Milo Yannopoulos, quien escribe para el sitio web de la derecha alternativa (esto es, supremacistas blancos o neofascistas) Breitbart.com, es un maestro a la hora de victimizar a otras personas y luego reclamar para él el estatus de víctima cuando le devuelven el golpe. Por ejemplo, aprovechó seriamente un cargo en el cuerpo de prensa de la Casa Blanca para quejarse ante el expresidente Obama de que Twitter le quitara el visto bueno para publicar. E, infortunadamente, Yiannopoulos dispone de muchísimos facilitadores en la denominada derecha «libertaria». Su última apropiación del estatus de víctima tuvo lugar tras la cancelación de su aparición en la Universidad de California en Berkeley el 31 de enero, a causa de las presuntas inquietudes de seguridad de la administración en torno a manifestaciones violentas. Y Robby Soave, de la publicación Reason — quien aparentemente tiene habilitadas las notificaciones de Google Noticias para «microagresión», «apropiación cultural» y «espacio seguro» — está abucheando a la par en perfecta harmonía («UC-Berkeley Protesters Set Campus on Fire, Shut Down Milo Yiannopoulos Event», 1 de febrero).

Soave, interesantemente, se reserva el término «despreciable» para el «despliegue de violencia y censura» de los manifestantes, optando, cual sabandija, por la palabra «controversial» para Yiannopoulos — un ídolo entre «realistas raciales», activistas de derechos del varón, GamerGaters, miembros de 4chan y todos los otros pútridos trozos del estofado rancio que es la audiencia de Breitbart. Dice algo acerca de las prioridades morales de Soave. Este también regurgita acríticamente el sesgo de Yiannopoulos de que «la izquierda está absolutamente aterrorizada con la libre expresión».

Esto lleva a preguntarse si la aparición de Yiannopoulos se trataba solamente de «expresión», o tal vez algo más — una pregunta inconveniente que Soave, de manifiesto, no tiene interés en investigar porque no encaja en su narrativa de preferencia. Ni una vez, en su artículo genérico, aborda Soave la cuestión de lo que Yiannopulos fue a hacer a Berkeley.

Yiannopoulos tiene un historial de cruzar la raya entre la «libre expresión» y la acción concreta. Fue bloqueado de Twitter el año pasado por incitar a sus seguidores a atacar con lluvias de hostigamiento a la actriz de los Cazafantasmas Leslie Jones. En una aparición en UW Milwaukee, proyectó en pantalla la imagen de una activista de los derechos transgénero y la señaló a sus seguidores de fraternidad, lo que resultó en una espiral de acoso que llevó a que ella abandonara la universidad. Se regodeó de hecho por el retiro de la muchacha en apariciones subsecuentes, aseverando que había protegido a las estudiantes del acoso de esta estudiante en los vestidores. Esta es la personalidad que Robby Soave llama «controversial» — en la misma oración en que llama «despreciables» a estudiantes que intentaron silenciar a Yiannopoulos en Berkeley. De nuevo, es bueno saber dónde yacen sus prioridades morales.

Yiannopoulos, según informes, planeaba hacer lo mismo en Berkeley, solo que a una escala mucho mayor. Su aparición en Berkeley se centraría en atacar su política de «universidad santuario», enfocada en proteger la información personal de estudiantes indocumentados de las autoridades de inmigración federales. En The Independent, Maya Oppenheim («UC Berkeley protests: Milo Yiannopoulos planned to ‘publicly name undocumented students’ in cancelled talk», 3 de febrero) citó fuentes que sostenían que Yiannopoulos  pretendía delatar estudiantes indocumentados en una emisión de video en directo de su presentación, e instar a las divisiones republicanas universitarias locales a hacer lo mismo, desafiando las universidades santuario por todo el país.

Yiannopoulos ha negado estas acusaciones, afirmando que había planeado denunciar el concepto de apropiación cultural mientras portaba un tocado nativo americano. Pero en Breitbart.com quedó registrado, el día anterior, que su tema serían los campus universitarios santuario y una instigación a perseguir a algunos oficiales del campus por obstrucción a la justicia. Así que se puede apostar con seguridad que estaba mintiendo.

Así que procesemos esto. Delatar estudiantes indocumentados y azuzar a la policía federal para que se abalance sobre ellos no es solamente «expresión». Es acción — una acción que, pese a la renuencia de Robby Soave al aplicarla a Yiannopoulos, es despreciable. Me atrevería a ir un paso más allá y llamarlo criminal, ya que implica ayuda y complicidad en un acto de agresión contra la libertad de estudiantes que no son culpables de ninguna acción indebida.

Lo que Yiannopoulos pretendía hacer era el equivalente moral de denunciar a la familia de Anne Frank con la Gestapo. (Robby, si eso no te toca alguna fibra emocional, solo pretende que Yiannopoulos iba a azuzar a la policía en contra de un establecimiento de vaporeo.)

Así que, en resumen, las manifestaciones en contra de la aparición de Yiannopoulos no eran solamente cuestión de «libre expresión», se trataban de acción directa en defensa de las personas más vulnerables en el campus en contra de alguien que trabaja en complot con el estado policial para despojarlos de sus derechos humanos básicos. Yannopoulos es despreciable, y cualquier «libertario» que lo defienda es asimismo despreciable.

Artículo original publicado por Kevin Carson el 10 de febrero de 2017

Traducción del inglés por Mario Murillo

Como izquierdistas radicales que somos, tendemos a favorecer una mirada al panorama general. Favorecemos una transformación radical del mundo a nuestro alrededor y, con esta meta en mente y numerosas generaciones de análisis colectivo, tendemos a preferir escudriñar las causas radiculares de los problemas de la sociedad y atacar esas raíces. Así que, a fin de abordar la violencia armada, debemos abordar sus raíces.

El sitio web del Liberal Gun Club manifiesta:

Favorecemos la mitigación de raíz para la prevención de la violencia, un cuidado de la salud mental más fuerte, abordar la cuestión de la pobreza, la indigencia y el desempleo, en lugar de concentrarnos en prohibir o restringir una herramienta.

Estos son los problemas de raíz, entre otros, que deben abordarse con prelación a fin de combatir más efectivamente la violencia armada. Para la parte 2 de esta serie de ensayos (leer la parte 1 aquí), abordaremos la causa raíz que ha sido más materia de debate y la más exagerada. Pese a cuán exagerada pueda ser a veces, sigue siendo un asunto que necesita abordarse de todos modos.

Salud Mental

Las más de las veces, cuando hay un tiroteo en un espacio público, se cuestiona la salud mental de tirador. Dejando de lado el hecho de que muchos trastornos mentales se construyen socialmente para encasillar comportamientos percibidos como «inaptos» o «diferentes», y algunos de estos han sido influenciados históricamente por la política del momento (a saber, histeria, homosexualidad, desorden de identidad de género, etc.), la mayor parte del tiempo estas personas son etiquetadas con estos diagnósticos por personas que tienen poca o acaso ninguna experiencia médica, o contacto personal con el tirador, lo cual no contribuye en nada con la conversación, excepto cuando se trata de estigmatizar a aquellos que viven con problemas de salud mental.

De acuerdo al ensayo de Kelly Vee Armemos a los enfermos mentales:

Las personas que son neurodivergentes corren un mayor riesgo de ser objetos de violencia que de perpetrarlas. Una de cada cuatro personas neurodivergentes experimentan violencia sexual, física o doméstica en un dado año […] Independientemente de la naturaleza de la neurodivergencia propia, un estudio de 1998 mostró que, salvo que estén presentes drogas o alcohol, los neurodivergentes no son más propensos a cometer actos de violencia que otras personas. Cuando las personas con trastornos mentales comenten, en efecto, actos de violencia, casi siempre estos actos se dirigen a miembros de la familia y amigos, no a extraños.

Cuando las estadísticas muestran que la mayoría de las personas con problemas de salud mental tienden más a ser las víctimas de crímenes violentos que las perpetradoras de los mismos, sigue siendo difícil culpar al trastorno mental de la violencia armada. Incluso aquellos que viven con un trastorno mental son de todos modos responsables por sus acciones, y sus motivos no pueden atribuirse a una enfermedad mental. Este tipo de cosas suceden usualmente porque el tirador ha sido influenciado por una ideología tóxica o se ve presionado en demasía. Pero esto no quiere decir que la salud mental no pueda jugar o no haya jugado un papel en la violencia relacionada con armas.

En lugar de intentar diagnosticar a personas que no conocemos con nuestro conocimiento médico, que ni es requerido ni es profesional, dejemos que tales cosas sean diagnosticadas y tratadas por doctores. Pero los tratamientos de salud mental no están disponibles actualmente para todos los que los necesitan. No solo carecen muchas personas de seguros médicos, sino que además algunos trastornos mentales hacen más difícil que algunos individuos preserven adecuadamente sus empleos y cuiden de sí mismos en formas que beneficien su salud mental y les confieran acceso a atención médica. De hecho, «un cuarto de la población sin techo sufre de severos desórdenes mentales, pues la sociedad que vive con miedo de los enfermos mentales los deja expuestos a violencia callejera y brutalidad policíaca». Muchos de estos problemas provienen de la estigmatización misma de los trastornos mentales, lo que, por ende, impide que las personas neurodivergentes accedan a recursos necesarios y obtengan ayuda. Culpar sin necesidad al trastorno mental de la violencia armada sin prueba alguna solo conduce a estigmatizar aún más, lo cual perpetúa el ciclo que impide que las personas neurodivergentes reciban tratamiento.

Si deseamos lidiar con la violencia armada relacionada con la salud mental, debemos trabajar por un acceso más amplio a una asistencia médica más adecuada en nuestras áreas. La solución más sencilla aquí y ahora es el establecimiento de clínicas gratuitas, y asegurarnos de que las personas que conocemos reciban tratamiento adecuado de cualquier forma posible. El Proyecto Ícaro y los grupos de apoyo comunitario son también una buena manera de lidiar con trastornos mentales, y cumplen un propósito similar a charlar con un terapeuta.

Acabar con el control que las grandes farmacéuticas tienen sobre la industria médica es también una manera de ayudar a quienes parecen trastornos mentales. Esto implica acabar con los subsidios de gobierno a la industria farmacéutica, incluyendo las protecciones de propiedad intelectual. Deshacerse de la PI daría cabida a la creación de versiones genéricas de drogas eficaces para la salud mental, así como a la reducción del precio de marcas comerciales mediante la competencia. Acabar con las leyes de la guerra contra las drogas que tratan con cuestiones como el uso no recetado de drogas permitiría que aquellos que no tienen acceso a atención médica sigan teniendo acceso a las drogas que necesitan incluso después de que sus recetas caduquen. Actualmente, muchas comunidades neurodivergentes recurren ya a prácticas como las recetas compartidas, y los mercados en la web oscura también permiten que la gente acceda a drogas que de otro modo les costaría mucho obtener.

Las medicinas «alternativas» son también útiles. Visite a su brujo o herbolario local para obtener sugerencias sobre hierbas y otras medicinas que puedan ayudar a lidiar con los efectos de la enfermedad como alternativa o complemento al uso de drogas recetadas. Una hierba que ha probado ser muy efectiva para múltiples trastornos mentales es el cannabis. Sin embargo, hay actualmente un veto federal que impide que personas que portan licencias para uso de marihuana medicinal puedan adquirir armas de fuego. Esto, al igual que gran parte de la legislación de control de armas, se equivoca bastante y debe ser rechazado. En una época en que la gente de todas las latitudes políticas comienza a ver la legalización del cannabis de una manera positiva, es tiempo de problematizar este asunto en la comunidad de derechos a las armas. No deberíamos vernos forzados a escoger entre salud y protección.

Muchos de nosotros vivimos con trastornos mentales porque hemos sufrido traumas en nuestras vidas. Despojarnos de nuestro derecho a defendernos de la violencia cuando ya hemos sido recipientes de violencia es contraproducente y deja indefensos a muchos de aquellos que están marginados y vulnerables de cara a violencias presentes y futuras. Tratemos los trastornos mentales, ayudemos a los sobrevivientes y enseñémosles cómo defenderse a sí mismos.

Por supuesto que la salud mental está lejos de ser el único factor en juego en lo tocante a la violencia armada en la sociedad. En la parte 3 discutiré más de estas causas radiculares y cómo abordarlas.

Artículo original publicado por Logan Marie Glitterbomb el 10 de febrero de 2017

Traducción del inglés por Mario Murillo

El control de armas es un gran problema para muchos izquierdistas. El Partido Demócrata ha hecho campaña por años sobre una plataforma de control de armas. Semejantes medidas, afirman, son la única manera de reducir la violencia armada y salvar vidas. Afirman hacer esto para salvar las vidas de personas negras, marrones y de escasos recursos. Afirman intentar salvar a personas LGBTQ. Pero ¿está ayudando realmente el control de armas a la gente marginada?

Con el ascenso del movimiento de la derecha alternativa, el recrudecimiento de los crímenes de odio, las prácticas policiales racistas y la islamofobia rampante, el mundo sigue demostrando ser un lugar peligroso. La propaganda de la guerra contra el terror contribuye a estos ataques en contra de musulmanes, árabes e incluso aquellos que son percibidos como tal por racistas ignorantes que no disciernen entre alguien de ascendencia árabe y alguien que sea latino, indio o que tenga tez marrón. El miedo a la pérdida de empleos se orienta equívocamente hacia mejicanos y otros pueblos latinos. Los terroristas domésticos dirigen sus esfuerzos a personas queer de color. Los autoproclamandos «activistas por los derechos del varón» hablan desde los púlpitos universitarios y aparecen en entrevistas hablando de los males del feminismo mientras trivializan e incluso excusan la agresión sexual, la violación y la violencia contra las mujeres, creando así ambientes inseguros y desprotegidos. Las prácticas policiales intolerantes toman como blancos a personas indígenas, negras, marrones, queer y trans. Y puesto que muchos en los movimientos de derecha alternativa y supremacía blanca, junto con sus partidarios, ovacionan abiertamente la victoria presidencial de Trump como un triunfo para ellos y sus creencias, no hemos visto sino un escalamiento en los crímenes de odio, una tendencia que tiene previsto continuar.

Así que surge la pregunta: ¿cómo combatimos los crímenes de odio y protegemos las comunidades marginadas? Muchos creen que las leyes de crímenes de odio ayudan a frenar las tasas de crímenes y a proteger a las personas marginadas, pero grupos civiles como Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, The Sylvia Rivera Law Project y Against Equality están en desacuerdo:

Simple y llanamente, la legislación en torno a crímenes de odio incrementa el poder y vigor del sistema penitenciario, al detener a más gente por periodos de tiempo más largos. Las personas trans, la gente de color y otros grupos marginados se ven encarcelados desproporcionadamente. Las personas trans y de género no conformista, particularmente las mujeres trans de color, son regularmente percibidas como blancos y detenidas injustamente por hacer poco más que caminar por la calle. Si estamos encarcelando a aquellos que cometen violencia contra individuos/comunidades marginadas, acabamos poniéndoles detrás de muros en donde siguen hostigando a las mismas personas. No redunda en el interés de las comunidades marginadas depender de un sistema que ya comete tanta violencia para luego pretender que las proteja.

Con movimientos como Black Lives Matter, las protestas contra la militarización de la policía, la actual ola de huelgas carcelarias que ocurren por toda la nación e incluso el lanzamiento del documental de Netflix 13th, el sistema policial y penitenciario está quedando desnudo para el ojo público, y muchos son los que se están dando cuenta de la intolerancia inherente en estos sistemas; ellos empiezan a abogar por medidas, desde la total reformulación y reconstrucción, hasta una abolición completa del estado policial y el complejo industrial penitenciario. A medida que se torna claro que los individuos marginados no pueden depender de estos sistemas para protegerse del odio, muchos están buscando otras soluciones para protegerse.

A fin de encontrar esas soluciones, muchos están recurriendo a ejemplos históricos y contemporáneos sentados por grupos de derechos civiles a través de los tiempos. Deacons for Defense and Justice, Black Armed Guard, Fruit of Islam y Muslim Girls Training, Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Red Guard Party, Brown Berets, Young Lords, Young Patriots, American Indian Movement, Brothas Against Racist Cops, Black Guns Matter, John Brown Gun Club/Redneck Revolt, John Brown Militia, Huey P. Newton Gun Club, Sylvia Rivera Gun Club for Self-Defense, Indigenous People’s Liberation Front y Pink Pistols, todos estos grupos proveen ejemplos de comunidades marginadas y sus partidarios, quienes utilizaron armas de fuego como forma de defensa propia y defensa de otros en contra de crímenes de odio, protección contra la policía y como medio para desafiar la opresión proveniente de todas partes en el espectro político. En palabras de Huey P. Newton, «nunca hemos defendido la violencia; la violencia se nos inflige a nosotros. Pero sí creemos en la autodefensa para nosotros y para la gente negra [y toda la gente marginada]».

