Pubished in Left Curve no. 34 (2010)

Ed. Note: This text is a slightly revised version from an article written in response to an invitation by Gene Ray and Katja Praznik, who co-edited the Spring 2009 issue of ...Maska, casopis za scenske umetnosti/ performing arts journal. (Vol. XXIV, no. 121-122). Address: Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. The theme of the issue was: “Re-projecting radical futures.” Included in the proposal for the issue was: “What have we learned from the last century and the post-1989 ‘transitional’ period?” In response to that question, in Section III below, I cite from the introduction to a collaborative project that I worked on in the mid-90s, which was an attempt to come to terms with the disintegration of Yugoslavia, called “Balkan Autopsy” (see Left Curve no. 22, 1998, online at: http://www.leftcurve.org/LC22WebPages/autopsy.html). That project involved a compilation of work (essays, fiction, poetry, visual art) collected by my collaborator and then resident of Vojvodina (the northern province of Serbia), Balint Szombathy, from the different regions of the former Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars of the 90s. Since I think that what I wrote back then still holds true since the post-89 consolidation of neo-liberal hegemony in the region, I’ve chosen to cite from this work, rather then just rephrasing it for this essay.

Considerations on the Global Economic Crisis and
Ways Beyond the Logic of Capitalism

Csaba Polony

I. Confronting assumptions

For anyone concerned with radical social change, the current global economic crisis has brought to the fore the salient issue of whether and how a “post-capitalist” world may come into being. This brings up questions such as: lessons to be learned from the history of past revolutionary movements, identifying contemporary social forces through whom such a change can happen, organizational forms that would be necessary, what a “post-capitalist society” may be, etc. But to my mind a deeper issue also needs to be confronted: the coming to terms with fundamental questions concerning the entirety of any presumed destiny of human—if not all of “natural”—history. Does history have an inherent trajectory? The revolutionary tradition since at least the mid-19th century has answered “yes”; The goal is to realize in actual social life the movement from “necessity to freedom”; the overcoming of oppression and exploitation of “man by man”; the possibility of “reconciliation” that moves beyond class and cultural disparities; and even the problem of humanity’s place in the cosmos—all considered realistically, without illusions. Such views have been implicit or explicit in most movements for social change (whether “reformist” or “revolutionary”), as well as what is generally referred to as “modernity”. And “modernity” has been based on the assumption of “progress”—by which is meant that human history is a linear movement from “lower to higher”, from “barbarism to civilization”, from ignorance and superstition to scientific knowledge, from a state of subjugation to natural and social forces to one in which humanity—by consciously, actively, controlling and shaping its destiny—achieves freedom and liberation. However, the idea of “progress” has been the ideological presupposition of “techno-scientific modernity” as a whole, including liberal capitalism and its modern (20th century) historical antitheses, socialism (which proclaimed itself to be a necessary transitional form toward classless society, i.e., communism)—though for the former the idea of linear “progress” has a “top-down” perspective, rather than the revolutionary movement’s ideal of progress from the “bottom up”. In any case, now, in the 21st century, with the potential for ecological meltdown looming, the assumption of “progress” (or, the growth economy) has to be seriously confronted and rethought by any movement that tries to offer a way “beyond capitalism”.

As is well known, the inherent logic of capitalism has been the need to extract surplus value from the productive, working population and the resulting necessity for the constant expansion of markets. Since capitalism’s inception, this has always involved a cycle of “creation” leading to a crisis of over-production, followed by the inability to continue to adequately extract profits. A period of “destruction” then ensues (usually recessions, occasionally depressions, sometimes social upheaval, war or, most rarely, revolution). The current crisis is the latest example of such a period of “destruction”, as the neo-liberal system that has been in place since the 1970s has run through the usual capitalist cycle. But what is historically unprecedented in the current crisis is that it comes after a period in which the capitalist process of commodification (use-value replaced by exchange-value) has been extended into all conceivable nooks and crannies of not only the whole planet (“globalization”), but into the deepest recesses of subjectivity as well. There’s nowhere left to go: as long as the logic of capitalism remains dominant, on the horizon dystopic scenarios appear of either techno-pipe fantasies of the genetically-engineered “post-human” machine-augmented body, robotization, artificial intelligence, space colonization, etc.; or destruction through societal disintegration, a recourse to fascistic forms, war, or ecological catastrophe. As such, the continued survival and re-booting of the logic of “progressive capitalism” threatens the survival of humanity, if not life itself, on the planet.

