[P2P-F] [Networkedlabour] Transnational and P2P Commons Transitions

Sat Aug 2 07:29:23 CEST 2014

Dear Brian,

I am in full agreement with what you write here, a new K-wave is coming at
some point, but I believe it will necessarily integrate key elements of the
green and p2p compacts, if it wants to work .. I compare it to the 18th cy,
period, one system was going down (nobility), one system was going up
(bourgeoisie), with the 'absolute kings' acting as temporary arbiters as
long as both forces were of more or less equal strength . but in the end,
it had to be resolved by a flurry of 'phase transitions', in one country
after another ..

so, while police state fascism will emerge in certain contexts, it is far
from sure that this will be the dominant reality (thailand is really
significant here, declining nobility and bangkok middle class, facing
rising rural (including enterpreneurial), working and chinese industrial
class sections, neither coalition can win, so the military come up as
arbitrageurs, but though they want to lock down democracy in favour of the
first , the strength of the latter coalition precludes long term success);
some kind of compromise is inevitable in order to pacify the social
majority, it seems to me

But I have one question, you say Minqi Li says there is no longer a reserve
periphery .. but what about Africa ? (and the rise of latin america in the
naugthies ?)
http://p2pfoundation.net/Rise_of_China_and_the_Demise_of_the_Capitalist_World-Economy

Michel

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 1:38 AM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In the 90s, middle-classes in the overdeveloped world and
> proto-middle-classes everywhere else were seduced by networked technology
> to play their traditional roles as managers and consumers, despite the
> fierce inequalities of neoliberalism. If a new geopolitical order is
> achieved, the pervasive-computing utopia touted by people like Kaku will
> again seduce many people; but it will come with even sharper unemployment
> and huge environmental crises. This time, the global middle classes are
> going to be clearly affected, as we move to a world of centers and
> semi-peripheries, without any undeveloped peripheries to exploit any more
> (that's Minqi Li's analysis, I recommend it). Already we see an ugly
> future. "Perfect capitalism" shrinks the pie and poisons the sunny day when
> you are supposed to eat it. One path that is already opening up to deal
> with the resultant problems is the new police-state fascism. That path is
> preferred by the transnational capitalist class and it is already highly
> advanced, as we know.
>
> However, a bifurcation is possible. Its essential traits are being created
> now. Of course they are yet small in scale, but that is not so surprising.
> Only since 2011 have large sectors of the world population understood that
> the current development path, and any future one that tries to prolong it,
> is a dead end. If critical mass is built over the next ten years, our ideas
> can inflect the major developments of the world system. I think this is
> what Michel is talking about when he evokes the possibility of a "phase
> change." It may not be an entirely new, fully non-capitalist system. But
> decisive axioms could be changed, leading to much less concentration in
> property and resource ownership, energy production, manufacturing, media
> and education. This can only happen if a new political and ecological
> philosophy, as powerful as Marxism once was, can be articulated and spread
> in such a way as to inform practice. Zizek's Leninism isn't going to do it,
> I am certain.
>
> After the 20th century and after the disastrous Arab Spring, people will
> not be likely to risk total revolution. Uprisings are still important. But
> not if their aims are confined to either the institution of new liberal
> democracies (ie masks over the current system) or so-called proletarian
> states (ie industrial developmental states ruled by party technocrats, as
> in China and Russia today). Those are zombie solutions. We need to
> transform our modes of producing, of managing production, and of
> symbolizing what a good society is, all from the bottom up. Only such
> transformations can inflect the future forms of civilization.
>

-- 
*Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no
record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..*

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