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Miftan posted:He's almost definitely not happy about it, but if we're being charitable, it's a statement of fact - what happened - not a judgement call. The judgement call is reserved for how this interacted with the 2019 election. That analysis, whatever your opinion of it, is I think solid. It may or may not be true, as is true for all analysis, but I think it's an interesting idea to think about. Ultimately, it's just another way of saying that people think of politicians and the establishment is being pencil pushers and bureaucrats and Johnson managed to conflate that with the EU while positioning himself as the opposite. That's why you get people saying things like "he says it like it is" and all that crap. ^ late reply, still re-reading the argument. I have not read Graeber's latest books on bureaucracy (where he turns from world-systems analysis, it seems, back to a more anthropological take); my sense of the essay (link again for those interested) is that he is tacitly invoking some thoughts from his latest without really elaborating on them. But focusing on what he does talk about : - I think he is not wrong that neoliberal modernity does hinge on a bureaucratic social strata of administrators/managers who construct and navigate systems of procedural rules, mainly legible to themselves, that grow to encompass more areas of life as lived (e.g., family law and workplace interactions) that then come to displace informal/unwritten conventions, not necessarily always for the better but also not necessarily for the worse, nor really even in a comparable manner since unwritten systems do hinge on properties which are by definition unrecordable and hence incomparable). The divorce revolution or 'elf and 'afety, to name two, have had massive changes to the lives of virtually everyone in the first world... but this is not what Graeber has in mind, it seems. What procedural regime does Graeber have in mind exactly? He does not say. - I think he is wrong in glossing in this into a neo-Marxist division of labour by role in the m.o.p. (here with administrators vs carers as the class setup) - whilst there is growth in healthcare and education, a great amount of this growth is not in the front-line personnel that the word 'carers' suggests but in operational roles, and further still the largest 1st world service sector by far remains... retail, not healthcare nor education). - I would say that the proposed political link to a class-line Brexit revolt is totally implausible (if one only polled healthcare/education sector individuals on Brexit, how do you think the vote would skew? These are overwhelmingly disproportionately educated industries located in towns and cities); Graeber argues that the admin vs carer fault line runs through parties and the Remain vs Leave fault line also runs through parties, therefore... ??? 'You should be more explicit here in step two', I think the cartoon goes. - was Leave about the distance of the establishment? No great tide of localism has arisen, best efforts of Eric Pickles or Greg Clark notwithstanding. Where's that word cloud again -  There's certainly a kulturkampf here but I don't think it maps onto the admin:carer or even just bureaucrat:non-bureaucrat thesis very well.... clearly it does somewhat, hence 'control', 'laws', but if the dichotomous mapping has such large error bars then probably the mapping could use some more axes. Again I think the broader point on the growth of the managerial class is salient as a general sociological thesis, as is the argument about resentment of this class, but I would question the reliability of the mapping to the assorted political fault-lines. This being said, I doubt Graeber's own take gives e.g. populism as an analytical concept any credence and instead he attributes it to some latently anarchistic tendency that finds truth in anger, &c &c. Probably there is some elaboration; it just isn't in that essay. - the problem with glossing over the 1970s and the New Left... well it's not just a historical artefact, is it; it is core to the problem that many of those rules-based regimes are things that people want, and specifically things that the left today, being descended from a particular thread of the New Left's responses to the New Right, would very much find to be necessary parts of the political good. Today in the Anglosphere one thinks of justice, including both social and economic justice, overwhelmingly in the sense of universal and individual rights to processes. That has not changed even in the current social-democratic revival... - conversely other parts of the political goals do find an inheritance predating even the New Left - one can certainly pinpoint the similarities to appeals to socialist vs nationalist concepts of national greatness and shared sacrifice back to the era of early Tony Benn and early Enoch Powell duelling over the Commonwealth Immigrants Act; that element is not novel to the neoliberal period. But of course I think that populism is a relevant analytical concept but anarchists tend not to do so... https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1113024124060884995 and probably Graeber would argue on why 2015-2019 is sui generis or at least limited to post-1970s financialised managerial capitalism. But, again, it is not in that essay. (I can't PM you but I would be interested on what you might think; hopefully you do see this post) e: 1976. Poland is shaken by strikes and riots against food price increases    Despite the Polish government immediately reversing the increases, the brutality of the crackdown on demonstrators, in the immediate wake of the 1975 Helsinki Accords that theoretically committed signatories to fundamental freedoms and marked the end of thirty years of siege rhetoric in the East, opened the floor to Polish intellectuals to increasingly dominate the dissident movement. ronya fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 17:09
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"making europe truth cost politicians"
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Jan 15, 2020 17:29
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It's absurd how much of that word cloud is just that one cartoon of a rich prick with a pile of money drawing a line round it and proclaiming it 'our' pile of money, to avoid the mob tearing him to shreds.
