[P2P-F] My review (bauwens) of Alex Foti's General Theory of the Precariat

Fri Jan 26 09:25:49 CET 2018

see also link here at
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/General_Theory_of_the_Precariat#Evaluation

"This book is essential reading for all commoners that want to think
through the right strategy for social change. It squarely places itself
from the point of few of the new social groups (or class in formation, as
Foti would have it) that have grown under the conditions of neoliberalism
and its decline, or in other words under the emergence of cognitive
capitalism or 'informationalism'. This key group are the various
constituent parts of the precariat, all the people who can no longer work
with dependable classic labor contracts and the steady income and
protection deriving from it.

This book should be read through its end, i.e. chapter five, because its
first four chapters on the precariat are only set in a more complex
geopolitical context in that last chapter. To be honest, I was quite
reactive at times during the reading of the first four chapters, because
two very important structural elements were missing in his analysis. First
is the commons itself, the other side of the antagonistic struggles of the
precariat; and second is the ecological crisis, the very material
conditions under which this struggle must occur today. Foti indeed calls
for economic and monetary growth, and sounds like an unabashed
neo-Keynesian but only in the last chapter stresses that this growth should
be thermodynamically sound (i.e. he calls for monetary growth, but not
growth in material services). Foti also almost completely ignores the role
of the commons and 'commonalism' in the first four chapters, only
acknowledging in a few parts of chapter 5, that it is a vital constituent
part of the precarious condition. If you don't read chapter 5, you could be
mistaken for seeing Foti's analysis as an exercise in re-imagining the
class dynamics and compromises of the New Deal and post-WWII european
welfare states, and has simply replaced working class with precariat,
working class parties with social populism, and the New Deal with a social
compact for green capitalism.

So, the fact that this is a remarkably thought out book about contemporary
strategy for social change, should be tempered by a few paradoxes that the
author has not completely resolved.

Indeed at the heart of the book lies also an enduring paradox: Foti calls
for the most radical forms of conflict, and identifies with the more
radical cultural minorities, acknowledging their anticapitalist and
anarchist ethos, yet calls for mere reformism as a focus and outcome. This
is therefore not a book about transforming our societies to post-capitalist
logics, this is a book about a new reformism. This is a book against
neoliberalism, not against capitalism. At times, it is plain 'capitalist
realism', as Foti explicitly acknowledges he sees no dynamic value creation
outside of capitalism. For Foti, it is clear, if sufficient conflict and
precariat self-organisation can occur, then a new regulation of capitalism
can occur. He justifies this by a detailed analysis of the different
regulatory modes of capitalism (smith-ism, fordism, jobs-ism) and how they
relate to the kondratieff economic cycles, drawing on the insights of
Carlota Perez and others. Foti distinguishes crises of demand, where there
is too much accumulation of capital, and not enough distribution. These
crises he says, are essentially reformist crises, as people mobilize to
restore balance in the redistribution, but not against the system per se.
The crisis of the 30's and the crisis after 2008, are such crises, he in my
view convincingly shows. Other crises are caused by a failing supply, due
to over-regulation of capital and falling profit rates, such as the crisis
of the 70s, and these crises, which are inflationary, are revolutionary.
This distinction between crises of accumulation and crises of regulation,
is in my opinion very insightful, and true. This recognition may of course
be troubling, but if true, we have to take serious stock of it. We are
simply not in revolutionary times, right now, but rather in a struggle
between national populism and social populism. From this analysis, Foti
then argues that the first priority is for the precariat to re-regulate for
a distribution of wealth, much like the old working class achieved after
WWII.

But even if we acknowledge this conjuncture, I would argue that Foti
insufficiently balances his outlook between reforming capitalism and
constructing post-capitalism, beween antagonistic conflict and positive
construction of the new. He argues that without income, there can be no
such construction. This is very likely true, so we need to rebalance
redistribution, in a way that income growth can lead to immaterial growth
that is compatible with the ecological limits of our planet, and use these
surpluses to transform societal structures. Foti calls for social (or 'eco'
populist movements and coalitions as the political means to that end,
pointing to Podemos and En Comu, and perhaps Sanders and Corbyn, as such
forces, supported by to be created Precariat Syndicates. He also puts
forward the thesis that the enemy is national populism, an alliance between
retrograde fossil fuel capitalism and the salariat, with on the other side
a possible alliance of green capitalism (a real effort not a marketing
ploy) with the precariat, with the former fighting for top-down coalition
and the second for bottom-up regulation. This division of the working class
is in my view way too stark, and perhaps even defeatist. I would very
strongly argue to seek alliances and develop policies that can give hope to
the salariat. The thrust of our work for the Commons Transition aims at
precisely that. (elsewhere in the book, Foti does call for an alliance with
progressive middle classes, but if these are not the workers with jobs,
where are these then ?)