¿Pero acaso no ayuda el control de armas nacido del «sentido común» a proteger las comunidades marginadas? Bien, pues simple y sencillamente no, no lo hace. De hecho, la mayor parte del control de armas en realidad tiene el efecto opuesto, dejar a las comunidades marginadas desarmadas e indefensas de cara a la violencia. El control de armas tiene, en realidad, una historia bastante racista. Muchas de las primeras leyes de armas decretadas por el gobierno estadounidense tenían como corolario evitar que la gente negra libre poseyera o portara armas de fuego, excepto bajo supervisión de sus señores, por miedo a una rebelión de esclavos. Los levantamientos encabezados por John Brown y otros, y las armadas de esclavos formadas durante la guerra civil, demostraron que estos miedos estaban justificados. Para aquellos que vivían aherrojados, las armas significaban libertad. Décadas después, en el punto álgido de los movimientos de derechos civiles para negros y de liberación, a Martin Luther King, Jr. se le negó un permiso de porte de armas luego de que su vivienda fuera bombardeada en 1956, Malcolm X instó a los afroamericanos a defenderse usando los medios necesarios, las Panteras Negras realizaron marchas con armas a la vista y la Asociación Nacional del Rifle se introdujo en la arena de la política de armas por primera vez.

En el momento de su creación, la Asociación Nacional del Rifle era meramente lo que sugiere su nombre: una asociación del rifle o un club de armas. Sus miembros se preocupaban más por enseñar a otros cómo disparar que por la política, pero, producto del miedo a las Panteras Negras, la NRA ayudó a Ronald Reagan a presentar un proyecto de ley de control de armas conocido como Mulford Act. Así como lo oyen, la NRA inició su carrera política luchando por un control de armas motivado por miedo racista. Desde entonces, las denominadas medidas de «sentido común» del control de armas han sido dominio de la izquierda, con un giro de autodenominada antiintolerancia. Y, aun así, sus medidas de control de armas se basan primariamente en cosas como verificación de antecedentes y análisis de salud mental. Pero en una sociedad donde las personas marginadas son blancos más probables de la policía y se convierten en víctimas del sistema penitenciario, lo cual les representa la desproporcionada e injusta etiqueta de delincuentes, incluso por crímenes no violentos o por intentar defenderse, la verificación de antecedentes conduce al desarme de comunidades marginadas. En una sociedad donde las personas marginadas corren un mayor riesgo de sufrir traumas y violencia horrendos, estas personas se encuentran en mayor posición de vérselas con problemas de salud mental, además de que se restringen sus posibilidades de defenderse de violencias ulteriores, pues padecer desórdenes mentales es un prerrequisito para que se les niegue el derecho a portar un arma de fuego. Dejarlas indefensas no logra sino hacerlas susceptibles a más violencia, más traumas y, por consiguiente, a más problemas de salud mental. Las medidas de control de armas que previenen la adquisición mayorista de armas de fuego o ciertas categorías de armas solo implican que el gobierno y sus fuerzas (policía, ejército, entre otras) tienen un monopolio sobre esas armas, dejándonos indefensos ante la violencia estatal. Inclusive tácticas de control de armas tales como la tarificación de ventas de balas afectan solamente a los pobres, al dejarlos desamparados de cara al crimen, en lugar de prevenir el crimen mismo.

Bien, entonces, las armas son más efectivas a la hora de defenderse en contra de crímenes de odio que las leyes contra crímenes de odio, mas ¿qué hacemos para protegernos de los tiroteos masivos y otras formas de violencia armada? Esa es una inquietud realmente apremiante. Pero, como reza el dicho, «las armas no matan gente, la gente mata gente», así que va siendo tiempo de que nos concentremos en la gente que comete estos crímenes violentos y abordemos las causas de sus acciones. En los ensayos que siguen, expondré las ideas para acciones concretas que se están tomando o podrían tomarse para frenar la violencia armada y protegernos de crímenes de odio a medida que intentamos hacer más libres nuestras comunidades e intentamos mantenerlas a salvo de la violencia.

Artículo original publicado por Logan Marie Glitterbomb el 10 de enero de 2017

Traducción del inglés por Mario Murillo

Durante finales de la década de 1880, un fiero debate se desencadenó en las páginas del periódico libertario Liberty en torno a los enfoques anarquistas egoístas e iusnaturalistas. (Las numerosas contribuciones a este debate estarán disponibles pronto en la biblioteca en línea del instituto Molinari. Mientras tanto, para más detalles véase la obra de Frank H. Brooks The Individualist Anarchists: An Anthology of Liberty (1881-1908), o el trabajo de Wendy McElroy The Debates of Liberty: An Overview of Individualist Anarchism 1881-1908.)

Los egoístas argumentaban que no podía haber bases racionales para que una persona cualquiera reconociera una autoridad sobre su propia razón, o para anteponer alguna meta a su propia felicidad. Por ende, rechazaban la «moralidad» al considerarla jerigonza metafísica, concluyendo que nadie tiene razón para aceptar ningunos principios de conducta, anarquistas o no, salvo en tanto que aceptar esos principios sea estratégicamente efectivo en la promoción de los intereses propios.

La anarquista consistente, insistían, no debería aceptar limitaciones que no haya escogido, morales o políticas, con base en su voluntad soberana. Los proponentes iusnaturalistas argumentaban que el respeto a la inviolabilidad de los derechos de otras personas es un sine qua non del anarquismo. Incluso si la anarquista respeta los límites anarquistas en la práctica, «algo de lo que los iusnaturalistas no se sentían demasiado seguros», esta debe, no obstante, preservar en principio la potestad de imponer a otros su voluntad si juzga que ello redundará en su interés propio. Por ende, la egoísta debe considerar la libertad de los otros como un obsequio revocable de ella para ellos, en vez de como un derecho inherente; pero esto equivale a tomar la actitud de un regente con sus súbditos, no de un anarquista con sus pares. La anarquista consistente, argumentaban los iusnaturalistas, debe rechazar el egoísmo a favor de una ley moral universal y vinculante.

He afirmado por mucho tiempo que la filosofía griega y el libertarismo moderno son aliados naturales, hechos a la medida el uno para el otro, no porque sean similares, sino porque por medio de sus diferencias cada uno puede solventar las deficiencias del otro. Este debate en Liberty es otro ejemplo. Ambos lados de este debate compartían una premisa común: que el respeto por los derechos del otro no es en sí mismo un componente de nuestro interés propio. De esta premisa se sigue que uno debe escoger entre poner primero los intereses propios y considerar que los derechos de otras personas tienen peso intrínseco. Mas esto es precisamente lo que impugna el eudemonismo clásico, la teoría moral iniciada por Sócrates, desarrollada de diversas maneras por Platón, Aristóteles y los estoicos, y aceptada por casi todos los filósofos morales de peso antes del renacimiento, incluidos Cicerón y Tomás de Aquino.

De acuerdo con el eudemonismo clásico, el interés propio es efectivamente el criterio supremo para una acción correcta, pero nuestro verdadero autointerés estriba en vivir una vida de prosperidad humana objetiva. Actuar de forma acorde con la virtud de la justicia no es un mero medio para alcanzar tal prosperidad, es parte de esa prosperidad. De allí que, entendido apropiadamente, el interés propio requiera que atribuyamos valor, «y no meramente valor estratégico», a comportarnos de manera justa con otros. De allí que el eudemonista clásico pueda adoptar la insistencia del egoísta de la supremacía primordial del autointerés y la insistencia iusnaturalista de la sagrada autoridad de la justicia.

Se me podría replicar: «pues está bien que el eudemonismo clásico pueda reconciliar los dos lados del debate, pero ¿por qué habríamos de creer que el eudemonismo clásico es veraz?» Mi respuesta es que el hecho de que el eudemonismo clásico pueda reconciliar ambos lados del debate en Liberty es en sí mismo una razón extremadamente buena para pensar que lo es. (Al decir esto, invoco una epistemología moral coherentista de estilo griego que no me explayaré defendiendo aquí. Pero véase mi artículo The Basis of Natural Law, mi libro Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand, y mi reseña de la obra Ethics As Social Science de Leland Yeager)

Desde luego, la clásica postura eudemonista del contenido de la justicia entrañaba generalmente poca semejanza al anarquismo individualista. Pero por ello mismo las ideas de los filósofos griegos requieren de tanta corrección de parte de las ideas libertarias como las ideas libertarias requieren de corrección de parte de los griegos. Simbiosis, chico.

Artículo original publicado por Roderick Long el 21 de diciembre de 2013

Traducción del inglés por Mario Murillo

The debate over President Trump’s travel ban and the debate over gun control look surprisingly similar – except for who’s on which side.

In each case, supporters of the policy argue that it’s necessary in order to prevent incidents of lethal violence, while opponents argue, first, that the policy’s likely impact on such incidents is overstated, and second, that it’s unjust to restrict the freedom of a vast group, most members of which are peaceful and innocent, merely on the grounds that a small percentage of that group’s members might turn violent.

When the vast group in question is Muslim immigrants and would-be immigrants, those defending restrictive policies tend to be Republicans, and those in opposition tend to be Democrats.

On the other hand, when the vast group in question is gun owners and would-be gun owners, those defending restrictive policies tend to be Democrats, and those in opposition tend to be Republicans.

Yet it’s hard to see how the two cases differ in fundamental principle. Either the state is justified in disrupting, micromanaging, and in many cases endangering large numbers of innocent lives for the sake of a speculative chance of blocking a small number of criminals, or it isn’t. The rights and wrongs of such a case can’t magically reverse themselves depending on whether it’s gun owners or Muslim immigrants who are being targeted.

Notice, too, how similar are the rhetorical appeals made by proponents of restrictive policies in both cases. “Look into the eyes of families impacted by gun violence,” many Democrats urge, “and consider how you can dare to support the rights of gun owners in the face of these victims’ suffering.” Or again: “Look into the eyes of families impacted by domestic terrorism,” many Republicans urge, “and consider how you can dare to support the rights of Muslim immigrants in the face of these victims’ suffering.” Each side finds such emotional blackmail convincing in one case, while rightly remaining unmoved by it in the other. For such appeals invariably blur the distinction between an innocent many and a criminal few.

The pragmatic aspects of the two policies are similar also. A travel ban’s likely impact on terrorist acts is questionable, given that most recent acts of terrorism within the United States have been homegrown (and given that many of those blocked from entry are potential allies against terrorism). Similarly, gun control’s likely impact on gun violence is questionable, given the existence of a thriving black market in guns (and given gun ownership’s role as a deterrent to crime). In both cases, the cost of government action is a curtailing of freedom for millions of harmless people, while the benefits appear scanty.

Liberals and conservatives both display inconsistency; each group employs arguments in connection with one issue, that they forcefully reject in connection with the other issue.

When Donald Trump’s son compared the risks of letting in Syrian refugees to eating Skittles from a bowl in which a small number of Skittles were poisonous, liberals were properly outraged, pointing out that such a comparison was not only insulting but also grossly exaggerated the risks involved. Yet liberal support for gun control is based on the same logic as the Skittles comparison – sacrificing the freedom of the many in order to ward off a potential threat from the few – and likewise ignores evidence of gross exaggeration of risks.

Liberals who rightly oppose Trump’s travel ban should consider looking at their own support for gun control through the same analytic lens. And conservatives who rightly oppose gun control should likewise consider looking at their own support for Trump’s travel ban through that same analytic lens.

Travel bans use the violent actions of a few as a pretext to victimize millions of peaceful Muslims. Gun control laws use the violent actions of a few as a pretext to victimize millions of peaceful gun owners. Neither policy has any place in a free society.

FILE – In this May 31, 2015, file photo, Bill Paxton arrives at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. A family representative said prolific and charismatic actor Paxton, who played an astronaut in “Apollo 13” and a treasure hunter in “Titanic,” died from complications due to surgery. The family representative issued a statement Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017, on the death. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Welcome back to the Daily Molotov, all the news that’s fit to make you hate the state. As a quick refresher for new readers following our month-long leave of absence, the Daily Molotov is a roundup of the news and various views from anarchist and non-anarchist sources alike. Here’s today’s top news.

RIP Bill Paxton. I wanted to be a storm chaser before I became an anarchist.

From the New York Times

Donald Trump is going to be speaking in front of a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, but before he does, he will be asking for a marked increase in Defense Department spending at the expense of nonmilitary departments like the EPA. That’s super tight. It’s good to know that the prez is adhering to that really nice anti-interventionism Justin Raimondo recently lauded him for. In somewhat-related news, Philip Bilden, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Navy, has withdrawn due to potential conflicts of interest with various business ventures. Bilden is following former Army Secretary nominee Vincent Viola’s lead in withdrawing before congressional hearings can take place.

In other news, Trump apparently has a “soft spot” for DREAMers – children of undocumented immigrants who qualified for amnesty under Obama’s DACA program. Yeah we’ll see. Finally, Trump’s been on some Stalinist shit with his whole “enemy of the people” schtick he’s been using with the media.

From the Washington Post

First of all I need to point out that the Washington Post’s current subhead on their website says “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” which is kind of aesthetically rad. I’ve been away too long and I’m too easily amused. ANYWAY: Some Iowans who voted for Trump… are kind of pissed at Trump. Mostly it’s because the trade policies he’s ordered – that he was completely transparent about wanting – are kind of shitty.  Also, related to the story about Trump’s soft spot for DACA applicants, immigration activists are warning dreamers to lay low for the foreseeable future. Basically, nobody trusts the tangerine nightmare as far as they can throw him, which is a solid policy in my book.

Finally, Margaret Sullivan asks: Daniel Ellsberg asks: who will be the next Snowden? And Congress is still having trouble coming up with an ACA replacement.

From the Los Angeles Times

There is a detente in Mosul, Iraq as the Islamic State digs in its heels in the western half of the city. Also, in a weird twist of fate, deportees from the United States are carving out a middle class in El Salvador – and attempting to diffuse the stress from new arrivals. Egyptian Christians are fleeing from ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula. Scientists are trying to find ways to preserve World Heritage Sites in war-torn areas.

And finally, Trump supporters rallied against the Oscars on Friday. Womp womp.

From the Wire Services

AP: Trump toasts nation’s governors ahead of healthcare talks.

Reuters: South Korean graft investigators say they won’t be able to question President Park.

AFP: India’s top diplomat to visit US after Kansas killing.

UPI: French historian detained for 10 hours by US Customs.

From the blogosphere

Politico: Sean Spicer targets own staff in leak crackdown.

Politico: Father of SEAL killed in Yemen blasts White House: Don’t hide behind my son’s death.

Slate: Moonlight wins Best Picture despite gaffe.

Slate: Romanian Fascist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu denied facts and evidence.

Vox: Meet the 16-year-old Canadian girl who took down Milo Yiannopoulos.

Salon: Trump takes the “shackles” off: Mass deportations begin as the world looks on in outrage.

Boing Boing: Three kinds of propaganda, and what to do about them.

From the (radical) blogosphere

Counterpunch: Media Ban! Making sense of the war between Trump and the press.

Truthout: Double Punishment: After prison, moms face legal battles to reunite with kids.

Truthdig: The return of American race laws.

The Nation: “Where did you get your name from?” Muhammad Ali, Jr. is detained by immigration officials.

From the (anarchist) blogosphere

It’s Going Down: Community campaign continues against Richard “Trust-Fund Hitler” Spencer’s HQ.

CrimethInc.: Preparing for Round Two: Coming to blows with the Trump regime.

Thanks for reading the Daily Molotov, curated for C4SS by Trevor Hultner. You can submit news tips to trevor@c4ss.org, tweet at us either at @c4ssdotorg or @trevor_c4ss, or leave a comment below. Your continued support of the Center for a Stateless Society means we can continue to roll out new features like this.

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The Center for a Stateless Society represents a diversity of views and approaches toward our shared goal of eliminating coercion in political, economic, and social spheres of individual life. Many of us brand ourselves as anti-capitalists because of the popular associations that the word “capitalism” has in contemporary discourse. Rejecting capitalism as the way to describe what we are really interested in – free association, free movement, and free exchange – does not undermine our commitment to those values. In being more precise with our language we’re able to engage in meaningful conversations with people who would be put off by association with the ideas of capitalism or capitalists because they ascribe to a definition that uses capitalism to describe the political-economic status quo.

