a modest proposal
for how the
BAD OLD DAYS
WILL END
|
THE COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT HAS ALREADY
BEGUN.
EVERYONE KNOWS THIS.
EVERYONE FEELS IT IN THEIR BONES.
ALL THE ATTEMPTS TO DENY IT ARE ENOUGH TO PROVE IT.
|
It's as though everyone's waiting for something but no
one knows what. Whether I find myself wandering around in
the city or in the graveyard-like suburbs, this feeling of
despair seems to haunt everyone even in their sleep.
|
Meanwhile we just grow more isolated from each other.
When I meet someone on the street we really have nothing to
say to each other because nothing has really happened. So
empty words are exchanged and we stumble away awkwardly.
Nobody seems to enjoy anything anymore. Nobody seems to know
why they're alive. What everybody does know, however, is
that this society is falling apart, and that all the
attempts to hold it together just make it more hideous.
|
As far back as I can remember everyone around me spent
most of their fives sacrificing in order to survive. There
was, of course, always a certain degree of marginal freedom
but now even this is vanishing. And as politicians talk
about the need for yet more sacrifice, the mass media pumps
out more ways to glorify misery.
|
It's not as though things used to be gem or anything. But
perhaps never before have so many people had the feeling
that everything has become so pointless-that each day is
like the fast, only a little more dull, a little more empty,
a little more exhausting.
|
Surely there lurks inside each of us a subjective passion
such as may-be we experienced in childhood but have been too
embarrassed to think about for years-the desire to be in
love always -- the kind of inspiration which once unleashed
could move mountains and remake the world. Currently our
energy is being constantly used up just to keep things the
same. Artists have nothing left to express but their
emptiness, and the emptiness of a society which can no
longer find any reason to exist. All joy has gone out of
music. All the new processing and quasi-technical perfection
cannot compensate for the total absence of inspiration. And
whatever remedies are adopted are usually worse than the
disease. Jobs are becoming so meaningless and so exhausting
that many people would prefer to be unemployed. "Leisure
time" is becoming as boring as work. All the "problem
solving" of the sociologists, economists, psychologists and
urban planners just become ways to make more acceptable the
humiliation we experience every day.
|
Nonetheless, I know this misery will go on only so long
as we allow it to.
|
The spectacle is like a supermarket of false
alternatives. In spite of the supposed "opposition" between
capitalism and "Communism," the difference between them is
like the difference between Pepsi Cola and Seven Up.
"Communism "-as it exists in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam,
etc -- is just a state-monopolized form of capitalism. But
whether you live under private corporate capitalism or
bureaucratic statecapitalism, it's essentially the same old
crap. Everywhere people sell their lives in order to
survive. Every where daily life has been reduced to a mere
series of humiliations. Even "free time" there isn't any
freedom. Our whole environment has been produced in an alien
form.
|
And now, as world capitalism is falling apart, its
spokesmen tell us that it's our fault for being too
"greedy," too "selfish," too "affluent."
|
But there is nothing mysterious about the present
breakdown of social production It is nothing other than the
outcome of the contradiction between the forces of
production [1] and the
social relations of production. Now capitalism has become a
fetter on our existence and development as genuinely human
beings. But capitalism is only the highest form of commodity
[2] (exchange-value)
production. While for thousands of years the commodity form
helped to develop the productive forces and thus to prepare
the conditions for a really free society, it has now become
a fetter (and in fact the last essential fetter) on our
further development as human beings.
|
Though this contradiction exists in every part of the
world; it is first most visible in the most advanced and
overdeveloped countries (especially the U.S.). Thus the
active contradiction between use-value and exchange-value
can be seen constantly in the most common acts of our daily
life. Every time you stand in a line at a supermarket
checkstand you do this not to accomplish any productive or
socially useful function. The only reason you're waiting in
line is to pay for the food, even though it would be every
bit as good whether or not you pay for it. But unless you
pay for it, it cannot be realized as a commodity, as
exchange-value. In terms of its social use-value it would be
much simpler and indeed more efficient, if you simply walked
out with it. (But don't get caught trying!)
|
But exchange-value is not a mere accessory tacked on to
an otherwise neutral reality. On the contrary, value is the
motivating force of all production in capitalist society.
