Critiques
of the June 18th action, its aims, organisation and general relevance, are
important and to be welcomed. Theory, critical
or otherwise, is too often rejected in favour of action when we need to combine
theory and action, fostering, articulating and inhabiting the tension between
them. Lest this response be taken as saying all is fine with the aims and focus
of the action let me emphasise it isn’t.
There
are fault lines running through it - many of which the critique from undercurrent identifies. If the critique
helps to bring out and transcend the problems and contradictions of the June
18th action then it will have been worthwhile but if it elevates one position
while parodying all others then it amounts to little more then theoretical
point scoring
The long list campaign against the economic summit
The
lack of theoretical flesh on the bones of the June 18th action has been pointed
out by the Sussex university zine undercurrent. In an article entitled "The longer the
list, the better the action" they argue that, on the strength of the first
few propaganda leaflets, the organisers of June 18th are more interested in
numbers then analysis; in how many groups they can get involved then in the
commonality between them; and that this in turn leads to lowest common
denominator theory and a spectacular practice. Such criticisms are well-placed
and ultimately helpful, food for thought for those involved, but the article
repeatedly falls more into caricature then critique - tending, in turn, to
critique its own caricature rather than what the leaflets said or what might
actually be happening.
The quote the article takes for its title - "the longer the list,
the better the action,” is part of a sentence from a leaflet encouraging
involvement in the June 18th action. True enough, it' s not true - a list that
included the likes of, to use their example, the French Front National, would
make for a longer list but a scarily incoherent action. To use this snippet
though, as the writer does, to confirm the "campaigns"
"essence"
as "indifference towards the social content of movements" and to
suggest that June 18th is all about
masses and quantities is indicative of the writers disingenuous selective
reading. The first part of the sentence reads: "We will only realise our
collective visions by taking action together" then lists some
likely
suspect sectors - unwaged, students, workers, etc, before finishing "the
longer...”. You could be forgiven for assuming this meant that the listees
should share some collective content but, fair enough, the ‘visions’ referred
to could do with some focus.
With the articles subheading though, "the campaign against the
economic summit" we are immediately in the realms of caricature. Nowhere
in the leaflets produced or organising meetings held has it been suggested that
June 18th is a campaign against the economic summit. The June 18th action can
at most be called a co-ordination, not a campaign, and is, at best, precisely
the rejection of the totality of the present social order that the article
calls for, not an event opposing economic summits.
From this unpromising start the article goes on to contend that "the
campaign" posits a incoherent, vague, them and us logic; has dispensed
with any critique of capital and critical analysis generally; is fixated on
financial institutions and multinationals; has a positivistic and moralistic
approach; all amounting to confusion and mere pseudo-practise. Such insight
after reading a "few propaganda leaflets" is surely commendable but
leaves little room to practise what you preach and do more than scratch the
surface of a subject.
To expect critical analysis from an A5 leaflet is possibly asking too
much. While to conclude the rejection of radical critique (read as our radical critique) from such a
leaflet is going too far. Tell the many people on the J18 email discussion list
- an international forum for interested groups and individuals set up at the
start - that, “further reflection has been dispensed with.” They have been
analysing and reflecting on capital, state, resistance and the like, for some
time now. There are also groups around
the UK organising meetings to discuss the plan where no doubt, some reflection
may slip in occasionally. Then there is the London networks ‘What is
Capitalism?’ conference - organised precisely for “further reflection.” The
writer of the article may not have known all this but then if “the essence” of
“the
campaign”
has already been revealed there is no need to find out.
In fact the lack of a critical analysis of capitalism in the direct
action movement and its almost complete mystification in social life generally,
is part of the point of organising the action. If a “recognition that the
global capitalist system is at the root of our social and ecological troubles”
was “commonplace” we might be in more encouraging times. The commonplace, in
this instance, is for most people an obscurity.
Juxtapositions for the sake of a propaganda leaflet such as, “We are more
possible then they can powerfully imagine” are hardly to be taken as conclusive
evidence of something’s “logic” or
“essence”. Propaganda - at least that which aims to get people active -
often involves simplifications of a subject. By
definition
it aims to persuade or convince people and, yes, those working on J18 would
like people to get involved and may initially be less concerned to ask to see
the groups’ theoretical credentials; or to check whether or not they are
“complicit with capital”. Furthermore
the assumptions made in the text that our/their collective resistance is
basically “raving for a few hours” or “throw(ing) some custard pies” might ring
hollow for participants in ‘the south’ where doing either is not exactly top of
the agenda.
