e-Newsletter 4
CONTENTS
1. ‘Move into the Light?’ Republished by ‘Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil’
2. Turbulence 4 Launch Event at the European Social Forum in Malmoe
3. Turbulence 4 Published in North America - Copies Available at RNC Protests
4. Turbulence 4 Arrives in German (At Last!)
5. ‘The Movement is Dead,…’ Turb_04 Article Republished By Modkraft.dk
6. ‘Et tu Bertinotti?’ Turb_04 Article Translated into Greek
7. Looking For Somewhere to Publish ‘Move into the Light?’ in Spanish and Italian
8. Appeal for Translators
9. Donations Needed!
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1. ‘MOVE INTO THE LIGHT?’ REPUBLISHED BY ‘LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE BRASIL’
Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil have republished ‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a turbulent 2007’. The text was published on July 16 2008, and it can be found online here and here.
The translation was carried out by Caia Fittipaldi.
The original text is here and, as we mentioned in the last e-Newsletter, is now available from PM Press.
2. TURBULENCE 4 LAUNCH EVENT AT THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL FORUM IN MALMOE
Copies of Turbulence 4 will be available at the European Social Forum (ESF) in Malmoe, Sweden, taking place from 17-21 September. We’re considering a launch event, or some kind of a bash. We’ll keep you informed. If you’re coming, though, we’d love it if you could grab a bundle to take back with you and distribute in your area or networks.
More information about the forum is here.
There’s information about the autonomous spaces here.
3. TURBULENCE 4 PUBLISHED IN NORTH AMERICA – COPIES AVAILABLE AT RNC PROTESTS
Turbulence 4 asks, ‘Who will save us from the future?’ Well, probably not the ‘Grand Old Party’. Nor, most likely, any of the decisions being taken on the fringes of the Republican National Convention taking place in Minneapolis next week.
Nevertheless, we think the space opened by the protests around the convention could provide a bit of room for engaging with the problem of ‘the future’; and we want to get in on the discussion!
We’ve now printed thousands of copies of Turbulence 4 in the US, many of which will be distributed at the protests. If you want to grab a copy for yourself, or better, a bundle to take back to your corner of the world; the RNC protests are your opportunity!
Copies will be available at the Convergence Space: 627 Smith Ave S St. Paul, Mn 55107. The phone number is: (651) 293 3968.
Copies will soon also be available in North America via PM Press.
4. TURBULENCE 4 ARRIVES IN GERMANY (AT LAST!)
A bunch were distributed at the Klimacamp and, finally(!), a load have now also arrived in Berlin. Sometime over the next couple of weeks, they’ll be appearing in bookshops and infoshops across Berlin and – we hope – the rest of the country. Copies will also soon be able to be ordered from Red Stuff.
5. ‘THE MOVEMENT IS DEAD,…’ TURB_04 ARTICLE REPUBLISHED BY MODKRAFT.DK
A Danish translation of Tadzio Mueller’s article, ‘The Movement is Dead, Long Live the Movement’ (published in Turbulence 4) is now available here.
The article was translated by David Balleby Roenbach, an activist involved with KlimaX, and has been published by modkraft.dk here.
6. ‘ET TU BERTINOTTI?’ TURB_4 ARTICLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK
Sandro Mezzadra’s article (with an Introduction by Keir Milburn and Ben Trott), ‘Et tu Bertinotti?’, from Turbulence 4, is now available online in Greek here.
7. LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO PUBLISH ‘MOVE INTO THE LIGHT?’ IN SPANISH AND ITALIAN
We now have a Spanish and an Italian translation of ‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a turbulent 2007’. If you edit a newspaper, journal, magazine or website and would be interested in publishing the text – or else know of somewhere which might – please get in touch.
Email: editors[at]turbulence.org.uk
8. APPEAL FOR TRANSLATORS
We’re currently looking for people willing to help translate articles published in the latest issue of Turbulence into languages other than English. Let us know if you can help out.
Email: editors[at]turbulence.org.uk
9) DONATIONS NEEDED!
We’re still desperately short of cash! Help us out if you can with a donation, no matter how small. Donations can be made via the PayPal button on our website, or get in touch if you’d like our bank details for a direct transfer.
Email: editors[at]turbulence.org.uk
(August 27 2008)
Bevægelsen er død, længe leve bevægelsen!
Den radikale venstrefløj bør kanalisere sin energi over i kampen for en antikapitalistisk klimapolitik. Man kan passende starte med at lukke Københavnertopmødet i 2009 på samme måde som man lukkede Seattle i 1999. (Af Tadzio Müller)
Bevægelsen er død! Mere præcist: alterglobaliseringsbevægelsen som et sted hvor bevægelser og aktivister kunne mødes og blive-anden sammen og forbinde deres kampe imod den nyliberale verdensorden er død. Ikke at de forskellige kampe er døde. Ej heller at vi har set det sidste til topmødemobiliseringer: I skrivende stund er forberedelserne til G8 i Japan i fuld sving og ved enhver samling af den radikale og ikke-så-radikale venstrefløj planlægger man på livet løs at nedlukke det ene eller det andet topmøde: G8 i Italien 2009; NATOs 60 års fødselsdagsbrag i Frankrig i 2009 osv. Countersummits-r-us?
Men på en eller anden måde har disse mobiliseringer ikke den samme slagkraft som tidligere; hvor mange sidste gange har der ikke været, hvor mange gange har folk ikke mobiliseret og tænkt »hvis det fejler denne gang, så stopper vi med det her«? Selv den relativt stærke tyske bevægelse kunne ikke gøre meget andet ved G8 i Heiligendamm end at indse, at det er én ting at samle titusinder i gaderne, men noget ganske andet at få disses aktioner til at give genlyd udover deltagernes egne kredse.
Misforstå mig ikke: bevægelsen døde ikke de besejredes nyttesløse død. På mange måder vandt den. Og for bevægelser som må bevæge sig for at overleve er deres sejre ofte kimen til deres bortgang, for de lever og ånder antagonisme, de har brug for en fjende. Men hvordan står det så til med vores fjende? Lad os spørge Martin Wolf, chefidéolog for Financiel times, en velformuleret og anset talsmand for den neoliberale offensiv. Da han omtalte den dag hvor Den amerikanske centralbank reddede en stor bank for at forhindre den finansielle krise i at sprede sig, skrev han: »Husk fredag den 14. marts 2008: det var dagen hvor drømmen om frimarkedskapitalismen døde«. Så neoliberalismen er død (på nogen måder). Det samme er altså (igen: på nogen måder) bevægelsen imod den, af hvilken den eksplicit antikapitalistiske strømning, fra hvis indre denne tekst er skrevet, aldrig har udgjort andet end en del. Den syntes at have mistet netop den smeltediglefunktion som kan støbe en hel bevægelse ud af en ureducerbar mangfoldighed af kampe, netop det som kan modstå den de-komposition af modstanden som stat og kapital konstant forsøger at presse nedover os. Vi har brug for en fortælling, et håb, en dynamik: på nuværende tidspunkt er alterglobaiseringsbevægelsen klart en bevægelse uden en dynamik, uden en fjende, uden et mål.
Det store nye?
Men lige så meget som der er en bevægelse uden fortælling, er der også en fortælling uden en bevægelse: klimaforandringer. Et tiltagende antal politikker (endda mange som nærmest ingen tilhørsforhold har til emnet) retfærdiggøres via deres relation til klimaet. Siden den europæiske del af bevægelsen blev udmanøvreret af G8 og specielt forbundskansler Angela Merkel i Heiligendamm i juni 2007, har den måttet indse at den må udvikle en position og en politisk praksis i henhold til klimaforandringer. Ellers risikerer den irrelevansen i denne fagre nye verden af »grønne« problemstillinger og tematiker. De mest avancerede afdelinger af kapital og statsapparat har spottet en favorable indgangsvinkel til at skabe politisk opbakning bag et nyt ‘grønt fix’ til både overakkumulationskrisen (det at for mange penge jagter for få profitable investeringer) som har forårsaget det aktuelle finansielle kaos, og til den legitimationskrise som den globale autoritet har lidt under siden kraften fra fortællingen om ‘global terrorisme’ begyndte at aftage. På en måde er det faktum at alle nu taler om klimaet en stor sejr for den grønne bevægelse. Men samtidig har det også betydet det sidste søm i bevægelsens kiste: Alle større grønne NGO’er er involveret op til halsen i forhandlingerne om opfølgeren til Kyoto-traktaten og derfor er det usandsynligt, at de vil artikulere en politisk position som vil divergere afgørende fra den dominerende dagsorden.
