the old normal

I’ve been to a few more talks recently, including the AAGs and a discussion of Chris Carlsson’s new book, Nowtopia. At a panel on radical geography, Erik Swyngedouw challenged those in attendance to come up with a new communism that didn’t suffer from the baggage of Soviet- or Maoist-style, big-C Communism. To me, he was renewing the charge of Lefebvre some 30 plus years ago. Though he’s an energetic and inspiring speaker, he left me thinking that radicals have made zero progress in the last 40 years.

Then i met up with Chris at his Nowtopia book tour. He offered more hopeful thoughts on radicalism, albeit of a less revolutionary variety. Chris echoed a lot of ideas i’ve explored these past few months in the writing of Antonio Negri and John Holloway. These two believe not in violent, linear revolution coming at some distant time, but in everyday acts of dissent and non-subordination. By non-subordination, Holloway (and Carlsson) mean slight acts of defiance through refusal to perform for the oppressor. This isn’t as sexy as Trotskyism or even Marxism as many understand it, but i’m beginning to believe that if another world is possible—and i think it is—then it can only be achieved by making it everyday in our actions.

Let’s not confuse things, organization is still important. Building a new class consciousness, and i do mean class, is vital to the success of a radical change from capitalism. But just as capitalism wasn’t built overnight, neither is some other form of social and economic organization going to come abruptly. It takes work, hard work, creative work, everyday, and real discourse about what type of world we want to live in.

What about violence? Certainly violence will happen. The counter-revolution is always operating to subvert or smash the radical activities of daily resistance. Not much differently than the tactics used against violent, revolutionary resistance in the past. Radicals need to maintain patience and focus through violent attempts to marginalise and vilify their actions, otherwise we fall into the same trap that dismantled the minimal gains made by the 60s radicals.

It’s happening. Little pockets of resistance are building. But more action is necessary. The larger our problems become, the easier it is to resist. Food riots, energy crisis, natural disasters: all provide moments for radicals to build a new class. The dispossessed, as David Harvey calls them, are our new IWW, our new SDS. Find your own way to contribute!