Everything is produced as value and its use-value is shaped
accordingly.
|
Thus, it is no accident that everything is being designed
to break down or be thrown away, that "education" is as
shitty as it is, or that "culture," "art" and
"entertainment" have become so uninspired. The entirety of
the existing mode of production is specifically capitalist.
While at work we experience no real freedom or
self-expression of any kind. The only reason we work is to
get paid. But when we get off work we still are alienated --
i.e., we still have little or no control over any of the
conditions which determine how we spend our time.
|
Thus "leisure" time-or "free" time-can be used for
nothing but a repetition of the most meaningless and tedious
trivialities -- such as shopping, watching boring television
shows, etc. Even when we're eating and sleeping-perfectly
normal human activities -- we're really only recuperating to
prepare ourselves for more alienated work
|
As the contradiction grows more explicit we see the trend
of contracting social reproduction. In many parts of the
world capitalists are finding that now they can sell more
(in dollar terms) by producing less -- hence the phony
"shortages" of various sorts, as well as the rapidly rising
prices. They are finding fewer profitable things in which to
channel the labor force (hence "unemployment"). Capitalism's
weakest elements are rapidly falling onto the historical
scrapheap: more and more small shopkeepers are going under
(just take a walk downtown and look at all the closing out
sales), smaller firms are going bankrupt or being bought
out.
|
Capitalism's most rugged form will, probably prove to be
in countries where there is the most developed State
rationalization of the capital accumulation process (e.g.,
China), i.e. the so-called "Socialist" and "Communist"
countries.
|
As the collapse becomes more evident each day, spokesmen
for all the different factions of Capital rush to compete
with their respective "explanations." And as though the
"opposition" between "liberals" and "conservatives" weren't
absurd enough, the circus has added the official "Left" as
an even more comical sideshow.
|
For the "Left," of course, the problem with private
capitalism is only that it doesn't do what it's supposed to
on its own terms -- that there aren't enough "jobs," that
people don't get high enough ("fair") wages for selling
their lives, that women and "third world" people don't get
their fair share of the shit pie, that Capital accumulation
doesn't go on peacefully as it should.
|
The "Leftists" have so little understanding of the actual
workings of capitalism that when its tendency toward
centralization and monopolization is pushed to an extreme
such as in Russia or China -- they think that it is no
longer capitalism. In spite of their self-acclaimed
"radicalism" they are really the staunchest of
conservatives. And as capitalism -- the highest form of
hierarchical society -- is failing apart, they dutifully try
to come up with new ways of holding it together.
|
But all the confusion created by the "Left" and the
"Right" alike cannot hide forever the fact that since the
time capitalism began there has been a real movement for a
new and genuinely human way of life, for a society in which
the full and free development of every individual forms the
ruling principle. This movement has emerged again and again.
Each time it has been crushed, but only to re-emerge,
perhaps years or decades later. And almost every time it has
emerged in the twentieth century the "Right" and the "Left"
have formed a Holy Alliance to suppress it.
|
Thus, for instance, in Russia amidst the famine and
general breakdown of production which occurred during World
War One and the Civil War which followed -- the workers and
sailors of Kronstadt (a naval fortress city on an island
near present-day Leningrad) took social production directly
into their own hands. Without any specialized or separate
"leadership," they reclaimed all social territory, carried
out expropriations, redistributed land and began a
comprehensive program to coordinate socially the use of all
available resources, as well as improving and expanding
production in agriculture (on hitherto unused land on the
outskirts of the city), construction of buildings, etc. All
this was organized responsibly throughout the city (approx.
pop. 50,000) as a whole. In addition the workers and sailors
of Kronstadt maintained an "operating fund," so to speak,
from voluntary donations by the people of whatever was
beyond their own immediate needs. This was used to acquire
various resources (tools, seeds, etc.) by the city's
population collectively, and in addition, to send
revolutionary speakers and agitators throughout Russia.
|
All major decisions were made by the people themselves in
workplaces and popular assemblies in other public areas.
Coordination of action was carried out through elected
delegates (from among the Workers and sailors) who were
strictly mandated for specific tasks only and who could be
recalled by their assemblies at any time.
|
In March of 1921, after three and a half years, the
workers' and sailors' revolution at Kronstadt was crushed.
