tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post7120993864911429337..comments2024-03-20T01:04:27.846-05:00Comments on Permanent Crisis: Demonize the banksUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-18412424030214661772011-12-22T12:53:22.325-06:002011-12-22T12:53:22.325-06:00Iceland defaulted. Last quarter they had 4.7% grow...Iceland defaulted. Last quarter they had 4.7% growth. There went your big chance for a commie revolution.Lunelegerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08366955406128260637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-53606880523027726302011-09-17T13:54:22.372-05:002011-09-17T13:54:22.372-05:00I don't think that we need to conceive of agen...I don't think that we need to conceive of agency in a traditional way as the agency of the liberal subject. If agency is the ability to alter a social structure, then we should be more apt to view it as the province of some kind of movement or coalition emerging from social contradictions. I think this also returns us to some recent comments regarding the impossibility of bringing back "the party" and Earl's question to me about the value of the UK Uncut organization.<br /><br />UK Uncut is a group that formed in response to the politics of austerity in the UK, and held public demonstrations against companies that were not contributing to the nation through taxes. I don't think that an organization like this is at all adequate to the situation we're in. Increased corporate taxes would not solve the economic crisis. But much as Walker argued in this article, such a struggle might lay the groundwork to address the crisis in a much more substantial way by engaging public participation.<br /><br />However if we want to engender public participation, to me it seems that something like a party is still necessary. By this I mean a much more solid form of organization that can provide the conditions for helping leftist thought, analysis, and research flourish, as well as funding organizers to work on issues of importance and sustain public involvement in these issues (I'm definitely not thinking of electoral politics.) Hopefully such an organization could bring together some of the efforts that are currently being put into disparate social issues. After all we would be much more able to address such issues if our efforts were united. Currently environmental groups, labor groups, identity groups, neighborhood groups, etc. are working mostly in isolation from one other. But as others have argued the collapse of working class identity has taken away what was previously the best way to organize political power on the left.<br /><br />To me this would seem to demand that we find a new way to organize opposition, but perhaps I haven't fully grasped what Earl and Walker meant when they said that the party is now an impossibility. Maybe this is more of a semantic issue regarding what a "party" is. I think that the forms of organization that we think might work would be an important issue for future discussions.Deckardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06918939582411126943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-23603615710103960982011-09-17T13:54:06.789-05:002011-09-17T13:54:06.789-05:00I think that limiting ourselves to a negative crit...I think that limiting ourselves to a negative critique means that our message will not be effective beyond a small circle of academics. If we are not using our insight to point to areas where it is possible to take action and change the existing social configuration, then I'm not sure of what use it is. I also think that if we don't risk engaging in these struggles then we won't find out the true potential for social change. This knowledge will only come about through a trial by fire.<br /><br />I share Chris's uncertainty about the future. But I also believe that Balakrishnan's article does something very useful in underlining the distinction between the collapse of capital and it's overcoming (this is reading into it a bit, as I believe he confines his comments to the idea of collapse.) As Marx argued, the incredible advances that society has seen over the past few centuries come from capitalism, not in spite of it. It is interesting to consider that the fall of capitalism might not be at all as we might like to envision it, that it might not unleash the potentialities of humanity but rather foreclose on them.<br /><br />But to say that our struggle is one through and beyond capitalism should also entail the recognition that the struggles of workers and others are really part of the engine of capitalism itself. As Earl and Walker point out, our participation in politics can take the form of a refusal that could potentially create a new dynamic of growth.<br /><br />I'm not convinced that a more humane capitalism is possible, but in my opinion our hopes hinge on just that possibility. This condition of uncertainty is, after all, entirely consistent with the fact that we are in a epochal crisis. Viewed in another way, this uncertainty we feel about the future may actually represent the opening of a field of action, an opportunity for us to influence the course of events in a significant way. This returns us to an earlier discussion about agency.Deckardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06918939582411126943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-8078275300559440562011-09-14T23:42:00.529-05:002011-09-14T23:42:00.529-05:00Please excuse the informal language of this commen...Please excuse the informal language of this comment coming from someone outside any movement.<br /><br />Of all the institutions that make up the U.S. economy, I think the financial system and the health care system are the most obviously broken and inefficient.