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Title: The anarchism to come Author: Tomás Ibáñez Date: March 20th, 2017 Language: en Topics: Spain, history, translation Source: Retrieved on April 15th, 2017 from http://autonomies.org/es/2017/03/tomas-ibanez-the-anarchism-to-come/ Notes: Tomás Ibáñez is arguably one of the most important voices of spanish anarchism, and the resonance of his work extends beyond his country of origin. Infrequently translated into english, we have tried in earlier posts to modestly fill that gap. We share below a recent and perhaps polemical essay of his, an essay that was originally published in Libre Pensamiento nº 88, of the spanish CGT, and in electronic format at alasbarricadas, acracia and el libertario.
Who can predict the anarchism to come? No one, obviously. However, there
exists a principled reason that allows us to affirm with complete
certainty that this coming anarchism, and which is already revealing its
face, will necessarily be different from that which we inherited and
which we are already familiar with. In effect, anarchism is not only a
terrific demand for freedom, perhaps the most extreme that has ever been
expressed, but also consists of a political thought critical of
domination, joined with a political practice that struggles against it.
It is, nevertheless, in the heart of struggles against domination, in
any of its forms, where anarchism is forged and where it acquires a good
part of its characteristics.
Well, as the apparatuses of domination continue to change in the course
of historical time, it follows, so as not to become without effect, that
what is opposed to them, what confronts them, including anarchism, also
changes in parallel. What is curious is that as a consequence of this
inevitable modification in antagonistic practices, the very theoretical
framework of anarchist theory also changes. The reason is none other
than the particular symbiosis that this establishes between theory and
practice, between the “idea” and the “action”, and which implies
necessarily that if action should change, that the idea cannot remain
static, because a part of what constitutes the idea, that is, a part of
what it itself is, is none other than practice, and this has changed.
Consequently, to the extent that the apparatuses of domination continue
to change, it follows that the coming anarchism will be necessarily
different from that which presently exists. More, we can affirm, no
longer for reasons of principle, but empirically, that the coming
anarchism will not only be different from what exists today, but that,
furthermore, it will be very different. And the reason is that the
social changes that announce themselves, and that are already beginning
to happen, are of such a magnitude that its effects on anarchism can
only be enormously profound, placing it before the need to reinvent
itself.
The creative exercise of imagining the anarchism of the future is
undeniably laudable, however, I very much doubt that letting one’s
imagination fly freely is the best path to try to approach the form that
this reinvention could take. And this because if the coming form of
anarchism is going to depend, in part, on the nature of the apparatuses
of domination that will be put into place and that it will confront and
the larger world to which they will belong, then what we need to get
closer to the anarchism of tomorrow is to interrogate this coming world
on the basis of the developments that are presently gaining shape in the
heart of present day reality.
However, if we want to capture the characteristics of what is emerging,
we should understand that the changes that the world has been undergoing
now for some decades, far from representing a minor, dispersed and
unrelated conjunction of modifications, announce and initiate an
authentic change of epoch and a true historical discontinuity.
In effect, everything indicates that we have already set out on the path
that leads, simultaneously, towards a new capitalist era, towards a new
technological era, and towards a new ideological era. These three great
events are tightly tied to each other, are bound in a synergistic
relationship, and mutually reinforce each other and comprise three
facets of the same global phenomenon.
Thus, without pretending to outline, even broadly, a diagnostic of the
present, I believe that it is worthwhile to attend to this gestating
change of epoch, because it is the best way to approach the context in
which the anarchism of tomorrow will constitute itself and in which its
characteristics will be forged.
To begin with the first of these great mutations, let us see what is
taking place with capitalism. And yet, let it remain very clear in
advance, that the destruction of capitalism is an unwavering demand for
a political tendency that defines itself by its struggle against all
forms of domination, including, therefore, the exploitation of labour.
And this implies that anarchism, both the current and that which is to
come, cannot, however it is conceptualised, cease to struggle to
overcome capitalism.
