Tag / social change

by doctormcgrail

Theses on the Mirage of “Left” Unity

Introduction

A teaching and union colleague recently pointed out that one of the 2025 Reith Lectures claimed disunity on the “Left” was incapacitating struggle against the new authoritarianism. This disunity leaves the “Left” unable to combat the rise of the Far Right. Like most theories, this claim contains its moment of truth. There seems to be little obvious opposition to the politics of isolation. Self-immolation in an era of capitalist crises and state austerity stands unchallenged.

However, such calls to arms overlook or ignore not just the historical reasons for “Left” disunity. They neglect to consider why, philosophically, there have been incompatible positions on the “Left”. Indeed, we should ask this question. Has there ever been such a thing as “Left unity” (producing a unified position, movement, group, or identity)?

The Left should be associated with ‘radicalism’ (a desire to change the status quo). This creates its ‘identity’ in opposition to ‘conservatism’ (a desire to maintain the status quo). However, there has never been agreement amongst “the Left” as to what counts as the ‘status quo’. Hence, what is it that needs to be ‘changed’? If this cannot be agreed upon, radicals (change seekers) face a crossroads. They are bound to head off in different directions. Thus, disunity is built into the so-called ‘march of progress’!

Analysing the Options

Here I will argue there are 3 fundamental positions on “the Left”. Everyone involved may want to ‘change society’ (and clearly they hope to do this ‘for the better’). But, as noted, their positions are fundamentally, in both theoretical and practical terms, incompatible. I call these three positions: (1) State Takers, (2) State Makers, and (3) State Breakers.

All three stand in relation to ‘capitalism’ as the currently existing mode of production. And each wants to present their own position as the ‘best way forward’ or ‘best available option … in reality’. I say ‘stand in relation to’ and not ‘stand against’. The first major division arises between those ‘radicals’ who see capitalist relations of production grounded in ‘human nature’ (and thereby inevitable or insurmountable). Others see capitalism as running against ‘human nature’ (and thereby flawed and historically dangerous; working its way towards barbarism). Yet, things are never this ‘neat’ and sub-positions emerge as there are those who ‘think’ they are overthrowing capitalism whenever the state nationalises or incorporates services and institutions, despite widespread awareness of the modern nation state’s role in advancing capitalist relations of production (i.e., the wage labour form, laws on community dispossession, the promotion of monetary command over life).

What is a ‘State’?

First I am required to give a definition of what I mean by ‘state’. I understand a ‘state’ to be a permanent structure or condition which entails a political division between rulers and ruled. Typically, there are politicians and non-politicians. One section of the social totality (the polity) makes decisions in relation to the other (who take instruction).

A classic account of a ‘state’ is Plato’s Republic. In this account, the community is divided into three distinct classes: (a) philosophers, (b) soldiers, and (c) traders (techne). Plato argued against democracy. He did not envision a properly functioning society where everyone (within the polity) had the capacity, skills, time, or inclination to govern. Rulers (the government or governors) had to be ‘trained’ to rule properly. Indeed, the most effective rulers had to be philosophers. And these philosophers had to be communists not ‘corrupted’ by private interests. Philosophers were placed above techne. They were not ‘encumbered’ with everyday requirements, such as producing the material needs of the polity. Their sole job was to ‘rule’.

Of course, Plato’s arrangements involved permanent classes reproduced through genetic isolation from each other. The philosophers were a nobility, though a physically weak one which needed protecting by a second class (level or layer) of ‘rulers’, the soldier guardians, who had physical strength. Naturally, the head (philosophy or wisdom) ruled the body (might) and in Plato’s Republic it was ‘impossible’ for individuals to move between classes (defined by ‘birth’).