There is also something to be said for how anti-capitalism informs our approaches to ideating about free societies. Recognizing that truly free markets and free cultures have never existed makes it difficult to defend the forms of ownership, exchange, and social norms that exist or have existed historically. In this way our approaches to anarchism look a bit different from those put forth by anarcho-capitalists and other right-libertarians. Many of us believe that free societies would experiment more with different forms of ownership and some might be less hierarchical as a result. If anything, this pluralistic approach to free societies should appeal to those who appreciate radical individualism and spontaneous order.

But how do we communicate this nuanced approach to libertarianism to other libertarians? Tabling at the International Students For Liberty Conference this weekend was a refreshing and challenging exercise in doing just that, and our experiences give us hope that the values of radical individualism are becoming more appealing to the broader libertarian movement. About a third of the people who visited the C4SS table took one look and said “now this is what I’m into.” A well-respected economist and lecturer dropped by to peruse our wares. Seeing the title of C4SS’s published anthology, “Markets Not Capitalism,” he said, “that’s awesome! I’m going to use that.” Further discussions that weekend seemed to indicate that libertarians want to be more precise about the way they discuss their commitments. Talking about freedom led us to individualism; talking about violence led us to domination. To commit to an honest and open dialogue means daring to reconsider commitments and find the radical common thread at the core. We saw a lot of people taking that step, and it gives us hope for the future of libertarianism.

Maintaining relationships with the broader libertarian movement is especially important now as it faces threats of being co-opted by alt-right elements. Some might say that a left-libertarian presence in the student libertarian movement justifies that of those who are more conservative in their approaches to the ideas of liberty. However, this is only true insofar as those groups and individuals place liberty as their highest value rather than holding it in a secondary position to values like tradition and stability. This is not the case for those of the traditional or alt-right who believe in using the violence of the state toward their goals. There is value to having big tent libertarian organizations like Students For Liberty, but lines must be drawn somewhere, and, unlike national borders, they ought not to be arbitrary. Rather they should be rooted in fundamental commitments to liberty for all persons, everywhere, at all times. We applaud the decision of SFL staff to not associate with Richard Spencer and his acolytes, and we sincerely hope that other liberty-oriented organizations will do the same.

Thank you to all of those who donated to bring C4SS to ISFLC this year. We could not have been there without your support.

Meg Arnold is a contributing writer for C4SS. Cooper Williams is the Great Plains Regional Director for Students For Liberty.

Cosmopolitanism is under assault from across the political spectrum, both in the United States and abroad. Just yesterday President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, alt-right leader and self-described economic nationalist Steve Bannon, told the Conservative Political Action Conference that “the center core of what we believe [is] that we’re a nation with an economy, not an economy in some global marketplace with open borders, but we’re a nation with a culture and a reason for being,” This is a false alternative of course, but Bannon’s preference for nationalist tribalism is revealing.

The rejection of cosmopolitanism is bad for liberty, peace, and prosperity because they all go hand in hand. The link between liberty and cosmopolitanism is more than conceptual. Of course freedom includes the freedom of individuals to associate peacefully with anyone anywhere of their choosing, which in turn generates peaceful interdependence and prosperity. But the link is also existential: rising generations, no matter what they have been taught by their elders, naturally will be curious about other people and their ways of living, their cultures. They naturally will question what has been presented to them as sacred (even if “secular”) tradition. This will inevitably lead to cultural and material exchanges and hence further social evolution. The “ideal” of a culture insulated from change is a chimera, especially these days; it would be unachievable even if it were desirable — which it most assuredly is not. Even totalitarian states struggle in vain to shut out “subversive” foreign influences, as the old Soviet Union demonstrated.

We may not go so far as Aristophanes and say that “Whirl is king,” but unforeseen change is inevitable and also reasonably assimilable in normal circumstances. In a freed society most change occurs at the margin — the world does not start afresh each day — because no central authority has the power to make society-wide decisions. But with freedom, the cumulative effect of change is dramatic and largely benign.

Original cosmopolitan liberalism, what we call libertarianism today, embodies this fact of life. It embraces it with gusto. Liberty and the prosperity it produces enable us to grapple with — and indeed relish — the uncertain future that, being the product of human action but not human design, spontaneously unfolds before us. Serendipity happens. We can therefore view liberalism as occupying the ground between conservatism/traditionalism and rationalism/Jacobinism.

As F. A. Hayek wrote in “Why I Am Not a Conservative”: “As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such, while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead.”

Hayek’s openness to change may seem in conflict with the apparent conservatism of The Constitution of Liberty (1960) and his final book, The Fatal Conceit (1988). (The fatal conceit lies in believing that our principles of moral conduct were originally the product of reason rather than of spontaneous social evolution as people grappled with reality in search of better lives.) But no actual conflict in Hayek exists. (“Why I Am Not a Conservative” is the postscript to The Constitution of Liberty.) In the absence of good cause to depart from traditional practices, one tends to accept those practices because, among other reasons, their longevity may be an evidence of their value. (Longevity is no guarantee of this.) The case for such “conservative” deference dates back at least to Aristotle. (See Roderick Long’s discussion of the importance of endoxa, “the credible opinions handed down” [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy], in his Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand. Long’s essay suggests that cultural innovation reasonably begins with defeasible received wisdom as opposed to wholesale rejection of it.) But the good sense in defaulting to credible opinions provides no case for freezing traditions in place, for this would imply an unjustifiable hubris regarding the current state of our knowledge. After all, today’s traditions were once new: how do we know there aren’t hitherto undiscovered better ways to accomplish our ultimate objective, namely, the flourishing of individuals in society? Why would we want to deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn of such knowledge? And on what grounds do we assume that anything worth knowing is to be found within our national borders? Hence liberal cosmopolitanism, from the Greek suggesting “citizen of the world.” (I’m reminded of Adam Smith’s observation that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.”)

Apparent efforts to romanticize tradition and cultural preservation (aka stagnation) have a way of teaching a different lesson. Think of the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on the Yiddish stories by Sholem Aleichem. The protagonist, Tevye the dairyman, opens the show by celebrating the tradition that has enabled him and his neighbors (and their forebears) to keep “our balance for many years.” As he explains, “Because of our tradition, everyone here knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” (At the same time he confesses: “You may ask, ‘How did this tradition get started?’ I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.”) At sundown on the Sabbath, Tevye and his wife pray that God will keep their five daughters “from the strangers’ ways.”

Yet almost immediately the traditional structure that Tevye believes he can’t survive without begins to crumble at the margin, and he is powerless to prevent it. When he agrees to marry off his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to the much older butcher, as arranged by the village matchmaker, she begs her father not to force her to go through with the marriage. A year earlier she and her childhood friend, now the village tailor, had secretly agreed to wed as soon as he could afford a sewing machine. (Aside: when the tailor Motel Kamzoil gets his sewing machine he boasts that from now on clothes will be made quickly and perfectly — no more handmade things.There’s an economic lesson in that for another day.) Now under pressure from the matchmaker, Tzeitel asks her father for permission to marry the man she loves. Tevye at first is furious at her impertinence, but when he looks in his daughter’s eyes as she stands by her beloved, he can’t help but relent. His daughter’s happiness outranks tradition. (Before this scene we saw Tevye celebrating the marriage agreement with the butcher by participating in a Russian dance with Russian gentiles in the local tavern, indulging, it would seem, in the strangers’ ways.)

Tzeitel’s break with tradition is only the beginning. Tevye’s second daughter, Hodel, then falls in love with Perchik, a poor young radical teacher from Kiev, the big, strange, distant city. This was the same young visitor whom villagers had denounced as a “radical” for saying that girls should be educated and for dancing with a female (Hodel) at Tzeitel’s wedding. The “attack” on tradition kicks up a notch when Hodel and Perchik decide to marry: they do not ask Tevye for his permission — only for his blessing. He is scandalized at this further blow to the structure, but in one of his trademark dialogues with God, Tevye acknowledges that “our ways also once were new” — a subversive thought for one who wishes to keep his children from the strangers’ ways. Again he relents and gives his blessing (and his permission), explaining to his wife, “It’s a new world, Golde,” one in which people marry for love. He then alarms his wife, whom he had met only on their wedding day, by asking, “Golde, do you love me?” Tevye is clearly warming up to the new world.

But Tevye finally draws the line when his third daughter, Chava, marries a young Russian she has fallen in love with. As he is packing to move his family out of their shetl, Anatevka (from which the tsar has expelled the Jews), he relays his blessing to Chava and her new husband. It is noteworthy that Tevye, like Sholem Aleichem himself, moves to “New York, America” not Palestine. (Tevye’s brother had previously moved to Chicago.)

So even insular little Anatevka could not shield itself from change and the outside world. Was Sholem Aleichem a subversive? If so, many people seem to have missed it. But how can you celebrate traditionalism while showing the virtually inevitable erosion of particular traditions at the hands of the young and free seeking only to be happy? There’s a lesson here for all of us, especially those who seek to “make America great again.”

Whirl is king, despite one’s wishes and efforts. Of course this does not mean that all change is good, but attempting to prevent all change in order to prevent bad change is futile and self-defeating. Moreover, change that one person sees as bad another person may see as good. People should be free to shield themselves against change they do not like, but coercive power must be kept out of the picture.

The history of original liberalism overflows with acknowledgments that openness to change, which is the essence of cosmopolitanism, is vital to flourishing. The free and competitive marketplace of ideas, like the market for goods and services, was championed by early liberals precisely because it was the way to dispel ignorance not just in how we think but in how we live. Thus they showed an appropriate humility — a recognition of the limits of knowledge — in their praise for the free marketplace of ideas.

John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859) is well-known in this regard, so I’ll limit myself to one quotation:

“That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognising all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men’s modes of action, not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. It is desirable, in short, that in things which do not primarily concern others, individuality should assert itself. Where, not the person’s own character, but the traditions or customs of other people are the rule of conduct, there is wanting one of the principal ingredients of human happiness, and quite the chief ingredient of individual and social progress.” (Emphasis added.)

To take an earlier example from across the Channel, Charles Dunoyer, a pioneering French radical liberal and one of the originators of class analysis (which Marx explicitly borrowed and distorted), criticized the socialism of Henri de Saint-Simon precisely because it failed to recognize the value of the competitive marketplace of ideas. Dunoyer wrote in 1827 that the Saint-Simonians’ “complaints against what they call the critical system, that is to say, against a general and permanent state of examination, of debate, of competition, attacks society in its most active principle of life, in its most efficacious means of development.” They don’t want to “leav[e] society to itself,” letting it develop “by the free competition of individual efforts.” Yet they contradict themselves by conceding that “free discussion is necessary” sometimes. But if that’s true, Dunoyer asked, what can be the case against freedom?

Dunoyer continued:

“Is there, in the course of centuries, a single instant where society does not tend, in a multitude of ways, to modify its ideas, to change its manner of existence? To accuse liberty of what remains of confusion in moral and social doctrines is to see evil in the remedy, and to complain precisely of what tends to make the confusion cease.”

Thus he concluded that “the error of the organic school [Saint-Simonians] is the belief that liberty is only a provisional utility…. It is … in the nature of things that liberty of examination will be perpetually necessary. Society which lives chiefly by action, acts, at each instant, according to the notions that it possesses, but, to act better and better, it needs to work constantly to perfect its knowledge, and it is only able to succeed by means of liberty: research, inquiry, examination, discussion, controversy, such is its natural state, and such it will always be, even when its knowledge has acquired the greatest certainty and understanding.”

In pursuit of this life-enhancing knowledge the political program based on liberal cosmopolitanism — libertarianism — centers on unconditional free trade and freedom of movement, that is, open borders for people, capital, producer goods, and consumer goods. This program represents not merely an adherence to an abstraction, liberty. Rather it embodies the understanding that the flourishing of flesh-and-blood individual human beings, like the division of labor, is limited by the extent of society and that therefore the boundaries of society should be expanded through peaceful voluntary exchange to include the entire world. Trump’s and Bannon’s nationalist, tribalist program is thus exposed as a threat to human flourishing.

This originally appeared at The Libertarian Institute.

[Di Ryan Calhoun. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 19 febbraio 2017 con il titolo A Nation of Immigrants, A Nation of Criminals. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

“Hanno violato la legge.” Con questa frase chiudiamo un occhio su un’enorme ingiustizia di questo paese. Ultimamente è ripetuta come un mantra da chi sostiene la necessità di espellere gli immigrati irregolari e ha bisogno di una buona scusa per trascinare le persone fuori dalle loro case e dividere le famiglie. “Se entri in questo paese da fuorilegge,” è la loro logica, “che diritto hai di stare qua? L’America non ha bisogno di altri fuorilegge!” Chi dice così si presenta spesso come patriottico e difensore dei valori e della tradizione americana. Io invece penso che il loro sia un patriottismo falso, un patriottismo ignorante, un patriottismo indegno.

Nel bene e nel male, l’America è sempre stata un paese di fuorilegge. La storia dell’America comincia con un atto fuorilegge di massa, quando il peso dell’impero britannico spinse molti coloni al tradimento e all’insurrezione, reati ancora oggi punibili con la morte. I crimini dell’America coloniale, però, non si esauriscono affatto in atti di ribellione politica. Prima che l’Australia diventasse la principale colonia penale britannica, migliaia di condannati furono mandati in America. A questi si aggiunsero quei fuorilegge arrivati spontaneamente, nelle navi pirata. I fuorilegge che infestavano i mari nel diciannovesimo secolo consideravano le città coloniali un luogo sicuro in cui sfogare le proprie tendenze libertine.

Anche dopo la rivoluzione, per lungo tempo la cultura delinquenziale è rimasta legata all’identità nazionale americana. L’iconografia americana abbonda di omaggi a delinquenti e imbroglioni di ogni sorta. Il cinema western, la quintessenza dell’americanità, ha romanticizzato i fuorilegge e gli antieroi di frontiera del diciannovesimo secolo. Negli anni 1920, quando il proibizionismo diventò legge costituzionale, americani di ogni classe ed etnia si rifiutarono di obbedire, diventarono gangster e contrabbandieri, o cedettero alla malavita l’attività. La propaganda descriveva gli italoamericani come persone inestricabilmente legate alla cultura mafiosa. Era un falso, anche se non c’è dubbio che italiani e altre minoranze immigrate confidavano spesso nel crimine, organizzato e non, per arricchirsi. Ma questo non portò lo zeitgeist nazionale a rivoltarsi contro questi comportamenti fuorilegge. Anche loro sono stati immortalati nell’immaginario collettivo per i loro intenti ribelli e spavaldi, anche quando erano chiaramente loschi.

E non posso non citare l’importanza collettiva della disobbedienza civile. Henry David Thoreau, rustica icona letteraria americana, coniò l’espressione e la mise sulla prima pagina del pensiero politico estremo. Gli abolizionisti, e chiunque nel corso della nostra storia abbia lottato per la libertà e i diritti civili, hanno portato questa filosofia nelle strade e nelle attività antischiaviste. Più volte quegli americani che riveriamo tanto per la loro moralità e coraggio sono finiti in cella.

C’è da imparare dalla storia? Qualcuno sicuramente dirà che questi esempi possono essere visti con indulgenza perché, dopotutto, il passato è passato. Dobbiamo tollerare il crimine semplicemente perché i nostri antenati erano grandi criminali? A questo punto vorrei tornare all’attuale ondata criminale in America. No, non mi riferisco alle false accuse di questa amministrazione secondo cui c’è una crescita dei crimini o la polizia è sempre più vittima di violenze. Mi riferisco al nostro sistema giudiziario, che produce criminalità più di quanta non ne giudichi. Viviamo in un paese in cui le possibili attività criminali sono praticamente infinite. Davvero, il governo federale non riesce neanche ad enumerare tutte le restrizioni legali imposte. La realtà è che nessuna persona presumibilmente innocente in questo paese sa se è un fuorilegge, ma probabilmente lo è. Invece di “Ho commesso un reato?” bisognerebbe chiedersi “Che reati ho commesso?” Trovata o meno la risposta a questa domanda, chiedetevi se dovreste essere tolti alla vostra famiglia o comunità a causa del vostro comportamento fuorilegge.

