A microscopic spectre is haunting the world - one that seems tailor made to expose and accelerate the contradictions that have been gumming up the engines of history in the last decades. The COVID-19 crisis lays bare the contradictions between capital and labor, the estrangement of production from its double-value consumption, and the utter failure of a global neoliberal order to maintain the stability it so desperately wishes to project.
Though the philosopher Slavoj Zizek was dunked on just a month ago for suggesting that the Coronavirus would be a “Kill Bill-esque blow to capitalism”, it’s at this point an uncontroversial statement to say that we live in a world undergoing rapid changes. Indeed, it’s hard to look at a crisis which seems poised to create a 40% unemployment rate with little disruption to our basic supply chains as anything other than a major shock to the system. But far from being the scion of the inevitable birth of global communism, it seems to me the moment we face is one where the key questions — what form will these changes take and how are we who dream of a better world to respond? — are now a site of open contest. It seems that history is starting again, and we now have a responsibility to be players in its procession.
So taking as a starting point that changes of some sort are on the way, but that these changes are still in the process of being determined, my goal with this newsletter is to gather some of my own thoughts on those branching paths of history and hopefully provide some useful analysis of the crises we now see unfolding. Some major topics that are rattling in my mind:
Primitive Accumulation and “Capitalism’s Great Leap Forward.” borrowing lenses from theorist McKenzie Wark (and a bit from TrueAnon’s Liz Franczak), I’m hoping to explore the idea that what we see emerging from this crisis may not be a simple reorganization of capital industries but indeed something more monumental: a new mode of production based around information and the logistics of production. I hope to expand on some of Wark’s (admittedly tentative) position that this may not be Capitalism but in fact, something worse, by looking at what exactly it means when a huge portion of so-called “laborers” can be totally distanced from the physical means of production and carry on their work from their bedrooms with little disruption. Is this a moment of “primitive accumulation” in that shift?
Does “privacy” matter anymore? I work in privacy by trade, and despite what I do believe is the importance of giving users agency over the way their technology functions, I have always been more than a little suspicious of the usefulness of “digital privacy” as a political solution to issues of government and corporate overreach. What does the current situation reveal about the limitation of “privacy” as a lens for analysis and where do we go from here?
Opportunities for disruption. Of course, the point of all this is not simply to interpret the historical process that is occurring, but to change it. How can organizers and all those who wish to fight for a better world respond to what’s going on? What is the duty we have to not just “flatten the curve,” but to bend the arc of history?
So we’ll see how long I end up working on this! If you’re reading this, I’d appreciate if you could take the small steps to let me feel like this isn’t a total waste of time. Share this list with your friends and stuff and comment on these posts with your thoughts —hopefully this will be marginally useful for folks thinking through what the hell is going on out there.
While physical separation from the means of production is possible for some "laborers", I wonder if tech industries will fare any better than traditional on-site forms of labor once the smoke clears, and what that means for the idea that we live in something other/worse than capitalism.
All of us, especially those of us working with privilege from the safety of our homes, need to be fighting for the safety & finances of the workers out in the world - on the front lines - medical, food service, delivery, warehouse, transportation, childcare, janitorial, first responders... Their battles are happening every day & we need to listen to their demands & keep the pressure on.
Workers are filling trains in urban centers so that they can keep life moving. Class is apparent in every action and transaction. Class is going to be apparent in the illnesses and deaths of COVID-19.
https://abc7ny.com/overcrowded-subway-train-nyc-social-distancing-coronavirus/6068366/