US NeoSecessionism

[Avanti]

i find the growth of neo-secessionism in the usa encouraging.

we should have neo-secessionist movements in all countries world-wide, wanting to break loose component parts of the countries so we get a map that resembles this:

http: //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/BlankMap-World-Subdivisions.PNG/800px-BlankMap-World-Subdivisions.PNG

it is cool to break up countries, and will also symbolise a weakening of capital.

capital does not however need political control today, since we are living in the cyberpunk era.

and cyberpunk means huge mega-corporations dividing the world between themselves, meaning that libertarianism very soon might be a compelling alternative for the ruling class. they won't need public education any more, since they won't need any workers.

secessionism is a centrifugal force rupturing the skin of 20th century capitalism. it is a raw expression of local identity vs the liberal cosmopolitan ideals of the glittering metropolises. it is a poke in the eye on the globalists, and it is an expression of blind anger.

secessionism is defiance.

neo-secessionism is anarchy.

[Blake's Baby]

No. Not even close.

'Neo-secessionism' is just another form of nationalism (this time based on the sub-national region) but it's reactionary as fuck. as you point out, it's also wholly compatible with capitalism. It has all the bad points of the system now and it decreases the number of good points. If we are against capitalism and the state, how will a new arrangement that leaves capitalism untouched, and simultaneously increases the number of states from 200+ to 2,000+ actually help the working class?

We've seen in Catalonia in the last few months the same politicians who unleashed brutal repression on the Indignados and swingeing austerity measures against public services, now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people they were oppressing in the name of the 'Catalan nation'. this kind of regional nationalism has no progressive content, it splits workers from each other while binding the workers to the local bosses.

The ruling class 'won't need any more workers'? Oh, good, cybernetic capitalsm will mean a life of luxury for all, while the machines do the work. Not.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Even though the neo-secessionists in the US are fringe elements closer to fascism than anything else, and are motivated by fears of a Black bourgeois politician they see as a radical Muslim and socialist?

[ВАЛТЕР]

Secessionism of any kind very rarely has any leftist ideologies behind it. In fact it usually just increases the amount of nationalism in both the region wanting to secede and the nation it wants to secede from. Secession won't solve anything, it is more of a power play by the local bourgeoisie than it is an act of liberation for the proletariat.

[Eleutheromaniac]

Secessionism of any kind very rarely has any leftist ideologies behind it. In fact it usually just increases the amount of nationalism in both the region wanting to secede and the nation it wants to secede from. Secession won't solve anything, it is more of a power play by the local bourgeoisie than it is an act of liberation for the proletariat.

Right. How can you unite the masses when you are creating more and more nations? People don't like what the bureaucracy in their country is doing, so they want to create their own. It's a power struggle more than a class struggle.

[Avanti]

No. Not even close.

'Neo-secessionism' is just another form of nationalism (this time based on the sub-national region) but it's reactionary as fuck. as you point out, it's also wholly compatible with capitalism. It has all the bad points of the system now and it decreases the number of good points. If we are against capitalism and the state, how will a new arrangement that leaves capitalism untouched, and simultaneously increases the number of states from 200+ to 2,000+ actually help the working class?

We've seen in Catalonia in the last few months the same politicians who unleashed brutal repression on the Indignados and swingeing austerity measures against public services, now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people they were oppressing in the name of the 'Catalan nation'. this kind of regional nationalism has no progressive content, it splits workers from each other while binding the workers to the local bosses.

The ruling class 'won't need any more workers'? Oh, good, cybernetic capitalsm will mean a life of luxury for all, while the machines do the work. Not.

it can be both progressive and reactionary, dependent on what movements struggle for control. the very act of destroying a state is not only the most progressive thing you could do. it is also very cool. will also mean that you get it very fun.

cyberpunk capitalism will mean 50-60% unemployment, widespread poverty, increased police repression, but also a weaker state which cannot control its entire territory, especially not the vast urban sprawls. instead, it must exercise control like israel exercises control over the gaza strip, but over hundreds of gaza strips/banlieus.

the future lies in the hands of urban-sprawl nomads, inner-city high-tech tribes who protect their hoods against the state and one another, wearing cool cyberpunk outfits and engaging in technoshamanism. they will interact with the state and the mafia, and increase their range through the black market and through small-scale urban warfare.

life will be an adventure!