Så der er en bevægelse uden en fortælling og en fortælling uden en bevægelse, hvilket betyder at der ikke er meget håb for at klimaforandringerne vil blive håndteret på andre måder end dem som fremmer statslige og hvad end der nu er i den dominerende kapitals interesser. Og eftersom den antikapitalistiske standardposition angående klimaforandringer er at der er grundlæggene modsætninger mellem behovet for fortsat akkumulation af kapital (økonomisk vækst) på den ene side og behovet for at gøre noget ved klimaforandringerne på den anden, synes situationen at være ideel for en revitalisering af den antikapitalistiske politik, en politik som kan bygge bro mellem folks udbredte bekymringer for klimaet og den opfattelse at der gøres alt for lidt og alt for sent. Det er i præcis disse situationer, hvor de sædvanlige redskaber (skab et marked eller undertryk det eksisterende) ikke synes at kunne levere troværdige løsninger på problemer der samtidig af store grupper opfattes som alvorlige, at radikale bevægelser har den største mulighed for at handle og skabe historie. Det er netop når det synes umuligt at finde løsningsmodeller at der åbnes for at sociale bevægelser kan udvide det muliges grænser.
Pointeløshedens politik
I den virkelige verden er det meget sværre. I det globale norden er der bestemt forsøg på at skabe en antikapitalistisk klimapolitik, men for alle af dem gælder at problemerne tårner sig op. Set fra nordens perspektiv begyndte det hele i Storbritannien i 2006 med en klimalejr, som havde som projekt at nedlukke et kulkraftværk i Nordengland i en dag og, mere vigtigt, skabe rum for en udvikling af nye idéer og handlemåder i forhold til en antikapitalistisk klimapolitik. Lignende lejrer er blevet organiseret i Tyskland, Sverige, USA, Chile, Australien, New Zealand og andre steder og i øjeblikket virker det til at være hovedvåbnet i den fremspirende klimabevægelses aktionsrepetoire (en anelse ironisk er det, at lejrideen oprindeligt opstod ud af de dårlige erfaringer med topmødeprotestens endagsform).
Jeg vil ikke nedvurdere vigtigheden af disse lejrer, det er trods alt ikke en lille bedrift at have inspireret så mange mennesker i så mange lande, men lytter man til de mange kritikker af lejrerne, er der en ting der går igen: Bidrog de med noget udover at tilfredsstille ønsket om at gøre noget? Det føles godt at hænge ud i en lejr med sine venner og kammerater, men flere nagende spørgsmål melder sig: Hvad vil vi have? Hvad kan vi opnå? Og står hele det her campinglejrhalløj, hvor man forsøger at lukke kraftværker ned ét af gangen mens man kæmper for ikke at blive helt overdøvet af de mere magtfulde stemmer, i bare nogen grad i mål med den gigantiske udfordring, som klimaforandringer er? Det er den slags spørgsmål, som højst sandsynligt vil frustrere folk.
For at klargøre: Det betyder ikke at folk ikke skal organisere klimalejre. Bare at disse skal være en del af et større projekt, der giver dem en politisk betydning der rækker udover deres meget lokale indgriben. Vi kunne selvfølgelig håbe at denne bredere globale betydning ville vokse frem fra de bånd, som bliver skabt i mellem de forskellige klimalejre i år, men koordinationen imellem lejrerne har været begrænset eller nærmest ikke-eksisterende. Ingen fælles krav og paroler (udover det at være imod klimaforandringer, hvilket er cirka lige så politisk definerende som at være imod slå babysæler ihjel med køller), ingen samstemmig fortælling, ingen »shut down WTO«, intet »another world is possible«.
Hvis den måde, som den engelske del af bevægelsen har håndteret klimaudfordringen på, virker noget begrænset i sin politiske rækkevidde, så har vi i den anden ende af spektraet tyskernes tilgang. Forsøg på at kick-starte en klimalejrproces er her ikke alene løbet ind i de sædvanlige interne rivaliseringer og stridigheder på venstrefløjen. Den radikale venstrefløj er så akademisk og begravet i traditionen fra den kritiske teori og dekonstruktionen, at hovedsvaret på klimaudfordringen har været en kasten sig over kritikken af den dominerende klimaforandringsdiskurs samt den videnskabelige videns hegemoniale rolle i arbejdet med at konstruere klimaforandringerne som en krise. Selvfølgelig er det vigtigt at være opmærksom på, at rapporterne fra IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) kommer fra en dybt konservativ institution samt krititisk reflektere over hvordan brugen af en videnskabelig diskurs tjener til at ekskludere ikke-eksperter fra den politiske debat, men Diskurskritik kan ikke være det eneste svar på klimaproblematikken. Det svarer lidt til at kaste bøger af Adorno og Foucault efter en stormflod og håbe på at det vil få den til at gå væk.
Fra tidsløshed til effektivitet
Men lad os være ærlige: på trods af erfaringen med små udbrud af transformationsmagt i særlige overskridelsesøjeblikke burde den antikapitalistiske venstrefløj i det globale nord være vant til at være politisk ineffektiv og marginaliseret. Hvad betyder et enkelt socialt fristed i London, Kreuzberg eller Barcelona egentlig i forhold til kampen mod gentrificeringen? Passer det virkelig at en antikrigsdemonstration i San Fransisco »forstyrrer Imperiet«, som en film lavet ved lejligheden påstod? Kortslutter butikstyveri, selv udført i massemålestok, den kapitalistiske varecirkulation? For at være helt ærlig ved jeg det ikke og det tror jeg heller ikke ret mange af dem, der deltager, gør. Men, og dette er den vigtige pointe, når antikapitalister taler om kapitalismen, så føler de ikke, at de behøver at have et svar. Det er tilstrækkeligt at henvise til den non-linære dynamik, som forandringsprocesser i komplekse sociale systemer har. Underforstået: Vi kan ikke vide hvilken effekt vores handlinger udført i dag vil have i morgen (tænk sommerfugl på Bali og orkan på Haiti). Eller man refererer til et argument, der har fået en nærmest dogmatisk status i antikapitalistiske diskussioner: »Hør engang, kapitalismen har ikke eksisteret altid, den opsted et bestemt sted på et bestemt tidspunkt, så den vil også forsvinde igen på et tidspunkt.« - det samme kan siges om universet! Jeg kunne blive ved med at opremse de intellektuelle tricks der bruges for at rationalisere vores relative politiske irrelevans, men håber at pointen er slået fast: At den antikapitalistiske politik i det globale nord befinder sig i en fom for tidsløshed, fordi vi enten ikke kan eller tør tænke dens effekter i fremtiden. Man kommer til at tænke på strudser. Eller den graffiti, der var sprayet på væggene i en skole i Gøteborg der blev stormet af politiet: »But in the end, we will win!«
Og det er her vi kommer tilbage til hvorfor det er så svært for den antikapitalistiske bevægelse at udvikle en politik på klimaområdet: mens diverse rationaliseringer måske kan gøre det muligt at tænke, at til slut vinder vi i kampen mod kapitalen, så er det ret umuligt at tænke sådan i forhold til klimaforandringerne. I modsætning til den antikapitalistiske kamps tidsløshed haster kampen mod det sidste. Og spørgsmålet er hvordan man håndtere tidsknapheden. De to førbeskrevne positioner (den ‘overaktivistiske’ og den ‘overkritiske’) er begge forsøg på at løse dette problem, dog begge med ret utilfredsstillende resulater. Den første overreagerer på hastværket og springer over stok og sten ind i et politisk felt domineret af meget stærkere spillere. Den anden forstår at konstruktionen af uopsættelighed og den resulterende frygtpolitik ofte er dominansstrategier, men stiller sig så tilfreds med at kritisere denne konstruktion i stedet for at enagere sig i det alvorlige problem, der ligger bag diskursen. Og hastværket er præcis et resultat af en tidskonflikt, en konflikt mellem temporaliteter. Mellem kapitalens temporalitet (kapitalen forøger konstant produktionen og det sociale livs tempo) på den ene side og de komplekse øko-samfundssystemer (der selvom de ikke er statiske og godt kan tilpasse sig nye betingelser ikke kan tilpasse sig i det tempo, kapitalen kræver) på den anden. Hvis forandringen er for hurtig, nås det berømte springende punkt, hvor processen slår over og bliver irreversibel og katastrofal (Golfstrømmens ophør er et eksempel, de polare iskappers bortsmeltning et andet).
Så hvordan håndterer vi hastværket? For det første ved at indse at det er usandsynligt, fatisk umuligt, at den politisk marginale radikale venstrefløj vil kunne nedsætte produktionen af drivhusgasser i en verden hvor akkumulationen af kapital er uadskillelig fra afbrændingen af fossile brændstoffer (»fossilitisk kapitalisme« har nogen kaldt det). Vi er heller ikke på en eller anden måde i stand til bringe økosystemernes tilpasningsevne på højde med kapitalens tempo. Men vi kan intervenere i politikkens temporalitet, i den regeringsmæssige klimapolitik, hvis funktion er at immunisere den af kapitalen skabte tempoforøgelse fra kritik ved at skabe den illusion at fortsat kapitalakkumulation er forenelig med socio-økologisk stabilitet. Sagt med andre ord at vi blot behøver at foretage et par (helst markedsbaserede) småændringer og derefter fortsætte mere eller mindre som om intet var hændt. Immuniseringens resultat er, at den potentielt eksplosive kraft i den voksende erkendelse af en antagonisme mellem kapital og menneskehed kan inddæmmes, måske endda koopteres således at det er muligt at skabe støtte til en ny omgang kapitalakkumulation (tænk på snakken om en grøn kapitalisme) samt endnu mere omfattende og dybdegående politisk regulering af vores liv.
