Accelerationism [Glugglugglug]

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Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Woolie Wool posted:

I'm actually making fun of it, but I suppose it should be obvious you're far too up your own rear end to recognize comedy on a comedy internet forum.

P.S. your precious resistance efforts haven't amounted to poo poo, they were either co-opted by the Soviet empire (and dessicated and blew away when the Soviets were no longer there to prop them up), destroyed by the American empire, or degenerated into oligarchic kleptocracy. Capital crushes people like you without even the slightest effort.

You're right, resistance to international ownership will always be faulty when done nation-by-nation, as autarky leads to stagnation. Clearly, what is necessary is a broad, popular front across nations, working to create an international network of mutual support against the predatory behavior of capitalists.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2015 16:22

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 01:45

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Saeku posted:

OK, that's one answer. But how is the working class going to come together globally? Is there even a unified global working class? The conditions of a US service worker, Chinese factory worker, and Congolese miner are completely different, and the American worker reaps benefits (in the form of cheap food and goods) from the exploitation of the non-Western worker.

Classes aren't handed down by the hand of God at Mt. Sinai. We can define "working class" in Marxian terms, as people who make their living by wage and salaried labor under an employer, and suddenly all three of those people are part of a global working class. We can define it broader, and incorporate self-employed people that nevertheless make their living primarily by working under a contracting employer, and catch an even broader group of people. Hell, we can even define "working class" in terms of "makes majority of income by labor as opposed to collection of rents" and get a broad, broad base of people globally, though this might be counterproductive.

As for how to bring this group together, just like any mass movement, you need people doing things to raise consciousness of this shared class identity. You need people talking on an individual level with friends, family, and coworkers. You need propaganda. You need parallel media. You need demonstrations and other events to spread the existence of such a movement. You need a general platform to ensure broad unity. You need an internal group to kick out fascists and nationalists trying to hijack things.

Developing those things will, of course, be difficult. But the basic plan is there for developing mass consciousness of this shared identity.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 18:16

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

falcon2424 posted:

This group seems so broad that any "shared identity" would depend more on the propaganda than common, immediate interests.

And, at that point, you're constructing an identity from scratch, so you could do it based on pretty much anything. It's not clear that "class" is much easier than national identity, religious solidarity, or even just a common sense of humanity.

Take Jackie Chan, a school district admin, and a guy who owns septic-tank cleaning service.

It's not at all clear that Jackie Chan and the admin should feel the special bond. Sure, they both make money from salary. But, day-to-day, the admin will have a lot more in common with the small-business owner. Those two will be the ones impacted if global warming creates stronger hurricanes.

Well, I'm describing how the second wave of feminism operated, so I guess that "common, immediate interests" is bullshit.

Furthermore, all classes are, in a real sense, artificial creations of propaganda. This formulation is no less real than national identity, religious identity, ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, veterancy, shared industry...

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 19:12

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

asdf32 posted:

Or Chinese calendar animals.

But anyway, continue setting your sights on the Indonesian small shop owner.

The atomistic view of humanity is one that is necessarily at odds with all hitherto existing human societies, and so it must be firmly rejected.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 19:32

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

falcon2424 posted:

I agree that all classifications are artificial. They're bright lines that people use to make sense of a fuzzy reality. But "all models are wrong" doesn't mean that they're all equally wrong.

The question is what common-experiences the category is intended to capture, and how well it goes about capturing them. If you're doing this for politics, it also matters how much you can do with the solidarity.

I'm saying that "class" defined as broadly as you're doing, doesn't seem especially useful. I'll concede that it's a thing people could use to divide themselves. But so is everything else.

I don't really see the comparison you're trying to draw with Feminism. Is it deeper than, "both things involved groups?"

One obvious difference is that second-wave Feminism pointed to a whole bunch of immediate common interests. Women, across religious, ethnic, and class lines, could benefit from changed laws around domestic violence. They all had an interest in more equitable divorce & custody laws. They could all be sexually harassed by their peers in the workforce. Fighting for these common interests bound the category together.

Once enough progress was made on the concrete policy stuff, the movement seemed to fracture. There were (and are) critiques along the lines of "Solidarity is for White Women." The idea is that people will pay lip service to the group. But, when it comes time to act, the energy was only there for things that help people's immediate self-interest. So, the elite pushed "Solidarity" when the efforts would help them, but seemed to care less when it came to stuff that was specifically for less-privileged women.

It seems like your grouping would skip that first step; there just aren't that many laws that will benefit both a salaried VP of Marketing, and a Bangladeshi factory worker. If anything the Bangladeshi factory has a lot more common interest with the Bangladeshi shop-keeper.

There are a whole bunch of immediate common interests for all people who live off labor as opposed to rent on capital as well. Increasing the share of capital in national income and increasing the importance of inherited wealth hurts all of those people. Furthermore, all of the people involved are hurt by foreign asset accumulation by the rich countries as well- it depresses wages and salaries in the rich countries through offshoring, it deprives the ability of people in the poor countries to determine their destiny. These are two gigantic common interests.

You're also making a false comparison- a shopkeeper is someone that derives most of their living through labor, rather than rents on capital.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2015 21:16

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

falcon2424 posted:

Well that's a 180. Just to make sure I'm tracking, it looks like you're now conceding my point that "common, immediate interest" are key.

If so, the question is how the "labor / capital income" line groups people who've got common policy goals.