[Avanti]

Even though the neo-secessionists in the US are fringe elements closer to fascism than anything else, and are motivated by fears of a Black bourgeois politician they see as a radical Muslim and socialist?

obama's presidency is directed as one big hollywood film. it represents the victory of feel-good-ism and is a subtle way to overtake the mantle of the civil rights movement.

i hoped for a romney victory.

it would have demoralised the liberal open society and the hollywood ideologists and paved the way for increased apathy and cynicism in the us centre, and that would have meant less energies devoted to saving the usa from the impeding collapse.

obama is forrest gump. he is the high school geek who gets the girl at the end. he's a symbol for the american dream. a manufactured symbol.

let's shatter all symbols, because they are all what matters.

[Avanti]

Secessionism of any kind very rarely has any leftist ideologies behind it. In fact it usually just increases the amount of nationalism in both the region wanting to secede and the nation it wants to secede from. Secession won't solve anything, it is more of a power play by the local bourgeoisie than it is an act of liberation for the proletariat.

the reason is that leftism should blame itself. it had some cool things back in the 30s (bad-ass action heroes like george orwell and ernest hemingway), and in the 60s (Che Guevara, western European urban guerillas), but nowadays the political right got all "the cool stuff".

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

i hoped for a romney victory.
Frankly, I didn't care who won. Romney? Obama? Both tools of the ruling class. Not to mention, Romney is as bourgeois as they come, and Obama is petit-bourgeois.


it would have demoralised the liberal open society and the hollywood ideologists and paved the way for increased apathy and cynicism in the us centre, and that would have meant less energies devoted to saving the usa from the impeding collapse.
Right, because eight years of Bush II did that. Oh, wait, it didn't.


let's shatter all symbols, because they are all what matters.
Let's smash capitalism and the state. That's what really matters.

[Avanti]

capitalism and the state are role-playing games.

the symbols are keeping them together.

without the symbols, capitalism quickly degenerates to gangsterism, and gangsterism/corruption gives far more opportunities for establishing hoods and creating social tribes built on egalitarian patterns.

what will you replace capitalism and the state with? another state? another role-playing game?

i prefer dungeons and dragons before "the democratic worker's committee for the sewage systems". if we should create role-playing games, why not create fun ones?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

capitalism and the state are role-playing games.

The symbols are keeping them together.

Without the symbols, capitalism quickly degenerates to gangsterism, and gangsterism/corruption gives far more opportunities for establishing hoods and creating social tribes built on egalitarian patterns.

What will you replace capitalism and the state with? Another state? Another role-playing game?

I prefer dungeons and dragons before "the democratic worker's committee for the sewage systems". If we should create role-playing games, why not create fun ones?

Oh god what is this.:laugh::laugh:

[Avanti]

it is seeing through the clouds. :)

[Avanti]

Right. How can you unite the masses when you are creating more and more nations? People don't like what the bureaucracy in their country is doing, so they want to create their own. It's a power struggle more than a class struggle.

why should we unite?

why not disintegrate?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Neosecessionism is just a reactionary Tea party-ish phenomena motivated by racist hatred., pure and simple. We have nothing in common with those crypto-fascists.

[Avanti]

the importance is not who does what, but what the event means.

the break-up of the usa would be even more cool than the break-up of the soviet union, and will immediately transform the entire planet, and inspire neo-secessionist movements everywhere.

for example, i think the idea of scottish independence is boring. what would be really radical would be to break up england into northumbria, meath, kent and wessex.

and now when 100.000 have signed the texas petition, anything can happen.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The USA is not going to fall apart due to these neosecessionist petitions. They merely indicate that some reactionary racists are peeved by Obama's re-election and are venting their racist hatred.

[Avanti]

the first wave of neosecessionism will probably be texas and other tea party states breaking loose. if the federal government intervenes, will mean tons of dead tea partiers - win.

if it doesn't, then the usa will start disintegrate further. i see emergent inner city urban sprawl militias composed of minorities who carve out their own mini-states surrounding the glitz. i see a civil war in the north-west between socialists and white supremacists. and new ethnic or social-based tribal confederacies emerging.

it's like watching an xenomorph. grotesque and beautiful.

the only chance for a revolution.

is to disintegrate.

and regroup.

[Avanti]

The USA is not going to fall apart due to these neosecessionist petitions. They merely indicate that some reactionary racists are peeved by Obama's re-election and are venting their racist hatred.

who in 1987 imagined the soviet union would collapse?

100.000 are not "some". it's quite a lot actually.

[GoddessCleoLover]

One hundred thousand is a fairly small fraction of Texas' population. Texas has long been a home base for the racist extreme right, but these petitions are a "mere sound and fury, signifying nothing" but the neo-Confederate fantasies of racist crypto-fascists IMO.