Neanche i politici possono evitare di commettere reati. Sono molti i casi seri e minacciosi della nostra storia, ma preferisco citare la recente avventura dell’ex consigliere per la sicurezza nazionale Mike Flynn. Mentre parlava delle sanzioni americane con l’ambasciatore russo, ha violato una legge del 1799 nota come Logan Act. Probabilmente non verrà processato, nessuno viene mai processato. Gli esponenti dello stato solitamente non sono responsabili neanche per fatti più gravi, come la violazione delle leggi costituzionali. Flynn ha commesso un reato che forse neanche lui conosceva, e questa sta diventando una caratteristica americana.

L’America è al primo posto nel mondo con la sua ben nota popolazione carceraria da record. Oltre due milioni di persone vivono sotto custodia. Molti americani cominciano a considerare questo sistema insopportabilmente punitivo e inefficiente. Ma gli immigrati, con o senza documenti, sono statisticamente sottorappresentati. Secondo ricerche pluridecennali, chi è nato e cresciuto qui ha più probabilità di commettere reati di un immigrato. Cominciamo a capire che prendere un criminale dalla sua casa e metterlo in cella o in un centro per immigrati non elimina le preoccupazioni delle vittime dei crimini violenti che tutti condanniamo.

Arriviamo al punto. È vero che gli immigrati senza documenti sono entrati illegalmente o sono rimasti dopo la scadenza dei termini. Questo è un atto illegale. Questo è ciò che sappiamo. Quello che ancora non sappiamo è come rispondere. È vero, espellere queste persone è un atto legale. Chi confida nella legge per giustificare l’espulsione non riconosce che anche non espellere è legale, e anche il condono. Qual è il bene dell’espulsione? Ammettendo anche di espellere dalla società un individuo pericoloso, davvero pensiamo che sia il nostro ideale di giustizia? Storicamente, togliere i criminali dalla società non serve a liberarla dagli individui violenti. Anzi, li incoraggia. E poi, come detto più su, la stragrande maggioranze di chi entra illegalmente nel nostro paese non va a commettere crimini.

Per capire cosa voglio dire basta considerare la grossa trappola tesa questa settimana dalle autorità immigratorie, che hanno preso di mira una donna che ha cercato di denunciare il compagno per abusi domestici. È stata fatta giustizia, o si tratta dell’ennesimo atto di crudeltà contro un membro vulnerabile di una comunità americana? Favoriamo l’abuso e poi togliamo di mezzo le vittime, dando agli agenti federali il potere di fare alle persone ciò che noi non vorremmo mai che fosse fatto a noi, o a chiunque, e tutto perché loro hanno il distintivo giusto e le armi giuste. Ogni giorno, a persone come questa donna è impedita l’autodifesa, pena gravi conseguenze legali. Se questi sono i criminali, al diavolo la legge.

Dobbiamo sbarazzarci di questa inquisizione che colpisce chi è entrato nel nostro paese senza un pezzo di carta. Voi non vi opponete alla violenza di strada. La incoraggiate quando sfonda le porte e distrugge le famiglie del vostro vicinato. Non state proteggendo la sacralità della legge, perché non si possono proteggere le leggi se queste non hanno un limite definibile. Agli occhi della legge siamo tutti colpevoli. Voi non difendete i valori della vostra amata patria. Chi viene qui per migliorare la propria vita, lotta per partecipare alla tradizione americana come voi non vi trovate mai a dover fare. Il vostro patriottismo è solo amore per un passato insensibile del nostro paese, un paese che era, è e sarà sempre fatto da immigrati. L’unica differenza tra voi e chi viene da fuori è che voi avete il privilegio di vivere senza conoscere i reati che commettete. Loro sapevano a cosa andavano incontro, i pericoli e le stigmate a cui si esponevano. La loro sfida è una sfida americana. La loro lotta è una lotta americana. Il loro crimine è il crimine americano, e il crimine americano è l’unico che vale la pena non avere.

[Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 21 febbraio 2017 con il titolo Can Someone Protect Us From Our “Protectors”? Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

Credo di essere un “clictivista”. Firmo petizioni e mando email in risposta a molte richieste per cause che considero giuste, calcolando che tanto non fa male e anzi potrebbe dare una mano d’aiuto. Ultimamente, ho mandato un’email al governatore dell’Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, chiedendogli di fare quello che è in suo potere per aiutare i rifugiati e proteggere i residenti mediorientali dall’ordine esecutivo di Trump, che colpisce gli immigrati di sette paesi in maggioranza musulmani.

Hutchinson (anzi qualcuno del suo staff, Mariano Reed) ha risposto, com’era da immaginarsi, con una dichiarazione preformattata e ipocrita che tutto è tranne una risposta. “Lieto e grato per l’interessamento e il massiccio sostegno degli abitanti dell’Arkansas per il benessere dei Rifugiati,” bla bla, “incoraggiante e rassicurante che gli abitanti dell’Arkansas siano animati dal desiderio di aiutare i propri simili in tempi di crisi,” bla, “se è innegabile che un’ampia maggioranza di rifugiati che vengono in America fugge reali pericoli nella loro madrepatria, è pur vero che la richiesta di asilo di chiunque aspiri ad entrare negli Stati Uniti richieda un attento esame al fine di proteggere la nostra sicurezza,” bla bla bla, “decisamente sensibili in materia di sicurezza, in modo particolare quelli correlati al terrorismo internazionale,” bla, “bilanciare accuratamente lo spirito compassionevole di questo grande paese con le preoccupazioni attinenti la sicurezza in particolar modo alla luce di quanto accaduto l’Undici Settembre 2001.”

Ovvero, nulla. Mi ricorda un politico, in una storia di fantascienza o altro, il cui programma politico, convertito in logica matematica, con tutti gli elementi contrastanti che si annullavano a vicenda, dava come risultato zero. Se ci fosse ancora H. L. Mencken, troverebbe più materia per i suoi sfottò in Hutchinson che in Harding.

Il suo equilibrio retorico tra cause umanitarie e paura del terrorismo è pieno di falsità, come quei servizi giornalistici in cui “parti opposte” discutono di questioni come i cambiamenti climatici, il creazionismo o la terra piatta. I suoi timori riguardo il pericolo terroristico rappresentato da rifugiati “non esaminati” sono una sciocchezza. In effetti, i rifugiati sono già più che esaminati. I rifugiati provenienti dai sette paesi colpiti dal bando antiislamico di Trump hanno ucciso zero (zero) americani in attacchi terroristici negli ultimi quarant’anni. Nello stesso periodo, diciassette persone provenienti da quei paesi hanno cercato di compiere attentati, ma la maggior parte di questi “attentati terroristici” erano in realtà trappole organizzate dalla polizia federale, il cui risultato è stato l’arresto di “complottisti” la cui competenza e credibilità era praticamente nulla.

Gran parte degli attacchi terroristici in territorio nazionale degli ultimi anni è stato commesso da fondamentalisti bianchi con la bandiera dei confederati. E voi sapete chi sostenevano alle ultime presidenziali. Quando vedo un immigrato mediorientale o un musulmano, non mi capita mai di chiedermi se può diventare violento. Quando vedo uno di quei vecchi con la bandiera dei confederati o con l’adesivo di Trump, invece, questo pensiero mi viene sempre. Quelli così ce l’hanno sempre con i musulmani (o i sikh, gli indù o chissà chi altro, perché sono troppo stupidi per capire la differenza). Ogni giorno sentiamo di donne musulmane aggredite in pubblico, l’hijab strappato, moschee, sinagoghe, chiese dei neri bruciate o deturpate con le svastiche. E a fare così non sono musulmani.

Non credo affatto che i rifugiati siano una minaccia alla “sicurezza”. Ci credono solo gli idioti suggestionati dalla propaganda di destra di politici assetati di potere ansiosi di espandere il proprio potere.

A preoccuparmi, e moltissimo, è il tentativo di ampliare lo stato di polizia. Questo presidente rovina l’esistenza di persone tra le più vulnerabili al mondo, minaccia di inviare le truppe federali a Chicago, monta un casino sulla soppressione del voto federale su larga scala per fermare un’inesistente “frode”, dà alle forze di polizia il potere di fare incursioni senza mandato fino a cento miglia oltre il confine, e fornisce una copertura politica ai poliziotti locali affinché possano pestare e uccidere impunemente. E ha scelto un fascista, ex direttore di un sito suprematista bianco della destra alternativa, perché gli detti i consigli.

Lo stato usa finte “minacce” di ogni genere per spaventarci e indurci a cedere il potere. Potere che poi usa per minacciarci davvero.

[Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 21 febbraio 2017 con il titolo Same Colonial Wealth Extraction, Different Name. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

Seguendo i media della destra libertaria, vi sarà capitato di leggere qualche pezzo borioso che spiega come il capitalismo abbia migliorato le condizioni di vita nel terzo mondo: crescita del pil, maggiore aspettativa di vita, eccetera. Ma se lo stile di vita, secondo un articolo del Guardian (Jason Hickel, “Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries,” 14 gennaio), è migliorato, ciò è accaduto nonostante i 2.000 miliardi di dollari di ricchezza estratta al netto di aiuti economici, flussi commerciali e investimenti. Ogni anno entrano 1.300 miliardi di dollari in investimenti, ed escono 3.300 miliardi.

Dal 1980 a oggi il totale netto è di 16.300 miliardi, meno di 500 miliardi l’anno, con un’accelerazione progressiva nel corso degli anni. Di questi 16.300 miliardi, 4.200 sono interessi sul debito. Ricordate che gran parte dei prestiti della Banca Mondiale e dei privati servono a costruire le infrastrutture occorrenti a rendere proficue le attività occidentali delocalizzate: servono a facilitare l’estrazione di ricchezza. I paesi del terzo mondo stanno praticamente socializzando i costi operativi del capitale occidentale, come strade e servizi, tramite mutui, per poi spremere dai loro cittadini i soldi per pagare gli interessi. Dato che i paesi del terzo mondo per le infrastrutture si rivolgono sempre più spesso a quel genere di “consorzio pubblico-privato” di cui Nicholas Hildyard parla in “Licensed Larceny”, la percentuale di ricavi dalle tasse destinata a pagare i debiti contratti con i privati non può che crescere, incrementando così l’uscita netta di ricchezza.

Il rimpatrio dei profitti è un’altra fetta di ricchezza estratta. “Pensate a tutto il profitto che la BP estrae dalle riserve petrolifere nigeriane, ad esempio, o a quello che gli anglo-americani estraggono dalle miniere d’oro sudafricane.” Esempi significativi. L’estrazione di risorse non è un relitto del lontano passato coloniale. Miniere, pozzi petroliferi e terre agricole, estorti dal capitale occidentale durante il colonialismo, ancora oggi appartengono ad assegnatari ed eredi dei vecchi saccheggiatori. Terre e risorse che di diritto dovrebbero essere ereditate da quei popoli, come avrebbe dovuto accadere molto tempo fa, sono invece una piaga che dà rendita alle aziende transnazionali.

E il grosso di quei profitti rimpatriati, ben 13.400 miliardi dal 1980 ad oggi, vengono nascosti sotto altro nome per eludere le restrizioni all’esportazione di capitali. Si fatturano prezzi falsi per nascondere il movimento di denaro fuori dal paese. Solo nel 2012, le false fatture ammontavano a 700 miliardi. Questo solo per i beni materiali, perché quelle riguardanti i servizi potrebbero aggiungere altri mille miliardi l’anno ai 700 di prima.

Ricordate: gran parte (dico “gran parte” per essere carino) di quei profitti ha all’origine un furto. Sono il risultato dell’estrazione di quelle risorse rubate di cui parlavo, come i minerali e i combustibili fossili, della vendita di ciò che producono le terre rubate ai contadini, che si tratti dei regimi coloniali o post-coloniali appoggiati dall’occidente, ma sono anche il risultato della “proprietà intellettuale” con cui si controlla il modo in cui ad altri viene permesso di produrre qualcosa (gran parte della produzione reale è appaltata a strutture indipendenti).

Con l’indipendenza, la funzione principale del terzo mondo è esattamente la stessa di quando c’era l’amministrazione coloniale dei vecchi imperi: assicurare che il capitale occidentale possa continuare ad estrarre ricchezza indisturbato. Quei governi del terzo mondo che mancano al dovere di proteggere l’estrazione di ricchezza (figuriamoci quelli che la impediscono) vengono subito rovesciati.

Visto tutto questo flusso di denaro in uscita (attualmente da 2.000 a 3.000 miliardi l’anno), come si spiega l’aumento del pil e dell’aspettativa di vita di cui ciancia sempre la destra libertaria?

Darne merito al “capitalismo” è ipocrita. Dobbiamo riconoscere che quel miglioramento esiste a dispetto, non a causa, del massiccio flusso in uscita di denaro rubato. Il miglioramento del benessere individuale viene principalmente dalle innovazioni tecniche. Ed il miglioramento nella produzione di oggetti è merito di singoli individui. Le aziende transnazionali servono soprattutto a reclamare diritti di proprietà artificiali sul modo in cui vengono prodotti oggetti frutto dello sforzo collettivo, impedire la normale diffusione delle idee, ed esigere il pagamento di un tributo per aver permesso la condivisione e l’uso di queste idee. Come disse Arthur Chu, gli “ismi” come capitalismo e socialismo non fanno né l’iPhone né niente. Sono esseri umani a fare cose. Gli “ismi” stabiliscono solo la spartizione dei premi.

Se la povertà assoluta sta effettivamente calando nel sud del mondo  come risultato del progresso tecnico e di un modo migliore di fare le cose, nonostante le migliaia di miliardi che ogni anno vengono rubate, immaginate il beneficio che si avrebbe dal progresso tecnologico se non ci fossero aziende parassite, che vantano diritti artificiali di proprietà sulle terre e sulle risorse rubate, e se non esigessero un tributo in cambio del diritto di usare le idee.

Personally, I don’t think “the left” ultimately represents much of anything coherent, but rather constitutes a historically contingent coalition of ideological positions. Bastiat and other free market folks sat on the left of the french assembly, and while we might try to claim that as part of a consistent leftist market tradition, we should be honest that one’s position in that particular revolution — much less revolution in general — is hardly indicative of very much. There are always revolutionaries who desire systems far worse than our own, and similarly there have been many broadly recognized “leftists” whose desires were utterly anathema to liberation.

It’s popular these days to paint the left and right as egalitarian versus hierarchical. But not only is this an imposed read on a far messier historical and sociological reality, but it’s honestly quite philosophically contentless. No one is particularly clear on what egalitarianism means, or even hierarchy, and many interpretations are not only mutually exclusive, they reveal supposedly identical claims as actually deeply antagonistic. Does egalitarianism mean everyone gets precisely the same wealth (however that’s supposed to be measured)? Does it mean mere legal or social equality in the abstract realm of relations before The People or The State’s legal system? Does it mean equal opportunity for economic striving or does it mean equal access to the people’s grain stores? Does equality supersede all other virtues like liberty? Is it better to all be oppressed equally than to have some achieve greater freedom? I’m not being facetious. We paper over these deep issues with “well but common sense” and the wishful assumption that our comrades will come down on the minutia the same way we would, sharing our intuitions on various tradeoffs, but that’s empirically not the case. We constantly differ.

People talk about “collective direct democracy” as if something being the near unanimous will of some social body constitutes an egalitarian condition. And, sure, it does under some definitions. But the moment I see some collective body trying to vote on my life I don’t want to “participate,” I want to chuck a bomb at it. Leftists use both the slogans “power to the people” and “abolish power” — this should be an intense red flag to everyone that completely different conceptual systems and values are at play. It’s delusional in the extreme to suppose that if we sat down and talked about things we’d all end up on the same page. The assumption of pan-leftist solidarity or a shared common goal is a comforting lie.

The left isn’t defined by some set of axioms in ethical philosophy that we can all agree on and then argue about derivations of strategy or implementation from. The left is a historical coalition thrown together by happenstance. As with revolution we tend to self-identify as the underdogs and build our coalitions from the classes we recognize as underdogs against the classes we recognize as ruling, but this leads to all kinds of contortions. We are for the right to choose because women are the underdogs in patriarchy. But at the same time we’re pro vegan because animals are the (sometimes literal) underdogs in human domination. Wait, do we value all living things? What counts as a discrete living thing? Do we value them equally or is the level of consciousness/sentience important? Is it the level of dependence or strain it places on another person? Suddenly the responses we have in situations with family members versus the overdogs of christianity seemingly start to come into conflict with the responses we have in situations with disabled people (underdogs!). I’m not saying there isn’t a way to thread all these dynamics, to find a core ethical guide and nuanced attentive implementation — I think there is one (although my particular approach of ultimately recognizing a vast spectrum of sentience/consciousness between zygotes/nematodes and anyone remotely close to a conscious human is denounced by a number on the left as “unegalitarian”). I’m pointing out that our responses rarely arise from an ethical analysis but from instinctual responses to any appearance of an underdog. The left is rarely a philosophy, more often a coalition, with theory tacked on to serve the goals of binding that coalition together. One could easily imagine universes with different historical paths where outlawing abortion is a core leftist plank, seen as deeply interrelated with opposing queerphobia, patriarchy, ableism, etc. Or the left could oppose legal sanction, but support and build grassroots social and cultural sanction against abortion. (Again, for the record I’m pro-choice.)

