprehend due to rapid changes and shifts. We focused our attention on the new locations of production – during the 1990s, automobile factories not only emerged in Asia, but also in Eastern Europe.

Helpful in this regard was the book ‘Forces of Labor’ by Beverly Silver, who, within the framework of world-systems analysis, positioned working class unrest at the centre of her research. She was able to point out that, historically, wherever capital goes, struggles follow: in reaction to the workers’ revolts in the 1970s capital built new car factories in South Africa and Brazil – and thereby triggered a new dynamic of powerful workers’ struggles. During the 1980s the car industry boomed in South Korea – which lead to similar persistent struggles by a new generation of workers.

What was important was that Silver looked at the entire globe and established the fact that ‘fixes’ were only temporary repair jobs of the system and that capital time and again had to confront resistance – because labor unrest is endemic to capitalism. Though her schematic categorisation into ‘Marxian’ struggles and ‘Polanyi-type’ struggles were less helpful.

Silver assumed that the weakening of workers’ ‘bargaining power’ in the countries of the global north would only be temporary. Her empirical data initially only reached up to 1990, but was then extended to 1996 – and up to 1990 her analysis does fit the picture. In Eastern Europe though, wages are still significantly lower than in the West. Automobile workers have ceased to be the best paid workers, at least this is not true for all places around the globe. Silver has a cyclical picture of the world, crisis is always cyclical, always followed by phases of development and boom. From her perspective a big crisis would mean that fundamental transformations, instability and a new hegemonic force in the world system would emerge. She does not pose the question of how workers’ struggle might lead to communism and she has ‘not noticed’ the long phase during which workers in Southeast Asia did not pose a revolutionary threat to capitalism. Today, Silver explains the deep crisis of the global labour movement by the fact that the ‘financial fix’ was combined with a ‘de-making’ of the established working classes. Capital has been removed from production, the destructive side was dominant. Nevertheless, she states that the financial fix was effective only temporarily and has also shifted the crisis geographically – and has finally lead to a new and deep crisis of legitimisation of capitalism. [11]

And it is true that there has hardly ever been as much organised resistance against infrastructure projects, dams, power plants etc. – particularly in the more recently industrialised countries like India, Indonesia or China. Whether we grasp them as struggles against ‘commodification’ – or simply as against the destruction of the basis of livelihood: by now a global experience has emerged that ‘technical progress’ does not automatically lead to ‘development’, but is going hand in hand with destruction – and that we can get organised against this.

This is contrasted by the fact that capital has never before, during a process of industrialisation, encountered so little resistance from workers as during the phase between 1990 and 2005. It was able to deteriorate workers conditions continuously without being seriously threatened by their collective resistance. The compensation of industrial jobs with high-quality service jobs that had been predicted vanished into thin air. During this period workers’ struggles globally – in China, too – had a largely defensive character, lead by the ‘old working classes’ against closures or outsourcing/re-locations. (That also explains why, during the same period, the left threw the notion of class overboard.)

The opening of the labour markets in India and China during the 1990s led to a ‘supply shock’: almost overnight the supply of labour power doubled. There were double as many workers employed in industry in China compared to the G7 states put together. China became the factory of the world and main export location for industrially produced consumer goods, in particular of those with high product volumes. The consequences for a part of the global working class were – as predicted – catastrophic: the garment industry left Mexico and shifted to Asia. China joining the WTO in 2002 and the Multi Fibre Agreement 2005 was supposed to be the peak of this development – but then things changed: in China workers in the new factories started to fight and their struggles expanded…

What has changed in the last 40 years

Since the ‘oil crisis’ in 1973 there have been changes with long-term impacts: today over seven billion people live on this planet. Between 1950 and 1970 the annual growth rate of the global population was 2 per cent, since then the growth rate has slowed down, in particular in those areas where proletarianisation takes place.

In the ‘developing countries’ the labour force has been increasing by 2 per cent, which means that the total labour force has doubled in 30 years, while in Europe this process took 90 years. Proletarianisation takes place at a much more rapid pace than the capitalist economy is able to absorb: many do not find wage labour that pays enough to live on. A huge number of proletarians end up in the informal sector. The share of women as part of the total the labour force increases. Unemployment rates are high, particularly amongst young people, even higher amongst migrants, or rather, minorities. (This aggravates the ruling class’ fear that was previously mentioned: there is a correlation between high levels of unemployment amongst young men and frequency of social unrest; ‘social unrest’ has hiked after 2009, with an increase of 10 per cent of recorded incidents – mainly in the Middle-East, North Africa, but also in Southern Europe, the former Eastern Bloc and a little less in South Asia.)

Employment in agriculture has shrunk dramatically; only in the poorest regions does more than half of the population still work on the fields. The concentration process in the agro-industry continues and peasants turn into agricultural labourers, some of who live in towns rather than the countryside. In East Asia the flight from the countryside leads, to a large extent, directly into industrial work, while in Latin America and Africa it is mainly the service sector that registers growth. Since 2007 (more than) half of the global population lives in urban areas. In the developing countries in particular the mega-cities grow, 80 per cent of the inhabitants live in slums. Slum cities are an expression of the fact that people want to become part of the global working class. They are starting-points and transit-stations for a better life – in the respective or a different country, wherever labour is needed.