Glem Kyoto!
Så igen: den antikapitalistiske venstrefløj i det globale nord kan ikke stoppe endsige i nogen væsentlig grad formildne klimaforandringerne. At antage det ville være at fastholde os selv i vores tidsløshed, fordi vi tidligst ville kunne håbe på at nå vores mål i en fjern og måske ikke-eksisterende fremtid. Med vores begrænsede styrke og ressourcer kan vi imidlertid intervenere i afskærmningen af kapitalens tid fra det ægte demokratis langsommelighed. Hvis vi igen formår at forlade den depressive tilstand skabt af vores dekomposition og tidsløshed, hvis vi husker på at vi som bevægelse har evnen til at være hurtigere end staten, så kan vi slippe de antagonistiske energier løs.
Hvordan bærer vi os så ad med det? Hvordan bevarer vi åbenheden i det politiske rum, som er skabt af den voksende bekymring for konsekvenserne af klimaforandringerne, en bekymring som har potentialet til at skabe nye idéer og løsninger, nye muligheder som måske endda peger udover kapitalismen? Hvordan intervenerer vi i forhold til de magtfulde kræfter, der presser på for at få en ny grøn kapitalisme, et øko-imperium, en global, autoritær øko-keynesianisme? Hvis tidsknapheden tvinger os til at være effektive, hvordan kan vores lille, ressourcesvage del af bevægelsen bedst udnytte sine begrænsede kræfter til at skabe og/eller opretholde rum, der muliggør en mangfoldighed af nedefra-og-op, ikke-kapitalistiske løsninger på klimakrisen?
Svaret på dette spørgsmål begynder med to yderligere spørgsmål og tager os tilbage til argumentationens begyndelse. Første spørgsmål: Hvad er den væsentligste proces hvormed verdens regeringer forsøger at immunisere kapitalen fra offentlige kritik på klimaområdet? Svar: det er næsten helt sikkert Kyoto/Bali-processerne, hvor hele verden trakteres med et internationalt toppolitisk drama, men som i sidste ende kun udretter meget lidt eller slet ikke noget, der beskytter klimaet (bare en lille sidebemærkning: siden underskrivelsen af Kyoto-aftalen er det globale Co2-udslip oversteget selv IPCC’s værste senarier), og hvor en lillebitte reduktion i udslippet legitimere fortsat masseproduktion af drivhusgasser. For ikke at tale om skabelsen af et helt nyt marked for handel med Co2-udslipskvoter (der anslås at ville repræsentere en værdi på 2 trilliarder dollars i 2020) – til den globale kapitals store glæde. Det er planen, at opfølgningsprocessen på Kyoto, der begyndte på Bali i 2007, skal kulminere i en aftaleunderskrivelse ved det internationale topmøde i København i 2009.
Andet spørgsmål: Set både i forhold til vores fjender og vores mere moderate allierede, hvori ligger da den radikale bevægelses største styrke? Svar: I organiseringen af omfattende topmødeafbrydende mobiliseringer. Det er netop i forbindelse med topmødemobiliseringer at vi tidligere har været i stand til at skabe en mærkbar politisk effekt. I Seattle i 1999 formåede vi ikke alene lukke at konferencen ved at være på gaden. Vi bidrag også til skærpelsen af de mange konflikter, der eksisterede mellem de forhandlende regeringer indenfor. Hvis vi kunne gøre det samme igen, og hvis vi kunne skabe en politisk koalition omkring kravet om at »glemme Kyoto«, så ville vi ikke alene være i stand at holde det politiske rum åbent, der er nødvendigt for diskussionen af løsningsforslag der rækker udover den herskende markedsstyrede agenda. Vi ville også kunne levere et fokuspunkt omkring hvilket en fremspirerende global klimabevægelse kunne samle sig. Glem Kyoto – luk ned København 2009!
Men hvorfor foreslå endnu en stor topmødeprotest efter at have argumenteret for at modtopmøder har mistet den effektivitet de engang havde? Fordi klimapolitikken i 2008 ser meget anderledes ud end den neoliberale globaliseringspolitik i 2008. Faktisk ligner klimapolitikken anno 2008 mere globaliseringspolitikken før nedlukningen af WTO-topmødet i Seattle. Dengang, i »historien er slut-årtiet«, vidste mange godt at den neoliberal kapitalisme ikke var fejlfri, men der var ingen anerkendelse, ikke engang på venstrefløjen, af en bevægelse, eller måske endda en bevægelse af bevægelser som kunne modsætte sig den. Seattle gjorde det muligt at se lighederne i mange forskelligartede kampe, for at se dem som værende rettet imod den samme fjende. Seattle muliggjorde, at en bevægelse overhovedet kunne opstå, og det er her, vi kommer tilbage til udgangspunktet: Kampcyklussen omkring globaliseringen er måske afsluttet, men dens lære, så som læren om undgå en »en-uge-om-året-bevægelse« fokuseret på de store topmødebegivenheder, har ikke mistet sin gyldighed. Den fremvoksende klimabevægelse må være rodfæstet i en daglig praksis af modstand og transformation på alle niveauer, ikke bare globale, men regionale, nationale eller lokale. Men før den overhovedet kan se sig selv som en bevægelse, skal den først markere sig og vise, at der findes en langt mere radikal holdning end den der siger, at vi bare skal have mere og bedre handel med Co2-kvoter. Vise at der findes nogen, som ikke bare fokusere på klimaforandringer, men også på dens årsager: kapitalismen. Og for at det skal kunne ske, kan vi meget vel have brug for det, som nogle engang kaldte et overskridelsesøjeblik, hvor tiden speeder op og forandringer, der før var umulige, bliver mulige. Et modtopmøde kan gøre det. Bevægelsen er død, længe leve bevægelsen!
Tadzio Müller er aktivist og teoretiker. Han er bosat i Berlin og underviser på universitetet i Kassel.
Teksten er oversat af David Balleby Rønbach, der er aktivist og bl.a. aktiv i den danske gren af KlimaX.
Artiklen har tidligere været bragt på hjemmesiden turbulence.org.uk under titlen The Movement is dead, long live the movement!
Danish translation originally published in modkraft.dk
Original English version here.
e-Newsletter 3
CONTENTS
1. Urgent appeal for donations!
2. Turbulence @ Climate Camp
3. First translation of Turb_04 article now online
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1. Urgent appeal for donations!
Printing Turbulence 4: ‘Who Can Save Us From the Future?’ set us back several thousand pounds, and distribution costs have so far stretched into the many hundreds. We’re thrilled to be receiving so many orders and requests for copies, but we have now well and truly run out of cash.
If you’ve already received a copy in the post, picked up the latest issue at a bookstore near you, or hope to be able to get your hands on one in the near future, please consider making a donation no matter how small!
Donations can be made via the PayPal button on our website: www.turbulence.org.uk
If you’d rather pay directly into our bank account or write us a cheque, get in touch with us at editors@turbulence.org.uk
2. TURBULENCE @ CLIMATE CAMP
Many of the Turbulence collective will be taking part in the Camp for Climate Action which has just begun in Kent in the UK.
We will, of course, be distributing copies of the new magazine at the camp (remember to grab a bundle to take back to your local independent bookshop, social centre, or wherever else you can think of to distribute copies!)
We’re also going to be participating in a number of workshops, discussing some of the issues brought up in our latest publication and more.
On Thursday 7 August, The Free Association (many of whom are also involved with Turbulence) will be running a workshop entitled ‘Who Can Save Us From the Future? Capitalism, Crisis, Austerity and Freedom’. It will be taking place in Space B at 4:30pm.
In an unfortunate clash, Turbulence editor Tadzio Mueller will be taking part in a discussion entitled, ‘Copenhagen 2009 – What Will Be the Camp’s Response?’ at the same time. Mona Bricke and John Jordan will also be participating in the event which takes place in Space G.
Tadzio Mueller will also be discussing ‘Which Way Forward for the Climate Movement’ with Simon Lewis and Mona Bricke from 2pm on Thursday 7 August, also in Space G.
One of the Turbulence Collective, Keir Milburn, will also be taking part in the discussion, ‘The Road to 90% and the Role of the State’ alongside George Monbiot, Almuth Ernsting and others. The event takes place on Tuesday 5 August in Space A from 7:30pm.