Our contemporary ‘states’ differ in so far as everyone is abstractly ‘equal’ before the law. Anyone, under the American Dream, has the ability to rise among the ‘ranks’ and become a ‘ruler’ (politician). But this social mobility does not mean there is no permanent division between rulers and ruled in modern society. Whilst ‘individuals’ can change rank and swap places, at any moment in time/space rulers (politicians) are still a class apart from the ruled. Each empowered individual has temporary privileges (the ability to take part in meaningful votes) which others do not, but as a ruling class politicians are a ‘permanent’ feature and division.

Whereas in Plato’s Republic both the individuals and their class divisions are permanent, with modern states individuals are ‘free’ to move between or across classes, becoming ‘temporary’ rulers. But the classes themselves (politicians versus non-politicians) remain ‘permanent’. An individual can be elected or co-opted into the ruling (governing) class. And they can also exploit their way into being a desirable and co-optable character via accumulation of monetary wealth (capital).

Elections give a semblance of democratic engagement (in contrast to Plato’s Republic). As the philosopher Hegel notes, there is democracy merely one day every 4 years; an event through which a temporary tyrant or oligarch is selected to serve ‘their’ term. During that term the elected are a class apart. Democratic events (‘the election’) are rarer than the 29th of February (1 in 1,461 days). Such is ‘the state’ we are in!

(1) State Takers

The first position on “the Left’ is populated by those willing to work with the ‘existing’ class-divided system and its peculiar arrangements. They put themselves forward to be selected as one of the temporary dictators (or club of would-be dictators) under such a system. [A kind of reversal of The Hunger Games, in which a champion for the exploiting class – to carry it forward – is chosen by and from amongst the exploited class.]

The aim is to ‘take over’ the state in its current condition, with our ‘champions’ firmly believing they are ‘the one’ – an incorruptible Messianic ‘ruler’ who will represent and govern in the interests of ‘the workers’ (the working class or techne). There are clear echoes of Plato in this; minus the preference for ‘democratic’ selection of the philosopher-guardians. Plato’s philosophical machinations were all about coping with the potential for guardians to be ‘corrupted’. But with a social system which eulogises the corruptible there is no need to bother with Plato’s concerns.

Meanwhile, modern political science knows too much about familial and genetic corruption (via primogeniture) and, consequently, desires to draw the polity’s governors from what it perceives as the endless ‘talent pool’ of a mass population that has been legally and commercially equalised through market trading (i.e., every commodity owner is formally equal – the same – except those who do get ‘chosen’ tend to have socially desirable exploitative ‘talents’ indicating they deserve a chance at power and ‘ruling’).

Whilst the “Left” State Taker position may be widely identified with social democracy, it also covers democratic socialism, Fabianism, and movements such as social liberalism and market socialism. Figures and characters range (in UK politics) from Tony Blair to Jeremy Corbyn, from Jenny Lee to George Galloway. Some appear more ‘radical’ than others, but the primary goal has always been to take charge of the existing state apparatus and run it ‘for the good’ or ‘the betterment’ of the lower orders.

After all, can such a state (as the existing one) remain in the hands of Right-wingers or even Centrists? Wouldn’t that be worse for ‘the working class’? Aren’t State Taker arguments reasonable? Don’t they make sense? Let’s ‘take the state’! Couldn’t anything be more obvious?

The criticism is that after more than two centuries of such ‘Left’ (radical) reformist argumentation and action the tension (or contradiction) between progress and regress is nothing except heightened. There is no lack of food, but use of food banks continues to rise. And the arrival of state welfare has introduced another control mechanism with which to discipline and punish the universal working class (constantly filtering people into deserving and undeserving ‘classes’ despite movement of the ‘means testing’ slide ruler). There has always been a ‘dark side’ to social democratic politics – a complicity with ‘the beast’ through which the permanent class division perseveres.

(2) State Makers

This has always been considered a ‘more radical’ stance on the existing state, and its promises features more fundamental change. There are a range of methods involved, from the democratic ‘take over’ (which quickly aims to become a ‘make over’), through guerrilla movement (often based on ethnic, national, cultural, or racial differences in a supposedly ‘cosmopolitan’ colony), to the militaristic General’s coup d’état.