Underdogism is a really dangerous approach to the world. It’s a good “rule of thumb” but if you know anything about me it’s that I abhor such heuristics and see them as the opposite of radical analysis. Underdogism is how you get things like zionism, leninism, poc nationalism, TERFs, SWERFs, etc. Its failures are manifold. There’s a good case the left is nothing but underdogism — in which case fascism is almost always leftist. MRAs don’t approach politics like a reactionary on the right side of the French Estates General, consciously seeking to preserve an established ruling structure, they see themselves as the underdogs. Sure, they’re not (in almost everything besides some fringe contexts like some bits of divorce law), but fuck it they’re potential underdogs, and that status is more than enough to reproduce much of the standard structures of underdogism.

One might interject that the problem with underdogism of the alt-right is not just their misidentification of underdogs but their hunger for power, and this is certainly broadly true (although a fraction of the alt-right actually seem less in it for power but more in it to drink outgroup/”overdog” tears). But this certainly applies to much of the left in good standing. Certainly many authoritarian leftists have hungrily latched onto underdogism as a potential ladder to power. I’ve met feminist writers who openly admitted to me they’d be patriarchal if they were men, or own slaves if they were antebellum rich whites.

Yes, any set of smart persons who recoil at clear instances of oppression are gonna broadly converge on a number of positions or analyses. But the way they reconcile or hold together these things may differ dramatically. Just because the left is a stable coalition in our present context doesn’t mean aspects of it that seem in perfect harmony won’t break in wildly different directions should certain conditions change.

I have repeatedly encountered leftists who’ve claim that valuing some things above other things is hierarchical and thus right-wing (leftism being in their minds representing something more like stoicism or buddhism). Similarly you find epistemic pluralism common in the most heads-up-their-ass sectors of left academia who think thinking some models of the world are more true than others is “unegalitarian” or even “totalitarian.” It’s tempting to just laugh about hippies and move on, but these sort of horrifically bad definitions of “egalitarianism” will sometimes come out of the mouths of smart people who generally have their heads on straight the moment they move to a context they’re unused to.

Now I hate the NAP, but everyone laughs at the NAP these days for being “unpragmatic” and this has increasingly become tied to a casual indictment of all ethical philosophy itself. A turn that has been encouraged by the twin interrelated scourges of the modern internet far left: tankies and nihilists. This makes sense if — as per social justice — you see the point of the left to create a social framework of etiquette and loose ideology that can bind a coalition of underdog classes together. Thus the increasing refrain of “you can’t compare!” that happens whenever someone tries to tease out commonalities or contradictions between various claims, positions or planks. There is, from this perspective, no common root or unifying ethos to the left and we should not look for one lest the whole project fall apart. Philosophy, ethics, and core values or principles become the enemies, as does both methodological individualism and universalism. There are neither individual experiences nor universal ones, just relatively simplistic classes of people with incomparable experiences. And we bind them together into common cause by badgering, social positioning, poetic affective appeals, and threats of violence.

The left isn’t unified by anything. Marxism is half discredited by idiocy and monstrosity and the half that survived became a wildly contradictory mess more preoccupied with obscurantism, irrationality and anti-realism to hide its own failures than getting anything done much less charting a path. Most of the concerns of the left refer to opposing mythologized superstructures that we are left flailing in the absence of or whenever their composition and behavior change. The left is, in short, utterly allergic to radicalism. Fending off its inadequacies with short puffs of extremism instead.

As social and ideological complexities compound through the runaway feedback of the information age these internal tensions and the laughably frail taping over we’ve done will only become more clear.

There is still hope for a radical anarchism that is willing to root its discussions of freedom and ethics concretely and explicitly. But this will necessarily involve casting off from many allies who we share some limited intuitions or momentary prescriptions with. Or at least dissolving the comforting delusions of a deep camaraderie.

The only reason the lie of “the left” has persisted for two centuries is that its grand Manichean narrative of two more or less uniform tribes — one enlightened and one indecipherably morally corrupt — enables a sense of community that provides psychological comfort to many. To many on the left (as well as on the nationalistic etc right) a hunger for “community” is actually their primary motivation. When chatting at the bar it’s better to not look too deep into why you both oppose capitalists lest you discover something that sunders rather than binds.

But the format of present internet technologies has had the reverse effect. Inescapable contact with The Enemy has led us to put up hostile discursive walls that naturally end up cutting out our traditional allies too, causing both right and left to fracture in desperate attempts to find purity, trustworthiness, or some kind of deeper binding. The happenstance points of unity that worked when we had little choice in who to befriend are now fracturing in all directions. This is largely a good thing, the last two decades have seen all manner of horrors lurking among our own ranks exposed. But the process that brings to light our lack of commonality with the anti-science leftist deep ecologist who wants to kill all humans is also a process that will ultimately rip “the left” to unsalvageable shreds.

This ship is sinking. And just because many of the rats are fleeing doesn’t mean we shouldn’t either.

If you keep up with right-libertarian media, you’ve probably seen more than one puff piece on how much global capitalism has improved things for people in the Third World: higher per capita GDP, longer life expectancies, and so on. But if average standards of living have gone up, according to an article at the Guardian (Jason Hickel, “Aid in reverse: how poor countries develop rich countries,” Jan. 14), they’ve done so despite $2 trillion in net annual outflow of wealth over and above the amount received in aid, trade flows and investment. $1.3 trillion goes in annually as capital investment and foreign aid, and $3.3 trillion is extracted.

The net total since 1980 is $16.3 trillion — less than a half trillion a year — suggesting the rate of extraction has accelerated over the years. Of that $16.3 trillion, $4.2 trillion is interest on debt. And remember, most World Bank and private loans are for the purpose of building the infrastructure needed to make offshored Western manufacturing profitable — in other words, to facilitate the extraction of wealth. Third World countries are basically socializing the operating costs of Western capital, like roads and utilities, by obtaining loans to build them — and then squeezing the interest payments out of their taxpayers. As Third World countries increasingly turn to the kinds of “public-private partnerships” in infrastructure that Nicholas Hildyard wrote about in “Licensed Larceny,” we can expect the share of total public revenues committed to paying off contracted debt to private corporations to skyrocket, further increasing the net outflow of money.

Repatriated profits are another major share of the extracted wealth. “Think of all the profits that BP extracts from Nigeria’s oil reserves, for example, or that Anglo-American pulls out of South Africa’s gold mines.” Those examples are telling. Resource extraction isn’t some relic of the distant colonial past. All those mineral mines and oil wells, all that enclosed agricultural land that were seized by Western capital under colonialism, are still owned by the heirs and assigns of the original looters. Land and resources that are the rightful legacy of the people of those countries, and should have been reclaimed by them long ago, are instead a bleeding sore supplying rents to transnational corporations.

But the bulk of those repatriated profits — a whopping $13.4 trillion since 1980 — are concealed under other names to evade national restrictions on capital export. False prices are stated on invoices to disguise additional money being moved out of the country. Trade misinvoicing in developing countries amounted to $700 billion in 2012 alone. That figure only covers misinvoicing of goods, by the way — misinvoicing trade in services could add another trillion annually to the mix.

And remember: Most (I’m really just saying “most” to be nice here) of those profits result from theft. They result from extraction of those above-mentioned stolen resources like fossil fuels and minerals, from the sale of produce grown on land stolen from peasants both in colonial times and under Western-backed post-colonial regimes, and from the use of “intellectual property” to control the conditions under which other people are allowed to produce stuff (most actual production is outsourced to independently owned facilities).

The main function of Third World states since independence is exactly the same as that carried out by colonial administrations under the old Empires: to make the world safe for continued extraction of wealth by Western capital. Third World governments that fail at their duty of protecting wealth extraction — let alone directly impede it — quickly find themselves overthrown.

So with all this net outflow of money — currently to the tune of $2 or $3 trillion a year — what about the increased GDP and life expectancies right-libertarians are always crowing about?

It’s disingenuous to credit “capitalism” for them. Let’s just acknowledge right up front that whatever improvements exist, exist despite this massive outflow of stolen money, and not because of it. The main direct impact on individual well-being comes from technical innovations. And improved ways of doing things are developed by human beings. The main function of transnational corporations is to claim artificial property rights in these improved ways of doing things developed through cooperative human effort, to obstruct the process by which new ideas normally spread, and collect tribute from allowing it to be shared and used. As Arthur Chu once put it, “isms” like capitalism and socialism don’t make the iPhone or anything else. Human beings make things. The “isms” just decide how the rewards are distributed.

If absolute poverty is indeed declining in the Global South as a result of technical progress and better ways of doing things, despite the annual theft of trillions of dollars in wealth from those countries, imagine how much they’d benefit from that technical progress without parastic corporations holding artificial state title to their stolen land and resources, and exacting tribute for the right to use ideas.

I’m one of those “clicktivists,” I guess. I sign petitions and send emails in response to most pleas for causes I consider worthy, on the calculation that it won’t hurt and might even help just a tiny bit. I recently sent Arkansas Governnor Asa Hutchinson an email asking him to do everything in his power to aid refugees and protect Middle Eastern residents from Trump’s Executive Order attacking immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Hutchinson (or rather a member of his Constituent Services staff, Mariano Reed) responded, predictably, with a mealy-mouthed preformatted statement that was really no statement at all. “[P]leased and grateful for the compassion and outpouring of support from Arkansans for the well-being of Refugees,” yada yada, “encouraging and refreshing that Arkansans have such a strong desire to help our fellow man in times of distress,” yada, “[w]hile the vast majority of refugees who come to America are truly fleeing danger in their home country, anyone coming into the United States as a refugee should be properly vetted to protect our security,” yada yada yada, “particularly sensitive to matters of security, especially those related to international terrorism,” yada, “balance the compassion of this great country with the security concerns in this post 9-11 environment.”

In other words, precisely nothing. Reminds me of the politician in some science fiction story or other whose statement of policy, when translated into symbolic logic with all the contrary elements cancelling each other out, was a complete nullity as a statement of intent. If H.L. Mencken were around these days he’d probably find Hutchinson’s language more worthy of mockery than Harding’s.

And his rhetorical balancing act between humanitarian concern and fear of terrorism is as much a false equivalency as those news shows that show spokesmen for “both sides” on questions like climate change, young earth creationism or flat earth theory. His fears of terrorism by “unvetted” refugees are pure nonsense. There was already, in fact, a great deal of vetting of refugees. And refugees from the seven countries in Trump’s Muslim ban have killed zero — count ’em, zero — Americans in terrorist attacks in the past forty years. Seventeen people from these countries have attempted terrorist attacks in the past forty years — most of which “terrorist attacks” were actually organized by federal law enforcement in entrapment operations and resulted in the arrest of “plotters” whose competence and credibility were virtually nil.

In the meantime, the bulk of domestic terror attacks in recent years have been committed by white fundamentalists with confederate flags. And of course you know who they supported for president. It never even occurs to me, when I see a Middle Eastern immigrant or Muslim, to wonder about their potential for irrational violence. When I see a good ol’ boy with a confederate flag or Trump sticker, on the other hand, the possibility is always in the back of my mind. People of this sort attack Muslims all the time (as well as Sikhs, Hindus and God knows who else, because they’re too dumb to know the difference). Stories of Muslim women being publicly assaulted and their hijabs ripped off, of mosques, synagogues and black churches burned or defaced with swastikas, seem to be becoming an everyday occurrence. And it’s not Muslims doing this stuff.

I’m not worried at all about “security” in regard to Syria refugees. Nobody is, except for gullible idiots taken in by right-wing propaganda by power-hungry policians eager to expand state power.

What I am worried about — very much so — is this attempted expansion of the police state. We have a president disrupting the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world, threatening to send federal troops to Chicago, making noises about large-scale federal voter suppression to stop non-existent “fraud,” empowering law enforcement to engage in warrantless searches on “suspicion” within 100 miles of the border, and providing political cover for local police to engage in brutality and murder with impunity. And all the while he has the fascist former editor of an alt-right, white supremacist website whispering in his ear.

States use fake “threats” of all kinds to scare us into giving them power — power which they use to threaten us for real.

Revolutionary Luxury, Bureaucratic Administration

Any politics that seeks an encompassing notion of liberation and freedom must, first and foremost, be oriented towards the future, and must pursue this horizon through goal-oriented actions. This effectively sets up a feedback system, linking together the shifting and modular futurity that is assembled by those who desire it with the concrete actions, revolutionary impulses, and insurrectionary acts that move towards its construction. In their most effective turns, future horizons are assembled as to remain open, as the very compounding of possibilities into an ever-increasing array of options. Still, though, certain motifs are deployed to act as anchors or signals for the widening of the possibility space.

One such memetic anchor that has received decent mileage in certain circles is “fully automated luxury communism” (FALC) – a utopian vision in which toil is eliminated through technology, capitalism is replaced by the communism, and, as described by Aaron Bastani in a 2015 article for Vice, ‘political adventurism’ culminates in “Cartier for everyone, MontBlanc for the masses, and Chloe for all.” FALC, in turn, is often spoken of in tandem with the left-accelerationism of Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, its less-hyperbolic, more speculatively-inclined cousin. With its demands for unbridled automation, universal basic income, and promethean mastery, Srnicek and Williams’ own futural politics are an attempt to revive (and auto-correct a few problematic points of) what Nick Dyer-Witherford refers to as “Red Plenty Platforms” – the various bids for ‘cybernetic communism’ like Oskar Lange’s planning recommendations for the Soviet Union, Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell’s “New Socialism”, Salvador Allende’s CyberSyn, and Michael Albert’s Parecon, among others.

While reviewing this list, what springs to mind is the undeniable presence of technocratic bureaucracies lurking behind the scenes, be it in the cumbersome infrastructure of Gosplan, the unintended class divisions that arose between workers and engineers during the course of CyberSyn, or the hellish social bureaucracy that Parecon would undoubtedly generate. Indeed, Dyer-Witherford writes that future cybernetic communisms must be more flexible and multi-scaled, and Srnicek and Williams follow suit in this regard. For each of them, the luxury of communism is a freedom from work and the conditions of scarcity. This places their technopolitics in a much larger trajectory, stretching backwards through Thorstein Veblen’s musings on the social necessity of a “soviet of engineers” to Fourier and Saint-Simon’s portrayal of socialism as the “administration of things”. For the left-accelerationists and their kin, the amplification of technology will gradually remove the need for bureaucracy that ran through the writings and reflections of their forebears.

Such tendencies are common for those operating in Marxist, neo-Marxist, and ever post-Marxist trajectories – and more often that not, the contradictions between the proposed plans for libertarian freedom and the expansion of bureaucratic authoritarianism that these solutions would call into being are not probed nearly enough. It’s hard to see how utilizing the currently existing infrastructures of the world can be steered into realizing a utopian, futural politics on a mass scale. It’s equally difficult to see how the grandeur of capitalism production, as it currently stands, embodies the hyperstitional (that is, the epistemic, constructive horizon of certain politics actions) draw that could shake the left from its stupor. With that in mind, what I want to do now is try to pry open a space in which certain insights from these thinkers can salvaged and pushed in a new direction, away from a future-oriented politics based on existing trends in the development of productive technologies, and towards one based on new infrastructures and new technologies. To do this, however, we first have to turn that most contentious of figures: Karl Marx.

