Some thoughts/questions for Monsieur
Dupont
A reader's comments on some of the material published by
Monsieur Dupont
For Monsieur Dupont the enemy occupies every inch. I feel this
too, but I don't think it. (Not to imply a separation between mind
and body). Every act is only partially determined by the conditions
from which it was born. In any case the present conditions are not
exclusively determined by the rule of capital. Social conditions are
only dominated by capital, but we still dream, create our own spaces,
experience moments of genuine freedom, act outside the market, etc.
It is true that capital is nearly omniscient, but in the end
capitalism is still a knowable system, with a structure and a
history, that is organized by directors and managers, and overseen by
humans who are not each as competent or as authoritarian as the
other. They make mistakes and can neglect or be unaware of growing
threats. In so far as it rules over territory, both social and
geographical, it is nearly universal. But like any occupying force,
capital's strength varies from zone to zone, and occasionally a local
population takes advantage of the relative weaknesses of its
domination.
In Europe and North America many of capitals subjects have been so
deeply colonized and indoctrinated as to believe that its rule is a
necessary evil. Some even believe that liberal democracy and
techno-industrial capitalism represent the end of history. For every
worker who engages in sabotage or absenteeism, there is another who
finds such acts irresponsible and self-indulgent. For every act of
resistance committed by a worker, he/she commits many more that
indicate not only voluntary submission to our domination by capital,
but an actual belief in it. Coercion and bribery have paid off. Over
half of the Canadian working class invests in the stock market. They
phone the cops on their neighbours. They defend the patriarchal
nuclear family, cheer for imperial wars, curse the faggots and punks,
etc. Yet each one of them also has moments of hatred toward those at
the helm for our condition, moments of reflection and insight that
unmask the true nature and basis of our society. The population only
appears defeated and its self-esteem decimated.
But we haven't become complete zombies, cyborgs or objects yet.
All of us at times assert our subjectivity in order to continue
living with ourselves, to remind ourselves that we are organic
beings, not roles (worker, parent, citizen, consumer, revolutionary.)
It is when these moments of assertion are collective or social that
they offer hope. I know that hope can be a leash of power. But to
endure it is necessary, otherwise only suicide or surrender seems
left.
Some communists point to sabotage at work, or unauthorized actions
(wildcats) at work etc. as the only real forms of working class
attempts at self-emancipation or offensive class war manoeuvres. Yet
these same individuals commit other acts outside the sphere of
production that are also significant as examples of
self-emancipation, but they commit them as individuals within the
proletariat, not as actual producers. If coercive authority is partly
predicated on the absence of authentic community bonds, then attempts
at creating genuine community are radical acts. As well, many others
who are not typically at the levers of production (students, the
permanently unemployed, traditionalist indigenous people, spouses of
the workers, children, the 'insane', the disabled, those who live
exclusively by crime, even the managerial, intellectual and small
entrepreneurial segments, etc.) also commit significant acts that are
aimed explicitly at opposing their domination. The entire class of
ruled are agents capable of liberating themselves not just the actual
'producers' within it.
What exactly dominates us? Does all domination begin and end only
with the rule of state and capital? What are the various forms
authority takes? Are there identifiable origins of domination? Can we
ever hope to fully realize our desires without identifying the roots
of our predicament? Radical, from the Latin radix, meaning root.
