[P2P-F] Reflections on Trump, and the role of the commons as an alternative

Wed Feb 8 09:16:52 CET 2017

personal reflections on the meaning of Trump, in the form of axioms. Bear
in mind this is a very quick first write-up which needs to be improved.

Updates eventually via https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Theses_on_Trump

Theses[edit
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Theses_on_Trump&action=edit&section=1>
]

1. The victory and support for Trump reflects the crisis of neoliberal
globalization and the underlying dynamics of capitalism, i.e. both the
environmental externalities such as peak resources (not contrary to current
oil glut, but a paradoxical part of it, see Bio-Physical Triggers of
Political Violence
<https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Bio-Physical_Triggers_of_Political_Violence>),
and climate change; and the social externalities, essentially the
impoverishment of the western working and middle classes.

2. Hence a struggle between the pro-neoliberal forces who want to maintain
the benefits of Empire at the cost of both the internal population and the
nationally bound industries, and those of the forces that backed Trump, and
accept that they can no longer dominate Empire . Hence the support for
Trump from the more nationally oriented business leaders, the sectors that
fear climate change costs and regulations (the energy sector). Hence the
retreat from imperial policing and responsibilities. The idea is to retreat
back to the nation-state, only accept trade which does not endanger
national capital, and to repatriate the trillions that are stashed abroad
through the 'imperial' multinationals. This explains the opposition to
Trump from the neoliberal elite.

3. The class compromise of neoliberalism, to accept the cultural aspects of
the 1968 uprising, and thus the acceptance of cultural and gender rights
with the postmodern, post-labor left that supported it, is no longer
workable. Hence the Trump forces promise an alignment with the white
working class (but also others who share certain laborist or productivist
values), at the cost of Otherization. It is important to understand that
just as the labor left institutions got coopted in the New Deal / Welfare
state model, so did also the pro-rights left represented by identity
politics, or at least large parts of it (see Boltanski book). Hence the
alignment between pro-neoliberal politics and the cultural left,
represented by the Clinton-Obama coalitions.

4. Since the cultural left is focused on cultural rights, they are
understandably opposed to the Otherization and overt racism/genderism of
the Trump coalition, and feel largely obliged to support to some degree the
neoliberal regime which granted the cultural rights and reforms, but given
the undermining of the neoliberal compromise, this seems like a mistake.

5. More realistically, the Sanders forces represent those sectors of the
left focused on recreating a synergy between progressive labor and the
cultural left, intent on creating a new coalition. Hence the moderate
language used by Sanders so as to maintain the links with the parts of
labor who voted Trump. However, this also means maintaining a broad
orientation towards restoring the New Deal principles , support for
Keynesian politics, but also crucially, the same orientation towards
re-industrialization and the restoration of the nation-state.

6. Both coalitions therefore have their contradictions. For example, Trump
needs the support of both labor and their unions, but also of the no-tax
Republicans, meaning he has to cut the budget at the same time as he needs
trillions for infrastructural investment. He needs to retreat from Empire,
but needs to pacify the defense establishment. He needs Big Oil, but at the
cost of environmental disruption.

7. The Obama and Sanders coalitions have their own contradictions, being
wedded to a dismantling globalization and a impossible to really restore
nation-state reality.

8. The p2p/commons approach has a crucial role to play in rending the
Sanders coalition more realistic, by offering new strategies for
re-industrialization which are not based on going back to the old models,
but on going forward towards a cosmo-local model of production, which
offers solutions not just for the US workers, but for the populations of
the world, and through its stress on mutualization and the commons, has
solutions for the ecological and climate crisis. This requires that
commoners make their own turn towards focusing not on knowledge workers
only, but to all workers and the rest of the population, by offering
perspectives for sustainable livelihoods. While at the same time,
construction trans-national institutions.

9. However, the big issue for the commons movenent and emergence is the
immaturity of a lot of these potential solutions. Thus, the commons needs
as much to align with the progressive nation-state restorers, as the other
way around, as such huge transitions are impossible to carry out in good
conditions without the support of state institutions (what we call the
Partner State approach). Hence, one of the strategic priorities is a
dialogue between the labor left (a la Sanders and Corbyn), the cultural
rights movements, and the emerging commons movement.

-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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