ZeroNowhere
21st August 2011, 22:40
I thought that this was worth posting:
I remember a time when a copper could clip a young fellow round the ear and send him on his way. I remember a time when the most violent thing in the charts was the Foxtrot, when nuns rode to morning service on bicycles, while mist rose from the countryside. And I remember when rioters had some respect, and some principles. Not like today's mob. Today's mob, would-you-Adam-and-Eve-it, have been known to half-inch items that they otherwise could not afford to purchase or otherwise honestly come by. This practise is described in the 'lingo' (a mutilated argot in which inarticulate young people communicate) as 'looting'. The 'looting' craze has swept the hitherto respectable subculture of rioting during the last generation, (not insignificantly, the generation after which I personally happened to arrive). Where once, rioters could be depended on to only hurt their own/outsiders (delete as appropriate), they now hurt their own/outsiders (delete as appropriate). It used to be possible, in the good old days of rioting, to leave your back door open. Today, however, consumerism has left us with stuff worth nicking. The new neoliberal rioter is a Thatcherite. The decent working class values of old - hard graft, family, community, and a good kick up the arse - have been replaced by the values of the Carphone Warehouse. 'Greed is good' is the slogan upon which these feral yobs have been raised. They are Thatcherites. That is why they should have their benefits taken away, and they should be reported to the police, conscripted, and deported. It never did me any harm... (Contd, p. 94, and ad infinitum).(source (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-neoliberal-rioter.html))
That's by Richard Seymour. It's a great piece of satire, and I like it quite a bit. But yes, I feel that it does outline the shortcomings and conservatism of much of the leftist response to the event, which has often attempted to go for some sort of 'elegant but understanding dismissal with a half-baked critique of capitalism' angle. There's also elements of the old moralizing about consumption habits that is quite popular amongst liberals in general.
To be honest, strangely enough, I have a bit more sympathy for the Socialist Worker's statement that, "Karl Marx was exactly right when he talked about expropriating the expropriators, taking back what they have taken from us. That’s what looting by poor working class people represents and in that sense it is a deeply political act." While it doesn't necessarily treat the issue in full, it does touch upon a basic point, namely that capitalist accumulation reaches a point where it falls into a marked divide between subject and object, purchase and sale, etc., so that the alienated working class is forced to shatter this division outside of the capitalist accumulation process, through expropriation, which only weakens the system itself. I won't elaborate in this thread, though, but nonetheless that does seem a more productive angle than the whole 'they looted because they were devoted adherents of capitalist ideology' thing, and the general media focus on the morality, ethics, etc., of the rioters.
I remember a time when a copper could clip a young fellow round the ear and send him on his way. I remember a time when the most violent thing in the charts was the Foxtrot, when nuns rode to morning service on bicycles, while mist rose from the countryside. And I remember when rioters had some respect, and some principles. Not like today's mob. Today's mob, would-you-Adam-and-Eve-it, have been known to half-inch items that they otherwise could not afford to purchase or otherwise honestly come by. This practise is described in the 'lingo' (a mutilated argot in which inarticulate young people communicate) as 'looting'. The 'looting' craze has swept the hitherto respectable subculture of rioting during the last generation, (not insignificantly, the generation after which I personally happened to arrive). Where once, rioters could be depended on to only hurt their own/outsiders (delete as appropriate), they now hurt their own/outsiders (delete as appropriate). It used to be possible, in the good old days of rioting, to leave your back door open. Today, however, consumerism has left us with stuff worth nicking. The new neoliberal rioter is a Thatcherite. The decent working class values of old - hard graft, family, community, and a good kick up the arse - have been replaced by the values of the Carphone Warehouse. 'Greed is good' is the slogan upon which these feral yobs have been raised. They are Thatcherites. That is why they should have their benefits taken away, and they should be reported to the police, conscripted, and deported. It never did me any harm... (Contd, p. 94, and ad infinitum).(source (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-neoliberal-rioter.html))
That's by Richard Seymour. It's a great piece of satire, and I like it quite a bit. But yes, I feel that it does outline the shortcomings and conservatism of much of the leftist response to the event, which has often attempted to go for some sort of 'elegant but understanding dismissal with a half-baked critique of capitalism' angle. There's also elements of the old moralizing about consumption habits that is quite popular amongst liberals in general.
To be honest, strangely enough, I have a bit more sympathy for the Socialist Worker's statement that, "Karl Marx was exactly right when he talked about expropriating the expropriators, taking back what they have taken from us. That’s what looting by poor working class people represents and in that sense it is a deeply political act." While it doesn't necessarily treat the issue in full, it does touch upon a basic point, namely that capitalist accumulation reaches a point where it falls into a marked divide between subject and object, purchase and sale, etc., so that the alienated working class is forced to shatter this division outside of the capitalist accumulation process, through expropriation, which only weakens the system itself. I won't elaborate in this thread, though, but nonetheless that does seem a more productive angle than the whole 'they looted because they were devoted adherents of capitalist ideology' thing, and the general media focus on the morality, ethics, etc., of the rioters.