Re: <nettime> Thoughts on coups

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 3:53 PM Sean Cubitt <sean.cubitt@unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

Nationalism builds on the other great crisis of our times, migration. Post-nationalism means opening borders. Only that way will the wealthy learn that removing the causes of migration - war, pandemic, climate change, colonialism - is the only way to survive (unless of course you're one of the billionaire class)

This is for certain, because the only alternative to opening borders - and at the same time, engaging in co-development strategies that allow some people, at least, to remain where they are - is war plain and simple. Climate change is going to translate into burnt crops, forced migration and war long before rising seas drive people out of lower Manhattan. And state collapse induced by neoliberalism will do the same. The current political economy is a vicious circle getting worse, 2020 has sure made that clear!

Any 21st century politics has to be formed by an alliance of the excluded - human, ecological and - I would add, though it needs a longer argument - technological

The question I have, is how to build an effective alliance of the excluded, one that does not become a wrecking ball in its own right?

A lot of anarchism is now doing the work of neoliberalism, it's heavily nihilistic. Autonomism itself was an uneasy fusion, anarcho-communism, but the communist part was gradually reduced to a kind of fantasy for intellectuals whose real politics were anarchist by default - not their own default, but because every attempt to construct a state-for-the-multitudes was foreclosed. In the absence of a constructive principle you get alienated people looking to accelerate the breakdown, on both right and left btw. The US is rampant with that kind of accelerationist now - in fact, on the extreme right they describe themselves with that exact word.

I think we need an eco-state. I mean a form of social coordination that doesn't precipitate collapse, but protects against, reverses the trends, allows human and ecological healing. Of course you can imagine an eco-state in an authoritarian vein, because that's where China is going. Rana Dasgupta surely sees it differently - I'm looking forward to read that text - but I see China going toward a state that will internalize earth system imperatives, and actually respond to the climate crisis by producing self-driving electric cars, total surveillance and geoengineering. Geoengineering is good - or at least, it's inevitable - but authoritarianism isn't. How should the Western countries and their "integrated peripheries" respond? What can civil-society movements do about it? The answer is, we don't have a clue. Shame on us. Mexico is collapsing, and white people in the US think they can bring back the good old days.

As for the carbon tax that someone mentioned, I hear you, but it's too little too late. It might have helped twenty years ago, if it hadn't been just another neoliberal ploy for gaming the system. It can still do some good, in a more serious form, but now we're on a timeline that's going to require central coordination in addition to market coordination. Unless we just want civilizational breakdown in the megafires of the Pyrocene. Which is really coming into its own in Colorado, by the way. I'm afraid it will put a real dent in the tourist industry.

Green New Deal or bust. I'm not kidding when I talk about eco-socialism. The question is how to get there.

Brian

sean

Sean Cubitt | He/Him

Professor of Screen Studies
School of Culture and Communication
W104 John Medley Building
University of Melbourne
Grattan Street
Victoria 3010
AUSTRALIA

scubitt@unimelb.edu.au

New Book: Anecdotal Evidence

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/anecdotal-evidence-9780190065720?lang=en&cc=au#

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2020 10:58:52 +0100
From: Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Thoughts on coups
Message-ID: <2a74602d-d71a-2175-62ad-29b62760e568@openflows.com" target="_blank">2a74602d-d71a-2175-62ad-29b62760e568@openflows.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On 24.11.20 04:14, Brian Holmes wrote:
> Here's my two cents: Keynes aimed to save capitalism from itself. Double
> down on Keynes, unleash vast new creative energies on the basis of fiat
> money, and maybe, instead of sapping capital's foundations, we can push it
> over the top into ecosocialism.

There are probably two distinct political strategies here. And it would
be interesting to work out their relation.

The first is move capitalism towards a different regime of accumulation,
one based less on extractivism and consumerism but rather more on
renewable energy and "eco-system services" for repairing some of the
damage already done (I know, this term is conventionally used in a
different sense). A little bit of this we are already seeing, with the
EU's project to become a first climate neutral continent by 2050, China
commitment by 2060 and new Biden admin making similar gestures. So far,
actual effects, in terms of reducing the output of CO2 and and
ending/slowing down the loss of biological diversity, have not been
achieved. The big question is: is that too little too late, unable to
overcome very real system barriers to substantial change? Or can this be
made into the beginning of a self-accelerating shift in the energy
regime of global civilization?

In the longer run, it's hard to imagine how capitalism can still be
capitalism without treating "nature" as an externality. So the question
then becomes, what are the condition under which a 'greener capitalism'
can be pushed into something else. In a way that is like an update of
the old Marxian idea that capitalism will produce productive forces on
which communism can be realized.

all the best. Felix

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