In the worldwide process of proletarianisation ‘mobile labour’ (or ‘migrant labour’) has become the most general form of labour, as much in the form of migration to a different country (e.g. the EU) or as internal migration (e.g. in China, where the government estimates that there are 130 million migrant labourers, out of whom 80 million have migrated from the poorer inner regions towards the coastal towns). The number of international migrants today (2013) is higher than ever before: 232 million (in 2000 there were 175 million), out of which 20 to 30 million are without papers. Their share as part of the total population increased between 2000 and 2013 from 2.9 to 3.3 per cent. The large majority are labour migrants, not refugees or asylum seekers.

A noteworthy development is the increase of a proletariat of migrant workers, who – mediated through the international recruitment agencies – engage in ‘simple’ work in different countries for low pay, but who are not supposed to settle down there: construction workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh who work on the big construction sites in the gulf states, who live in camps and whose collective situation has frequently resulted in strikes and rebellion – confronted with draconian repression. Millions of domestic workers from the Philippines or Indonesia etc. who work in rich or better-off households in the gulf states, but also in Hong Kong. Care workers for elderly people, who move from Eastern Europe to the West, in order to work in households that cannot afford to hire a local carer. Increasingly industrial workers, as well, are recruited to work in faraway ‘free production zones’, in order to undermine the local working class.

Peoples’ living conditions are largely determined by where they live – but the working conditions of ‘simple’ workers in the global north and south are becoming structurally more similar. In the assembly plants for the production of complex mass-consumer goods in China and India, too, machinery of the most modern standard is used. Simple manual labour takes place at the fringe-parts of the supply-chain in the slums’ backyards, but also in the warehouses of the distribution centres in the heart of Europe or the US. Within the same value chain absolute and relative surplus value production are combined.

Up until the crisis of 1973/74, persistent economic growth had more than compensated for productivity increases and for successful ‘rationalisation’, meaning, the employment rate did not decrease and the welfare state was expanded. Since then, growth of industrial production has stagnated – currently it is around 3 per cent, in the near future around 1.5 per cent?

Employment in manufacturing (including construction) has increased globally, but rates of industrialisation like we saw 50 or 100 years ago are not reached anywhere anymore: capital leaves places much faster than in the past, relocates production to ‘cheaper’ areas or transforms it locally into a ‘service’ – or stops investing at all. In many of the newly industrialised countries the share of industrial workers has already reached its peak at 20 per cent of the total workforce.

In the old industrial nations a process of de-industrialisation takes place – though we can make out major differences: in the US 11 per cent work in industries, while Germany is at the top of the list in the EU with 22 per cent (2007). In 1970 industrial workers still accounted for 37 per cent (while today, work outsourced to ‘industry-related service providers’ does not count as industrial work anymore). [12]

Globalisation has resulted in a new polarisation between higher and lower qualified jobs. In the older industrial nations any jobs that require a medium level of qualification are reduced, new jobs tend to be temporary and less well paid. The ‘service sector’ grows globally – and here, as well, these two poles are replicated: both ‘simple work’ (cleaning, care-work) and ‘non-routine’ jobs of higher skill-levels increase, whereas routine jobs of medium level qualifications (accountant, office clerks) decrease: the introduction of computers has made many aspects of this work redundant or it was able to be relocated more easily. This is one of the reasons why the wage gap within the sector widens.

Unequal incomes

During the 19th and 20th century the differences in income levels between different countries were the most pronounced. Over the years these differences decreased due to the working class struggles within the countries. In the last 20 years this tendency towards equality has changed again: while conditions between different nations become more similar, income differences within countries have sharpened drastically.

In the newly industrialised countries the wage gap is similarly high as in Europe 100 years ago. In the US wage differences were the least stark during the period between 1950 and 1970 – during the 1960s they were less pronounced compared to France, where only after 1968 were the lower income levels able to catch up. Since the neoliberal counter-revolution the income disparity has exploded, which has been further aggravated since the global crisis – especially once we look at take-home wages after tax and transfer-incomes. Between 1970 and 2010 the average value of private assets in money-terms increased significantly, particularly in Japan and Europe. This increase of the ‘savings rate’ translated into a decrease in growth – companies stopped investing. Financial assets owned by the nation state decreased and state debt grew. (Not only) in the former state-capitalist countries, extreme plundering and amassing of assets into private hands took place during the process of privatisation. [13]

Different Sectors – different conditions for struggle

Mining: Formerly, mining workers and their families lived close to the pits, their villages were also communities of struggle. Here a major process of restructuring is taking place, particularly when it comes to open-cast mining: now, miners are often employed as temporary contract workers and they live in container settlements (or other forms of arranged accommodation) far away from their families.