II. What else can there be?
So, is another world possible? Since the outbreak of the current crisis, there has certainly been no lack of attempts to address the issue. For example, a search with the key words of “economic crisis, movement from below” resulted in over 1.3 million entries. By scanning through the first few pages of the search results, I looked for work that was based on the premise that a “solution” to the global meltdown necessitates the emergence of a “post-capitalist” movement, “from below”, that has the potential to confront global capital and may eventually replace it.
A document that was repeatedly referred to in my search was “The global economic crisis: An historic opportunity for transformation.” Now referred to as “The Beijing Declaration”, it came out of the meeting of a group of social movements and NGOs in October 2008 on the occasion of the Asia-Europe People’s Forum in Beijing <http://www.redpepper.org.uk/The-Beijing-Declaration>. The Declaration calls for a “transitional program for radical economic transformation ” to a “different kind of political and economic order,” based on the principle of putting the “well-being of people and the planet at the center.” A list of “Proposals for debate, elaboration and action” are presented as an open set of principles asking for public response, critique, and endorsement. The set of principles of the Beijing Declaration covers Finance, Taxation, Public Spending and Investment, International Trade and Finance, Environment, and Agriculture and Industry. To give an idea of the thrust of the proposals, I’ve listed a few proposals under each category (the full list can be accessed at the above link)”

Finance
• Introduce full-scale socialisation of banks, not just
nationalisation of bad assets.
• Create people-based banking institutions and
strengthen existing popular forms of lending based on mutuality and solidarity.
• Introduce parliamentary and citizens’ oversight of the
existing banking system.
• Overhaul central banks in line with democratically
determined social, environmental and expansionary (to counter the recession) objectives, and make them publicly accountable institutions.

Taxation
• Close all tax havens.
• Apply stringent progressive tax systems.
• Introduce a global taxation system to prevent transfer
pricing and tax evasion.
• Impose stringent progressive carbon taxes on those
with the biggest carbon footprints.
• Adopt controls, such as Tobin taxes, on the movements
of speculative capital.

Public Spending and Investment.
• Radically reduce military spending.
• Redirect government spending from bailing out
bankers to guaranteeing basic incomes and social security, and providing universally accessible basic social services such as housing, water, electricity, health, education, child care, and access to the internet and other public communications facilities.
• Establish public enterprises under the control of
parliaments, local communities and/or workers to
increase employment.
• Introduce participatory budgeting over public finances
at all feasible levels.
• Invest massively in improved energy efficiency, low
carbon emitting public transport, renewable energy
and environmental repair.

International Trade and Finance
• Introduce a permanent global ban on short-selling of
stock and shares.
• Ban on trade in derivatives.
• Ban all speculation on staple food commodities.
• Cancel the debt of all developing countries—debt is
mounting as the crisis causes the value of Southern currencies to fall.
• Phase out the World Bank, International Monetary
Fund, and World Trade Organisation.
• Phase out the US dollar as the international reserve
currency.
• Establish a people’s inquiry into the mechanisms
necessary for a just international monetary system.
• Phase out the paradigm of export-led development,
and refocus sustainable development on production for the local and regional market.

Environment
• Introduce a global system of compensation for coun-
tries which do not exploit fossil fuel reserves in the global interests of limiting effects on the climate, such as Ecuador has proposed.
• Pay reparations to Southern countries for the ecologi-
cal destruction wrought by the North to assist peoples of the South to deal with climate change and other environmental crises.
• Stop the development of carbon trading and other
environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes, such as carbon capture and sequestration, agrofuels, nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ technology.
• Adopt strategies to radically reduce consumption in
the rich countries, while promoting sustainable development in poorer countries.
• Introduce democratic management of all international
funding mechanisms for climate change mitigation, with strong participation from Southern countries and civil society.

Agriculture and Industry
• Phase out the pernicious paradigm of industry-led development,
where the rural sector is squeezed to provide the resources necessary
to support industrialisation and urbanisation.
• Promote agricultural strategies aimed at achieving
food security, food sovereignty and sustainable farming.
• Promote land reforms and other measures which
support small holder agriculture and sustain peasant
and indigenous communities.
• Stop the spread of socially and environmentally
destructive mono-cultural enterprises.
• Stop labour law reforms aimed at extending hours of
work and making it easier for employers to fire or retrench workers.
• Secure jobs through outlawing precarious low paid work.

