Revolution Through Desertion

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Every day, the world is being revolutionized by new technologies and new ideas. Stem cell research is bringing us closer and closer to the day that organs will be grown in test tubes on demand. 3-D printing is taking the power of industry and giving it all to the people--it will, sooner or later, make factories and patents obsolete. Solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, allowing the average man to turn his own roof into a generator. Just six hundred years ago, there were only a few thousand books in Europe. Now, anyone with a cell phone or a computer can access information about any kind of topic with the click of a button.

And what does this mean? What does this implicate for mankind's future? Autonomy, above all else. Energy, industry, and information are being rapidly democratized before our very eyes. Even as inequality increases around the globe, the potential of human beings to break free from that inequality has never been greater. The elite, the bourgeosie, the capitalists, the upper class--whatever you choose to call then--are doing everything they can to trample the banner of liberty, equality, and fraternity that we, as communists, socialists, and anarchists carry. But there is a way to fight back against them that will surely work. Gandhi knew it. Martin Luther King Junior knew it. Nelson Mandela knew it.

This method is desertion. The best way to destroy a system is to simply walk away from it. To ignore it and refuse to comply with it. To acknowledge the injustice and swear to yourself that you will resist it no matter what the consequences.

To destroy capitalism, we must abandon it. In my humble opinion, one of the most exciting ways this might be done is seasteading. Seasteading is a movement to set up self-sufficient floating communities on the ocean. This is idea and others like it are truly brilliant plans that will allow people to break free from the power of the state and set up bold new socio-governmental systems. If we, the revolutionary left, create communities based on equality for all around the world, the people that remain in capitalist societies will realize the advantages of our way of life and begin to demand change. This will leave the bourgeosie with two options:

1. Give up their unwarranted power, wealth, and prestige once and for all
2. Be destroyed in violent revolutions led by people who will no longer tolerate oppression--or collapse when people decide to immigrate to communalistic societies and desert their own homelands en masse.

Odds are, they'll choose number 2.:laugh:

I said it once, and I'll say it again. Technology is going to make it easier and easier for a community to function autonomously without the constant intervention of the state. Breaking away from the system and setting up socialist communes is the best way to promote change. It's been done before: the society of the Iroquois peope was nearly Marxist in nature. In their lands, the means of production--mainly agricultural in nature--were all owned collectively. While their culture was somewhat brutal and militaristic, it was still one of the most egalitarian in the world. When British settlers came to America, colonists deserted their towns to live with these Native Americans and other Indian tribes similar to them in huge numbers. They were enamoured with the equality and freedom that they saw. To keep the settlements from falling apart, major concessions had to be made. (First, they tried to put guard towers around the walls of settlements to keep people inside, but that didn't work out). The common people were given rights and freedoms to convince them to stay put that sowed the seeds of American democracy. Soon, very soon, we will follow in the footsteps of those rogue colonists and decimate our opponents by abandoning them. It's the future--it's how communism will come about in the 21st century.

SOURCES:
Drones, Bacteria, and 3D Printers Will Build the Cities of the Future--Impact Lab
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Axtel, 1-10 to 11
Citiwire.net: More Self-Sufficient Cities in a 3D Printing World

***

So that's my rambling manifesto--it really is my vision of what the future has in store. What do you guys think? Am I a counter-revolutionary ignoramus, or am I on to something?

[Deity]

I like the ambitions, but it seems a bit unrealistic. I had similar ideas at one point, but to set up a self sustaining community would be a bit rough on its own.

To gain enough attention and be well enough off that people in capitalist societies would want to be like you is another pretty far out idea. This would require funding, volunteers that are ok with the fact that failing would mean their life as they know it is over, and I'm sure no government would be to fond of the idea.

Anything is possible however. Refine any ideas past the groundwork and come up with serious examples of how this could work. I very much like the idea of deserting capitalism, but the issue is getting the masses to realize that it's actually a good idea.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Good point. Can't really see beyond the city walls when there are so many people who want you to stay inside.

Then again, East Germany figured out how much better off the people of West Germany were pretty quickly. I don't know. You are more experienced than me so I'll take your word for it.

Either way you are right about the funding: it's not a realistic idea to try to set up autonomous communities with today's technology. The cost would be enormous. Perhaps a transitional stage between being fully self-sufficient and being completely dependent on outside influences would help make it possible. Decades from now, the cost of setting up a new community may shrink, but for now, it's out of our reach.

I suppose that right now, the best thing that anyone can do is spread our ideas. As soon as it's possible, people will start trying to make the vision a reality.

[Vanilla]

Setting up a floating autonomous commune will probably fail miserably now, but who knows how technology will progress over the next ten, twenty years.

[Crabbensmasher]

This is certainly a cause I'd like to throw my support in to. My question though, is, why Seasteading? Working off of water is less efficient, and you could become just as endangered as if you stayed on land. Like, if somebody wants to stamp out your idea, be it governments, multinationals, or disillusioned mobs, they will have just as easy of a time finding you in the ocean. Nowadays, it's pretty easy to find somebody and kill them if you wanted to.

An idea I've been toying with recently is to do away with the whole commune idea. Set up the proper sustainable infrastructure so you can remain self sufficient, but remain right under the capitalist's noses. Live in the cities. You will have a greater impact there where it will be harder to stamp out your movement, and others will see your idea and lend their support.

I know that for this to work, people have to be conditioned into the system. They must understand equality, conflict resolution, and sustainability. If just anybody gets in on this, they would more likely rob you blind without helping much.