[Avanti]

movements that grow beyond 100.000 are destined to move even a larger part of the population. the genie is out of the box, and the usa is doomed to disintegration in one form or another,

now, all we can do is to exploit this for political (or financial, if you're into that) gains.

so, anybody here hype on producing anime arts? i have an idea on cool anime girls with a mixture of cowgirl and steampunk outfit being armed guards on a futurist-looking zeppelin with the lone-star flag?

and why not create a "people's liberation army of texas", which will fight both the federal troops and the right-wing secessionists? my idea was chairman mao in a cowboy hat as a propaganda poster...

why not indulge?

indulging is more fun.

[Avanti]

can anybody draw a hypothetical communist flag for an independent texas?

[GoddessCleoLover]

An independent Texas would eschew a communist flag in favor of its historical Lone Star Republic flag. I want to see the red flag flying over all of North America, South America, the Carribean, Europe,Russia, China, and hopefully the whole world.

[Avanti]

An independent Texas would eschew a communist flag in favor of its historical Lone Star Republic flag. I want to see the red flag flying over all of North America, South America, the Carribean, Europe,Russia, China, and hopefully the whole world.

funnier with millions of flags, banners, crests and symbols, some even claiming the same territory.

i see the future as dynamic morphism of subcultures as a replacement for the western "open society", with evolutionary memes producing new cultures and destroying/breaking apart old ones, with organic instead of artificial societies.

a global socialist republic would be the ultimate artificial society. it would impose order and rationality and would necessarily be hierarchical because 7 billion people cannot govern democratically. and even if they can, it won't be democratic.

ideal democratic units should have less than 1000 people, but should be able to unite together to fight common enemies. they also need a common subcultural neo-tribal identity.

i say we create a texas secessionist movement which should be communist or anarchist. i am open for creating a maoist movement, just because that would be very counter-intuitive.

[Jimmie Higgins]

i see the future as dynamic morphism of subcultures as a replacement for the western "open society", with evolutionary memes producing new cultures and destroying/breaking apart old ones, with organic instead of artificial societies.

a global socialist republic would be the ultimate artificial society. it would impose order and rationality and would necessarily be hierarchical because 7 billion people cannot govern democratically. and even if they can, it won't be democratic.

ideal democratic units should have less than 1000 people, but should be able to unite together to fight common enemies. they also need a common subcultural neo-tribal identity.

Frankly a lot of this sounds like national-anarchism and similar "tribal" fascist ideologies. Identities, "common enemies" "tribal identity"? None of this is material, and again sort of gets into some fascist territory ideologically.

I see no reason that if a global system can be run undemocratically for the interests of accumulation of profits, that the same tasks can't also be done through democratic and cooperative measures. I don't think this means that there is a Prime Minister or even central council of the whole world, but it does mean that democratic or mutual arrangements much more complex than 1000 people are necessary. In fact, there are many tasks that would be necessary and would require more than 1000 people - so they have no say in it because there are more than 1000? Why 1000, what a strange arbitrary cut-off.

[Avanti]

really more like 150.

humans are not made to relate to groups bigger than 150.

but i see the future anarchist confederation as having millions of self-morphing identities which will cooperate together, but with no central government. thousands of communes handling common issues, but maybe a common council with representatives chosen by lottery or something like that.

national anarchists are boring. they want to perpetuate identities. i want identities to birth and unbirth, form and self-destroy, morph, generate memes and then die, so we would constantly rediscover our own internal state of mind, like a kaleidoscope.

also, basing identities on racial stuff is boring. i like rainbow families. not my own, but i like the concept.

[GoddessCleoLover]

As I recall from PoliSci 102 back in the early 70s, Montesquieu believed that a democratic republic could only thrive on a small scale. Revolutionary Leftists aspire to smash the bourgeois state and establish the DotP on a worldwide basis. Our paradigm is based upon the power of the working class to establish an entirely new social system that transcends capitalism and would be based upon an different set of social relationships than those envisioned by bourgeois philosophers such as Montesquieu. Unfortunately, the twentieth century saw the failure of various socialist revolutions so we are back to square one with respect to actualizing revolutionary theory. I wouldn't be surprised if the next proletarian revolution were to occur in China. Seems more likely than a proletarian revolution in Europe or the USA.