Textiles/Garments/Shoes: These are the most important sectors in developing nations. Mainly young women are employed – similar to the situation in 19th century Europe. The ‘new international division of labour’ during the 1970s had its origins in these sectors. Factories can be relocated more easily, machinery is not particularly expensive. The sector is characterised by small and medium size companies, the profit margins are low. Companies largely depend on supply-contracts with big fashion brands or retail chains. Design and (sometimes) cutting is done separately from the more labour-intensive (outsourced) production department. In 2005 and 2008 global import barriers that were meant to protect local industries were abolished. Today, China (or rather ‘companies in China’) is the biggest manufacturer worldwide, employing 2.7 million people. Companies with headquarters in Taiwan run factories in Mexico and Nicaragua, companies from China open new plants in Africa.

Automobile: Are still the most complex consumption good. A few transnational automobile corporations dominate the sector with long-term planning for local production units and high demands concerning infrastructure. The sector depends massively on state subsidies. Modern factories make use of expensive machinery and increasingly only employ workers with technical qualifications. The workforce is segmented into permanents, people with temporary contracts, agency workers, contract workers, all divided by significant wage differences. This is a global phenomenon.

Consumer electronics: Partly skilled labour, but also a big share of workers trained on the job. The quality levels demanded of these products are high, because the products tend to be expensive. According to the machine equipment we mainly see longer-term investments, therefore also very minute planning of where to establish production. The sub-contracted production for various brands in mega-factories, most of all in China, has become common (Foxconn etc.): their production capacity is extensive enough to produce mobile phones for the whole globe.

Construction: During the last decades the sector has played an increasingly important role, due to the fact that real estate and gigantic construction projects were a means to inflate speculative bubbles. Mainly migrants from the countryside or from abroad are employed on construction sites. Largely male workers. Major construction projects are often developed outside urban areas, meaning that workers are placed in camps.

Logistics: Alongside the global relocation of production the amount of transport work has increased drastically, while there was a significant drop in transport costs. Besides a few highly paid professional groups, the sector consists mainly of simple manual labour, often done by migrants in semi-legal conditions. In distribution centres everywhere around the globe new concentrations of mass work are emerging.

Service work: Everything that is not agriculture, mining or direct manufacturing work. While formerly service work was done wherever the actual service was needed, today much of the office work, such as back-office, accountancy, call centre work etc. can be performed anywhere in the world, as long as it has internet connection.

The segmentation of workers through different employment relations is a big challenge for common struggles, the old habitual formulas have become ineffective. (After the strikes at the beginning of the 1970s the ‘guest workers’ (Gastarbeiter) have struggled their way into the trade unions and became the reliable foundation for all future mobilisations. In contrast, the new migrants are mostly contract or temp workers.)

But only in Stalinist or social-democratic storytelling did the working class used to be a homogeneous block. In reality it was very heterogeneous in the 19th century or in 1920, too – and not only in terms of the divisions between male and female workers or locals and migrants. We cannot equate working class with industrial workers! Even in England in the 19th century half of the workforce was employed outside the factory system. And we could also find wage differences of 300 per cent between factory workers with German passports. Historically the working class learnt time and again to struggle (together) under such circumstances.

The end of the peasant question

In autumn 2008 an article was published in Wildcat no.82, which engaged with the romantisation of the peasantry by the anti-globalisation movement. The main thesis was that today there is no separate ‘peasant question’ anymore and that it is rather about the recomposition of the global working class from below.

“In earlier phases of history humans used to produce their means of subsistence in small communities and they were dependent on the natural fluctuations of production. In contrast to that capitalism created the world market right from the start, and its main productive force (machinery) is itself a product of human labour. The general context of a global society becomes the basic condition of our existence and reproduction (“Second Nature”) and in this sense it is the real human community. Only since humans’ livelihood started to depend on social rather than on individual labour have we been able to raise the question of collective appropriation of the means of production at all – and nowadays actually on a global level!” [14]

Contrary to this Samir Amin [15], amongst others, continues to present a classic anti-imperialist position. He still divides the globe up into the triad (EU, Japan, US) and the periphery, in which 80 per cent of the world population live, half of them in the countryside. Without finding a solution for these people, no ‘other world’ would be possible. Amin reckons that the process which other people call globalisation is actually an ongoing implosion of the imperialist system. He discards the notion of the anti-glob movement to change the world without taking power as naive – as naive as the idea of an ecological compromise with capital. He alleges that the ‘imperialist rent’, from which the social middle-strata in the global north benefit, is a barrier to the path for common struggle. In order to establish socialism or communism, workers and peoples have to find offensive strategies on three levels, already pointed out by Mao: the people, the state, the nation. A return to the Keynesian post-war model is impossible – history doesn’t have a reverse gear. But according to Amin the peasant question is still central: access to land for all peasants and development of a more productive agriculture, opposed to peasant folklore. Building of industry and development of the forces of production.