Well then, what is happening with capitalism is that, contrary to the
learned auguries that repeatedly announce its terminal crisis, its grand
collapse, capitalism continues to demonstrate, as it has amply
demonstrated in the past, its enormous capacity of regeneration. A
capacity perfectly evoked by the metaphor of the hydra of which various
heads grow for each that is severed.
It is obvious that, as it is able to feed upon the very thing which
opposes it, capitalism adapts itself and transforms itself with terrible
efficacy, and it is carrying through today an authentic renewal that
distances it considerably from its earlier forms.
Of course, its internal dynamic continues to be the same: the
appropriation of surplus value, the maximisation of profit, and the
commodification of everything that can be commodified. However, its
mechanisms, its functioning, its characteristics, all of this is
changing.
For example, the new form of capitalism reveals itself to be
particularly apt at extracting profits from great flows or fluxes, be
they financial flows or the flows of information, among others.
Consequently, the production of value no longer depends exclusively on
labour, and even though the exploitation of labour power continues to be
scandalous, it has lost the greater part of its centrality.
The result is that it is all of the activities of everyday life that
this new capitalism converts into a source of profit, seeking to
construct, rather than simply search for, the most appropriate subjects
to provide for its gains. It is for it a matter of producing
subjectivities that perfectly conform to its logic, and which facilitate
its functioning, both in the field of consumption as well as in that of
work. It is about constructing the way to be, the way to feel, desire,
think, the way of relating to oneself, the way of being a person, and,
for this, it must penetrate and colonise our desires, our imaginary, our
motivations, our social relations and, ultimately, how we exist.
Thus, for example, in the domain of labour, capitalism seeks to take
advantage of all of the facets of those who are contracted. It does not
limit itself to using the technical know how or labour power of a
person, rather it endeavours to mobilise the totality of person’s
resources, from their motivations, their desires, their anxieties, their
cognitive means, including even their emotional relations.
And this is made possible thanks to the constitution, over the course of
the last century, of a considerable volume of expert knowledge about the
human being. This as much in the field of biology (the management of
life) as in the field of psychology (the production of subjectivities),
and in the collective field (the management of populations).
Not even freedom falls outside the margin of these operations. It is
used today as an instrument of subjugation and, for example,
hierarchical structures become more flexible so as to increase the
submission of subjects or the output of workers. Because it turns out
that to govern, to manage and to make large numbers work, if based on
freedom, makes it that it is those who are governed and the workers
themselves who contribute to improve the mechanisms through which they
are governed and exploited.
On the other hand, in the current globalisation, the impressive ubiquity
of capitalism means that there is no longer anything exterior to it,
that there is no longer an “outside” of capitalism, neither spatially,
nor socially. It has colonised the whole planet, and even its
surroundings, penetrating all of the mechanisms of society, all of the
facets of our daily life, and even our own subjectivity. With this,
capitalism no longer merely represents a particular economic system, but
has become a form of life that tends towards hegemony.
Finally, it follows that if its relations with political power have
always been close, today it is supplanting political power itself. As
the Invisible Committee rightly points out, political power has moved
itself from the parliaments, transformed into mere theatres for the
acting out of comedies, to the great infrastructures of the capitalist
economy. Today, power is inscribed in the latter, the latter which are,
for example, the routes and networks of communication and
transportation, the transport of persons, commodities, but also energy,
or information, those which mould materially the established system of
domination. It is not necessary for anyone to command anything, we find
ourselves materially trapped in these infrastructures and our dependence
on their proper functioning is total. Whereby, to change society and to
really overcome capitalism, it is of little use to burn parliaments if
the the technological macro-apparatuses are not also dismantled.
It is thus in this new type of capitalism that the scenario is being
constructed for the coming anarchism. And if the latter will not be able
to struggle against capitalism as it did before, and if part of the
characteristics of anarchism come form this struggle, then it is obvious
that from the simple fact that it will continue to fight against the new
modalities of capitalism, that it will change necessarily in a very
significant way.
