Deeper Resistance
I don't think that we will be able to win a fight against financial capitalism by demonstrating in the street. Destroying banks isn't useful if we are seeking emancipation from financial dictatorship. Financial power does not exist in the banks; it is embedded in software, in the techno-linguistic automatisms that govern daily life and the psychic automatisms of consumerism, competition and fear.
Nevertheless we are in the midst of a process – a movement – that will deploy itself over the course of the next decade, maybe longer, and we have to start from where we are and what we know.
What we have today is the memory of past forms that our movements have taken, including occupations, strikes and demonstrations, both peaceful and violent. All of these are part of the legacy of 20th century social movements.
Recently, we have tried to resurrect some of these old forms of struggle – these old forms of expression – but this hasn't worked particularly well. Established form of peaceful demonstration have absolutely no possibility of changing the politics of financial capitalism. They don't work when democracy is dead – and it is totally dead, the European experience is demonstrating that clearly.
But on the other hand, violent riots or bank bombings are also useless because they don't challenge the sites of real power. Real power is in the cybersphere, in the algorithms of financial control, in the quantitative analyses that undergird trading, and so on.
. . .
Then, as Alf Hornborg says, "The only way of achieving sustainability is to transform the very idea and institutions of money itself."
Pin up this poster in the corridors of your economics department, or on the streets. If we want emancipation from financial dictatorship, we have to kick over and renovate the economic paradigm from the ground up. So go here and join the rumbling Meme War!
Now put this poster up

46 comments on the article “Deeper Resistance”
Displaying 11 - 20 of 46
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Yosemite Jones
The only way to win at the casino is to not play. The only way to win at monopoly is to not play. The only way to beat capitalism? Do not participate in capitalism. The 'market' exists wherever money lies. Its in your wallet. Its in your bank account. Its on your coffee table. Separate yourself from money. Build your own house, build your own furniture, sew your own clothes, grow your own food, befriend tools and dye makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, scientists, electronic tinkerers.
The more you make all that you use to live, the more you'll cut yourself off from the 'market', the 'state', the 'society', and finally 'capitalism'.
After the crisis, and it's already begun, there will be no more international exports, imports, gasoline or cars. If you aren't useful- if you can't produce- then you will not participate or share in the community.
Memorize jokes, recipes, music, first aid, how to build a generator, how to build a DIY tractor, learn to survive- go camping- because the good old days are back and the water shuts off you'll need to be ready to dodge the riots.
You won't like to hear this: leave the cities. You are a human, not a legal entity or corporation known as a 'person'. Learn to use, and the USE every tool- EVERY TOOL, and in the wild country winter this may also mean using guns. Make, create, read, and win friends to aid you in the struggle.
You want all of the modern comforts? Build a generator- then you can say that you're a modern human.
After money loses it's lustre and we pay for everything in toilet paper, tampons, batteries and anti-biotics, you'll be the village magician if you can make any of those items.
To sum it up- make EVERYTHING. Be USEFUL.
Be useful.
Anonymous
Make Everything :) LOL What planet do you live on? That is why money was created. To make transactions easier and simpler for people. I don't like the idea of carrying around hundreds of pounds of gold, or making my own vehicles. You'll end up being a slave to yourself living a miserable existence.
However I do love the idea of alternate currencies like bitcoin. I notice governments do not like them because they tend to be more honest and aren't back up by a bunch of b.s. and hype.
I wish people didn't work for money, but worked to create and to solve problems. Somewhere along the way, people got too concerned with silly paper notes, and forgot the real reasons for living.
anon
good bc you couldn't afford hundreds of pounds as it cost around 30,000 per pound. And you should make your own transpo, electric bikes are fun as shit to make and serve as a nearly free form of getting from a to b.
Conway Justice
We live on the same planet, and your monetary methods are killing it. We are already debt slaves, and I'd rather be a slave to my self than to somebody such as you. Read DEBT by David Graeber. People have been 'too concerned' about 'silly paper notes' since 'the beginning'.
And don't try to tell me what a miserable existence is for I foresee much misery in your future, son.
Anonymous shipmate
You can't make everything, where would you put it?
Yes, stop playing monopoly and you win. It is that simple. Bitcoin? I'll keep an open mind about bitcoin despite you. Can't really believe that Bitcoin cannot be counterfeited or subjected to the same inflation/deflation game that the banks play.
A Hofmann
don't know about counterfeit it but that can b stolen, that's a fact ..
Anonymous
"Financial power does not exist in the banks"
No the real power is centered in an entrenched corrupt justice system that allows all kinds of fraud and deception and finds palatable the ruination of a people, families, towns, cities, and the nation at large. The banksters merely profit deferring the dirty work to their servants, those at the helm of government. Government which is now no more than the banksters' human resources department run per their specs.
Anonymous
Damnit can't you people see that there is absolutely nothing we can do any longer??
It's over. We lost. Let me repeat:
IT'S O--V--E--R.
We had a last chance, albeit slim, and we blew it.
It's done. Over. Kaput. Say goodbye. Sionara.
We lost. There is nothing we can do about it anymore whatsoever.
Get it?
Anonymous
There seems to be a little confused. For by saying "You" people, and then adding "We" lost, are you not giving yourself away? Clearly YOU PEOPLE would love folks to believe the lies. Yet, while some battles may have been lost, the war is far from over. You know it, we know it - now get over it.
Anonymous
You can try to squirm your way around it any way you like.
The fact remains that you know it and I know it and everyone know's it.
We lost and we will be eliminated shortly to make way for a new, different, and darker reality that requires our elimination.
Get over it.
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