Marx Against Labor

In his book Time, Labor, and Social Domination, Marxist theorist Moishe Postone offers an extensive critique of ‘traditional Marxism’ (that is, the reading of Marxism that allegedly leads to Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc.) and a thorough reinterpretation of communist theory. Like Antonio Negri and the autonomists, Postone grounds his approach not in the three volumes of Capital, but in the Grundrisse, Marx’s unpublished and less known manuscript that laid out the full scope of his project. Radical scholars have long considered the Marx of the Grundrisse to be different from – and far more radical than – the Marx of Capital, with the work offering an alternative methodology, set of concerns, and even articulation of what ‘communism’ is intended to be. For Negri, the Grundrisse illustrates the way that the working class (understood here not only in terms of the industrial proletariat, but the collective labor of society as a whole) operates autonomously within and against capitalism.ⁱ By contrast, Postone argues that Marx’s critique is not so much a critique of capitalism from the point of view of labor, but “critique of labor in capitalism”.ⁱⁱ

In Capital, Marx presents as the contradiction eating at the heart of capitalism as one between the “forces of production” and the way the output of from these forces is distributed – in other words, between the mass production of commodities and the marker system that distributes them. Postone illustrates that this so-called ‘contradiction’ is of significantly less importance in the Grundrisse. In this work, it is the contradiction between labor-time and machine production. Postone draws our attention to the way that Marx analyses labor and production temporally: what Marx (very problematically) referred to as ‘value’ was simply the magnitude of labor-time expended in the production process, for which a wage is received. At the same time, however, capitalist production is constantly revolutionizing production through the development of technology that both lessens the central position of labor and shortens the time spent working. In “The Fragment on Machines”, the Grundrisse’s best known passage, Marx dons his futurist caps and tries to anticipate the horizon of this tendency:

…once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery… set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself; this automaton consisting of numerous mechanical and intellectual organs, so that the workers themselves are cast merely as its conscious linkages.ⁱⁱⁱ

For this Marx, it is not so much the socialization of wealth that is the defining characteristic of communism, but the liberation from labor that occurs by way of the development of a post-capitalist technology of production: labor-time approaching zero. At the same time, however, we cannot absolve this distinctively more libertarian Marx of the celebration of technocracy and bureaucracy that has been hitched the the concept(s) of socialism and communism. It still remains a moneyless system based on the overcoming of the ‘blind anarchy of the market’ by way of ‘rationalization of production’ – though it should be said that Marx of the Grundrisse is more ambivalent to rationalization and bureaucracy than the Marx of Capital. What matters in the Grundrisse is the development of science itself, which is labeled as arising not from the brilliance of individuals, but from the “social brain” or “general intellect” of society.^iv Marx implies that the movement towards ‘rational production’ is incubated within capitalism, arising from the tendency of “manufacture and heavy industry” to seek the “employment of scientific power” in order to transfer “the communal spirit of labor… to the machine.”^v

It is at this point that Marxian theory reveals itself as a prototype of ‘fully automated luxury communism’. The transferal of science into the machine “will redound to the benefit of emancipated labor, and is the condition of its emancipation.”^vi This is because not only does the process of automation – which is precisely what Marx is describing here – drives labor-time downwards; it is also because it rapidly expands the capacities of production itself. It, in other words, lessens the existence of scarcity.

It is for this reason that we repeatedly find Marxists praising the infrastructures that allow mass production and heavy industry. Case in point is Engels himself, who suggested in “On Authority” that development pulled inexorably towards “large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture”, and that seeking to step into another path of development constituted nothing less than “wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel”.^vii Such arguments foreshadowed those of the Austro-Marxist economist Rudolf Hilferding, who wrote in his 1910 book Finance Capital that the corporation was an example of capitalism overcoming the ‘inefficiencies’ of free competition through the combination of monopoly privileges, technological expertise, and ‘rational administration’. “A corporation,” he wrote, “is able… to organize its plant according to purely technical considerations, whereas the individual entrepreneur is always restricted… The corporation can thus be equipped in a technically superior fashion, and can maintain this technical superiority.”^viii Hilferding’s insights influenced, in turn, Marxist revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin (who consciously sought to build “state capitalism” in the Soviet Union) and even non-Marxist economists like Joseph Schumpeter (who had argued that the many the free competition of many firms was inferior to limited competition between large, industrial and financial combines).

There are also a distinctive similarities between Marx of the Grundrisse and the economic theories of Veblen, writing as he was around the same time as Hilferding. Just as Marx saw developments in science and technology arising from a “social brain” or “general intellect”, Veblen described a “technological heritage” of society, from which the “machine process” emerged – that is, “the systematic organization of production and the reasoned application of knowledge”.^ix The latter point is vitally important (and not only to Marxists and Veblen-inspired technocrats, as I will illustrate shortly), as it draws together a sweeping vision that unifies creativity and desire with the compiling of techniques and technics for operating in the world. Veblen stressed how along the competitive pressures of business, there exists a tendency for cooperation (which he aligns, perhaps misleadingly, with industry) in the bringing together of “all [the] branches of knowledge that have to do with the material sciences”.^x

For Veblen, the result of this cooperation and integration was twofold. First, it sowed the seeds for future cooperation and integration through the deepening and expanding of the technological heritage. Second, it brought to the fore the needs for ‘rational management’ by way of a class of engineers – effectively bring us to a set of concerns that paralleled (but did not map directly on) the snaking path of Marxist thought towards technocratic administration. The so-called Technocrats, followers of Veblen who split into their own left and right wings, took these insights further. Lewis Mumford, the best known of the left-Technocrats, saw the accumulation of knowledge and the integration of production processes as opening up the possibility for a state of affairs quite similar to that posed by fully automated luxury communism:

When automatism becomes general and the benefits of mechanization are socialized, men will be back once more in the Edenlike state in which they existed in regions of natural increment, like the South Seas: the ritual of leisure will replace the ritual of work, and work itself will become a kind of game. That is, in fact, the ideal goal of a completely mechanized and automatized system of power production: the universal achievement of leisure.^xi

Knowledge Ecologies and Economies

Knowledge does indeed have a ‘social base’ (insofar as we can meaningfully talk of ‘society’ as something other than an abstraction). It contains emergent properties, arising as it does in a second-order manner, within the thick of the interactions, negotiations, and labors between peoples and the ecosystems in which they are embedded. It unfolds in iterations, passing from rule-of-thumb observations and fixes (metis) to more concrete, formulaic frameworks (techne) before heading back again, the two cutting across one another in a perpetual mangle.^xii Such a dance of agency can be highlighted, as Veblen correctly observed, by the figure of the machine itself, which marks the passage of knowledge into an assemblage of materials in a way that produces a technical object or artifact. Furthermore, it is the accumulation and transformation of such objects or artifacts themselves that form part of the tapestry of this ‘technological heritage’ or ‘social brain’ as it unfolds through time and sows the seeds for future inventions or innovations. Consider, for instance, Lewis Mumford’s suggestion that the Industrial Revolution of the 18^th century was itself contingent upon a mass of innovations that had been accumulating for centuries ranging from the developments in mining during the 16^th century (“More closely than any other industry, mining was bound up with the first development of modern capitalism”) to the monastic invention of the clock in the 14^th century (“The clock… is the key-machine of the modern industrial age”), among many others.^xiii

This drive to destabilize the traditional forms of organizing and behaving by technically altering our interactions can be described in many ways. For Marx, it was innate nature of our “species-being”, and for Veblen, it was the drive of “creativity” at its most immediate and applicable (Personally, I prefer Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s notion of “desire”, which they characterize as a productive, generative force). Whatever term we utilize, it is clear that the underlying problem with Marx and Veblen’s formulas is that they both to the notion that the deployment of the human faculties moves directly to large-scale, intensive industry based on the careful management of human, technological, and economic variables. Perhaps it easy to see why, writing as they were during the times of large-scale prometheanism, of expansive factory systems and gigantic infrastructures. Even today such systems reign supreme – as a 2015 report from the Brookings Institution has shown, the markets of the so-called frictionless “new economy” are still dominated by massive firms, different only in their forefathers by their degree of technological integration (!) and tendency to employ a much-smaller work force.

Regardless, the actual existence of this system – this megamachine, as Mumford would have called it – must be separated from any philosophies of technological determinism or historical inevitability. Desire, even at its most technologically oriented, need not lead directly to the big blast furnace, the corporate (or state) planning board, or the exploitation of pauperized labor forces. Carlota Perez tells us that “the space of the technologically possible is much greater than that of the economically profitable and socially acceptable” – but as a neo-Schumpeterian, she takes such a reality as a given, as the megastuctures and cyclical economic patterns that she (correctly) identifies as being driven by the organic intertwining of ‘path-dependent’ technology and consumer demand. Not so, Stephen Marglin argued back in the 1970s. Drawing on examples ranging from work organization in mills the development of factory systems at the end of the feudal era to the Soviet’s collectivization of agriculture, he suggested that there existed a tendency for the “economically and politically powerful classes” to steer innovation in a way that is congenial to maintaining power not only at the molar level, but the molecular level of the everyday. Earlier still, Mumford had argued that despotic power relations forced the trajectories of technological development into frameworks that best served the ruling classes.

Amongst the primary means through which these trajectories are set into motion are the granting of monopoly privileges by the state – and in particular, patent, copyright, and other so-called ‘intellectual property’ protections. If knowledge and technology are emergent from a social strata and evolve through time, then these monopoly privileges act as the capture of particular flows in this ecosystem. It, in other words, allows certain actors to enclose a slice of the ‘general intellect’ and banish others from utilizing, reproducing, or improving upon it – unless the proper rents are extracted, of course.

What systems such as these do is not only keep a tight – if ultimately informal – regulation on technological development, but help maintain the subordination of the mass of laborers to the handful of wealthy capitalists. Consider, for example, the enforcement of intellectual property law on a global level, first through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, then through the World Trade Organization (and the various ‘free trade deals’ that it negotiates). While billed as the globalization of market economies, what these mechanisms have done is globalize methods of exclusion. In the case of intellectual property laws, the already-existing uneven development between the so-called ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds is exacerbated by the forcing of the developing world to rely on the knowledge and technology of the developed world.

Or consider the way that the intellectual output of the academy – so often fueled by the public coffers – is so often seized and locked away by private corporations adjacent to the university system. This privatization of the very labor of generating knowledge (in a space that highlights the ‘social nature’ of knowledge itself!) ranges from the material advancements being churned out at places like MIT and Stanford to the very records of research and development in every field. Countless journal articles, abstracts, theses, and other ephemera that form the substratum of the knowledge infrastructures vanish from public eye, rarely seen except by those who shell out the large sums demanded by the pay-walls (or by those who have found/cultivated means of circumventing them).

Innumerable scientists, engineers, academics of all stripes, and activists have spoken out again and again against the caustic effects of these enclosures, highlighting in particular the ways in which they have effectively stymied research and development. Quite often the lack of access to particular tools and knowledge-pools has led would-be developers to have to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, in a way that does not infringe on the ‘property’ of others – a turn that has assisted in pushing the costs associated with research and development through the roof, thus blocking out many from ever being able to begin work in the first place (and beholding those who do embark on the path of research and development to large corporate firms and investor interests). Not only does this help maintain top-heavy, specialization-intensive industrial paradigms, but assists in reproducing the spectacular figure of the heroic entrepreneur.

Speculative Futures

Pushing back against this destructive tendency, Charlotte Hess puts forward an understanding of information and knowledge as capable of being a “pure public good – nonrival and free to all.” Moving in similar waters, the musician Brian Eno has described the way that new and novel forms and tendencies tend to emerge quite spontaneously from open social and cultural networks that freely share information and tools – a phenomenon that he dubbed “scenius”. Scenius increases the unpredictably of innovation and enhances its dynamic nature while also highlighting the role that engaged knowledge-pools play in ‘priming the pump’ for such situations. One can only imagine that under the scenario of knowledge and information being treated as a ‘pure public good’, the way in which speed and complexity of innovation would accelerate.

Re-orientating knowledge back into a more commons-based, self-propelling frame will not be enough to redirect the path of industrial development. A series of other factors must be taken into consideration – such as access to start-up funding, the form this funding takes, etc., etc., – but these are beyond the scope of this article here. What I want to emphasize is the way that dismantling the intellectual property regime is the precondition for the cultivation of a generalized and diffused socio-technical literacy – something that, in turn, would considerably increase the array of options presented to every individual. Socio-technical literacy, in other words, lends itself to the amplification of positive liberties, the exercising of freedom to. It thus becomes the precise opposite of the dreams of automated dreams of the Marxists, the Veblenites and the more recent left-accelerationists, for whom technological development heads towards a state of negative liberty, the experience of freedom from.

In such a state of affairs, what would become of the large-scale industrial infrastructures of today? If individuals had the know-how, or at least access to means to gain know-how, to produce, live, and trade without recourse to the precarity of the present, would they continue to toil for others? It may be a bit of stretch to declare the end of wage-labor, but it seems obvious that if people have to capacity to have their own means of production, then selling their labor-power to the members of the ruling class would decline. On that ground, it seems that when Srnicek and William discuss a “bricolage approach” to technological development, one of “cobbling together something new” from the old,^xiv it is less Allende’s CyberSyn (which is precisely what they were describing in this passage) and more akin to the bottom-up and decentralized production systems discussed by Kevin Carson in his Homebrew Industrial Revolution that should come to mind. Indeed, radically decentralized, stigmergic production and distribution, which cedes as much control as possible to autonomous agents, serve as a far better sociotechnical and economic horizon for militant politics.

For what it is worth, Srnicek and Williams come close to this by suggesting that “any postcapitalist economy will require flexibility in both production (for example, additive manufacturing) and distribution (for example, just-in-time logistics). This enables an economy to be responsive to changes in individual consumption, unlike the grand and inflexible efforts of the Soviet era.”^xv But despite these forward-facing moments, the overall left-accelerationist position has remained wedded too close the visions of Fordist excess, be it the hints of Soviet nostalgia, the retro-Keynesianism, or the notion of fully automated luxury communism. When additive manufacturing and related techniques appear, it always seems to be relegated to a lesser position, an afterthought or footnote. It’s odd to see the “red plenty platforms” embrace the question of flexibility, but rarely address the question of scale (which of course is to what the question of flexibility is intimately bound to).

So instead of redressed communism, how about a new hyperstitional configuration: fully automated individualist anarchism. Instead of using the mass industrial system as its launching point (which is, at the end of the day, little more than a symptom of capitalism’s repression of technoscientific development, not its apex), this mode of insurrectionary technopolitics will look towards an as-yet unformed productive system whose genesis lies in the shops, garages, basements, and pop-up labs in anonymous urban zones and boring suburbs (and not to mention already-existing spaces such as Italy’s Emilia-Romagna or China’s Shenzhen!) An intellectual lineage can even be crafted, beginning perhaps with Marx’s observations on technology and scientific knowledge in the Grundrisse, but augmented through Hayekian knowledge problems and positive-liberty philosophies. Fully automated individualist anarchism even comes with ready-made slogans. Instead of “all power to the Soviets”, how about “all power to the general intellect”? Instead of a “world to win”, why not a “future to design”? We have targets for immediate action, be the creation of knowledge commons or the setting-up of funding systems for technological development, so why let the Marxists and technocrats claim anti-work politics for their own?

After all, it is at this late stage, as sclerotic capitalism teeters on the precipice of its fragile plateau and the climate slides from bad to worse, that we can safely say that anarchism must be a futurism, and that the future must be anarchist. Let’s get to work.

[Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 15 febbraio 2017 con il titolo Lessons from the Practice of Basic Income. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

Marcus Brancaglione. Lessons from the Practice of Basic Income: A Compendium of Writings and Data. Edited by Bruna Augusto. Translated by Monica Puntel, Leonardo Puntel, Carolina Fisher (São Paulo, 2016).

Questa è una raccolta di scritti di Marcus Brancaglione, presidente di ReCivitas (Istituto per la Rivitalizzazione della Cittadinanza), di cui Bruna Augusto, che ha curato la raccolta, è l’amministratore delegato. Tra le attività di ReCivitas elencate nel sito leggiamo: “strutturare la proprietà intellettuale”, “nuovi prodotti per gli investimenti sociali”, e “architettura delle piattaforme di governance”; dalla brutta traduzione dal portoghese all’inglese fatta da Google Translate: ReCivitas è in parte una sorta di file, o piattaforma, grossomodo della stessa area di La Indias, e in parte è impegnata in un municipalismo basato sui beni comuni del tipo adottato dagli attivisti di Barcellona.

A Quatango Velho, in Brasile, Brancaglione ha co-gestito un progetto pilota finanziato collettivamente sul reddito di base incondizionato. Il progetto ha dato 30 real al mese ad un centinaio di soci della comunità per cinque anni.