The full programme for the Camp is available here
And information about the location is here
And don’t forget the Klimakamp in Germany from 15-24 August in Hamburg!
3. FIRST TRANSLATION OF TURB_04 ARTICLE NOW ONLINE
Christian Frings’ article, ‘Global Capitalism: Futures and Options’, published in the latest issue of Turbulence is now available in German on our website.
(August 5, 2008)
‚Futures’ des Kapitalismus, und revolutionäre Optionen
Seit August 2007 steht es schlecht um die futures des Kapitalismus. Blitzartig, innerhalb von Tagen und Wochen, breitete sich die Krise der Finanzmärkte über den ganzen Globus aus. Was als lokal begrenztes Ereignis begonnen hatte, erschütterte Börsen und Banken auf allen Kontinenten. Und es ist längst nicht vorbei. Die Krise hat sich in mehreren Wellen entwickelt. Nach jeder erneuten dramatischen Zuspitzung und ebenso hektischer Intervention von Staat und Zentralbanken wurde das baldige Ende der Krise verkündet. Aber trotz aller Staatseingriffe lässt sich die Talfahrt nicht bremsen. Wenn der deutsche Bundespräsident die Finanzmärkte als „Monster“ bezeichnet, erinnert er an den Mythos von Frankenstein, den schon Marx zitierte, um die rätselhafte Verdinglichung des Kapitals zu beschreiben: „by incorporating living labour with their dead substance, the capitalist at the same time converts value, i.e., past, materialised, and dead labour into capital, into value big with value, a live monster that is fruitful and multiplies.“ Die Herrschenden werden selbst beherrscht, von einer anonymen Macht, die sie zwar verteidigen, deren Logik sie aber nicht verstehen.
Jede Krise ist ein Hinweis auf die historische Endlichkeit des Kapitalismus. Wenn sich die ‚Futures’ der Kapitalisten und Herrschenden nicht erfüllen, entstehen Optionen der Bewegungen von unten. Darin liegt keine Zwangsläufigkeit, aber die Optionen der Bewegungen sind heute ungleich größer als vor hundert oder zweihundert Jahren. Was heute auf der Tagesordnung steht, ist nicht eine institutionelle Bereinigung wie die Rückkehr zu einer strengeren Regulierung von Märkten. Danach rufen heute viele, selbst große Teile der Linken, die in der Krise nur einen Ausdruck neoliberaler Übertreibungen sehen. Die Finanzialisierung ist jedoch selbst nur Ausdruck einer fundamentalen Krise, die das kapitalistische System als globales Ganzes betrifft, wie es sich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg entwickelt hat.
Ende der 60er Jahre war dieses System in die Krise geraten. Nicht einfach durch innere Gesetzmäßigkeiten des Kapitals und der Konkurrenz, sondern vor allem durch den gleichzeitigen Druck von ArbeiterInnen überall auf der Welt. Das veränderte den Verlauf der Krise deutlich. Die Herrschenden scheuten davor zurück, die Last der Krise auf die ArbeiterInnen abzuwälzen, um die Profitraten zu sanieren. Auch wenn es heute vergessen ist, damals war es Tagesgespräch. Nach dem Pariser Mai 1968 und dem Massenstreik gab De Gaulle jeden Versuch auf, zum Goldstandard zurückzukehren, sondern erlaubte inflationäre Lohnsteigerungen. In Italien war der Slogan „Arbeiter produzieren die Krise“ verbreitet. Linke Ökonomen entwickelten die Theorie der „profit squeeze“, in der die Lohnsteigerungen, die von militanten Streikbewegungen durchgesetzt wurden, einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf den Verfall der Profitrate hatten. Wieder andere zeigten, dass die sinkenden Produktivitätssteigerungen auf die zunehmende Ablehnung der eintönigen Fließbandarbeit und Unwirksamkeit bürokratischer Kontrolle der Arbeitskräfte zurückzuführen war.
Die Entdeckung des „subjektiven Faktors“ in der marxistischen Krisentheorie in den 70er Jahren war also kein Zufall, sondern theoretischer Ausdruck einer praktischen Bewegung und einer tatsächlichen Veränderung von historischer Tragweite. In früheren kapitalistischen Krisen, im 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts, waren die sozialen Bewegungen der ArbeiterInnen meistens eine Reaktion auf die Krisen des Kapitals gewesen. Es schien allein seinen eigenen inneren Gesetzen zu folgen. Sein Fetischcharakter schien ungebrochen, und daran orientierte sich auch die theoretische Beschäftigung mit der Krise. Die Welle von Klassenkämpfen der 60er und 70er Jahre hat die Infragestellung dieses Fetischcharakters wieder aktuell gemacht. Wir produzieren Geschichte und unsere Kämpfe haben einen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung des Kapitals.
Durch den Gegenangriff des Neoliberalismus und der staatlichen Repression gegen die Bewegungen, durch Arbeitslosigkeit und Austerität, wurde diese subversive Subjektivität der Weltgeschichte wieder verdrängt. Die Macht des Geldes und der Fetisch des Kapitals erhielt mit dem Boom der 90er Jahre neue Legitimität. Aber es war keine Lösung. Die Finanzialisierung war die Flucht des Kapitals aus der Produktion und die Illusion einer rein monetären Kapitalverwertung. Diese Flucht war von immer häufiger auftretenden Krisen begleitet: Börsencrash 1987, 1995 Tequilakrise von Mexiko aus, 1997 Asienkrise, 1998 LTCM- und Russlandkrise, 2000 das Ende des New-Economy-Hypes. Geradezu verwundert zeigen sich die Herrschenden, dass keine dieser Krisen das gesamte globale System in den Abgrund zog wie 1929. Das hat sich jetzt geändert und in den USA macht bereits das Wort vom „global slump of 2008-09“ die Runde. Ausschlaggebend dafür ist die massive Explosion des Derivatehandels in den letzten zehn Jahren und seine internationale Verzahnung. Das bedeutet nichts anderes, als dass die Suche nach profitablen Anlagen immer verzweifelter, immer spekulativer und immer waghalsiger geworden ist. Die Simulation der Kapitalverwertung durch Finanzialisierung lässt sich nicht ins Unendliche fortsetzen. Das ist es, was heute sichtbar wird. Auch darin drückt sich, in versteckter Form, der nach wie vor anhaltende Druck der globalen Arbeiterklassen aus, der einer neuen Intensivierung der Ausbeutung im Wege steht.
Historisch ist die Flucht des Kapitals aus der Überakkumulation in die Finanzialisierung nicht neu. Schon in früheren Zyklen der Entwicklung des kapitalistischen Weltsystems konnten die das System beherrschenden und organisierenden Mächte, wie die Niederlande im 18. und das britische Empire im 19. Jahrhundert, ihren Niedergang nach dem Akut-Werden der Überakkumulation für 30 oder 40 Jahre durch den Wechsel in die Finanzgeschäfte hinauszögern und die Ernte ihrer Vormachtstellung einfahren. Giovanni Arrighi und Beverly Silver haben in ihren Analysen die Entdeckung des „subjektiven Faktors“ in der Krisentheorie mit der welthistorischen Dynamik des Kapitalismus verbunden. Das führt nicht zu einer tristen Wiederholung der immer selben Scheiße vom Auf- und Abstieg der Imperien des Kapitals, sondern zu der Entdeckung, dass die Macht der Ausgebeuteten im Weltsystem tendenziell zugenommen hat. Mit jedem Wechsel ist ihr Einfluss auf die Gestalt und den sozialen Charakter des System größer geworden. Was wir zur Zeit erleben, ist der definitive Beginn des Endes eines kapitalistischen Zyklus, der sich trotz der Barbareien in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts unter US-amerikanischer Ägide noch ein mal entwickeln konnte. Niemand kann voraussagen, wie sich die sozialen Bewegungen von unten in den nächsten Monaten und Jahren in diese Krise einbringen und der Welt ein neues Gesicht geben werden. Wir können aber feststellen, dass unsere Optionen und unsere Macht, in die Geschichte einzugreifen deutlich größer geworden sind. Ein erstes Anzeichen dafür sind die Arbeiterkämpfe von China über Osteuropa bis Ägypten und die Hungerkrawalle auf allen drei Kontinenten, die sich schon jetzt in überraschender Schnelligkeit und Gleichzeitigkeit gegen die Krise entwickeln.
Christian Frings
Die Tendenz zur Überakkumulation, also zu einer Situation, in der zu viel Kapital zu wenigen profitablen Investitionsmöglichkeiten gegenüber steht, ist eine der Hauptkrisentendenzen kapitalistischer Ökonomien. Der von unserer Arbeit produzierte Mehrwert muss jeden Tag wieder irgendwo investiert werden. Wenn KapitalistInnen diesen Mehrwert nun aus irgendeinem Grund (ArbeiterInnenkämpfe, gesättigte Märkte, gesetzliche Vorschriften) nicht auf profitable Art und Weise in Produktion für existierende Märkte investieren können, müssen sie entweder neue Märkte öffnen, oder den Preis bestehender Vermögenswerte hochbieten (Immobilien, Aktien, Währungen…). Dies ist die Ursache der vielen Finanzblasen und –krisen, die wir in den letzten 15 Jahren erlebt haben.
