[P2P-F] important debate: fighting cuts in an age of powerdown

Sat Mar 19 08:06:33 CET 2011

Many thanks Andy, very useful,

Michel

On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 4:58 AM, Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hiya,
>
> Two related articles attached, one of them mine, the other is from an
> autonomist on similar issues.
>
> Basically, I think the link between the cuts and the ecological issue is
> the need to recompose everyday welfare networks and replace commodity with
> subsistence production.
>
> The fight against the cuts is just, but I'm not sure it's winnable in the
> North, as popular movements do not have the power to exert greater force on
> states than the capitalist class can exert, and it's the kind of issue where
> the state has the final say (it will cut or it won't), not the kind where it
> has to 'enforce' its decision and faces an ongoing war of attrition.  The
> fight against climate change has been derailed by excessive reliance on the
> state in the previous, less-austere period.  The global states had their
> chance in Copenhagen, they didn't take the threat seriously enough (unlike
> the banking collapse), and the movement has gone the way of the US anti-war
> movement after Obama sold-out, it lost momentum and collapsed.
>
> One of capitalism's plans for a new leading sector is 'ecological
> modernisation', which is a dead-end ecologically (consumption gains are
> offset by increasing consumption) but might work economically.  Capitalism
> might handle resource shortages by compressing its core still further,
> abandoning increasingly large marginal zones as competitors for global city
> status are weeded out (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India might go the way of
> Africa).  Historically though (see Sing Chew's work), economic systems tend
> to collapse rather than adapt when they reach the limit of their
> resource-base.  We could see a systemic implosion, and the question would
> then be what comes next.  Chew says of previous phases that they've led to a
> period of population decline, movement outwards from cities to surrounding
> areas, diffusion rather than concentration of power, and the primacy of
> local over global knowledge (being a modernist, he calls this a 'dark age').
>
>
> The other complication here is that, the cuts blip notwithstanding, social
> movements (in the core countries) are at something of a low point.  We're
> still 15 years off when the next big movement wave should be, and there's
> immense tactical difficulties: basically, the system has found ways around
> existing movement tactics and the 'political opportunity structure' has
> resultantly closed.  In past waves, successful new tactics seem to begin at
> the outlying points and move inwards, and I think the characteristics of the
> next wave are already circulating in activist texts drawing on these
> precursors: blockades or sabotage of key nodes (including virtual nodes),
> the emergence of ungoevrnable zones in areas outside high-density economic
> areas, diffuse networked communication (which needs a LOT of work to be
> fully activism-friendly), secondary targeting of points networked to primary
> targets (imposing costs leading to the isolation of targeted nodes), and
> maybe the exploitation of information vulnerabilities.  Anyway, I suspect
> (following autonomism) that wave-switches happen in response to (and as
> recuperation of) resistance waves, in which case the current crisis will be
> a long one, stretching until the next wave appears.
>
> bw
> Andy
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> http://transitionculture.org/2011/03/15/richard-heinberg-interviewed-in-totnes-i-think-2011-is-going-to-be-an-interesting-year-in-the-chinese-sense-part-two/
>>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> I have some difficulty in articulating the following issue, and hope you
>> can help me in framing this in the right way,
>>
>>
>> so, here is the problem,
>>
>> on the one hand, we have a classic systemic 'end of wave' crisis of
>> capitalism, a bail-out of the financial class and austerity measures imposed
>> on working people to fund it, hence, a natural mobilization to defend the
>> population against those cuts by 'getting the money where it is'
>>
>> on the other hand, we have a much more systemic systemic crisis due to
>> climate change, peak oil, etc ... and we have forces such as the transition
>> movement, these people are saying, it's useless to fight the cuts, they
>> reflect the end of growth, etc ..  in one of the articles I read, I forgot
>> about which town, you could see how these people were talking to the
>> austerity-minded cost-cutting conservative city hall while there was a
>> massive mobilization of the anti-cuts movement going on,
>>
>> so, we have 2 contradictory realities, yes, the current austerity is fake
>> and the money is there but captured by the elite, but, yes, the deeper
>> crisis is also there and we have to think about changing our economic system
>> more fundamentally, and part of this is indeed changing the growth system,
>> etc ..
>>
>> my hunch is that it is essential to be in solidarity with the workers and
>> citizens in the anti-cuts movement, but this somewhat reflective attitude
>> needs an add-on, a broader context, that reflects the second truth, but
>> without putting us on the side of the plutocracy in justifying the cuts ..
>>
>> so, how to formulate the right frame that honours both truths?
>>
>> Michel
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

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