Brancaglione precisa che il reddito di base non è una semplice ridistribuzione ma, cosa importante, “serve a restituire diritti naturali e una fondamentale protezione della libertà contro lo sfruttamento del lavoro alienato”, e “soprattutto, serve a liberare dalla dipendenza dallo stato e dalla servitù politica, e dunque dà potere politico-economico soprattutto agli emarginati senza diritti.”

Oggi più che in passato, è chiaro che la povertà è un problema più politico che socioeconomico. Povertà “non significa solo carenza relativa di certe condizioni economiche, ma anche e più generalmente assenza di libertà politica, economica e culturale.”

Brancaglione rifiuta la definizione neoliberista della povertà come problema individuale e non strutturale, definizione che si affianca alla celebrazione della “libertà di scelta”, espressione che indica le scelte dei consumatori entro i parametri strutturali offerti dal capitale monopolistico e dallo stato.

Brancaglione viene da una tradizione di libero mercato di sinistra, che vede nel capitalismo un insieme di caratteristiche strutturali garantite dallo stato a beneficio delle classi che vivono di rendita. Capitalismo e socialismo di stato sono varianti di un sistema in cui i pochi dominano sui tanti; entrambe le varianti, secondo l’autore del libro, sono aliene al “libero mercato”.

Brancaglione fa distinzione, forse con reminiscenze georgiste, tra ricchezza legittima e proprietà privata da un lato, e la natura come bene comune di tutti dall’altro. Alcuni tipi di proprietà, come la terra e le risorse naturali, sono di diritto comuni a tutti e non possono essere proprietà personale; altre, come il frutto del lavoro individuale, sono giustamente proprietà privata inviolabile. Non può esserci vera libertà se esiste un potere diseguale sui beni comuni. Non c’è libero mercato, definito come relazione volontaria negoziata tra parti di eguale potere, se i guadagni provenienti dalla proprietà comune, che dovrebbero essere distribuiti come dividendo sociale per favorire l’indipendenza individuale, vengono presi da qualcuno mentre chi non ha diritti di proprietà è costretto a lavorare alle dipendenze di chi si è appropriato del bene della società.

Brancaglione pensa che sia compito dello stato offrire un reddito di base: “è compito di chi controlla il territorio, i suoi abitanti e il bene comune.” Ma quando lo stato latita, e le risorse finanziarie pubbliche sono state appropriate da privati, “nessuno può evitare che la popolazione si prenda, volontariamente e mutuamente, la responsabilità di fornire un reddito di base.” Ovviamente, dicendo volontariamente non intende dire che il reddito deve essere un atto caritatevole proveniente dalle contribuzioni dei poveri; al contrario, fa capire che una delle cose che lo stato non ha il diritto di “impedire” è che i beni naturali comuni, di cui si sono impossessati alcuni privati, siano espropriati dalla società per finanziare un reddito di base, se lo stato non provvede da sé. La popolazione ha un “diritto naturale a quelle proprietà comuni alienate e date in possesso [allo stato nazione] e alle imprese private.”

L’influsso georgista si vede dalla distinzione tra “governo” e “stato” e da come tratta stati e possidenti terrieri come diverse versioni dello stesso fenomeno. Come (con tendenze panarchiche) si vede qua:

Le repubbliche libertarie del futuro saranno società senza stato o, più precisamente, società libere da monopoli nazionali e corporativi privati sul bene comune e la proprietà privata naturale. In futuro, i governi coesisteranno pacificamente nello stesso territorio come società cooperative di gestione in competizione tra loro, agiranno solo dopo accordo non solo nello stesso luogo, ma anche contemporaneamente.

Brancaglione propone un programma dal sapore fortemente anarchista fatto di comunità locali federate che aggirano lo stato per creare una contro-economia, e che si appropriano delle risorse illecitamente espropriate per finanziare un reddito di base.

In termini semplici, io propongo la costituzione di piccole comunità, interamente orizzontali, aperte e interconnesse fino a formare una rete di sicurezza sociale senza frontiere, finanziata direttamente da fondi messi su da associazioni di cittadini, senza limiti geografici, con investitori sociali in tutto il mondo. Investitori che possono investire nell’economia reale di queste comunità, villaggi, città con un enorme capitale umano e sviluppo potenziale, piuttosto che in stati falliti e banche in putrefazione. Le attuali comunità povere e diseredate… che col tempo potrebbero non solo pagarsi il proprio reddito di base, ma anche diventare investitrici o fornitrici di un reddito di base in altre parti del mondo. Persone, società che, a differenza di quel che accadeva nei vecchi sistemi insostenibili, violenti e monopolizzanti il possesso, potrebbero finalmente tornare ad avere ciò che è effettivamente loro, riprendere il controllo delle terre e dei territori, e dunque della propria sovranità politica, come persone con diritto generale all’autodeterminazione.

Quest’idea, di comunità radicalizzate e federate orizzontalmente che soppiantano stato e corporazioni, ricorda il municipalismo libertario di Bookchin e le città ribelli di Harvey.

L’esperimento di Quatango Velho conferma un tema comune tra i sostenitori del reddito di base: non scoraggia affatto ma rafforza l’impegno e l’iniziativa. “…Le opportunità, soprattutto quando si hanno i mezzi per trarne vantaggio, fanno crescere libera iniziativa e capacità imprenditoriali, al contrario delle privazioni, che non solo le riducono, ma le paralizzano.”

Brancaglione combina una moltitudine di argomenti congeniali del libertarismo di sinistra in modi che sono nuovi e interessanti. Vale la pena scoprirli.

“They broke the law.” This preceding statement is how we excuse a grand amount of injustice in this country. Recently, it’s been widely used as a mantra for people who support deportation of undocumented immigrants and need a good excuse for dragging people from their homes and splitting up families. “If you enter this country as a criminal” so goes the logic, “what right do you have to be here? America doesn’t need anymore criminals!” Those who argue this way often present themselves as being patriots and defenders of American values and tradition. I say their patriotism is a false patriotism, an ignorant patriotism, an unearned patriotism.

For better and worse, America has always been a nation of criminals. The story of America begins with an act of mass criminality, as the burdens of British rule drove many colonists into treasonous insurrection, a crime still punishable by death. America’s colonial criminality is far from exhausted by acts of political rebellion though. Before Australia became Britain’s prime penal colony they sent thousands of their convicts to American shores. Then there are the criminals who showed up to America’s ports voluntarily, in pirate ships. Colonial cities were seen as a safe haven for the libertine proclivities of the 19^th century’s most notorious, seafaring criminal class.

Criminal culture would continue to be tied to America’s national identity long after the revolution. American iconography is filled with the reverence we have for all manner of crooks and scofflaws. The Western movie genre, who can think of anything more quintessentially American, romanticized the lawless conditions and antiheroes of the frontier in the 19^th century. When alcohol prohibition became constitutional law in the 20s Americans of all classes and ethnicities refused to obey, and either became or gave business to gangsters and moonshiners. Italian Americans were generalized by law and order propagandists as inextricably tied to the Mafia culture. While untrue, there’s no doubt Italians and other immigrant minorities relied a great deal on organized and unorganized crime to enrich themselves. Yet this fact has not led the national zeitgeist to be revolted by such criminal behavior. They have been enshrined in our art and national imagination as well for their heedless and rebellious pursuits, even when they’re clearly ignoble.

I’d be remiss if I did not mention just how mutually important America’s past and the practice of civil disobedience. Henry David Thoreau, that rustic American literary icon, coined the term and advanced it to the fore of radical political thought. American abolitionists and those who struggled throughout our history for freedom and civil rights advanced this philosophy into the streets and on to underground railroads. Again and again those Americans we most revere for their moral vision and courage wound up in handcuffs and jail cells.

What good is a history lesson though? Some will certainly say of these preceding examples that they can be looked at with less severity because, after all, the past is the past. Should we tolerate crime simply because our ancestors were proficient criminals? It’s at this point I’d like to direct you to America’s contemporary crime wave. No, I am not referring to this presidential administration’s false claims that violent crime is skyrocketing, or that police are being targeted more and more. What I am referring to is our legal system, which has continually become more of a producer of criminal activity than an adjudicator of it. We live in a country where the list of illegal activities one could possibly engage in is literally innumerable. Seriously, the federal government cannot come close to accounting for all of the legal restrictions it imposes on us. The truth is, no presumably innocent person in this country knows whether or not they are themselves a criminal, but they probably are. Rather than ask yourselves “Have I committed a crime?” you should ask “What crimes have I committed?”. Once you’ve discovered or failed to discover the answer to this question, ask yourself if you should be taken away from your family and community because of your criminal behavior.

Even our own politicians can’t help but commit crimes. While there are many serious and heinous examples throughout our history I could point to, let’s take the recent adventures of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. While speaking with a Russian ambassador about America’s sanctioning of Russia Mike Flynn violated a law established in 1799 known as the Logan Act. He’s not expected to be prosecuted for it, because no one ever is. Public officials generally remain unaccountable for far more grave violations of the law, including trampling on the Constitution, without consequence. Flynn committed a crime he may not even have known about at the time though, as is clearly becoming an American tradition.

America’s taken the lead on crime in world statistics with its highly publicized and record breaking prison population. Over 2 million people live under the authority of the American penal system. More Americans are beginning to see this for the unacceptably punitive and inefficient system of justice that it is. Yet immigrants, whether documented or not, are under represented in national crime statistics. Those born and raised here are more likely to have engaged in criminal activity than those who migrated according to decades-worth of research. We’re quickly learning the valuable lesson that simply displacing criminals from their home and putting them in prison cells or in an ICE van will not solve the serious concerns of those who are victims to violent crimes we all condemn.

Let’s get to the core of the issue in light of all this. It’s true that undocumented immigrants either entered this country illegally or have overstayed their legally permitted welcome. This is criminal behavior. That much we know. What we don’t know yet from this is how to respond. It’s true that deporting undocumented immigrants is legal. What those who rely on this fact to justify deportation do not acknowledge is that not pursuing those methods is also legal, as is granting them amnesty. What good comes from the first tactic? Assuming it does rid our population of some dangerous individuals, should that really be our standard of justice? Purging criminals from society does not have a good track record of succeeding in freeing us from violent individuals. Rather, it enables them. Also, as stated before, the vast majority of those who criminally enter our country do not go on  to commit crimes.

To understand my above point you need look no further than an egregious ICE sting this week that targeted a woman seeking domestic abuse charges against her partner. Was this justice served, or is it yet another cruel act committed against a vulnerable member of an American community? We are enabling abuse and turning away victims, empowering federal agents to do things to people we would never accept be done to us, or to anyone, all because they’re wearing the right badge and holding the right guns. Every day people like this woman are unable to protect themselves without being subject to legal harassment. If these people are criminals, then damn the law.

Do away now with this inquisition of foreigners who haven’t traveled to our country with a permission slip. You are not standing against violence in the streets. You are cheering it on as it breaks down the doors and destroys the families of your neighbors. You are not preserving the sanctity of the law, because in a country where there is no perceptible bounds to the legal code there is no way you can act to preserve it. To the law we are all its violators. You are not defending your beloved nation’s values. Those who come here to better their lives are struggling taking part in an American tradition you will never have to endure. Your patriotism is only a love for the callous past of your country, a past that gave way to the fact that this is and will always be a nation of immigrants. The only difference between you and a border crosser is that you have the privilege to live without knowledge of the crimes you commit. They knew what they were up against, the danger and stigma they were exposing themselves too. Their defiance is American defiance. Their struggle is American struggle. Their criminality is American criminality, and a criminal America is the only one worth wanting.

The modern economy is stuck in a major rut. Productivity gains have not matched wage inflation, and productivity itself is relatively stagnant, particularly in the UK. Job provision is being increasingly concentrated in low-pay sectors, with temporary work and part-time contracts creating a modern precariat of working class individuals, students and other members of a general lumpenproletariat. Mechanisation and technology gains are captured by capitalist interests through IP rights and state-funding of corporate research, meaning that increasingly people are not just being made precarious, but are simply losing their jobs as well as any state-support. Such an existence is both undesirable and extremely distressing. Rather than markets freeing entrepreneurial spirits and creating a class of Konkinite contractors, free from the vagaries of state-capitalism, they have been wrought by the demands of that system and have created what I’ve described.

Thus obviously there need to be alternatives which can combat this system as well as develop an alternative methodology and praxis which supersedes it. There are innumerable such ideas floating on the internet and in policy and journal papers. One, however, seems to have really stuck its head above the parapet: a jobs guarantee which creates the conditions for full employment. This idea has been around for years, and had been inculcated in elements of the Bretton Woods system by giving national governments significant room for manoeuvre when it came to economic decision-making. Nowadays, in a financialised world where speculation provides more economic growth than manufacturing in most Western countries, this idea has gained significant traction. What better to unlock the productive potentials of the unemployed and underemployed. What better to provide a workforce for “necessary” infrastructure projects and home-building programs.

Unfortunately the proponents of such ideas generally tend to act as useful idiots for the generalities of capitalism and its systemic creation through the state. Capitalism has relied on these myriad infrastructure projects to increase their levels of capital valorisation and expand the means through which it is realised. Artificial economies of scale are effectively subsidised by state projects, whether that be the railway land grants of the 19th century, the mass enclosures of common land in Britain, or the interstate programs of the 50s and 60s. All have served the purpose of capital centralisation, land speculation and the glorification of profit. Further, with the myriad crises of capitalism, there is nothing more useful than a state that can soak up both excess labour and excess product. From this, we see the military-industrial complex (which provides outlets for information technology and research funding) and the prison-industrial complex (which provides one method for the distribution of surplus labour).

More systemically such job guarantees ingrain the main method of capital accumulation, that of the wage labour relation and the alienation of the labourer from the means of production. Simply giving such means over to the state does not limit this fundamental social relation. Rather, it gives it legitimacy and furthers the means of centralisation of capital as labour can be used for multiple productive outlets rather than those of individual capitals. You simply end up with a stratified Marxian nightmare. Meanwhile, the things that actually provide economic prosperity (good capital access, the freeing of entrepreneurial capacities, autonomy in the workplace, the limitation of monopolisation through free market competition) are crushed under the corporate-state nexus. Job guarantees are not an alternative to the current means of capitalism. If anything, they may provide a stop-gap to the internal dynamics of capitalism, which necessitate crises. State action simply gives stabilisation. The real problems are the wage labour relation and the monopolisation of the means of production, not that there aren’t enough piecemeal jobs to pass around.

Real, radical change will only come from the ground-up, in civil society and communities. It will not come from any action created by the state or any of its parasitic organisations and interests. It will be developed out the destruction of the major capitalist monopolies, those of land, money, intellectual property, tariffs and transport subsidies. No state will ever achieve such as it has historically acted as the benefactor of these monopolies. Only concerted action through agorist and syndicalist lenses will provide radical alternatives to the current system. Struggles through the prism of the state, as seen in the fights for trade unionism and a welfare state, have now failed. The antagonistic relation of state and civil society is not reparable, and nor has it ever been. Alternatives need to be created, as they have been and continue to be all the over the world. Whether those be the time banks and alternative currencies that exist in Greece, the alternative production systems in hackerspaces and small production outlets (which show the uselessness of mass production) or the cooperative economic systems that exist in Spain or South America, it does not matter. Only when such alternatives can be constructed continually and successfully will we see the plethora of systemic action which can combat capitalism. This will never come from “full employment” ideologies and the useful idiots whom infect radical discourse.

I diritti degli animali dopo l’undici settembre

[Di Chad Nelson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 3 maggio 2016 con il titolo When Compassion is Terrorism: Animal Rights in a Post-9/11 World. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

Viviamo in un mondo malato in cui Joseph Buddenberg e Nicole Kissane, due amanti dei più deboli, devono lottare semplicemente per aver avuto il coraggio di agire con compassione. In un mondo in cui la giustizia è un bene scarso, perché sorprendersi quando antiterroristi come Buddenberg e la Kissane sono etichettati come terroristi?

Presto Buddenberg sconterà una condanna a due anni, patteggiata per evitare il processo, con l’accusa di aver violato la Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA). Anche la Kissane ha accettato il patteggiamento e sarà processata a giugno. Da notare che, come accade solitamente quando si è accusati sulla base di questa legge, ai due imputati è stato offerto un alleggerimento della pena in cambio della delazione. Avendo rifiutato, meritano l’elogio. Il loro rifiuto di cooperare permetterà ad altri come loro di continuare a salvare la vita altrui rischiando la propria.

