- From July 3, 2024:
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No men only kings and gods
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Dear friends,
Just what in the fiery circles of hell is happening.
The United States’ Supreme Court has effectively ruled (in a grandiose movement) that Republican presidents can do no crime. What a phenomenal world we live in. But what troubles me even more than the deeply upsetting turn this has taken is that working people support this nightmare scenario.
There are a litany of articles on “middle America” as a decent, relatively “normal” people who are largely under-educated and service deprived. These are the people who vote republican, or at least the largest voting bloc which empowers people such as Trump [1]. And, yes, they vote against their interests – they vote against the interests of humanity. Explanations for this range from bigotry and misandry through stupidity and a vague sense of retribution.
I also want to be clear that the “middle” bloc exists in many countries. This is not a problem unique to the United States. Indeed Australia’s “middle” is effectively anything just outside a CBD, though obviously much more sparsely populated. In this country, the Liberal-National Coalition voter is likely more moderate than a “middle American” voter, but not by a great deal. And the technique of recruiting, ensuring continual support, and “rust on” with these people is occurring under a very similar tactic.
For decades there has been unequal development of citizens, particularly in first world countries. This is a fundamental feature of capitalism. To function, capital demands sacrifice from the periphery. In reality this means the 99%. Quite literally 99% of people must sacrifice their labour, power, rights, and capabilities in order to ensure survival of the 1%. After enclosures, the radical transformation of land to private property, the displacement of peoples from their lands and a right to work and live on that land (ignoring briefly tithes to feudal lords, etc.) was removed, replaced instead by, more or less, lifelong debt. While this movement was heralded as the end of slavery and the dawning of human rights, the reality is the rights shifted from Lords who held power through force (i.e., armies) to holding power through owning others’ debt and the accumulation of capital.
The process of this extraction – gleaning value from workers by taking from them their production and at minimum taking a cut of sales escalated over time. Here we began to see the deskilling of labour, Marx uses examples of clockmakers and other expert craftspeople whose fine craft skills were in the production of entire finished pieces [2]. By being able to complete a work of value to another, these craftspeople were inherently able to be free of debt (providing they were able to sell their work, and acquire the materials needed to create it at a lower cost). This posed a threat to the capitalist – the new lord, king, or god.
Over time the process of production was abstracted – literally the capability of craftspeople was narrowed down. Rather than being a clockmaker, you would work on a single cog producing thousands of cogs a day, the person next to you would make a different cog, and so on. Fordism in full effect – production lines enabling the rapid produce of goods to be resold (by the capitalist) in return for a “wage”. Okay, Aidan, so you’re just recapping Capital in an extremely basic way, tell me what’s new.
If we imagine that our “middle voters” were, once, responsible for the growth of food, the maintenance of property, and had relative autonomy over their production the process of capital’s insertion into the ontology of production displaced these people from relationship with land. Now, rather than owning anything, they are required to work for a wage. Their land becomes debt, and exorbitant debt such that relocation to a city or town where capitalist production was well underway became vaguely enticing. The mass concentration of people to cities, the removal of people from traditional modes of production, and the fundamental change to economic mode is complete in the country of origin at this point in time.
However, here, capitalism introduces another key operating protocol. Not only are people dispossessed of expert skill and craft, and removed from land by force or coercion, but we arrive at “line must go up” – not by neoliberalism, as contemporary liberal centrists would have you believe, but by natural features of capital itself. For a capitalist to stay in a position of power – for them to retain their position in the capitalist strata they must continually increase profit from the work they steal. Initially this is what drove the growth of industry, and the other features of early capitalism including displacement and alienation as discussed. However this pattern of consumption and growth, not dissimilar from a cancer in biological terms, could not be perpetually fuelled by human labour in a single country. Enter colonialism.
In a very similar pattern of behaviour, attention was turned to the (continued) conquest of global lands. Displacing Indigenous peoples across colonised countries, often in a dually damaging removal of peoples from their land and the enforcement of slavery and continental shift back to colonial nation as even cheaper labour (i.e., free). This process has fed the capitalist machine for decades, and continues to dispossess, degrade, and undermine the labour power, knowledge, skills and practices of Indigenous peoples across the world. Moreover, through the development ever more sophisticated machinery, these extractive processes have left devastating environmental tolls [c.f. 3].
