The Fight Against Capitalism

In the spring we must rediscover insurrectionary forms of care.

56 comments Nicole Demby, 15 February 2012

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While #OWS still encompasses within it a multiplicity of tactics, opinions, and degrees of political radicalism, the evidence is all too clear that the soul of Occupy is anticapitalist, and the desire for a different system is a desire for a protest movement whose grasp on our lives is more holistic. There has already been inspiring work done to organize in different communities, and one can envision the emergence of a dispersed network not only of general assemblies but of communes and cooperatives as well.

The old pessimism of theory beats at our backs, telling us that any developed and sustained form of communal organization can only exist as an autonomous pocket whose threat to capitalism is nil. Yet sustaining autonomous, communal forms of care is not a shift away from direct, active forms of resistance. The positive and the negative aspects of the fight against capitalism must work in conjunction with one another to mutually reinforce each other. Communes, cooperatives and other structures of social support provide a material safety net that facilitates more radical action, enabling people to strike from work and from debt obligations with the assurance that their material needs will be met when they do. Moreover, such forms of organization can begin the incredibly difficult process of building trust between those with radically different backgrounds and experiences, providing support for whoever needs it, especially those who have borne the brunt of the economic collapse.

These forms of organization will enervate the status quo by drawing participants’ time and energy away from their roles as wage laborers, salaried workers, and consumers. Of course, #OWS has already begun to do this; many of us without the luxury of highly flexible (read precarious) employment, or who haven’t already committed ourselves as full-time occupiers (and are now sleeping in churches, synagogues and generously offered private homes – and organizing during the day) already spend our office hours surreptitiously reading working group emails or occupy-related articles. Yet we aim to achieve a less schizophrenic mode of existence in which the totalizing effect of Occupy on our thoughts is reflected in the degree to which it predominates our actions, one in which our politics accords with the way in which we support ourselves. For those against capitalism this will mean testing our own boldness and examining our own perceived futures. As Daniel Marcus observed: “There can be no movement of communes if protest is merely an extracurricular activity of wage-earners: workers will have to choose whether they stand with the communes or with the bosses and administrators.”

The need for new structures of care is emotional as well as material. Many of us are beginning to realize the extent of our own dissatisfaction. We spend time with friends and lovers, but these encounters are transitory counterpoints to the anomie induced by a culture of individualism. We work towards success, but what constitutes success seems increasingly empty. Perhaps it’s unfashionable to speak of “alienation,” naïve to make claims about what forms of work or activities might begin to overcome it, utopian to believe that we could create a society in which a better life is possible. And yet we already see the possibility of these things in the near future of this movement and are already beginning to build the necessary infrastructure.

Affect isn’t just an effect, but a decisive tool of revolution. Just as the catharsis of resistance we experienced in the fall bolstered community and emboldened us to go further, more communal, self-sustaining and holistic instantiations of Occupy will further entrench and strengthen the movement. We are strongest when our resistance draws on our outrage but also harnesses our vital forces, extending to the very material and psychological basis of our lives.

In the spring we must rediscover together that there are militant kinds of community and insurrectionary forms of care.

Nicole Demby is a writer and critic living in Brooklyn. She is a member of the Arts & Labor group of Occupy Wall Street.

56 comments on the article “The Fight Against Capitalism”

Displaying 11 - 20 of 56

Anonymous

17 February 2012 at 09:24 am

Don't like free money. Or Coupons. Or Discounts. Or Sales. ALL SOCIALIST REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH durrrr *DROOLS ALL OVER HIMSELF*

Anonymous

15 February 2012 at 10:59 pm

If we had real capitalism and an even playing field it can be a good method but not when it is exclusively capitalism. We need to nationalize many costs like highways, health care, schools, and others and disallow monopolies. Right now we have crony capitalism and it is grid locked with a few hundred families owning everything and strangling everyone out who can't pay endless licenses, fees, inflated costs of retail properties, and memberships that monopolizers create ad nausea. People also need to realize that Wall Street and Government are the same people wearing different hats. This is not acceptable nor even remotely democratic. It is fascism, which is what we really have, Calling monopolized fascism, "*capitalism*", is the problem and I am surprised that Ad Busters does not make this distinction,,

Anonymous

17 February 2012 at 09:17 am

You are... ignoring math...

And the basic moral defect that it is only considered rude to ask for sacrifice from a person who has nothing to sacrifice.

Adbusters just doesn't make the kind of money you think will help you.
You're barking up the wrong tree?
Asking the wrong parent for lunch money?
You are... unable to understand the difference between 97,000 customers and 50,000,000. You... understand don't you? You can't demand all homeless people give up their incomes. That makes you an asshole. You're saying Jesus was wrong to tell the rich man that he will never enter heaven until he gives up all his riches. It's just unenlightened of you.

