Many thanks Andy, very useful,<br><br>Michel<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 4:58 AM, Andy Robinson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ldxar1@gmail.com">ldxar1@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Hiya,<br><br>Two related articles attached, one of them mine, the other is from an autonomist on similar issues.<br><br>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.� <br>
<br>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.� <br>
<br>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'). <br>
<br>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.� <br>
<br>bw<br>Andy<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 6:32 AM, Michel Bauwens <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com" target="_blank">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<a href="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/" target="_blank">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/</a><br>
<br>Dear friends,<br><br>I have some difficulty in articulating the following issue, and hope you can help me in framing this in the right way,<br><br><br>so, here is the problem,<br><br>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'<br>
<br>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,<br>
<br>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 ..<br>
<br>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 ..<br>
<br>so, how to formulate the right frame that honours both truths?<br><br>Michel<br clear="all"><font color="#888888"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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