Its participants and sympathizers were either shot on sight,
imprisoned, or forced to flee "revolutionary" Russia. But
the final suppression of the Kronstadt Commune and the
massacre of its people was not carried out by the "White
Army" or by foreign imperialists. They were crushed
militarily by the so-called "Red Army," with Leon Trotsky at
its head and with explicit orders from Lenin and the rest of
the top Leaders of the Russian "Communist" Party.
|
None of this should be surprising, The workers' and
sailors' revolution which broke out at Kronstadt was
qualitatively different from and in direct opposition to the
movement which was led by Lenin and the other top Leaders of
the "Communist" Party. It was, though in a crude and
embryonic form, a movement for a free and classless society
-- the real movement I have been speaking of.
|
For several decades now, the "Right" and "Left" have
conspired to hide this movement from us or to falsify and
distort its reality beyond recognition. Both the "Right" and
the "Left" would like us to believe that totalitarian
state-capitalism (which they call "Communism") is the only
possible alternative to private corporate capitalism, and
that shitheads like the "Symbionese Liberation Army" are
revolutionaries. All these people have a stake in keeping
things the same.
|
But I will surrender nothing voluntarily to my enemies.
Not even words. Thus, in spite of all the ways, in which
reality and the words associated with it have been distorted
and misrepresented by these people, I insist on calling this
movement, this desire, by its real historical name.. I
insist on calling it what its most articulate protagonists
have called it for over a hundred and thirty years -- it is
the communist movement. The real communist movement.
|
Once again I must emphasize that the relationship between
the real communist movement on the one hand, and the
bureaucrats and aspiring bureaucrats of totalitarian
state-capitalism -- the so-called "Communists" -- is a
relationship of total opposition and complete antagonism. It
cannot be otherwise. It makes no difference whether they're
Trotskyists, Maoists, Stalinists, Guevarists, or just part
of the neo-Leninist mish-mash. It is precisely because I am
a communist that they are my enemies. I am in opposition to
them every bit as much as the revolutionaries of Kronstadt
were in opposition to the "Communist" Party bureaucrats who
ordered their massacre.
|
Despite the suppression from all sides, the real
communist movement did not perish with Kronstadt. It has
emerged again and again since; in the Spanish Revolution of
1936-37; in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 -which was
crushed by tanks from Russia (much to the enthusiasm of
Mao-Tse-Tung); and in the insurrection in France of May-June
1968 -- which the French "Left" did everything possible to
subordinate to their "leadership" and to reduce it to a
bunch of reformist "demands."
|
It has emerged as well in events such as the street
festival in Detroit in 1967 and the revolt which broke out
in "socialist" Poland in 1970-71 where workers happily
looted state-owned stores and burned down the "Communist
Party" headquarters while singing the Internationale!
|
As for ourselves: In place of capitalist society with its
classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association
in which the free development of each individual is the
condition for the free development of all. Production for
profit will be replaced by production for pleasure. The end
of the law of value will be the decisive beginning of the
end of all alienations, of all the fetishes to which people
have been sacrificed since the first human beings walked the
earth.
|
The great insurrections of the past (Kronstadt, Hungary
1956, Paris 1871, Spain 1936-37, Seattle 1919, France 1968,
Poland, 1970-71, etc.) and the new life which they
announced, were only the faintest hints of the fantastic
possibilities of modern world revolution. As we take over we
can begin immediately to rebuild the world in a form which
is fit for our playful habitation. Some structures can
simply be eliminated. Many other things -- such as houses,
machinery and transportation -- can be entirely redesigned
and rebuilt.
|
No "system" can guarantee successful social production.
The life blood of production in communist society can only
be the conscious desire and energy of each of us.
Nonetheless the organizational forms of past communist
experiences (such as Kronstadt and the Spanish Revolution of
1936-37) as well as the nature of the present productive
forces, strongly imply much of how the new world could be
organized.
|
During the earlier parts of the revolution, the
organizational mode of the new society will be growing
organically in the process of over throwing the old one.
