Episode Four – Capitalism
How to talk about capitalism?
Anarchists have largely agreed on the big two. Central to our politics is opposition to the State, or as we discussed last week the monopoly on violence (or corrected by some as the monopoly on the legitament use of violece) and opposition to Capitalism. This week let’s discuss what that means. Unlike the State, that we can largely ignore outside of paying taxes, being corraled at protests, and a brief hesitation prior to committing murder and the like, capitalism is largely something we “do” or at least experience every single day. So we both despise and participate in this system of organizing exchange relationships.
What does this mean for anarchists? Largely it means that we sound crazy when we discuss alternatives to the existing order. Being in this world and of another means that we discuss moral, ethical, and philosophical topics rather than practical or “reasonable” ones. We have very little to say, and less to offer, poor people. We argue the destiny that we are sure of like lunatics and mostly argue these points with some of the only other people who identify as anarchists who we insist are not.
And our natural allies are among the largest mass murderers of the twentieth century in Russia, China, and Vietnam. For some reason that has something to do with marketing and the way that the Internet makes people either lose their mind or forget the past Old Fashion Red Communism has come back into some sort of vogue. And closer to home one of the largest leaks in this little rowboat we call Anarchism is the even more obscure communisms of Pannekok, Luxemburg, and Theory Communiste from Holland, Germany, and France respectively. Europe is back baby as if it every went away.
This week our challenge is to stake our position on Capitalism. Great oppositional system against human self-expression and self-worth or greatest system? Call in and let us discuss capitalism, it’s strength’s, which are many, and its weaknesses.
Links
The only link we got to was http://unprojects.org.au/magazine/issues/issue-12-1/who-believes-in-indians/
The definition I was working off of was
The spectacle represents people solely in terms of their subordination to commodities, and experience itself becomes commodified. The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living. — Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
I am listening before work yanks me away into a reactive hell. This is the fifth talk I’ve listened to and likely be the last .
This was probably too broad a topic to cover in a show. I do love the opening essay and some of the callers (particularly the first) . But capitalism as a religion section didn’t resonate as well as the commentary on recent works.
If you want to be an anarchist and want to make profits, either others accept it or not. The zine for eight dollars conversation seemed like a mental distraction instead of the bigger topics.
I appreciate you tried to define capitalism.
I do support the idea of this project and hope it keeps going. But I won’t likely be coming back.
You might appreciate The Brilliant http://thebrilliant.org/ podcast more than Anarchy Bang. The intention of this podcast is to humanize anarchist theory which means the direction of the conversation might not be what you or I desire but there are other reasons letting the theme wander is a good idea. The Brilliant is closer to my voice, which agree or disagree, is at least singular. Good luck!
Thanks AnarchyBang will give it a shot.I am amazed how you can recall which episodes of the Brilliant a topic was covered. Again I do appreciate you doing all these projects.