The second great mutation that is taking place consists, as we well
know, of our complete entry into the information era and, consequently,
contemporary capitalism cannot be understood without the irruption of
the information technology revolution. Without this revolution, it would
not have been possible to construct the new capitalist era; the
exploitation of the great fluxes already mentioned would not attain
their present magnitude, nor would they have their current form, and the
actual phase of globalisation would not even have been possible. It not
only represents the global extension of the capitalist market and its
productive logic, but inaugurates as well a new economic order that is
characterised by, among other things, the extraordinary intensification
and dazzling speed of interconnections.
Nevertheless, however important its role in the reconfiguration of
capitalism, it is not only at the level of the economy where the
generalised computerisation of the world has opened a new era; to the
extent that it concerns a technology productive of technologies,
information technology transforms, not one, but multiple planes of the
world.
It is sufficient to consider, for example, the impulse that it has given
to genetic engineering, with the post-human on the not so distant
horizon, or how it has renovated the conduct of war, through the growing
sophistication of weapons as well as of military strategy (drones,
self-guided missiles, cybernetic attacks, without forgetting the
transformation of espionage and, more globally, military intelligence).
If all of these changes made possible by information technology are of
the greatest importance for the configuration of the world that awaits
us, there is one that merits very special attention, that which pertains
to a new type of social control that is establishing itself and that is
fostering the rise of a new kind of totalitarianism.
Generalised surveillance, total transparency, complete traceability,
unlimited accumulation of data, the constant cross checking of the same,
systematic analyses of DNA, the right that the State claims for itself
to scrutinise our private life or, lamentably, the voluntary and
detailed self-exposition of our daily lives. As we well know, thanks to
information technology, all of our actions, including our silences and
our non-actions, those that we abstain from carrying out, leave traces
that are carefully archived for ever, and exhaustively treated by state
services as well as by private companies.
Accordingly, it is not only political factors that render our future so
menacingly charged with totalitarian threats. In effect, the principal
totalitarian danger resides not so much in the rise of the extreme
right, but in the multiple technological apparatuses tied to information
technology that are scattered throughout the world and which are weaving
a totalitarian spiders’ web where little by little our lives are being
entrapped.
In light of the transformations that it is rendering possible, I don’t
take it as in any way preposterous to affirm that the colonisation of
the world by information technology, which includes but is not limited
to the so-called internet era, will imprint, necessarily, new
characteristics on an anarchism that will have to confront this
environment and develop itself within it.
Not only does the social and technological world change, for there is
change also in an ideological sphere that defined itself over the last
centuries by a broad adhesion to the discourse constructed by the
Enlightenment and by its adoption as the basis for the legitimacy of an
epoch, modernity, in which we continue to be immersed, but from which we
have begun to depart.
Today in effect it is accepted in an increasingly general manner that
the grand narratives of the Enlightenment are no longer credible, and
that the meta-narratives of emancipation, progress, triumphant reason,
of the project to realise, of science as fully beneficial, of hope in an
always better future, etc., confront far too many critical arguments to
be able to continue to ground and legitimise the faith in the epoch in
which we live.
Always and whenever we do not throw out the baby with the bathwater –
because it is evident that the Enlightenment was far from being a
homogeneous block, and because some of its principles represent
fundamental accomplishments – it remains only to applaud the critical
dismantling of the grand narrative of the Enlightenment and of the
snares that it laid out for us. Nevertheless, it is much more difficult
to evaluate the story that is called upon to replace it, so as to
legitimate the new emerging epoch, because this story remains still
incipient and confused.
In spite of this, among the elements of this story that begin to outline
themselves, what should be noted is the general acceptance of
uncertainty as a substitute principle to firmly grounded and grounding
certainties, or the substitution of transcendent and absolute values for
pragmatic criteria with a certain relativistic aroma, or the
re-composition of the moral values inscribed in western culture with the
aim of responding, among other things, to the eruption of an ever more
probable post-human condition announced both by genetic engineering as
by positive eugenics, and also by the intracorporeal implant of RFID
chips and other information technology apparatuses.