I think these proposals are comprehensive, laudable, and a promising start for articulating concrete alternatives beyond the logic of capitalism. If they could be implemented, the birth of a new world would indeed become possible, ending the pernicious era of capitalist oppression, exploitation, oligarchic rule of the super-rich over the working class and dispossessed—along with its accompanying greed, senseless consumerism, self-absorbed egotism, “war of all against all”, and the continued desecration and destruction of the planet. The Declaration can also be taken as a good summary of positions that the many people in the “anti-capitalist”, “anti-globalization” or “movement of movements” have been promoting since the 1990s, through venues like the World Social Forum.

A noticeable, yet crucial, omission is how such policies may be potentially actualized, put into practice, in the real world. Though many points could conceivably be implemented within the existing capitalist state system, and thus would but contribute to rescuing capitalism “from below”, others, particularly those that relate to labour laws, control of the State, financial institutions, money flows and the military would run into fierce resistance by the ruling elite. And, it can’t be forgotten that the ruling elite has control over all levers of State and corporate power: financial instruments, the media, all State structures and the police and military. If their power is threatened, they’ll do whatever is necessary to insure their continued dominance. So what actual “counter-power” can mobilize against such entrenched power? It would have to be a “counter-power” based not just on reformist, piece-meal adjustments to the existing system, but one that could offer a concrete form of State governance issuing from within the dominated population that could successfully confront and replace the ruling global neo (or post) liberal system. The what, how, and wherewithal of such a “counter-power” are the vexing unknowns in need of creation.

III. Lessons from the past

…Speaking generally, there is something peculiar in national hatred. We always find it strongest and most vehement on the lowest stage of culture. But there is a stage where it totally disappears and where one stands, so to say, above the nations and feels the good fortune or distress of his neighbor as if it happened to his own… —Goethe

If (the subject) were liquidated rather than sublated into a higher form, the effect would be regression—not just of
consciousness, but a regression to real barbarism. —Adorno

Goethe’s words quoted above introduce the book, The Dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1929) by the Hungarian liberal intellectual and politician, Oscar Jászi. Mr. Jászi had been an active liberal politician in the final decades of the Monarchy and tried unsuccessfully to convince his countrymen of the need for deep structural reform and reorganization of the Habsburg lands into a confederation of equal states with a federal structure. He was a true follower of the Enlightenment—as shown by his quote of Goethe—and believed that progress would eventually eliminate the national hatreds that tore apart his homeland. (…)

The above quote of Adorno’s was written some forty years later, in the years after WWII, and in the midst of the Cold War. We can read in these words disenchantment with the ideals of the Enlightenment, which was, of course, already forcefully presented in his 1944 book, co-authored with Max Horkheimer, The Dialectics of Enlightenment. The words can be taken to refer not only to the “regression to real barbarism,” most obviously exemplified in the horrors of fascism, but also to the failures of the communist revolution and the transmutation of the ideals of liberal democracy into the vacuous spectacle society of the West. The “subject,” as a solid, centered, lived-experience of self (regardless of what level in society), was “liquidated” in all three societal forms that the 20th century brought into being.

Fascism tried to resolve the conflicts of modern industrial society—social and psychological uprootedness, displacements, alienation, meaningless work, inequality, absence of personal and economic stability, etc.—by a mythic appeal to a regressive “pure race” needing to rid itself of its “impurities,” which, of course, culminated in genocide. Communism tried to deal with the problem by the construction of a myth of progress into an ideal future, based on an ideology of the proletariat as the “progressive class.” This “mythic” part of “really existing socialism” accounts, perhaps, for the formal similarities in its art with that of National Socialism. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” also tried to remove its “impurities” (e.g., Stalinist purges, Gulags, Maoist cultural revolution, Pol Pot genocide), but based on “class” rather than “race.” Socialism also resorted to bureaucratic, instrumental means to construct and enforce its vision of reality. It tried to “change the world” according to the dictates of preconceived, centrally drawn up plans, with the intention of creating a more just and egalitarian society. This “social engineering” aspect of socialism is also shared by liberal democracy. But the latter, rather than constructing a myth of a “classless society” for which the present must be sacrificed for the future, devolved the mythic into heaven on earth now, in the form of a cornucopia of instant consumer gratification. All that is needed is the free play of market forces, which will insure “economic development,” while the state functions as a bureaucratic machine to keep the economy “growing”, while granting formal “equality” to all through various supposedly feel-good programs of building self-esteem among groups labeled by liberal guilt as disenfranchised.
In all three cases, to return to Adorno’s quote, the “subject” is “liquidated.” The actual experiences of people become repressed, hidden, turned-inward without the development of a higher, more universal sense of self. Since the current socio-psychic state is negated, the repressed longings revert to myths of harmony from the past, a consequence of which is the opening of the door to a “regression to barbarism.”
(…)