Having read Robert Service’s work on the Russian Revolution, I am never sure how to treat and place Lenin. He wore a civilian suit but, at the same time, was the puppet master of Bolshevik action undertaken by armed units managed by Trotsky. Though the real coup took place after the only free elections returned a majority of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to the post-provisional Assembly. So, Lenin and the Bolsheviks ‘suspended’ the Assembly (at gun point).

The Russian Revolution (as Arendt, 1963, notes: ‘modelled’ on the French and not the American Revolution) is a clear example of state making. This was no mere ‘take over’ of the old apparatus and its class divisions. The monarchy was executed (multiple generations), the nobility fled overseas, and the peasants refused to be subservient (to anyone: Kerensky and Lenin included). For about six months (Feb-Oct) there was what Ernst Bloch would call an ‘opening’. If there was a ‘state’ it was one of flux (so really a ‘non-state’ given the absence of permanency [see my definition of ‘state’ above]).

Then Lenin and Bolshevik Co., stepped into build up a ‘new state’. Despite the theoretical proposal that this would be a state which would ‘wither away’, it never did. Or, it took 70 years and then ‘withered’ into an “illiberal” oligarchic state and not ‘away’. The Bolsheviks were classic state makers. They ‘radically’ changed the structural components and ‘classes’ of the Russian (Imperial) state. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was the new ruling class. But since this particular class could not be found outside the major cities of Imperial Russia, it was Bolshevik Party membership (and obedience to Party organs, structured in a strict hierarchy) that defined the ‘new’ permanent ruling class.

As a piece of state making this became a proven success which, subsequently, was followed, copied and mimicked across the globe (primarily for its acclaimed ‘success’): China; North Korea; Cuba, Vietnam; Syria; Libya; Afghanistan; Venezuela. Therefore, as a ‘model’ for “Left” (radical) politics it remains prominent and powerful if not as predominant as it used to be.

And, of course, this kind of state making (overthrowing one state system and replacing it with another) does not have to be “Left” wing. Unlike Socialist Afghanistan, ‘socialist’ Iran never made it beyond the revolutionary period due to the radical Clerics and their supporters becoming the ‘vanguard’ which remade the state. The Islamic Caliphate in Iraq/Syria (ISIS) is another example of such ‘regressive’ radicalism.

Contemporary ‘successful’ Leftist state making may be associated with ‘civic nationalist’ movements or with the downtrodden / wretched ‘side’ in civil and colonialist wars. But in what manner do the remade nation ‘states’ of Ireland, Tanzania or Bosnia-Herzegovina now count as “Left” good causes? And what of advocates for a Palestinian State? Surely this is a contemporary highly-reasonable case for “Leftist” ‘state making’? But the history of hitherto state making does not sit well with any prefigurative attempts to make ‘the state’ work for the people.

(3) State Breakers

Finally, we reach the anarchist “Left”. In that the ‘state’ is a permanent division between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’, no matter what form that class division takes (e.g., ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’; plutocracy; meritocratic and labour aristocracy), the state breaker’s aim is to do away with permanent social division – to create an indivisible political community, a true ‘polity’ (where the people rule in the people’s interest). Out go ‘charismatic’ “leaders of the people” and “representative” forms of democracy, with their election of one part of the population into positions of power over another.

The state breaker “Left” is, therefore, associated with the more extreme forms of democracy; so-called direct democracy involving participatory action, delegation, and consensus. The latter forms need to be grassroots based, such that the local is free to engage with the federal and global (which are nothing except the conglomeration of local polities).

The objections to state breaking are that it is ‘impractical’ and will lead to ‘anarchy’ (objectors mean ‘chaos’, since ‘anarchy’ is, indeed, the goal). But anarchy simply means ‘without a state’ (so, without a permanent division between rulers and ruled). Used pejoratively, ‘anarchy’ is shouted by those within an existing ruling class as a form of defense against change. That is, their own removal from power.