We’re getting close to being back on topic, I promise.
If we consider that a fundamental feature of capitalism is the exploitation of workers, the extraction of resources, the removal of skill and knowledge from the skilled and knowledgable, the ongoing displacement of any kind of relationship with lands and waters, and the fundamentally unequal power relations to enable this we can start to get closer to understanding the sense of “loss” – even if this is not explicit and well understood amongst those who feel it. When we add on more sinister features of capital, such as the production of propaganda, the manufacture of consent, and the manipulation, gaslighting, and terrorism of the capitalist class against the working class, we start to understand the tactics used to control people.
These tactics, unfortunately, are incredibly effective. Rooted in fear, disrespect, and inherently a capitalist ontology, the hegemonic control of the working class by the capitalist class remains one of, if not the most, deeply dangerous and destructive instruments of contemporary capitalism. These narratives are so twisted, distorted and psychologically destructive, that the unbridled sociopathy of the capitalist class only continues to escalate. It is interesting, then, to examine the rhetorics of people like Donald Trump as they provide, at least to outsiders, a glimpse of what these control narratives look like.
Understanding how generations of gaslighting, blackmail, extortion, dispossession, and deskilling affect the mind of working people may be a matter for the radical psychologist, however we can see how these dramatic overreaches of power in the name of alleged liberation may offer an appealing narrative to those who have been abused. This doesn’t help us fix the situation, but we can see the contradiction – the very narratives of control, manipulation, and dispossession turned on, what the “middle” see as the “other” appeals to a sense of revenge or sick justice. Even though the perpetrators of these injustices seek to continue exploiting the middle and the other, because the rhetoric appears focussed on the “other” (who through the manufacture of consent are distanced, abstracted, and dehumanised) this is enough to convince those under hegemonic grips to throw full support in their direction.
Perhaps, though I venture we need a much more fulsome solution, radical and liberatory education is required at this juncture. Not just for critical media literacies, but also to fully understand the role and nature of exploitation and expropriation by the capitalist class. Once we, the working class, share an understanding of this, we can begin to find ways to counter the damaging, uneven, and expropriating nature of capital, and perhaps to assert a new way forward.
In closing, I’d like to be clear that this “middle”, whatever configuration that demographic takes, are also responsible for the unequal, intersectionally prejudiced, and unethical work of those capitalists and hegemons they support. Their violence, misandry, and damage to the rest of the working class is very similar in nature to the strata of middle-managers who’s sociopathic lashings of the working class also serve as a tool of the reinforcement of hegemony for no gain. Class traitors, a joy to behold.
Thank you for coming to my 1300 word summary of Capital in 2024.
Roll out the guillotines,
Aidan
[1] https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520293298.003.0007
[2] Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy (B. Fowkes & D. Fernbach, Eds.). Penguin Books in association with New Left Review.
- From July 2, 2024:
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I don’t have anything to hide
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Dear friends,
I can’t evade the growing news of increasing government surveillance of citizens internet usage. In the US, UK, Germany and many others there have been moves towards enabling a ‘man in the middle’ on any encrypted message, website, or other activity online [c.f. 1]. This is also particularly targeted towards citizens, not corporations. The latter are offered more protections as, you guessed it, they are more financially valuable to the legislator’s government. Now in Australia there is a substantial interest in following suit, breaking encryption in the name of “thinking of the children” [2].
Much more technically minded humans than I have written up commentary on why inserting someone between encrypted internet traffic is a terrible idea. But it boils down to “its not encrypted any more”. And to be clear, for any luddites out there, encryption is not what people use to evade the law. It is a necessary part of free, open and democratic communication on the internet. Inserting the government between every message you send, every website you visit, and every social media post you read is a positive only for privacy invasion – not the protection of children.