These political proposals are as antiquated as the analysis stuck in the past: by now in China the third generation of migrant workers are working in the global factories. In the process of exodus of millions of uprooted peasants from the rural areas, an industrial working class has been formed in classical ways. The division between urban and rural dwellers has not been overcome, but the former villagers have largely dissolved their ties to the land and, above all, they don’t want to return to it!

More interesting though is Amin’s argument against the idea that the developing countries in the ’emerging markets’, e.g. the new Tiger states, Brazil, Turkey etc., could become the new centres of capitalism: according to him the necessary ‘security valves’ for that to happen are missing in these regions. Proletarianisation in Europe in the 18th century had migration to America as a security valve. Today it would need several Americas for similar processes of industrialisation to happen in the ’emerging market’ countries. Therefore they don’t have a chance to catch up. This argument has to be further sharpened towards the following question: What happens in the actual and current processes of industrialisation once struggles cannot be channeled into social democracy on one hand or mass migration on the other?

Proletarianisation translates into class struggle

Often, we only realise in hindsight if and when a qualitative shift took place. In 2004 the first ‘global traffic jam’ was reported. The strikes in the Chinese Pearl River delta in 2004 at the peak of the boom marked the first big cycle of struggles in the ‘new factories’. Through offensive struggles they gained significant wage increases and had an effect on the situation in factories in the whole of East Asia. In Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, workers’ strikes erupted and with the bus drivers’ dispute in Iran in 2006, the first important strike since 1979 took place! A worldwide groundswell of workers’ struggles can be retraced from 2006, meaning before the global economic crash. This groundswell transformed into a wave reaching its peak in 2010, when strikes took place in nearly every country in the world, and which opened the way for the political revolutions and protest movements on the streets to come. The latter attracted more media attention, but without the strikes in the phosphate industry in Tunisia and the mass strikes in the textile industry in Mahalla in Egypt between 2006 and 2008, the uprisings in these countries would not have taken place.

The waves of protests 2006 – 2013

The years 2006 to 2013 were characterised by a wave of mass protests on the streets, strikes and uprisings on an unprecedented scale. According to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York [16] the wave is only comparable to the revolutionary upheavals of 1848, 1917 or 1968 – the think-tank analysed 843 protest movements in total between 2006 and 2013, in 87 countries, which cover 90 per cent of the world population. Protests of all kinds, against social injustice, against war, for real democracy, against corruption, riots against food price hikes, strikes against employers, general strikes against austerity. (Less positive were e.g. the clerical mobilisations against abortions in Poland).

Noteworthy is the large number of protests taking place in ‘high income’ countries and the fact that 48 per cent of violent protests take place in low-income countries; in most cases they target high food and energy prices. 49 protests demanded agrarian reform, 488 were targeted against austerity policy and demanded social justice, while 376 protests had ‘real democracy’ as their proclaimed aims. Many protests were expressions of the complete loss of trust in ‘Politics’. Nevertheless, in most cases the protestors aimed their demands at the state: the responsible politicians were supposed to act. Often the forms of struggles went beyond traditional demonstrating or striking and were act of ‘civil disobedience’, such as blockades and occupations. In particular the occupations of public squares and the common organisation of daily life as a form of struggle impacted on the entire Mediterranean region and the US.

The comparison with ‘1968’ disguises more than it is able to clarify: 1968 stands for a global revolutionary movement, but 1968 was not the peak year of strikes – on the contrary, these began in the early 1960s and only reached their peak in the mid-/end-1970s.

The wave of struggle since 2005 has very different facets:

Food Riots

Since the beginning of the global economic crisis speculative, capital has fled towards ‘secure’ assets, such as raw materials, staple food and agricultural land and thereby, within a short span of time, has triggered a massive hike of basic food prices; these reached historical highs first in December 2007 and then again in 2010. Between autumn 2007 and summer 2008 proletarians in large parts of Africa and China reacted with strikes and uprisings and forced their governments or employers to continue subsidising basic foodstuffs.

The movement of the squares

On the ‘squares’, revolutionary groupings and tendencies were active, but as a minority. Most of the participants were ‘active on the streets’ for the first time and demonstrated considerable ability to self-organise daily life and reproduction – but they were not ‘political’. The media picture of these movements were largely influenced by the social middle-strata, may be because journalists are best at communicating with people from their own social background. And a mass protest in the capital is more visible than a strike in the provinces. Due to this, the participation of proletarians was largely underestimated although many of them took part and fought the cops on the front lines. But these movements were, in most cases, aimed against the government, against corruption and for ‘real democracy’ and not for the ’cause of the workers’. [17] The movement seemed to have a global character but remained trapped within the framework of their respective nation states. Many of these movements had ‘two souls’: on one side, poorer proletarians and migrants who had become unemployed, on the other side, precarious academics who regarded a well-paid job as a human right. The middle-strata were particularly affected by interest policies, state debts and austerity measures – some became more radical and acted. At times they managed the leap into politics and into participation in power through elections – like the Podemos in Spain.