[3] As we steal back
more and more of the means of social production we can use
these not only for our own immediate needs, but also as a
means to escalate the revolutionary process further.
|
When the ruling classes are fully overthrown we will be
free to take on the re-organization of everything. We can
then meet publicly to discuss our real needs and desires.
|
We could easily begin production by regularly holding
popular assemblies in local public areas and production
places of all sorts. Here ideas and plans could be initiated
and elaborated with the full and direct participation of all
those concerned. (Obviously not everyone will be interested
in every question: the point is that anyone could, if they
chose, participate in making any decision they think is
important.)
|
When initial decisions have been made, the people at the
assemblies can elect delegates who will then meet in
regional and finally global councils with other delegates
sent from assemblies throughout the world. They will meet
simply to coordinate decisions already made by the people at
their assemblies and will have no separate governing power
of any kind. Their function will be rotated periodically
among the population and monopolized by no one. Furthermore,
they could be removed and replaced by their assemblies at
any time.
|
Even for planning and coordination of world-wide
production, it is hard to say to what extent such meetings
of delegates will prove necessary. With telecommunications
equipment already existing, it would, in many cases, be
simpler for the local assemblies to contact each other
directly via the airwaves, and take part in each other's
discussions. Such methods would be especially useful if you
consider that in some cases even initial plans could not be
made only locally and might immediately require direct
dialogues between the respective assemblies.
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By means of such telecommunications networks as well as
modern data storage and processing, each of us could be in
instantaneous contact with each other in any part of the
world, as well as with all the wealth of knowledge of the
entirety of human history. Resources could be coordinated
globally in order to maximize use-value and minimize
difficulties in fulfilling desires.
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Not all projects would necessarily be carried out even
initially by people who are already concentrated in a
particular geographic area. Any individual would have
immediate access to broadcast his/her ideas all over the
world in order to find others who are interested and who
might have particular knowledge and skills he/she would find
appropriate.
|
People from different parts of the world who shared a
common fantasy, fascination or innovative idea could if they
chose, come together and shape entire landscapes.
|
We could begin to relate as human beings instead of as
commodities. No longer would people be compelled to be
competitive with each other. Instead the enrichment of
others would only be a further enrichment of ourselves when
we experience each other. The full and free development of
each individual around us will be our own direct
self-interest.
|
Each of us will be a co-owner of the entirety of the
world's wealth and means of production, as well as of the
entire natural environment.
|
Whereas in capitalist society each individual can usually
only pursue his interests narrowly, at the expense of
others, in communist society every individual will have as
his own the entirety of society and of social wealth. Each
individual's pursuit of an ever-richer life would mean the
pursuit of an ever-richer society.
|
Planning and decision making will not be a separate or
specialized activity. It will be an integrated part of
production and of life, just like any other.
|
The direct control people will have over the production
process applies also, of course, to their immediate
environment. For the day-to-day matters of running, for
instance, a given factory, decisions will be made at
assemblies of all those involved.
|
But nobody's activities need be restricted to a given
"job" or locality. Each person can fish in the morning, plow
the soil in the afternoon, compose and play music before
dinner and write poetry in the evening, chop wood one day,
cast steel the next, build castles one month and sail around
the world the next (perhaps distributing the goodies they've
made). And all of this without ever having to become as such
a fisherman, a farm-worker, a musician, a poet, a woodsman,
a steelworker, a construction worker or a sailor.
|
There will no longer be a "work day." Nor a separate
"leisure" time. Just life -- just the process of consciously
creating and recreating ourselves and our world.
|
Communist society will be not only the full appropriation
of the ideas of all the great visionaries, dreamers and mad
geniuses of the past (Scriabin, William Morris, Fourier, the
Pre-Raphaelites, Lautreamont, William Blake, the early
surrealists, etc.), but furthermore the realization of their
outrageous dreams and fantasies (as well as our own), made
concrete and possible now by the development of the real
forces of production, as well as by the decay and collapse
of the present "system."
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With all the modern means of production at our individual
disposal, each of us will have a direct self-interest in the
building and rebuilding of the world in the image of our
desires, and in participating fully in the accurate
executing of this. Successful production in communist
society will depend only on the real and immediate
determination of each individual to live their life fully,
to realize their wildest imaginations -- in the real world
(that, by the way, is "how the work will get done").
|
As for the Trotskyists, Maoists, and neo-Christians of
the "Left," they can take their "transitional demands,"
"correct leadership" and "revolutionary" self-sacrifice --
and shove it up their respective asses. The communist
movement can develop only as an insatiable thirst for life
-- the same inspiration which made Scriabin insist that he
could fly -- or, as a 19th century egomaniac (Karl Marx) put
it: "a revolutionary daring which hurls at its adversaries
the defiant phrase: I am nothing, but I must be everything!"