[Avanti]

As I recall from PoliSci 102 back in the early 70s, Montesquieu believed that a democratic republic could only thrive on a small scale. Revolutionary Leftists aspire to smash the bourgeois state and establish the DotP on a worldwide basis. Our paradigm is based upon the power of the working class to establish an entirely new social system that transcends capitalism and would be based upon an different set of social relationships than those envisioned by bourgeois philosophers such as Montesquieu. Unfortunately, the twentieth century saw the failure of various socialist revolutions so we are back to square one with respect to actualizing revolutionary theory. I wouldn't be surprised if the next proletarian revolution were to occur in China. Seems more likely than a proletarian revolution in Europe or the USA.

sadly you are wrong.

the larger the units, the less democratic they are. your vote is more worth in an assembly with 300 people than 300 million people. and think i dropped out off school when i was 12.

singletons are boring and will stagnate. it is better with distributed power and millions of cultures and flowers.

the soviet union was a singleton, and look how it degenerated.

we need to break up, not unite.

unification is for tyrants and adults.

it is also easier to break up.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

U.S secession-ism would probably = lots of dead minorities and an emergent truly evil American Empire (i'm pretty sure the star wars prequels are an allegory for this)

[Zeus the Moose]

U.S secession-ism would probably = lots of dead minorities and an emergent truly evil American Empire (i'm pretty sure the star wars prequels are an allegory for this)

No, I'm pretty sure the Star Wars prequels are an allegory for George Lucas' descent into madness, but that's beside the point.

[Avanti]

U.S secession-ism would probably = lots of dead minorities and an emergent truly evil American Empire (i'm pretty sure the star wars prequels are an allegory for this)

possibly, but if we aren't riding the sea-lions of history we'll be eaten by them...

...or something, idk.

lol!

[Lynx]

White nationalists have been praying and hoping for this. They dream of a white homeland.

[Avanti]

White nationalists have been praying and hoping for this. They dream of a white homeland.

they can forget that.

texas will be brown. the entire south will be brown due to mexicans moving in.

when i am asked by white nationalists why i like race mixing, i use to reply with describing the beauty of a big black male making tender love with a blonde and blue-eyed aryan woman. that tend to send them over the top. another good way is to describe how african culture is superior to western culture.

the thing with texas secessionism and civil war is that it would give all factions a shot for making a difference. in that manner it is more democratic than democracy, because democracy tend to gravitate towards the consensus and consensus is determined by media.

if jill stein had got as much media attention as obama or romney, she could have got 10-15% of the votes. the media decides visibility and invisibility.

another fun thing with secessionism is that it makes people angry, and creates fracturing of societies. and fracturing means reassembly, and all societies need continuous fracturing a reassembling, a reset of history if you like.

texas is big enough to be divided in twelve states in itself, so we can continue fracture it on the local level.

[Ostrinski]

Which secessionist movements have ever been progressive?

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Cascadia

[Avanti]

vermont.

maldora.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Any Canadians on Revleft have any opinions as to the progressiveness, or lack thereof, of the Quebec secessionist movement? I can imagine that if the Texans were to ever re-establish the Lone Star Republic it would be ruled by the far Right. They would probably put Judge Roy Bean on their one dollar bill.:rolleyes:

[Comrade Jandar]

Why are we indulging a troll? What the fuck is cyberpunk capitalism?

[Avanti]

the avanti no troll!

cyberpunk capitalism is capitalism like imagined in dystopian sci-fi films, which more and more start to resemble reality. i am talking blade runner. running man. soylem green. i am talking neon-enlightened streets, class differences, a system where the conflict is between insiders and outsiders. hidden rulers. conspiracy theories. shady connections. shadows. punks and rebels fleeing from corrupt rulers using automated control systems to protect their own synthetic little worlds.

the 99% vs the 1%.

a new paradigm for the 21st century.

brazilianization of politics.

boom!

[Avanti]

Any Canadians on Revleft have any opinions as to the progressiveness, or lack thereof, of the Quebec secessionist movement? I can imagine that if the Texans were to ever re-establish the Lone Star Republic it would be ruled by the far Right. They would probably put Judge Roy Bean on their one dollar bill.:rolleyes:

then why not split texas too?

i can see at least three republics forming.

a latino one, a far right, and a liberal one. and maybe one that wants to rejoin the usa?

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Say you're anti-capitalist before you get restricted

[GoddessCleoLover]

Does Brazilianization of politics have anything to do with Lula?;)

[Avanti]

i hate capitalism.

isn't that obvious?