Of course, given a history of state makers managing to produce even worse systems that what preceded them, the real ‘chaos’ in modern history has been produced by a perpetuation of ruler/ruled divisions (a ‘state’) that promote ‘terror’ (and what is ‘war’ if not terror) in order to ‘keep the state going’.

State breaking remains ‘fanciful’ – the most utopian of the three “Leftist” positions. But it does exist, and always has, bubbling away and percolating through historically-made institutions (which would rather pretend, and do pretend, they are an outcome of ‘nature’). We find remnants of delegatory democracy in trade unions – where the ‘branch’ and not the ‘representative’ votes at conference. Such leftovers are a reminder of past attempts to break the state (during the French Revolution, the Paris Commune, the post-World War 1 revolutions – see Tomba).

Conclusion

Given the above positions, what does “Left” unity look like? There may be some ‘abstract’ desires which ‘all’ can agree upon (remember: these do not even include an ‘end to capitalism’), but what are concrete examples of these? An example might be ‘an end to poverty’? Everyone on the “Left”, surely, will agree to this as ‘an end’ of the “Left”?

But then we simply move on to differences over action and ‘policy’ (‘the means’), where the above positions once more make themselves felt as disunity. Furthermore, the latter ‘assertion’ soon becomes a ‘charge’ against any ‘opposing’ position, such that ‘dissent’ from a policy or strategy enables the charge of disunity to become a ‘control’ mechanism!

What then becomes of “Left” unity? Does it mean ‘everyone’ getting behind a (state taker) “representative” of “all”, such as Starmer, Corbyn, Mélenchon, or Saunders? Or does it mean signing up to a specific ‘leadership’ organisation (the vanguard party or a rainbow coalition), in the hope of ‘changing the system’ by creating an alternate system?

Such demands for “Left” unity can ultimately become ‘suspect’ within themselves – a means of disabling certain forms of resistance and refusal. Hence, calls for ‘unity’ are but mirages – the unreachable sites of an ‘identity group’ formed purely in opposition to the “Right”, and not by any autonomous agenda. Instead of trying to “unite” the mutually exclusive positions of the “Left”, would it not be better to work out what is required for real emancipation?

by doctormcgrail

Racism and Fire: Capitalism’s Role in the Persistence of Race

October is Black History Month, and both of my institutional employers have emailed me with offers of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training as part of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), though not mandatory sessions.

Edinburgh University led the way (1st October) by presenting a one-hour workshop on a range of different groups and activities undertaking anti-racism activities (including profile-raising of minority staff networks, provision of links with outside bodies, and highlights on race education projects). Each presenter had about 10 minutes to outline (pitch) what their organisation was doing (and where it could be found).

At the end, the organisers struggled to get the question and answer (Q&A) session going, with no questions coming forward until one presenter felt duty-bound to ask something (of another presenter). This outcome was not due to lack of interest on behalf of the audience (being ‘self-selecting’, they were the ‘converted’). Rather, it was hard to think of ‘questions’ (to get a ‘discussion’ going) from such a factual presentation. What is there to disagree about?

The Open University offer was much more assertive in indicating that people will learn how to challenge their “white privilege” (by becoming aware of it) and, therein, an effective “ally” (who knows how to support people suffering racism and not how to ‘take over’ as a ‘white saviour’). At least this kind of anti-racism work allows more space for people to get into a debate. However, a general feeling of discomfort (about questioning the presented narrative) still pervades what is a workplace ‘instituted’ conversation, such that no-one is really going to challenge the expert anti-racist presenters / session leads.

The positive I take from such employer sanctioned events is that it is good to see the issue of racism being taken seriously, and provisioned with staff time (for those who choose to attend) by my employers. However, what makes me ‘chortle’ is the thought that I might now sit and wait for an email ‘ping’ to announce the equivalent EDI session on ‘The Exploitative Nature of Waged-Employment: Anti-work Initiatives’! Somehow, I can’t see that happening anytime (not even soon), within the ‘employer-employee’ environment. Yet, in anti-racism work, is it not important to investigate and explore the relationship between ‘the social construction of race’ and ‘the mode of production’ which gave rise to modern racism?