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Jan 15, 2020 17:32
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ronya posted:^ late reply, still re-reading the argument. I have not read Graeber's latest books on bureaucracy (where he turns from world-systems analysis, it seems, back to a more anthropological take); my sense of the essay (link again for those interested) is that he is tacitly invoking some thoughts from his latest without really elaborating on them. I don't have PMs, but equally I think this is something the thread might care about anyway. I think you're right in that he's using some things in that essay he's written about but isn't elaborating on here. Don't know why, might make it too long. I've numbered your points so it's easier to respond to. I will say that I have not re-read the article, so this is all impressions from reading it a few days ago along with Graeber's other work. 1 - I don't think he has anything specific in mind, but more the fact that people who used to not have to deal with any (or barely any) admin are now suffocated by it in all areas of life. This is a frustrating thing for people who can, and in the past did, get by without it (because they have decades of experience in their trade and don't need to write reports about it, because every single org you deal with like banks now does it, etc.). Think of it as another front in the culture war for people who don't give a poo poo about social justice issues because they don't affect them personally. 2- iirc Graeber makes a distinction in his other works (Bullshit Jobs for one) wrt admin jobs in carer organisation like the NHS and actual carer jobs. The title of 'carer' job is also slightly misleading so it can refer to other things as well. He says in Bullshit Jobs that while 'service' jobs were the fastest growing since the 90s (i think) it's misleading because the actual growth is not in jobs that provide a service, but in admin jobs, often within the service industry. The actual amount of service jobs within the service industry has stayed remarkably static over the last few decades. There are graphs and sources in Bullshit Jobs which I can't be assed scanning, sorry. In any case, the feeling I get is that he's saying that all the annoying admin can be tied back to a) politicians who don't care about you (which is where Johnson does well because he's an idiot and a buffoon and clearly not like other politicians, whereas Corbyn had to play the legislative game which took away some of his 'non-standard politician' appeal) and b) high earning elites like lawyers and accountants and so tie it into people who make more money than you, work in offices and look down on you. Ironically, this is something Labour could've capitalised on to some extent because it's anticapitalism 101. 3 - This made sense to me at the time, because I knew the stuff I just said in point 2. I don't know if it will if I re-read but hopefully the previous point sheds some light here. The point of the article, iirc, is how the right weaponised populism better than the left to win the election, and he's proposing the admin vs. carer (really, everyone else) divide as something the right capitalised well on, either intentionally or not. I think that's a fair assessment. Lots of people have issues with their rules heavy boss whose never done the job, the bank, health & safety gone mad, etc. and the EU (and to a lesser extent Labour) were successfully characterised as on the admin side of the argument. I think this applies to the EU and those unelected Brussels bureaucrats much, much more than Labour, fwiw. 4 - That's a much bigger argument than what Graeber is trying to do, imo. Yes, we will obviously need rules. The point was using previous tension wrt to those rules and the caste who are in charge of them (even though lawyers and accountants have nothing to do with your boss, bank, or health and safety manager) to create antagonism to whatever the right wanted. The EU, mostly. I'm not totally convinced by his argument (or don't remember it well enough) about it being used against Labour, but I definitely see where Labour sides with that side more than the tories considering how much Johnson tried to portray himself as opposing that system (the high court case, the benn bill, parliament 'sabotaging' him, etc.) 5 - I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here, sorry. Also sorry for the excessive use of brackets, apparently that's my writing style now.
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Jan 15, 2020 17:34
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Miftan posted:I don't have PMs Still gonna do that at some point btw
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Jan 15, 2020 17:40
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There was someone in the thread earlier making a joke about which Pokemon types the Labour leadership candidates were and I don't think anyone made the joke yet but Jess Phillips is Extremely Normal type. I hope that paid off for whoever made the joke.
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Jan 15, 2020 17:52
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Labour muslim network has asked leadership candidates to sign up to 10 pledges. RLB has signed up and queue several hundred comments going on about muslim grooming gangs. Except the Tories banned candidates from signing pledges because they're a pro-racist, anti-equality party, and that's sufficient for them to avoid scrutiny. This is not a good faith argument. Sign or refuse to sign, Labour will be attacked.