[Avanti]

Does Brazilianization of politics have anything to do with Lula?;)

no. it has to do with ghettoes, huge class differences, drug lords, massive poverty, criminal gangs, guerillas, right-wing death squads, gated communities, nihilism and passion.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Isn't cyberpunk capitalism a form of capitalism:confused::confused:

[Lenina Rosenweg]

What's a "country"? What comprises a "nation"? States are always repressentative of their ruling class, that is the purpose of states.

Socialists have long debated the national question. The consensus is generally that if a group of people want to be independent they should have that right. However its important to realize that states and countries, as independent separate entities, rest on a substrata of capitalist economic relations. Independence usually means control over resources by the local capitalist elite. Under socialism there would be an entirely different paradigm. Society would not be based on the need for ruling classes to extract profit off labor power(and secondarily from resources). there would be cooperation and sharing.

Independence under socialism would mean cultural autonomy-education in a preferred language, etc. For this we wouldn't need territorial units. Cultures would interact and overlap. People could live in several cultures at the same time if they desired.

I do not believe that ultimately a "people" has some sort of eternal identity. Cultural identities morph, fragment, recombine constantly.

Texas BTW is one of the most reactionary states in the US. An independent Texas would essentially mean a form of slavery for much of the population, regardless of how "brown" it would be. Guatemala is largely "brown" but has been brutally exploited and repressed by the small European elite (with the compliticty of the US of course)

[Avanti]

Isn't cyberpunk capitalism a form of capitalism:confused::confused:

yes.

i haven't said i am for it.

that it will happen doesn't mean i'm for it.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Avanti, my friend, Lenina Rosenweg is one of the most intelligent posters on Revleft, and if you are serious about leftist ideas, you would do well to carefully read Lenina's post.

[Avanti]

What's a "country"? What comprises a "nation"? States are always repressentative of their ruling class, that is the purpose of states.

Socialists have long debated the national question. The consensus is generally that if a group of people want to be independent they should have that right. However its important to realize that states and countries, as independent separate entities, rest on a substrata of capitalist economic relations. Independence usually means control over resources by the local capitalist elite. Under socialism there would be an entirely different paradigm. Society would not be based on the need for ruling classes to extract profit off labor power(and secondarily from resources). there would be cooperation and sharing.

Independence under socialism would mean cultural autonomy-education in a preferred language, etc. For this we wouldn't need territorial units. Cultures would interact and overlap. People could live in several cultures at the same time if they desired.

I do not believe that ultimately a "people" has some sort of eternal identity. Cultural identities morph, fragment, recombine constantly.

Texas BTW is one of the most reactionary states in the US. An independent Texas would essentially mean a form of slavery for much of the population, regardless of how "brown" it would be. Guatemala is largely "brown" but has been brutally exploited and repressed by the small European elite (with the compliticty of the US of course)

xactly.

identities form and merge, self-destroys and regenerates themselves. that's why we need to undermine the supra-layer of artificial identities hampering our progress.

nationalities and identities are just constructions. the main difference is between organic and artificial constructions. as a guy who's for human creativity and spontanity, i believe in the act of defiance against artificial elite-constructed identities imposed through education and idealization of the state.

therefore, a little destruction is always fun and creative.

[freethinker]

xactly.

identities form and merge, self-destroys and regenerates themselves. that's why we need to undermine the supra-layer of artificial identities hampering our progress.

nationalities and identities are just constructions. the main difference is between organic and artificial constructions. as a guy who's for human creativity and spontanity, i believe in the act of defiance against artificial elite-constructed identities imposed through education and idealization of the state.

therefore, a little destruction is always fun and creative.

Of course Nationalities are constructions over time, but they are simply engrained.

I wouldnt talk so liberally about "a little destruction" lest you think murder of women and children, and famines are fun and creative..

[Jimmie Higgins]

it would have demoralised the liberal open society and the hollywood ideologists and paved the way for increased apathy and cynicism in the us centre, and that would have meant less energies devoted to saving the usa from the impeding collapse.

I'm pretty sure, apathy and cynacism among workers and the oppressed is part of how the US ruling class maintains itself.