Though they make many good points, this is where Monsieur Dupont
is weakest. They write: " In antiquity it was possible for people to
live in different ways across the globe but only to a certain extent
due to the limited technologies of the time, these days there is the
possibility, due to advanced technology, for everyone to live
comfortably, but the economic system prevents this." Is it possible
that Monsieur Dupont still believe that technical solutions are
primary in solving social problems? Is a different 'economics" the
solution? Why not no economics? Is a world of giving and sharing,
without commodities or value, not in their dreams? It isn't clear in
their text. Furthermore, even many mainstream anthropologists now
describe the lives of primitive societies as materially abundant,
filled with sensual wisdom, happiness, a sense of community, in short
as even more than just 'comfortable'. They had intellectual
sophistication, freedom, love and a sense of belonging. I'm somehow
surprised that M. DuPont would hold such a Hobbesian world-view. I
live on the west Coast of Canada. I have native friends, have
researched their societies for years, have visited their cultural
centres, etc. There is no question that anarchy prevailed here until
contact, around 1750, at which time they were, in academic
terminology, Stone Age peoples. Their lives were not nasty, brutish
and short. This is a lie of the ruling class. Throughout the world,
Palaeolithic peoples, in general, before Neolithic domestication,
had, in terms of material equipment alone, the following: nets, skin
containers, lamps, cordage, traps, huts and various other shelters,
hamlets, paints, masks, a wide variety of specialized tools,
including surgical instruments, a wide variety of weapons, graphic
signs, hats, sewing utensils, weaving looms, musical instruments,
games, toys, mats, storage boxes, various types of canoes and boats,
medicine, jewellery, and the list goes on. This is before the last
Ice Age came to an end! Lewis Mumford explains that reading back from
our own aggressive, suspicious, competitive era, it's easy to bestow
upon our ancient forbears attributes of our own. Palaeolithic people
were not engaged in a desperate struggle for survival, in acrimonious
competition with equally forlorn and 'savage' beings. What M. Dupont
don't seem to accept is that it doesn't take industrial capitalism to
provide us with comfort. We're animals. We just need habitats and to
organically self-organize within them.
Who is going to work in the factories producing all the 'advanced
technology' Monsieur Dupont is so in awe of. Each our turn, I
suppose? The advanced technology dream is unimaginative to say the
least. Even radicals among the civilized (deeply domesticated/
colonized humans) impose negative stereotypes on life ways that
resulted from tens of thousands of years of anarchy, while what irony
for them to admire the achievements of capital. Need I point out that
the achievements of capital were paid for in oceans of blood? There
are always sacrifice zones under Empire's rule. I don't want to be
dogmatic. I'm not saying that everything that resulted from
capitalism is inherently oppressive or destructive, paradox is, after
all, a part of life. However, I think free beings will want to invent
their own non-authoritarian tools and cultural implements, we don't
need to accept an inheritance from capital.
The specialization (division of labour), the transportation grid,
the universities, the plunder of nature, the drudgery, the
overarching infrastructure, necessary to maintain and upgrade and
refine these advanced technologies, seem deeply incongruous with the
notion of an unknowable future communism. I hope you don't expect me
to have to work in a titanium factory, plastics factory, aluminium
mine, research lab, robots factory, or whatever to produce your
gadgets and gizmos and junk. After all, what advanced technologies
exactly are being referred to that offer this "comfort'? Satellites?
Nuclear power? Electric toothbrushes? Computers? The Concorde? Bread
Machines? It is pure escapist science fiction to describe a gentle
green society in which robots build robots in solar powered factories
ensuring an 'abundance' for all, while the humans are 'finally'
'free' to self-direct their lives.
Communism, which is an unrealized desire, will not necessarily be
initiated by a movement and even if that were the case, then such a
movement will not be created by experts, militants, professionals or
leaders. But this is not to say that withdrawal or resistance by
small or large numbers of heretics, free thinkers, inspired or angry
people, or by more organized rebels, tribes or villages, etc. are
doomed to be forever fruitless or of little consequence. I believe
that a diversity of self-organized groups asserting their desires and
subjectivity can have a great impact as a 'movement'. I'm not talking
about activism or single-issue movements. I'm talking about living.
Getting together and leading lives not determined by anything beyond
our selves, i.e. asserting our individual and collective freedom.
This is in direct opposition to capitalism (and is the only sense in
which absenteeism from work makes sense to me as a revolutionary act,
as an act that refuses work in favour of living). As for wildcats
(the means) I'm always inspired when folks disobey and take
initiative, but if the demand (the ends) are still reformist I'm less
inspired. The same goes for sabotage at the workplace. This is more
exciting because it shows contempt for the process of negotiating
with power and for an alienating, oppressive and destructive means of
production.
But again I'd be more inspired if the sabotage was aimed
explicitly at permanently stopping production, not just to make a
point with a bang or an act of desperation.
