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Title: Strategizing for the Austerity Era Author: CrimethInc. Date: June 16, 2011 Language: en Topics: austerity, strategy, Read All About It Source: Retrieved on 9th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2011/06/16/strategizing-for-the-austerity-era
On May 20–21, anarchists and fellow travelers gathered in Milwaukee for
a small conference about the ongoing crisis of capitalism. In the final
discussion, people from around the US compared notes on recent
anti-austerity protests, focusing chiefly on the student movement in
California and the recent protests in Wisconsin. We’ve summarized some
of the conclusions here in hopes they can be useful in the next phase of
anarchist organizing.
So far, anarchists have not been very successful in contributing to
anti-austerity protests in the US. Starting in December 2008, anarchist
participation in school occupations was instrumental in kick-starting a
student movement, but by March 4, 2010 this movement was dominated by
liberal and authoritarian organizing; it subsequently ran out of steam.
More recently, anarchists participated in the occupation of the capitol
building in Madison, Wisconsin in protest against anti-union legislation
and occupied a university building in Milwaukee, without substantial
impact on the course of events.
It’s troubling that we’ve had such limited success in a context that
should be conducive to our efforts. Eleven years ago, during the high
point of the anti-globalization movement, anarchist participants were
essentially the militant edge of an activist movement addressing issues
that were distant from many people’s day-to-day needs. Today, the
livelihoods of millions like us are on the line; people should be much
more likely to join in revolt now than they were a decade ago. If this
isn’t happening, it indicates that we’re failing to organize
effectively, or that the models we’re offering aren’t useful.
European anarchists have had more success, but they benefit from a
richer and more continuous lineage of social movements. In the US, the
birthplace of the generation gap, our task is not just to intensify
ongoing struggles, but to generate new fighting formations—a much
greater challenge. We seem to go through one generation of anarchists
after another without any gains. Although our predecessors rightly
caution us against measuring our efforts in purely quantitative terms,
we can’t hope to overthrow capitalism by our own isolated heroics,
turning the world upside down one newspaper box at a time.
A small fire demands constant tending.
A bonfire can be let alone.
A conflagration spreads.
We have to figure out how to connect with everyone else who is suffering
and angry. To that end, here are some observations and proposals derived
from the conversations in Milwaukee.
—The anti-austerity protests in Wisconsin are not the last of their
kind; on the contrary, they herald the arrival of a new era. It is
paramount that we learn from our early failures to develop a more
effective strategy for engaging in these conflicts.
—In Madison, anarchists largely focused on establishing infrastructure
for the occupation. This is not the first time anarchists have
contributed their organizational skills to an essentially liberal
protest. At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City,
about 100,000 people participated in demonstrations; this included
thousands of anarchists, many of whom limited themselves to logistical
roles. Afterwards, this was recognized as a tremendous missed
opportunity—hence the efforts to take the lead in planning actions at
the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Our task is not just to facilitate protests of whatever kind, but to
ensure that they threaten the flows of capital—that they create a
situation in which people abandon their roles in maintaining the current
order. To this end, we have to seize the initiative to organize actions
as well as infrastructure. Clashes with the state will be more
controversial than free meals and childcare, but this controversy has to
play out if we are ever to get anywhere.
—A wide range of sources concur that the occupation of the capitol
building in Madison was undermined one tiny compromise at a time. First
the police politely asked people not to be in one room—and they were
being so nice about everything that no one could say no. Then they
gently asked people to vacate another, and so on until the dumbfounded
former occupiers found themselves out on the pavement. This underlines
an important lesson: the first compromise might as well be the last one.
Whenever we concede anything, we set a precedent that will be repeated
again and again; we also embolden our enemies. We have to be absolutely
uncompromising from the beginning to the end.
In popular struggles, anarchists can be the force that refuses to yield.
We can also pass on our hard-won analyses to less experienced
protesters—for example, emphasizing that however friendly individual
police officers might be, they cannot be trusted as long as they are
police. To do these things, however, we have to be in the thick of
things, not looking on from the margins.
—A common complaint from the more combative participants in the Madison
occupation was that leftist organizations had already gained the
initiative and determined the character of the protest. Anarchists were
afraid to act, taking the leftist control of the narrative as an
indication that there was nothing they could do. Indeed, after the end
of the occupation, liberal organizers channeled the remaining momentum
into a recall campaign confined to the electoral sphere.
In fact, in circumstances like the capitol occupation, there’s nothing
to lose. The solutions promoted by authoritarian leftists and liberals
don’t point beyond the horizon of capitalism; even when they aren’t
utterly naïve, they’re no better than the right-wing agenda, in that
they serve to distract and neutralize those who desire real change.
