Comrade-Z
20th March 2006, 19:30
I was watching a left-bourgeois author give a discussion on his book entitled, "The Global Class War" on C-SPAN yesterday. Now, don't run out and buy this book! I've learned my lesson as far as expecting radical literature to be featured on C-SPAN. Although the title sounds ferocious, the book is not, judging from its author, who says that our strategy should be to "make the democrats into a more progressive party" and "rebuild the [traditional] trade unions." Like I said, this guy is just a left-bourgeois author wanting to help reform capitalism.
In fact, I think we will be seeing more of this in the near future as proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries becomes more imminent. Left-bourgeois authors and politicians will adopt radical-sounding book titles, rhetoric, etc. in order to entice and "bring back into the fold" people who are increasingly fed-up with the existing social system. But then the "main course" of their writing will be the same deep-fried shit that they've been serving all along.
But anyways, this left-bourgeois author was plainly talking about "looming austerity" in the U.S. in the next 5-20 years. He referenced a number of economic factors, such as the runaway national debt, overpriced housing, consumer debt, the fact that "American" companies are forsaking any allegiance to the U.S. and increasingly investing elsewhere where the investment opportunities are better (which should be no surprise), the trade deficit, the fact that the jobs that are being "created" nowadays are lower-paying jobs, the "squeezing of the middle class," the overall stagnation of wages since the 1970s when productivity has actually significantly increased, etc.
He said that he didn't know whether there would be a hard-landing or a soft-landing, but in either case, the only way to deal with these problems in the U.S. economy would be to "introduce" (enforce) "significant austerity measures" onto the U.S. populace. In his analysis, in the next 5-20 years, due to these "austerity measures" things could, in his words, "get really nasty." I assume that what he means by "nasty" should be interpreted as "fun" or "exciting" from the standpoint of communist revolution.
He said that he "didn't know whether things would take a turn to the right or to the left." I would guess both tendencies will gain strength, leading to a Spanish-Civil War type of scenario such as in Barcelona where the anarchists and communists are brought into direct confrontation with fascists at some point. Hopefully (and I think probably) the anarchists and communists will win, as they did in Barcelona.
But anyways, this guy was plainly lamenting the fact that this "extremist" situation was likely to arise in the U.S., and he talked about a variety of ways to reform the economy and make sure that "it didn't come to that."
Clearly there's reason for him to "worry." The stagnation, looming austerity, and creeping fascism are already present in the U.S. to a certain extent. To me and other youth my age, even non-radicals, the common "malaise" or sentiment, even if we can't put our finger on the exact reason for it, is that things do not "seem" very "bright" or "promising" for the future. "Bleak" and "difficult" are words that more readily come to mind.
I think this is what the French youth are confronting as well, except for them they have crossed the point at which it is just a general "malaise." For them, they can now clearly see the explicit threats to their economic well-being in the form of the CPE and other such measures. In the U.S. we are not quite to that point yet, but I imagine we are getting there.
Which brings me to my main point:
I would argue that a large part of the "secular neo-puritanism" that we see in the radical movement nowadays is due to this "abstract awareness" that we will soon be faced with severe austerity and that we had better start preparing ourselves for more austere lifestyles.
Hence, we get sentiments like, "Driving a car is wasteful" or "eating meat is wasteful from an energy-per-trophic-level standpoint." I partly know where these sentiments are coming from because I used to hold some of these sentiments to a much more mild extent.
In fact, I'm still rather a "tight-wad" with my spending, and I often reproach my parents for being wasteful in their purchasing habits because I anticipate, consciously or subconsciously, the looming austerity that's in store for people in advanced capitalist countries during late-capitalism. Being cheap and not being wasteful is a way to cope with this.
I especially had these "lifestylist" views when I still thought that peak oil was an imminent catastrophe. Of course, I still don't like wastefulness, and I still think that we could do with a lot of better urban planning, restructuring of some facets of society to make them more environmentally friendly and less wasteful, etc.
But I've given up on the "mass vow of poverty" model of being "revolutionary." Now that I look at it, I think that this made sense because I anticipated the need for this type of behavior anyways. Thus, it seemed easier from a psychological standpoint to adapt myself to such a lifestyle ahead of time as a matter of universal priciple, rather than be subject to a lot of psychological stress and discomfort in having to adapt myself to a more austere lifestyle out of necessity.
In other words, the (seemingly "universal") idea of "being wasteful is bad" and "indulging in certain pleasures is economically irresponsible" came out of the material condition of experiencing and foreseeing austerity.