The Exploitative Source of Racism

Eric Williams, in Capitalism and Slavery (1944 – developed from his PhD research), observed that it was not racism that gave rise to the Atlantic slave trade. Rather, it was slavery which gave, and continues to give, substance to racism. On the basis of this thesis, whenever we see the smoke of racism rising it is incumbent upon us to look for the fire (the source of the smoke), or at least ask: ‘where is the smoke coming from?’ That is, we should ask ‘where is the slavery?’

To be clear, ‘smoke kills’ – it is not just a ‘signal’ meaning it can be ignored in order to shift ‘analysis’ elsewhere. But Williams’ point highlights that racism is not an ‘autoimmune disease’. It does not ‘seed itself’ in a vacuum, and has a cause (both a ground which it grows out of, and a ‘sense of progression’, or history, of which it is a part – everyone appears to be going ‘somewhere’ for some ‘reason’).

With the Atlantic slave trade, the exploitative source of the racism was ‘obvious’ – the system relied on one person being ‘enslaved’ in order to ‘serve’ another. And whilst Europeans in America initially took ‘white slaves’ (indentured poor, criminals, and vagabonds, even prisoners of war) with them (alongside a highly-oppressed population-half: women), the situation with rapid capital accumulation (the need to accumulate workers as ‘things’) meant there was soon a ‘lack’ of available people. This led to transportation from Africa to fulfil the ‘gap’. Initially, white and black slaves co-existed, even if unequally, but the ‘need’ (requirement) to categorise more and more individuals as ‘slaves’ eventually led to entire ‘groups’ of people taking on different roles in this system’s division of labour. Thus, skin-colour (being ‘black’) took on its slave-defining role.

But what about today’s voluntaristic, liberalised economies where chattel slavery (now in the form of ‘human trafficking’) has been pushed to the margins of ‘the economy’? Whilst there may be 26 million trafficked people (modern slaves) in the world today, this makes up a tiny proportion of the 6+ billion people surviving as ‘wage labourers’. So, why is racism still so widespread?

One answer, from Marx (1894), is that capitalism (in essence waged-labour, because this is the source of ‘profit’) is nothing other than “veiled slavery”! Consequently, following Marx’s assertion, Williams’ thesis holds true, with the persistence of racism (in its different forms: open, unconscious, institutionalised) being built upon the on-going existence of compulsory labour – forced not by the whip-hand but by the invisible-hand of ‘economic conditions’ (the primary condition, for most, being their propertylessness).

Indeed, in today’s contemporary corporate world, racism’s fundamental form is still the ‘reservation‘. On the one hand, there are those ‘reservoirs‘ of cheap labour ‘politically’ confined by ‘citizenship’ (or lack of it) to conditions maintained under brutal undemocratic regimes – a 21st century version of globalised apartheid with ranks of ‘nation states’ determining the extent to which an area of land mass is classified as totally useless (the ‘useless mouths’ of Afghanistan / Somalia / South Sudan) versus ripe for exploitation (Philippines / Nigeria / Bolivia).

On the other hand, there are those places were the very best (well-paid / good working condition) jobs, access to the required education, facilitation by the most ‘labour enhancing’ technologies, and consumption of advanced healthcare are ‘reserved‘ for people with specific ‘characteristics’ (including ‘citizenship’).

Taken together, these different symbiotic and bifurcated spatial reservations form a hierarchy in which skin-colour still plays a fundamental refining mechanism for the ‘underlying’ system of exploitation (capital accumulation through waged-labour). Though, in theory – and in terms of progressivist political myth-making about possible ‘futures’ liberated from race and racialism – a few ‘individuals’ are able to move from marginalised reservoirs to the lands of exclusively ‘reserved’ jobs. Such social mobility gives the impetus to much (but not all) anti-racism work within the world of corporate and institutional employers – whilst, of course, the central mechanisms of waged-labour exploitation remain untouched.