Finanzialisierung beschreibt die massive Ausweitung finanzieller Instrumente, zum Beispiel Derivate, während der letzten 30 Jahre, sowie die wachsende Macht finanzieller Institutionen (Banken, Ratingagenturen, Hedge Fonds) gegenüber anderen sozialen Kräften.
Christian Frings lebt in Köln und beschäftigt sich seit längerem mit der Entwicklung des kapitalistischen Weltsystems, respektive seiner Überwindung durch die Kämpfe der globalen Arbeiterklassen.
English translation here.
Order Turbulence 4
The magazine is out, now!
If you’re interested in getting a bundle to distribute or can help out in any other way, we’d love to hear from you. Email us here.
If you’re in the UK, you can order individual copies directly from us. They’re free, but we’d ask for a small donation to cover postage costs. Email us. Copies will also shortly be available from AK Press and Active Distribution.
In North America, copies will soon be available via PM Press.
And in Germany, copies will be available via Red Stuff.
And, of course, individual articles are all available to read online here, or you can download the whole magazine as a PDF.
Octavia Raitt’s ‘Today’ Drawings
Where does the future start?
What we take to be the present is made up of the apparent repetition of ordinary, regular points. In fact we become so accustomed to these regularities that we lose sight of the subtle differences that occur in their actual repetition. Octavia Raitt’s Today drawings, done at the rate of one a day for 143 days, are a beautiful portrayal of the difference that occurs in the repetition of ordinary points. She shows that finding the singular in the ordinary is a matter of selection. But every singular point means a break from what is ordinary, an opening up of possibility. In order to stop the future being erased by the present, we need to exploit this potential for singular points to change the rules of the game.
- Turbulence
All artwork and images are published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence. If you copy, distribute and transmit artwork, you must credit the work to the artist. You may not use this artwork for commercial purposes, and you may not alter, transform, or build upon this artwork. More details from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Move into the Light? PM Press Edition
‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a Turbulent 2007′ has been republished by PM Press.
Copies can be ordered directly from PM Press here.
Product Details
Written by: Turbulence Collective
Published by: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-031-3
Pub Date: July 2008
Format: Pamphlet
Page Count: 20
Size: 5.5 by 8.5
e-Newsletter 2
CONTENTS
1) Turbulence 04 out now!
2) Help distribute Turbulence
3) Turbulence website relaunch
4) ‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a turbulent 2007′ Republished by PM Press
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1) TURBULENCE 04 OUT NOW!
Turbulence: Ideas for movement No. 4: ‘Who can save us from the future?’
Today, the very act of thinking about the future has become a problem. What both capitalism and ‘really existing socialism’ had in common was the belief in a future where infinite happiness would spring from the infinite expansion of production: sacrifices made in the present could always be justified in terms of a brighter future. And now? The socialist future has been dead since the fall of the Berlin wall. After that we seemed to live in a world where only the capitalist future existed (even when it was under attack). But now this future, too, is having its obituaries composed, and impending doom is the talk of the town. The ‘crisis of the future’ – that is, of our capacity to think about the future – is born out of these twin deaths: today it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
With this in mind we’ve assembled a collection of articles that, in different ways, speak to us about futures. As much as we didn’t want people’s ten-point programmes when, in June 2007 we asked ‘What would it mean to win?’, our interest here has nothing to do with futurology. There are no grand predictions. No imminent victory, because comfort-zone wishful thinking is the last thing anyone needs now; but no apocalyptic doom either. Neither are there any forward-view mirrors where capitalism recuperates everything and always gets the last laugh. We must have the modesty to recognise that the future is unknown, not because today is the end of everything or the beginning of everything else, but because today is where we are. What we do, what is done to us, and what we do with what is done to us, are what decide the way the dice will go. This requires the patient and attentive work of identifying openings, directions, tendencies, potentials, possibilities – all of which are things that amount to nothing if not acted upon – and of finding out new ways in which to think about the future.
CONTENTS
Introduction: Present Tense, Future Conditional by Turbulence
Today I See the Future by Turbulence
1968 and Doors to New Worlds by John Holloway
Starvation Politics: From Ancient Egypt to the Present by George Caffentzis
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast by The Free Association
Global Capitalism: Futures and Options by Christian Frings
The Measure of a Monster: Capital, Class, Competition and Finance by David Harvie
Et tu Bertinotti? by Sandro Mezzadra, with an Introduction by Keir Milburn and Ben Trott
There is No Room for Futurology; History Will Decide by Felix Guattari, with an Introduction by Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott [read as a PDF here (recommended)]
This is Not My First Apocalypse by Fabian Frenzel and Octavia Raitt
The Movement is Dead, Long Live the Movement! by Tadzio Mueller
Network Politics for the 21st Century by Harry Halpin and Kay Summer
Inside art work by Octavia Raitt. Cover design, Kristyna Baczynski
Copies can be ordered from www.turbulence.org.uk
In Germany, copies will be available via Red Stuff www.antifa-versand.de
And in North America, copies will be available via PM Press www.pmpress.org
All articles are also available, for free, via our website.
Please get in touch with us at editors@turbulence.org.uk if you are able to help out with distribution, or would like to translate any of the articles published in this issue. Some translations are already available online. See: www.turbulence.org.uk/translations
Donations to cover costs incurred in production and distribution are welcome! They can be made via our PayPal account, here: http://turbulence.org.uk/donate/ or get in touch with us at editors@turbulence.org.uk
2) HELP DISTRIBUTE TURBULECE
Turbulence operates on an extremely tight budget. We rely on whatever help we can get to distribute the paper. If you can distribute a bundle amongst friends, are organising an info stall at an event, or are involved with a bookshop, social centre or any other space where copies of the magazine could be laid out, please get in touch! Where possible, we’d appreciate it if you could cover the costs of postage. Beyond that, though, all the copies you want are available for free!
Also, we’ve updated our MySpace site a fair bit since the last newsletter. If you have a profile, add us as a friend! www.myspace.com/turbulence_ideas4movement
3) TURBULENCE WEBSITE RELAUNCH
The Turbulence website has now been revamped and relaunched! We hope you like it!
Turb_01, _03, and now _04 are freely available to download as PDFs or read online as plain text. Numerous translations of articles from Turb_01 are available, as well as the whole of ‘Move into the Light?’ Translations of articles from _04 will be posted online as soon as they’re available (a couple are up there already!)
The new website also contains a ‘News’ feature, to keep informed about new Turbulence-related projects. Donations can also be made via the site’s PayPal button.
4) ‘MOVE INTO THE LIGHT? POSTSCRIPT TO A TURBULENT 2007’ REPUBLISHED BY PM PRESS
‘Move into the Light? Postscript to a turbulent 2007’, originally published by Turbulence in December 2007 has been republished as a beautiful little booklet by PM Press (www.pmpress.org)
Copies can be ordered from: https://secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=40
(July 28, 2008)
‘There is no scope for futurology; history will decide’: Félix Guattari on Molecular Revolution
Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott examine Félix Guattari’s trip to Brazil in the early 1980s, and the way he analysed the transformations taking place at the time, asking: how can they resonate with the experiences of today?
[Read this as a PDF here (recommended)]
Introduction
The rise of a new political generation at the turn of the century put a swagger in the step of people doing ‘movement politics’. The resurgence of the global left had essentially taken place outside political parties and institutions, sometimes openly against them. There was not only a tremendous optimism about the possibility for change, but a similar conviction that this time it was not going to be a top-down affair.
In 2001 the world’s only existent superpower changed gears in its foreign policy. The new, unilateral political landscape provided a temporary solution for the management of what seemed like a global crisis of systemic legitimacy. It sent ripples across much of the globe, signifying a severe cramping of the space in which movements had been thriving. They became squeezed between growing criminalisation, a clampdown on civil liberties and a militarisation which left them up against a degree of force they could not match. Across much of Europe and Australasia, this translated as a macro-political shift to the right. It was the same process, but with inverted signs, that took place in Latin America. The quagmire effect of the ‘war on terror’ on a US administration, which would otherwise have been far more ‘interventionist’ in the region, helped create the conditions in which popular opposition to neoliberalism translated into victories for the institutional left. Desires and demands of diverse movements became inscribed in legislation and policy experiments, and new room for manoeuvre was opened. At the same time, in various cases, movements found themselves in a ‘lesser evil’ double bind whereby governments banked on unconditional support as a way of ‘keeping out the right wing’, even when making highly unpopular decisions.