I believe that it becomes quite clear that the context in which the
coming anarchism will find itself will be eminently different from the
context in which it has operated until recently, which can only but
substantially modify it.
Some of these changes are already beginning to gain form, such that, to
glimpse, even if confusedly, the characteristics of the coming
anarchism, it is very useful to observe the current anarchist movement,
and especially its most youthful component. This component represents a
part of contemporary anarchism that already manifests some differences
with classical anarchism, and with that which I have sometimes called
“neo-anarchism”.
What we can observe at the present is that, after a very long period of
very scarce international presence by anarchism, what is emerging and is
already proliferating in very appealing ways in all of the regions of
the world, are various collectives concerned with a great diversity of
themes; multiple, fragmented, fluctuating and at times ephemeral, but
which participate in all of the movements against the system, and
sometimes even initiate them. Undoubtedly, this fragmentation
corresponds to some of the characteristics of the new context which we
are entering and which is making possible a new organisation of the
spaces of dissidence. The current reality which is becoming literally
“shifting” and “liquid” demands, certainly, much more flexible, more
fluid organisational models, oriented according to simple proposals of
coordination to realise concrete and specific tasks.
Like the networks that rise up autonomously, that self-organise
themselves, that make and unmake themselves according to the exigencies
of the moment, and where temporary alliances are established between
collectives, these probably constitute the organisational form,
reticular and viral, that will prevail in the future, and whose fluidity
is already proving its effectiveness in the present.
What seems to predominate in these youthful anarchist collectives is the
desire to create spaces where relations are exempt from the coercion and
the values that emanate from the reigning system. Without waiting for a
hypothetical revolutionary change, it is for them a matter of living
from now on as closely as possible to the values that this change should
promote. This leads, among the very many other kinds of behaviour, to
developing scrupulously non-sexist relations stripped of any patriarchal
character, including in the language, or to establishing relations of
solidarity that completely escape hierarchical logic and a commodity
spirit.
It also contributes, and this is very important, to the weight that is
given to those practices that exceed the order of mere discursivity. The
importance of doing and, more precisely, of “doing together“, is
emphasised, putting the accent on the concrete effects of this doing and
on the transformations that it promotes.
In these spaces, the concerts, the fiestas, the collective meals (vegan,
of course), form part of the political activity, equal to the putting up
of posters, neighbourhood actions, talks and debates, or demonstrations,
at times quite forceful. In reality, it is a matter of making the form
of life be in itself an instrument of struggle that defies the system,
that contradicts its principles, that dissolves its arguments, and that
permits the development of transforming community experiences. It is for
this reason that, from the new libertarian space that is being woven in
different parts of the world, experiences of self-management, of
economies of solidarity, of networks of mutual aid, of alternative
networks of food production and distribution, of exchange and
distribution are developing. The success on this point is complete, for
if capitalism is converting itself into a form of life, it is obvious
that it is precisely on this terrain, that of forms of life, where part
of the struggle to dismantle it must situate itself.
A broad subversive fabric is gaining shape that provides people with
antagonistic alternatives to the system, and which, at the same time,
helps to change the subjectivity of those who participate in them. This
last aspect is terribly important for there exists a very clear
awareness, in having been formatted by and for this society, that we
have no other remedy than to transform ourselves if we want to escape
its control. Which means that desubjectification is perceived as an
essential task for subversive action itself.
Lastly, it is by no means infrequent that the alternative anarchist
space converges with broader movements, such as those that mobilise
against wars, or against summit meetings, and those that from time to
time occupy squares rediscovering anarchist principles like
horizontalism, direct action, or the suspicion before any exercise of
power. In fact, one could consider that these broader movements, which
do not define themselves, far from it, as anarchist, represent what at
one moment I qualified as outside the walls anarchism, and they
prefigure the coming anarchism.
