I don't expect any real significant change to happen while I'm alive. But - I believe my personal acts of solidarity with other people will ultimately create a milieu where anything can happen - in many new ways paving the road for new generations to come, yet possibly unable to be defined by the old clunky language of our leftist lexicon and thinking.
Should we just oscillate every 20-30 years from private capitalism to state capitalism and then brace ourselves for the right wing counter-revolution which is usually nastier than the one that came before?
We all know - that with the speed and efficiency of movement/communications/control in regards to our military-science-space industrial complex - any semblance of an interior armed revolution (civil war or unrest - which only helps symbolically anyway) would be utterly crushed in a matter of days - moreover, the truth is it would be highly difficult to "hijack" the state and transition into a new form of social relations due to the fact that the spectacle is just too strong of a diversion- many people are utterly brainwashed, pacified and mediated by all of the specialists, lifestyles, noise that divert us from making our own decisions, finding a mode of self-sufficiency and discovering things out for ourselves through experience and breaking through for meaningful collaboration. This will take time to change.
In addition, even if people unplugged themselves from the "matrix", then we would still remain heavily contested by the armies of the state (it's private mercenaries, it's spies, it's highly networked intelligence agencies, national guard, armed forces, police, it's ability to stage a state of emergency and to suspend all constitutional rights and start revoking citizenships and sticking us in holding cells, etc.
Almost best to just not worry about anything and learn to love capitalism. Right?
Should we then just simply succumb to being play by play coverage analysts, unearthing a new outrage and then using our theory to skewer it?
Yes, Chavez and other nationalist leaders of the month can push a social-democratic platform - but if it wants legitimacy as a true mechanism of transition - then it needs to promote more autonomy within the country (more self-management projects) that is at the grass roots level and not mediated exclusively by the government. It must be promoted and yes, much would escape its control - but wasn't the point for the state structure to ultimately disappear over time as an actual entity?
And how do we think this will happen when the world is comprised of countries with superior military abilities and are hungry for expansion? Won't these "left wing countries" bunker down and degenerate into authoritarian tendencies to deal with consistent threats? And what then will ultimately happen to its revolutionary goals?
Many well intentioned social democrats are the state's unaware cadres - finding ways/means to perfect "capitalism". Yet, as I'm sure you are aware (and I love your work Doug and have learned much from it) - this is a psychopathic system meant to push for profits at all costs - how can one maintain a social democratic structure in this type of environment, especially one that may never collapse?
Yes, I do support any type of movement in a country that will push for reforms in the short term...Ok...But there must be a long term strategy - a positive fluid radical theory (devoid of misanthropic elitist ivory tower cynicism) of pragmatic bottom up direct action that will inspire people to do something in their own lives regarding resistance. It must remain autonomous.
The new technologies, meant to control, alienate, separate us is now opening up numerous, dynamic possibilities for subversion and social connection outside the circuits of exchange. Nobody knows where it will eventually lead us and yet this is exciting to me.
And yes - if the state devours us, as you have mentioned - then we will quickly regroup and learn from mistakes.
Personally, I want to find an autonomous space within the belly of the beast and disappear - live my own life with other like minded people. Kudos to the Zapas for doing this - even if their ultimate goal of "changing the world without taking power" doesn't show the results you are seeking.
Best,
Paul
Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
On Mar 2, 2008, at 10:29 AM, Eric wrote:
>> I think that these conversations become somewhat problematic
>> when
>> the conversation operates on an assumption of equivalence. The
>> Zapatista movement is a regional, indigenous movement coming out of
>> the most impoverished region of Mexico (The land that the Mexican
>> Revolution forgot, as a professor of mine once referred to it.)
>
> (By the way, this whole post is very good.) I think what bothers me
> most about Doug's insistence on the Zapatistas' futility is that he's
> imposing Western norms (revolution, state power, welfare regimes) on
> political movements that have no use for them and are specifically
> rejecting them.
I'm all for concrete analysis of the concrete situation, as someone once put it, so how has Chiapas changed since the emergence of the Zaps? How has Mexico changed? Not much, is my guess. Northern leftists got all starry-eyed about Marcos' communiques, clever things that they were (and obviously the product of a fancy education). It fit nicely with all those fashionable ideas of not "taking power," of sidestepping the state, etc. etc. So, really, all of us at this party are imposing our own external templates onto the situation. I'm not opposed to the idea of educated people organizing and leading a movement, but it would be nice to be honest about what's going on. In any case, I don't think that the people of Chiapas can improve their lives markedly without engaging with a state, or hijacking one. A loosely organized group of peasants just can't fight capital without one.
> It reminds me of the moment in his new economy book
> where he says that it's not so horrible that drug companies are
> patenting naturally found herbs and medicines because otherwise those
> things would just go unused. But it's exactly the kinds of logic that
> see everything as available for exploitation -- albeit regulated by a
> beneficent social-democratic administration -- and that see
> inclusion in the circuits of global capital and labor as a
> requirement to achieve social change, that many movements are
> refusing.
You're misquoting me badly. What I said was: "It’s evil that Merck will steal plants from indigenous people and then patent them, and be protected for doing so under international trade law, but the plants wouldn’t do much good if it weren’t for some large, complex organization to develop and process them. Socialize Merck, don’t dissolve it." Should the plants just stay there and not cure the sick of the world?
Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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