This alone should be enough to demonstrate that the relations between movement and institution are too complex to be posed in ideological terms. If one pole is automatically ‘good’ and the other ‘bad’, or one side ‘real’ politics and the other only its ‘fantasm’, one misses the most important, and essentially practical, point: both are real, and relate to each other in real ways; and however much those doing ‘movement’ politics may wish to ignore it, the field of possibilities open to them is always affected by institutions. Conversely, however much institutional politics may cover it up under the narratives of governmental ‘decisions’, the acts of ‘great leaders’ are always conditioned by the field of constantly transformed social relations in which movements, well, move.
Today’s conjuncture suggests a real possibility that the political sequence opened by 9/11 may be coming to an end with the twilight of neo-conservatism in the US. Much of this hope for change has been invested in Barack Obama, a charismatic figure onto whom the symbols of ‘young outsider’, ‘ethnic minority’ and ‘multicultural background’ have been projected.
To be sure, he hardly represents radical transformative politics. His record is that of a left-of-centre Democrat. Even if one takes his pledge for ‘change we can believe in’ at face value, there are obvious limits to what he promises (and generally to what can be done within the constraints of the Washington beltway). Yet the reactions he has stirred, and the meanings with which he has been invested, suggest the possibility of a transformation in sensibility, a change in the way ‘politics’ is seen and related to. Most importantly, this implies a potential which is not necessarily limited to its object, nor entirely eliminated by the probable disappointment which will follow an equally probable victory.
Yes, of course we’ve seen this film before: (1) change is promised; (2) a lot is banked on the promise; (3) the promise is betrayed, or left partly unfulfilled. But isn’t just falling back on the comfortable, age-old narrative, that institutional politics always betrays transformation, simply stating the obvious, disguised as world-weary experience? Moreover, it precisely avoids asking what movements can/should do in a space that is opened up, for however short a moment. It is a way of dodging the practical problems of political work, similar to saying that revolutions are not desirable because they always fail or turn out bad.
In an interview, Gilles Deleuze once ridiculed those who had ‘discovered’ that revolutions turn out bad: revolutions always fall short of their stated objectives, not to mention the desires invested in them. But a revolution must be distinguished from a becoming-revolutionary: the moment when people undergo a radical transformation as a result of their increased, shared capacity to shape the world in which they live. This is not exhausted by the failure to achieve any particular goal, and can go beyond any betrayal.
It is, of course, too early to speak of what the situation opened by an Obama presidency might or might not be. Instead, we’d like to reopen a discussion on the interplay between movements and institutions, desires and demands, practices and policies, micro- and macro-politics by looking at a different historical moment. In the early 1980s, at the end of two decades of military dictatorship, Félix Guattari travelled to Brazil on the invitation of fellow psychoanalyst and cultural critic, Suely Rolnik, who wanted to expose him to the boiling culture of changes – in racial, gender, political and personal relations – taking place. They organised a series of meetings, interviews and talks across the country, debating those changes with people who were directly engaged in producing them. Some of these were edited and reworked by Rolnik into a book, Molecular Revolution in Brazil, only now made available in English, and from which we have taken the following extracts.
Part of Guattari’s interest lay in seeing how micropolitical changes in sensibility and subjectivity could find support in a focal point provided by the charismatic figure of an outsider relayed by the mass media – Lula – and be given a certain consistency through the formation of the young Workers’ Party (PT). Of course, both Lula and the PT finally won the elections in 2002, and it didn’t take long for cries of ‘betrayal’ to ring out. Soon after electoral victory, one of Lula’s aides, Frei Betto, explained, “We are in government but not in power. Power today is global, the power of big companies, the power of financial capital.” But to merely repeat the narrative of betrayal is to miss what is really important in what has happened, is still happening, and will always happen again in the future: the relations between global, non- or para-State powers and what can be achieved in the framework of the nation-State; and the dynamics between movements and institutions, or micro- and macro-politics. Once an open field of concrete relations is reduced to an empty division between ‘good’ (movements) and ‘bad’ (institutions), it is this complexity – which is always unique to each case – that is entirely erased.
- Rodrigo Nunes & Ben Trott
Sonia Goldfeder: In your view, how does the participation of minority groups in a process of social mutation take place? Should they be coopted by society as a whole, or should they remain apart in order to maintain their difference?
Guattari: It’s necessary to distinguish two levels of reality. Firstly, the level of present reality, in which minority groups are marginalized— their ideas and their way of life are repressed and rejected. Secondly, the level of another reality, where there is a linking up of the left, and where these groups are taken into account, listened to, and have some weight in society. Homosexual groups, for example, obtain new legislation, or groups of psychiatrized people question current methods. All this forms part of a normal, traditional logic of power relations, pressure groups, and so on. Does this mean a cooptation of everything that’s dissident in the movement? That’s the kind of thing I can’t answer. Will Lula’s PT coopt the whole dissident movement that can be seen in part of its grassroots support? I hope not. I only know that among the final points of the PT program there’s one that speaks specifically about “respect for autonomy.” This kind of affirmation in a political program is extraordinary. I’ve never seen it anywhere.
To reject this attempt because of a fear of cooptation isn’t justified in the name of an incapacity to completely express our desire in the situation, in the name of a mythical ethics of autonomy, in the name of the cult of spontaneity. This is an attempt of great importance (…).
Question: Don’t you think it’s a bit over-optimistic to consider that this kind of good faith by the parties in relation to autonomy is possible?
Guattari: There’s always the risk that the parties will crush the minorities. It’s not a matter of optimism or pessimism, but of a fundamental, definitive questioning about all the systems of party, union, group, and sectarian group involved in the course of a liberation struggle. There’s nothing that provides an a priori guarantee that they won’t again transmit the dominant models in this field. Not their program, nor the good faith of their leaders, nor even their practical, concrete commitment to minorities. So what might intervene to prevent this kind of “entropy” (a term that I don’t much like, but I’ll use it) in this field? Precisely the establishment of devices (which we can call whatever we like—analytic devices, devices of molecular revolution, of singularization, and so on), devices on the scale of the individual or the group, or even broader combinations, which would make us raise the issue of the collective formations of desire.
Luiz Swartz: I would like to make an observation. It seems to me that the great paradox in your whole explanation lies in the question of the coexistence of parties with autonomous movements. In your first statement you said that certain kinds of struggle should be routed through that kind of organization, the parties. And that another kind of struggle takes place autonomously. And now you’ve put the question in terms of the party being an instrument that has to be used at a certain point, and not used again afterwards. It seems to me that there’s something very important here: perhaps there’s an incorrect evaluation of the strength of the party. The party, in my opinion, doesn’t lend itself to being used as an instrument, because it eventually acquires a bureaucratized, disciplinary dynamic of its own that practically prevents the continuity of these molecular struggles.
Guattari: I think the treatment of these issues calls for great prudence, because history shows us that this kind of view can have disastrous consequences. First of all, I would like you to understand that I’m not saying that the PT is the eighth wonder of the world (…). I know that there are many problems precisely in relation to the articulation of these minorities with a certain relatively traditional conception of organization. I also know that a trace of what I would call “leaderism” is being established, leaderism that is embodied in the media, and that triggers off a whole series of mechanisms, precisely in the field of collective subjectivity. This, of course, always introduces a certain risk of reification of subjective processes. However, when all is said and done, I believe that even so, there is great novelty, great experimentation, in what is being done here in the PT. It’s not my place to give lessons on revolution, for the good reason that, in my view, there are no possible lessons in this field. Nevertheless, there is at least one thing that I think Europe can try to transmit: the experience of our failures.
In France, after 1968, there was an intense movement of waves of molecular revolution on all levels (…). But the problem was that none of those modes of action was able to pass to another level of struggle. The only link with that other level of struggle, the struggle of other sectors of the population, continued to be the old systems of sectarian groups, the old party and union systems. What happened was that the nonintellectuals who took part in those movements became intellectuals of a kind during the experiments. So there was a gradual agglutination of those nonintellectuals—some militant immigrants, for example, who, by the very nature of the movement, eventually became isolated from the rest of the immigrant population. (…) The problem with this kind of experiment does not have to do with the establishment of an intensive contact between intellectuals and a particular group. But if those groups are actually isolated from all the other social movements, if there is an absence of essential links, they eventually lead to processes of specialization and degeneration. It’s like a kind of wave ceaselessly breaking on itself.
What I think is important in Brazil, therefore, is the fact that the question of an organization capable of confronting political and social issues on a large scale is not going to be raised after some great movement of emancipation of minorities and sensibilities, because it’s being raised now, at the same time. It is clear that it isn’t a question of creating some kind of collective union in defense of the marginal, a common program, or some kind of reductive unifying front. That would be utterly stupid, because it certainly isn’t a question of the minorities and marginal groups making an agreement or adopting the same program, the same theory, or the same attitudes.