Is the Dream of Corporate Anti-racism possible?

Interestingly, with reference to Afrofuturist writing, Alex Zamalin (2025) points to one dystopian novel in which the imagined society had, finally, managed to expunge Black people, thereby producing a purified world. This is a different version of reaching a state of ‘colour-blindness’ compared to the corporate eutopia (good place). It is touching on the ‘completion’ scenario of the Nazi ‘Final Solution’ of a Jew-free Reich. But the novel is really raising the question that, if such a Nazi utopia ever ‘worked’, would the waged-labour mode of production have been maintained?

In the novel’s Black-free society, racism soon begins to re-emerge in a new form. Someone is (some ‘bodies’ are) always required to do the menial, bottom-of-the-rung jobs in any ‘exchangeable labour’ society and, consequently, the roaming, roving eyes of a surveyor class (whoever they might happen to be) begin to look for anyone who is ruddier or slightly ‘more pink’ than ‘everyone else’. Thus, a new ‘norm’ or ‘average’ is generated from which social categories (by skin, sex, height, voice-box) will ‘form’. In short, and in line with what I argue here, the categorisation process is being driven by the needs of ‘the economy’ and its forced / compelled ‘division of labour‘.

It is the social essence of capitalism’s reproductive structure (that there is a hierarchy based on ‘exchangeable labour‘) which determines the requirement for different social categories of labourers. But a ‘reason’ or justification must be given for the ordering of society (i.e., in the above dystopian society ‘you are overly pink’, though the same distinction could be based just as easily on eye-colour). The ‘passion’ (behind the reasoning) is more consistent and practical in its desire to make extractive exploitation feasible and sustainable (since this exploitation is the very means of survival for those ‘empowered’ but ‘reliant’ groups who eternally seek the social transfer of resources from person X – the ‘enslaved’ – to person Y – ‘the masters of money’).

References:

Marx, K. (1894) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy – Volume 3. [Edited by F. Engels / trans. by D. Fernbach (c) 1991]. London: Penguin.

Williams, E. (1944) Capitalism & Slavery. [Penguin Classics / 1994 imprint]. London: Penguin Random House UK.

Zamalin, A. (2025) ‘The Future of Afrofuturism: Thinking with Afrofuturism’ [Workshop Paper]. Part of Panel 3: Revisiting Utopianism from other critical and radical perspectives. AHRC Workshop 3 of Utopia & Failure: ‘Fail Again, Fail Better! Held at: King’s College London (Mon 8th and Tues 9th Sept).

by doctormcgrail

History produces nothing but Barbarism

In a recent video interview for publisher Unherd, Yanis Varoufakis asked the question: “Why is the Left the loser of history?’ He went on to argue that the Left failed to “take its opportunity” in the wake of the crisis of capitalism in 2008. Consequently, the ground remained wide-open, only to be filled by the politics of the Far Right.

Of course, since the Left failed in its historic duty to take up the reigns of ‘power’, it has the unenviable position of remaining religiously pure and untainted as the rightful and righteous outcome of ‘history’. It can live for another day, though such a position leads to the inevitable question, given there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ sides of history, of ‘why, so far, has the Right always ended up as the victor of history?’

There is a deeper question here: ‘What is history?’

To ‘Left revolutionaries’, Rosa Luxembourg is famous for stating that ‘the’ class struggle will end in either “Socialism or Barbarism”. The openness of the ‘choice’ with which she confronted her comrades indicates Luxembourg did not see ‘socialism’ as an automatic outcome of the ‘historical process’. But her statement does leave two interpretations: (1) that ‘socialism’ is one possible outcome of ‘the historical process’ (for Varoufakis, socialism can be ‘the victor’), and, alternately, (2) that human action – struggle – is the means by which to avoid the inevitable barbarism that ‘the historical process’ will produce (so, ‘socialism’ can never be ‘the victor’ of a socio-historical process humanity must struggle against).