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There will no longer be any fetishized abstractions to
mediate people's lives -- there will be no law of value no
commodity exchange, no State and no religion to decide our
activities for us; no "general interest," no "national
interest," no pre-defined "human nature." Just us. Just our
desires, skills, imagination, passions, and intelligence
-developed over centuries and now freed for the first time
-- with all the world at our disposal.
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"THE SOCIETY WHICH HAS ABOLISHED EVERY KIND OF
ADVENTURE, MAKES ITS OWN ABOLITION THE ONLY POSSIBLE
ADVENTURE"
|
Wall painting, Paris, May 1968
|
Communist revolution like all revolutions, is the outcome
of a struggle between antagonistic classes. Every mode of
production has produced insurrectionary classes who
ultimately overthrow or effectively abolish that mode of
production and all the social relations built on it.
|
Capitalism has produced the largest and the most
important (potentially) revolutionary class in all history
-- the proletariat. The proletariat consists of all of us
who are separated from control of the means of social
production and therefore have no control over our own life
activity. [4] The
means of social production includes everything used for the
production and reproduction of human beings and of society:
not only factories, mines, raw materials, agricultural land,
etc., but also all the implements and all the space and
territory which are part of our overall life process --
everything from printing presses, television equipment and
educational institutions right down to the very air we
breath, the water we drink and the sounds which we hear
around us. We have no control over any of these because
Capital has taken them all over and uses them all as
Capital. Everything that is produced -- and increasingly
everything that is even tolerated -- is produced and
tolerated only insofar as it serves the needs of Capital --
i.e., of exchange-value which expands quantitatively for the
mere sake of expanding (regardless of form).
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Capital is busily shaping all the world in its image.
Just look around you -- anywhere. But Capital is not some
natural or supernatural force determining our activity. It
is nothing other than our own activity when we disown it
-which reproduces this form of life. Capital is not a thing,
but a social relation between people mediated by things.
Quite simply, Capital is something we do every day. Every
day the means of social production pass through our hands.
We reproduce society and we reproduce it as Capital. It is
only our willingness to comply and our lack of conscious
organization for ourselves as a class, that allow the world
to go on in its present, hideous form.
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Imagine now that one day no one came to work, no one went
shopping and no one went to school. If this were sustained,
within a very short period of time capitalism would grind to
a halt. Unfortunately, in this case, so would human society.
But imagine, on the other hand that one day proletarians
everywhere took over all the work places-factories, offices,
schools, stores, television stations, gas stations,
telephone facilities, oil refineries, computer centers, etc.
-- in every part of the world at once! No military force in
the world could possibly be large or powerful enough to stop
us. I realize I have exaggerated what is actually possible .
. . but only slightly. All we, i.e. the world proletariat,
lack is the conscious desire and unity to pull it off. Until
we realize this desire and unity, we will continue,
collectively, to kick out own ass every day. So long is, at
any given time, the majority of us are willing to comply,
each isolated individual or small group of individuals is
powerless to resist.
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But above all, if we are ever to regain our own lives, we
must begin attempting to regain our own minds and our own
emotions. From the time we were born we have been
conditioned to become submissive, humble and crippled. We
have been taught to be "realistic" and repress our desires,
to accept humiliation as a natural and necessary part of
life.
|
This authoritarian conditioning begins in our families
while we are infants and is further carried out in school,
in church and in all the other institutions of capitalist
society. It is just such conditioning which makes us
complaisant in our misery and thus suitable for the slavery
of capitalist society.
[5]
|
It is this same authoritarian character (as Wilhelm Reich
called it) which bureaucrats and aspiring bureaucrats are
appealing to when they attempt to "lead the masses."
|
But worst of all, many proletarians try to justify and
defend their authoritarian character and will even resent
others who begin to break out of their own. There is nothing
more counter-revolutionary than self-denial and fear of
freedom. Nothing.
|
The contradiction between the forces of production and
the social relations of production exists inside each of us.
