NOVANEWS

Part of the genius of the Decolonize/ Occupy movement was our instinctual sense that the state can’t really control the capitalist market.  In fact, the state helped create this market by colonial force and it has now been devoured up by the forces it unleashed.

Instead of appealing to politicians to reel in capitalism and make it work for us, we tried to attack capital directly – we  occupied Wall St. and  ”Wall St. on the Waterfront”.   As we said during the Dec. 12th, 2011 port shutdown, the Wisconsin-style attempts to occupy capitol buildings had failed to stop the politicians from passing austerity measures.  So why not start occupying the capital of the corporations that buy the politicians in those capitols?  Why not disrupt their ports, factories, etc.?  This could be the first step of a broader effort – where employed workers, unemployed folks, union members and non-union alike could unite to occupy and seize the means of life – the farms, rail lines, schools, grain elevators, etc. that we need to survive and thrive.
As I argue below, existing capitalist states are so hollowed out and dysfunctional that they can barely control the market enough to keep capitalism functioning smoothly.   So it seems utopian to expect them to control the market enough to redistribute wealth equally, or to avert ecological catastrophe.
I think this means the capitalist state cannot be reformed to gradually become more and more socialist; they tried that in Europe, and it failed.  All the so-called “socialist” parties there are imposing austerity measures, gutting things like free education and health care.  They tried it in various countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, and they either ended up in debt-bondage to the IMF, imposing austerity on their own people –  or they were isolated, invaded, and overthrown.
Without an accelerating revolutionary movement in the streets, workplaces, and neighborhoods, I think that Sawant will be pressured into one of these corners.

I’m not saying we should abstain from politics in order to focus on building subcultures that “drop out” of the system.  These subcultures often end up reproducing oppressive and capitalistic social relationships themselves.  And without taking back all the wealth we’ve created through our labor, we won’t have enough resources to actually meet each other’s needs and desires.  Everything the state and the corporations have we made; we may want to destroy the nuclear weapons and surveillance systems and other aspects of control, but we can probably recycle the machinery, distribution networks,  buildings, etc.
Some Leninist supporters of Sawant might agree the state can’t be reformed through elections, but they might see her election as a strategic step toward popularizing a party that can eventually overthrow it by force.  But if we look at the 20th century, I think we need to be honest about the dangers of professional political classes, even progressive ones created by insurgent vanguard parties or guerrilla armies.  They’ve consolidated power on the backs of the workers, citizens, peasants, or whoever else they claim to serve.  They’ve also imposed state-capitalist economic plans that have pushed the planet further toward climate catastrophe.
I’m particularly skeptical of attempts to take over a state like the U.S.A., whose roots are in the colonial settler republic of the 1700s and whose branches spread as an increasingly incoherent coordinating committee for the global capitalist empire; in fact, its roots and branches don’t always work well together, pushing this state into increasing contradictions like the recent government shutdown.  It will probably take a world revolution to bring down this state, and if that becomes possible, I hope we aim a lot farther than the creation of a Soviet States of America.

 I think a revolution will need to thoroughly smash this capitalist state and this empire, immediately starting a long-term process of communization: creating what we need and want, freely producing for each other.

 Socialism is simply the word that Marx used for certain initial attempts at communization, for the moment when the workers’ movement begins to take over and the working class begins to abolish itself as a class, unleashing our pent up creative powers to build a classless society.  This is a contingent, reversible moment where people either continue to make the revolution or allow it degenerate into state capitalism. Or, they fail entirely and a  wave of fascist rebels  or warlords start filling the vacuum.

We have to admit that none of us can really guarantee the success of  this communization process – especially if it has to happen under conditions of  rising sea levels, pandemics, food insecurity, the proliferation of drug cartels,  etc.  If we had these answers, “communization ” would be debated in occupied factories right now, not in graduate school bars and suffocating, navel-gazing “ultraleft”, “left communist”,  and anarchist scenes.  We are not sure how to avoid the fates which have swamped so many past revolutions.  But that’s exactly what we need to figure out.

 I think we can learn from the emphasis on direct democracy  that many anarchist and indigenous movements have implemented-  face to face decision making about what we want to create, about how we want to reorganize our society in ecological ways, or how we want our kids’ to learn and grow.