Following the latter interpretation, a key question is ‘what form should the required struggle take?’ Well, aiming to take up the reigns of political ‘power’ (electoral politics; state capture, Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Bolshevism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Black Power, and Matriarchy) has been tried on numerous occasions. Luxembourg was murdered in 1919, so didn’t live to see the historical outcome of ‘actually existing socialism’.

That is, Varoufakis, no matter how he, himself, sees the world, or understands contemporary ‘history’, needs to deal with the fact that for many people, in certain places and times, socialism has been ‘the victor of history’ and has done nothing but produce barbarism. When socialism has been ‘the victor of history’ then, to change Luxembourg’s quotation: Socialism becomes Barbarism! To the ‘victors’ the spoils.

What has Varoufakis missed?

Varoufakis clearly understands ‘socialism’ to be part and parcel of the historical process – it is a component of the current system which can ‘guide’ history towards a positive outcome. This ‘positivity’ is a theoretical descendant of early utopian socialists (heavily criticised by Marx) such as John Bray and Proudhon – who believed in nationalised banks and ‘fair’ labour exchanges on the basis (as Bonefeld, 2023 puts it) that they could get rid of ‘the capitalist’ but keep ‘capital’ (i.e., the waged labour relationship or social form).

Incidentally, I find Varoufakis’ coining of the ‘concept’ technofeudalism very confusing – a jumble of definitions and meanings. By ‘feudalism’ he appears to serfdom (in a similar way as Hayek referred to ‘The Road to Serfdom’). But this forgets that the tech-bros’ goal is to produce ‘surplus value’ and NOT garner tribune (rents/taxes) under a system of ‘extra-economic’ devine-rights (imposed by ‘direct’ violence). In short, Greece had a Finance Minister who never really understood ‘capitalism’ (conceptually nor practically).

I surmise that Varoufakis has never read the Frankfurt School Critical Theorists (Benjamin, Horkheimer, Adorno), or, if he has, he hasn’t understood them. Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History reminds us that the point of history is to break with it, not “swim” with its tide. Rather, the struggle is to bring the historical process to a ‘stop’ (to serve the needs of the present) and not drive history to its ‘completion’ (towards some Messianic ‘vision’). Adorno brilliantly sums the same point up: “There is a history which leads from the slingshot to the atom bomb, but not one that goes from barbarism to humanity”.

History is on the wrong side of class struggle – it is a process which runs against the presently-existing needs of humanity. Rather, history (the perpetuation of tradition) is an accumulating “nightmare” which weighs heavily on the “brains of the living” (Marx from 18th Brumaire), compelling them forward on grounds of ‘lack of alternative’. The struggle is to wake up and leave the nightmare; not stay in it to find out who will be ‘victors’. If we stay in it (do not wake up) and keep ‘falling’, then the urban myth tells us there will be just one outcome: Thump!

Notes: The featured image is from a photo of holiday postcards I took in a museum – I’ve entitled it ‘History Sails Forward’. It’s an image captured from ‘the past’, held within a time-capsule.

References:

Bonefeld, W. (2023) A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion: Wealth, Suffering, Negation London: Routledge.

by doctormcgrail

AI? Aye, aye! Hyperbolic claims from Snooze-inducing Technologists

We’ve heard it all before. A new technology is going to ‘revolutionise’ everything, from the way we work to the way we play, learn, and relate. Yet, funnily enough, according to the ‘visionaries’, the basic social and political features of our current conditions won’t change. These aren’t going anywhere – the profit motive, unequal access to resources, the consumer ‘me too’ infantilisation, and the job as a lifetime of ‘confinement’. The boss may have fewer employees, the teacher many more students, whilst the taxi driver goes the way of the coal miner, but social and political inequality will persist, despite the ‘tech’ solutions, just at more extreme levels than ever before (at the moment we only have 1% of the world’s population ‘owning’ – controlling – 50% of human wealth, so there’s some way to go yet in making things more unequal).