A deep sense of tragedy runs through the decade-long traumatic events that culminated in the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This is so not only because of all the obvious destruction and suffering; but because the problems that precipitated the conflict are left unresolved, as far as the affected peoples are concerned. “Solutions” are imposed from the outside, thus real self-determination is foreclosed. In order to maintain the status quo, the dominant global powers are impelled to forcefully bring such conflicts to an administrative halt, by a coercive imposition of rationalistic measures which create only a formal modus vivendi, that do not resolve but merely patch-over, cover-up the failure of modern civilization, and that failure results from the fact that the only way to organize and administer the modern world is through the logic of techno-rationalization.

The problem is that people cannot form identities based on technocratic, bureaucratic principles but need a sense of subjective, organic connection to other people and to their environment. Concrete, individual experience cannot locate a ground that can heal, or bridge, the split between the lack of subjective-belongingness and the necessities of modern, objective life-organization.
As such, people continue to revert to (or try to invent) “organic identities” which necessarily become exclusive, different, apart from others, leaving always open the possibility for conflict.

IV. Some concluding thoughts

In conclusion, I wish to stress a few important points to keep in mind when considering possible ways of going beyond the logic of capitalism.

• The future is unpredictable
We can never know what’s going to happen, regardless of our knowledge of history, economics, sociology, psychology or politics. Reality is open-ended and ungraspable by any concept. Nothing ever turns out quite how we expected (or hoped) it would. Life can never be wholly rationalized and controlled, but involves necessarily indeterminate areas of phenomena and experience whose unfolding in time are always unpredictable. Attempts to force life, regardless of how well intentioned, into a preconceived mould result in repression, oppression, atrophy, and then breakdown. The latter point is an important philosophical lesson to be learned from the failures of previous revolutionary movements. Yet, it may well be that it is from within such “indeterminate areas” that resistance and new forms of being have the potential to emerge—beyond the neurotic floating fragments left in the wake of the disintegration of the modernist subject.

• Systemic global change occurs through catastrophes
“Constant change is absolute,” nothing remains static, everything is in a constant state of motion: birth, growth, decay, death, passing from being to non-being and back again in an endless spiraling cycle. Though future events are unpredictable, systemic change is abrupt, “catastrophic.” This is so in nature, such as the sudden dying off of species, implosions of stars and galaxies, as well as in human history, such as the collapse of a social order. The Russian Revolution didn’t just occur because of the organization and knowledge of the “laws of revolution” by the Bolsheviks, but was made possible by the catastrophe of World War I; just as the “Soviet Bloc”, the Chinese revolution and the anti-colonial liberation struggles emerged from the ashes of WWII. But that is not meant to be an excuse for passivity. The difficult work of elaborating the means and ways of how a new social order may be constructed that could potentially replace a collapsed social system is still necessary and essential—otherwise, regressive forms reassert themselves.

• Importance of being of and within the people rather then being above or on the outside
It’s important to remain in touch and part of the daily reality of the working population and not become isolated in closed-off sub-cultural ghettoes, whether of a political or artistic nature. But this is not meant in a crude economistic sense of having to go to work “in the factories, offices”, or whatever. Rather it involves an attitude and disposition which is immersed in the everyday struggles, joys, quirks, frailties, disappointments, travails, hopes, pains, and dreams of the dominated population—and not one that seeks an “escape” by achieving some kind of position above and beyond the fray of life’s inevitable vicissitudes. In short, empathy and respect for “the common man.”

• Development of a no-growth economy
The need is for an economy that would bring an end to wasteful consumerism, and restore a healthy, sustainable ecological balance between the human and natural world, while simultaneously creating an egalitarian society in which the fruits of our labour and that of nature’s bounty are equitably shared across the globe. As I mentioned above, the continued survival of the logic of “progressive capitalism” threatens not only the survival of humanity, but of life itself on the planet.

A no-growth economy could only become a reality in a non-profit, non-commodity society. And the only way that could happen is if capitalism is finally overcome and laid to rest and recognized as having been human egotism’s last vain desire to hubristically defy fate and be as a god ruling over all there is.

The choice now is no longer that of “socialism or barbarism,” but rather “life or death.”

Csaba Polony is an artist, writer and editor of Left Curve. He lives in Oakland, CA.