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Jan 15, 2020 18:05
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Miftan posted:I think this applies to the EU and those unelected Brussels bureaucrats much, much more than Labour, fwiw. That landed a lot less against Corbyn, because he was seen as the opposite of all that, but a lot of the seats that have been in Labour decline since 1997 still remember them as "the party that made laws about squirrels and breakfast cereals instead of fixing the North". The Deleter posted:There was someone in the thread earlier making a joke about which Pokemon types the Labour leadership candidates were and I don't think anyone made the joke yet but Jess Phillips is Extremely Normal type. I hope that paid off for whoever made the joke.
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Jan 15, 2020 18:07
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Jess Phillips is Pikachu because she’s popular despite not actually being any good at all also guaranteed she’d want her picture front and centre on all the merch
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Jan 15, 2020 18:22
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To pick up on a James C. Scott-flavoured anarchist critique, let's take 'elf and 'afety and how it antagonistically interacts with small-L labour: a. it directly attacks learned skills by codifying and exclusively sanctioning codified practices, i.e., rendering the use of existing non-codified (possibly non-condifiable!) practices, that were actually safe through the use of learned experience, into illegal practices - hence deskilling, b. it directly attacks the social role of possessing these skills (e.g. being able to mentor others in a valuable skill), c. it undermines methods of labour resistance that rely on a. and b. (by e.g. rendering one's role into a substitutable one provided the substitute defers to regulations, or by requiring the installation of new capital that enables such substitution in the name of safety - most insultingly, not of oneself but of one's substitute) d. it undermines the sovereignty of collective labour organisations in being able to articulate their own priorities, subject to internal pressures and interests and unwritten processes, in lieu of a codified national process subject to the interests and interpretations of other stakeholders (who will naturally express their interests in the shifting national idiom rather than an internal one), e. it codifies risks and hence quantifies risks (in a way that might not even be reckoned correct by the local understanding), and hence, instead of managing tacitly-known dangers through collective small-scale mutual aid (social insurance) that also interacts meaningfully with social roles (e.g. someone regarded to be a conscientious and careful colleague might be deserving of somewhat more aid than a wilful twatwaffle), it allows and indeed forces risks to be securitized on the basis of those flawed metrics (e.g. through insurance that then pushes the risk into the financial system), enforced as a commodified contractual employment relationship, divorced of any locally relevant social role. This has knock-on effects, i.e., risk absorption that was previously shared, e.g. being able to adjust mutual aid for both someone's leg getting blown off and someone's mam's house burning down, is now both pushed into the financialized, individualized sphere since the risk pool has fewer uncorrelated risks. The web of social relationships governed by human relations is replaced by a web of financial contracts governed by Administrators and their ilk, thus the atomisation of social relations under neoliberalism &c. But we probably don't want to reject workplace safety legislation for those reasons... The point here being that the critique of the 'admin' role does not clearly point in the direction that Graeber wants, or for that matter that Labour or the left today can plausibly want - when we examine proposals like the GND, labour codetermination, the new nationalization as universal basic services, &c these are demands for new due processes as egalitarian individual claims to rights. They are not calls to dismantle existing process claims. The new social democracy is very much a child of the neoliberal period in that sense. #2: I read Graeber as tacitly arguing that 'carers' meets the GA Cohen condition of the revolutionary class being at least the majority of society, or close to, but I grant that he might be arguing otherwise elsewhere. But if he is arguing that 'carers' are actually a tiny fraction then whence this supposed potential for a class conscious electoral victory for the left. Or how did it even emerge for the right? It can't be both large and small to suit the argument... And if it is small, then the 'admin' class numerically dominates; whence the potential for Labour to turn against it? ronya fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 18:26
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I fully understand disliking airports but the strange atmosphere of those liminal spaces, where most rules are suspended and you can drink at 10am or try overprived sushi at 4am and you can show up in your pajamas etc. etc., has a weird appeal to me. Strip out the security bollocks and I wouldn't mind airports at all. I only dislike planes because I'm over six feet tall so uh, lolrip to my leg comfort. Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jan 15, 2020 |
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Jan 15, 2020 18:29
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Most actual health and safety rules are written in workers' blood, and are there for very good reasons. Perhaps the main reason for dissatisfaction with them is the disconnect between the workers being forced to abide by them and the workers with 9 fingers. It's like the byzantine rules of the swimming pool, drowned kids don't object to them. e: ^^ Yeah, all that plus the security theater is what gets you a Burroughs sketch.