That would take us back to the old mass movement conceptions of the socialists and the communists. It’s not a question of adopting a programmatic logic, but a “situational logic.” On the other hand, it also doesn’t mean that tendencies seeking to affirm their singularity should abandon machines such as that of the PT. If that happened, gradually we would find only one kind of singularity in the PT: that of the “hard line” professional militants (…). That’s where the problem lies. Of course, I’m not trying to outline a philosophy of this issue. But it seems to me that it’s necessary to invent a means that allows the coexistence of these two dimensions. Not just a practical means, a means of real intervention in the field, but also a new kind of sensibility, a new kind of reasoning, a new kind of theory.
Néstor Perlongher: I think that not enough importance is being given here to the problem of political statements, in the following sense: the big problem of the connection of these small micropoliticalmovements (…) is the statement with which those micropolitical movements are articulated. If this is true, I think that the power of those declarations is being underestimated. The conventional guy, whether he’s a worker or not, becomes totally unglued when a pretty, intellectual fag appears, speaking on behalf of the PT. A guy like that isn’t going to connect with this kind of statement. (…) So what I ask is: up to what point are we from the micropolitical, minority, molecular movements going to defend these archaic statements like democratic censorship, or the reduction of the idea of revolution to a modification of the economy, which leads, as has been seen, to overexploitation and superdictatorship?
Guattari: I don’t suppose you’re going to prepare a notebook of complaints for Lula, asking him for proof that he has an accurate conception of what the fate of homosexuals, blacks, women, the psychiatrized, and so on is going to be. What Lula has to be asked is to contribute to the overthrow of all molar stratifications as they exist now. As for everything else, each person has to assume his responsibilities in the position he’s assembled socially. I don’t think that Lula is the “Father of the Oppressed,” or the “Father of the Poor,” but I do think that he’s performing a fundamental role in the media, and that’s essential at this point in the electoral campaign. He’s the vehicle of an extremely important vector of dynamics in the current situation, such as the well-known power that he has to mobilize people who are totally apolitical. In this respect, Lula is not identifiable with the PT. The role that Lula is performing in the media is very important, because nowadays one can’t consider the struggles at all the levels without considering this factor of the production of subjectivity by the media.
Suely Rolnik: I’ve been thinking about how the book should deal with the considerable space that the discussions about the PT took up during the trip. Perhaps it isn’t appropriate to reproduce the “electoral campaign” facet, for the simple reason that it’s no longer a topical issue. But at the same time, it could be important to do so as long as it’s in a way that reveals, and even emphasizes, what in my view was central in your investment in the PT: not to focus on the PT itself, as something sacred, but on the kind of device that the PT represented at that time. A device that made possible the expression of issues concerning formations of desire in the social field; and, above all, a device that made possible the articulation of that plane of reality with the plane of the struggles that require broad social and political agglutinations. I would even say that the agglutination of these two planes was the leading figure in your campaign for the PT. What was unusual about your position was precisely the fact that you called attention to the need and possibility for that articulation to take place. And throughout the trip you never stopped recalling the fact that, recently, this tendency to downplay the broader social struggles has caused damage at least as serious as the disregard for the problematics related to desire.
In addition to having made it possible to highlight this kind of issue, the discussions about the campaign also helped us to tune in to the frequency of a completely deterritorialized official political voice in the voice of Lula (a kind of free radio station, but with the peculiarity of broadcasting directly from within the official media). Those discussions also helped to make it possible to see, in the PT at that time, a collective assemblage that was drawing the political scene outside its traditional domain. In short, a “war machine.” But now things are different. In addition to the fact that we are no longer in the electoral campaign, there’s no guarantee that the PT still is and is still going to be that device, which makes the presence of this element in the book questionable, at least with that emphasis. That’s why I was saying that it would only be interesting to preserve it in order to share the understanding that the existence of this kind of device is essential in order to make the processes of singularization less vulnerable. Therefore it’s necessary to be sensitive to its emergence in a great variety of social fields—not only in political parties, of course, and not only in the PT.
Guattari: It seems to me important that the problems of the organization and the constitution of a new kind of machine for struggle should be concealed as little as possible. Even as a failure—which, after all, may not be the case—it seems to me that the experience of the PT is primordial. How can we make the new components of subjectivity emerge on a national scale (in terms of the media)? What is important here is not the result, but the emergence of the problematics. There is no scope for futurology; history will decide. There are two possibilities: either the PT will be completely contaminated by the virus of sectarianism, in which case each autonomous component will “make tracks,” and the PT can go to hell; or else the process that seems to be being triggered off in some places will tend to neutralize these sectarian-style components, and it may even happen, according to Lula’s hypothesis, that, depending on the strength of the movements, those components may eventually dissolve. Everything will depend on the local circumstances and the usefulness or not of the instrument of the PT. If all this goes “down the drain,” if the PT becomes another PMDB and Lula becomes a leader of heaven knows what, then that’s it, it’s over. It would only mean that the consistency of the process didn’t take hold in this kind of assemblage, and that the struggles of molecular revolution will continue through other paths.
If we insist on dealing with the problems of a political practice from a classical viewpoint—a tendency, a group, or a method of organization versus autonomous groups that do not want to know about leaders, or to articulate themselves—we shall find ourselves in a total impasse, because we shall be revolving around an eternal debate that sets modes of apprehension of the domain of centralism against “spontaneism” or anarchism, considered as sources of generosity and creativity, but also of disorder, incapable of leading to true transformations. It does not seem to me that the opposition is this—between a supremely efficient, centralized, functional device on the one hand, and autonomy on the other.
The dimension of organization is not on the same plane as the issue of autonomy. The issue of autonomy belongs to the domain of what I would call a “function of autonomy,” a function that can be embodied effectively in feminist, ecological, homosexual, and other groups, but also—and why not?—in machines for large-scale struggle, such as the PT. Organizations such as parties or unions are also terrains for the exercise of a “function of autonomy.” Let me explain: the fact that one acts as a militant in a movement allows one to acquire a certain security and no longer feel inhibition and guilt, with the result that sometimes, without realizing it, in our actions we convey traditional models (hierarchical models, social welfare models, models that give primacy to a certain kind of knowledge, professional training, etc.). That is one of the lessons of the 1960s, a period when, even in supposedly liberating actions, old clichés were unconsciously reproduced. And it is an important aspect for consideration, because conservative conceptions are utterly unsuitable for developing processes of emancipation.
The question, therefore, is not whether we should organize or not, but whether or not we are reproducing the modes of dominant subjectivation in any of our daily activities, including militancy in organizations. It is in these terms that the “function of autonomy” must be considered. It is expressed on a micropolitical level, which has nothing to do with anarchy, or with democratic centralism. Micropolitics has to do with the possibility that social assemblages may take the productions of subjectivity in capitalism into consideration, problematics that are generally set aside in the militant movement.
In my view, it is necessary to try to construct a new kind of representation, something that I call a new cartography. It is not just about a simple coexistence of centralized apparatuses and processes of singularization, because, at the end of the day, the Leninists always had the very same discourse: on one side the Party, the Central Committee, and the Politburo, and on the other, the mass organizations, where everyone does his own little job, everyone cultivates his garden. And between them are the “transmission belts”: a hierarchy of tasks, a hierarchy of instruments of struggle, and, in fact, an order of priority that always leads to manipulation and control of the struggles of molecular revolution by the central apparatuses.
The construction of machines for struggle, war machines, which we need in order to overthrow the situations of capitalism and imperialism, cannot have only political and social objectives that form part of a program embodied by certain leaders and representatives. The function of autonomy is not that of a simple degree of tolerance in order to sweeten centralism with a pinch of autonomy. Its function is what will make it possible to capture all impulses of desire and all intelligences, not in order to make them converge on a single arborescent central point, but to place them in a huge rhizome that will traverse all social problematics, both at a local or regional level and at a national or international level.
Explainers
‘Lula’ and the Workers’ Party (PT): The Brazilian Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) was founded in 1980 by workers and intellectuals. Luiz Inácio da Silva (Lula), leader of the metal worker strikes of the late 1970s, was one of the founders and is currently President of Brazil, elected in 2002 and again in 2006.
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PMDB: From 1965 to 1979, the military enforced a two-party system in Brazil, where the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement) gathered all the politicians who opposed the regime (and who hadn’t been persecuted or had their political rights suspended). This made it into a strange amalgam of forces ranging from regional oligarchs to liberals and infiltrated leftwing elements. When a plural political system was reintroduced, many of these forces broke away and formed their own parties – many PT founders were MDB members at some point. The newly named PMDB stayed the largest Brazilian party, but without any politics of its own: a hugely contradictory, often corrupt, loose association of interests that uses its size to negotiate with each government. It is part of Lula’s parliamentary base. From 1965 to 1979, the military enforced a two-party system in Brazil, where the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement) gathered all the politicians who opposed the regime (and who had not been persecuted or had their political rights suspended). This made it into a strange amalgam of forces ranging from regional oligarchs to liberals and infiltrated leftwing elements. When a plural political system was reintroduced, many of these forces broke away and formed their own parties. Many PT founders were MDB members at some point. The newly-named PMDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement Party) remained the largest Brazilian party, but without any politics of its own: a hugely contradictory, often corrupt, loose association of interests that uses its size to negotiate with each government. It is part of Lula’s parliamentary base.