Cosa hanno fatto per meritare il marchio disonorante di terroristi? Hanno semplicemente salvato la vita a migliaia di animali imprigionati e seviziati. Invece di aspettare la riforma verso una “economia dal volto umano”, che migliori le condizioni degli animali in cattività e riduca i metodi barbari di macellazione (riforme comunque meritevoli, secondo me), Buddenberg e la Kissane hanno preso la scorciatoia: hanno liberato i reclusi e lasciato un messaggio ai carcerieri. Hanno danneggiato o distrutto la loro proprietà come avvertimento e per assicurarsi che non venisse più usata come arma di distruzione di massa.

Tra i liberati c’erano visoni stipati in piccole gabbie orribili in attesa della morte. Presto li avrebbero gasati, folgorati, avvelenati, o uccisi con un colpo al collo, per poi essere scuoiati; tutto perché alcune persone possano usare la loro pelliccia per la loro vanità. In quello che sarebbe un loro comunicato, Buddenberg e la Kissane descrivono a tinte vive la liberazione di uno di questi animali: “La timidezza iniziale [del visone] si è subito trasformata in una cacofonia di squittii, capriole, giochi allegri e nuotate nel torrente che scorre proprio dietro la proprietà dei Moyle. Vivranno la loro nuova vita lungo le rive dello Snake River.” A rendere agrodolce la vittoria dei due è però l’accusa.

L’AETA è stata approvata nel clima febbrile post-undici settembre su richiesta dell’industria che sfrutta gli animali. Attenti a non sprecare l’occasione fornita dalla crisi, gli sfruttatori hanno pompato milioni verso il Congresso perché approvasse una legge che considera terroristi quelli che si oppongono a loro. Molti costituzionalisti ritengono incostituzionale l’AETA (come molto probabilmente è), ma ciò ha poca importanza in casi come questo.

Per i due, e per i tanti attivisti che riconoscono la profonda corruzione dello stato americano e di tutte le sue leggi marce e immorali, la costituzione non ha autorità, per citare l’abolizionista e avvocato ottocentesco Lysander Spooner. Serve solo a combattere le proprie battaglie o a difendersi dentro il sistema, dove ha la sua validità. Nessuna battaglia legale può avere l’impatto che ha l’azione diretta di queste due persone coraggiose. Il loro gesto spingerà tanti altri a fare lo stesso, e ogni atto eroico contribuirà a distruggere l’industria dello sfruttamento animale.

Articolo citato in:

• Chad Nelson, Two Heroes Off to Prison, North American Animal Liberation Press Office, 3 maggio 2016

• Chad Nelson, When Compassion is Terrorism: Animal Rights in a Post-9/11 World, Counterpunch, 5 maggio 2016

With changes in work and employment patterns in 21st century there has been a precariatisation of work, where employment contracts are de-securitised, low-pay dominates and there is an increasing individuation of work-life, alongside a blurring of work and leisure. Developments like the sharing economy and the move toward a self-employment in-name-only represent a significant economic reorganisation of work. While this precariatisation has certain elements that have become universalisable amongst developed and developing nations, this essay will focus primarily on workforces in the post-industrial West.

During the Bretton Woods era in most Western countries work-life was regulated by rules and norms. Once one left education, they would normally get a job that lasted right through to retirement. There were clear delineations between work and leisure, effectively seeing work as a means to a better life, as a goal of consumption. In the area of wages and unionisation, it was seen that they would rise in line with inflation and productivity gains, and that to maintain this norm one would be a member of a trade union that could represent labour in the tripartite negotiations between them, capital and the state. One would be trained in a particular set of skills which would keep them in the same career trajectory for life. These norms and relations were the major drivers of working life.

However, with the development of neoliberalism in the 80s and 90s, work-life began to lose this function. The security that jobs provided was eroded with self-responsibility and flexibility being pushed onto individuated workers. Processes of deindustrialisation and de-unionisation were supported by Western governments of the time, and the division of labour within corporations was internationalised into global production networks. The service sector began to dominate employment, and with it came lower wages, temporary contracts and the increasing need for flexibility.

The precarity of modern work evolved from this. Risk, originally taken on the by the company who employed, is made the responsibility of the individual worker. Reskilling, flexibility and entrepreneurial responsibility are now the domain of the modern labourer. Rather than being “a romantic free spirit who rejects norms of the old working class steeped in stable labour”[1] there is instead a precarious figure, stripped of autonomy but presented with responsibility. This presents consequences that the modern growth regime ignores, from alienation to the development of a liquid society. With modern work, one becomes universally employable due to the need for flexibility and reskilling. However, when one is universally employable, that means they are also universally replaceable.

A precarious workforce has evolved from the Bretton Woods era through to a globalised division of labour. This has led to deindustrialisation and the development of economies dominated by services and tertiary activities, particularly in Western Europe, Japan and the United States. In the Bretton Woods systems of Fordist production, wages were linked to economy-wide increases in productivity and price inflation[2]. This settlement, originally conceived in the automobile sector, developed into “orbits of coercive comparison”[3] which universalised this model of corporate-union negotiation in most Western countries. Such defined the Fordist mode of production and growth.

However with neoliberal growth regimes developing in the 1980s and 90s, these settlements began to be dismantled, with work-life radically changing as a result. The construction of the globalised world that we see around us has created a “risk society”, a system of understanding oneself as uncertain in the surrounding world, always “becoming” but never actually being[4]. Responses to these moves are always in the direction of acceptance, thus closing “down political and social space”[5] and labelling alternatives as utopian or nostalgic and impossible to realise. The risk society, and its conception of uncertainty, act as governance mechanisms, developing “a new performative economy”[6] of acceptance toward uncertainty,  the elimination of effective security and the creation of a body of labour that is constantly fluid and attentive to the flexible needs of capital.

This restructuring of employment consists of the downsizing and contingency of modern employment in lean firms, where core workers are kept to a minimum and armies of reserve labour, the contracted and self-employed, are used on a part-time basis[7]. “Each individual is to be her own political economy, an informed, self-sufficient” individual[8] given the falsehood of autonomy by taking on the risks of an entrepreneur while under the control of capital. The lean firm, as it has become, is the centralising authority that confirms an entrepreneurial zeal upon its workforce, crafting an entrepreneur of the self, one “who is at once responsible for ‘his’ capital and guilty of poor management”[9]. This is a development of a networked form of employment, “a social structure”[10] not in opposition to individuation but one that encourages it. Employees are collated as entrepreneurs or self-employed autonomous individuals under a centralised auspice of managerial control. As Lazzarato notes in relation to the financial evaluation of entrepreneurs and the self-employed, “the rise of financial evaluation represents in practice an expropriation and deprivation of the power to act. Indeed, the increase in management techniques based on evaluation has narrowed the space left to wage-earners, users, and the governed in general”[11]. A “deregulated life”[12] of enforced risk-taking and a fallacy of autonomy define the modern workforce of precariatised employees and contractors.

The technical conditions of the precarious worker include job insecurity, the lack of a consistent income and the development of a new work-based identity centred around “career-less jobs” and a lack of solidarity amongst employees[13]. The dominant services and knowledge sectors of modern Western economies represent a significant avenue of precariatisation, as seen in the dependence the self-employed have upon centralised authorities and monopolies in these sectors through their control of intellectual property, advertising rights and production flows. Things like “kintractship” in Japan and forms of occupational “uptitling”[14] represent particular mechanisms of precariatisation. The former represented the transformation of the Japanese salaryman in the company into the de-securitised, temporary worker reliant on part-time work and the altruism of the company. The latter on the other hand represents a new form of in-work hierarchy. The limitation of promotion opportunities in low-pay, temporary work leads to the development of “high-sounding epithet(s) to conceal precariat tendencies”[15] to provide meaning in work. Both represent the development of a false autonomy, and the encouragement of an independence-in-name-only amongst a precarious workforce of part-time labourers, contractors and lean firms.

The development of this precariatised workforce can be seen in particular trends in the global economy. Since the 1980s there has been a decoupling of wages and productivity with the end of the corporate agreements that developed during the Bretton Woods era. In the United States “in the past 10 years productivity has increased 12.3 percent in the non-farm business sector of our economy while real compensation of labor has increased by only 5.1 percent”[16]. During this period the structural power of capital has increased with globalisation and the concentration of wealth. In this concentration of wealth “the top centile of the income hierarchy is very clearly dominated by top capital incomes”[17] with monopoly rent (income earned from “the special position of the firm”[18]) representing a significant element of this capital income. While this economic rent was originally negotiable between stakeholders in firms, the de-unionisation of workforces and their progressive casualisation has meant a disaggregation of the interests of collective workforces. An individuated workforce cannot claim collective rights to economic rent.

There is both a flexibilisation of shift work and increasingly longer hours for those working in developed countries. In the transport, communications and storage subsectors and the retail sectors there have been consistent increases in working hours across nations and production networks[19]. Further, in many countries there are emerging hours-averaging work patterns, where an average is accorded over a reference period, with hours per week varying while attempting to stay within this longer-term reference period[20]. In the UK, part-time and temporary work has been increasing in the UK since the recession, with the former increasing as a constant average of the overall labour force since the 1980s. This particular trend has been focused within two major sectors, administration and retail work[21]. When understanding this trend in relation to increased hours for particular workforces, and the development of contracting out and casualisation, we see a flexibilisation placed firmly on the shoulders of the labourer, who is made to be available to the company at varying times.

The move toward self-employment fits right into these strategies of flexibilisation as well. When understanding self-employment in the push theory of wages, we see that the self-employed are in such a situation due not to a rejection of employment but due to the inability to find stable work[22]. Surveys of the self-employed in the UK show this as an increasing element in the choice to become self-employed[23] since the recession. With the advent of the sharing economy and the Uberisation of employment conditions amongst the self-employed, we are seeing these trends taken to new extremes. The proprietary elements of the sharing economy (i.e. housing, cars, tools, etc.) are nominally owned by the self-employed “entrepreneur”, but the platform and capital ownership are controlled in effective technological monopolies (Uber, AirBNB, TaskRabbit) due to the ownership of intellectual property rights. Such can be seen in Uber’s pay structures, where changes in commission pay are enforcing a form of work discipline that requires longer working hours with less compensation[24]. Once again, it is self-employment in-name-only.

Thus we are seeing a full shift in Western countries from the Fordist mode of production that characterised the Bretton Woods system of economic regulation toward a flexibilised, post-Fordism where the flexibility and risk are the major elements of work-life. The economy becomes “compartmentalized”, integrating new sectors such as information aggregation and design[25] while the industrial sectors become secondary in Western countries. Wage scales, formerly based around productivity gains and the agreements of companies and unions, are now decoupled from productivity as these new economic sectors produce forms of capital and rent that are not captured by labour-based stakeholders[26]. An “automatic production control divides up the production processes in a new way”[27], centralising the forces of production while rearranging the labour processes in such a way that an individuated, autonomous-in-name-only workforce is amenable to such processes. The worker becomes an adjunct of the production process[28], or is removed from the process altogether into the de-securitised tertiary sectors.

New forms of rent, such as those deriving from technological monopoly, are increasingly difficult to capture by an individuated workforce. Technological innovation and computerisation are already beginning to effect the majority of low-skill workers[29] by eliminating or replacing their work sectors. Further, the new jobs that are being created by innovation are not re-engaging low-skilled employees or replacing lost jobs sufficiently[30]. “In short, although technological progress continues to create new jobs, these have largely been confined to skilled workers”[31].

Two phenomena are occurring simultaneously. First, the new workforces developing under post-Fordist systems of production and control are increasingly individuated and flexibilised. Trade unions, able to capture productivity gains and monopoly rent, are now irrelevant as new economic sectors do not rely on the productivity of the factory floor. Instead workers are made temporary, moving in and out of the workforce and having their lives based around the needs of capital-owners and employers. Secondly, a generalisable reserve army of labour is constructed. There is a need to shoulder risk and be constantly reskilling and deskilling as work is temporary and produces a lack of security. A picture of entrepreneurialism or autonomy is painted, but this is largely a facade. The effect of Uberisation shows this, where Uber’s drivers are nominally self-employed yet the app, wage-scales and other technology are owned and controlled by Uber.

Labour is a tendential element of capital accumulation, made amenable to the needs of capital. The “reproduction of the skills of labour power tends (this is a tendential law) decreasingly to be provided for ‘on the spot’ (apprenticeship within production itself), but is achieved more and more outside production: by the capitalist education system, and by other instances and institutions”[32]. This burden of education and skill-creation is placed into the hands of the individuated worker, with this individual made a cog in the systems of production or a member of a vast reserve army of labour.

Thus there is a liquidation of work-life as normally conceived. The move from Fordism to post-Fordism has not been a natural evolution but has developed through a series of crises in the current growth regime, with the recent recession one example of this crisis of accumulation. The provision of economic security has become individualised, removed from collective structures, with “more flexibility”[33] pushed as the solution. Further, with the normalisation of this de-securitised labour force, there is a blurring between the Uberised worker and the traditional, securitised workforces. “The less the lines separating ‘normality’ from ‘abnormality'”[34] are. New forces of abstraction, exerting “a form of social compulsion whose impersonal, abstract, and objective character is historically new”[35], are created that lead to alienation and a liquidation of collective solidarity in work.

The changing nature of work in the post-Fordist or neoliberal era shows a move toward de-securitisation, individuation and the production of risk disguised as entrepreneurialism and self-employment. The production of insecurity and the constant need for flexibility produce a new form of worker, one who must identify their life with work. A form of “soft capitalism” is constructed whose discourses aim at “enhancing commitment and motivation; identifying and unlocking barriers to success; seeking identity”[36], thus constructing the worker’s identity around their product.

With the precarity of labour ongoing and increasing in intensity, and the worker’s identity falsely constructed around autonomy while its construction is centralised under the auspice of the monopolistic corporation, we’re seeing the commodity relation move into every realm conceivable. From personal, affective services to neighbourly services (dog-walking, babysitting, car boot/garage sales) being centralised into new technological monopolies, work becomes an extension of one’s overall life, rather than something seen as separate or distinctive. The separation of work and leisure is meaningless when one is on call 24/7 in some configuration of self-employment. The nascent sharing economy represents this phenomenon of extreme commodification.

However there also exists a dialectical nature between the increasingly networked and quasi-independent nature of modern employment, and its centralised control by capital. In one way, it presents an avenue of exit from centralising capitalist forces by allowing individual access to the means of entrepreneurship, but because it originates directly from capitalist forces it also represents an enclosure of entrepreneurial opportunities and the commodification of non-commodified areas of life. “The rhetoric of modern management attempts to disguise power in the new economy by making the worker believe he or she is a self-directing agent”[37]. The changing nature of work and employment in the neoliberal era represents a significant centralisation of identity and power away from the forms of collective solidarity toward a centralised control through capital.

Notes:

[1] Standing, G. 2011, 9

[2] Piore, M. & Sabel, C. 1984, 80

[3] Piore, M. & Sabel, C. 1984, 80

[4] Amoore, L. 2004, 176

[5] Amoore, L. 2004, 176

[6] Amoore, L. 2004, 181

[7] Amoore, L. 2004, 182-183

[8] Amoore, L. 2004, 186

[9] Lazzarato, M. 2012, 52

[10] Rainnie, A., Herod, A. & McGrath-Champ, S. 2011, 156

[11] Lazzarato, M. 2012, 140

[12] Amoore, L. 2004, 179

[13] Standing, G. 2011, 11-12

[14] Standing, G. 2011, 17

[15] Standing, G. 2011, 17

[16] Solow, R. 2015

[17] Piketty, T. 2014, 372

[18] Solow, R. 2015

[19] Lee, S., McCann, D. & Messenger, J. 2007, 93

[20] Lee, S., McCann, D. & Messenger, J. 2007, 100

[21] IPPR, 2010

[22] Lee, S., McCann, D. & Messenger, J. 2007, 104-105

[23] D’Arcy, D. & Gardiner, L. 2014, 31-32

[24] Huet, E. 2015

[25] Aglietta, M. 2010, 423

[26] Aglietta, M. 2010, 423

[27] Aglietta, M. 2010, 127

[28] Piore, M. & Sabel, C. 1984, 23

[29] Frey, C.B. & Osborne, M. 2015, 58

[30] Frey, C.B. & Osborne, M. 2015, 63

[31] Frey, C.B. & Osborne, M. 2015, 63

[32] Althusser, L. 1971, 132

[33] Bauman, Z. 2007, 14

[34] Bauman, Z. 2007, 32

[35] Postone, M. 1993, 158-159

[36] Amoore, L. 2004, 186

[37] Amoore, L. 2004, 185

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