Global strike wave

In Wildcat no.90 Steven Colatrella in his text, ‘In Our Hands is Placed a Power‘, highlighted that the struggles formed themselves into a global strike wave during the last third of 2010. In 2010 strikes reached a geographical and quantitative scope unprecedented in history. He attributes this to the end of neoliberalism and the re-constitution of the working class. According to Colatrella the expansion of ‘traditional strikes’ can provide struggles with power and direction and help to overcome the weaknesses of the ‘IMF riots’.

“But the shifting of production globally did not produce new working classes, […] but rather this global shifting created new structural power for large sectors of workers that had rarely had such power except perhaps at the strictly national level.” [18]

Workers in the textile, shoe, automobile or other factories were now able to attack the world economy both on a national and global level. Closer integration into the world economy and the simultaneous attacks on their living standards through the capitalist crisis has increased both their structural and organisational power. The strike wave is part of class formation, it links up struggles and politicises the struggle against capitalist globalisation. Workers who defend their economic interests are directly confronted with political power. Their struggles are therefore political.

Colatrella conceptualises the global strike wave since 2007 as ‘strikes against global governance’, meaning, as a worldwide and simultaneous action of workers in many countries against the same enemy. But simultaneity does not create commonality as such and a common enemy does not necessarily create links amongst those in struggle.

BRICS, MINTS – the hotspots of the strike wave

Facing stagnating growth rates in the old core countries, capital’s hope focused on the so-called BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa – where 40 per cent of the world population resides; the abbreviation is an invention of the US investment bank Goldman-Sachs in 2001), which (apart from Russia) contain a young, ascending, industrial workforce who want to claim a better life. Brazil’s state president promised everyone a promotion into the ‘middle class’. Initially it seemed that the BRICS-states were not affected by the global crisis and state-controlled economies like China seemed ‘immune’ against it. Idle capital flew towards these regions, the growth rates at first continued to increase, though slower than in the preceding years. But particularly in these ‘championed’ countries of capitalism, workers managed to enforce considerable wage increases through hard struggles.

Their strikes have many things in common: they mostly happen in the central sectors of the respective economy, the affected companies operate on a multinational level, in their struggles workers get into confrontation with existing unions, they look for alternative unions or make use of their own forms of organisation. In many cases the state attacks the strikers violently, at the same time workers use violence against managers or strike-breakers. [19]

In 2014 these strikes continued, although in the case of India, against the background of a massive devaluation of the local currency and a decrease in sales in the automobile sector. Since 2013 a lot of capital has been withdrawn from the BRICS states and transferred to the so-called MINTS-states Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey and South Korea – these states, as well, have a large and very young population and at least some of them have been sites of huge protest movements during recent years. In June 2013 an uprising took place in Turkey (‘Gezi Park protests‘) and in May 2015 the entire automobile sector was shaken by a strike wave, in the course of which workers chased away their old trade unions.

In Iran, 2014 was the year with the highest amount of industrial disputes and workers’ protests. The peak moment was the strike of 5,000 workers in the iron ore mines of Bafgh where workers managed to stop privatisation. They walked out for nearly 40 days until the last arrested worker had been released – it was the longest dispute since the revolution in 1979.

In the newly industrialised countries, workers’ movements emerged that are noticeably similar, despite their culturally and politically very different respective surroundings – and these movements have enforced considerable wage gains within the span of a few years. [20] Workers made use of their position in the international production chains e.g. during the Honda strike in China. [21]

In many struggles egalitarian demands were put forward to act against the segmentation within the workforce, which employers nowadays try to enforce in all companies around the world with a higher share of skilled workers (Examples: car workers in India, mining workers in South Africa). [22]

Workers and state

How do workers’ struggles become revolutionary? Revolution evades derivation from objective conditions. If in a society characterised by patriarchal relations female workers fight collectively for the improvement of their living and working conditions, if they take risks in struggle, cross boundaries, discover new potentials and want to find out more about the world, then this process is probably ‘revolutionary’. What kind of notion of ‘communism’ do workers have in a country where the capitalists are organised within the CP? They will have to develop something new in struggle. This will surely not only start from the factories alone, it needs external impulses e.g. from youth movements that put any- and everything into question.

‘Global working class’ is a counter-thesis to the idea of a ‘national working class’. It assumes that the conditions for an integration of the working class into the state through a (social democratic) labour movement no longer exist. In 1848 workers did not yet have a ‘fatherland’, a proletarian artisan did not care whether he worked in Cologne, Paris or Brussels. Only state welfare policy and the orientation of the workers’ parties towards ‘fighting itself into the state’ have tied the workers to the nation. Since 1968 a broad and long-term re-orientation of proletarian movements away from the state – and from concepts of the state – has taken place. Since the 1980s the dismantling of welfare has caused a certain ‘alienation’ of large parts of society from the state, but for the ‘central working class’ the state still functions: just consider the massive state interventions since 2008 to rescue the automobile industry in Germany, the US and in France. For the traditional left the state is the political field within which the capitalist system can be changed, or rather, its worst consequences can be ‘reigned in’.