In education, artificial intelligence (AI) is going to, apparently, improve the intelligence and writing abilities of my students.  Thank goodness – some improvement at last!  Here was my colleagues and I fighting a constant losing battle, but ChatGPT has it.  Except, it isn’t going to improve their writing even though it may enhance the punctuation in their submissions and neatly, correctly present non-existent papers in their reference lists.  The main concern is that it should help those who no longer have the time to study (part-time work if their working class, and off ‘entrepreneuring’, with family excess cash, if they’re not).  Instead of learning they will learn to ‘cheat’, though we won’t call it that anymore nor frown upon it because everyone will be at it (thereby meeting a Kantian definition of moral behaviour – as long as everyone can do it than it’s ‘okay’).

The bar for acceptable communication will be ‘raised’ as every student becomes a 1950s factory manager able to delegate their inability to spell to a ‘personal digital secretary’, who will take care, uncomplainingly, of such inconveniences and ‘lackings’.  Humanoid robots (androids), the personification of AI beyond old-hat avatars, will take a pink-skinned form of ‘being’ and, thereby, project the power of their possessors via volumes of blonde hair and scarcity of raiment.  Everything will change expect anything that could threaten the social and political order and of importance to the alienated labour that produces AI in the first place.

Perhaps AI will read Adam Smith and Karl Marx and conclude they have been badly misrepresented and poorly interpreted.  But since this has already been done by humans and few have listened, what difference will it make for a machine to ‘say so’?  Will the claim now be ‘fact’?  More likely, the machine will be ‘reprogrammed’ until it comes up with the ‘correct’ answer.

Or AI assistance will aid surgeons to perform twice as many operations as before, though this will actually lead to a quadrupling of cosmetic procedures as every operation still has to be ‘paid’ for and provision will go to those with the most money and the means to afford such AI-assisted surgery. Plumper lips, thinner waistline, larger pecks it is then! Thank goodness for AI since the demand from ageing wealthy pensioners for a ‘lift’ (of some kind) needs to be met.

So, is AI a utopian dream or a dystopian nightmare?

Manuel and Manuel (Utopian Thought in the Western World, 1979) noted that the best utopias startle whilst remaining feasible; they lie between a boring extension of the present and a fantastical leap into the impossible. From what I have read and seen of most AI ‘commentary’ so far, their contemporary predictions and utopias largely fall into the ‘boring extension of the present’ category. They presume waged labour (capital) as the mode of production with its on-going (endless) creation of surplus value (profits, rents, taxes, interest payments) as the ‘natural’ basis of human life, rather than seeing the system as a mere artificial ‘social construction’ of scarcity and an endless requirement to perform unnecessary ‘work’. Despite there being enough food to feed the UK three-times over (in any one year), food banks are popping-up like magic mushrooms to alleviate the conscience of the commodified and ration the access to subsistence of the recently de-commodified. But that’s just the way it is! AI will, no doubt, reconfirm this situation as fact (once re-programmed, of course). Everyone will hold the same social ‘posts’ as before but use ‘revolutionary’ AI to sustain their miserable renting-out of their own backside at ever higher levels of productivity (output per hydro-bot-flesh-thingy).

If this is the future with AI then it is mundane and the so-called ‘predictions’ of its impact are like watching endless (on loop) re-runs of Shelley’s Frankenstein. Been there, done that. Should the narrative makers of AI switch their focus to King Kong (genetic modification gone wrong) and make that ‘fantastical leap’ to the impossible? Or can we, collectively, imagine better, be that bit more imaginative on the social front and startle whilst remaining feasible?

References:

Manuel, F. & Manuel, F. (1979) Utopian Thought in the Western World Oxford: Basil Blackwell.