I'm saying that it's too broad to be particularly useful. Jackie Chan and the Bangladeshi factory worker both sell their time. But they don't have that many common interests.

If we're talking about organizing around real commonalities of interest, I think we'd do better by just looking at total wealth and income levels, regardless of source. The guy making 10M/year has different interests than the Midwestern professional making 100k/year. The professional is, in turn, different than the rural factory worker who's pulling in $25k/year.

No, I don't think so, because that ignores systemic factors in favor of some grotesquerie, whether of the David Brooksian "social class is like high-school cliques" or the naive "money is what is evil" kind.

quote:

Do you have some specific shop in mind? If not, that's a weirdly specific assertion. What prevents a shopkeeper from making at least 50% of their income from their access to capital? You need to have stock in order to sell things. Or, for that matter, from hiring a couple people?

More generally, these 'immediate' interests seem like they're just PR contortions. Like, sure, we can talk about "share of income for labor," just like we can talk about "share of income for women."

But unless you've got a proposal that impacts both female VP of Marketing and female convenience store employees, you're in the "Solidarity is for White Women" trap. People can write articles about unfairness in the boardroom. That might move the "income for women" metric. But it's not like that will trickle down to the woman working split shifts at a Target. The metric is concealing the very real differences within the group.

It's the same with "Share of Income for Labor." I'm sure that a VP of Marketing would be happy to appeal to 'Worker Solidarity' when he's opposing salary caps for executives. After all, it'll mean more income for workers. And isn't that what we care about?

Well, sure, if by "shopkeeper" you mean someone who doesn't actually keep shop but merely owns it, you can say that shopkeepers make their living off of rents on capital. It's a fairly nifty rhetorical approach, to presume that entrepreneurial labor isn't actually labor.

The problem, though, is that you look at these things as programs aimed at some particular goal, rather than as an umbrella for a wide variety of goals. So, for example, you take the presumption that feminism ought not to exist, because there are aspects of feminism that are not universal to all women. And you take this and apply it to the idea of "solidarity" among a Marxian or post-Marxian working class, concluding that it shouldn't exist because not all its aspects would be universal.

Of course, the basic issue is that this ignores the structural component. Executive compensation is not really a big deal compared to the problems and distortions associated with wealth and capital ownership. An aerospace engineer getting paid $120,000 a year isn't, in any real sense, any more of a cause of the problems associated with the increasing influence of inherited wealth and the increasing foreign ownership of the poorer countries than a grocery bagger making $20,000 a year, because the problems have to do with wealth and not income.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2015 00:51

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

falcon2424 posted:

I haven't presumed anything, or weighted in on the necessity for feminism. That's well outside the scope of this thread.

You said that your idea for using a "solidarity" ethos to convince workers to help one another would play out like 2nd wave feminism.

I said that 2nd wave feminism was politically successful when looking at specific policy proposals that helped women generally. The third wave exists partly because this 'solidarity' broke down when the movement turned to policy proposals were less universally applicable.

Unless you disagree with my history, I think it's unclear what you invoked 2nd wave feminism.

I didn't say that. I used 2nd-wave feminism as a model for how such a movement would be built. Furthermore, I disagree with your history because it neglects the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s and early 1990s.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2015 01:56

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Willie Tomg posted:

Accelerationism does not mean "actively make things worse, then Full Communism Now, naturally, of course". It assumes only that a capitalistic economic organization trends toward a crisis point where hegemonic order breaks down into its constituent parts, and that meaningful opposition in a contemporary period is futile conflict for conflict's sake that at best destroys lots for no gain. Recognizing those two facts, Accelerationism then proposes that the only way capital-C Capital will be broken down (note: not destroyed) is to allow Capital to run freely to that crisis point and allow history to proceed.

At no point is any presupposition made regarding what modes of government will reign after the decisive moment. At no point does anyone claim after a civic and economic collapse that there are no rich people and poor people and that we the living will all realize Marxist thought is the poo poo. It is no more or less than "This is coming anyway, let's do the dew"

artist's rendition.

It's pessimistic as gently caress and not hugely academic, but since when the gently caress has political academia mattered a second squirt of piss to anything IRL? Besides: it's fun. It's fun to confront leftists with the reality of their loser failure ideology which decisively and utterly and irretrievably lost the Cold War. It's fun to see liberals attempt to quickly improvise as they realize in the moment that for all their veneration of progress as an end in and of itself, they haven't put much thought into what specifically is being progressed toward.

I guess that when you've tied yourself to Major Depression: The Political Ideology you have to take your fun where you can get it.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 04:24

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Willie Tomg posted:

It's not "actively" anything when you use the verb let for goodness sake. jesus christ no wonder everyone's confused, illiteracy abounds

I see you are new to asdf32. Anyways, I feel somebody should put together an initiative to get accelerationists some hobbies. I'll pony up fifty bucks towards model robots.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 04:50

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Willie Tomg posted:

As long as that particular post is the signature on every post he (she?) makes regarding economics henceforth I'm cool with it. Also my vote is for gardening. It's good to be surrounded by life and light, burns calories, and gives you a skill in case the monkey's paw grants your wish nah mean?

Hell, porque no los dos?

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 04:58

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 01:45

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Famethrowa posted:

I love depressed, arrogant, internet losers.

Self-love is the sin of Onan.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2015 18:07

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