k-punk on pessimism of the intellect

Link: k-punk.

The problem is that capital is innately and essentially global (and by that I don't just mean planetary, I mean abstract, irreducible to a particular location) whereas its opposition remains local, tied to specific sets of interests. Capital thought very carefully about how to break labour; it seems to me there's still not yet been enough thought about what tactics will work against capital in conditions of post-Fordism, and what new language can be innovated to deal with those conditions. Because part of the difficulty is that capitalism has appropriated 'the new' as its own, whereas we are largely reduced to clothing ourselves in the shabby remnants of a century ago. To reclaim the 'new' can't be a matter of adapting to the conditions in which we find ourselves - we've done that rather too well, and 'successful adaptation' is the strategy of managerialism par excellence. Paraphrase of a manager (and Natfhe member) at our place after a union meeting today : 'Incorporation was done solely to make our working conditions worse and lower our wages. But all we can do is deal with how things are now. We have to 'manage' things. Anything else is not realistic.'

It's clear: what we need to do is identify a Now that is break from capitalist realism.

Locality, novelty, adaptability--seemingly options for anti-capitalist opposition already coopted under post-fordism. But, the way I've put this is imprecise, for, in Mark's post, opposition is local whereas capitalism is global. And, this statement involves a clash or gap between politics and economics whereas novelty and adaptability are already economic (aspects of post-fordist production). Or, we could say that novelty and adaptability in politics have been formatted in terms of spectacle or communicative capitalism such that they are crucial components already of post-fordism.

Options, then? Well, maybe the problem is less post-fordist production than neoliberal economics and financialization (I'm not committed to this view; I'm simply throwing it out to for consideration; I'm still reading Capital Resurgent). Or, perhaps the problem is in "locality." I'm not a huge fan of Hardt and Negri, but their contribution to rethinking locality (the non-place of Empire) has some merits. So, what surprises me is that there are so few attacks on (hacks of) corporate networks, financial trading markets, etc. Or, maybe there are these attacks, but they are hidden. These sorts of tactics seem to me to be well-suited to the present arrangement.

Comments

[Padraig]

"So, what surprises me is that there are so few attacks on (hacks of) corporate networks, financial trading markets, etc. Or, maybe there are these attacks, but they are hidden. These sorts of tactics seem to me to be well-suited to the present arrangement."

Interesting you should raise this ... hidden to the extent of being invisible to establishment media? Yes. There was, for instance, the Gnomes For Peace Strategy [first developed/proposed by economist Richard Douthwaite: http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/douthwaite000.htm] tentatively implemented by some during the first half of 2003 in response to the US invasion of Iraq, which further encouraged the decline of the dollar, from parity with the Euro to around $1.35/euro, ignored by the media, among others, of course. And right now there's the March-planned Iranian Oil Bourse, which may spark yet another war, using the media-frenzied nuclear non-issue as pretext ...

[Padraig]

The URL cited above should be:

http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/douthwaite.htm

[Marilyn]

Hello!^

[steven davies]

The attacks on financial trading markets and corporate networks are not so few as you said.Yes there are hidden attacks too,but they are not so many.