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The arborescent and rhizomatic: ‘Arborescent’ means tree-like and describes centralised and hierarchical structures, where the only connections between the various parts that make up the whole pass through its single core. In botany, ‘rhizomes’ are horizontal roots systems, usually underground. They do not have a centre and tend to be characterised by numerous transversal connections. They are not static. Yet these are two tendencies that can be distinguished in thought rather than completely opposite realities: arborescent structures contain and can become rhizomes, and vice-versa. The text you are reading is probably best read rhizomatically. There is no single clear argument, beginning or end, but rather a distribution of connected thoughts and questions to be taken up and deployed in different contexts. The coloured lines (not shown here) connecting words, sentences and segments of text only illustrate a small number of some of the most obvious connections.
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Micropolitics: For Guattari and his long-term collaborator, Gilles Deleuze, with whom he wrote Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, ‘desires’ (productive, living, material flows) are always in excess of any stable system in which they can be articulated (the state, capital, but also a social or political group). Micro-politics largely refers to this excess, to the fact that there are always new connections, flows, and desires that take place. ‘Micro’ and ‘macro’ is not a matter of scale, but of levels – the first has to do with transformations in sensibility and ways of relating, the second with conscious positions, demands, open struggles. This does not mean that a ‘micro’ transformation cannot happen to a large number of people – for instance, in the way in which a figure in the mass media can serve as a relay for subjective transformations to communicate with each other.
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Molar and molecular: In chemistry, a ‘mole’ is the name given to a (large) unit of molecules dissolved in a solution. For Deleuze and Guattari, ‘molar’ and ‘molecular’ form a paired concept: not exactly opposites, connected yet distinct, whose use is ‘dependent on a system of reference’ (whether an object is seen from its ‘closed’ or ‘open’ side) and scale (the cell is molecular in relation to the organism, the organism is molecular in relation to the social group etc.). To the extent that it refers to larger aggregates, the political meaning of molar tends to be associated with the level of governance, the state, political parties, but also social movements, policies, demands: what is extensive and can be measured. The molecular generally refers to the micro-political level, to processes which take place below the level of perception, in ‘affects’ (impersonal sensations which transform a body’s capacity to act and be acted upon). To think of politics as composed of both molar and molecular transformations, and of the two levels as distinguishable by right but not distinct or separate in fact, provides a model for thinking the complexity of relations through which political movement and struggle takes place.
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Minority: ‘Minority’ can be understood in reference to the molar/molecular distinction. Whilst ‘major’ is taken to represent a relatively fixed, stable, perceptible and measurable mode of being, the ‘minor’ is what is potentially capable of unsettling it, being open to movements of becoming that open the major to new compositions and make deterritorialisations possible.
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War machine: The [nomadic] ‘war machine’ has nothing to do with the military-industrial-complex. It is opposed to the ‘State machine’ as exteriority is opposed to interiority. The latter always works by incorporating what is outside it, putting it to work. The former is a positive (non-antagonistic), productive, restless movement that, while always creating the territories where it gathers some temporary consistency, is always going beyond the sedentarism (stillness) and centralisation that characterise the State.
The extracts reprinted here are taken from Félix Guattari and Suely Rolnik (2008) Molecular Revolution in Brazil (Semiotext(e)). Alongside several of his essays, the book contains interviews and talks given by Guattari, recomposed and edited by Rolnik.
The extracts published here were selected by Rodrigo Nunes and Ben Trott who also wrote the Introduction and accompanying explanatory texts. Both are editors of Turbulence. Rodrigo Nunes revised the translation of the English language edition of Molecular Revolution in Brazil. editors@turbulence.org.uk
Suely Rolnik is a cultural critic, curator, psychoanalyst and professor at the Universidade Católica de São Paulo, where she conducts a transdisciplinary doctoral program on contemporary subjectivity, and at the Programme of Independent Studies of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona.
Félix Guattari was a French activist, psychoanalyst and philosopher, with a long-term involvement in the experimental La Borde clinic, institutional analysis, and different movements. Best known for his collaborative works with Gilles Deleuze, particularly Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, he also authored books such as Chaosmosis and The Three Ecologies.
Today I See the Future
We can only ever think the future in the conditions of the present. And one of the most powerful myths is always that the present is the natural order of things: ‘It has always been like this, and it always will be.’ Ten years ago, against that closure of the future, a multiplicity of movements arose which claimed that other worlds were indeed possible. It went by a multitude of names: the ‘movement of movements’, alter-globalisation, anti-globalisation, the anti-capitalist movement. We knew it by the names of the cities where, in flashes, it would become most visible – Seattle, Chiang Mai, Genoa, Porto Alegre, Cancun.
Looking back today, it’s hard to avoid two simultaneous impressions: success and failure. On the one hand, the movement of movements, compared to those days, appears a spent force; yet the situation it opposed has changed. The faint outlines of a victory? The door of history is open – or at least more open than it appeared ten years ago. Things that were necessary articles of faith have been discredited even in the eyes of their proponents. Political freedom goes hand-in-hand with free markets? The invisible hand of the free market, unburdened by regulation, knows best? Utter rubbish. In the words of the UK government’s Chief Economist, Nicholas Stern, climate change is “the biggest market failure in history”. Lawrence Summers, former US-Treasury Secretary and World Bank Chief Economist publicly defects from neoliberalism when he argues that “what is good for the global economy and its business champions” isn’t necessarily good for workers. Of course, it’s easy to overstate the point. The door of history wasn’t forced open only by ‘the movements’ – not unless we re-define ‘the movements’ to include millions who’ve never heard of Seattle or Chiang Mai or Genoa. But this much is clear: the liberal-democratic-free-market-capitalist future that was the only flavour on offer at the turn of the century has gone out of fashion in 2008, and the futures paraded before us all look rather different.
We see a few stifled yawns: yet another crisis and the end, if not of capitalism, then at least of its latest manifestation – bored now! Anti-capitalists are renowned for seeing every little downturn as the precursor of complete economic meltdown. And of course, CAPITALISM IN CRISIS! is the perennial headline of choice in left-wing newspapers the world over. We’ve all been there. Exactly a decade ago, two of us sat with a stack of envelopes and sent letters with precisely that title to hundreds of the world’s social movements, in the hope of finding more people to shut down the summits of the WTO, the G8, the IMF etc. So maybe it is hard for us to say this with any credibility. But this time it’s different. Honest. Back then, the crisis was an emerging one, and it had more to do with the growing perceived illegitimacy of neoliberalism than with anything more ‘material’.
OK, don’t take it from us. Read the Financial Times, Economist or Wall Street Journal. Every day there are articles asking what is to come now that the ‘American Century’ has ended, now that food prices can’t be kept in check, climate change rolls on, the world’s financial architecture seizes up, oil production finally has peaked… It is ironic that, while on the left it seems impossible to conjure up an image of revolution – a rupture with the past and the end of capitalism – the FT imagine it all the time. If it happens, it’s the end of their readership’s power; so they’re keen to discuss what to do about it. Or take the new Shell report,Energy Scenarios to 2050. They state boldly that the era of Thatcher’s ‘There is No Alternative’-doctrine is over. Now the choice is a “scramble” for resources and some nightmarish Hobbesian war of all against all, or “blueprints”. That’s right, “blueprints”: some sort of organised supra-national planning. Meanwhile on the left, we only seem able to imagine the end of the world as Mad Max-style mayhem arising from our fashionable new friend ‘eco-collapse’.
PRESENT TENSE
The food crisis. The climate crisis. The oil price crisis. The Iraq crisis. The financial crisis. Crises are nothing new. We should know: we’ve cried wolf before. Back in 1997, in the midst of the Asian financial crisis, when millions of people were thrown out of work, governments fell and South America teetered on the brink of joining the crash-fest, some of us were excited. It was tempting to see those millions out of work, the race-to-the-bottom wage reductions, as bringing us closer to rupture, to radical change. But far from heralding capitalism’s downfall, these crises are in fact precisely what capital needs to constantly revolutionise itself and the world around it. So why think that now is different? Why think this is a turning point, and not simply another turn of the screw of capital’s waves of creative destruction? Are we not all Schumpeterians now?
Joseph Schumpeter was an economist who popularised the term ‘creative destruction’ to describe the regular revolutionising of economic and regulatory structures and institutions needed to ensure new ‘long waves’ of economic growth. Crises were seen as a he