A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

[kpete]

A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse
DAVID GRAEBER

It does often seem that, whenever there is a choice between one option that makes capitalism seem the only possible economic system, and another that would actually make capitalism a more viable economic system, neoliberalism means always choosing the former. The combined result is a relentless campaign against the human imagination. Or, to be more precise: imagination, desire, individual creativity, all those things that were to be liberated in the last great world revolution, were to be contained strictly in the domain of consumerism, or perhaps in the virtual realities of the Internet. In all other realms they were to be strictly banished. We are talking about the murdering of dreams, the imposition of an apparatus of hopelessness, designed to squelch any sense of an alternative future. Yet as a result of putting virtually all their efforts in one political basket, we are left in the bizarre situation of watching the capitalist system crumbling before our very eyes, at just the moment everyone had finally concluded no other system would be possible.

Much MORE:
http://www.thebaffler.com/past/practical_utopians_guide

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. Loved "Debt: The First 5,000 Years". n/t

[appal_jack]

2. k&r - The entire article is very worth a read. n/t

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. DU Rec

[n2doc]

4. Mostly good

However:

I’ll take an obvious example. One often hears that antiwar protests in the late sixties and early seventies were ultimately failures, since they did not appreciably speed up the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina. But afterward, those controlling U.S. foreign policy were so anxious about being met with similar popular unrest—and even more, with unrest within the military itself, which was genuinely falling apart by the early seventies—that they refused to commit U.S. forces to any major ground conflict for almost thirty years. It took 9/11, an attack that led to thousands of civilian deaths on U.S. soil, to fully overcome the notorious “Vietnam syndrome”—and even then, the war planners made an almost obsessive effort to ensure the wars were effectively protest-proof. Propaganda was incessant, the media was brought on board, experts provided exact calculations on body bag counts (how many U.S. casualties it would take to stir mass opposition), and the rules of engagement were carefully written to keep the count below that.

Desert Storm, anyone?

What they did not do is cease their proxy wars, like those in the middle east and in central America.

[Half-Century Man]

5. I hold that his point is still valid.

Desert Storm was a punitive raid; Jump in, kick ass, and go home. It was sold and conducted as such. The coalition chased the Iraqis out of Kuwait and blunted S. Hussein's sword. From the first missile to the last bullet, the ground offensive lasted 100 hours.

To me, that seems to qualify as not being a major ground conflict, not so much in resources than in duration.

[Half-Century Man]

6. I really enjoyed Mr Graeber's article

It had a few very interesting ideas, ie, a debt jubilee. The universal release/immunity from existing debt. Just the mental health/stress relief side of that is staggering.

I also value his maneuvering to the side of issues to gain a fresh perspective on history and current problems. I will have to think on this for awhile.

[RainDog]

7. Thanks for the link!

one thing, immediately, that sort of elided history, tho, is this:

In no case did the revolutionaries succeed in taking power, but afterward, institutions inspired by the French Revolution—notably, universal systems of primary education—were put in place pretty much everywhere.

Actually, the way that European nations adopted universal education and the decimal system, etc. was because of Napoleon's move from the leader of a revolutionary army to an emperor.

The French Revolutionaries went to war because the monarchies in the nations around them started this war - to invade France and restore the monarchy. This was also why Louis got his head chopped off - because the monarchies in other European nations were determined to re-establish the old system. The old system couldn't be if there was no king or heir to restore. So, the monarchies were to blame, ultimately, for the regicide.

Anyway, Revolutionary France decided that, if these monarchies would impose themselves on France, France would impose itself on those monarchies and depose all of them and set up revolutionary govts. in various fiefdoms in Europe - which is what happened until they got to Russia.

Those other nations didn't ask for revolution but they got it, anyway, because their rulers were determined to stop such republicanism elsewhere on the continent.

But the revolutionary sentiment that there was no divine right for kings made it possible for them to go to war to destroy the same.

So, it wasn't institutions "inspired" by the revolution - those institutions were PART of the revolution.