Historically capital was a global relation, mediated through the world market, right from its beginning. But without the state and the law (enforcement) and the national labour markets, capital would not have been able to survive and to develop. The welfare state guarantees certain social securities only for its own population and thereby turns proletarians into ‘citizens’. But capital was only able to develop by accessing an industrial reserve army in the form of agricultural labourers, peasants, under-employed proletarians in other countries. Today, in nearly all industrial nations there are multinational working classes without deeper ties to the state in which they live – while the ‘local’ and ‘naturalised’ workers and descending middle-strata cling to the state and want special protection.

During the last 20 years the class enemy has dismantled state structures wherever they were not able to cope with class struggle: private armies, mafia and civil war rule. This destruction of social security systems caused large-scale flight movements. In such threatening situations ‘strong states’ or ‘controlled democracies’ (Russia, China) become more attractive as islands of stability. Where does the working class use the absence of the state to build their own structures? What’s the score with a globalisation from below?

Global learning processes

Today it is possible for workers to establish direct contacts between themselves across, even far distances, without having to rely on mediators. Thanks to digital networks it has become much easier, even in remote areas, to know what is going on in the world compared to three, four decades ago. Struggles become contagious if workers in one company see that other workers take a risk and are successful – as for example the strike in the shoe factories of Yue Yuen in 2014 in which 40,000 workers took part. In 2015 around 90,000 workers of the same company walked out in Vietnam, while simultaneously 6,000 workers again went on strike in China. Since the 2014 dispute hardly a month has passed in China without at least one shoe factory being affected by workers’ industrial actions. Workers notice their respective struggles, also across national borders – even without visible organisational contacts. Workers of different factories report on conditions and discuss them e.g. on internet forums.

Migrants

The most obvious links between the proletarians of all countries are migrants. There were historical moments when masses of militant workers left their respective countries to avoid repression – like Spain and Greece in the 1970s or Turkey in the 1980s – and brought with them their experiences of struggle and of how to organise. In the struggles in the factories in Germany they often became the vanguard. Another example is the migrants from Mexico, who left to find work in agriculture in the US and who organised strikes there. (Not all labour migrants are or remain proletarians – self-employment is often the only way out of misery and the network of fellow country(wo)men the organisation of choice. Migrants often belong to those groups of people who want to progress and get on in life come what may and are able to mobilise a reservoir of badly paid labour from within their communities for this aim. Therefore such networks are hardly of use as an organisational foundation in class struggle.)

” The proletariat thus seems to disappear at the very moment when the proletarian condition becomes generalized.” (Samir Amin)

For four decades the speed of class movements was not able to match the speed with which capital roamed the globe in search for valorisable labour power. Now this situation has turned around. Workers in Egypt, China, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa etc. make use of the new technical possibilities for their own interests; their struggles quickly attract a global audience. For the first time a global working class emerges, which has the ability to organise global production and reproduction – and can therefore transform this world. In the global north this ‘new condition’ is more difficult to detect because since the 1980s capital has used the threat of relocation to blackmail people. (While at the same time a small part of the working class – ‘medium strata’ – was able to make money from financialisation and speculation at least temporarily, sometimes more than through work.)

The role of the left

What role can left activists or left-wing academics play? Since the big strike wave in 2010, left-leaning social science around the globe has rediscovered the working class and researches their movements. But even if sociologists interview individual workers they tend to become frustrated, because these people only think about themselves and their families. Are they ” a different type of human species ” once they are at work or when they struggle together? E.P. Thompson wrote in 1963 that if you stop social history at any given moment you will find only individuals. ‘Class’, in contrast, defines people who live their own history – therefore a sufficiently long period of history has to be analysed. ‘The Making of…’ is a development within political and cultural history at the same time as within economic history. ” The working class made itself as much as it was made.” [23]

And why should workers tell social scientists anything at all?

In ‘Junge Welt’, [24] the Hungarian philosopher Gaspar Miklos Tamas recently said that for the first time in history we face the grotesque situation of a Marxist intelligentsia without a Marxist movement. This brings with it two dangers: on one side, the danger of vanguardism that speaks in the name of a passive proletariat – a proletariat, however, that does not know it is being spoken for and which does not share the vanguard’s values that tell the proletariat what it is supposed to feel, think and do. Mainly small radical left groups face this danger. The other danger is that the radical left fuses with the general, democratic, anti-fascist and egalitarian movement – which would cause the Marxist critique to disappear.

Both these tendencies exist in relation to the new class struggles. Some want to found a ‘new International’ as early as now – while there are so many of them already! Others refuse to criticise the working class and only want to support workers in their struggles. They want to make use of decentralised networks organised by NGOs or they make a beeline for the unions. International conferences deal with the question of how workers can get in touch on a global level. In addition there is still the traditional ‘workers’ internationalism’ that is organised in centralistic and hierarchical ways with little open debate. At international conferences delegates pretend that everywhere, manual or office workers with life-long employment in one company still exist, whose trade union or workers’ party still obtain a share of the growing wealth for them. [25]

But there are also efforts by left activists who are critical of the trade unions to organise contacts between different locations of multinational corporations – though it is very difficult to go beyond mutual visits and to actually struggle together or organise solidarity strikes.