Practically speaking, I see potential in a variety of permanent
autonomous zones and of 'movements' toward their creation, for
instance the Magonist villages in Chiapas, the Papua New Guinea
tribes people stopping industrialism on their territory, Catalonia in
the thirties, indigenous rebellions, etc. It's true that a
proletarian condition is being imposed on populations all over the
world where capitalist development had remained weak or embryonic.
This is called globalization. But the solution isn't for the tribes
people and peasants to accept industrialism and the resultant
destruction of their land base and the disruption of a freer way of
life so that they can join the modern world by becoming wage slaves
and thus share in its 'advanced' technologies and other 'benefits',
but to try and stop the imposition. For us, as radicals wanting
freedom, it is to organize against our conscription in the planetary
Work Gulag, to ridicule and demystify the civilization of Pharaohs,
Popes, Oligarchs, Queens, Lenins, masters, generals, experts,
etc.
Communism is not everywhere or nowhere. You certainly haven't
convinced me that " any direct opposition to capitalism is always
forced to expand into a global phenomenon". Unless of course you see
revolution as seizing and maintaining the productive apparatus, in
which case the rulers are naturally going to use every means to wrest
control out of the hands of the workers. I would say that revolution
means destroying the productive apparatus and thereby creating the
possibility for a new basis of living to assert itself. Surplus, or
the material conditions and the productive apparatus to ensure it,
didn't cause states to be born, it was the other way around.
Therefore free people wouldn't have a productive apparatus, as it
would be a burden, rather we'd have tools and ways. We would be too
busy making love, planting corn, dreaming, dancing, playing,
processing food with friends, etc to maintain a productive
apparatus.
An apparent mentor of yours, Marx, described revolution as the
conscious appropriation of life by those who live it. The stateless,
communist societies that existed for millennia before being conquered
by empires existed separately one from the other. The reverse can
also occur. Capitalism can be undone in different places, thereby
weakening its overall monopoly on power and perhaps ultimately
spelling its end.
In Europe, Japan, Canada, America, etc., workers in certain
relevant industries might have the collective power to temporarily
stop capitalism suddenly, but they know that they face certain, swift
defeat unless large elements of their class join them, especially if
they want to abolish the helm but maintain the levers
(self-management).
In other places, say Chiapas, the jungles of Columbia, in certain
African countries, etc., conditions are different and the form of
revolt will be different. Our dreams and actions can't rely on
theories that deny that peasant societies can liberate themselves and
create their own anarchy. In fact most recent social upheavals have
occurred in countries where memories of authentic community are still
strong in the social psyche, not in advanced industrial-capitalist
zones like Europe or the United States, where these memories are
fading fast.
Being a worker is a role scripted by capital. If we are to become
subjects, then we must stop being, and treating others as, merely
roles/objects. While rebels and activists won't create by themselves
a movement that will overthrow capitalism, neither will the working
class, as workers. Each worker is still primarily an individual and
much more than just a member of the working class. As a comrade
recently wrote: " Revolution develops from real struggles as the
awareness of the need to destroy the present social order becomes
increasingly conscious in the course of struggle." The real struggles
involve both withdrawal and resistance, as individuals and as parts
of a larger collectivity.
While it is true that the power has been in the hands of workers,
in certain countries, collectively, to stop production and thereby to
stop capitalism, is that all there is to it? What if those organised
working class folk want to maintain urban civilization? Is
self-management of industry really enough or do we want to start
fresh? Is it just capitalist economics or is it all economics that we
want to refuse? Is it just wage-labour or all 'work' that must be
opposed? Is de-centralizing enough or mustn't we also de-massify?
Obviously the proletariat in many countries has felt for a while
that it has more to lose than to gain by abandoning the levers of
production, and ironically, their belief in 'advanced technology' and
other so called benefits of capitalism is partly what keeps them
voluntarily returning to wage-labour and accepting defeat.
When enough folk stop seeing themselves as merely
workers/citizens, and stop accepting the bribes of capital, (like
advanced technology) that is when they might stop production. Perhaps
many of us will one day realize that to get a life, we need to stop
believing and stop working.
Monsieur DuBois
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