<br /><br />It’s easy to imagine a national financial system allocating more money long-term to energy research and efficient transportation (and away from short term asset speculation, which no current bank can do), or a national health care system with enough clout to organize effective electronic medical records which no hospital chain or insurance company can do. Of course these would also be greener and more humane, as well as being more efficient.<br /><br />Don’t you need a health care system and something that does finance-like stuff under socialism anyways?<br /><br />I suppose Health Insurance can be just as easily demonized as Banks. Both will probably get easier to demonize as long as the U.S. system stays so inefficient.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-81020803309096394192011-09-14T06:12:57.491-05:002011-09-14T06:12:57.491-05:00I'm much less confident than Earl in capital&#...I'm much less confident than Earl in capital's ability to "figure it out" this time - the Balakrishnan article that Chris cited actually makes a pretty persuasive case that getting robust accumulation going again will be extremely difficult. On that count I side more with Chris.<br /><br />But I like very much every other point Earl is making. Precisely because a viable new regime of accumulation will be so difficult to assemble - and because the capitalists themselves are mostly ideologically opposed to the steps that would be required - I think it falls to the left to save capitalism in spite of the capitalists.<br /><br />This would require, I think, a rough blueprint of what revived accumulation would entail so the left could distinguish useful initiatives from unhelpful temptations - community gardens, for example, are a waste of time. But I think that the way this should actually unfold politically is, as Earl is saying, by drawing red lines that the capitalists aren't allowed to cross. This would both give capital the flexibility it needs and leave us free to sustain a continuing and increasingly radical critique.<br /><br />All this is premised on the idea that simply leaving the economy to stagnation and decline is probably the least likely scenario for generating popular subjectivity and institutions that could transcend capital. So far developments have done nothing to dissuade me from this view, but if that should change then the possibilities open to us might greatly expand.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-48980271857142037562011-09-12T12:36:32.783-05:002011-09-12T12:36:32.783-05:00I think there's an added benefit to a negative...I think there's an added benefit to a negative role in that it is what embeds us in communities and builds identity and community out of struggle. Maurise Blanchot (and Ranciere to a certain extent) is interesting on this point because he takes the primary political moment as the moment of refusal. It's the refusal of an inhumane form of accumulation that will prepare people for a positive struggle for alternatives to capitalism. <br /><br />What I'm picturing here is making demands regarding what we will not allow in a new regime of accumulation. We will not allow environmental destruction, mass exclusion, or suppression of dissent. This is how fordism happened, revolutionaries never advocated for fordism, but it was the "deal" they got from their continued refusal of an inhumane economy. <br /><br />This isn't to say we couldn't ever be positive. As a new regime that we do like begins to emerge we can say "yes that's a good thing," though will some criticality of course. And we can plant seeds to resistance like my example of USAS with the WRC. But I feel that the emergence of that new regime should come from a deal being made with our refusals.<br /><br />Basically this comes from a confidence in Capital's creativity to save itself. If we establish enough lines in the sand as to what we won't take Capital will figure it out. I know it seems unlikely now but a look a emerging markets, especially if they begin to decouple (though they're not there yet) from core economies we could see new raw material for growth.Earl McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00385037345218807231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-41539791407893128432011-09-12T10:10:50.586-05:002011-09-12T10:10:50.586-05:00I think the difference is that I remain unconvince...I think the difference is that I remain unconvinced that we can shape "conditions that will facilitate the emergence of a movement to overcome capital" i.e. shape a new regime of accumulation, except in a determin-edly/ately negative role.<br /><br />Part of this is because I do not see a future in which capital is less irrational and destructive. A new organization of accumulation will exacerbate the contradiction between the social and material forms of wealth. Living labor will not become more necessary but less so. Even though the movement of capital is neither towards a final crisis nor of ascendancy/decadence, the resolution of each crisis of valorization still heightens the contradiction, making it more difficult to resolve. Between where we are now and a new regime of accumulation stands the massive destruction of capital (no 'reset' in accumulation in the last 100 years has involved less than a world war.) We could just as well see a long-term continuation of stagnation, as noted by Gopal Balakrishnan in his Speculations on the Stationary State http://www.newleftreview.org/A2799.