And collapse... sure any unstable system, any empire can and eventually will collapse - but into what? It doesn't necissarily - and usually doesn't - mean that another social force in society takes power - usually just a faction from the old eliete, or the eliete of another world power.


humans are not made to relate to groups bigger than 150.First, humans were not "made" to drive cars - we organized cars around how we are made. Second, people have and do - regularly - relate to groups larger that 150. There is no magical or genetic basis to this - maybe we can only remember 150 people at a time, but we regualrly are involved in cooperative efforts involving many times this number. The problem is not in the abstract numbers, but who controls and organizies these efforts and for what reason.


cyberpunk capitalism is capitalism like imagined in dystopian sci-fi films, which more and more start to resemble reality. i am talking blade runner. running man. soylem green. i am talking neon-enlightened streets, class differences, a system where the conflict is between insiders and outsiders. hidden rulers. conspiracy theories. shady connections. shadows. punks and rebels fleeing from corrupt rulers using automated control systems to protect their own synthetic little worlds.

a new paradigm for the 21st century.

brazilianization of politics.

boom!New paradigm? You mean capitalism. Utopian fiction is always ultimately just a critique of the short-comings of the present while distopian fiction is just an exaggeration and extrapolation of the present. So what you are saying that that things will be the same but more inequality. Yeah, really there's no need to make up names for things that already have names like: neoliberalism.

And the brazilianization of politics: you mean neoliberalism again.

If you are not a troll, then frankly I think you are looking for magical short-cuts which require nothing but "things falling apart". It's understandable that after decades of attacks from above with little resistance, the implosion of so-called "Communism", that some people might just conclude that nothing constructive is possible - but it's wrong. People have and will continue to fight back and some will come to the conclusion that if we don't organize our own collective and democratic power, then capitalism will do far more damage than "cyberpunk capitalism" describes. People might not win, it might be barbarism (nuclear or ecological destruction) rather than socialism, but revling in nihilism and hoping that "things falling apart" will bring equality without effort or consious organization and desire will just guarentee a lack of any challenge to the system - if people adopted this stance. And ironically most do - most people believe distopia is more likely than a better world. IMO that's because ruling class hegemony can convince us that nothing else is possible, but they can't convince all of us that this system is actually workable.

"Things falling apart" or the US breaking apart doesn't mean that more people have more power, it just means that whoever holds power is going to have an edge in maintaining that power. Of course in capitalism, the economy and international imperialist order does have a tendency to "fall apart" from time to time, but if we don't have a democratic working class counter-power in that situation, it just means that when the pieces are picked up again, we have a different set of rulers and exploiters.

[Avanti]

New paradigm? You mean capitalism. Utopian fiction is always ultimately just a critique of the short-comings of the present while distopian fiction is just an exaggeration and extrapolation of the present. So what you are saying that that things will be the same but more inequality. Yeah, really there's no need to make up names for things that already have names like: neoliberalism.

And the brazilianization of politics: you mean neoliberalism again.

If you are not a troll, then frankly I think you are looking for magical short-cuts which require nothing but "things falling apart". It's understandable that after decades of attacks from above with little resistance, the implosion of so-called "Communism", that some people might just conclude that nothing constructive is possible - but it's wrong. People have and will continue to fight back and some will come to the conclusion that if we don't organize our own collective and democratic power, then capitalism will do far more damage than "cyberpunk capitalism" describes. People might not win, it might be barbarism (nuclear or ecological destruction) rather than socialism, but revling in nihilism and hoping that "things falling apart" will bring equality without effort or consious organization and desire will just guarentee a lack of any challenge to the system - if people adopted this stance. And ironically most do - most people believe distopia is more likely than a better world. IMO that's because ruling class hegemony can convince us that nothing else is possible, but they can't convince all of us that this system is actually workable.

"Things falling apart" or the US breaking apart doesn't mean that more people have more power, it just means that whoever holds power is going to have an edge in maintaining that power. Of course in capitalism, the economy and international imperialist order does have a tendency to "fall apart" from time to time, but if we don't have a democratic working class counter-power in that situation, it just means that when the pieces are picked up again, we have a different set of rulers and exploiters.

capitalism is a xenomorph. it transists through many phases. victorianism with moralism, high hats and opium addiction. the inter-war era with fascist dictatorship. the cold war era. the globalist era.

and the globalist era is morphing into cyberpunk capitalism, post-2008. but cyberpunk capitalism has been engrained into capitalism since the 1980s, from where you think william gibson got his inspiration? that's a progress partially made by neo-liberalism, but also by tech progress (cyber technologies, thereby "cyberpunk") and by population growth. the debt crisis in the third world was the beginning. now it spills over, with indebted societies everywhere, conspiracy theories, widespread apathy, neo-tribalism.

we need to ride the currents, not resist them. that's the only way to steer a surfing board over the waves.

besides, cyberpunk capitalism sounds way cooler than "neoliberalism".

"neoliberalism" is sooooo 90s.