Together with these youthful anarchist collectives, another subversive
phenomenon that responds to the technological characteristics of the
current moment and which enriches as much the revolutionary practices,
as the corresponding imaginary, consists of the appearance of hackers,
with the practices and form of political intervention that characterise
them.
In a recent book, it is correctly pointed out that if what fascinates
and what attracts our attention are macro-concentrations (the occupation
of squares, the anti-summit protests, etc.), it is nevertheless in other
places where the new subversive politics is being invented: this is the
work of dispersed individuals who nevertheless form virtual collectives:
the hackers.
In analysing their practices, the author specifies that the value of
their struggle resides in the fact that it attacks a fundamental
principle of the current exercise of power: the secrecy of State
operations, a strictly reserved hunting area and totally opaque to
non-authorised eyes, which the State keeps exclusively to itself. The
activists draw on a practice of anonymity and of the elimination of
traces that does not respond to the demands of secrecy, but to a new
conception of political action: the opposite of creating an “us”
heroically and sacrificially confronting power in an unmasked and
physical struggle. It is about, in effect, not exposing oneself, of
reducing the cost of the struggle, but above all of not establishing a
relationship, not even of conflict, with the enemy.
Next to its inevitable differences with classical anarchism, a second
consideration that we can advance, also in full confidence, is that to
continue to be anarchism instead of becoming something else, the new
anarchism should preserve some of the constitutive elements of the
instituted anarchism. It is these elements that I like to call “the
anarchist invariant“, an invariant that unites the current and future
anarchism, and that will continue to define, therefore, the anarchism to
come.
In fact, this invariant is composed of a small handful of values among
which figures prominently that of equaliberty, that is, freedom and
equality in common movement, forming a unique and inextricable concept
that unites, indissolubly, collective freedom and individual freedom,
while at the same time completely excluding the possibility that, from
an anarchist perspective, it is possible to think freedom without
equality, or equality without freedom. Neither freedom, nor equality,
severed from their other half, fall within an approach that continues to
be anarchist.
It is this compromise with equaliberty that places within the heart of
the anarchist invariant its radical incompatibility with domination in
all of its forms, as well as the affirmation that it is possible and,
further, intensely desirable, to live without domination. And it is with
this that the motto “Neither to rule, nor to obey” forms part of what
cannot change in anarchism without it ceasing to be anarchism.
Likewise, anarchism is also denatured if it is deprived of the set
formed by the union between utopia and the desire for revolution, that
is, by the union between the imagination of a world always distinct from
the existing one, and the desire to put to an end this last.
Another of the elements that is inscribed permanently in anarchism is an
ethical commitment, especially to the ethical exigency of a consonance
between theory and practice, as well as to the demand for an ethical
alignment between means and ends. This signifies that it is not possible
to attain objectives in accordance with anarchist values along paths
which contradict them. Whereby, the actions developed and the forms of
organisation adopted should reflect, already, in their very
characteristics, the goals sought; they should prefigure them, and this
prefiguring constitutes an authentic touchstone for verifying the
validity of means. In other words, anarchism is only compatible with
prefigurative politics, and it would cease to be anarchism if it
abandoned this imperative.
Lastly, neither can one continue to speak properly of anarchism if this
renounces the fusion between life and politics. We should not forget
that anarchism is simultaneously, and in an indissociable way, a
political formulation, but also a way of life, but also an ethics, but
also a set of practices, but also a way of being and of behaving, but
also a utopia. This implies an interweaving between the political and
the existential, between the theoretical and the practical, between the
ethical and the political, that is, ultimately, a fusion between the
sphere of life and the sphere of the political.
To continue to be “anarchism”, the “coming anarchism” cannot do without
any of these elements.
Tomás Ibáñez
Publicado en Libre Pensamiento nĂşm.88.
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/37969