But I think this approach to our looming austerity is a mistake. Instead of accepting our austerity and settling for fewer pleasures, comforts, conveniences, etc., I think the best way to confront the austerity would be to continue to demand all of our pleasures, conveniences, comforts, etc. and demand the overthrow of the mechanism for that austerity that dictates that we can't have those things anymore. In other words, we must overthrow capitalism (the mechanism for our austerity). That's where we should direct our efforts if we want to advance our well-being to the greatest extent.
In fact, I think we will be seeing more of this in the near future as proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist countries becomes more imminent. Left-bourgeois authors and politicians will adopt radical-sounding book titles, rhetoric, etc. in order to entice and "bring back into the fold" people who are increasingly fed-up with the existing social system. But then the "main course" of their writing will be the same deep-fried shit that they've been serving all along.
But anyways, this left-bourgeois author was plainly talking about "looming austerity" in the U.S. in the next 5-20 years. He referenced a number of economic factors, such as the runaway national debt, overpriced housing, consumer debt, the fact that "American" companies are forsaking any allegiance to the U.S. and increasingly investing elsewhere where the investment opportunities are better (which should be no surprise), the trade deficit, the fact that the jobs that are being "created" nowadays are lower-paying jobs, the "squeezing of the middle class," the overall stagnation of wages since the 1970s when productivity has actually significantly increased, etc.
He said that he didn't know whether there would be a hard-landing or a soft-landing, but in either case, the only way to deal with these problems in the U.S. economy would be to "introduce" (enforce) "significant austerity measures" onto the U.S. populace. In his analysis, in the next 5-20 years, due to these "austerity measures" things could, in his words, "get really nasty." I assume that what he means by "nasty" should be interpreted as "fun" or "exciting" from the standpoint of communist revolution.
He said that he "didn't know whether things would take a turn to the right or to the left." I would guess both tendencies will gain strength, leading to a Spanish-Civil War type of scenario such as in Barcelona where the anarchists and communists are brought into direct confrontation with fascists at some point. Hopefully (and I think probably) the anarchists and communists will win, as they did in Barcelona.
But anyways, this guy was plainly lamenting the fact that this "extremist" situation was likely to arise in the U.S., and he talked about a variety of ways to reform the economy and make sure that "it didn't come to that."
Clearly there's reason for him to "worry." The stagnation, looming austerity, and creeping fascism are already present in the U.S. to a certain extent. To me and other youth my age, even non-radicals, the common "malaise" or sentiment, even if we can't put our finger on the exact reason for it, is that things do not "seem" very "bright" or "promising" for the future. "Bleak" and "difficult" are words that more readily come to mind.
I think this is what the French youth are confronting as well, except for them they have crossed the point at which it is just a general "malaise." For them, they can now clearly see the explicit threats to their economic well-being in the form of the CPE and other such measures. In the U.S. we are not quite to that point yet, but I imagine we are getting there.
Which brings me to my main point:
I would argue that a large part of the "secular neo-puritanism" that we see in the radical movement nowadays is due to this "abstract awareness" that we will soon be faced with severe austerity and that we had better start preparing ourselves for more austere lifestyles.
Hence, we get sentiments like, "Driving a car is wasteful" or "eating meat is wasteful from an energy-per-trophic-level standpoint." I partly know where these sentiments are coming from because I used to hold some of these sentiments to a much more mild extent.
In fact, I'm still rather a "tight-wad" with my spending, and I often reproach my parents for being wasteful in their purchasing habits because I anticipate, consciously or subconsciously, the looming austerity that's in store for people in advanced capitalist countries during late-capitalism. Being cheap and not being wasteful is a way to cope with this.
I especially had these "lifestylist" views when I still thought that peak oil was an imminent catastrophe. Of course, I still don't like wastefulness, and I still think that we could do with a lot of better urban planning, restructuring of some facets of society to make them more environmentally friendly and less wasteful, etc.
But I've given up on the "mass vow of poverty" model of being "revolutionary." Now that I look at it, I think that this made sense because I anticipated the need for this type of behavior anyways. Thus, it seemed easier from a psychological standpoint to adapt myself to such a lifestyle ahead of time as a matter of universal priciple, rather than be subject to a lot of psychological stress and discomfort in having to adapt myself to a more austere lifestyle out of necessity.
In other words, the (seemingly "universal") idea of "being wasteful is bad" and "indulging in certain pleasures is economically irresponsible" came out of the material condition of experiencing and foreseeing austerity.
But I think this approach to our looming austerity is a mistake. Instead of accepting our austerity and settling for fewer pleasures, comforts, conveniences, etc., I think the best way to confront the austerity would be to continue to demand all of our pleasures, conveniences, comforts, etc. and demand the overthrow of the mechanism for that austerity that dictates that we can't have those things anymore. In other words, we must overthrow capitalism (the mechanism for our austerity). That's where we should direct our efforts if we want to advance our well-being to the greatest extent.