PowerSwitch

Hope in Common
David Graeber

We seem to have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart. But as financial institutions stagger and crumble, there is no obvious alternative. Organized resistance appears scattered and incoherent; the global justice movement a shadow of its former self. There is good reason to believe that, in a generation or so, capitalism will no longer exist: for the simple reason that it’s impossible to maintain an engine of perpetual growth forever on a finite planet. Faced with the prospect, the knee-jerk reaction—even of “progressives”—is, often, fear, to cling to capitalism because they simply can’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t be even worse.

The first question we should be asking is: How did this happen? Is it normal for human beings to be unable to imagine what a better world would even be like?

Hopelessness isn’t natural. It needs to be produced.

Link: http://slash.autonomedia.org/node/11569

that article wrote:Freedom has become the right to share in the proceeds of one’s own permanent enslavement.

Pfewwww. Some heavy reading there. Good find MacG.

The only places in the world where communism still exists and is working reasonable well, that I know of, there may be others, are China and Cuba. both those countries seem to have added a bit of capitalism to make them work.

China, in industry, and Cuba, in agriculture. The most effective agroponicos in Cuba are the privately owned ones, followed by the co-ops and followed a loooong way behind by the collectives.

Having lived through the state control of some industries in this country, and the trade union control of others, I don't want to go anywhere near that again. Absolute disaster. If you think the railways are bad now, you should have tried them then.

There will have to be some state control in the future: whether it's setting the carbon targets for the year and letting the market take care of what is made within those limits or the government saying who can produce what and to what extent. We'll need a damned site better Civil Service than we have at the moment though to do that. But I don't see the market responding quickly enough to control things through carbon trading/rationing.

I see interesting times ahead.

Very good piece, particularly, amongst many other quotes:

They apply principles of communism because it’s the only thing that really works. This is also the reason whole cities or countries revert to some form of rough-and-ready communism in the wake of natural disasters, or economic collapse (one might say, in those circumstances, markets and hierarchical chains of command are luxuries they can’t afford.)

kenneal wrote:Having lived through the state control of some industries in this country, and the trade union control of others, I don't want to go anywhere near that again. Absolute disaster. If you think the railways are bad now, you should have tried them then.

Hmm. It wasn't that long ago that the railways were publicly owned. I hazard a guess that many here probably did try them then. Personally I remember them a lot more pleasant & cheaper than they are now. Much cheaper for taxpayers too as its turned out. I must've been fortunate and missed the absolute disaster you refer to.

Benubi wrote: Personally I remember them a lot more pleasant & cheaper than they are now. Much cheaper for taxpayers too as its turned out.

They were filthy, always ran late, spent a lot of time on strike as did all the other nationalised industries, and, just as now, you couldn't find a member of staff to help you. The big difference was, though, in those days they employed staff by the thousand.

Much cheaper for taxpayers? Which country are you talking about? Certainly not British Rail. The railways would be much cheaper now if the government didn't screw quite as much out of the franchisees before they are allowed to set up shop. The franchisees are spending a lot of money on new rolling stock, which is a thing that didn't happen in the time of British Rail. The only thing they spent money on was wages.

Benubi wrote:

kenneal wrote:Having lived through the state control of some industries in this country, and the trade union control of others, I don't want to go anywhere near that again. Absolute disaster. If you think the railways are bad now, you should have tried them then.

Hmm. It wasn't that long ago that the railways were publicly owned. I hazard a guess that many here probably did try them then. Personally I remember them a lot more pleasant & cheaper than they are now. Much cheaper for taxpayers too as its turned out. I must've been fortunate and missed the absolute disaster you refer to.

Ditto.

MacG wrote:Link: http://slash.autonomedia.org/node/11569

Spooky. The word 'entropy' came into a conversation last night in the pub. We were actually talking about the amount of energy used in various activities and it reminded me of this article.