Over the last five years a different part of the radical left that wants to abolish the state placed their hope in uprisings. The ‘movement of squares’ in 2011 overtook the debate about the ‘coming insurrection’. But Greece in 2008, Indignados, Gezi Park, Stuttgart21, Hong Kong etc. were all movements with hundreds of thousands of participants – but which, in the end, were not able to enforce anything! These movements made visible the potentials that simultaneous uprisings on a global scale have – but also brutally demonstrated their limitations: from the commune of Tahrir to the military dictatorship. The many movements since Seattle, the mass uprisings in Argentina in 2001 and lastly Occupy Wall St. etc., have shown with the utmost clarity that an overturning of the existing social order is only possible once workers take part in the uprising as workers. It is not enough that they take part in demonstrations, but don’t go on strike. In capitalism, strike is the ultimate weapon, where real power develops and collective subjects form themselves.

Even the Invisible Committee, which up to now didn’t care much for workers, started to approach them (at least verbally) [26] – this is an interesting development: because whoever wants to abolish the state, whoever wants revolution won’t be able to do it without the workers! Proletarians are the vast majority of the population and their struggles push things forward. Nevertheless most leftists still don’t critically analyse the struggles that are actually taking place, but in an immediate reflex raise the question of ‘class consciousness’ instead. They imagine a proletariat organised in a party and union, which has not existed in such a way since the 1950s. “What else do we expect?” an article in Wildcat-Zirkular no.65 asked polemically. ” The emergence of proletarian world organisations? Solidarity strikes? Copycats? A worldwide political movement? The new and interesting phenomena regarding world revolution is the very fact that no one has got parameters, criteria or even answers to tackle that question. Criteria could be whether commonalities develop during different struggles – and up to now this does not seem to be the case. Workers struggle, but they don’t struggle together… Rather the opposite is true: they just fight for themselves and only rely on their own strength. They don’t even wait for their colleagues in the neighbouring company.” [27]

Workers ignore old organisations and parties; new ones are not yet visible. There isn’t any idea of a new society yet, which takes hold of the masses. In the struggles themselves we can see some new developments though. In Asia and beyond workers have proven extraordinary capabilities to organise their struggles and coordinate them beyond the boundaries of their respective regions. They have understood that they can only win collectively. They raise egalitarian demands against the divisions that capital introduced. They don’t let unions hold them back, who want to control them. They don’t shy away from hard confrontations. They address and create problems for which the system has no solutions.

In their struggles they get into conflict with a social system, which hasn’t got anything to offer the large majority apart from austerity politics – a system, which is no longer able to transform the struggles into ‘development’. A social system that steers towards its next crash, under the leadership of its ‘last superpower’, which fights against its economic and political demise by all means necessary. The strongest military power in the world is no longer able to win wars, not to mention to create new stable states, but can only destroy. By doing this it will further undermine the legitimacy of this world order and mobilise more and more people against itself.

Who will shape the coming social confrontations? The global middle classes who follow nationalist mobilisations out of fear of losing their social acquis? Or the global proletariat, on whose labour their wealth and power depends? The collective intelligence of the rebellious proletariat is superior to the narrow-minded experts of the institutions; their ability to organise production and to self-organise can guarantee the supply of necessary goods and services for the people – the various movements of the squares and against big infrastructure projects have proven this. They are the only force that can oppose the destructive potency of capital.

In Wildcat we have often voiced the hope of an ‘encounter of the workers’ movement and social movement’ – in order to define the role of the social-revolutionary left. As if it was just about an addition of forces, which does not have to hurt anyone. A ‘side-by-side’ on the ‘squares’, under conditions of mutual indifference. This won’t cut it in future – if we want to get things moving.

A new revolutionary subject won’t just be an outcome of ‘homogenisation’ (even less of an ‘alliance!’), but rather of processes of polarisation – and divisions within the working class. The political discussion and practice of the left will have to come to terms with this.

Footenotes

[1] “Vom Klassenkampf zur ‘sozialen Frage'” [“From class struggle to the ‘social question'”], Wildcat Zirkular 40/41

[2] “Vom schwierigen Versuch, die kapitalistische Krise zu bemeistern” [“On the difficult effort to deal with the capitalist crisis”], Wildcat Zirkular no.56/57, May 2000

[3] “Note: There is no simple translation for the German word “Umwälzung”. It means transition, transformation, turning upside down, in some circumstances circulation – in fact: radical change.”