The idea of a commune is that people are molded by their environment. If you live in a peaceful collective community ruled by equality, then you can contribute fully to the commune, ensuring its continued success.
I'd like to challenge this notion, for I think it puts an unnecessary emphasis on geographic location. The fact is, as long as people are conditioned to live communally, they can still contribute just as much without the commune. It just takes determination.

You could run away without ever leaving home. It's the urban guerrilla strategy to communes

[Revenant]

This method is desertion. The best way to destroy a system is to simply walk away from it. To ignore it and refuse to comply with it. To acknowledge the injustice and swear to yourself that you will resist it no matter what the consequences.

To destroy capitalism, we must abandon it. In my humble opinion, one of the most exciting ways this might be done is seasteading. Seasteading is a movement to set up self-sufficient floating communities on the ocean. This is idea and others like it are truly brilliant plans that will allow people to break free from the power of the state and set up bold new socio-governmental systems. If we, the revolutionary left, create communities based on equality for all around the world, the people that remain in capitalist societies will realize the advantages of our way of life and begin to demand change. This will leave the bourgeosie with two options:

1. Give up their unwarranted power, wealth, and prestige once and for all
2. Be destroyed in violent revolutions led by people who will no longer tolerate oppression--or collapse when people decide to immigrate to communalistic societies and desert their own homelands en masse.

Odds are, they'll choose number 2
This is basically the story of Israel in the OT.

[Mytan Fadeseasy]

A seastead will just be a community living within a capitalist society. The seastead will not be entirely self sufficient and will be unable to provide the community with everything it will need i.e. food, medicine, technology etc. The community will need to trade with the capitalist world, that is, trade using money. For socialism to work, the revolution would need to be global.

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

Your analysis is too black and white in my opinion. Technological changes are currently loosening our grip on equality as opposed to increasing our grip. It's really quite fascinating but at the same time quite disturbing.

The bourgeoisie seem to be surviving because they are doing a good job in fooling us (and even themselves, it could be said) into believing that the world is becoming more equal, richer in it's quality and abundance of choice (emphasis on the quality of choice and good deals). Unity through division is one way of explaining it, we are given more 'choice' but this is an illusion if you examine the roots as many private companies are owned by one multi-national company or another. The roots come back to a single tree, eventually. Even if we realise this, the very same problem of unity through division exists in other areas of life too. Multiple ideologies that compete, multiple possibilities and choices which compete (which in it self isn't negative but the way choices compete is, such as buying the right type of kitchenware or stationary), commodity fetishism. The list goes on. The bourgeoisie as a whole have a monopoly on the material and immaterial aspects of life, but that doesn't mean they have complete control. Plus I'd like to add that even if technology does allow us to improve our physical lives, it won't undo the system's effectiveness at moulding our minds for reasons above (drowning us in choice, providing illusions of freedom, democracy and quality of life etc).

Now your thoughts on dealing with this, as they are based on a different and what would appear to be outdated premise, would encounter some problems. I can put it down to a simple question. How could you walk away from the system if it has it's grasp on the entire world, as globalisation has shown us? Outer space is not an option as we would need the system to create something for us. This is the flaw with autonomous (floating) communes (and utopian socialism in it's entirety), it depends on the system for sustenance. There is a positive side, a utopian socialist commune would provide a necessary vehicle for social, mental change. Yet this would likely be defeated by the system because there will be a risk of infiltration, sabotage and indeed eventual destruction of the commune from the outside and from within, from the minds of the members themselves, who were themselves brought up in a capitalist society and so would not have the required mentality to make an isolated commune fully functional. Not any more.

Yes a pessimistic analysis from the outside but there is always a chink somewhere...


This sounds unrealistic and stupid.

How rude of you. Why didn't you resist the urge to write off an idea with a one liner and actually respond with enthusiasm, demonstrating your level of understanding as opposed to your ability to provide useless contributions?

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Good points everyone! Please note that seasteading was just one idea I threw out there: it's just one of many options, and it will be years before we have a chsnce o implement anything similar to it.

[Alain]

It seems to me that the more technology progresses the bigger the divide between people grows. In the '60s and '70s quite a few people afforded a bohemian lifestyle(including organizing in communes), but after the dreaded '80s, everything went downhill. Now everybody has it's own comfort zone and couldn't be bothered to contemplate what is actually going on around them, thus they are contempt with capitalism, oppression, abuses of power, so on and so forth. Not to mention that modern technologies(like CCTV, ID chips, GPS) actually benefit the powerful in oppressing the weak.
In the end, where I'm going at is that it's actually harder now to organize a commune(or a revolution, for that matter) than it was a few decades ago.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, the thing is desertion in and of itself won't destroy capitalism - at this point, it has attained a degree of dominance that basically ensures not enough people will ever desert to cause it to implode. Think of it as a global prison - sure, maybe some people can hide out, do their own thing for some period of time . . . but unless start attacking its functioning and its material basis (walls, bars, cameras, guns), it's pretty much going to keep on going.
That said, "deserting" can be part of a strategy for attacking. How many guerillas have spent years in the mountains before mounting their offensives? How have various "undergrounds" preceded revolutionary activity?
Just some thoughts.

[Ele'ill]

zones of resistance, zones of opacity

I prefer revolution through dessertion

http://www.chow.com/assets/2011/03/29436_vegan_chocolate_cake_620.jpg

[The Douche]

You can't destroy/conquer power by ignoring it. Desertion only has a place alongside attack, not independent of it.