But there’s something missing from recent commentary about global internet decryption movements – and it’s not about technology. Rather, what we have seen globally is an incredible surge in fascism, rising interest in regressive and punishing social policy, and the progressive overreach of surveillance capitalism. What, I ask at this juncture, might capital benefit from at first enabling a “backdoor” into everything done on computers, tablets, phones, fridges, and so on? We have already seen the deeply invasive and problematic grasp of internet advertisers. I do not believe it is a leap to assume that shortly after any government is successful in enforcing an MITM for encrypted traffic online that hackers, advertisers and capital will insert itself into the same relation.
I’m not sure about you, but with the proliferation of fascists not seen since Hitler, giving up my right to send private messages so the government can surveil me, allegedly to “protect children”, is a terribly good idea. In Australia we have already seen successive crack-downs on protest activism, what was previously considered a citizens right. Is it a far cry to think that a “child protecting” privacy fracture wouldn’t be used by the police to identify and arrest protest organisers? While just ten years ago I would have felt like a raving lunatic suggesting that government were even interested in the messaging of citizens, or the feverdream of a conspiracy theorist at best, we are facing a modernity of animal farm [3]. Yet even animal farm is banned [4] and yes, they can use this very method to arrest you for downloading it.
I don’t have a great deal more to say here, other than vote accordingly. And by that I mean, very seriously consider voting #1 the Greens and/or Socialists at the next election. The only serious political force on the left (and by that I really mean centre-left) are these parties. The labor party of 2024 is such a far right squaller that they simply eject dissenters at the centre [5] and notably who are on the side of peace – unlike Albanese who’s unyielding and deeply hypocritical support of genocide is against more than 80% of the populace [6].
Sometimes it feels like we’re in a living nightmare. Fascism has returned in full force. Privacy invasion is par for the course. The planet is burning, freezing, and dying. But, fuck it, line must go up. What the fuck is wrong with you, wake up?!
In solidarity,
Aidan
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/02/porn-sites-and-meta-among-those-tasked-with-drafting-australias-online-child-safety-rules https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/21/australia-esafety-commissioner-child-abuse-detection-online-safety
[6] https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/05/29/protester-prime-minister-anthony-albanese-israel-palestine/
- From June 27, 2024:
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Negative distraction
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Dear friends,
I have been thinking about negative distraction since our last idea. Essentially stemming from the notion of capital’s necessary divisive nature for its own reproduction, negative distraction – I’m calling it – is another in the many tentacled squid of class divisive praxes instilled by the ruling class. Previously we talked about division across the class line, vis. proles vs capitalists or civil vs ruling, and how intersections create vertices of additional exploitation and expropriation. Negative distraction, in a sense, is a political theatre of this boundary.
Let’s take the right’s use of identity as an example here. For political society, in particular, drawing from our comrade Gramsci [1], identity is a performance to an ends. For example, we might consider Bob Katter in Australian politics a performed identity of “country” – an eccentric with radical ideas, conservative ideas, but radical and introduced in the performative nature of political society: “But I ain't spending any time on it because in the meantime, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in north Queensland” [2]. This performative identity lends itself to a political message, a particular cause, and a rather transparent configuration of politics in society.
Naturally there are a great number of these performances which are more nuanced than a political “cowboy”. Regardless, however, of what we perceive in these performances, they are winning votes and enabling those performers a platform to influence legislature and direction in civil society. Without degrading into level upon level of nuance, if we understand that capital controls political decision making, the performative nature of politics enables a theatre to perplex, rile up, or otherwise befuddle civil society. None of these performances are harmless, and they are nearly universal in the political arena. There are next to no “straight shooters” in the political sphere – simply because the hegemony of “politics” is to perform.
Pop down the stack a few layers and we can see this theatre affect the micro. Here’s where microaggressions are born an expansion from their original use in race relations [3], the class divide now leverages these aggressions to enable negative distraction. Rather than focus on a critique of, for example, Dutton’s nuclear policy, the capital-media hegemony in Australia turns individuals against one another by amplifying divisive narratives over nuclear use, waste, storage, regulation and so on. Here the proletariat is drawn against lines of political theatre: “are you pro nuclear?” For those passionate on issues on any area of the political spectrum, this creates a negative distraction: “of course I’m pro nuclear, it is the only way to produce a stable base load of power” (fallacy upon fallacy). Rather than critique political society we are directed to absorb ruling class rhetoric as identity.