Aurora wrote:

Benubi wrote:

kenneal wrote:Having lived through the state control of some industries in this country, and the trade union control of others, I don't want to go anywhere near that again. Absolute disaster. If you think the railways are bad now, you should have tried them then.

Hmm. It wasn't that long ago that the railways were publicly owned. I hazard a guess that many here probably did try them then. Personally I remember them a lot more pleasant & cheaper than they are now. Much cheaper for taxpayers too as its turned out. I must've been fortunate and missed the absolute disaster you refer to.

Ditto.

Rose tinted spectacles?

kenneal wrote:

Benubi wrote: Personally I remember them a lot more pleasant & cheaper than they are now. Much cheaper for taxpayers too as its turned out.

They were filthy, always ran late, spent a lot of time on strike as did all the other nationalised industries, and, just as now, you couldn't find a member of staff to help you. The big difference was, though, in those days they employed staff by the thousand.

Much cheaper for taxpayers? Which country are you talking about? Certainly not British Rail. The railways would be much cheaper now if the government didn't screw quite as much out of the franchisees before they are allowed to set up shop. The franchisees are spending a lot of money on new rolling stock, which is a thing that didn't happen in the time of British Rail. The only thing they spent money on was wages.

Put it down to the short-sighted greed of the denationalised sheeple. [/code] Old Labour linked by Thatcherites to New Labour.

The only people who think capitalism failed are the people who have no idea what is.

Trains arent privatised at the moment, the government still owns them, they sell the right to run them to the highest bidder ever few years, the highest bidder then has a few years to screw as much money out of the public as possible, spend as little as possible and hopefully turn a profit, then the bidding starts again.

Hard as it is to accept, the crisis is the market working, not the market breaking down, despite what some would say.
A lot of people did some very silly things and lost a lot of money, blaming "the market" is like blaming "the laws of physics" when your perpetual energy machine doesnt work

DominicJ wrote:A lot of people did some very silly things and lost a lot of money, blaming "the market" is like blaming "the laws of physics" when your perpetual energy machine doesnt work

Pffhh... Rather like blaming cancer when you are dying. "Don't blame the cancer, its only working as intended".

Disregarding the implication that Capitalism kills, (or shall we debate the number of p[eople who starved in eastern and western Europe?), yeah, pretty much.

People were wreckless and over reached themselves, now they're going to pay for it, unless Gordo sacrifices (more of) us to save them.

DominicJ wrote:Disregarding the implication that Capitalism kills, (or shall we debate the number of p[eople who starved in eastern and western Europe?), yeah, pretty much.

People were wreckless and over reached themselves, now they're going to pay for it, unless Gordo sacrifices (more of) us to save them.

I call BS on that one. Arguments blinded by expired ideology, and pretty useless.

MacG wrote:

DominicJ wrote:Disregarding the implication that Capitalism kills, (or shall we debate the number of p[eople who starved in eastern and western Europe?), yeah, pretty much.

People were wreckless and over reached themselves, now they're going to pay for it, unless Gordo sacrifices (more of) us to save them.

I call BS on that one. Arguments blinded by expired ideology, and pretty useless.

Can someone explain to me how communism would work without a state-controlled economy please? Then I might be more willig to listen to their ideas.

Although I don't actually like the founding idea of Communism: 'from each according to his ability to each according to his need', as it violates personal liberty by stealing what is mine and giving it to other people. If I want to share my wealth to others I will do so by either charitable contributions or if I have enough capital I might want to start a business, so my capital would be shared around in the form of wages.

I don't know who said it but I think it's a great saying: 'Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.'

I tend to think of communists as utopians, people who think that everyone just wants to share their amazing gifts with everyone else and everyone will live in a happy land made of chocolate (ok, so not that last part ). But this tends to disregard human nature which is always wanting more and always wanting an edge over one another.

So yes, communism will always be alive and well because there are some people who will always imagine a utopian society and who think it is possible to get there, but in the end a utopian society is impossible, we just manage as best we can.

Sorry for the ramble, I would still like someone to explain to me how communism would work without a state-controlled economy though.