We are the greatest productive force of all -- and every day
the individuality of each of us comes into direct conflict
with our role as members of an enslaved class -- with the
way of life that is forced upon us.
|
Unlike any previous revolutionary movement, the communist
movement must be carried through actively and consciously by
the overwhelming majority of the world's people. No
"vanguard" Party can "lead" us, "represent" us, or seize
Power "on our behalf."
|
Instead we must begin organizing ourselves. We can begin
opening an active dialogue among all of us who are already
consciously revolutionary, in every part of the world. But
the dialogue must also extend to the rest of the
proletariat.
|
We can begin organizing where we live and where we work,
forming "cells," so to speak, in workplaces and in all areas
of social life. This is the beginning of the abolition of
Capital from within (the proletarians, while essential to
Capital, are also the living negation of Capital). Such
groups can intervene into many potentially revolutionary
situations -- especially those which most directly reflect
the crisis of Capital. We can intervene into every part of
social production (in the broadest sense of the term) -- at
workplaces, college and highschool campuses, shopping
centers, public meetings, neighborhoods, busses, rock
concerts, laundromats, waiting rooms (at everything from
welfare offices to hospitals), unemployment lines, etc. --
in short, everywhere that social life exists and has been
colonized by Capital.
|
We can intervene with every means possible -- leaflets,
graffiti, wall posters, music, newspapers -- and of course
direct conversation.
|
Whenever it can be done effectively, direct encounter
with people is best. There are so many situations every day
where people really do see through everything and it would
only be a matter of one individual being able to articulate
what everyone there already knows. Such situations occur
whenever the absurdity of exchange-value relations are
demonstrated most explicitly -- such as when people are
forced to wait in lines for something they don't even want
(such as to pay for something or to pick up a stupid
bureaucratic "form").
|
Unfortunately, the spoken word and the acted gesture are
usually quite limited in their effect over time. Someone can
go home after a really good conversation with a stranger,
but unless the encounter is followed up with something, in a
couple of weeks it will probably be as though it hadn't
happened. But the written word can also be used creatively
and subversively.
|
With the written word (such as in a leaflet or wall
poster) it is important to be able to describe well what
people are experiencing at the time they see it -- such as
the hatred they already feel for the office or factory where
they're working at the time, or the alienation and boredom
they feel at the laundromat in which they're sitting.
(Imagine yourself being bored stiff sitting in a laundromat
and someone hands you a leaflet about being bored stiff
sitting in a laundromat.) Hopefully such literature could
then elaborate further in a way that would encourage the
reader to look critically at the whole of his/her alienated
life, as well as how the totality of this alienation could
be superseded.
|
These different methods can, of course, be combined --
such as if you stick around where you've distributed
literature and are prepared to further discuss such ideas,
or if you have literature on hand to help follow up a verbal
encounter.
|
For really effective revolutionary organization to
develop it will probably be necessary to concentrate
continuously on a particular workplace or residential area,
to develop an ongoing dialogue with people you see
continually.
|
Factory and office organizations can even begin gathering
information about their own workplace facilities and
planning how these could be seized, diverted and utilized in
a revolutionary situation.
|
It is crucial that, at a very early stage these groups
link up with each other and begin sharing information and
ideas, as well as whatever material facilities they might
have (literature, tools, media equipment, etc.). This must
not take place just regionally. Rather, we must link up our
activities with each other all over the world. This will be
especially crucial when revolts occur -- our strategy must
be worldwide and as revolution breaks out we must be already
prepared to coordinate our action internationally.
Otherwise, each revolt will be crushed in isolation.
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Although such revolutionary organizations will sometimes
be forced to engage in limited day-to-day struggles for
survival, we must not turn these into "issues" to "organize
around." We must, among prerevolutionary proletarians, be
completely explicit and open about our views and aims --
that our desires can be realized only by the complete and
forcible overthrow of all exiting social conditions.
|
I have said nothing in this article that 99% of the
readers didn't already know intuitively. Communism is in our
bones. It is the real and highest form of human nature. In
spite of all the authoritarian conditioning, and the
distortions, lies and confusion presented by the media,
these ideas are already in everyone's minds -- however
deeply they may be buried. It is now up to us and us only --
to take control of our own lives.
|
The wall which must be knocked down is immense, but it
has been cracked so many times that soon a single cry will
be enough to bring it crashing to the ground. Let the
formidable reality of the real communist movement emerge at
last from the mists of history, with all the individual
passions that have fuelled a thousand insurrections of the
past. Soon we shall find that there is an energy locked up
in everyday life which can move mountains and abolish
distances.
