[lbo-talk] occupation and situationists was Re: enemy's turf

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Fri Oct 28 09:58:35 PDT 2011


On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 5:44 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:

Lots of awesomeness.


> On list, one criticism of an occupation is that it doesn't stop
> capitalist time: they fail to shut down business as usual and so can't
> possibly gain any leverage in achieving their demands.
>
> But this is where the rejection of demands comes in, as tactic guided,
> I think, by strategy based on their understanding of social change. I
> think more on that next week.

I'd be very interested to know what you come up with. I agree with you and, absent an elaboration, would say preliminarily that it has at least partially to do with financialization and the lessening of immediacy that it creates.


> The material I read about the NYU occupation argued that, while
> shutting down capitalist time (occupying factories especially in
> wildcat strikes) is important, indeed a major goal, sometimes you're
> in a situation where it's not possible to do this: severe lack of
> organized labor would be a big reason why.

Speed is another reason. Money moves around the world at the blink of an eye, and in huge amounts: two trillion dollars each day just in currency, much more in capital. And even physical things, like Doug's iPhone, move to their destinations in just days. No amount of "organization"--or at least none that I can see forming anytime soon--can comprehend or confront that.



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