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Jan 15, 2020 18:33
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I've seen gently caress all evidence that Jess Philips is popular outside of lobby journalists. She's more like a wisecracking Duck in a pokemon ripoff that nobody watches but appears in every toy advert regardless. Or that making GBS threads unicorn doll that shat glitter that lasted one month and disappeared.
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Jan 15, 2020 18:34
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I TOLD DIANE ABBOTT TO gently caress OFF! ____________________\ 
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Jan 15, 2020 18:40
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TRUBBISH IS GOOD I'LL CUT A BITCH
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Jan 15, 2020 18:45
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Yeah Jess Phillips is more like the awful Sonic design in the first trailer for that movie Edit: I TOLD DIANE ABBOTT TO gently caress OFF! ____________________\ 
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Jan 15, 2020 18:51
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Labour muslim network has asked leadership candidates to sign up to 10 pledges. RLB has signed up and queue several hundred comments going on about muslim grooming gangs. loving utter state of these comments, even a BNP banner there.
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Jan 15, 2020 18:53
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Flipswitch posted:loving utter state of these comments, even a BNP banner there.  Also Twitter user Enoch Thatcher-Rand-Hayek 
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Jan 15, 2020 19:07
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Flipswitch posted:loving utter state of these comments, even a BNP banner there. "It's not even a word, Stu. Stop inventing words for things!"
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Jan 15, 2020 19:09
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If only nurses could vote, Labour would have won the last election something like 86% to 6%: https://nursingnotes.co.uk/overwhelming-number-healthcare-workers-plan-vote-labour/ There is no point in looking for divisions within the working class when the actual electoral split is between those who own things and those who do things. It’s just the former group is a majority amongst voters, and includes lots of people who don’t own very much, and others who do a little something on the side to keep themselves busy.
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Jan 15, 2020 19:25
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radmonger posted:There is no point in looking for divisions within the working class when the actual electoral split is between those who own things and those who do things. Are you suggesting that the capitalist class is a majority over the proletariat, because if so you're a dumbass OP
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Jan 15, 2020 19:48
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ThomasPaine posted:Are you suggesting that the capitalist class is a majority over the proletariat, because if so you're a dumbass OP Think this comes back to the discussion on pages 24-26 on whether the UK needs a renewed form of class analysis.
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Jan 15, 2020 19:49
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Ms Adequate posted:TRUBBISH IS GOOD I'LL CUT A BITCH 
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Jan 15, 2020 19:50
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ThomasPaine posted:Are you suggesting that the capitalist class is a majority over the proletariat, because if so you're a dumbass OP People who *believe* they're part of the capitalist class *out-vote* those who don't, both of which are very important distinctions.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:10
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Borrovan posted:Lol you've had PMs for like 6 months you numpty, I bought it for you when you posted your email so I could ask you about some utilitarianism poo poo Well it just feels rude that nobody had PMed me yet then (thank you!)
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Jan 15, 2020 20:23
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Miftan posted:Well it just feels rude that nobody had PMed me yet then (thank you!) Treading dangerously saying that in a thread with Jose in it.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:26
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OwlFancier posted:Treading dangerously saying that in a thread with Jose in it. Jose do NOT pm me those pictures!
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Jan 15, 2020 20:29
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goddamnedtwisto posted:People who *believe* they're part of the capitalist class *out-vote* those who don't, both of which are very important distinctions. Absolutely, but the OP suggested that there were more people who own things tham people who do things which is demonstrably false. Miftan posted:Jose do NOT pm me those pictures! He PM'd them to me and honestly they're just kinda impressive but then I am a deeply jaded individual.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:36
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https://twitter.com/Wolfiemeister1/status/1217528759554912256?s=20 I am the English da from the England of country. https://twitter.com/Wolfiemeister1/status/1217514284823076866?s=20
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Jan 15, 2020 20:38
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She's absolutely right. Trubbish is a good one.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:47
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ThomasPaine posted:Absolutely, but the OP suggested that there were more people who own things tham people who do things which is demonstrably false. "People that own things" != "the capitalist class", and convincing people otherwise - that owning your own home (or co-owning it with the bank), or shares in nationalised industries sold at a discount, or having a pension based on the stock market aligns your interests with Alan Sugar rather than your neighbours - was the greatest achievement of the neoliberal project.