|
- Charles Lutwidge October 1975
|
|
[1] By "forces of
production" I mean everything which serves to enhance our
ability to reproduce ourselves and to enrich ourselves as
human beings. This includes not only improvements in
"technology," but also in organizational methods and our own
skills, energy, creativity and imagination as well as our
ability to realize these. Every student can see this
contradiction when he/she finds that much of his/her
activity consists of juggling "credits," "grades" and
"units," and waiting in line and hassling at the registrar's
office -- and that the whole content of their "education" is
subordinated to these silly things. At colleges and
universities there is a gigantic administrative bureaucracy,
the function of which has nothing to do with education as
such, but is necessary so long as the principle function of
such "educational institutions" is merely to prepare people
for the senile job market, and for lives as helpless
spectators in a world beyond their control.
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[2] By a commodity
I mean something which is produced primarily to be exchanged
rather than for use as such. Its producer is interested not
in the product itself, but in what he can get in exchange
for it -- usually money which he can then exchange for other
commodities. Thus it is not the particular qualities of a
product, but rather its (exchange-)value which motivates
production in a commodity economy. As capitalism develops,
the primary motivation for production is to increase
exchange-value, or its implicit form, value as much as
possible. The particular qualities of the products (i.e.,
their capacity for use, including use for pleasure -- or as
I call it, their use-value) become, at best, secondary.
Anyone who has ever been on welfare or unemployment has had
the experience of going to offices, spending hours being
questioned and hassled, waiting in lines, filling out forms
and going through countless other humiliations in order to
receive some silly pieces of paper (checks) which are
exchanged for other silly pieces of paper (cash) which can
then be exchanged for various commodities. But the things
you ultimately buy would be every bit as good if you simply
took them. The entire paper world of the welfare bureaucracy
is completely worthless. Not only the hours of humiliation
which all welfare recipients have to spend to get their
check, but furthermore absolutely every hour, day, year and
second spent on the job by employees at the welfare
bureaucracies are completely useless and unnecessary. It is
completely wasted and unproductive labor which has nothing
to do with the use-value of the goods which it is supposed
to help people attain.
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[3] Many times in
past revolutions, such organizations -- which workers have
created to coordinate revolts and in some cases to resume
production under their own management -- have been called
workers' councils.
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[4] In fact we --
the proletariat -- are quite obviously the overwhelming
majority of the people in the world today. Our class
includes not only industrial "blue collar" workers, but
furthermore, white collar and "service" workers (skilled and
unskilled alike), teachers, unemployed, welfare recipients,
most students, agricultural workers, and even a growing
number of "professionals," artists and. musicians (in spite
of all the illusions many of these people try to maintain)
not to mention miscellaneous shitworkers of all sorts.
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[5] I can remember
now how in my earliest childhood I just assumed the world
and my life were mine to play with, and how restraints and
restrictions seemed so irrational and unnecessary. I
remember how shocked I was when I found that everything I
enjoyed was forbidden, every spontaneous act frustrated.
When I was about four I had this idea that I was going to
build a ship and go sailing with this girl I knew . . . and
we'd keep sailing till we came to some unknown island where
we'd live outside and sleep in the sand till we built a big
carnival city for all of our friends to come and live in ...
but without any-parents and without any baby-sitters to boss
us around because we'd know how to run the place. Of course,
I never got to do any of those things, so continually I
would just create microcosmic dreamworlds when there was
nowhere else worth being. I remember even these being
crushed until finally I stopped dreaming. For so long since,
such dreams seemed silly and embarrassing. It's only quite
recently that I've understood again how important they
really were, how seriously they should be taken. I have only
recently begun again to dream . . . and hopefully with still
more coherence.
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Social Reproduction afterword :
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We are reproducing ''A Modest Proposal..." because as far
as we know it has become unavailable -- in this country at
least. The article describes some social and political
perspectives which we generally agree with : the alienation
which pervades all social activity today, even that of
revolutionary groups; commodity production and its
destructive effects socially; the necessity of useless
bureaucracy to a system where profitable uselessness comes
before unprofitable necessity; the presence of "The Left"
and their contribution to the perpetuation of capitalism by
encouraging trends towards the centralisation of control in
the hands of the state; how the communist movement showed
itself in the past, how it was crushed and how it has
reappeared; the importance of authoritarian conditioning;
and an outline of how the Bad Old Days might end.
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