Now Foti correctly critiques in my view, people like Mason and Rifkin for
failing to problematize the post-capitalist transition, they make it seem
like an inexorable process if not affirming that we are already
post-capitalist, as some others do, but in my view then in his turn he
fails to pay proper attention to it. What if the re-regulation of
capitalism doesn't work for example ? Then at some point, say in about 30
years, as Kondratieff cycles would indicate, we would still face a crisis
of over-regulation, and a more revolutionary moment. For Foti, we have to
take it on faith that green capitalism will be a successful new regulatory
mode of capitalism. What if it turns out to be a unworkable compromise and
that more drastic action is needed. But Foti has no faith in alternatives
to capitalism, which means that the only alternatives would then be
eco-fascism as a new feudalism with only consumption for the rich, lifeboat
eco-hacking, a situation akin to that of medieval communes, or dictatorial
eco-maoism, say Cuba on a global scale.

Contra this 'capitalist realism', our contention at the P2P Foundation is
that post-capitalism is both necessary and possible, even if we recognize
that today is a possible reformist moment in that evolution/transformation.
In that context, the construction of seed forms, the recognition of other
forms of value creation (which can be monetized!), of other forms of
self-organization is absolutely a vital side of the coin in the dialectic
of construction and conflict. Foti seems to forget that the traditional
working class did not simply 'fight', but constructed cooperatives (both
consumer coosp and producer coops), unions, parties, mutualities and many
fraternal/sororal organizations. The very generalization of the welfare
system was an extension by means of the state, of the solidarity mechanism
of the working class, which had taken decades to develop. Also vitally, the
identity itself of the working class was not just as a part of capitalism,
but as a movement for another type of society, whether that was expressed
through socialism, social-democracy, anarchism, and other variants. When
that hope was lost terminally, that was also the end of the strength and
identify of working class movements. There can be no offensive social
strategy without a strong social imaginary, and mere reformist designs
won’t do. So commonalism is not just something that we do when we come home
from work, or tired from our conflictual organizing against an enemy from
whom we want mere redistribution. On the contrary, it is vital part of the
class formation and identity, this is why we stress our identity not just
as precariat, which is a negative formulation that characterizes us as the
weaker victims of the capitalist class, but as commoners, the multitude of
co-constructors of viable futures that correspond to contemporary
emancipatory desires. We cannot just trust green capitalism, we vitally
need to build thermodynamically sound and mutualized provisioning systems
as commons even if we have to compromise with capitalism. Post-capitalism
should not be essentialized as something occuring 'after the revolution',
but as an ongoing process, dynamically inter-linked with political
self-organizing and conflict. Foti in this book, is only really good at
conflict. Even if we look at conflict, I would argue that the strength of
the reformist compromise after WWII was very much linked to the fear of the
however flawed alternative that existed, and that the forms of compromise
were the result of decades of invention of new forms.

If we take that view, then I believe the contradiction in Foti's book can
be resolved. Indeed in that case we do not have to ask the radical
precariat to give up it's values for a reformist compromise, but to
productively combine radically transformative post-capitalist practice.

There is another issue with Foti's book. He very much stresses the
superdiversity of the precariat, and the key role of gender and
race/migration unity in their struggles. He also mentions en passant the
need for a potential eurasian alignment between Europe and China , now that
the Atlantic unity has been broken by Trump. But , at the same time, this
is really a very eurocentric book, calling for a new compromise in Europe
and 'advanced western states'. Obviously, since in the Global South it is
the salariat and proletariat which is growing, there is a theoretical
difficulty here. But what if a thermo-dynamically sound economy would
require a cosmo-localization of our global economy, as we contend at the
P2P Foundation, combining global sharing of knowledge with substantial
relocalization of physical production (as even big bank reports now
recognize) ? Only if we recognize this, can we actually have a new global
view of solidarity, as both elements benefit workers, salaried and
precarious, in the whole world.

So, in conclusion, I find Foti's book to be an excellent first half of a
book, which would have been much better and sound, if it had more
extensively struggled with the commons equation of the precariat. The
commons is not something we do 'afterwards' , after a successful New Green
Deal, it is is something that is as ongoing and vital. Theoretically, in a
few paragraphs at the end of the book, Foti seems to recognize it, but it
is not integrated in his strategic vision, or only marginally.

Readers who miss this aspect, could look at the ten years of research and
analysis we have conducted on that other half of the equation, at the P2P
Foundation. We may have the other weakness though, and in fact we purposely
have focused not on the conflict part, which is the natural inclination of
the left and needs no help, but in pointing out how any self-organization,
and construction of the commons, which inevitable comes with conflict, is
just an essential part of the programmatic alternatives of the precariat.
Not just as proposals of electoral parties and syndicates, but as
expressions of actual practice. Our orientation is to try to achieve a
greater understanding by emancipatory forces, of both the salariat, the
precariat, and progressive entrepreneurial groups, of the importance of
integrating the commons as a programmatic element in their struggles, and
their proposals. We will probably stick to this bias towards the
constructive side of the equation, tempered by a full awareness that this
is by itself insuffient, and requires the kind of understanding of
struggle, and its attendant strategies, as provided by Foti.

In conclusion, Foti's enduring quality is to have worked out
systematically, what the conflict part of the equation entails, and that is
a very important achievement. Bearing in mind what we think is missing in
this book, there is much to be learned, and I believe the different
perspectives and different weaknesses in the approaches of people like Foti
and the P2P Foundation (and other) commons-centric approaches, there is
room for a lot of convergence and mutual enrichment."

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

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

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