In a more sinister and capably deployed version of this practice, Queer rights are frequently weaponised as an intersectional negative distraction. We know that queer humans, across the board, are deeply discriminated against by the vast majority of “other” humans, and the weaponisation of queer rights (i.e. where these rights are not perceived as human rights) leads to wanton destruction of human life (literally). From bisexual erasure, through anti-trans activism, -human rights- are regularly undermined for political theatre. In this instance, as opposed to nuclear power by example, is a violent and destructive negative distraction at great cost to life.
A recent “controversy” (i.e. a right wing politician attacking a celebrity queer ally) is a perfect example of a negative distraction [4]. Taking a brief meta-look at this issue, as par for the course celebrities deride political decision-makers on a broad range of issues. From housing to aid programs, arts funding to disaster recovery, and so on. This occurs on both sides of issues and aids the political theatre at large, bringing celebrity attention to political theatre as an extension of the capital-media hegemony – literally dramatising politics for attention, distraction, division and reality TV. Here we see the emergence of terms such as ‘optics’ rearing their head in common parlance, an incorrectly deployed and severed theoretical word which, at least to me, screams “right winger”. Rather than address a unitary and common thread of discussion which advances human liberation, the political theatre (both self professed left and right wing parties) engages with, yet again, identity politics.
When this makes its way to the daily lives of civil society, the results are disastrous. Major political issues do not receive appropriate public scrutiny, the authenticity and genuine nature of human need and rights are ignored, and the machinery of capital is enabled to continue exploiting and extracting civil society year after year. As discussed previously, we no longer have time for negative distractions. We are on the brink of ecological collapse; societal collapse; and a rapid swing into fascist authoritarianism – the radical resurgence of which we are seeing in the south of the United States, across Europe with the recent election, and increasingly globally decaying “democracy” all in the name of “line goes up” capitalism.
Importantly I’d like to be clear that identity politics are very real and very destructive. The deployment and use of hate speech, microaggressions, and other forms of (lateral) violence have genuine impacts on human life. This is why the practice is so successful in aiding negative distraction. Rather than focus on issues of merit, such as assuring human rights to queer people, focussing on undoing the mass damage of corporate environmental destruction, enabling better funding of medical and social services, and so on the deployment of negative distraction to feed the political theatre drives hate, division, and distraction. A stereotypical Marxist may be criticised, here, for disregarding identity, matters of race, gender, disability and so on – but I believe this is often deployed as a further tool of negative distraction. Rather the left needs to find a way to unite intersectional causes under a banner of capitalist destruction. Not waiting for the revolution, but creating an intersectional future which -does- address the interstices as part of the revolutionary activity – otherwise we are doomed to perpetual failures of political/economic/governance systems which reproduce exploitation.
We can do better than being -distracted- by negative distraction. To my left-wing friends, this doesn’t mean it does not hurt, nor that things aren’t terrible, but if we can find just one ounce of energy left after successive attacks, it is a rallying cry to disavow political theatre and arm ourselves with meaningful analytical critique. Of course, the opening sentence of this paragraph is more a call to the right to look past the amplification of radical emotive issues and look to humanity, comradery, and collaboration. Though finding ways to engage in this kind of movement from right to left seems almost too far-gone as we witness fascist takeover. After all, if you’re standing with a fascist, you’re probably a fascist.
Cheery thoughts for a gloomy day on Kaurna country.
Your comrade,
Aidan
[1] Gramsci, A., & Hoare, Q. (1985). Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (8. pr). International Publ.
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42047668
[3] Sue, D. W., & Spanierman, L. (2020). Microaggressions in Everyday Life. John Wiley & Sons.
[4] https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/david-tennant-called-rich-lefty-185201001.html
mind reader
An anti-capitalist blog of dispatches from Aidan Cornelius-Bell