[4] “Voll-Endung”: insinuates ‘completion’ and ‘end’

[5] “Globalize it!”, preface to Wildcat-Zirkular 38, July 1997

[6] “Asien und wir” [Asia and us”], Wildcat-Zirkular no. 39, August 1997

[7] “Open letter to John Holloway”, Wildcat-Zirkular no.39, August 1997
http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/zirkular/39/z39e_hol.htm

[8] “Die neuen Arbeitsverhaeltnisse und die Perspektive der Linken” [“The new work relations and the perspective of the left”], Wildcat-Zirkular 42/43, March 1998

[9] “Chiapas und die globale Proletarisierung” [“Chiapas and the global proletarianisation”], Wildcat-Zirkular no.45, June 1998

[10] “Historical Capitalism”, Immanuel Wallerstein, 1983

[11] “Forces of Labor – Workers’ movements and globalization since 1870”, Beverly Silver, 2003
https://libcom.org/files/Beverly_J._Silver-Forces_of_Labor__Workers’_Movements_and_Globalization_Since_1870_(Cambridge_Studies_in_Comparative_Politics)__-Cambridge_University_Press(2003).pdf

[12] Peter Dicken, ‘Global Shift, Mapping the changing contours of the world economy’. 6th edition. 2011

[13] Goeran Therborn, ‘Class in the 21st Century’, NLR 78, 2012

[14] ‘Beyond the peasant international’, Wildcat no.82, Autumn 2008
http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/wildcat/82/w82_bauern_en.html

[15] Samir Amin, ‘The implosion of contemporary capitalism’, New York 2013

[16] Isabel Ortiz, Sara Burke, Mohamed Berrada, Hernan Cortes, ‘World Protests 2006 – 2013’, FES New York Office 2013

[17] Compare the article on Hong Kong by Mouvement Communiste:
http://mouvement-communiste.com/documents/MC/Letters/LTMC1439%20ENvG.pdf

[18] Wildcat no.90, summer 2011
http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/wildcat/90/w90_in_our_hands_en.htm

[19] Joerg Nowak, ‘Fruehling der globalen Arbeiterklasse. Neue Streikwelle in den BRICS-Staaten, 2014
‘Massenstreiks und Strassenproteste in Indien und Brasilien’, Peripherie 137, 2015
‘Massenstreiks in der globalen Krise’, Standpunkte 10/2015, online auf rosalux.de
Torsten Bewernitz, ‘Globale Krise – globale Streikwelle? Zwischen den oekonomischen und demokratischen politischen Protesten herrscht keine zufaellige Gleichzeitigkeit’. Prokla 177, 12/2014
Dorothea Schmidt, ‘Mythen und Erfahrungengrinie Einheit der deutschen Arbeiterklasse um 1900. Prokla 175, 6/2014

[20] Beverly Silver sees her thesis verified by the struggle waves in 2010: the relocation of capital towards China has created a new and growing combative working class. She still thinks in categories of pendulum movements: Making – unmaking – remaking of the working class, and currently the pendulum is swinging back. According to Silver this time in history it is neither possible, nor desirable, to respond to these struggles in form of Keynesian social partnership.
Beverly Silver, ‘Theorising the working class in twenty-first-century global capitalism’, in: Workers and labour in a globalised capitalism (Palgrave Macmillan); edited by Maurizio Atzeni (2014)
http://krieger.jhu.edu/arrighi/research/socialprotest/

[21] See article on China in this issue of Wildcat [no English translation available]

[22] In Germany only workers at Daimler in Bremen have tried to respond to management plans of outsourcing work to ‘service providers’ by going on wildcat strike, but they were not able to put a halt to the scheme

[23] E.P. Thompson, The making of the English working-class, 1963

[24] ‘Die zwei grossen Gefahren’ [The two big dangers’], conversation with Gaspar Miklos Tamas, 4th of June 2015

[25] Global Labour Journal
www.escarpmentpress.org/globallabour
Global Labour Institute
www.globallabour.info
Global Dialogue
www.isa-global-dialogue.net/volume-4-issue1/

[26] Invisible Committee, ‘To our friends’
“To say that plainly: so long as we can’t do without nuclear power plants and dismantling them remains a business for people who want them to last forever, aspiring to abolish the state will continue to draw smiles; so long as the prospect of a popular uprising will signify a guaranteed fall into scarcity, of health care, food, or energy, there will be no strong mass movement…
What defines the worker is not his exploitation by a boss, which he shares with all other employees. What distinguishes him in a positive sense is his embodied technical mastery of a particular world of production. There is a competence in this that is scientific and popular at the same time, a passionate knowledge that constituted the particular wealth of the working world before capital, realizing the danger contained there and having first extracted all that knowledge, decided to turn workers into operators, monitors, and custodians of machines. But even there, the workers’ power remains: someone who knows how to make a system operate also knows how to sabotage it in an effective way. But no one can individually master the set of techniques that enable the current system to reproduce itself. Only a collective force can do that.
…In other words: we need to resume a meticulous effort of investigation. We need to go look in every sector, in all the territories we inhabit, for those who possess strategic technical knowledge. Only on this basis will movements truly dare to “block everything.””

[27] ‘Das Ende der Entwicklungsdiktaturen’ [‘The end of the developmental dictatorships’, Wildcat-Zirkular no.65, February 2003]