Where the field is split between left-wing and right-wing, we may as
well disrupt this dichotomy by acting outside of it. Even if we fail, at
least we show that something else is possible.
—One Wisconsin anarchist proposed that we should distinguish between two
strategic terrains for action. Some events, such as the occupation of
the capitol building in Madison, function as tremendous spectacles; the
most we can hope to accomplish is to interrupt them, forcing a more
challenging narrative into the public discourse. Other spaces that are
under less pressure, like the occupation of the theater building in
Milwaukee, offer an opportunity to develop new social connections and
critiques.
In the latter, we can create new channels for discussion and
decision-making that will serve us well in subsequent confrontations. We
can measure our effectiveness by how well we accomplish this, not just
by the material damage inflicted on targets or the numbers of people who
show up to demonstrations.
In upheavals such as the one in Wisconsin, we can unmask authoritarian
domination of resistance movements and debunk the idea that the
democratic system can solve the problems created by capitalism.
—At no point during the buildup to the protests of March 4, 2010 or the
occupations in Wisconsin did anarchists establish an autonomous, public
organizing body to play a role such as the RNC Welcoming Committee
played at the 2008 RNC or the PGRP played at the 2009 G20. This was a
strategic error that enabled liberal and authoritarian organizers to
monopolize the public discourse around the protests and determine their
character and conditions in advance. In the Bay Area, the word on the
street was that anarchists had established some sort of back-room deal
with public organizers that the latter reneged on. This betrayal should
come as no surprise: without the leverage afforded by public organizing
of our own, we can always expect to be hoodwinked and betrayed by those
who don’t share our opposition to hierarchical power.
We need public, participatory calls and organizing structures, both to
offer points of entry to everyone who might want to fight alongside us
and to make it impossible for authoritarians to stifle revolt by
arranging the battlefield to be unfavorable for it. Public organizing
can complement other less public approaches; often, it’s necessary to
render them possible in the first place. Compare the 2008 RNC and 2009
G20 to March 4, 2010.
—As capitalism renders more and more people precarious or redundant, it
will be harder and harder to fight from recognized positions of
legitimacy within the system such as “workers” or “students.” Last
year’s students fighting tuition hikes are this year’s dropouts; last
year’s workers fighting job cuts are this year’s unemployed. We have to
legitimize fighting from outside, establishing a new narrative of
struggle. Who is more entitled to occupy a school than those who cannot
afford to attend it? Who is more entitled to occupy a workplace than
those who have already lost their jobs?
If we can accomplish this, we will neutralize the allegations of being
“outside agitators” that are always raised against those who revolt.
Better, we will transform every austerity conflict into an opportunity
to connect with everyone else that has been thrown away by capitalism.
Our goal should not be to protect the privileges of those who retain
their jobs and enrollment, but to channel outrage about everything that
capitalism has taken from all of us.
—Anti-austerity protests may offer a new opportunity to resume the
practice of convergence so important in the anti-globalization era.
Anarchists could respond to upheavals like the one in Wisconsin by
converging on these “hotspots” to force things to a head. But this would
require local communities to be ready to host visitors—to have the
necessary resources prepared in advance. These resources include food
and housing, but also a relationship with the general public and
leverage on the authorities, such as the Pittsburgh Organizing Group
built up in the years leading up to the successful demonstrations
against the 2009 G20.
—Between peaks of protest, we can attempt to connect with social circles
that could be politicized. Punks entered the anti-globalization movement
with a preexisting anticapitalist critique and antagonism towards
authority, thanks to two decades of countercultural development. This
enabled them to escalate the situation immediately, shifting the
discourse from reform to revolution. The more people enter
anti-austerity struggles thus equipped, the less time will be wasted
relearning old lessons.
—In addition to exacerbating the contradictions inherent in the
financial crisis, we should undertake to make life in upheavals more
pleasurable and robust than workaday life. Those who participate in
wildcat strikes and occupations should experience these as more exciting
and fulfilling than their usual routines, to such an extent that it
becomes possible to imagine life after capitalism. As many anarchists
live in a permanent state of exclusion, making the best of it despite
everything, we should be especially well-equipped to assist here.
In this regard, there is a real need for infrastructures that can
provide for the practical needs of those who wrest themselves out of the
functioning of the economy. But these infrastructures should not be
simply ad hoc protest logistics; they must demonstrate the feasibility
of radically different systems of production and distribution.
There is probably some new way of engaging, some “new intelligence”
appropriate to this era that we haven’t discovered yet; the formats we
retain from the past may not serve us now. There is much experimenting
to be done. Dear friends, may you succeed where others have failed.