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Jan 15, 2020 20:53
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Katt posted:https://twitter.com/Wolfiemeister1/status/1217528759554912256?s=20 harry; well known as the queens son
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Jan 15, 2020 21:14
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tired: Harry is James Hewitt's son wired: Harry is Prince Charles' son inspired: Harry is Queen Elizabeth's son
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Jan 15, 2020 21:21
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Ms Adequate posted:TRUBBISH IS GOOD I'LL CUT A BITCH Skull Servant posted:She's absolutely right. Trubbish is a good one. That's Garbodor 
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Jan 15, 2020 21:43
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Paperhouse posted:Travelling outside the UK is often cheaper than travelling inside it, because everything is expensive as gently caress. I can recommend Prague and Latvia for really cheap travel. Travel there, food, accommodation and drinks all quite cheap. Probably also other places over that way - Slovenia, Hungary etc. but I'm just guessing.
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Jan 15, 2020 21:45
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WhatEvil posted:I can recommend Prague and Latvia for really cheap travel. Travel there, food, accommodation and drinks all quite cheap. Probably also other places over that way - Slovenia, Hungary etc. but I'm just guessing. Slovenia is p. cool if you enjoy the eastern european aesthetic or want to heckle Slavoj Zizek, I guess.
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Jan 15, 2020 21:47
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Miftan posted:Good stuff on Graeber. I just find it really lazy of him to handwave away all administrative, clerical or managerial jobs as basically a priestly class that doesn’t add any value. For healthcare specifically, there are people who specialise in designing checklists for surgeries. Good checklists have a statistically significant effect on saving lives. We know this because other people, who know how to build and interpret complex statistical models, did their thing. Both the checklist designer and the analyst/data scientist are carrying out useful, positive-social-value activities. Similarly, people who are good at organising other people to do things, or at tracking where things have gone (surgical supplies, say, or pounds sterling) contribute useful value. You could argue that a lot of people who are ostensibly paid to create value in one of these ways aren’t actually doing it, of course (either because they are no good or because their real job is something else, like “make my boss look important”). As you mentioned, Graeber does in fact say this, in Bullshit Jobs, and he is right. But the implication in the article is that the important class divide is between blue collar and white collar peons, and that‘s not only bollocks, it’s bollocks that the capital owning class has a vested interest in everyone else believing. It’s a strange point for someone with Graeber’s views to make. So I suspect he doesn’t mean it; he’s just being deliberately provocative because he knows the kind of person who reads anything he writes is probably in one of the jobs he is criticising.
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Jan 15, 2020 21:51
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Miftan posted:Slovenia is p. cool if you enjoy the eastern european aesthetic or want to heckle Slavoj Zizek, I guess. They've got some neat mountains and caves and a short semi-polluted stretch of the med (well Adriatic if you want to be technical about it). YMMV but I don't think it's a terrible place to visit for a change. Maybe a bit boring.
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Jan 15, 2020 21:56
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Also on travel chat; if you’re white and you want a slightly better understanding of how privilege operates, work in Japan or one of the larger, wealthier Chinese cities for a while. You’ll quickly learn what it’s like to have someone who doesn’t look like you be the default kind of human being, for whose benefit society is organised; that there are places that Your Sort aren’t supposed to go, social roles that are closed off, glass ceilings at work, public services that are at best indifferent and often actively hostile and so on, and also that all this is completely invisible or unremarkable to most ordinary (that is, majority) people. Living in someone else’s bubble for a bit is a good experience to have IMO.
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Jan 15, 2020 22:08
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WhatEvil posted:I can recommend Prague and Latvia for really cheap travel. Travel there, food, accommodation and drinks all quite cheap. Probably also other places over that way - Slovenia, Hungary etc. but I'm just guessing. Slovenia is apparently inexplicably extremely expensive by Eastern European standards, according to the few people I know who've been. Bulgaria is super cheap and worth a visit. Sofia clearly hasn't been maintained to any real extent since the fall of the USSR though, which gives it a cool but pretty grimy and decayed feel. Miftan posted:Slovenia is p. cool if you enjoy the eastern european aesthetic or want to heckle Slavoj Zizek, I guess. https://i.imgur.com/mDIsw9c.mp4
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Jan 15, 2020 22:17
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