<br /><br />That is, I don't see a new "regime of accumulation" as a given and for that reason I don't believe we can orient politically to it. I think we have to look for the fissures as they present themselves to us in the here and now, but to be patient. A negative critique is not against action, but rather has know how to bide its time and choose its moment and terrain, without holding its tongue.Chris Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364071049767652706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-60265687933282759462011-09-12T03:24:40.254-05:002011-09-12T03:24:40.254-05:00We discussed some of these issues in more detail o...We discussed some of these issues in more detail on <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/08/task-at-hand.html" rel="nofollow">this post</a>. Fundamentally I think the critical intellectual can take one of two approaches. First, we can as Chris suggests, direct our critical work toward "pointing out the weak points, the contradictions, but not in suggesting capital-sustaining remedies" - that is, a strictly negative function. Alternatively, we act in an affirmative manner, trying to create the conditions that will facilitate the emergence of a movement to overcome capital.<br /><br />The latter path requires a certain ambition, and perhaps a certain arrogance, that has been missing from the Marxian left since the advent of Stalinism. But I think that now, in light of the global experience of Leninism, Fordism, and neoliberalism, and using the theory developed by Postone, Harvey, Arrighi, Brenner, the Frankfurt School, the Régulation School, and others, we are in a position to attempt it. There are some clear dangers in this approach, but if we remain aware of them I hope we can avoid them. The alternative, I'm afraid, is to leave those dissident movements that do emerge completely rudderless, as they've been for the last forty (or one hundred?) years.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-84369579787397276322011-09-07T13:59:22.811-05:002011-09-07T13:59:22.811-05:00I agree that this framing is problematic. The arg...I agree that this framing is problematic. The argument makes some sense, that out of this crisis we will not be able to actualize socialism and so we must ensure that the regime of accumulation that becomes dominant is conducive to revolutionary organizing and ameliorates social ills like climate change and poverty. But both in our work and rhetoric I don't think it's wise to <i>advocate</i> for one regime over another. I'm also not sure that's what Walker is talking about here.<br /><br />As I said in <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/08/task-at-hand.html?showComment=1314157264305#c4105977869900098689" rel="nofollow">another comment</a>:<br />"I don't think we need to be coy about our intentions and say "let's put the revolution on hold, let's just get out of the crisis." I think we need to say that we need to get out of the crisis in such a way that makes revolutionary practice easier. This isn't just semantic, it means that we support projects that imagine a favorable regime of accumulation, all the while at the same time figuring out and building a revolutionary movement that is adequate to that regime of accumulation. This would mean being creative in our organizational forms and also fighting to make the rules of the regime more conducive to organizing (I like to believe many of these would be those that are also better for people in the short run, I'm not a worsist). My vision is something like what Unite Students Against Sweatshops did in the late 90s by creating the Workers Rights Consortium (which has had serious impacts on the garment industry, and set them up for many future victories), on a societal scale. "<br /><br />The revolutionary orientation that I'd advocate is not establishing a coherent left position in dominant rhetoric with a clear vision for a single regime of accumulation. Instead we need to return to our communities and work places, we need to begin rebuilding the organizations that can breath both practical and theoretical life into a revolutionary movement that will be adequate to the new regime of accumulation. If we're involved in concrete struggles at the birth of a new regime we can experiment and discover what forms or organization are adequate. <br /><br />This does not mean neglecting the national debates. We need to be clear on what is acceptable or not. And what's more, we can be clever about what forms will lead to a good regime and what to bad. Austerity is bad, nationalizing banks is good. So I'd agree with Walker that articulating clear demands and constraints on the revival of accumulation is crucial and powerful. But I wouldn't be for trying to create a broad national movement around a vision for <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/01/creating-shared-value-annunciation-of.html" rel="nofollow">more humane accumulation</a>.Earl McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00385037345218807231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-12005122245569145892011-09-05T11:25:26.419-05:002011-09-05T11:25:26.419-05:00Just out of curiosity, why do we want to act "...Just out of curiosity, why do we want to act "in service to a new regime of accumulation"?<br /><br />I'm not trying to suggest that some revolutionary alternative is around the corner, but that our critical work ought to be directed towards pointing out the weak points, the contradictions, but not in suggesting capital-sustaining remedies. From an ecological perspective, much less one of global human misery, a new regime of accumulation will likely only exacerbate those problems.<br /><br />We should not stop looking for practical forces expressing the contradictions of capital just because working class identity politics is pretty much dead.Chris Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364071049767652706noreply@blogger.com