Far from positing a crude them and us the claim is that our problems are
systemic, inherent within the socio-economic order. Interpretations as to the
fundamentals of this order may differ, as may the methods for its disposal, but
the need to act collectively is clear. Who knows, action may even affect
their/our interpretations. Maybe even, a way into an understanding of
capitalism is through the
‘globalisation’
debate that the article sneers at.. To denounce those who haven’t reached your
understanding yet is akin to the vegans who attack potential vegetarians for
not going far enough thus sending them straight back to the meat counter.
That there are, within the June 18th network, conflicting views,
simplifications, confusions and hopes of getting a diversity of groups
involved, is undeniable. Such are the
concerns of practise. The luxury of
everyone acceding to your understanding or agreeing with your ideas and practices
is often unavailable in small unified groups let alone large diverse movements.
This is, of course, where analysis, argument, dialogue and discussion comes in.
If June 18th is just a few leaflets, then a few thousand people occupying
the City for a day then it might well be exhilarating - reason enough maybe -
but it won't add up to abolishing capitalism. That will require a more
consistent praxis. Then again, to be so sure of where a “weaving together of all
the single issue movements” leads, that it is “simply an incoherent patchwork
”, is to forget that the outcomes that result from a practise are not always
the ones intended. That the secondary effects may be wholly unexpected. This of
course cuts both ways and is no reason to dispense with analysis or intention
but just maybe, looking for the potential and possibilities of a situation is
as useful as dismissing it in advance.
The coinciding of J18 with the G8 summit is not to put pressure on bad
corporations via nation-states but to show the collusion between state and
capital and the necessity to overthrow both; to contend that exploitation is
also a political matter not just an economic one. That this is not bluntly said
- and arguably it should be - owes more to a desire to open a debate before
concluding it, and to the perceived role of a propaganda leaflet, then any
rejection of critical analysis. Starting from a recognition of the multiplicity
of positions and interests - irreducible to a single analysis - and tentatively
endorsing this divergence, the unity is then aimed at precisely the recognition
of exploitation by capital from different but complementary experiences. It
doesn’t presuppose that unity but attempts to open a space for critique that is
available to all.
To claim, as the writer does, that “if there is such a thing as “the
heart of the global economy”” it “would rather make sense to occupy some
factories” - makes no sense at all.
Besides the literalism of its interpretation of a slogan, the autonomist insight that all of social
life under capitalism tends to become a factory for the exploitation of surplus
value - not only wage-labour but the free work of students and housewives etc -
means that June 18th is an occupation
of “some factories”: the social factories
of the city streets and squares.
And while June 18th may well be “in many regards similar” to the campaign
against the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investments) - although the similarities
are unspecified - there is at least one huge difference. The campaign against the MAI was mainly a
lobbyist, letter writing opposition to one re-regulatory element of capital,
the June 18th co-ordination is rooted in a direct actionist opposition to
capitalism, full stop.
Practising pseudo-confusion
A call for mass action might indeed “amount to confusion”, if that was
what was being called for. It isn’t. On the contrary, autonomous actions -
co-ordinated and focused - are being called for. Hopefully by those who have
thought about what they are doing and why. One of the main organising
principles of J18 is autonomy for the groups and movements involved. Meaning in
practise encouraging self-activity and being less quick to dismiss other approaches.
Not to build "a mass" but to make connections, encourage debate, open
dialogues. Whether such confusing activity is leading “ultimately (to) mere
pseudo-practise” is to be decided by those who know the true practise presumably - we await their instructions…
The article ends with a summation of
“the campaigns” strategy as naïve, using a slogan from the leaflet as
illustration, but while “imagine taking your desires for reality” is on the
leaflet it is hardly "depicted as the ultimate response to global
capitalism” . The June 18th action may well be naïve but it is not just a
“strategy of immediacy” by “hippy-individuals” against the evil “them”. That
this is just clear-cut misrepresentation is self-evident. There are other
“slogans” on the leaflet, which the writer does not mention, such as “imagine a
society based on mutual aid, sharing and respect for nature” and “imagine a
world where people have control of their lives and communities”. A less
condemnatory reading may have suggested that those involved do feel creating a
different world will require thought, collective action and an ongoing process
and have presented some constructive ideas to pepper the criticisms.
If the June 18th action is not the activity of a "significant
movement that at least claims to be revolutionary" it is at least
significant for revolutionaries; and if its participants, like the theorists at
undercurrent, are "remote from
advancing a coherent line of argumentation" they are, at least, advancing
arguments. As an attempt to put capitalism back on the agenda of resistance at
a time when its logic is further cloaked in mystification; as a contribution to
the rebuilding of international solidarity at a time of rekindled nationalism
and as a forwarding of informed imagination at a time when radical visions are
seen as withering away, the June 18th action deserves, not caricatures, but the
sharpest of critical engagements.