Anonymous

17 February 2012 at 09:19 am

Oops @ defect, I was going to word that one way and forgot to change defect. Just figure out what I am saying without me spelling it all out for you like a parent does a baby.

Anonymous

15 February 2012 at 04:38 pm

http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=adbusters+crack+in+facade&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1157&bih=628&tbm=isch&tbnid=d2cyXyjbkD383M:&imgrefurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-who-_b_8829.html&docid=wWRduj-N1551zM&imgurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/bushadbusters.jpg&w=350&h=412&ei=SU88T7XgA8WWiALrn9SmAQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=334&vpy=130&dur=3614&hovh=244&hovw=207&tx=95&ty=90&sig=101864503595997390944&page=1&tbnh=145&tbnw=145&start=0&ndsp=17&ved=0CEYQrQMwAQ

Any other ideas?

Anonymous

15 February 2012 at 07:35 pm

Uhhh...Last I checked, the Occupy Wall Street movement was against corruption in our financial sector. At least this is what we were lead to believe when Adbusters began building the movement up.

Capitalism has the ability to give prosperity to the largest number of individuals, while providing a safety net for those in need. During most recorded history, the economic structure of any society assumed a pyramid structure (including socialism). Starting with the 40's, right through to the 80's, the dispersion of wealth assumed a diamond shape. We saw the introduction of meaningful social programs, and we saw the civil rights movement.

And you know what, from the 40's to 80's, people spent time with families. They had leisure time. Social Mobility was good. It wasn't until the mid-80's that things began changing, heavily influence by the policies of Reagan and Supply Side (the .1%) economics. What we need is a return to Demand Side (the 99.9%) economics.

The 99% needs to support the Robin Hood Tax (a .1% tax on all financial (stock and bond) transactions). We need to go to Bernie Sander's website and sign the petition to support a Constitutional Amendment to reverse Citizens United.

A capitalist economy can still be one that looks out for the welfare of all. We need a return to the New Deal/Great Society Ideals.

Also, read Adam Smith and J.M. Keynes.

one two three four!

15 February 2012 at 10:17 pm

Capitalism is nice, that is if you ignore the social and mental environment that capitalism creates for human subjectivity. What you're suggesting is rather cruel, that we can create a world where each humans sole purpose is to sell things to one another in order for them to avoid starvation, reducing man to a pleasure seeking beast trapped in eternal hedonism, creating a world that forms hierarchical relations which permeates into every human social relation in existence dividing men from himself creating a world of "others", a world where property is invented in order to create wealth while creating poverty turning men into savages, all while negating a priori knowledge that no one can possibly own anything, a world that creates a class of logical psychotics whom control a mass of semi petite bourgeoisie occasionally articulate neurotics looking for gods in human form to lead them all while promising it can go on eternally without damaging the physical world in utopia. While many promise this utopia at the same time they dismiss any radically alternative system as impossible despite the apparent contradiction. What you call for is an abomination because it requires man to suppress thought and suffering, so things can go on... I don't want to preserve or live in this world it has been tried, resurrected and is dying its time to finish it off once for and for all.

Human beings have not existed in such system for most of modern mans existence, capitalism was a social accident stumbled into during the division of labor possibly from the bronze age creating professional bosses of privilege. Over time artificial wealth was created while theclass consciousness developed among the elite whom articulated their observation of the world they invented into thought the child of which is economics; a study of a system man invented. As time went on privilege became solidified in the real and the desire to preserve the liberal bourgeois world has produced every ideology that existed including its opposition in every peasant revolt, jacobianism, communism, and revolutionary theory which if anything have only given capitalist a reason to keep trying. However there is still one ideology which hasn't promised anything except life in its totality which is to say liberation, and it is still the worst threat to all old authoritarians .. anarchy. To me Anarchism promises life, suffering, pain and pleasure all which if experienced without the interference of ideology allows people to develop the intellectual potential of man to alter his world for the good of all men. OWS and any group will find their way if they continue to engage the world while learning what works to win, suffer defeat, experience happiness as well as sadness with others while joining their ranks providing a rich body of knowledge that puts theory to the test. The question is how will those of us who have theoretical knowledge chose to act whether in solidarity or by attempting appropriate power to save our dying system?

Take it from my favorite anarchist himself:

"He [Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all 'progressive' thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to find a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won't do..... Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people, 'I offer you a good time,' Hitler has said to them, 'I offer you struggle, danger, and death,' and as a result a whole nation flings itslef at his feet."

- George Orwell